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