Saturday, October 2, 2010

WEEK 6 LECTURE
MEDIA, NEW MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA

The internet has had a rollercoaster like existence from it's very beginning. Starting off as only an academic tool, to the burgeoning beast it is today. Entrepreneurs have lived and died by riding the pioneering internet wave prior to the dot.com crash and also now into the new internet era of Web 2.0.

The term Web 2.0 essentially doesn't mean anything for example there wasn't some amazing new internet that was suddenly created. It more refers to the idea that the now mundane "read only" web is now a thing of the past. While proclaiming the resurrection of the internet as a new "read/write" web. This idea was pioneered by Tim O'Rielly and his friends to get the tech community feeling good about itself again. So they came up with the notion, that the web mattered again. (Paul Graham, 2005) To put simply a definition for web 2.0 as stated on the exforsys.com website is that Web 2.0 is a system in which online users become participants rather than mere viewers.

An article also on the exforsys.com website titled "Advantages and Disadvantages of Web 2.0" states that with the growing use of web 2.0 as a technology information can flow freely and people can express their ideas without fear of repression. Web 2.0 would than effectively make the internet a true democratic system, or a digital democracy, but then this also leads into the disadvantages of the web 2.0 technology. One of the disadvantages is "dependence", for example if you become heavily reliant on the internet for your information what are you going to do when your connection goes down, how will you access the information you have become dependent on. Also while many services are offered for free, they won't be secure, and could easily become the targets for hackers and viruses.

This leads into the ambiguous question of ownership of online content such as music, movies, pictures and articles. With the onset of web 2.0 and it's main directive being the user being the participant rather than the viewer we have seen the astronimical rise of new social networking technolgies (Facebook, Twitter). These sites which allow users to talk and exchange ideas and opinions in their own personal virtual communities, have produced a very big two edged sword for companies looking to do business on the web. On side they have a great way to promote and distribute their content online to a very large audience more quickly and efficiently than before. But on the other side they leave themselves open to the advent of people coming in and being able to easily take your content for free. New laws are being created and debated all the time about who actually has the "rights" in intellectual property exchange and excessability of free online content. One could argue that in this current climate, that the progress of technology has become autonomous and beyond the direct control of any individual or government. A good example of this is with the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, that have grown at such exponential rates over the last few years and have so many users that now governments are trying to come up with rules and/or laws to regulate the use of these sites. I think the court cases we see involving online content infringements will continue until we see the online law start growing as fast as the new technologies.

REFERENCE LIST
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