Services/Value/Rivals
Spotify offers a free service which allows users to stream music and shows an advert every few songs played. However this becoming increasing less available and before was only available in the UK. It also offers a premium service, which offers the music without advertising and of a better quality. It also offers mobile, offline and travel access. Mobile access is now available on several major operating systems for mobile phones. It also offers a 24 hour pass cheap as an alternative for occasional use. This wide range of different services, but still considerable free access available means that Spotify poses as competition to several different websites and stores.
Spotify rivals YouTube for free access to music as well s various other similar sites, however it also rivals high street stores and Apple’s ITunes Store as people could see paying for unlimited streaming of music as an alternative to buying music in other ways. Spotify however does not view Last Fm as a rival, instead the services compliment each other, Spotify used it’s Last Fm compatibility as a selling point to draw in more people. Although nothing more has come of this Last Fm don’t view Spotify as competition, in a poll 50 percent of people used Itunes over 11 using Spotify and 7% using Last Fm.
Spotify has been valued by the financial times at around 148 million after having raised 30 million in investments. It has fallen under criticism as pays poorly to independent artists, who earn very little off the service.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Is World Wide Dead a great example of Wikinomics in action?
Bryony set out to make a full length zombie film by using the internet as her only resource. She intended to get multiple people to volunteer to write, act in or help contribute to the movie in any way by appealing to them over forums and YouTube. This went quite well and she soon found a lot of people willing to help her, so many that she had to cut a lot of people out while auditioning for actors, although they were told they could still be involved in any of the other aspects of the making of the film each area of the film was a Mass collaboration of ideas and it was not long before there were so many contradicting ideas that a single idea did not stand out with so many writers, just being given instruction to write and no real direction gave a lot of strong ideas without any structure.
This was almost inevitable considering the film was being created through participatory culture, and although Bryony was the one who was supposedly in charge in reality this project quickly became wikinomics in action and Bryony didn’t have or take enough control over the project to make it work. She decided to go away on holiday and stay away due to stress, during this time she did no work towards the zombie film project, assuming the established Mass collaboration of people would be able to organise itself. However Bryony had failed had give the project enough direction from the start, and when she was away these minor issues which could have been perhaps managed one by one as they came up had Bryony, or at least someone had been appointed enough control to keep order (for example being able to say no to ideas, or simply reply to e-mails from the cast and creators so that they wouldn’t get so frustrated with the whole project.
While she was away the script went out of control, people kept adding new ideas and no single person was saying yes or no or keeping track of it, everyone had parts and put some time in, but overall without some structure or organisation things fell apart when original ideas started to get cut from the script replaced by new ideas or changed by people. This frustrated the writers who complained that their ideas weren’t being used and it seemed as if none of the original strong ideas had been kept in. All the while the only voice of reason was away, so people control went over to the more involved people, however this then changed a lot as each person was pushing for particular things in the film, and none of them had any power to give a final yes or no. Bryony had also set a strict deadline for the project- this deadline was getting close while Bryony stayed on holiday the project soon became obviously unrealistic to all the participants so more people complained, this fed the continuing flame war over the film’s online forum and the project got out of control with lots of people hating it, getting very frustrated and dropping out.
Although the original concept was very strong Bryony’s assumption that people could almost entirely organise themselves was wrong ironically due to the popularity of the idea and the sheer amount of people participating made there far too much creative input for a group of people whom had no formal organisation between them.
When Bryony came back she found out that the project was out of control and became more frustrated. However by compromising (to quite a large extent) she regained control and order and manage to arrange a film shoot to get the first few minutes made to serve as a trailer for her original deadline. The intention was to continue after this had sparked even more interest and for the idea to continue to grow and develop from more and more people getting involved.
However that never happened, there was another uproar amongst the participants over what was made, too many different opinions and the decision as to where to go next became too problematic and Bryony gave up on the idea. Although she had failed to meet her deadline and keep the project under control most of the time, she had managed a great feat in organising so many people working together all over the internet however failed to organise it properly, with too much free sharing of ideas and not enough organisation over the project as a whole, for example communications fell apart when Bryony went away, and when people couldn’t keep in touch and explain what was going on and what needed doing and what needed sorting out and in what order. I also believe most people involved in this project were quite young and a lot of people simply lost interest or lost their temper or didn’t really know everything that needed doing.
I however would still count this as a great example of Wikinomics, for several reasons. Firstly a lot was achieve a lot of people got together and some filming was done, although it wasn’t much it was a start and there is no real reason why an entire film couldn’t be done were it to be slightly more planned out and over more time. I also believe it’s a good example as it shows a lot of potential dangers of wikinomics, a lot of people working with each other over the internet is always going to cause conflict from different ideas, these conflicts would not happen in a traditional work place as people are much more concerned about the people around them, the informal Media that is the internet makes it very easy to criticise other people as it is easy an anonymous, yet still effective at relieving stress among a lot of people and outright illogical abuse is very common over the internet. Having said that however there is no reason in theory why someone else involved in the project could pick it up and continue it, provided people are willing to accept some reorganisation, and the people involved are willing to work on even when the they are criticised for their work bearing in mind you simply cannot make something everyone likes.
This was almost inevitable considering the film was being created through participatory culture, and although Bryony was the one who was supposedly in charge in reality this project quickly became wikinomics in action and Bryony didn’t have or take enough control over the project to make it work. She decided to go away on holiday and stay away due to stress, during this time she did no work towards the zombie film project, assuming the established Mass collaboration of people would be able to organise itself. However Bryony had failed had give the project enough direction from the start, and when she was away these minor issues which could have been perhaps managed one by one as they came up had Bryony, or at least someone had been appointed enough control to keep order (for example being able to say no to ideas, or simply reply to e-mails from the cast and creators so that they wouldn’t get so frustrated with the whole project.
While she was away the script went out of control, people kept adding new ideas and no single person was saying yes or no or keeping track of it, everyone had parts and put some time in, but overall without some structure or organisation things fell apart when original ideas started to get cut from the script replaced by new ideas or changed by people. This frustrated the writers who complained that their ideas weren’t being used and it seemed as if none of the original strong ideas had been kept in. All the while the only voice of reason was away, so people control went over to the more involved people, however this then changed a lot as each person was pushing for particular things in the film, and none of them had any power to give a final yes or no. Bryony had also set a strict deadline for the project- this deadline was getting close while Bryony stayed on holiday the project soon became obviously unrealistic to all the participants so more people complained, this fed the continuing flame war over the film’s online forum and the project got out of control with lots of people hating it, getting very frustrated and dropping out.
Although the original concept was very strong Bryony’s assumption that people could almost entirely organise themselves was wrong ironically due to the popularity of the idea and the sheer amount of people participating made there far too much creative input for a group of people whom had no formal organisation between them.
When Bryony came back she found out that the project was out of control and became more frustrated. However by compromising (to quite a large extent) she regained control and order and manage to arrange a film shoot to get the first few minutes made to serve as a trailer for her original deadline. The intention was to continue after this had sparked even more interest and for the idea to continue to grow and develop from more and more people getting involved.
However that never happened, there was another uproar amongst the participants over what was made, too many different opinions and the decision as to where to go next became too problematic and Bryony gave up on the idea. Although she had failed to meet her deadline and keep the project under control most of the time, she had managed a great feat in organising so many people working together all over the internet however failed to organise it properly, with too much free sharing of ideas and not enough organisation over the project as a whole, for example communications fell apart when Bryony went away, and when people couldn’t keep in touch and explain what was going on and what needed doing and what needed sorting out and in what order. I also believe most people involved in this project were quite young and a lot of people simply lost interest or lost their temper or didn’t really know everything that needed doing.
I however would still count this as a great example of Wikinomics, for several reasons. Firstly a lot was achieve a lot of people got together and some filming was done, although it wasn’t much it was a start and there is no real reason why an entire film couldn’t be done were it to be slightly more planned out and over more time. I also believe it’s a good example as it shows a lot of potential dangers of wikinomics, a lot of people working with each other over the internet is always going to cause conflict from different ideas, these conflicts would not happen in a traditional work place as people are much more concerned about the people around them, the informal Media that is the internet makes it very easy to criticise other people as it is easy an anonymous, yet still effective at relieving stress among a lot of people and outright illogical abuse is very common over the internet. Having said that however there is no reason in theory why someone else involved in the project could pick it up and continue it, provided people are willing to accept some reorganisation, and the people involved are willing to work on even when the they are criticised for their work bearing in mind you simply cannot make something everyone likes.
IPTV Research project
In recent years several new ways to watch television have developed over the internet, although it is quite hard to define it all under one term as various different providers use different methods of providing Internet television.
Firstly there are websites such as BBC i-Player and 4 On Demand. These websites have collections of shows that are broadcast of the channel that run the websites, The shows are there available to stream for free over the internet to watch on a computer. These have become increasingly popular recently as overall it is more convenient and there is a wider selection than simply the pushed shows playing on TV at any one time. However these are generally restricted to what each site can legally play. There are websites that have a huge range on content on but aren’t run legally, these websites were up before the legal counterparts but the quality is generally much poorer and there is a risk involved as it isn’t from law abiding sources, also content is often removed when found by the producers so what is available changes a lot, and although there is a huge selection it seems to be random.
There are then websites such as Joost that have bought some shows and may have some Site created content; however the selection is quite poor in competition with the likes of 4OD even with more varied sources. These generally don’t have as big a selection of things to watch but the sources are more varied. YouTube could be placed in this category however YouTube removes TV shows even though it has plenty on it it shouldn’t be there and it supposed to be entirely user created content.
Hulu is an American website that has been created by ABC, Fox and NBC and is negotiating with Disney. This has a huge selection of shows and is made legally by Networks sharing content and working together. This is currently only avalible in America but will be coming to the UK soon. Hulu also offers a desktop program for computers allowing people to access it’s content more easily and watch with a remote as if their Monitor was a TV, overall it makes using Hulu easier and simpler, however the idea isn’t entirely original Veoh TV has made a desktop program. Then there are similar software such as Media Portal and Boxee which do the same simply putting a lot of content together to be watched from a simple interface, allowing a choice of programs to be browsed over and watched on TV or a computer streamed over the internet.
Internet Protocol Television is a term referring to the convergence on TV and Internet streaming, it’s truest form is BT vision or the upcoming Project Canvas which act as a TV box, however are connected to the internet and allow you a selection of stream shows to watch on your TV rather than on your computer or through your computer. It is very hard to say which of the other sorts of software or websites fall under this category however as every different internet TV provider offers slightly different content and uses slightly different Media converged to different degrees, Some actually providing IPTV from a broadcaster, others just rearranging what’s already on the internet.
There are a large amount of benefits to IPTV especially for the audience as it makes television more available whenever you want, this service is ideal for a consumer. However a downside is for the broadcasters as they get less from advertising as it isn’t as effective over the internet however it is becoming more effective and there are becoming more and more sites which force people to watch adverts before playing the chosen content and most people will happily accept this. There is also a large issue with Web 3.0 advertising, as allowing people to choose what they watch and using the internet to provide TV allows what we watch and when to be looked over and a profile about us created to make more specific adverts show up while using IPTV or watching TV online.
Watching television online allows people to implement Pull media usage as there is a much wider selection, It also allows people to pause just like “plus” television does, however there is no restrictions on this, as the whole program is on the internet you can easily skip to any particular part. It also allows people to sit down and watch several episodes from a series without having to wait a week between each episode; this will make a huge impact on how TV is watched as a cliff-hanger is no longer a nuisance when you can watch the next episode right after.
Overall I think watching Television online is very young still and as such won’t be as good as it could be for some time. There are still lots of sites offering almost half a service by having so little to watch or simply linking to other sites. Project Canvas looks like a benchmark that will define IPTV and replace most it’s current counterparts by making them simple gimmicks by comparison. Over the last few years a lot of different companies have been trying to find a working system for watching television online and experimenting with convergence of several different media in many different ways. Although the definitive all in one online television system has yet to be developed It is obviously close with the recent coming of IPTV over simple links to shows online, however I believe the biggest obstacle in between what is currently available and what the “perfect” IPTV system would be is mostly legal issues in between companies as technology has advanced proficiently now to allow incredibly fast and good quality television over the internet.
Firstly there are websites such as BBC i-Player and 4 On Demand. These websites have collections of shows that are broadcast of the channel that run the websites, The shows are there available to stream for free over the internet to watch on a computer. These have become increasingly popular recently as overall it is more convenient and there is a wider selection than simply the pushed shows playing on TV at any one time. However these are generally restricted to what each site can legally play. There are websites that have a huge range on content on but aren’t run legally, these websites were up before the legal counterparts but the quality is generally much poorer and there is a risk involved as it isn’t from law abiding sources, also content is often removed when found by the producers so what is available changes a lot, and although there is a huge selection it seems to be random.
There are then websites such as Joost that have bought some shows and may have some Site created content; however the selection is quite poor in competition with the likes of 4OD even with more varied sources. These generally don’t have as big a selection of things to watch but the sources are more varied. YouTube could be placed in this category however YouTube removes TV shows even though it has plenty on it it shouldn’t be there and it supposed to be entirely user created content.
Hulu is an American website that has been created by ABC, Fox and NBC and is negotiating with Disney. This has a huge selection of shows and is made legally by Networks sharing content and working together. This is currently only avalible in America but will be coming to the UK soon. Hulu also offers a desktop program for computers allowing people to access it’s content more easily and watch with a remote as if their Monitor was a TV, overall it makes using Hulu easier and simpler, however the idea isn’t entirely original Veoh TV has made a desktop program. Then there are similar software such as Media Portal and Boxee which do the same simply putting a lot of content together to be watched from a simple interface, allowing a choice of programs to be browsed over and watched on TV or a computer streamed over the internet.
Internet Protocol Television is a term referring to the convergence on TV and Internet streaming, it’s truest form is BT vision or the upcoming Project Canvas which act as a TV box, however are connected to the internet and allow you a selection of stream shows to watch on your TV rather than on your computer or through your computer. It is very hard to say which of the other sorts of software or websites fall under this category however as every different internet TV provider offers slightly different content and uses slightly different Media converged to different degrees, Some actually providing IPTV from a broadcaster, others just rearranging what’s already on the internet.
There are a large amount of benefits to IPTV especially for the audience as it makes television more available whenever you want, this service is ideal for a consumer. However a downside is for the broadcasters as they get less from advertising as it isn’t as effective over the internet however it is becoming more effective and there are becoming more and more sites which force people to watch adverts before playing the chosen content and most people will happily accept this. There is also a large issue with Web 3.0 advertising, as allowing people to choose what they watch and using the internet to provide TV allows what we watch and when to be looked over and a profile about us created to make more specific adverts show up while using IPTV or watching TV online.
Watching television online allows people to implement Pull media usage as there is a much wider selection, It also allows people to pause just like “plus” television does, however there is no restrictions on this, as the whole program is on the internet you can easily skip to any particular part. It also allows people to sit down and watch several episodes from a series without having to wait a week between each episode; this will make a huge impact on how TV is watched as a cliff-hanger is no longer a nuisance when you can watch the next episode right after.
Overall I think watching Television online is very young still and as such won’t be as good as it could be for some time. There are still lots of sites offering almost half a service by having so little to watch or simply linking to other sites. Project Canvas looks like a benchmark that will define IPTV and replace most it’s current counterparts by making them simple gimmicks by comparison. Over the last few years a lot of different companies have been trying to find a working system for watching television online and experimenting with convergence of several different media in many different ways. Although the definitive all in one online television system has yet to be developed It is obviously close with the recent coming of IPTV over simple links to shows online, however I believe the biggest obstacle in between what is currently available and what the “perfect” IPTV system would be is mostly legal issues in between companies as technology has advanced proficiently now to allow incredibly fast and good quality television over the internet.
Media in the online age notes
List of Key Concepts-excersises:
Push/Pull Media,
The long tail
wikinomics-World wide dead case study
TV and video online-Youtube history/IPTV research project/BBC iplayer /4OD/Babelgum/Joost (case study)
Online music services-Spotify/ Itunes, Last FM, BBC radio player
Web 3.0
online media Regulation-4OD Youtube channel (channel4)/Byron Report
Pull Media:
Media where you browse over a lot and choose out exactly what you want.
Push Media:
Old fashioned Media, not as much choise as the internet, several choices offered, however broadcasters decide what is avalible
The long tail:
The infinate amount of media that isn't in the top 50 or equvilant, niche markets, that when put togeather much outweigh sales of what is traditionally Push media. This is effective information for internet shops who do not need to physically hold stock to display and can advertise much more than a highstreet store without having any stock as long as it can be obtainde for sale. By offering a lot of niche market stuff these occasional sales will add up to be more than simply the top sellers due to the infinate amount of non-popular media.
Web 1.0 static web pages where you can't do anything like they had in olden days obviously
Web 2.0 User created content like SNS sites etc. allowing everyday people to upload their own content.
Web 3.0 The semantic web takes information provided by the user (web 2.0) and uses this information inteligently at the moment mostly for specifically targeting certain people for certain adverts however has many more possibilities
Online Media top brands
Music Itunes, youtube,
SNS Facebook, MSN, Youtube
Information Google, Wikipedia, Microsoft(Bing), Ask Jeeves
TV BBCiplayer youtube, IPTV-sky, BT
Radio Last fm BBCiplayer
Ads Google Yahoo
Youtube History
in 2005 after a party Chad Hurley, Steve Chen Jawed Karim found they couldn't share videos easily online so created a site where they could posting "Me at the Zoo" as the first video. Valued at 4 cents a video, google bought it in 2006 for $1.65 billion as google videos was loosing popularity.
Wikinomics- Participatory culture online, lots of people pooling knowledge to create something. I.e. Linux Operating system was made in this way, as way Zombie film World Wide Dead.
The benifits of this include being able to get a lot more done and have many more creative ideas being considered as more people involved. Also can work fast lots of people focusing on various different aspects.
However flame wars can happen and arguments commenly occur during examples of wikinomics, also without a leader disorganisation can stop wikinomics from doing anything.
Don Tapscott (Chief Executive of New Paradine) and Anthony D Williams wrote the book Wikinomics.
Wikinomics relies on OPENESS, SHARING, PEERING, and ACTING GLOBALLY. It is good as the large amount of people inputting and checking information, most information gathered should be accurate, as in a sucessful model of Wikinomics info would be checked by others working on the project and mistakes quickly picked up on, although the alternative is lots of inaccurate info that no-one bothers to check.
There is some issue as to who owns content created through wikinomics, however this isn't hugly important and just calls for longer credits.More importantly in the example of Linux, who would get paid when it was sold, do the voulenteers deserve some or just the founder of the idea?
Creative Commons License- a type of licence issued allowing people acces to for example music broken down into layers for remixing and in some agreements reselling.
Push/Pull Media,
The long tail
wikinomics-World wide dead case study
TV and video online-Youtube history/IPTV research project/BBC iplayer /4OD/Babelgum/Joost (case study)
Online music services-Spotify/ Itunes, Last FM, BBC radio player
Web 3.0
online media Regulation-4OD Youtube channel (channel4)/Byron Report
Pull Media:
Media where you browse over a lot and choose out exactly what you want.
Push Media:
Old fashioned Media, not as much choise as the internet, several choices offered, however broadcasters decide what is avalible
The long tail:
The infinate amount of media that isn't in the top 50 or equvilant, niche markets, that when put togeather much outweigh sales of what is traditionally Push media. This is effective information for internet shops who do not need to physically hold stock to display and can advertise much more than a highstreet store without having any stock as long as it can be obtainde for sale. By offering a lot of niche market stuff these occasional sales will add up to be more than simply the top sellers due to the infinate amount of non-popular media.
Web 1.0 static web pages where you can't do anything like they had in olden days obviously
Web 2.0 User created content like SNS sites etc. allowing everyday people to upload their own content.
Web 3.0 The semantic web takes information provided by the user (web 2.0) and uses this information inteligently at the moment mostly for specifically targeting certain people for certain adverts however has many more possibilities
Online Media top brands
Music Itunes, youtube,
SNS Facebook, MSN, Youtube
Information Google, Wikipedia, Microsoft(Bing), Ask Jeeves
TV BBCiplayer youtube, IPTV-sky, BT
Radio Last fm BBCiplayer
Ads Google Yahoo
Youtube History
in 2005 after a party Chad Hurley, Steve Chen Jawed Karim found they couldn't share videos easily online so created a site where they could posting "Me at the Zoo" as the first video. Valued at 4 cents a video, google bought it in 2006 for $1.65 billion as google videos was loosing popularity.
Wikinomics- Participatory culture online, lots of people pooling knowledge to create something. I.e. Linux Operating system was made in this way, as way Zombie film World Wide Dead.
The benifits of this include being able to get a lot more done and have many more creative ideas being considered as more people involved. Also can work fast lots of people focusing on various different aspects.
However flame wars can happen and arguments commenly occur during examples of wikinomics, also without a leader disorganisation can stop wikinomics from doing anything.
Don Tapscott (Chief Executive of New Paradine) and Anthony D Williams wrote the book Wikinomics.
Wikinomics relies on OPENESS, SHARING, PEERING, and ACTING GLOBALLY. It is good as the large amount of people inputting and checking information, most information gathered should be accurate, as in a sucessful model of Wikinomics info would be checked by others working on the project and mistakes quickly picked up on, although the alternative is lots of inaccurate info that no-one bothers to check.
There is some issue as to who owns content created through wikinomics, however this isn't hugly important and just calls for longer credits.More importantly in the example of Linux, who would get paid when it was sold, do the voulenteers deserve some or just the founder of the idea?
Creative Commons License- a type of licence issued allowing people acces to for example music broken down into layers for remixing and in some agreements reselling.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
In lesson we tried to watch post watershed content thorugh two different portals 4OD and Youtubes new 4OD setup channel. Youtube allowed me to watch it using my account as an over 18, 4OD however did not, but did not need proof of age just to click a box.
Dr Tanya Byron says parents and teachers need to do more to educate the young about explicit content. Should the emphasis be put on parents to regulate it. Web filters only work if a parent is willing and able to set them up.
Dr Tanya Byron says parents and teachers need to do more to educate the young about explicit content. Should the emphasis be put on parents to regulate it. Web filters only work if a parent is willing and able to set them up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)