Facebook's new advertising strategy

ANother article on Facebook's evolving"contextual"  advertising strategy. From Mashable "Facebook's New Advertising Strategy is Brilliant and Unexpected"

Gamers "Spoiling" AIDS virus

Remember how Jenkins describes the Survivor fan & spoiler community as an emerging form of collective intelligence? Remember how he describes us being in a stage of apprenticeship? He says that eventually, we'd figure out ways to apply the spoiling process to more serious matters. Well, here is collective intelligence at work on a more serious "puzzle."

"Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/games/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-20110919-1kgq2.html#ixzz1ZrDSvWBq

Facebook - The Product is YOU

Here are two recent articles on Facebook's latest evolution:

With 'real-time' apps, Facebook is always watching - 

This article discusses how Facebook is developing context-specific applications and information exchange. Remember Web 3.0 & "contextual" web.

Does Facebook really care about you?

In this article, media scholar and critic Doug Rushkoff discusses the changes in Facebook's newsfeed, contextual web, and why we don't trust facebook, but still gladly give it all our info... "on Facebook we're not the customers. We are the product."

We are not Facebook's customers at all. The boardroom discussions at Facebook are not about how to help little Johnny make more and better friendships online; they are about how Facebook can monetize Johnny's "social graph" -- the accumulated data about how Johnny makes friends, shares links and makes consumer decisions. Facebook's real customers are the companies who actually pay them for this data, and for access to our eyeballs in the form of advertisements. The hours Facebook users put into their profiles and lists and updates is the labor that Facebook then sells to the market researchers and advertisers it serves.

Finally,

Nielsen's Ratings Adapt to Convergence Culture

As discussed in class today,  here is  link to Nielsen's website.
This link shows you TV ratings from September 2008.

Once there, look around the site to see the various articles describing how Nielsen is tracking audiences across new platforms.

Remember, Nielsen's ratings are how audiences are measured so that media corporations can then sell air time -and "eyeballs" - to advertisers.

The Future of Storytelling (and Books?)

This recent article on Mashable discusses how crowdsourcing is impacting the nature of storytelling, the role of gatekeepers, readers, and authors in an age of convergence. 

How do these changes parallel transformations in other media industries? How is this an example of shifts in our cultural logic? 

Smart Phones: The end of Commercial TV?

A TV industry exec provides great perspective on the impact that smart phones are having on our TV viewing habits. Also, how advertising and TV execs are scrambling for new models to get our eyeballs and monetize on these new viewing habits. Check out his article here

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal

2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal
A fascinating article about The Singularity, the point at which computers become more intelligent than mankind...at which point we will, arguably, witness the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011. This transformation has a name: the Singularity.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html#ixzz1Dh71NWol

The "Social Media" Revolution in EGYPT

Today, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned. Protesters were successful. A brutal regime overthrown. What role did social media play? "Ask Facebook." Read Article

Egypt Leaves the Internet

In an unprecedented turn of events, Egypt has cut off virtually all access to the Internet, reports here on Renesys and here on CNN leaving the country off the grid. Authorities there have also cut off cell phone services.

Of course, this is an attempt to silence dissent, to limit access to news stories, and to prevent political protesters from using the web as a tool with which to organize. There are, however, bigger implications that are relatively unknown: what happens when an entire country disconnects?

Ultimately, the bigger question is whether the ties formed through the web are stronger than the muscle and guns of authority? The internet is a tool, enabling organizing, exchange of information, protest. But ultimately, the revolution has to be fought hand-to-hand in the real world.

Youtube/Google: Interview with the President

January 27th, 2011, at 2:30 EST President Obama will answer questions submitted by YouTube viewers. Submit yours & tune in to watch.

Your Interview With the President

3 Short Articles: Changing Cultural Paradigms

Three articles from the NY Times Magazine (1/2/11) provide three examples of how convergence of digital technologies is fundamentally changing or affecting our culture and our paradigms about ourselves & the world.

My Cart, My Self: Are we the Sum (or Algorithmic equation) of our Purchases?


Rewired: The ideological Implications of our New Fiber-Optice Infrastructure

Global Entertainment: How On-Line Geo-Tools and their Tweakers Make the Surveiilance State Fun

Facebook & Twitter Help Protesters Organize in Egypt

Check out this article from CNN on unfolding events in Egypt as Egyptians contune their protests against their authoritarian government. The important thing for our class is to consider how new communication technologies like Facebook and Twitter are affecting (1) the way citizens can inform and organize themselves and (2) the way journalists (and the rest of the world) learn about events on the ground.

CNN reports on protests in Egypt

Since the evolution of these technologies there have been other protest movements in places like Tibet, Pakistan, and Iran. In all cases, organizers used technologies to bring out supporters and get information out to the world. In all cases, authoritarian regimes limited access to the Internet and sites like Twitter and Facebook, seeing them as a real threat. Unfortunately, in all cases, the gun was more powerful than the keyboard and the authoritarian regimes prevailed.

Videos Links: Understanding Evolution of the Web

The following links refer to media shown in Convergence class on Tuesday, Jan 25th.

Ted Talks Video: Tim Berners Lee on the history and the evolution of the "next" (i.e. semantic) web. A brief description of the evolution across web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.



Web 2.0 The Machine is Us/ing Us





Another description of Web 2.0, with examples and discussion of the technologies that make it possible. (Many such videos are circulating out there, courtesy of thousands of contributors like you & me exchanging knowledge in this gift economy that characterizes the web.




Finally, this is a an article that excerpts the assigned article "The Future is Smart Machines (and Soup)" by Miko Coffey.

Teen Tech Incubators Needed in Urban Centers

Teen Tech Incubators needed in urban centers. From BlackWeb2.0. "The adoption and literacy of technology for inner-city youth should be our primary concern." (Interesting dialogue in comments section also).