Weblogs and The Mass Amateurization

There are possibly over a million active weblogs in the world and most of them are operated by simple management systems such as blogger, Wordpress and so on. Bloggers are everywhere in the world and they are categorized into different groups such as celebrity, business, professional, personal, political and so son. It came to people’s attention that webloggers around the world are somehow or rather started to connecting and linking with one and another by posting, commenting on each other’s blogs. This is the new trend for the 21^st century and the world is changing to the advancement of technology and weblogging is just a tool as the part of the evolution.

In the article, it stated about blogs and the issues of financial rewards. A lot people think that publishing a book requires a lot of money and man power to print, distribute, and branding it. Shirky names publishing as a filter because he believes that only certain people can and are allow getting their work out to the public. However, when it comes to blogging, there is indeed no filter at all. Anyone has the right to publish anything they wish and anytime they like, however, the downfall to this is that they do not get paid or any financial reward for what they are doing. Up till the present, the only way bloggers get paid for writing on their blogs is by advertisements. Usually such blogs have built up a reasonable and convincing popularity in the public with loyal and new readers’ access to the site each day. Also, donation is another form of revenue for bloggers too.  All these form of payment actually isn’t much to the webloggers. People are debating and struggling with better ways for bloggers to make money, but up to date, no reasonable and realistic solution has came up because people are already getting their information for free and they will not pay for anything when they can obtain it for free as a fact.

Any reasonable with moderate computer skills and knowledge is able to create a blog within few hours. It’s just a webpage filled with databases and contents. In Shirky’s article, he emphasizes on how weblogging has made the concept of “publishing” to a certain extend that he believes anyone can do it. It is so simple and easy that it is impossible to even earn a penny out from it. Therefore, publishing is now available to the public, the masses which this idea is a form of publishing that is lacking in barriers and costs and that is believe to be the basic of understanding of weblogging.

Another way to have a better understanding of weblogs is to compare the process of blogging with the traditional print media. The character of writing books and publishing it afterwards is changing, and culture is somehow changing as well due to the result of blogging. In the article, Shirky actually encouraged people to create and write blogs without any form of money rewards. In my understanding, to him writing should be free.  It’s just like how he compares “the paradox of oxygen and gold:” no doubt oxygen is more important to us than gold, but because air is everywhere and plentiful, therefore oxygen is free. Weblogs make writing seem everywhere and plentiful, just like air, thus the same effect on the price. This is an interesting metaphor to look at publishing and by opening up a question to everyone what should be free.

I believe Shirky did not cover enough on the impact of the importance of quality of weblogs. Personally, I wouldn’t pay for a book which is written by an unspecified author on weblogs even though the content is good, but the quality of writing might be bad. However, I will definitely pay for a book in a bookstore which is written by a professional and a specified author. Usually book writers know how to express themselves accordingly. Some people think is the other way round. Some believe quality attracts quality. For example, weblogs started as a blog and it evolved to be better as time passes. It attracts and inspires other readers who might want to start composing a blog as well. Lastly, most people in this world still when they still prefer quality over quantity.

Convergence

Technological convergence is the tendency of different technological systems to be evolved towards performing similar tasks. Convergence can be referred to many different previously mentioned separate technologies such as voice, telephone and mobile phone features, data, and video where they share their sources and interact with each other systematically. Like Jenkins mentioned “media convergence is more than simply a technological shift”. It is more of a relationship between the existing technologies to its audiences. Convergence is considered more of a process a flow instead of a conclusion.

In the late 20^th century, due to the evolving and rising of the digital communication, it is possible for media companies and as well as individuals to deliver text, audio and video materials through internet connection provided by the same wired or wireless connections. Also at the same time, this gives some organizations ideas to explore opportunity of multimedia delivery of information. In another word, the digital convergence of news media where we are surrounded by a multi-level convergent media world where all the points of communication and technology are continuously to evolve and reform to the next stage of something more advanced depending on the demands of the technologies from the public and societies. This growing enhancement definitely changes the way we create, consume, learn and interact with one and another. We can identify this as simply being the tip of the iceberg.

According to Jenkins, “black box” is a media where we will eventually believe to access all kind of contents through a single device, the creation to perform all tasks in a single device which suit the consumer’s physical position, such as social status, class and etc. Due to many different tools of portable technology, convergence occurs and ended up in high end mobile phones. They incorporate functions such as multimedia services, GPS, internet access, and mobile telephony in a single portable device, in another term for it, the “smart phone” a device where it is created and designed to remove the need of carrying multiple devices.

Convergence of media occurs when different functions of different products put together because of their unique individual advantages. For example, the PlayStation 3 game console, it is not only a game console, but also a web browser, social networking tool and DVD player. Mobile phones are also another good example where it has been increasingly equipped with digital cameras, mp3players, and video recorders and so on. This type of technological convergence is gaining its popularity and as for the consumers, it is the definition of more media qualities in less space required. However, for media firms, it means non-stop competitions.

However, there’s a disadvantage for convergence. Usually converged devices are less functional and reliable than their component parts itself. For example, a DVD player performs better on a traditional DVD player comparing with a game console. As the growing number of functions on a device, the ability and quality of that device comparing to its original function actually decreases. Another example, Iphone does not have the traditional key pad to make phone calls or write messages. Instead it has the new touch screen technology where some people actually find it troublesome not user friendly.

In today’s world, it is important to reach multiple audiences at the same time around the globe. Television, radio and newspapers have been the world’s leading mediums to reach to people in terms of news and entertainment. Now, in the 21^st century, all these 3 mediums have converged into one and people all over the globe now can read news, watch videos and listen to music on the internet. Also, all these media can be downloaded as well. All these are updated instantly at the point when it is happening. People don't have to wait till the next day to read about news anymore. It can reach out to the whole world audiences in just seconds.

In conclusion, media convergence is definitely not just a technological shift or the process, but it is an idea within organizations, individuals, social and as well as the culture that are encourage to find out new information. It can be simply identified as how an individual consumer interact with others on a social level using various of media platforms in order to create experiences which connects us socially.

Intellectual Property

This week’s reading is based on the topic we learned in class which is Intellectual Property. First of all, what is Intellectual Property? It is defined that Intellectual Property is a creation and innovation of the mind such as inventions of artistic works, symbols, designs, images and etc. Usually these set of categories are widely recognized by the public. Of course, every person has the greed for themselves and therefore, they will find ways to protect the things that belong to them. This is where the corresponding fields of law applied here that granted the owners a certain exclusive rights to their work. The common and most well known types of Intellectual property rights we were taught in class were copyrights, trademarks, and patents.

Copyright is an exclusive of rights which granted to the owner of their work for a particular period of time to copy and distribute the work. After the time is over, it will become a “public domain” which means that the work is now belongs to the public and everyone has the right to use or recreate the content.  However, there’s a question that I have been wondering. What if the owner of the work wants to pass the copyright rights to their family or relatives? How can that be done? Come to think about it, it is not really fair for the content to be a “public domain” for others to use it freely after the period is over for their own commercial usage purposes. Imagine it was your own piece of work, after much effort and sweat you have put in it, and in the end, it falls into random peoples’ hands and they reuse it freely. The least you could have wanted or asked for is to give you the copyright rights by passing it down to your family members or the person as you wish. Personally I believe there are always the pros and cons in everything. I can’t imagine if we are living in word without copyright laws as well. By knowing that the creation of an individual of their work will not be protected, people are not willing to come out with new ideas and works anymore.

The next type of protection is trademarks. Trademarks differs itself from copyright laws. Trademark is defined as a distinctive sign or logo used by an individual or organizations which it represents the originate from a unique source and distinguish of their product and services from others within the same market. As we all know, if you want to open a franchise of a well known brand, you have to buy the franchise as the right to use of their logo, recipe and etc. Personally I know a case from China that there's a fake Starbucks chain outlets which use the exact Starbuck’s logo, but with a completely different yet sounded familiar name. Many consumers got fall for the scam because they thought it’s THE Starbucks due to the logo, but they neglected the name. Therefore, the fake Starbucks got sued. However, because of this incident, Starbucks value and credibility has also gradually dropped unexpectedly.

Carry on the last protection taught in class is patented rights. It refers to the rights to protect an exclusive invention of an individual for a limited period of time. Such inventions are usually technological and scientifically based. After the limited period of time is over, individuals and organizations will have the right to build or create similar technologies of the similar invention. For example, let’s say an organization who is involved in the anti-aging industry. They are the first to found out and create the formula to stop the genes from aging. Therefore, after they have patented their technology of the invention, if any other organizations among the same industry come out with the same formula that against the patent law and legal actions can be taken by the patented owners.

In conclusion, it came to my attention that with all these copyright laws, it sets a limitation for us to retrieve the range of information. But then again, personally I believe as long as we take and use the works of others for purely academic and personal purposes and not for commercial reasons, it should be just fine and for that, we are far away from breaking the copyright laws.