Media Convergence and the Freedom it Brings

Media convergence has had the wonderful side-effect of providing an outlet for the voice of "the common folk." Video hosting services, such as Youtube, allow us not only to watch these videos, but encourage us to make them. Indeed, as technology has developed, the barrier of entry has dropped rapidly. In the early days, you still needed a video camera, a couple wires, maybe even dedicated equipment, simply to get the footage onto your computer. From there, you would have to edit it together using a specialized program, before finally sending it to the website. Now, we have services like Vine, whose entire market is short footage with minimal editing; slices of human life. Where once we were simply the consumer, now, we are all producers as well. One of the best examples of this is collaborative websites. Anything from the group-drawing site Flockdraw, to Google Docs for synchronized document editing, to Plug.dj, a music site that allows you to get into a "room" and have everyone listening to the same video at once.

On the other hand, this rise in technology has also provided us with options. No longer do we rely on one company to sell us a radio, we can pick from any number of hardware, software, and website options. If I don't like Youtube, I can post to Vimeo. I can use Tumblr to blog instead of Google-owned Blogger. I can play mobile games on an Apple tablet, or one from Samsung, or even Microsoft.

Welcome to the 21st century, an era of media freedom. A time where the wall between the producer and consumer has collapsed almost entirely.

Jason Kottke's Thoughts on Blogging

Jason Kottke seems to be someone aware of the net culture of his era. He talks about how even though he followed a few weblogs, just about anyone could start up a site and call it that. To him, what you did with it was what defined your blog as something worth reading. For him, like many others, his blog drifts between topics as he wishes, although he broadly labels it as "a site about the liberal arts."

His blog, however, sounds to fit more within the traditional definition, a website that acted as a log of the sites you found interesting, along with some personal notes. Over time, he's noticed the shift in how he and others use blogs, in which many of his old communities have fractured and fallen apart. Notably, before he had so many followers, he used to share details of his personal life on his blog, perhaps in the same way that we use social media.

I find it amazing how integrated he is with is own blog. Updating it 10 to 12 times a day, regardless of if it's a whole post or just an additional link, seems to be a feat to me. Even moreso, that he's able to make a career of this. I appreciated his notes on how advertisers even affect content on even a subconscious level, not wanting to offend his financial supporters.

Finally, in the era of clickbait media and outrage culture, I find it necessary to highlight this particular section:

Do you ever write to deliberately provoke a reaction? Any tips on how to do that?I've probably done this in the past, but don't do it much anymore. Provoking reactions is not that hard; try not provoking someone who disagrees with your point of view, that's the real art.

Kittens

Scripted post the second. People like cats, right? Well, here's some more. Don't even think I needed to make this one.

First Post

Wow. My first (scripted) post.