I need your help!

It's the last week of my degree (dun dun dun!) and I'm back. I'm here, cap in hand, asking for your help.

It's really very simple.

All you need to do is read out the text below, in your best speaking voice, record yourself (either video or audio - whichever you prefer) and send it to me. It will form part of a video I'm putting together for my final project hand in. Please help! Many thanks, Keira.

Ps. I realise that files may be too large to attach to an email (my email address is however akidfromkibble@googlemail.com incase needs be). If you post the video to YouTube I have a very nice, mildly illegal video grabber so I can snatch it from YouTube's clutches.

Here's the text:

Its 30 years later and we’ve seen a lot of changes. Most of the population are computer literate. Those who were in their 50s at the birth of the internet are 80 or 90 now. The majority of them learnt how to use the internet for work. And for a long time now education has been largely web-based.

Since the dawning of the internet we have seen a change in the way we are entertained. As free content began to pour onto the internet, nothing the media industries or government could do stopped people from sharing their ideas, the ideas of others, information and skills.

As media industries began to claw back their copyrighted material the general public began to abandon traditional recorded entertainment including recorded music, television and books. Increasingly people turned to each other for entertainment – posting free amateur film, music and written word. Collaboration was the norm and authorship became increasingly irrelevant.

Masses of information could be stored and accessed through cloud computing. Most people need only carry small devices or epaper to access the entire internet and all of their personal files. Increasingly in public there is barely need for a personal device as our streetscape becomes more and more technologically advanced.

Ash Clouds can't stop Cloud Computing (or rock gigs).

Gig reviews aren’t usually what I use this blog for – but I’ll make an exception this time. Regular readers (if there are any, hello?) may think I have an unhealthy obsession with musician Amanda Palmer. She has f

eatured several times on this blog – she even twittered me after reading my dissertation, which is posted below (@amandapalmer @akidfromkibble Great paper.). But she has appeared her for good reason – her acceptance and innovative use of the Internet.

Evelyn & Evelyn are conjoined twin sisters who recently released their debut album “Evelyn Evelyn” under the band name Evelyn Evelyn.

Except they are not. They are actually Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley (right hand and left hand respectively) and were set to embark on their first European tour as the sisters.

And then Iceland exploded.

Amanda Palmer had landed in Iceland on a 45 minute stopover just as the volcano erupted. You can read about Amanda’s adventures in Volcanoland here: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/

The rest of the tour team were stuck in the US, including Evelyn Jason. Through a series of serendipitous events Amanda made it to Glasgow alone where they were due to play a gig in Oran Mor.

So myself, Lynsey and our friend Ruaraidh arrived, expecting a solo Amanda Palmer show or there abouts. We got something quite different.

Clearly making it up as they went along, but in

the most enjoyable way ever, Jason appeared to us via Skype on a MacBook, held up by a fan. The whole show was webcast by another fan holding Amanda’s MacBook, which was eventually crowd surfed through the front row for the best view. Jason was at Amanda’s apartment in Boston and they attempted to play the entire set/cabaret event transatlanticly! Jason was heard to say “Um… Amanda… I’m worried they wont believe we are conjoined sisters now…”

Jason’s sound was hooked up through the Mac’s headphone output to a PA and wasn’t the greatest I’ve ever heard. It worked pretty damn well if Jason played first and Amanda followed (due to the time delay!) There was a puppet show – provided by the drawing skills of another fan. Interlude music was played by Bitter Ruin – the band who had Twittered to fill in as support and come up from Newcastle. Other items such as kazoos, ukeleles and piano stands were Twittered from fans. Cowboy hats, feathers and a gun were all borrowed from the crowd. It was fantastically unorganised but some how just about worked. We all agreed that maybe it would have been better had she only played a few songs with Jason and then played a solo set – which is what she did in Dublin the next night. But I’m grateful that we were the experiment because I’ll never forget the sight of watching conjoined twin sisters playing on each side of the Atlantic.

“I just want to go where nobody knows my
name,


And no one notices or cares whether I came.


I just want my friends altogether in one place.


I just want control over the way they see my
face.


I just want to friend the entire human race.


I just want my space.”

Lyrics from Evelyn Evelyn’s My Space

Oh Steve...

At the start of this project Apple launched their tablet.

As I'm sure you are aware, they took lea

ve of their senses and named it: the iPad.

Oh Steve Jobs. You've let me down.

I'm waiting for the shuffle version - the iTampon. Although, arguably, the shuffle version is just the iPhone/iTouch.

Not available to buy yet, the iPad doesn't seem to have impressed too many people.

It might revolutionise the e-reader - the Kindle e

tc are all a bit blah. They aren't very functional, they can't do much. Supposedly the iPad will bridge the gap between smart phones, laptops, netbooks and e-readers.

I'm not holding my breathe. Admittedly, its an improvement. Maybe I'm just turned off by the name. iPad? My bad.

Still, who needs love when the sandwiches are wicked and they know you in the MacStore?

Music in the Clouds

Oops.

Let's start again. Ironic that in the project about Cloud Computing I would neglect my blog. Sorry mate.

The Internet changes things. That we know.

As discussed in my dissertation (see previous posts >>>) the music industry is a good case study of this. It's nature of being fairly small files meant that it was the forerunner in a lot of ways.

We had Napster, we have Limewire - these early music distribution tools use open sourcing to share tunes between users, using the new and popular MP3 format.

"I have this great software, you can have it for free!"

"Oh, wow, thanks! I'll share all my music for free and everyone can have everything for free and be HAPPY!"

But the music industry weren't keen on this model - of course they weren't. Traditional record labels were loosing millions of pounds/dollars/yen in this. After all, it was Piracy. Sharing records, while technically not legal, was always accepted. It was so small scale it had no real effect. A massive file sharing network meant the industry had to sit up, take notice, and clamp down.

So hey, great idea from Apple, who with their iPods were largely responsible for the transfer of music to MP3, the iTunes store was born.

"Look guys, you can now legally BUY music on the internet! How neat is that?! It's cheaper than records, and virus free!" "Oh cool, I respect that the artists should be paid for their work. That's cool. I'm in."

And most people were in. Of course piracy will never completely disappear, but with a lot of high profile court cases people were put off. They didn't want to steal music - it was simply the only option to begin with.

And hey... what's this? Oh, it's Spotify. Now there is a nifty idea.

"Hey, you can download this software for free (for a limited time only, or be invited by a subscribed user). Then you can access the music we have (limited access for free users, premium members get all our tunes for a small fee.)" "So I don't have to store it on my hard drive? Awesome! 18GB of music was really slowing up my computer! And I can access it anywhere I have an internet connection? Well with my iPhone, that's EVERYWHERE. Magic! And if I want it for free I just have to listen to a couple of (very smart) adverts every few songs? Hey, I can do that. Thanks!"

So we can see how music on the cloud has progressed from

1) Napster - free software, free to the user, accessible by everyone, illegal

2) iTunes - free software, small pay-per-download fee, accessible by everyone, legal

3) Spotify - free software, free to the user (paid for with ads) or small subscribtion, accessible by everyone (because the users don't OWN the files), legal

We need to watch for stage 4, when the music industry works out how to keep selling us singles, instead of just making a few bob off of Spotify. Spotify must be a threat to them. They are big and strong and angry.

You've been in the clouds. Welcome back...

... Cloud Computing. Here we go.

Keeping it in this same blog because this new project is so tied to my dissertation.

After weeks of diligent research *ahem* I've found myself here. This was written on Wednesday 27th Jan - Just before the iSlate/iPad/iTablet launch... keep watching folks...

My area of interest is entertainment - probably because of things discussed in the aforementioned dissertation.

I looked at music and how we started off with Napster and Limewire, illegal file sharing programmes which allowed users to pirate music files.

To combat this, the iTunes store was introduced - a legitimate service for buying and downloading music files. This was hugely successful - as most people didn't want to steal music - there was simply no service for them to purchase it legally.

Now we are seeing a move to services such as Spotify - where all the music is stored via cloud computing and no one needs to buy any music, so long as they can get access to the internet.

Books are a little newer to the digital world. While online newspapers and blogs are everywhere, only in the past few years have books made an appearance.

So how can we buy books online? There's Amazon, eBay, and other booksellers who will post you your physical copy of your title. Most titles, particularly older ones and second hand books are very reasonably priced, don't cost too much to post and arrive quickly. It's a great way to find rare or hard to get hold of books, such as ones out of print. Books can be dispatched worldwide.

Google Books, launched in October 2004, set out to scan thousands of books, for free perusal online. Of course, on lesser quality screens, the legibility of the text is limited. There is also a limited number of titles available, and sometimes only a limited amount of the text available. Most titles are those which have lapsed copyright or are considered to be "within the public domain".

The Amazon Kindle and it's store were launched in the US in 2007 (2009 in the rest of the world). While not the only ebook reader on the market, thus far it has the market share. However it's success has been underwhelming. Perhaps books don't quite translate to a digital screen in the same way that music does - music is aural and it doesn't matter the physical format. Books are tactile, text is tactile, and there needs to be an enjoyable format.

Something that is lost through the ebook is the status that comes with having a vast collection of books. You can't leave your kindle casually lying around, opened on a particularly hard book to impress your friends. Well... you can... but its a little less subtle than the ol' leave-em-on-the-coffee-table trick.

I'd like to keep the book physical. What do we do with all the books otherwise? Book Burning is a bit of a taboo...

The disappearance of the independent bookstore from our streets would break my heart. Theres nothing like going through those dusty shelves is there?! But we know that both music and book sales are down in shops - not just because of the digitalisation of media, but also the ease of online shopping.

Bookclubs haven't translated particularly well to the internet either.

And what about book exchanges? What happens to the serendipitous act of leaving a book you have read lying in a bus, train, station etc for the next reader to find - and you yourself picking up left books.

So I made some sketches looking at keeping the book physical, and using cloud computing to do this.

Virtuality There: Journeying to Internet Maturity.

What appears in the following posts is my dissertation, with each chapter as a different post. Comments and criticism encouraged. It turns out that I am by no means done with you yet Web 2.0. Don't worry, I'll buy you dinner first.

Here is the summary that opened my dissertation;

Summary;

This essay looks at the way the Internet is evolving in its current “Web 2.0” manifestation and looks to where it might evolve beyond that. There is a particular focus on modern society’s relationship with the web and the way this effects their treatment of themes such as reality, identity, truth, secrecy and privacy. Looking at examples from popular culture, it considers new formats and models for future Internet behaviour.

What I REALLY meant to say was;

"This dissertation is the result of a misspent adolescence, wasted on the Internet. And after all, it's only the beauty on the Internet that really matters."

Keep it virtual. xxx

You Never Know Where You Will End Up. (See Stumbleupon.com...)

Introduction:

The term “Web 2.0” does not refer to any technical advancement, but instead to a change in the way software developers and end users are using the World Wide Web. The idea behind this new model for the Internet was that everyone would be equal and would have the opportunity to share their opinions or administrate their own websites. User generated content is an important aspect of this, where a site requires a certain amount of input from the user to create the content. Obvious examples of this change are social networking and media sites such as Facebook or MySpace, video-hosting sites like YouTube as well as blogs, Wikipedia and Google Maps’ Explore function. Most of these websites allow other users to comment on or reply to the original object.

In this essay I intend to explore these sites and their role in modern society, particularly focusing on the way they are affecting our relationship with themes such as identity, reality, truth, secrecy and privacy. In 2009, it was estimated that a quarter of the world’s population use the resource of the Internet. It has never been easier for people to connect across the world. Millions of strangers now have the ability to come together and share common experiences and interests. Thus far, people seem to be far more open on the Internet than would be socially acceptable in reality. There is something about the format, which allows people to lose their inhibitations.

I have held an interest in this subject ever since I was first linked to Frank Warren’s www.postsecret.com in 2005. This site asks users to send secrets on one side of a postcard to Warren’s home address and to use a certain amount of creativity in their efforts. Postsecret is the most popular example of a confessional site, but I am also interested in things like Twitter and Facebook, where it is easy to quickly display one’s life to the world, or online banking, which asks a person to trust the internet with all their finances – even when they are aware fraudulent “phishing scams” exist. I find it fascinating that the Internet offers a chance to change your identity, to become whomever you desire. This feature can be used innocently, in online games such as Second Life, where the user creates a persona, which can be as life like or as fanciful as they wish, or for the most sinister means such as fraud or for grooming.

Discussions such as this are so new – the internet was only set up in a meaningful way in the mid-1990s – that it can be quite difficult to find relevant, academic literature, which can be regarded as more than just opinion. A Google search of “Web 2.0” using the Timeline application yields results no older than mid-2005, with the majority falling between 2007 and 2008. As we begin to harness this new model of the Internet, and technologies adapt to work within in it we see new fascinating behaviours emerging. It is now we must decide whether these are an acceptable model for the future, or whether we should attempt to steer ourselves in a different direction.