FINAL BLOG

Convergence culture is pretty interesting because it details the way that things work together around media.  There are many different types of it to reach every facet of the world, but the real thing that is happening is that the world is changing and media impacts every facet of the known world in some way or fashion. convergence culture really explains that because media effects everything and the way that it operates.  People interact with media in different ways due to this convergence for example people are now able to communicate with the distributors of media instead of just absorbing the information they are able to give feedback and change the way the information is distributed and anything like that.  Everyone talks about television shows on social media and provide things like spoilers and speculations on what the next episode of the show is. Things like this have come out of this convergence culture with the need for people to come together over media and generate a culture around whatever media they are using in some way or form.

Creative engagement was kind of mentioned in the above paragraph to an extent. Creative engagement really involves the two way street between a content provider an their audience.  If this is established then the company engages their audience in such a manner that they can change their content and get new ideas for future content.  This helps propel the development of pretty much anything media related or any company that has a finished digital product that audience members can easily contact the creator about.

The Long Tail: Blog #5

1. The Long Tail is an interesting topic because it shows internet users that products never really die out as long as there are customization options available to them, or if the product just simply exists forever.  An example of this would be something like the iTunes download store where the head of the tail is the initial downloads on release of an album, and as the product declines in popularity people will still buy it and this creates a long tail because the product is there for an indefinite amount of time. This can also apply to YouTube videos and anything of the like because something can still accrue views even after it has been posted and hyped up for a while.  Perhaps someone didn't find the channel till later on in their YouTube browsing and decided to share it with their friends who had not seen it yet creating more and more views which results in a long tail. Plus the internet gives a place for niche music and channels to pop up creating another facet of the long tail and allowing people to find exactly what they need rather than the thing that is popular with everyone. 

2. As for being an online consumer I fit into the Calculated Category in which people look at performance of a certain good, and the cost rather than the brand of the good.  I am very much like this because if you can get increased performance out of an item for the same price as another brand why would you just stick to just one brand? It seems a little silly to do this, and I fit into this group mostly because I purchase computer parts all the time and at the end of the day the brand doesn't matter; the performance of the particular part does. I would also say that this fits into the bargainer category because I'm not brand reliant and like to look for the best deal.

Trust me? Trust me.

Privacy-Enhanced Personalization brings up some very good points throughout the article, but the biggest point for me personally was the fact that trust plays a huge part in who people choose to give their data to.  Companies must create a safe environment for someone's credentials if they want to gain access to a person's information. If the company is notorious for having their databases hacked or do not spend very much money on internet privacy then it is more likely that users will not want to subscribe to their services. This notion raises the point that companies must care about privacy more than the subscriber to be able to gain more subscribers and have people feel comfortable with using their services actively.

Recently company databases have been hacked and denied service by certain groups of hackers that want to gain the data that these companies have gained.  There is an interesting value assigned to people's data in the sense that everyone wants it and these hackers now have the ability to sell it off to those willing to pay top dollar for it. If this is the state of how people's information is being used by hackers and certain companies that data mine people's credentials, and hackers are able to get into anything that they want to if they put their minds to it then is trust really going to be worth it in the future if hackers can find people's data whenever they want?  It seems scary, but really the only thing to do against this is to have a back up plan when the data is compromised, and accept that privacy is dead as we know it and just take comfort in the fact that hackers don't want to target us because we're miniscule.  Will there ever be a way to totally stop hackers?

New Media and Technology : Blog #3

Metcalf's Law Is King (Blog 2)

I think that Metcalf's law is the best out of the three laws for networks.  This is because it applies best to internet and the internet is becoming the strongest and most dominant media that exists.  Print can exist on the web as well as anything else, and networks are comprised of people that interact with each other.  Although these networks might not always interact with each other they have the ability to. Metcalf's law details this and supports that network worth is based on how many people are in the network and the connections they can make to everyone else that exists within the network.  This becomes exponential as the number of people in the network grows, and this law really defines how networks work these days.  Even if the network is just created through a VOIP program the connections that people make within these networks last, and Metcalf's law really drives the point home that each new person that enters a network increases the value a lot because the interactions increase. 

In five years I think that people will have a new way of gathering information which will probably be something like being implanted into ones head via some kind of chip that connects to the internet. With the recent developments in google glass and the Microsoft Hololens it could certainly be possible.  The idea is not that farfetched because googgle glass projects things right in front of your eyes without the need for a computer, this could probably be attached to one's brain somehow kind of like how dreams are implanted into people's minds in the fictional world of Futurama.  For now we will have to stick with the internet and get our information from there as well as a variety of sources that are becoming archaic.

Why Do We Blog?

In the article "Why Do We Blog?" there are many different facets of the blogging world, and they all have a place on the internet. Different people express themselves differently online, but most choose to set up a code of ethics or a moral code to live by while blogging.  This can sometimes include staying away from politics and other things that are distasteful. Sometimes blogs can develop communities around them and create a tight knit group that expresses themselves within the blog and use it as a forum. In short blogging can be used in a variety of ways to express oneself and sometimes build a community around the content posted.

I would argue that this is not so true anymore as people have moved to social media as a way to live blog their lives.  Instagram and other platforms have taken the internet by storm and blogging has fallen by the wayside for many teenagers and people in their early twenties.  This makes it hard for bloggers to maintain a solid community that revolves around their posts if they are starting up in 2015.  Other platforms are much more successful in keeping a community if that is the forte of the person generating the content. Blogging can still be good to offer insight into different subjects, but people have turned to other places to get their entertainment.  It's sad because bloggers sometimes have good insight, and perhaps there will be a resurgence of their popularity. For me though; it is not in the foreseeable future because other platforms are doing a better job at reaching people.

The article we read is also out of date and if it was written in 2015 it could be about something completely different. The age of the vlog and other forms of media are upon us and blogging is falling by the wayside, but with the ability to embed these forms of media blogging could make a resurgence as a secondary place to post content to expand a person's audience. It all depends on what today's youth wants to do with their time on the internet.

Goldiglocks and The Bears