Rulture Cremix

UHHH WHATTT DID I JUST DO THERE.

Oh year! Remix culture! Tried my hand at remixing words, obviously now I know it’s not my forte, and I should concentrate on doing other things..

Music has been revolutionized in a couple of ways, from the sharing of music files online (Russell, Ito, Richmond & Tuters 2008), people creating mix tapes, or even putting two songs together to form a “new” song, otherwise known as remixing.

How does this remix culture affect the music industry then? People still listen to songs, people are able to earn money from remixes, music is still being made.. BUT.. this is what we didn’t know! The music industry’s revenue has gone from US $14.32 billion, to US $9.65 in a span of 7 years (2000 – 2006) (Russell 2008).

That’s more than a 50% drop…. Yikes. Not sure how it happened, but for the next trivia, I can come up with a few reasons..

The sale of CDs has declined from 942million to 614 million, also from 2000 – 2006 (Russell 2008).  Reasons.. hmm

1) YouTube. Why buy CDs when you can search for the song on YouTube? You can listen to it all day long..

2) listentoyoutube.com. Wanna listen to your fav song on the go? This website allows one to download just the audio bits from YouTube.

3) Torrents. Think that YouTube’s quality isn’t that good? Torrents allow one to download songs in the original high-quality form..

4) file sending over msn, email. If you plop your CD into your computer, you can ‘drag’ the songs out onto your desktop, and play it with and music player (VLC, iTunes, Windows Media Player). That same way, you can send the song file to your friend, or upload it on YouTube (see the vicious cycle now?)

What about remixing songs? Did that kill the music industry? Or did it help make the industry better?

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

I feel that remixing has actually made the music industry better. I don’t have any statistics with regards to an increase of band popularity or sales due to remixes, so my opinions are on a personal level. I know damn well that without remixing, I wouldn’t have heard the name of many songs, and bands, and I would have never become a fan!

Take the band, Norwegian Recycling. I first heard their song How Six Songs Collide, when a friend sent it to me.  And from there, I went on to search the titles of the 6 songs, and subsequently went on to search for the singers and bands… I’ve yet to buy their album as I’ve never seen it in stores, but I sure would.

One friend, Joshua Simon, has been doing remixes. By himself! Yea, it’s really cool. He did the beats, even made videos… he has a great voice, and his remixes don’t cover just new songs but even older songs.. and I feel, hey if you mix both together, “old” songs won’t be forgotten!

Here are a few of my favourites.. (=

<iframe width=”640″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/f55eT5lU9Ao&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>

Remixes provide a fresh approach to old songs, new twist, sometimes a new melody… and the singer really does affect the portrayal of songs… well, that’s my opinion. Not convinced that remixes are better? Let me hear your thoughts!

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References

Russell A., Ito M., Richmond T., & Tuters, M. 2008, ‘Culture: Media Convergence and Networked Culture’, in Kazys Vernelis (ed.) Networked Publics, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.43-76.

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Can privacy and problem solving go hand in hand?

Week 5:
Analyse critically the following statement by Mark Zuckerberg while comparing it to privacy issues raised by online social networking collaborative practices: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/146252

Here’s a short clip by Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of social networking site, Facebook.

http://swf.tubechop.com/tubechop.swf?vurl=sWDneu_w_HQ&start=25.89&end=38.84&cid=146252
(video can’t be embedded. Click on the link to view it!)

In the clip, he points out that
1) People tend to share more when they feel that they have control over what they share.
2) By limiting the sharing, the world becomes more connected
3) Problems faced by people would be easier to solve.

His rationale: There may be many people who face similar problems. When they share it, there is awareness, and people are able to brainstorm, and help solve the problems.

Credits to lucario515

How does that work? How are we being more connected with the world, when we only allow certain people to view whatever we post on Facebook? Does this allow the rest of the world to interact with me, or what I said?

The fact is – nothing online is private anymore (Tapscott, 2009). Cached posts, screen shots.. Let’s face it, technology is so advanced, even if the Black Box is crushed, information still can be retrieved.

Here are some statistics. According to Solove (2007), 87.8% of Facebook users reveal their birth date, 39.9% list their phone number, and an astonishing 50.8% of them list their current residence. How are we going private, when we’re putting personal information for the world to see?

How can we ensure that private data online will never be seen by others because of the “privacy controls” we have set?

Like what Joyce Chng said, the whole need to explain privacy settings is indeed ironic. Setting privacy controls do not make a world more open and connected. In fact, privacy controls limit the amount of information being shared with the public.

Numerous times, companies send me emails like these:

(own images used)

So, I shared my email with a certain company, and other companies buy my email and send me those mails? How do these emails help me solve my problems in any way? I do understand that “the Internet” wants to solve my problems, but I’m a little shocked that they’ve predicted the problems I may, or may not face in the future.

In reality, the more you control over what you share on the internet, the less your personal information is spread. Thus, whatever “problems” one may have, it’s hard to get the world to solve it together, because only a few “trusted” people in your social networking site would be able to see the problem.

For those interested in looking at the full-length video (I didn’t just take it out of context), here it is

I admit social networking has helped us:
1) Keep in touch with friends around the world
2) Share views on topics of interest
3) Being able to spread awareness on issues

Point 3 probably has the biggest impact in solving problems, and indeed, it has been one of the more useful tools in social networking. It’s probably what Zuckerberg was referring to. I just don’t get how making your privacy setting to be set as “super restricted” will help you solve problems.

Matt Cohler, Facebook’s former strategy chief once said “Privacy meant it’s a secret, or it’s something that I don’t share with other people” (Tapscott. 2009). However, for the new generation privacy means being able to control what you share with others, not keeping information totally private (Tapscott. 2009). Have definitions changed?

Maybe I’ll ask my 5 friends (I can’t trust the other 600 of them so only 5 can see what I post) on facebook and see if they’re able to solve this problem for me.

References
Tubechop. 2011, ‘Extract form Mark Zuckerberg on Making Privacy Controls Simple’, Tubechop, viewed 25 April 2011.

Tapscott, D 2009, ‘A generation bathed in Bits’, in S Scott (eds), Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world, McGraw Hill, USA, pp. 39 – 69.

Solove, D. (2007) ‘How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us’, in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet, New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 17-49.