MAJOR4 Draft

Major Assignment #4

                For the distribution of my digital media production, I went through about four different Web 2.0 spaces before settling for Facebook. I thought about Twitter, gave Stumble upon a briefing, wrote a page of notes on the benefits of Pinterest, and even got the statistics on Pasty.net.  Facebook finally won my vote because it can be tailored by location, which I will explain in a minute. Pinterest sounded great for a little while, but out of the 10 million users of the site, a very tiny percent would be located in this area, therefore the amount that that sliver would be exposed to my design would be slim.

                This is the point I turned to Facebook. According to Social Bakers, a social media analysis site, Facebook penetration in the United States is 54.19% compared to our total population, and 73.19% in relation to the number of internet users.  In just the last six months, the total number of users has grew more than 10,074,820. These numbers blow my mind, but they do make sense. For the first time, more people in the U.S. use smartphones than regular talk and text phones, meaning they have 24/7 access to the internet, as well as on computers and what not at work and home. Facebook is not only just social networking either, almost every business you go passed has a “like us on Facebook” slogan in their front window. Left and right we are being directed to the site to “like” their page to enter contests and giveaways, as well as post on their wall to be entered in this or that drawing, etc. Companies are finding every which way to lead the consumer to their Facebook page because they are smart and realizing if they aren’t in the stream of it all, they might as well be dead.

                The tactic I find most interesting is how these network sites “know” what you like, therefore advertising just that on the side bar. It’s extremely smart, but it’s almost eerie too. The fact that with one click onto some other site and they can obtain that information and use it to remind you what you are looking for.

                I’m going to upload my production onto the Business’ Facebook page. With the upload of my digital production he can get immediate attention, which is an awesome benefit over newspapers, and personal websites. Once you post information, it pops up immediately on the newsfeeds of every account that has liked your page. Even those who have somehow hinted towards their location and an interest in landscaping will have this information pop up on their advertising bar, even if they didn’t like his page yet. That’s what’s neat. The web has this way of putting two and two together, as long as he has his location and purpose defined on his page, and the other user has their location. It’s this concept that we no longer have to access information as a destination or process; instead it finds its way to you. (“Streams of Content”) There are no longer these “hard” or defined boundaries, the communication world has become interchanged and connected in many ways.

http://gigaom.com/mobile/carrier-data-confirms-it-half-of-us-now-owns-a-smartphone/

Gaming2

   A few thoughts about video-gaming post class discussion & the video clip we watched of Jane McGonigal.   I guess I somewhat understand her logic behind gaming, though I am not a gamer in the least, and generally see them as a distraction (sometimes needed, sometimes harmful to production!) I see the benefit of creativity, etc. but I do not understand her thought process behind her ideas that by playing these games will help change the world. We definitely need to instill that ambition into the players that they can be as good in real life as they are in the virtual world, but the amount of gaming per week...21 million hours? That sounds absurd to me, and I think that gaming should be kept as a limited recreational activity, not this "part time job".

"Dream Machines" - Will Wright

   Mr. Wright starts off with the quote, "The human imagination is an amazing thing." In that he is most absolutley correct. From our youngest, childhood memories, we can mostly recall an imaginary friend, or an invented game or place we would visit. I find it interesting how he describes games. He says, as we grow we play, and as we continue to grow we add rules and goals, and this is the point where a game develops. I guess I never sit to think how these basic ideas, such as games come about, but when I sit here and read this article it's neat to see that evolution described.
   Our generation, and at this point in time we have a different set of games than any other age group. We are no longer simply playing cards, or your classic board game, but rather many different types of videogames. We have controllers and cords and discs that all connect to a TV to provide this interactive game. There are shelves of different options at stores all over creation, and when you purchase one you often don't already know how to play. We learn by this cycle of hypothesis, experiment, and analysis. We dive head first and learn on the fly.
   As video games have become so popular, and i will admit I am not a part of that hobby, but I see what Wright means when he points out how the older generations see it as such a bad thing. They are violent, addictive, and childish, but they are not the ones holding that controller and thinking through the game, and strategizing. He compares this to a movie theater. If you were simply watching the people watch the movie, without watching the movie, you would think it was so bad for causing people to become tired, or to binge eat on excessive amounts of junkfood, but you aren't in there experiencing the movie with your own senses.

It's no longer about push; it's about pull.

    In the article "streams of content" they are talking a lot about the means of information, and how we are receiving it these days. As my title foretells, we are no longer on the search for information, and going through these processes to access the info, with technology like twitter & Facebook, info is coming to us 24 hours a day, without the user actually going out & digging for info.
 They list four core issues of this flow through social media:
1.) Democratization: The model has been switched from distribution to attention, but because we are moving to a state where anyone has ability to get info that is out there in the "stream", doesn't mean that the attention of these people will be diverted

2.) Stimulation: People absorb the content that stimulates their senses. Anything that creates an emotional response & can excite, anger, or entertain. Same as how our bodies gravitate towards eating fat & sugars which causes obesity, on the internet we lean towards violence, gossip, or gross content which is humiliating, embarassing or offensive. And I find this a really neat analogy; "If we don't be careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity." And we all know where our culture & obesity stand at this point in time.

3.) Homophily: People connect to others like themselves. Various dating sites (Christian Mingle, etc.), the information they share on their FB pages, such as biblical quotes, certain movies/music, etc...

4.) Power: Power is at stake as far as a centralized source of information. We give power to people when we give them our attention & people gain power when they bridge between different worlds & decide what info will flow btwn 2 networks. Those who control which information goes where in today's networks get more credit than the actual TV producers, or record labels themselves.