The Great Exchange

Media today has extended beyond the screen. It goes with us everywhere, as previously talked about, but in today's world it has leaked into economics. Everything over the web is negotiable. Everything over the internet is exchangeable. The internet has created a new marketplace, a social marketplace. Chapter 2 of Henry Jenkins' book, Spreadable Media, continues to elaborate on digi-gratis and the reappraisal of the web.

Logically with the expansion of the internet, businesses went online to reach a greater audience. Since then with the introduction of sites such as Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy, a giant online outlet mall has opened up to us from the comfort of our couches. But what does it mean when media is now dictating the market? When what users put online, and "like" online becomes the big ideas that enterprises capitalize on? It means that we are in a democratic, global economy. 

YouTube is one of the most visited sites in the history of the internet. At it's start, YouTube was the trifecta for spreadable media. You could post, watch, share within clicks of each other. YouTube videos have reached ever crevice of the internet with ease. YouTube as a company has a large audience that they now support through advertisements. They've tapped into the idea of spreadable media by creating their own culture with a hierarchy of stars in their own right. Stars such as Daily Grace, Jenna Marbles, and Tyler Oakley have made a living off of creating media for YouTube. How do you think they got that role? Spreadable media. Their media spread. Not by them, but by us. We spread their media. Got it? 

Since the end of the SXSW conference these YouTubers have exploded in their appearances. Above, Tyler Oakley talks about his coverage for Taco Bell during their Passion Pit Concert series, his work with Virgin Mobile at their expo. Jenna Marbles recently returned from a sponsored trip to Ireland to speak to Irish universities about internet lifestyles. Daily Grace was just invited to make a documentary for G4 on the explosion of The Walking Dead phenomena. Is it just me or are you sensing a trend? We trust these people, or at least enjoy what they have to say, and are the sole reason for their success. So much so, Daily Grace has landed a role in the new Lowe's commercials because even though she lives in a tiny apartment with no room for "home improvement", we will take her opinion on the new MyLowe's program more seriously than some random actor. 

The fact is that sense the internet is negotiable, these YouTube stars will adjust to our standards of what we want them to do, or we'll watch other videos and create new personalities. In the same sense, what we are buying online is negotiable as well. iTunes allows for the option to buy one song on an album instead of the whole album giving the user to choice to not go without. Along those lines is the music website NoiseTrade. 

Brian Wahl, an independent worship leader, is a huge advocate for NoiseTrade and even wrote a "How To" blog for other musicians to get them on the site and use it effectively. NoiseTrade allows musicians to post or preview their music and make it downloadable for fans for free with an optional donation. This site puts the power in the fans' hands. We can dictate the quality of the product by how much of a donation we give, a comment, a download, and then by word of mouth. The site even has an option to share your download preferences with your friends via Facebook and Twitter. Again, the idea of divi-gratis is exercised: we "give" (download or share), and a career is propelled. 

Wiki-What?!

This week our seminar class is reading this book, Wikinomics.

GoldCorp, a gem mining company, was desperate for some new, innovative way to locate deposits of precious minerals quickly. Headed by Rob McEwan, an idea was pitched that was unheard of in the Mining industry. McEwan brainstormed a virtual model of their 55,000 acre mining plot and put in on the web asking for virtual prospectors to make their best guess as to where the next "mother load" could be located. Within weeks they had thousands of submissions powered by mathematical equations, military strategy, and good ole gut thinking. 50% of the suggested plots had never been explored by GoldCorp before and 80% of the plots turned out to be successful, profitable mining sites. McEwan realized than in a culture of mass-information business had to be run on a massive scale and the best global approach was the internet.

In a new aspect of participatory culture, the economy is playing a particularly large part. The internet has transformed consumer culture and changed the way we shop. Sites like Amazon and apps like Wanelo have put products at our fingertips from the comfort of wherever we are. Even the phenomena of Pinterest has spiked a rise in how we use our disposable income. The internet has presented us with the global marketplace.

The global marketplace isn't even place that requires you to actively participate. It's a connection hotspot that is fueled by the people walking (downloading) through the aisles rather than how much product is sold. In sites like Amazon all it takes is a free membership, or for apps like Wanelo, a free download. It asks you to pin things to your "Someday" board or to start making a wishlist that you can distribute around to friends during your birthday month year. The marketplace succeeds through participation and innovation not consumption.

Connected is an Understatement

Infinite is the number of opportunities I have to be connected to the internet or to somebody else virtually. 10 years ago that number was in the single digits. With the introduction of Wi-Fi, iPads, 3G, and especially iPhones it's almost impossible to be alone or out of touch.

After reading An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures by Pramod K. Nayar (Ch. 6), I am overwhelmed at how advanced the world I live in is. Granted, I use all of these technologies daily. I'm always talking to somebody, and it's not always face to face, but I never realized how much I relied on virtual communication. Let's talk about some of the obvious ones: 

Texting: We are a texting culture. It's a life saver when you have a question to ask a somebody in the real world in a meeting but don't want to be confused with leaving rudely. Or when you have a quick question that requires a yes or no answer, but don't want to get stuck in a long, drawn-out phone conversation. It adds to that instantaneous gratification concept that has become the norm in recent years. The downfall to texting is that you lose the "in-person" connection and the ability to not misunderstand what the other is saying to you. For this reason, we have developed emoticons as visual cues as to how to decode a short, less than a sentence, message. 

No, Our society is not slipping backwards. I promise. 

Email: This is a slightly old way of communicating. It is still useful and used on the daily, but it's not as quick as texting. Email allows you to send lengthy messages to numerous people. However, you must be sitting at your computer or have enabled notifications on your phone in order for this form of communication to be instant. For this reason, it's less popular with the younger generation. 

G-Chatting/Facebook Chatting: The newer, more exclusive, version of AIM. You must be logged on to your preferred interface in order to receive messages. It's like texting but only with the computer or as long as the necessary app is downloaded on your phone. If you phone even does the whole app thing, if not, more power to you. 

Useful is as useful does.

Skype: Skype is free to chat one on one, but if a video conference is your goal then it costs you. The concept is that Skype is a downloadable program for your computer than utilizes your webcam and microphone to allow video chatting. It's useful for friends and family that live overseas but don't have the capabilities for international phone calls or texting. Skype minimizes the physical distance as long as you are physically close to your laptop. 

Facetime: Is an upgrade from Skype. Depending on your cellular network, you can video call anywhere there is a cell signal. Facetime minimizes the physical distance even more by eliminating the need for a computer. 

The internet has no physical limits or space that it resides in. It is simply a limitless magnitude of information that we can coexist inside. The internet is meant to be an extension of our physical lives. Instead, it has become a place where we can alternatively live a life without limits.