Tim McCall Weblog

I found another interesting article on the future of wireless communications. If you find these articles interesting, you might want to add TVover.net to your reader.

After posting my response and talking about the transitional period that we are in, I found something interesting in my RSS feed. This article is showing that the number of online video consumption has greatly increased over the past couple years, but there is still more room for improvement.

Thanks,
Tim

HANGIN OUT

From these and previous readings I’ve found that we are in a transitional period. We are at the beggining to middle stages of this period and are about to enter into phase two. It is exciting and scary at the same time. The feel of the whole thing is very “Hippie.” I’m not saying thats a good thing, Im not saying that is a bad thing. I just wonder as someone who is somewhere in the middle of the left and right, what this transition has in store for me.

ISSUES

The stories of GoldCorp, Sinclair, and Diebold are amazing. The fact that people can pull
together for a common cause and stir up tradition is something that is going to take a lot of getting used to by many people. After reading these articles I also believe there is a lot more to figure out while we are in this transition from industiral to information based. The few strong ties versus many weak ties is a huge issue that comes up in many aspects of life, business, friendship, media consumption, etc. We talk about one side or the other, but why cant there be a happy medium? Can’t businesses have there in-house stuff, and open up some collaboration online? Just because you have many aquaintance like contacts online does not mean you cant have your strong real life ties. All this is basically myself explaining to myself that it doesnt all have to be one-sided, that new school and old school can work together, and at the end of this transition, we will have a healthy balance between traditional values and this new way of living/working/communicating.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Being broke I obviously think that money controls everything. After reading Chapter 7, I still believe that money controls everything. The web and blogosphere are an awesome arena to combat this issue. This is the thing that is so great about the web, that it is relatively inexpensive and you can “Be Heard.” This has greatly narrowed the playing field, but money still and always will be the one of the main ingredients of successfully visible content. Collaboration is the obvious next step in combatting “big money”. It will be interesting to see how “big money” reacts to this; will they create new formats, or join in collaboration?

HOLLYWOOD

One aspect of big money that is being affected is Hollywood. As someone going into the film and television industry I wonder where collaboration fits into this? Will producers and directors put scripts and screenplays online for open sourcing? We already have many viewers who are in contact with the creators of content, who leak spoilers and upcoming plots. It is tough to see how far is too far when we are sharing our intellectual property. These issues all need to figured out before we enter the next phase of media.

When I first heard about Wikipedia a while back, I thought it was a great idea, but then my old school mind set kicked in and automatically thought that it would be chaos. You have so many contrasting opinions, and so many people who want to vandalize whatever they get their hands on, that the site would be a mess. I eventually started using it when I needed a quick fact or some information on something specific. Without even knowing it, I had become a user of something that I thought would be unsuccessful. My old mindset did not kick in again until it was time for me to sign up and actually give to this thing that I have been taking from. Signing up was easy, and the introduction answered all my questions about how to edit and navigate the site. My first thought was that I didn’t have anything to contribute to this thing that hadn’t already been said. Ok, what are some things that I know a lot about that others might not? After some thinking I remembered watching a documentary on one of my favorite basketball players; Allen Iverson. The site was packed with information, but I found some points that I could have made clearer. I also found that there was a large chunk of his teen life that was missing. When I tried to edit the site, it told me that it was semi-locked. I could not update the site for four days. After yelling at my computer, I realized that this was a technique of peer review similar to what Benkler was talking about. There wasn’t chaos like I’d imagined, there was professional entries, that had been critiqued by hundreds of people before me. What came to my mind was those neighborhood watches where everyone in the community makes sure it is running smoothly. The people who want this site to be effective watch eachothers backs, and it is easy to understand that having many editors is far more comprehensive than simply having one. After this epiphany I typed in Tang Soo Do which is the form of martial arts that I practice. This page seemed to need some help so I added input on some of the theories and practices.

Through Wikipedia and becoming a creator as opposed to always being a viewer was rewarding and helped me have a better understanding of how far Wikinomics can go.

Like everyones been saying mashups are cool. The first thing that I am going to talk about is not a mash up according to the wikipedia definitiion, but is a cool combination of many different arts. Im talking about capoiera. Capoiera is a Brazilian Martial art that combines dancing with martial arts and gymnastics. It is something that has become more and more popular and now another style called street capoeira has formed.

The other mash up that I find interesting is the MyDeathSpace page. This site is an online memorial to MySpace users. This site combines the deceased MySpace pages with the newspaper articles describing there actual death. It is an eerie combination that is a new twist on personal media.

CONVERGENCE

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, but it seems as if convergence was a long time coming, but in the past couple years has skyrocketed. The things that seem ancient to us such as video phones, were unimaginable to me when I was in fifth grade. I am not going to ask what will be available in ten years, that has already been covered. I have to admit though, being a little old school, that I am not keen on the idea of the “black box”. I know that Jenkins tells us that this is not going to happen, but the things that the iphone can do are a little scary. I do think that convergance is something that has to work at a slow enough pace in order for it to gain acceptance in society. Convergence is happening at a faster pace than when I was growing up, and so is divergence. The information a ten year old has access to on the internet is another scary thought. It seems as if we can go very overboard with who has access to what. It is getting closer and closer to everyone has access to everything and everyone. Is this a good thing? Who am i to say, but I think that Pool, pinpointed it, when he talked about convergance being a sustained period of time of constant change with some unintended consequences, and unpredictable outcomes. We have arrived at this age of convergance and I believe what we do with it is very important.

My First Time

Not what you think. One concept discussed that really made me angry was the doing away with movie going. I totally understand that people hate going to the movies, due to things such as price and annoying people, but I love being in that environment. This is the same with the spoiler alerts on television shows. I hate getting e-mails that ruin a whole episode of LOST for me. Some part of me likes the anticipation of going to work all day and then coming home and watching something with no prior information on its’ content. This is the same part of me that enjoys going out to the movies and seeing it on the big screen. Watching a newly released movie with amazing effects at home; I will be content with this idea when I have my own personal theatre. I realize that I sound like I am against convergence, which I am definitley not. I just feel that it is a process that needs to be observed very closely.

The Other Side

Now that I told you my opinions on the drawbacks of convergence, I would like to discuss another issue touched upon by all three articles. This is the topic of Professionalism. When discussing it, the authors especially Nelson seemed to think that professionalism suggests, a heirarchal system that keeps the common man down. This is the aspect of convergance that I embrace. That the common man, someone with no formal training or education in film can put a full length feature out on YouTube for the world to see. Like Nelson said, Knowledge is power, and due to pioneers like him and others, the public has access to more information than ever. What the common man does with this knowledge and more importantly this power will determine the structure of tomorrows society.

Thanks,

Tim

When thinking about a clever title for this respone I realized that at the end of both readings I was seriously thinking about the not so distant future. The first mistake that I made was reading the article about Netwars before I read the Introduction. I really felt enlightened by the Netwar article because it is something that I had a very broad understanding of before I read.

What I found interesting was the whole issues of Bureaucracy. I did not even understand bureaucracy taking a Poly Sci class my senior year of College. I feel as though we have settled into this way of life without seeing the next step in the chain. This step obviously being toward a less heirarchal government/society to one that is more horizontal and interactive.

I think that the Introduction article was written in the mid 80’s and what I got from it is that it called for an awareness of this next step. I dont think the author knew exactly what it was going to be, but that it involved an evolution of all the elements that the previous revolutions specifically the information age have brought to the table. Ronfeldt and Arquilla answered this call by observing what was taking place in our society around the turn of the 20th century. It is incredible to me that this article was being written just months before the september 11th attacks on America. The attacks gave solid credibility to what was being written in this article. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title, Netwars, was hackers and viruses. The article made me realize that netwars happen in the real world as well as in cyberspace. Then I started to think about Vietnam and the Iraq war in which these smaller groups were “networking” together and actually competing with the overwhelming enemy. The development of the internet and global communications gives these smaller operations the power to compete and maybe even surpass the larger operations. Like Sasha I immidiatley thought of the mafia when they were talking about the crime units not competing but networking with one another.

This is where the negative issues with networking come in. These weaknesses are important for us to understand in order to counternetwar. Trust and the fact that there isn’t one single leader can be good things and bad things in networking. It seems there is conflict with absolute trust versus no trust at all. No trust meaning not knowing your colleagues identity. I do not know which one is better in the world of networking. I guess it depends on what the operation is.

I believe this article is very valuable in pointing out what possibly could be the future of our societies structure. It does make me wonder what someone like Osama Bin Laden would think if he read this article? He might get some ideas….

I think these articles all had an impact on me and really sunk in because of the real life applications that came with them. One example:

I have turned my girlfriend into something of a movie buff. She has even surpassed me with her subscription to Net Flix. She has been introduced to all these movies that she loves, but would have never thought to see or even found. This is because of the feature that links her to similar movies when she orders one. What article does this remind you of?

I can’t get into the Welman article from this computer for some reason, so I’ll read it tommorow and get back to you.

Thanks,
Tim

I realized that I never really formally introduced myself. My name is Tim McCall. I am 22 years old, and was born and raised in the town next door, North Haven. I went away to Endicott College on the North Shore of Massachusetts for four years and now have returned to the south shore of Connecticut. I am just starting to get back in the swing of things. I worked at ESPN for about 6 months until SportsTicker (the division I work in) was bought out by PA (the ESPN of Britain). This created PA SportsTicker which is a global sports information provider to people such as Yahoo Sports and ESPN.com. I am very into martial arts and started when I was about 9 years old. Around 15-16 got really into it and started competing nationally. I wasn’t able to train as much when I was up at school, but have started training again and hope to make some tournaments in the spring. I am very interested in television and film production, and feel like these mediums are becoming more and more interactive, thus the reason I have chosen this program. My AIM screenname is AND1stml03 if anyone wants to talk about assignments or anything else.

Now that we’re not strangers anymore, I will tell you about my struggle and triumph with RSS, Aggregators, Tags, Readers, Blogrolls, Bloglines….

A couple days ago I went to NewsGator.com got confused went to youtube and watched this
After that I decided to go to google reader. I watched this video of this guy and he made the Reader very easy to understand. I registered there and got some really cool feeds to go along with it.

The first is the official blog of the Film Production Society. This is cool because there is everything from information on new cameras and editing equipment, to tours of shooting locations. This is something I can use to learn more about the industry I will be entering.

I also signed up for independent Mac and Microsoft forums. I currently have a PC and am looking to get a mac, so keeping up on current issues in these areas is something that will keep me informed.

Another feed that I signed up for was called TVover.net This site discusses current and future trends in television.

I would definitley suggest the Google reader at least to a beginner.

-Tim-

I have taken many Communication classes through the years. I cannot count how many times I have been assigned to write about what kinds of technological advances will take place in the media industry within the next 50 years. These assignments came to mind when reading these three articles. I dont know if anyone has ever had to complete anything like this but it is interesting to think about how far we’ve come and how much further we can go. It is something that these guys’ spent a whole deal of time thinking about in great detail.

The technical evolution of the computer over this century is something that I have a very basic understanding of. After reading these works I feel like it is something that not only I but many others take for granted, while also become considerably dependent upon. Kind of ironic. Engelbart states that “the human mind neither learns nor acts by large leaps, but by steps organized or structured so that each one depends upon previous steps.” What he seemed to be pushing for was a restructuring of a whole socities understanding of a concept like the computer. This has happened we have adjusted to computers in our everyday life. Our language has adjusted. Just the other day my mother was talking to my grandmother about being “online” and after 20 minutes or so, my grandmother asked her what store she was online at. If my mother were at a store she could use a computer teller which her and Bush (1945) both agree is better than dealing with the lady at the counter. The use of powerpoint is a staple in businesses big and small. Computers in our homes, stores, places of business have become the way that our society has been augmented.

“Had a Pharaoh been given detailed and explicit designs of an automobile, and had he understood them completely, it would have taxed the resources of his kingdom to have fashioned the thousands of parts for a single car, and that car would have broken down on the first trip to Giza.”

Bush (1945) talks a lot about the financial restrictions that were present not only in ancient Egypt, but after WWII. This made me wonder what advances are being thought up today and if there is financial restrictions on them? The three authors do seem as though they predicted the future, but what does our future hold. What will we store all our information on in 60 years? How much more symbiotic can we become. This to me is a scary concept. I feel that we can achieve unimaginable things in regards to computers in the future I just am a little old school in that I don’t think that the computer can become as reliable or important as an actual colleague. I know that some feel differently, but they may never have seen Space Oddyssey.

Thanks,
Tim

Hey Guys,

This is my blog, and this is my first time ever having a blog so take it easy on me.

Thanks,

Tim