Category: Erika Holland

What I learned Monday in class is this:

In order to combat all the free flowing, easily available, “free” information, you have to make your product or book or website SO incredible that people feel that it’s worth paying the money to get the information from you. That’s a tough battle to win. “Free” is always more appealing to the general public, even if the product may have more worth at a cost.

As a future designer of some sort, I will definitely want to market and sell my designs/products. Knowing this, I have to keep in mind that I have to go even farther and create something so amazing that people are willing to pay for it, even if they can find something similar for free.

I feel like the overall message of this week is that we’ve entered into a whole new world of “Free”. Whereas “free” used to have a catch, now “free” information can be really free because of the internet. The best example is Blogging, free publication.

So now the problem is not for the user to access the free information, but the producer to get the consumer to pay anything ever for a product when they can likely get it elsewhere for free. With google, almost anything can be found for free. So why pay?

Another topic we talked about in class today was “Waste”. This is a product of having something without a cost. When you pay for something you are less likely to waste it. In this sense, free can be harmful.

It’s something to think about. Is free worth it? Free is heavily positive for the consumer but can be equally harmful for the producer.
It’s a whole new world of free.

1. After reading through the statements by Anderson I have to think about do we value information we find from the internet, just average websites, less than information we may get from books or scholarly journals? I think we do but I wonder if that’s because the information is free and easily accessible. Is it worth less or less valid if it doesn’t cost us to access it?
2. When thinking about issues of copyright and piracy, how does “free” affect us on the web?
3. If internet privacy settings became more strict, how would that affect the notion of “free”? If (As in my first question) the information became less “free” and available, would this affect it’s validity and value to students and professors alike?

Is shared economy really ever successful? If so, how is it accomplished?

Is Anderson right when he claims that journalism in the traditional sense will eventually be completely wiped out? I think this is very unlikely, but there are so many things that are unplanned and impossible to predict.

What are some practical and profitable techniques use to sway targeted audiences with marketing and advertisements?

Where we are headed in the next 10, 20, 30 years?
The only thing I can guess with this is that technology will be drastically different within the next ten years, the next five even. We have been on such an exponential spike of progress with technology! And I don’t see it slowing down any. I can only imagine that one day we will be able to use virtual reality in every aspect of our life. Maybe we will be able to imagine we are eating a cheeseburger, and one will virtually appear. We will be able to taste it, smell it, and think it’s there, but it won’t be. We won’t gain any calories from it at all, because it is only virtual! I can definitely see some problems with this. But, what technology advancement doesn’t bring on some negative consequences along with its benefits? Who knows? Maybe in the next thirty years, we will even have more advanced robotic, to the point that they are more common to see in public than humans.

How will copyright issues affect future and current musicians in the next ten years?

I feel like it probably will play a huge role and already is. MP3 files have taken over CDs that can be bought in the stores. Anyone can download practically any song for free. Who doesn’t want free music? Then from that point, people are burning, mixing, creating different song selections. Some sell these products, some just give away. Either way, is that taking away from the real artist of the songs? I think so. I won’t say that I’ve never downloaded a free song, or two, or ten. But, I’ve never sold someone else’s songs. But it does happen! How can you possibly police this?

In response to the questions from Nicole’s post:

I have to agree with you! Why should we consider ourselves computers? I think he’s trying to point out our addiction to it. “You are what you eat.” so “You are what you’re addicted to.” I guess that’s what he’s trying to get at. But I disagree. And I feel that goes against the title of the book. If we aren’t gadgets, and thats his point, then he shouldnt later call us computers. Maybe what he’s trying to say is that we aren’t gadgets, so we shouldnt become them by being so obsessed with computer technology. I feel like the biggest addiction for most people, is their cell phone. Today, though, our cell phones are just as versatile as a laptop. They are portable little portals to anything on the world wide web. Facebook is on our phones. We can email from our phones. Camera capabilities as well as uploading and sending capabilities are also on any standard phone.

It is pretty scary to think how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time, and what that says about how far we’ll go in the coming years. Scary, but exciting. What does the future hold for us? Only time will tell.

My first question from the reading: “You are not a Gadget” is where are the virtual reality gadgets? He mentioned this topic and spoke about it briefly but it made me think about where we are headed in the next 10, 20, 30 years? What will we achieve in the virtual realm?

Lanier also talks about digital economy. I think about our guest speaker in class telling us about copyright issues and the copyright lawful timespan. I wonder will this change with the years to come and how will this affect the future musicians.

Also thinking about our technological dependence, I can’t help but think about what would happen if we weren’t able to use technology? We have become virtually useless without our lifelines of blackberries and laptops. I also wonder if this dependence varies between different economic stances. For instance, if you can’t afford these “addicting lifelines” then your dependence on them would be less? Not ignorance, but poverty is bliss?

I think this post is really interested to think about. In fact, this is what we were talking about in class. The idea that wikipedia’s information changes so frequently at the whim of it’s users. Does this make Wikipedia more or less accurate? I see your point, that the site could become less accurate if someone put some untruths throughout it. And it’s true there is no real accountability for it. But, I think the freedom for anyone, anywhere to post makes it more accurate. The fact that it can be so quickly updated, corrected, and by so many people who have knowledge on the matter, just tells me that your getting the best of everyones knowledge. The example shown in class was a humorous way to illustrate this. Everyone minute the blog was continuously updated. This makes it probably the most up-to-date, relevant website to go to. Anytime information is updated in the world, from research, experience, etc., within seconds that new information can be uploaded to the site.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by social norms affecting the policing of the site. If you mean that social pressure to have the correct information helps “edit” the information that is included, I could possibly see this. Or if you mean that it is socially unacceptable to try and  fool the public with wrong information and more socially acceptable to correct this and make sure that the information reaching the public is at its peak of accuracy, I definitely can see this as well.

1. When I was reading through the Wealth of Nations, I couldn’t help but think about freedom.  In the chapter on culture, cultural freedom was discussed. What I think about it how has our freedom, cultural or otherwise, been affected to by the Internet and interactive media? Does the internet give us more freedom by allowing us to publish as much as we want and explore millions of site, discovering an ocean of information, or does the internet actually strip us of some freedoms like privacy and the like?

2. I haven’t finished reading the book “Here comes everybody”, but in just the beginning of the book, I couldn’t help but relate to the story of the girl losing her phone.  I feel like this illustrates the desperation and dependance on technology, today. My question is, will this technology dependance continue to increase as our technological developments mature, or will the novelty of all these new technologies become “overdone” and “old news”? Eventually will everyone decide to give up these technologies in order to cleanse and rid their life of the hassle?

3. When thinking about company growth, how does the internet play a part? Do websites with higher interactivity begin to build the company’s size and income?

Title:                          Children’s Interactivity with Media

Rationale/ Motivations:

I have two younger sisters and< have had a large part in raising them.  I find it interesting to see how increasingly technologically advanced children are these days. It amazes me how some children can interact with video games or websites before they can even read well. I think it is probably an area that is less studied, but well worth the time to take a look at what has brought about this change. Those small children using those websites are the future flash creators and web designers.

For my capstone, I’d like to produce some sort of interactive children’s story. I feel like this research will lead directly into that and provide me a starting point on what works best and what is not effective. Also, this might help me to define my target audience.

Engagement with “Social Theory”:

Out of the proposed, in-class theories, I would say that the “Uses and Gratifications Theory” most closely relates to the major theme of my research project, and that is concentrating on the consumer. The consumer in this case being children in general, my project will take a close look at what makes the media “kid-friendly” and what makes it most exciting and useful for the children.

Methods:

I will definitely be doing some observation studies of what media features children react with more successfully. For instance, it would be interesting to find out if children prefer to use a mouse and click buttons for navigations, or if they work best with a touch screen; also, whether audio elements make a huge difference in the overall user-friendliness of a product for children.

Another method I may use is a survey from the parents to see how involved their children are with media on and everyday basis: how much they are allowed to be, how much they want to be, what types of media, (video games, computer games, websites, etc.) and how advanced they are with their technology.

An obvious research method to use would be empirical method, looking up different scholarly journals that have studies about similar topics to see what theories and outcomes they reached.

Lastly, a possible method may be to conduct an interview. If I could find one, it  would be extremely helpful to hear from some sort of children’s expert on their cognitive learning abilities or even social learning habits. Also, if I found an expert on the children’s programming that is out there and available for them to use. Getting an expert from either angle would definitely provide useful insight toward my research.

Outcomes/Novelty:

I hope to determine what kind of program I can make that will make me most marketable in this upcoming field of interactive media.  I think children are a huge demographic for companies to consider and I want to draw attention to that fact.

Right now I would make the prediction that 1. Children will respond better with a touch screen, especially the younger the age group, because touch screens have a greater instinct gratification. Children can activate it with just a touch rather than grabbing the mouse and moving and clicking. 2. I think that audio will make a huge difference in how they children are affected by the activity. For instance, we they get an answer right, they not only see a bright color but also hear a “ding” or some sound indicating that they got it right. Also, music has been found to be a natural stimulus for the human mind in general, for learning, entertainment, shopping, and all sorts of interacting.

1. My first question from the reading comes from the idea that we are related to the formation of media. It goes back to the “chicken and egg” scenario. Do we control and manipulate what type of media is formed or are our expectations acutally being driven by the media creators?

2. While skimming these chapters and thinking toward my research project, I have to think about how children are becoming more and more dependent on media. I wonder what kind of influence does this have on their early development mentally and even physically?

3. Lastly the idea of that Mass Media Symbols will affect people in different ways leads to me to wonder a couple of different things: (relating back to my research project) how does this differ in a group or room full of children? even siblings living in the same house? also, what does this mean about me? How am I letting media affect me? And how do these effects differ from one type of medium to the next?