Andrew Keen Solutions Reflection

After reading Andrew Keen's "The Great Seduction" I was able to get a better grasp on what his stance on the internet is as well as what made him think this way. The fact that the idea of Web 2.0 was related to "democratization" was particularly intriguing as it seems to fit the idea perfectly. Keen discusses his distaste for Web 2.0 because everyone and anyone now has the ability to put information on the internet and deem it valuable. I believe he is a bit extreme in his assessment that all opinions that are put onto the internet are "superficial observations... rather than deep analysis". As with any form of published writing it is important to look at it with a critical eye and an open mind. The information posted can be of value as long as it is inspected and potentially backed up with further research.

Wikipedia without doubt has issues with credibility as Keen states that anyone can claim to be an expert on any given topic. However, it has the potential and ability to be corrected by another viewer who would actually have expertise. Again, wikipedia is agreeably not always the most reliable source, but it is necessary to weed out misinformation in any situation.

Web 3.0

Technology is constantly revolutionized. I believe that Web 3.0 will be much more intuitive and receptive to the desires of the user. The aspect of searching will completely change and become more personalized. I believe that the user will be doing less work than the internet itself to achieve results. The amount of information that will be put into the internet will be significantly less than what can be taken from it.

Illustrations (Separated from Paper)

Digital Illustration Proposal

1. To accompany my essay I would like to show my essential point that the "homegrown" look is merely an artistic choice and not in a position to replace production quality work.

2. I will definitely be layering photographs, erasing to blur lines, and potentially changing the color schemes for my illustration piece.

3. I envision my final product to look like a picture that would accompany an article in a magazine or newspaper to further prove my point in my essay.

Homegrown Hollywood: An Artistic Choice

Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional production values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY?

There are many instances in which the “homegrown” look is applied in as a means of achieving the amateur view. The idea of this filming method arguably began with the movie “The Blair Witch Project” in which the entire film was shot from hand held cameras to establish a realistic home video appeal to a horror topic to make the topic hit closer to home by making the experience personalized. More recently, the movies “Cloverfield” and “Paranormal Activity” included a home video type of cinematography to intensify the fear for audiences because of its extreme relation to personal experience with similar technology. The more recent updates in “homegrown” cinematography have a digitalized feel to them as opposed to the previous uses of actual video tape. This technological advancement has made the home video tape camera cinematography obsolete. Commercials as of late also tend to show the technology of the day. “E-trade” commercials in particular established a norm of using web cameras to shoot high priced commercials. The commercials typically include an infant either web chatting about the E-trade product or commenting about it on a video blog. The video aspect is exaggerated by having moments when the dialogue and the visual do not match up as to represent a possible buffering issue. The idea of emulating the Web allows the audience to feel more akin to the product being sold or achieve a more personalized fear factor.

I personally believe that user generated content will get better over time, yet I am sure that professional production values will not continue to drop. User generated content will undoubtedly get better as technology continues to improve. Professional production will never be obsolete as viewers expect high quality particularly in movies or television. I believe that amateur user generated content is not necessarily a phase, but an artistic choice that has a specific place and time to be used.

Vectorizing

My changed image.
Original image

Illustrator Assignment

Right: Actual Kindle photo; Left: Illustrator Representation.

For my illustrator assignment I chose to copy the amazon kindle. In hindsight, I might have picked a product with less individualized detail in interest of time but for my first time using the program it was a successful learning tool. I would like to have more experience in working with gradient to show the shadows on the entire product similar to what I did with the bars on the top and bottom of the text area.

Social Media Questions

1. I don't believe that professional production values will drop--the "homegrown" look is carefully constructed as an artistic touch to the media. This technique makes media seem more accessible and easier for amateur productions to recreate. However, amateur content will definitely improve--the quality of media has been rapidly increasing with technological advancements in the past few years, and there is no reason to expect anything less for the future.

2. Alexander McQueen:
our tags: dead, asphyxiation, twitter, mother, funeral, fashion week, Lady Gaga, Givenchy, Gucci, bold, outrageous, homosexual, shoes
Digg tags: designer, fashion, alexander, mcqueen, obit, icons, suicide

Our tags were much more in depth than the delicious tags; we looked at more smaller topics rather than the overall subject of the article. The fundamental ideas were the same, however; the delicious tags were more concise than ours were though.

3. Transparency is always an important concept, in my opinion. If ethics are not considered in every aspect of life, then the quality and authenticity of our interactions suffers greatly. It is not necessarily more or less important in different venues, but the action of being transparent does indeed change with the medium. Transparency is so important because the people you are communicating with need to be aware of the veracity and motivation for what you are saying. This transparency aids in the decoding of the message being sent and allows the receiver to better interpret the information being presented.

Digital Nation Analysis

The documentary Digital Nation is intriguing to me on many levels. The fact that technology is hindering us and not helping us makes sense to me as it has become a crutch instead of a tool. Though communicative technologies have helped society become more connected to one another they have also created a new dependance that is potentially detrimental. I personally know this dependance as I need my cell phone within arms reach at all times and even am guilty of sleeping with it under my pillow. Since I started this blog I have checked my facebook four times. When the documentary showed that the MIT students were unable to be successful whilst multi-tasking I was surprised because I also multi-task and thought that I was mildly successful at it. After seeing that I have less success than they do, I took it into deep consideration. My technological dependancy is now a larger concern as I see that its a true issue with success.

Web 2.0 Terms

User-generated content: The types of media content that is made publicly available by end-users.
Long Tail: The retailing concept that is the niche strategy of selling a large amount of products in small quantities.
Network as Platform: The network services for internet scale distributed computing that extends across the internet.
Folksonomy: The system of classification that combines collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content.
Web Syndication: The form of syndication that allows website material to be made available to many other sites.
Mass Collaboration: The form of collective action when many people work independently on a single project often while using computer and web technologies.
Computer-supported collaboration: The research that focuses on technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies.
Web Applications: An application that is reached through a web browser overan internet network.
Social Software: The range of software that allow users to interact and share information ie: Facebook, YouTube.
Video-sharing sites: Internet sites that enable users to post video infomation.
Wiki: A website that allows users to create or edit linked webpages using simple text editor.
Blog: A type of website that enables the user to maintain regular entries of thoughts and media.

Media Collage Assignment

For my Media Collage assignment I chose to use the new apple iPad. As it is the newest product for the technological brand it incorporates most of the features from past products but in a new, easier format. The iPad has many functions including Internet, video, virtual books, event calendars and music. To display that the iPad is a new media that is assisting in replacing traditional media, I showed many of the features in the most archaic form. Also I attempted to have their visuals be bland and neutrally colored. I layered the new iPad on top in order to show that it is the dominant technology of the present day.