More Connectivity

As it is Halloween, I thought I would do something related. As me and my friends were looking up haunted houses, we discovered "Thirteen Floors" through Stumbleupon. After going onto the website, it prompted us to connect with them through Twitter and Facebook. Of course we didn't do this because it would of turned into spam on our accounts. Haunted houses are only good once a year so no need for reminders everyday. However, I have down this with other websites such as an animal research site that learns information on black bears. After finding this website, I began to follow a black bear and her cub named Lily and Hope. These researchers take video and pictures and then upload them onto facebook. Because I am connected to facebook, I am now connected to this random bear couple in Montana. Without this social networking, I would have no idea about these bears, or the research done on them. Facebook and other social networking sites not only keeps me connected to people but to a plethora or educational information.

A Survivaball Halloween, 2009

So, in the spirit of the current holiday, I wanted to find something interesting that had to do with Halloween. I found a pretty funny article from November of last year that explained how two Yes Men apprentices dressed as the Yes Men for Halloween and staged their own march of survivaballs, the very safe and friendly survival suits we saw in The Yes Men Fix the World. The article is humorous, and the video they made to tag along with it is pretty neat. It also has a bit of remixing in the video, when the Ghost Busters theme plays with "The Yes Men" being called instead of the Ghost Busters.
I also thought it was pretty cool that this article is on The Yes Men's website instead of someone's personal blog. Go fan support!

transformation of cultural industries: photography

The social digital world has changed the way we interact with photography...

Not only can we instantly see our photographs with the digital camera, but now we can instantly upload them to the web and share them with friends or with the world. We can even instantly order prints with a click of a button, completely eliminating the need for a darkroom as well as simply organize your photos with "tags," which easily document who is in what picture from when. And we can instantly take a snapshot on our cell phones, which are only getting better and better (the new iPhone features a 5 megapixel camera).

flickr

photobucket

piccasa

cooliris

As you can see, taking a photograph has become much more than a click of a button and a good picture, a picture can now be instantly and easily taken, edited, shared, and organized- thanks to the digital world.

Yes Men

The Yes Men bring up a rather interesting topic of coversation. There certainly are two sides to the argument; however, I feel that what they are doing is clever and unique. It's almost as though they are turning the worlds thoughts into actionable items. Instead of letting these thoughts spin into 'nothingness,' these individuals have are taking a proactive stance and showing the rest of us how change is indeed feasbile. Perhaps there are times when boundaries have been crossed, yet change has to stem from somewhere - why not turn things around starting with the Yes Men. Although, there seems to never to be a second side to the story. I feel that a lot of these corporations have reasons for what they do (some more just than others). Taking a look at the company that boarded up all the windows to every building after Hurrican Katrina provides an example of this very thought. This company was only executing these practices in the best interest of the general pubic. When these actions were implemented the intent was to keep criminals out to avoid any additional negative occurances. In the Yes Men video, they portayed this company in a harsh light because they were not letting people back into their homes. Obviously there were two sides to this story, yet the Yes Men definitely focused on the negative. Regardless of the work that the Yes Men promote, I believe it is important to always use a critical eye in evaluating the examples that are brought to our attention.

Thoughts on digital music distribution

The discussion we had in class during Charles presentation on last.fm was interesting. It made me think about the music industry, which we have also read about, and what they have done right and wrong so far.

Today the music industry is in front concerning the usage of technology and social media. I would however argue that the only reason they have been better than other industries is because of greed. But greed is good right...

Anyway, the music industry managed to shut down some early "dotcom" sites such as Napster and Kazaa (the latter I used myself). They also managed to put DMR protections on for example music sold via the iTunes Store. This successfully stopped people from sharing music for a while but is now removed. The long battle between pirates and labels has created many new interesting ways of listening to music. But what the music industry should have done was to work with technology instead of against it. But maybe in the end that is exactly what made it better today?

Today the digital music market and distribution is a lot better developed. But I don't credit the big music labels for that. None of the popular software we use today to buy music has been developed by the music industry, Instead small private companies such as last.fm and Spotify has created the possibilities (Itunes was of course a pioneer in this field but they need to change too). Without these companies I think the music industry still would have struggled.

test drive a car from your desk.

Mitsubishi has done something drastic to shake up the car market. Mitsubishi has made a remote controlled access point for consumers to test drive the new 2011 Outlander Sport. People can sign up online to take the car on a closed course for a quick drive session using their computer. I became aware of this promotion through their multimedia campaign telling people about their interesting web promotion. I have herd of shooting ranges you can control from your computer, but this... as a promotion. If it becomes a huge success will other companies convert or offer these types of services... and do you need a dealership if you can just drive and purchase a car online? I see this promotion as being very cool, I would love to experience the test driving session but I feel that I might have missed out since the ability to sign up has been available since October 15th. If you would like to try and sign up for a test drive go to outlandersport.com.

Why do we follow others examples?

After watching the Yes Men video and witnessing the influence they have on the people that they are hoaxing, I thought about a video that I viewed in a psychology class a couple years ago. This video shows how when other people are doing something around us, we easily conform so that we do not feel like the outsider. This video is rather funny, but it represents a very serious issue. Although it is a very old video from candid camera, it seems to ring just as true today. Our world today gives so much proof that we live afraid of being alienated by fellow peers. The norms that develop because of this reason are not always healthy and can really have a negative impact on people. The classic statement of "would you jump off a bridge if your friend jumped off a bridge first" is much truer than we like to believe. Many people will simply express themselves in a way that others are used to or ways that they know will portray them in a light that may not reflect their actual personality. It is scary to see how individuality is skewed to create unhealthy interactions.