Creativity vs. Individual Rights: How the Digital is Complicating the Debate

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Last year I was an editor for BYU's Prelaw Review. It wasn't too bad, but I know now that I defintely don't want to study law. It has too many nuances and the reading can be incredibly dull. I chose to work on one being written about copyright law. It seemed to be a good choice for an English major/ Editing minor.

For two semesters, I went to work with author Jordan Call and two other editors on the paper that Jordan eventually called Updating Copyright: Capitalizing on Digital Opportunities. It's actually quite good--he did a nice job and we weren't too bad of editors either. Read it if you have some time.

The claim that Jordan eventually published, and that surrounded the work on the article for the entire school year was that "the Copyright Act should be revised by eliminating the exclusive reproduction and distribution rights granted to copyright holders in the case of digital media" (see pg. 7 of his article).

I reeled at this claim the entire year that we worked on it. I played devil's advocate against him probably more than he cared for. Eventually I had to just tell myself that he was the author and that if he wanted to write a law review article about how we should pretty much just eliminate the copyright law as it applies to digital media, then fine. I was just the editor. It was his name that was going to appear in print (although, he did thank me and the other two editors in the first footnote on the first page, so my name actually did wind up attached to the work).

Initially what bothered me the most about Jordan's claim was that I thought artists would not receive compensation if their exclusive reproduction and distribution rights were eliminated for their digital content. Jordan asserted that there "seem to be many other compelling factors besides monetary compensation that drive people to create." Recognizing that monetary compensation can be important to artists trying to earn a living though, Jordan comes up with other economic models that would allow artists to share their works and receive compensation. See Section III of his article for the models.

Anyways, even though I was impressed by  many of his arguments, I'll admit that Jordan did not have me entirely convinced by the end of our work on the paper. But he didn't need to have me convinced, so the paper was published and life went on. After the semester I soon forgot about the work on that article and moved on to other things, figuring that if I ever needed to know about copyright law in my future endeavors, I'd work with a lawyer. However, when I came back to it through the Digital Culture class at BYU, I began to see some of Jordan's points more clearly. Therefore, I was especially curious about what the panel members of BYU's Copyright and Fair Use Laws presenation at the Varsity Theater today would have to say about it.

Through my work with Jordan, I'd heard most of what they had to say before. What struck me the most though were the comments about Creative Commons, a site that me, the other editors, and Jordan somehow missed in our research. If Jordan had known about it, there is no doubt he would have mentioned it as a potential economic model.

Creative Commons logo

Creative Commons provides a good middle ground for the current Use vs. Ownership and Creativity vs. Individual Rights debates. Creative Commons has six different licenses that creators can put on their works. Some allow as much freedom as allowing others to use your work and tweak it as much as they want, even for commercial purposes, so long as they give you credit for the original work. Others are more restrictive in not allowing commercial use or only allowing downloads and shares of the work, but nothing else. This seems like a wonderful compromise: creators are still in control of their work but others can use their work for their own creative purposes.

However, Creative Commons does not apply to those who want to sell their works for a living. And arists have every right to want revenue for their hard work, just like non-artists want revenue for their hard work. Maybe there are those that would say creativity should be free for everyone and those people should find another job. Jordan certainly thought so, and he argued that people would create regardless. I'm not so sure. If people weren't getting paid for their works would we have people aspiring to be writers or artists or musicians? Granted, many people that write, draw/paint, or sing do not do it for the money. But some, and in fact it can be argued that many, do. And even if they don't do it for the money, it can be argued that the money certainly frees them up to have time to create more.

The take-home point I got from the panel is that the lines surrounding the Copyright Law have become blurred thanks to digital culture. There are hot debates going on over it. Be aware of potential changes to it in the coming years.

Curation via Pintrest

So, this week I've been doing some curation on Pinterest. It's been really fun for me, since I enjoy pinterest anyway, but the topic is something that I'm realizing is way more interesting and displays a remarkable difference in the way young people like to think of themselves online, particularly in the realm of fandoms.

As a general rule, young people are known to want to fit in. To be popular, to feel a part of the community. The opinion of other people is extremely important at that young age. But people in fandoms seem to be taking a different spin on this idea.

Image provided through pinterest. CURATION!

 

People in fandoms enjoy calling themselves various names and distinguishing themselves from other groups of people. The entire culture seems determined not just to be obsessive over different forms of entertainment but also to make sure that other people know that they are different from the general population. They're smarter, better even. Even if that feeling of being better is just feeling like you're different from everyone else.

 

According to what I've been able to curate, the general feeling of fandoms is of superiority and excitement. They're having so much fun that they can't help but step back and laugh at everyone else who isn't having as much fun as they are. They're crying, because they're attached to the characters of shows and books and terrible things happen to them, but they're enjoying it.

 

That's not to say that they complete disregard the feelings of other people. They are not so self centered, at least as far as I can tell. They are just a culture of people that is constantly being mocked and criticized. People think that what they're doing has no value, and so as a defense they both accept the criticism (we're crazy) and shove it back in their faces (We're better than you). For young people, this isn't too surprising. But I still find it extremely interesting that young people (up into young adult hood, and probably beyond that as well) are so willing to "throw themselves under the bus" so to speak and accept their roles as social outcasts. Even scream the praises of it.

 

I think this is a fascinating culture. Whereas before the internet, nerds and geeks were made fun of and belittled, stuck in a place where they couldn't find anyone that was like themselves. Now the belittling is just as strong, but the nerds (or the fandoms) can come together to find support and turn on the bullies, turn on the rest of the world and say, "No. You're in the wrong." Because they don't know what they're missing. This is so fascinating. So far I've been focused on what the fandom has to say about itself, but now I'm going to turn my attention to what other people have to say. I'm interested to see if there are any "generation Y is so lazy and horrible they have fandoms" articles out there. I would love to have the chance to dissect those and hopefully rip them apart.

 

 

 





Copyright Knowledge and Creativity in the Digital World: The Forum

In attending the Copyright forum, I thought I would blog about some key points presented today that peaked my interest.

1. We encounter copyright laws everyday. The introductory speaker made a point of mentioning various encounters with potential copyright law he had experienced just previously that day. I had never thought about how much our daily lives and society in general revolve around the  intellectual property of others.

2. Many creators want to share their content. I enjoyed listening to one of the panelists discuss an undergraduate project he worked on curating photos and film clips pertaining to Anne Frank. He conveyed that the Anne Frank institution wanted her photos to be used and shared and Steven Spielberg wanted video footage of WWII shared for educational purposes and were able to grant him usage.

3. We all have copyrights. It was discussed that we all have copyrights to texts, emails, photos we take (even on our cell phones), posts, etc. I enjoyed the perspective that we need to be aware of others' copyright laws by first asking the question, "What am I intending to use this content for?" The more we use others' work and the more we create ourselves, copyrights should represent our intended purpose for them. Hopefully we will all be able to create content in a way that balances gaining profit with the desire to share content to further general progress.

What changes do you think need to be made to copyright laws in order for adaptation to the digital world?

The Joys of Wikispaces

All right, so my last blog post about Wikispaces was more along the lines of how I've been using it to curate for my early returned missionary project. So, this post will be more about what Wikispaces can be used for in general.

First off, what is a wiki? I'm going to steal Wikispaces's definition because it's a good one. A wiki is a space on the Web where you can share work and ideas, pictures and links, videos and media--and anything else you can think of. You can create folders to organize your information, making it so that all of your research material can be organized and stored in one place.You don't have to share it though. It can be private too, like mine.

Wikispaces is very user-friendly. You don't have to be too tech-saavy to understand it at all.  They give you a visual editor and a bunch of other tools to make sharing and editing content very easy. Everything is very straightforward, and if you get confused their "Help" page seems very thorough. I haven't had to use it yet, but maybe my wiki just doesn't need to be very complicated, so I don't need to worry about any of the extra technical stuff (like commenting or collaborating).

Anyways, with Wikispaces you can create a wiki for yourself or for a group. It can be for any industry, and you don't even need to name your industry if you just want one for personal use. Right now, they are advertising more the use of wikis as a classroom tool. They promise that their wikis will help educators "teach easier," "improve outcomes," and "engage students."


I'm excited that I found Wikispaces to help me create an easy-to-use wiki. It seems like it'll be a great tool.

Youth Online: Looking At How We Identify Ourselves

I'm reading Angela Thomas' book, "Youth Online: Identity and Literacy in the Digital Age." I'm really interested in this because I think that kids (and young adults) are getting access to this interesting new way to express themselves. I've been doing curation on Fandoms and I find it really fascinating what words some young people are using to describe themselves (crazy, obsessed, etc). I think this book will help me understand why the youth of today are looking to the web to define who they are and how that's changing the way their view themselves.

Preview:
After flipping through the pages of Youth Online I've found that the book is going to focus a lot on avatars and the interactions of youth through popular media (such as fan sites and fanfiction). There is a little about how youth interact with each other sexually, but the majority of the book seems to focus on what youth do with fiction and how they interact with it. Whether that's just through the use of an avatar and pretending to be someone you're not, or through diving into the worlds of your favorite books or TV shows, it's all coming together to form what young people think of themselves while online. This is perfect for me, of course, because it ties in directly with my emphasis on fandoms and what that means for the people involved.

Social Proof:
Nobody responded to my google+ status about reading Youth Online. I'm hoping that will change, because I know a lot of my friends are interested in identity and what it means. I have a friend who used to argue with me adamantly about how online friendships were just as valid and real as face to face friendships and that he could meet people online and form relationships with them. I think that the identity of those people is what most parents/objectors have a problem with when their children tell them they've found someone online to be with. I was talking with my husband, who is always online. The majority of this interactions with people are online and he's part of several forums for different fan things he likes (his are more games than TV shows or books though). When I asked him about what he thought of identity online he didn't really have anything to say about it. But when I pressed a little more he started talking about the allure of the internet and how it helps people interact with people they otherwise would have never known. He said understanding that allure, why it happens and why people feel drawn to the internet rather than interacting in the normal "social" sphere is probably important to understand.

Related Books:
When I went onto Amazon to see what other books would be connected to youth identity in the digital age, I only found one book recommended: Video Games and Learning: Teaching and Participatory Culture in the Digital Age (Technology, Education--Connections) I wasn't altogether surprised that Amazon linked me to a video game book. But unsatisfied that I was only given one other source to look at, I went to google books and looked there. I was a lot more successful with finding other recommended books for research, but I was a little surprised at what exactly what recommended: Who Do They Think They Are?: Teenage Girls & Their Avatars in Spaces of Social Online Communication and Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity. Two of the top recommendations had to do with females and their identities on the web! Nothing was recommended for men. This was rather shocking to me and I'm itching to find out more. The jump to video games was in conjunction with my previous ideas about fan culture, so it didn't come as a surprise to me, but automatically pinpointing females and their roles on the web is rather shocking. Both have to do with avatars and the way girls present themselves online. Where did that come from? Are women experiencing more of a problem than men are? Or do we just not care about the boys?

Who Cares?
I did a search on twitter for "youth online" and got nothing. I searched for the author and got a bunch of people who "love Jesus" so that wasn't what I was looking for (though good for them). But when I searched #onlineidentity I got a ton of hits. There were people talking about how to protect your online identity, about video games, about facebook giving you a better review than your resume, amongst other things. Online identity is a hot topic, and I didn't even realize it! People are discussing what it is doing for them and why it's important. I find the range of ideas interesting as well. There were critics of identity as well as defenders. Though, I was slightly surprised to find people advocating the protection of their online identity, which is hilarious because that's probably one of the most talked about things! Goes to show you learn something new every day.

Formal Reviews:
I'm actually really shocked. I searched for reviews on this book and could hardly find any. There is the main review that's found on the back of the book (also found online) that mostly discusses what goes on in the book (psychoanalysis, etc) rather than what the reviewers opinion on it is. This was the only review I could find anywhere, even after looking for it in the BYU library. But there is another review on the inside of the book from Len Unsworth of the University of New England that says, "This book deals with crucially urgent concerns for all involved in the education of school-age young people". Other than that, there seems to be nothing. I don't know what that means yet, but I guess I'll find out.

Informal Reviews:
Shockingly, I actually found an informal review! I didn't think I would, so I just skipped to the next section of this blog post, but while searching for syllabi containing the book I came across a review by Christian Royer. He goes through the book giving a basic synopsis and at the end critiques the way she doesn't quite finish the job of talking about identity because she doesn't talk about some of the ethic concerns that revolve around it (plagiarism, privacy violations, etc).

Courses:
I found one course that had Angela Thomas' book in it. It wasn't a required reading, rather a book for which the students could review for an assignment (Irony, since I couldn't find a review ANYWHERE). It looked pretty interesting. The class seemed to be set up very similar to our class, with readings and a discussion board (like a blog I guess). Some of the other readings seem interesting. Other books the students could review in lieu of Thomas' are  Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet and  The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Neither of these books have to do with gender, so that's refreshing, and both look interesting. All three of them are relatively recent, but The Young and the Digital is the most current, having been published in 2009.

Multimedia:
I looked up "online identity" on youtube and found several videos that talk about the subject. I want to post the videos here, but I'm in the library with no headphones so I can't watch them yet. I'll edit this post tonight with the new uploads for Multimedia.

First Impressions of the Book:
I find myself quickly looking through her philosophical theories while spending a lot of time on the actual stories and zooming in on the Identities revolving around avatars and fan culture. She has a section - where I am reading currently - about children and "their stories" where the children she interviewed tell her about what they do online and how. I think this is really fascinating because I can both seem myself in what they're saying (a million tabs open, doing a million things at once) and yet still feel alientated when I think, "this person is like. . .12!" I'm very interested in chapters 4 "Youth Participation: Learning and Growth in the Forum," 5, "Youth Identities: narratives of self in the Avatar" and 6, "Youth Literacies: Understanding Self Through Role-playing the Other." I think these will really help me understand how young people identify themselves and what purpose there is to it. Is it good? Bad? both? I want to know what constructive things are going on with children learning about being themselves online. I think this book is going to be a fascinating read.

Researching the Impact of Youth with Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World

I am reading Don Tapscott's, "Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World." I'm really excited to read this book, because I have always had my personal opinions and thoughts on children being allowed to be online and often on their iPads, cellphones, video games, social networking, etc. I often see posted articles on Facebook that address children being exposed to so much technology and internet. Personally, I have always had a more negative perspective on children being allowed by their parents to be so plugged in to the digital world. Through studying digital culture, I know I need to be open to hearing the other side to this issue. I'm excited to read what Tapscott has discovered in how the net generation is actually benefitting society.

Preview
I spent some time reviewing and browsing the table of contents and skimming through the book and bibliography, and I'm excited! I thought the whole book would be mainly what youth could possibly offer and their potential for being in the net generation, but it looks like he's going to be describing them and their characteristics in detail and then not only how they can change society, but institutions as well, such as families, education, the workforce, and being consumers. I'm curious to read such specific and concentrated information on each of these areas.

Early Social Proof
No one commented on any of my social media feeds of announcing this research and book reading!! Not yet, at least. Instead I turned to my husband and my dad. My husband said that some of the smartest people he knows are ones who were hermit crabs that stayed home on their computers all the time. We talked about how a lot of the workplace is now becoming less about how much education you obtain and more of what you can actually do, skill-wise. Other than that, he said, he disagrees with youth being really present in the digital world. All my dad said was that he has always thought that digital culture will rot children's brains and it's all too addicting for youth, despite all the benefits that come from the net. He still has my youngest three siblings at home and they are all more in tune with digital culture than I am, so he told me he's actually curious to read my findings on the matter, since this is a common issue at our house. Whether or not the kids are being harmed by the digital age, or if they are being benefited.

Similar Books
In browsing the recommended books on Amazon and Google Books, I found some books that were suggested more than once. Evidently, Don Tapscott is an expert on this subject, so a lot of his own works were suggested. Here are three of the most common similar books suggested:





1. Growing Up Digital, by Don Tapscott
The predecessor before Grown Up Digital. In this book, Tapscott really announced the net generation. This is a great help and companion to my current book.

2. Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
Tapscott and Williams dive in to how mass collaboration is changing the world of business in the marketplace. This is great and relatable, because Tapscott spend time in Grown Up Digital about the workplace and how the net generation is affecting it.

3. Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking, by Mark Bauerlein
A compilation and commentary on the pros and cons, successes and dangers of social networking. Social networking is one of the top sources where youth are engaging in, so this could be another great addition to read with my current book.






Who Cares?
Twitter provided a major feed and following of Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital. First I tried searching for #grownupdigital. The results were impressive! It was encouraging to see many other peers of mine getting involved in this subject matter as well. It was really popular amongst those considered to be among the net generation, happily posting their gratitude to Tapscott for writing about their group's potential. It also seemed that there was a good handful of students whose teachers asked them to study it. I also went onto my newly found curation tool, Springpad, and it lead me to a great post that someone made referencing Tapscott's encouragement to educators to let go of the traditional way of lecturing in the classroom. Google+ produced a lot of results for multimedia, particularly many videos of Tapscott discussing the net generation.

Formal Reviews
Using Google, I found a great review by Roger Trapp in 2009. He recounts the great enthusiasm Tapscott has for the younger generation and explains how too often the net generation is looked down upon. He applauds Tapscott for his open mindedness to a younger generation, especially because Tapscott is an early one of the baby boomers.

Informal Reviews
I first started my search for informal reviews with Google, where I came across Dr. Curt Bonk's blog. What a great find! This blog is by an educator who really valued the education chapters within the book. He gives a great overarching synopsis of Tapscott's message and gives great reasons as to why we should read this book. Something that was perfect for my research, was that he listed specific page numbers with brief noted content and why these passages stood out to him. By the end of the blog, Dr. Bonk provides a list of names of people who are referenced in the bibliography who are also referenced in a book he wrote, called, "The World is Open." I followed the link to Bonk's book and it is about technology and the web are revolutionizing education, which supports many of Tapscott's points he makes with education.

Courses Using My Book
I found through a Google search that the University of Massachusetts has a sociology course that focuses on internet and society, and they read my book as part of their curriculum. Regent University also reads the book in their Organizational Communications course. I found that a lot of colleges and universities study Don Tapscott books, particularly "Growing Up Digital", which is really similar, but different."

Multimedia

In this video, Tapscott goes through the introduction of the book where he sets up his argument and lays to rest any idea of the net generation being stupid. In the video below, it is a really great interview with Tapscott that is more candid and is asked to address several concerns and issue that could arise with his book, such as is he just being optimistic about the generation, or does the data really prove his theory?

First Impressions of the Book
After reading parts of the book for an hour, I find myself most interested in chapter 5: The Net Generation as Learners, chapter 6: The Net Generation and the Family, and chapter 10: Making the World a Better Place at Ground Level. Wow. I honestly really enjoyed reading from this book, especially these chapters. He does a great job in addressing the common problems we often associate with youth being immersed in the digital age. These three chapters specifically I wanted to focus on, because of its emphasis on the mentality and behavior of the net generation instead of just solely what they can offer. Our digital culture course has made me very aware of new methods of learning and to actually do it in the most tailored effective way, rather than solely in any traditional way. With a lot of human behavior developing in the home, It was important for me to see how the family and home life was being changed through the net generation to adapt.

My Thinking So Far
Overall, I got a sense of optimism for the future as I read- that the net generation isn't a damper in the world, but something that will help us become more efficient in every day duties and life. I felt very proud of the advances of the net generation and it was refreshing to look at the issue in a different light. For further research with this book, I anticipate to read the remaining chapters to get a wider scope of how the net generation is affecting not only the home and learning, but businesses and other fields as well.

Learning Why DIY Matters in Cory Doctorow's Makers

I'm reading Cory Doctorow's Makers because I want to know how DIY reaches beyond fun crafts and hobbies and is impacting more than just my home décor. After thinking about it, I imagine that the Maker Movement has the most far-reaching effects on the economy. However, my experience is that is saves me a couple bucks now and then but nothing drastic. After reading many of the Goodreads reviews, I'm expecting his book to raise a lot of moral questions that don't leave problems solved. I'm very curious about what moral questions the Maker Movement raises and how innovative entrepreneurs are profiting from it.

Preview
Woah!! Apparently, I got the wrong impression from the Goodreads reviews... I have thoroughly previewed Makers and this is a fictional novel! So much for wanting facts and figures and non-fiction, inspirational, real-life accounts of innovative entrepreneurs. Not what I was expecting, however, that's okay and I'm willing to try it! The book is pretty big and it's broken into three parts. I'm assuming the parts cover Perry and Lester's inventions taking flight and the conflicts their new economy "The New Work" start to face. I can definitely see how Doctorow will fit in moral conflicts that arise with the economy in a digital, DIY world.

Early Social Proof
No comments yet from my social network posts. In talking over the maker movement with my husband, I explained the plot of Makers to him by saying, "It's basically two fictional characters taking the concept of DIY and making things that revolutionize economic industry." To be honest, he didn't really find any interest in the subject and concluded that he believes there will always be a demand to pay people for doing things for them. His comment is relevant to the world of DIY, but probably not so much to the plot of Makers based on my preview. But our conversation did get me thinking about the concept of the plot relating to Apple. Jobs invented a computer that then inspired a wave of technology that has revolutionized not only the computer industry, but the music and cell phone industries as well. Unfortunately my social proofing experience overall was rather discouraging but I'm going to hang in there and hopefully enjoy wrestling with Doctorow's digital controversies.

Similar Books



It's even by our favorite, Chris Anderson!



1. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution - this is the book I actually want to read for my project!! I read a few pages and really like it much better than Makers.

2. Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing

3. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business

I see that 3D printing is a really hot topic within the Maker Movement, which makes sense considering that it literally makes objects. It's also clear that the Maker Movement is really leaving a footprint in the economy. I previewed the first few pages of Chris Anderson's book to the left and really want to swap out my current choice. It is much more along the lines of the research I'm looking for and it's f-wordless (the other book swears like a sailor)!! Two bonuses! I need to talk to Dr. Burton about that.



Who Cares?
The social context for this book is definitely among the techies of the digital world. I found a recent guest blog Doctorow did for Citizen Science Quarterly and found his interest in copyright laws and ownership rights of digital literature. As I downloaded the eBook, I found that Doctorow has a deep interest in copyright laws and will be on the lookout for that theme in Makers. I also found that those who posted about Makers by Doctorow directly referenced 3D Printing, even explaining terminology that was used in the novel to tell her friends about what 3D printing is. Makers was also promoted on a tech blog to provoke thinking about the digital impact of a technologically advancing futuristic society. The blogs that referenced the book were actually pretty interesting and I enjoyed their articles because they all referenced the impact of the advancement of technology.

Formal Reviews
I used BYU's library to find two formal reviews of Makers. Douglas C. Lord formally reviews Makers and highlights Doctorow's themes of "sabotage, intellectual property rights, and lawsuits." These are interesting themes if you can get past the cynical tone of Doctorow's style. I appreciate Lord's reference to the book's lens of "obesity, social politics, and loneliness" that are products of such futuristic technological advancement. Paul Marks focuses on Doctorow's illustration of "electronic waste" and the possibilities that can come from basic neglected technologies in the dump. These are all interesting concepts to further delve into considering the availability of basic technology available for the "making." These formal reviews focus on the futuristic world that Doctorow has created while simultaneously agreeing that this world is not so far off although it may seem radical.

Informal Reviews
Using Google blog search, I found this blog, which was a blessing in disguise because it alerted me of an unknown "far too descriptive sex scene, which felt like it was cut and pasted out of some steamy erotic romance novel." I had already scanned and counted more than 4+ f-words so I think this is my last straw and will hopefully switch my book to a more uplifting piece, if that's okay with Dr. Burton. Another blog focused on Doctorow's overall presentation of  "a cautionary tale as a speculation on what the future will bring." This post led me to believe that Doctorow is concerned with the pitfalls that digital culture and the Maker Movement encompass.


Courses Using My Book
I didn't find any courses referencing my book, however, I did find an introduction by Cory Doctorow posted by Duke Law School discussing intellectual property. I'm interested in intellectual property  because I think it's hard to draw the line of what's "too far" in claiming those rights.

Multimedia

In Doctorow's short interview, it's interesting how he is trying to emphasize the spirit of making and changing the world by creating things with your own hands. It's interesting that he wants his readers to take away the overall amazing way that profiting off your own creations is so accessible in the digital age.

First Impressions
Within Part I, I'm definitely most interested in Doctorow's not-so-subtle implication that economic growth and innovation means real work. For example, Kettleworth, the CEO starts talking about the way to help people is not to give them money, but to give them the skills and innovative techniques to harness their creativity into business in profit. This is especially appealing to me because I am rather conservative when it comes to economic policy because I firmly believe it's necessary to work to sustain yourself rather than receiving funds to spend. Doctorow clearly celebrates the talent of creation and making something extraordinary out of the seemingly ordinary. This is a main draw for my interest in the DIY movement in general because I think, like Dr. Burton has explained, there is an innate human desire and satisfaction in producing something, especially something of worth.

Launching into niche marketing with Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail"

I have been intrigued with the long tail since it was first introduced to me and my classmates by Professor Burton a few weeks ago. I have become even more interested in it since deciding to go after promoting the niche topic of early returned LDS missionaries. Chris Anderson developed the idea of the long tail, and so I am hoping that by reading the second edition of his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More will help me better understand how to 1) Market my idea and eventually my book and 2) What exactly I'm getting into by trying to promote such a niche subject.

Preview
After scanning the book for several minutes, I am pleased to report that it seems like it'll be much less boring than I thought. In fact, it might even be a fun read! Chris Anderson writes in a colloquial voice, and tells personal stories throughout the book (I skimmed it here and there). From looking at the table of contents it also seems like he's going to walk me through understanding the long tail step-by-step. There are nice graphs here and there too which is always helpful in understanding economics.

Early Social Proof
Well, it's been 41 minutes and no one has commented on my Twitter or Google + announcement that I am beginning my research on the long tail. (And no, it didn't take me 41 minutes to write the last two paragraphs...I've been hopping between projects). That's all right though. I know that if nothing else, my hubby will be happy to talk to me about my research. He's already very intrigued with the long tail, not for any personal project reasons, but because he's a math/science/computer guy and new ideas in those areas always intrigue him. Plus, he's a big supporter of my early returned missionary project. But even without anyone's support, I already have enough personal drive to research this topic on my own.

books.google.com

Similar Books

• Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson
• Free: How Today's Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing by Chris Anderson
• How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors : Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee by Lawrence Lessig
• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen

In searching Google and Amazon to find books related to The Long Tail, I mostly found other books written by Chris Anderson talking about similar themes of smart ways to do business, particularly by incorporating internet technologies. Lawrence Lessig's name kept popping up as well, so I decided to check out two of his books, which are about the same things, although Lessig focuses a bit more on the law surrounding copyright and open-sourcing. Clayton M. Christensen showed up for both Lessig and Anderson's books so I decided to check him out as well, and it turns out that he also writes on very similar themes, particularly about smart ways to do business (especially if you are a large corporate company). One thing that I did notice is that Anderson seems to focus more on the lay-person (although he certainly could talk to high-powered business people) while Lessig and Christensen seem to focus more on the high-powered corporate people.

Who Cares?

After doing some more searching on Twitter and Google+ just to see what the conversation is, I found that most people who are interested in the long tail are professionals in web development, marketing, or technology. There seemed to be two main groups today too: those who are skeptical of the validity of the long tail, particularly in the music industry. I found these folks on Twitter. The article trending among these people is titled The Most Important Thing You Will Read All Day. I'm not going to pretend that I understood it completely, but it did seem to make a valid point about how hard it is to make money in that industry, especially if your music is in the long tail. Others, both on Google+ and Twitter are particularly excited about the hummingbird movement that Google is doing, which from what I understood is Google improving their algorithms for searches. I found a particularly useful video explaining how Google Hummingbird will help long tail subjects get better search results on this blog.

Formal Reviews

I couldn't find any professional reviews of the second edition of The Long Tail (maybe the professionals think the second edition is pretty much the same?), so I looked for some for the first edition and found two pretty good reviews. The first one was from The New Yorker and the other was from Slate.com. Both initially praised Anderson's book by saying that it had done a good job at "uncover[ing] a  phenomenon that's undeniably going on and [making] clear sense of it" (Slate.com article), but then go on to point out the flaws in Anderson's argument. The New Yorker points out that Anderson's idea is "not as original as [his] publishers would have us believe" and then states that Alvin Toffler actually wrote about the idea first in his book The Third Wave back in the 80s. Furthermore, the author of the review on Slate.com felt that Anderson was "overreaching" his claim and points out the areas where the long tail certainly cannot exist, such as the oil business. The author liked Anderson's book well-enough for the businesses in which the long tail can, and does, exist but just thought Anderson's claim went too far and therefore made it weaker.

Informal Reviews

There are a lot of opinions out there about Anderson's book, some full of criticism and others showering his idea with praise. I found a good blog post called Has the Blockbuster killed the Long Tail? This post starts off with this straightforward, almost deadpanned statement: "The Long Tail is dead." The writer later says, "Harvard professor Anita Elberse claims that she has evidence that the Long Tail is wrong, and that digital markets translate into more power to the blockbuster." He writes down what Elberse has to say and then refutes it thoroughly in his post. I like that he presented Elberse's evidence and admitted upfront that he needed to read her novel to fully understand her claim. I also like that in the meantime, he defended Anderson's book against this critic by elaborating more on what Anderson is saying. I love that he ends his review with "it is very early to dismiss Elberse's arguments completely, but if the above feature some of her best examples against the Long Tail, I don't think Chris Anderson will be too bothered."

In Good reads, I found digital enthusiasts, professionals, students, and contest winners reviewing the book. I loved this honest response from a contest winner, "Business is usually not the most interesting of topics and is difficult to express thoughts and ideas too but putting it in a comic format really did help me as a reader to see what he is talking about. I'm really glad I read this, it really opened my eyes towards the world of entertainment." So it's a good read, and the writing style seems to be colloquial enough for even the layperson to understand and enjoy. Yay!

Courses Using Anderson's Book

I found several courses using Anderson's book. Here are three of the top hits:

In Spring 2006, the University of Texas at Dallas had a class called ATEC 6V81 (Special Topics in Emergent Communication) that required students to purchase Anderson's book.

In 2009, The University of Memphis had two classes that used the updated and revised version of Anderson's book (the one I'll be reading): COMM 4211 and 6211 (Media 2.0: Production and Distribution in the Digital Age).

In Spring 2012, The University of Southern California, required simply "The Long Tail by Chris Anderson" for its COMM 432 class (American Media and Entertainment industries).

Multimedia

I found multiple clips of a presentation Chris Anderson gave for The Long Now Foundation at The Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco, CA. The whole presentation can be watched here. I chose to watch this nine minute clip. Some things that I gleaned from this clip  is that Anderson is 1) Really into watching business trends, particularly marketing and sales trends over long periods of time. 2) He's researched this idea of the long tail for a long time now. 3) He's interested in how trends affect culture. 4)He's personable. He's colloquial in style. He wants people to understand his idea. 5) He is passionate about this subject, and therefore does not mind spending a great deal of time researching it and explaining it to others. He is obviously an authority on the subject, really believes in it, and is good at convincing others to believe it. No wonder he has received so much praise and criticism! The guy is good!

First Impressions of the Book

Because this book is not available at the BYU Library (even though the library's catalog says it is) and ebrary does not have it available to read, and Google Books only has certain pages "available for preview," I ordered the book for $3.99 off of Amazon. If I like it, I'll keep it. If not, I'll sell it back. That's the wonderful thing about the digital world we live in, huh?

Anyways, I read what I could off of Google Books. The chapters I am most interested in (chapters 11--Niche Culture and 15--The Long Tail of Marketing) were of course not available for preview. So I read the introduction to the book, then a bit of chapter 2, then skimmed my way to the end. I skimmed because quite frankly the book was getting really boring. Not because the writing style was too hard to read. Actually, it was the fact that it was so easy! The words were very basic (a teenager could have understood this book, or even a tech-saavy middle schooler), and quite honestly I didn't feel that there was any real analysis in the book. Anderson obviously has done a lot of analysis himself, but I didn't feel as though he did a good job of presenting the analysis to his readers. It felt like I was reading example after example after example (some real and some hypothetical) of the same thing over and over and over again. I didn't see why the essay had been made into a book just to have the same thing printed on every page in a slightly different scenario. I saw what some of the critics said about him over-generalizing and making broad claims. I began to question what he was saying about the music industry not depending on hits anymore because others have questioned it and come out with strong evidence against it (see the above article titled The Most Important Thing You Will Read All Day). Furthermore, I kind of already knew everything because of Dr. Burton's blog post about the long tail. I didn't feel like I learned anything new from the book.

My Thinking So Far

Maybe I'll learn something new when I can actually read the entire book, particularly the chapters that sound interesting to me. Maybe all Google would let me see was the examples. I hope so. I was really looking forward to this book after reading all of the responses, good and bad, that it has received. If it ends up remaining boring, then I guess the bright side is that it will be a quick read because I'll end up skimming the whole thing.

Let's hope I can glean something from it though, even if it ends up being a skim. He knows his stuff. Surely there is something that I can learn.

And if not from Chris Anderson, then maybe from Lessig or Christensen or others just posting their own thoughts/stories/ideas on the web. There is plenty of information out there for me to glean information from.

Springpad as a Curation Tool

I get really inspired and curious whenever we talk in class of different findings from my peers and things our professors find in what the internet offers. I was absent both classes last week, so I have yet to completely understand what our curation project is about, but I started to research different curation tools in the mean time. I really do love Pinterest, but I wanted to find another tool that I'm not as familiar with. I came across Springpad.

To be perfectly honest, I wanted to abandon it after spending 20 minutes on it. I've never heard of it before and I missed familiarity!! Because it offers so much more than I was expecting, I wanted to grab my blanket and crawl back to the comfort and simplicity of Pinterest. Alas.... I refrained. Good thing, too!

Here is the Springpad's video introduction for its website:

Springpad is a giant personal organizer in curating content that extends beyond only being able to pin/post a picture. You can create a "notebook" on a subject that can consist of "springs." These springs could be photos, videos, notes, voice memos, etc. You can upload or link. I think that is the part that I especially loved. I loved looking into people's notebooks and seeing their own notes and thoughts in addition to what they have curated from other users and sites on the web. It was like a historical journey they were taking me on in their findings from the past up to the present, so you can see the relevance and clarity of info evolving. I started a notebook about learning how to cook, (because as my grandma keeps reminding me, it's time I start learning, now that I'm married.) It's really fun to post a note with my thoughts and then a recipe I think is possible, then my post-recipe notes, and other thoughts or videos that I've found online that were useful to me in learning. It's like a blog in a format similar to Pinterest.

People who are experts on a subject, such as digital culture, create notebooks on their expertise and gather relevant posts from around the web. I'm already following one who claims to be a digital culture expert. I can see all of the info they have gathered and find important and worth reading.

It's also neat, because it serves as a personal assistant for you. When you go to the search bar on the site, it asks you what you want to do (cook, watch a show, listen to music, etc) and it will filter for you based on your answer and given history in the site.

I'm still exploring and learning about the site, but so far I really see its potential in becoming something really big and effective. I do struggle a tad with how much it covers in its features (again, I'm used to the simple Pinterest format), but I think I really enjoy Springpad's form of curation more than Pinterest's. Sometimes I feel like Pinterest feeds me a lot of repeated pins or pins that are not relevant to what I'm searching for. So far in my personal experience with it, Springpad seems to have a great filtering system and compartmentalizes well.

I encourage you all to check it out and share your thoughts on it!

Curating with WikiSpaces

In order to organize all of my research for my project of my website and book, I've decided to use a wiki. I like that wikis allow you to create folders to organize your information in, and I like that the folders are all in one place. I think I'll use wikis on future projects as well. One wiki per project is probably what I'll do.

Anyways, at first I used Google Sites to create a wiki, but I found that to be extremely frustrating because I could not change the names of folders on the Google Sites templates. The templates were WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). I was sure that there was a way to customize the folders, so I kept trying to find the button that would allow me to change the folder names, but eventually just gave up. I googled "Create Your Own Wiki" and found Wikispaces.

Wikispaces is much easier to use than Google Sites. It allowed me to custom-make my own wiki right from the get-go, although it did have templates available if desired (particularly for classroom wikis). I went for a basic wiki knowing that I can add on later if I'd like.

 

Screen shot of my wiki.

The first thing I did was create my custom folders :). I made five today, mostly just preparing to be able to add stuff to them as I find them.

I did add a few things to the articles though. Right now I'm most interested in getting the website set up since that's pretty much the first thing on my list. I looked up tutorials that would walk me through building a website. I found two that I liked and put them in the "Setting up a Website" folder.

I emailed my cousin, a web developer, to ask him his opinion on the step-by-step guide since that was the most straightforward out of the two. I haven't heard back from him yet, but hopefully I will soon.

Anyways, I'm loving wikispaces so far. I recommend them for anyone looking for a user-friendly wiki for personal use, and possibly professional use too!

The Fandom Project

I've already discussed on this blog about my fascination with fandoms and have decided to do my project on them. They're a fascinating part of the digital age and I think that all too often they are labeled as "weird" or "have no lives." Like any miniculture, there are bound to be confusion and misunderstanding. I want to see just exactly what fandom culture is doing to the people of today and whether it is helping or hindering understanding.

I think one of the reasons I'm so interested in it is because fandom culture isn't that different than literary analysis. I can see the eyebrows raising already, but hear me out. Literary analysis is about closely reading texts and seeing what we can learn from them. The same can be said of fandoms only in a more fanatical way. People are more excited about looking closely at the entertainment that they enjoy than what they are forced to do. I bet one could even make an argument for saying that scholars who enjoy their work are every bit a part of that book's fandom as the crazies on tumblr and pinterest.

I'm excited to start curating things because I want to first find out what other people think about it. I know what I think about it (which of course is a semiproblem: sometimes all these blog posts tend to be is what I think about something) but I need to find out what other people think. Scholars or bloggers or sociologists. Fandoms have a reputation for being crazy but do people really think of them that way? I have a pinterest board labeled "geek." It holds all of my nerdy obsessions, which means that it has over 150 pins and is by far the largest board on my pinterest. But those aren't the kinds of things that I plan on curating. I want to curate opinions.

Opinions about what? Fandoms, obviously, but beyond that I also want to curate different forms of opinions on fandoms. What fandoms think of themselves, other fandoms, and other people. What other people think of fandoms, what they think fandoms mean, whether or not they appreciate or look down upon them. I think there is a crazy amount of information on this topic, and I plan on trying to find as much of it as I can find.

Here's to a fun project! I'm excited to get started.

~note~ This post is meant for my Friday, October 18th post. I'm sorry for the tardiness.