Media Convergence - Soon enough we will be part machine, i'm scared.

This week we spoke about media convergence.

So it got me thinking about how much media influences us every day, and it hit me - all the time.

I'm one of those people that lives with her phone at my side, I get e-mail instantly to my phone, I check the weather every morning, I read whats going on in the world, update facebook, read blog comments and my fellow classmates blogs. So basically my phone is my portal to the world of media.

I suppose media convergence, has come so far, in terms of how much is available on a single device, be it iphones, android phones, ipods or even ipads. It's quite amazing how connected we are to media outlets throughout the day. It used to be you got on your computer and multi tasked, now it's like we multitask at a higher stage, we can email - while we walk around to and from work or the likes. Cool but at the same time I'm starting to wonder if my phone, or all this stuff I can do at one time is starting to take over my life. That may sound crazy but if you think about it, who doesn't check their e-mail, facebook, news, weather at least twice or three times a day? Back in the day you checked you mail after the postman came and that was that.

Trying to imagine whats next in media convergence, with smartphones and tablet pcs, what on earth is next?

On a side note, I need to stop being so glued to my phone, it's like it's my twin now. Which is starting to scare me hehe.

Creative Commons What?

This week we spoke of copyright online, and I instantly thought about deviantart. It's a website for artists of all media forms, be it poetry, novel writting, paintings, drawing and even photography. So I thought about my works on there, logged in and realized all of my work on there was copyright, I had a creative commons license on all.

I suppose it amazed me that everything you write online, even little comments are copyright, even status updates i guess. Crazy stuff.

Anyway I recently got an email from a company in germany asking to use my artwork on deviantart on there website, which provides art prints and posters to international customers. The deal was that they would be allowed to print and distribute my work and i would get paid a certain percentage of what the customer paid, i.e I think it was 75% of it. Let's be honest who doesn't want to get a bit of extra cash here and there, so I went ahead and agreed.

It's sort of amazing to me that a small time hobby artist like me could have copyright on my work, yes I know it's work i created but at the same time it was more of a hobby. Bottom line is I now fully understand my rights to my works and the creative commons licenses there are.

Who would have thought this weeks tutorial could be so useful hehe.

Took me forever to wrap my head around the creative commons on the australian website here. I suppose the bit that got me was the tiny differences and alterations that cna be made to suit someones copyright needs. Amazing and mind boggling to me :)

Week 4: Modern Work Life

So after spending about an hour trying to decipher the reading, I've come to the conclusion that I did grasp it, I just don't seem to quite know where to put my opinion on it, or the subject at hand I guess.

Work these days, when compared to say 30 years ago must be completely different. I suppose all parents have told stories of how working back in the day was so much more demanding and hard and how you were glad if you had a job. I suppose now, compared to then even if you do not have a job the government assist you, as with centre link here in Australia. I guess it takes away that fear of what if.

The reading was talking about how now, people are constantly having to re-train and unlearn old skills in order to gain new skills combined with new technology to do their job. I guess that would make things different, but then again I suppose the attitude to work has changed from say 30 years ago.

I'm not sure if I made sense there, but basically this reading just sort of strew my thoughts a million different directions, and to be quite honest I think it would be easier if I had been around say 30 years ago in the working world, and was in the working world right now. So seeing as I'm not I guess it's sort of hard to really grasp the concept of the reading, the subject at hand.

Week 3: New Economy?

So the reading was talking about the new economy, and somehow I managed to read the entire thing and base it on what I've seen in games I've played.

Take Lineage II for example, a game that absolutly depends on players to drive it's economy in game. Now as soon as Adena Farmers showed up in the game, the economy went crazy, prices dropped to insane lows, and people who spend their free time farming materials were now wasting their time as farmers took up the entire demand in bulk. Companies employed people to basically play hours on end, to gain Adena (the in game currency) and materials selling those to then use that money to sell to players, off the game on websites for for real money.

Crazy you say? I'd agree, but let's face it, gaming has come so far that people that play a lot, and take it serious actually use these sites, i.e buying in game currency through real currency.

An example, just to show what I mean would be this:

To buy a piece of gear, let's say a doom helm, which at that time was a agility based light armor for rangers (archers) was say 12 million, simply because one had to farm the materials, and then craft it. Once farmers were in the picture, the price increased to hit 12 million.

So just thinking of those old debacles back in the early stages of lineage II, and the upcoming Diablo online stockmarket of sorts, just goes to show how the internet, as an economy is taking off.

Week 2 : ARPANET

This weeks reading was a bit of a history lesson I suppose. I think mainly for me it was a wake up call, a push back into university and using my brain, as bad as that sounds. The reading basically explains the first purpose of what we now know as the internet, which was ARPANET. A Node was created and implemented at UCLA so scholars could share their information quickly and collectivly on what later became known as ARPANET.

I suppose ARPANET becoming a sort of online post office, doesn't surprise me, it's human nature to interact and evolve, so really ARPANET being used for personal use doesn't surprise me and I for one would have sort of expected that to happen. I guess I say that because knowing myself, eventually work would be boring so to speak and eventually social instinct takes over, ask how the other person is, how their day has been or along those lines. And within a short time any network can be turned into a social hub.

The reading for me just emphasizes how easy a page like facebook can take over when the internet has become such a huge part of peoples lives now.

Week 1 - Networks

This weeks reading was interesting, though I have to admit it was a battle to read it and try to grasp it at the same time. The reading talks about networks, about it's structures

and social implications. It explains how networks are now a sort of common ground internationally, people connecting to these networks from every corner of the world.

Let's take a flash mob for example, these days it's organized by tweets, a hong kong michael jackson dance mob was organized solely through twitter, by people enthusiastic about michael jackson. Tweets were sent out into a tag and 300 people showed up to dance. It's amazing how these days groups of people can organize themselves so quickly. Facebook events I suppose are somewhat similar, in the sense that these events are created and usually the people attending and invited are of a network of sorts, be it students of a specific university or school.

I guess if I sit and think about how fast and how easy it is to communicate with a network, through facebook or twitter, it's kind of scary, mainly because it seems 90% of our social lives consist of some form of networking through facebook. Scary thoughts i think.

Introduction =)

My name is Annika and I'm a BCM Student majoring in digital communications.
I'm originally german but my home is in hong kong.
I'm a game addict, most consoles and pc online mmorpg's, World of Warcraft being my poison of choice.