Unending Potential

Admittedly unfamiliar with Second Life, I have to say that I am now both amazed by and watchful of its potential. From scholastic environments to market research, Second Life can be used in new and previously unseen ways. Imagine a teacher manipulating the environment to convey a certain point about something. Advertisers can get direct feedback for potential billboards. I saw an Obama campaign advertisement, as well. Even better, I heard of a company which constructed a model of a hotel which it plans to build in the future with the hope of receiving user feedback on the design and layout. The same applies to any piece of architecture, really. But all of this comes at a cost.

Technical problems aside, any game which leaves this many freely operated devices to its users has irrevocably subjected its system to the relentless degeneracy of man. Can you really police these things and how culpable are people for virtual crimes? Wouldn't you rather have perverts play video games than carry out their horrific desires in reality? Or is the video game only going to enable someone, previously nonthreatening or lacking in gumption, to manifest desires of this kind? Does this give them the courage to believe they will get away with what they do in the real world, as well? Would a system like this, then, be viewed as an incubator for sexual deviance?

Whoops!

I Want My Share

In the business section of yesterday's issue of The New York Times there was an article entitled "Online, A Nation of Serfs" by David Carr. The article was also posted online under the title "At Media Companies, A Nation of Serfs." Currently valued at around $50 billion, Facebook has 500 million users worldwide(as of July 2010). The point of the article was that Facebook's value, the value of other social networking sites, and all sites with user-generated content is created by people for free. As users continue to add content to sites like Facebook, they contribute to the overall value. In Facebook's case, it is being made into an empire by all of the unpaid users. Facebook's value comes from advertising, which continues to "flow toward social and amateur media," which makes "low-cost and no-cost content" the norm.

In New New Media Dr. Levinson says " the new new medium is not ours completely" (132). Facebook and all other sites which users can contribute to are owned by other people or companies. We have the right to supply content, but we don't have control over the layout, advertising, the code, etc. Referencing the same point, Carr cites the Tumblr of Anthony De Rosa. “We live in a world of Digital Feudalism,” he wrote. “The land many live on is owned by someone else, be it Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr, or some other service that offers up free land and the content provided by the renter of that land essentially becomes owned by the platform that owns the land.”

Everyone with a profile helps make Facebook a media outlet, a news source, and a social network at no cost. With every video posted on someone's wall, every link to another website, and comment on a status, Facebook becomes the one place to do everything. Carr thinks content can "remain bifurcated into professional and amateur streams, but as social networks eat away at media mindshare and the advertising base, [he's] not so sure." If sites with user-generated content offer free information, then why pay? I think there is value in paying for news created by journalists or reporters, but more and more people seem to disagree. I hope that in the year 2157 there isn't a site that runs a monopoly on all news and media provided by users. It hardly seems fair that the people running Facebook own something worth $50 billion thanks to user content, and at the same time newspapers, with content written by journalists, are dying.

YouTube

I guess if ever we needed any example of how quickly the internet business moves, YouTube would be a perfect case study. The company has gone from this maverick upstart website where people can watch grainy 5-part reruns of shows they've missed (or miss) to pretty much a household name.

The fact that the company was sold to Google Inc. for almost $2 billion is mind-numbing. The way it has impacted society as we know it today is probably even more astonishing.

Whether it's used as a political weapon, a platform to launch a career, or simply as a place to store memories, YouTube has, in less than a decade, ingrained itself as an integral part of society.

Many artists, both musical and visual, have used YouTube to get their name out there. It is a place where, it can be argued, that fame has been democratized. A viral video can get you a front page splash on a news website more than winning a Nobel Prize these days. Justin Bieber has gone from this preteen jamming on guitar to possibly winning a Grammy award. Whether YouTube has served as a tool to trigger a cultural renaissance or if it is an insult to creativity is a whole other debate.

YouTube has also served as an important political tool. Both parties have used the website to broadcast whatever they need to with limited cost. It was an important part of the last Presidential and midterm elections, as people were able to watch interviews, speeches, and even smear campaigns on their own time. It has made information readily available in a matter of clicks.

Still, majority of the material on YouTube is a potpourri of user-generated-content ranging from laughing babies to how-to videos to short films. It is a place to, pretty much, escape reality by living vicariously through other people's realities. We can be at a Lady Gaga concert one minute, to watching the first ever Superbowl the next, and finally swimming with some sharks the next.

YouTube has proven to be a very important part of our lives. Whether we've wasted hours watching people eating hot peppers or getting information about the war in the Middle East, it is tough to deny that we haven't integrated the website into our day-to-day living.

It is not without controversy, though. As usual, copyright issues are at the forefront. Luckily for the entertainment industry, they were a lot quicker in responding to this than when they were pushed (and eventually crippled) by Napster. The use of online advertising and required prerolls before watching videos have become important parts of any entertainment company's business model.

YouTube has pushed the boundaries of what we can watch and when we can watch it. They have even integrated 3D technology. The company has been able to create a powerful tool that is readily available to all of us, and it is exciting to speculate on what more is to come.