Due to the introduction of the internet, social media, webpages- anything that creates data is contributing to big data. “Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured.” (Laney 2001) Without data, there would be no saved content, which would result in computers being useless, similar without big data, the internet would not exist.  Every time a website is opened or a status is updated, it generates data; big data is being used to make sense of all this data.

  Big data is often broken down into the three v’s; volume, variety and velocity. Volume focuses on the size of volume of the data, how big a status update or tweet is in terms of data. Variety looks at data coming from a range of sources now instead of just one, it can be structured or unstructured, internal or external and/or from a whole multitude of places. The velocity focuses on the speed data is stored and processed. Big Data was original used to reflect on previous results e.g. a company’s sales over the past year, however now it is being used to predict what will happen. Predicting failures occurring before they even happen, (Pearl 2012)

    While the evolution of new media is great, it also has a down fall in terms of big data. In 2011, 1.8 zetabytes of data was created and replicated to make that simpler, it would take 57,500,000,000 32GB iPods to hold that much data. (The Economists 2012) It is almost concerning that the humans are creating this much data at such a rapid pace, but what’s even more concerning is that it’s only going to increase more and more. With the constant update of technologies, data is going to get created and replicated a lot more frequently. It’s not just the increase of data that is being stored that’s the issue though; privacy is no longer available when using the internet. Without changing settings, anyone with Facebook can see your personal details and more product policies are allowing third party companies to track internet activity. If you post something online, it is going to be stored as data and accessible even if is deleted. (The Economists 2012)

  Though there are two sides to big data, I believe that without the proper introduction of privacy and tight security networks, the internet could eventually become too revealing to use. If it’s possible to pull out images and statuses that were deleted from the archives, then what could that mean for the future generation. Everyone has put up their fair share of silly information or imagery up online, but could this data come back to haunt us in our later lives?

Laney, Doug. 2001. 3D Data Management: Controlling Data Volume, Velocity, and Variety. META Group Inc. Accessed 11th May 2014.  http://blogs.gartner.com/doug-laney/files/2012/01/ad949-3D-Data-Management-Controlling-Data-Volume-Velocity-and-Variety.pdf

  Pearl, Daniel. 2012. Volume, Velocity and Variety of Big Data. Accessed 11th May 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidKQsJdIG0

  The Economist. 2012. The Dark Side of Big Data. Accessed 11th May 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4

Woodford, D. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self & Beyond.” Week 9 Lecture Notes. Accessed 8 May 2015. https://lecturecapture.qut.edu.au/ess/echo/presentation/11dcf106-e7c9-44eb-a753-74dfff689043?ec=true

  Media has always been the way politics have been broadcasted, but now with the implementation of new media, popularity and voting in politics is evolving. To gain the public vote politics are now using social media sites such as Facebook and twitter, to not only keep people up to date, but to also try and sway votes in their favour.

  An excellent example of a politician gaining popularity through the use of multiple different social networks is Barack Obama. Though original media was used to inform, educate and publicise results of all politics, new media, in particular social media sites, is the new way to reach the audiences. On Barack Obama’s Facebook, there is a display of things that will warm your heart and make you laugh, an example of this is Obama joining in on the “It’s gonna be May” meme (Waxman 2014). Although these posts are all fun and games, they are being used for politicians on a different agenda; these posts are being posted to attract you in and social media sites are generally just one big advertising campaign for politicians such as Barack Obama.

  New Media isn’t only being used for advertising campaigns for politicians, it’s also being used to reveal the truth and distribute information to whoever has access to new media devices. Wikileaks is a great example of a new media device that reveals truths and distributes information over the web (Sifry 2011). Wikileaks was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange and it is a non-profit journalism website that distributes hidden secrets, leaked information and much more from anonymous sources. The main goal of websites and organisations such as Wikileaks is to make governments and corporations account for their wrong doings by revealing secrets they have kept.

  Discovering secrets hidden by corporations and governments used to lead to activists marching and rioting, however with the implementation of new media, majority of todays strong believers are more “slacktivists” than activists. A slacktivist is “Anyone who does something in support of an issue or cause that requires minimal personal effort” (TheRashLab 2014). Remember KONY 2012? Well that was a prime example of slacktivism, people sharing a video all over the internet to try and make a change without knowing the real course or issue. Now I’m not saying that all slacktivism is bad, but sometimes slacktivism can turn into a bandwagon of people following a cause they know nothing about.

  With New Media having such a heavy influence of the current society’s political views, it is important that as a population, we don’t start being persuaded by simple posts on Facebook and other social networks. For the political system to stay fully functional, propaganda methods need to be kept to a minimum and decisions need to be based off facts, rather than cute posts with cats.

Reference List

  Sifry, Micah. 2011. “WikiLeaks, Assange, and Why There's No Turning Back (Exclusive Excerpt)”. The Huffington Post, November 2. Accessed April 14, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/micah-sifry/wikileaks-assange-micah-sifry_b_820671.html

  Waxman, Olivia B. 2014. “Barack Obama’s Facebook Page Joins “It’s Gotta Be May” Meme. Time, May 1. Accessed May 2nd, 2014. http://time.com/84527/barack-obamas-facebook-page-joins-its-gonna-be-may-meme/

New media has changed the entertainment industry by offering new ways of marketing, distributing and receiving media. The convergence of many platforms has become very popular for creative projects such as Hollywood blockbusters as it allows the consumers to receive the story on more than one level. Transmedia is delivering a new experience for audiences by allowing access to a range of content through multiple platforms. However, when it comes to new media and the entertainment industry, convergence is only one proposition. Another proposition is known as the “inclusionary vibe” (Flynn 2001), where filmmakers include the audience, allowing them to contribute to projects by online fan sites and forums.

Gomez (2010) refers to transmedia as “The vanguard process of conveying messages, themes or storylines to a mass audience through the artful and well-planned use of multiple-media platforms.” Transmedia has been implemented in many films in the past decade, the Lord of The Rings trilogy (2001-2003) is a great example of successful implementation of transmedia with games and books available to add to the story (Gomez 2010).  The Bourne Legacy (2012) demonstrates another excellent example of transmedia. Before the film was released an iPhone game was released to gain hype for the film and work as marketing revenue. The game allowed the player to almost feel immersed in the Bourne world, by adding references to the film within the game. Basically every Hollywood blockbuster is released with a transmedia strategy (Maher 2014); these strategies keep the marketing and disruption of the product as the main focus by releasing it on multiple media platforms. However it is important to note that transmedia is not only used to market films, it has also been incorporated into other industries too. “The Art of the H3ist” was a transmedia marketing campaign that attracted millions of people to the Audi website by distributing information of a stolen A3 over different platforms. (Sauter 2014) Today, transmedia is being used for films or other products, and has evolved a long way with the help of the internet and marketing geniuses.

  Creating collaboration between the internet and new media entertainment has been a revolutionary step for creative projects as it allows them to really involve audiences through participatory fandom. Peter Jackson and Lucas George both being very successful filmmakers, require a big audience for their productions to be successful. With the introduction of new media and internet fan clubs, the audiences started requesting to have a say in the productions like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The major difference in the production styles of Jackson and Lucas was that Jackson actively partook and listened to the online fan clubs while Lucas and Lucasfilm didn’t take much audience input on board. (Sherfin 2004)

  New Media has had a big influence over the entertainment industry in the past decades and is continuously changing the ways we consume and distribute media products. Transmedia and the inclusionary vibe have only been a small part of the new media and entertainment industries propositions, but they have had a huge influence on the way audiences experience productions, allowing fan bases to have input leaving them will a feeling of contribution.

  Reference List

  Burgess, Jean and Joshua Green. 2009. “You Tube and the Mainstream Media.” In YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture edited by Jean Burgess, Joshua Green and Henry Jenkins, 15-37. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press  

Flynn, G. 2001. Lord of the Rings: Ringmasters. Entertainment Weekly, pp. 36–46.

Gool, Daniël van. 2010. “Jeff Gomez Reveals Secrets to Transmedia Franchise Development at CineKid.” Accessed 17th March 2014. http://www.argn.com/2010/11/jeff_gomez_reveals_secrets_to_transmedia_franchise_development_at_cinekid/

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 5 Lecture Slides.” Accessed March 20,2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232447_1

Shefrin, Elana. 2004. “Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Participatory Fandom: Mapping New Congruencies Between the Internet and Media Entertainment Culture.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21 (3): 261-281

Crowdsourcing is known as “Harnessing collective resources (knowledge, money, creativity) to solve problems and/or produce things” (Sauter 2014). Week four looked at #crowdfunding through the internet in relation to the positive and negative aspects. Crowdfunding is essentially “many individuals investing small amounts to raise capital for a venture or cause” (Sauter 2014). It is a very good idea if the project being funded lives up to the pledger’s expectations, but if it isn’t what the pledgers initially put their money towards; a lot of issues can arise. Project creators use incentive to entice people to pledge and donate, but pledgers may also just want to feel as though they were a part of the project by donating. Cloud Labour is an “On demand scalable workforce to perform variety of tasks” (Sauter 2014). An example of Cloud Labour is Amazon Mechanical Turk which allows user to earn small income by completing “HITS”. (Amazon 2014)

Before crowdfunding, for an idea to receive funding, it had to be backed by a wealthy business man, a company or a publisher. But now, with the help of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding websites such as “Kickstarter”, indie projects such as video games, board games, books, watches and much more are being given the chance to be successful without having to go through big time companies. One of the most successful kickstarter projects was “The Pebble Watch”, having almost 69,000 backers and raising over $10,000,000. Pebble is a customizable watch that allows you to download new watch faces, use sports and fitness apps and even allows you to receive notifications from your phone. (Kickstarter 2012) The idea for the pebble watch was innovative and unique, and it didn’t disappoint pledgers in the slightest, but not all projects leave the pledgers feeling satisfied with the final project.

I had always thought that google images had artificial intelligence that could recognise and tag images such as a photo of a tree which blew my mind, but unfortunately technology hasn’t quite evolved that far yet. It turns out #CloudLabour is really what’s behind all the decisions, but it isn’t just limited to images; Cloud Labour is used for writing articles, transcribing audio and many other types of small jobs. On Amazon Mechanical Turk these jobs are known as “HITS” (Amazon 2014) and can reward workers anywhere from $0.01 upwards depending on what the HIT requires. Cloud Labour certainly won’t make you rich, but it’s a good way to earn some extra income and to even pass time, especially because you can work your own hours and from the comfort of your own home.

  Reference List

Amazon. 2014. Amazon Mechnical Turk: Artificial Artificial Intelligence. Accessed 30th March 2014. https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

Kickstarter. 2012. Pebble: E-Watch for iPhone and Andriod. Accessed 30th March 2013. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android

Sauter, Theresa. Dr. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 4 lecture notes.” Accessed March 30, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FcontentWrapper.jsp%3Fcontent_id%3D%7Bunset%2520id%7D%26displayName%3DLecture%2BRecordings%26course_id%3D_108110_1%26navItem%3Dcontent%26href%3D%252Fwebapps%252Fosc-BasicLTI-bb_bb60%252Ftool.jsp%253Fcourse_id%253D_108110_1%2526id%253Decho36

#Trending topics of 23/03/2014

  Thanks to Facebook’s trending section, I have been informed that the #Force beat the #Chiefs in Super Rugby and I was also updated that Arsenal took a 6-0 pounding against Chelsea! (Now I've got something to use against my friend, cheers Facebook!). All this knowledge was all readily available for me upon opening up Facebook and checking my homepage. A decade ago this kind of information was only accessible via the daily news or the weekly paper, which shows that the Internet and social networks have really opened up the door for spreadability on the web.

  The week three lecture focused on the topic of #spreadability and how consumers receive new media content online. In the past decade, the way new media content is advertising has changed drastically with the opening of internet advertising.

  Thanks to social media networks, it is now possible to create advertising campaigns and productions online for free by anyone willing. YouTube is an excellent social media network to share work on and many users can make a living off creating successful channels. Pewdiepie is a great example as he is the most subscribed to person on YouTube, with over twenty five million subscribers, or bros and he likes to call them. Pewdiepie became famous on the internet by posting videos playing video games complimented by footage of his reactions and commentary. However, Pewdiepie couldn’t have become a well-known YouTuber without consumers spreading his work and sharing his content with friends. It’s crazy to think that Pewdiepie has a following larger than the entire population of Australia, all thanks to the power of spreadability on the internet.

  Jon Favreau (2014) believes that like the music industry, talented film makers will start to become discovered through online sources such as YouTube. Recognising the possibilities for advertising and displaying talent via the internet, Jon used Vine to do casting announcements for the film. He showed off actors such as Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr in these videos. (Lazer 2014) It was an innovative way to bring hype to the film by showing of well-known actors through social media; the best part being, it’s free. Since social networks are free and have become very popular in the recent years, they are one of the best advertising tools to upload and share footage via. Websites and webpages everywhere can embed videos linked to YouTube, and with a click of the button, videos can be shared onto various different sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

The internet has really opened up a new era of opportunity through spreadability for both consumers and creation of new media. Which is “enabling the mute to speak and the invisible to be seen.” (Green and Jenkins 2011, 109)

References

Green, Joshua and Henry Jenkins. 2011. “Spreadable Media. How Audiences Create Value and Meaning in a Networked Economy.” In The Handbook of Media Audiences edited by Virginia Nightingale, 109-127. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Lazer, Shira. 2014. "Jon Favreau: How Technology Has Changed the Film Industry" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shira-lazar/jon-favreau-how-technolog_b_4966009.html

Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: Week 3 Lecture Slides.” Accessed March 20,2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232444_1