Twitter thoughts and blog neglect
I realised today that this blog has been rather neglected and while there are the usual way-too-busy reasons (all of which remain true!) I’ve noticed I’m spending more and more time looking at Twitter and less and less actually writing anything here; actually, I’m a fairly tweet-low Twitterer, too, I think – I read a lot more than I write. As I was pondering this, the core value of Twitter – it’s immediacy – really hit home as I found out about the major earthquake off the cost of New Zealand’s South Island (near Dunedin, where I was born and where my grandparents still live) via Twitter, and the ensuing Tsunami Warning (which makes an earthquake seem a lot scarier!). It took any mainstream news media, or blogs, that I read more than half an hour, and more than an hour for most, to break this story. By then, I’d had my little worried moment, reassured myself that the Tsunami (which, thankfully, never happened) wouldn’t hit my grandparents since they live up a hill, and returned to work. By then ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Tsunami Warning’ were both Trending Topics, second only to Harry Potter on the back of the film debut of the sixth feature. Of course, following the links from the Trending Topics, I also accidentally hit spoilers regarding tonight’s episode of the Master Chef finals; time to go Justine, it seems (like the US, the East Coast of Australia, is 2 hours ahead those of us in the West, so Twitter is a rather potent spoiler source).
In turn, I suspect Twitter is rapidly becoming normalised as part of the everyday conversation for all sorts of folks, not just social media addicts. Indeed, I was amused to read Melissa Gregg’s post about an episode of Desperate Housewives including a character who fails to get a job due to their lack of Twitter-knowledge! Perhaps in a future episode said character might change their fortune by stumbling across this useful History(ish) of Twitter diagram. In the mean time, I’ll see if I can work out a better balance between the lifestreaming deluge of Twitter and my neglected but still loved blog.
Annotated Digital Culture Links: July 14th 2009
Links for July 10th 2009 through July 14th 2009:
- ‘Bruno’: Did Twitter Reviews Hurt Movie at Box Office? [TIME, 13 July 2009] – “In the old days — like, until yesterday — movie studios judged the success of their big pictures by how much they grossed on the opening weekend. But in the age of Twitter, electronic word-of-mouth is immediate, as early moviegoers tweet their opinions on a film to millions of “followers.” Instant-messaging can make or break a film within 24 hours. Friday is the new weekend. … Brüno’s box-office decline from Friday to Saturday indicates that the film’s brand of outrage was not the sort to please most moviegoers — and that their tut-tutting got around fast. Brüno could be the first movie defeated by the Twitter effect.” (Can bad word of mouth, amplified and aggregated by Twitter, will a new movie in hours rather than the usual week for bad reviews?)
- I want my cyborg life [apophenia] – danah boyd’s thoughts on backchannels, the potential omnipresence of searchable information and the presumption that technologies tend to fragment attention rather than foster it.
- PingWire – A public feed of the latest Twitpic pictures. Hypnotic windows on everyday life and popular culture, but as the warning says: “Evidently, there are people who post photos which may be inappropriate for viewers under 18 years of age. You’ve been warned.”
- Flic.kr Greasemonkey Script – Useful little Greasemonkey Script to make use of Flickr’s URL-shortening service (Flic.kr). Great for using Flickr with Twitter and the like.
- Find Creative Commons images with Image Search [Official Google Blog] – Google’s Image Search adds support for Creative Commons licenses. Searching for CC material continues to get easier and easier! Just click on Advanced Search.
Dr Horrible, Brisbane & ANZCA 2009
Just to reassure you all that I’ve not turned into a automated link-posting robot, I thought I’d make an actual post since I’m about to head to Brisbane for The Australian and New Zealand Communication Association 2009 conference, held at QUT this week. It should be a great conference, with a number of my Internet Studies colleagues presenting, lots of great sounding papers and the Oxford Internet Summer Doctoral Programme folks also around QUT at present, making for a pretty vibrant atmosphere, I’m sure!
For those of you interested (or looking at the 5 parallel streams of papers, trying to decide which one looks interesting) here is the abstract for my talk, ‘What Dr Horrible Can Teach Media Creators About Participatory Culture’:
During the 2007/2008 US Writer’s Guild of America strike writer-director Joss Whedon came up with the notion of a one-off online “show” made outside of the studio system, on a miniscule budget, and entirely publicised using the web and social networks. Thus, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a three-act online musical comedy centred on a flawed supervillian, was conceived. In promoting Dr Horrible, Whedon and his team used both official websites and presences on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg as well as engaging with Whedon’s existing legion of fans via fansites such as Whedonesque.com. Moreover, far from using these websites purely as one-way advertising delivery platforms, the producers, writers and some Dr Horrible actors engaged fans in meaningful dialogue via these platforms.
Fan discussion and remixing of the show emerged rapidly; within weeks of its release there were hundreds of fan sing-along videos on YouTube, joined by everything from fan-created artwork and wallpaper to unofficial sheet music. Far from shunning these unofficial creations, the Dr Horrible producers actively congratulated and promoted the best fan creations. Despite Dr Horrible initially being available for free in its first week, subsequent sales via the iTunes store, and later on DVD, at times rivaled all but the most successful Hollywood blockbusters. Thus, in an era where media companies and startups are increasingly becoming concerned about brand loyalty, not just Nielsen ratings, Dr Horrible may serve as a model for producers and fans interacting in mutually beneficial ways as part of participatory culture. This paper will attempt to examine the way Whedon and his team utilised participatory culture in promoting Dr Horrible, asking which elements built on the foundation of Whedon’s past successes, but even more importantly what lessons Dr Horrible has for both existing and emerging media creators.
And here are the slides I’ll be using:
I’ll probably be Twittering from the conference (Wed – Fri) and I think the default Twitter hashtag will be #anzca2009.
Annotated Digital Culture Links: July 5th 2009
Links for June 30th 2009 through July 5th 2009:
- Tories 'distressed' Facebook blew MI6 cover [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – "Opposition politicians in Britain have raised concerns about security after a newspaper revealed that personal information about the newly-appointed head of Foreign Intelligence Service MI6 had been posted on Facebook. Sir John Sawers' wife's Facebook page had no privacy protection, allowing anyone to see photos of him playing frisbee on a beach or posing dressed as Santa. Also exposed was information about the couple's children, their flat and high profile-friendships." (Could their be a more timely reminder about the importance of using privacy settings carefully, even with Facebook's immensely confusing privacy controls?)
- Twitter your Flickr [Flickr Blog] – You can now Twitter your Flickr pictures with one click. Really, is there anything you can't put in your Twitterstream these days?
- China cracks down on virtual cash [BBC NEWS | Technology] – "Cash earned in games in China can no longer be spent on real world goods. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce policy aims to limit the impact of game currencies on real-world markets. In the future, any cash earned by Chinese gamers can only be spent to acquire items or equipment in that particular game. The move is widely seen as a crackdown on so-called "gold farming" in which players amass virtual money and then sell it to other players for real cash."
Annotated Digital Culture Links: June 29th 2009
Links for June 13th 2009 through June 29th 2009:
- Just Add Performance [Kiri Miller / Flow 10.02] – "… if you want to get involved in value-oriented debates about it, here’s a thought experiment: rather than concluding that Guitar Hero players are wasting the time that they would otherwise be putting into long hours of practice on a real guitar, consider the possibility that they might otherwise spend that time just listening to recorded music (or, of course, playing Grand Theft Auto). Anyone who has played Guitar Hero or Rock Band for more than five minutes will tell you that it requires a deeper level of musical engagement than listening to an iPod—intellectually, emotionally, physically, and often socially. Moreover, everyone I’ve interviewed for my research reports that the games have substantially changed the way they listen to popular music when they’re not playing. […] Guitar Hero and Rock Band let players put the performance back into recorded music, reanimating it with their physical engagement and performance adrenaline." (Great little article!)
- Keeping News of David Rohde’s Kidnapping Off Wikipedia [NYTimes.com] – "For seven months, The New York Times managed to keep out of the news the fact that one of its reporters, David Rohde, had been kidnapped by the Taliban. But that was pretty straightforward compared with keeping it off Wikipedia." The weird tale of trying to keep something (that was legitimate news) out of the Wikipedia.
- Picasa With Creative Commons Search [Goole Blogoscoped] – Search Google's PicasaWeb for CC-licensed images: "Google’s photo album service, Picasa Web Albums, now allows you to show options during your search. As Ionut noticed, as part of these options you can tick the “Creative Commons” link, which will only return shareable pics. The amount of images is not all too bad either, at least for some queries: a CC-only search for the keyword google shows 276,529 pics, according to Picasa. A search for obama returns 43,510 pics right now. For comparison, the same CC-only obama search yields 127,858 results on Flickr."
Annotated Digital Culture Links: June 12th 2009
Links for June 10th 2009 through June 12th 2009:
- Find Creative Commons Images in Google Image Search [Google OS] – "Google Image Search added the option to restrict the results to images that are licensed using Creative Commons, a list of flexible licenses that allow content creators to share their works with the world. The options aren't yet available in the interface, but you can use the search box below to find images that are licensed using some of the most popular Creative Commons licenses…" (I'm looking forward to this being implemented in the advanced search options, it'll make finding CC images even easier!)
- UK CVN Killer Flu – Killer Flu game; not bad at breaking past the pandemic hype and seeing how different types of flu can and can't spread and mutate: "Killer Flu!! Or, maybe, “non-killer flu” to describe the current outbreak of swine flu! Here is a game that allows you to learn more about how the influenza virus is transmitted and how it changes every year – which explains why you can get more than one dose of the flu over your lifetime and why vaccines need changing every year. We also hope it will be a bit of fun."
- Facebook racial taunts [WA Today] – "A rapidly expanding social networking site has been slammed for its racist taunts against immigrants to Australia. The Facebook Group, F*** Off, We’re Full, has nearly 65,000 members and believes any immigrants coming to Australia must adapt to what it calls the ‘Aussie lifestyle.’ “This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity,” the site states. “As Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle.” The website is full of debate on its discussion board. The latest topics put up for comment include: Will Indian race-rioters be hunted down? and All foreigners need to be euthanised." (Another disheartening reminder that racism is all too alive in this day and age.)
- Twitterers defy China's firewall [BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific] – "On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings, social networking sites such as Twitter and the photo-sharing site Flickr were blocked in China in an attempt by the government to prevent online discussion on the subject. But Chinese twitterers proved that there are ways to get round the great firewall of China. … Besides the Tiananmen anniversary itself, what seemed to be most important to Chinese twitterers was the blocking of sites. Advice on how to access Twitter – by using a proxy, VPN (virtual private network) or Hotspot shield – spread around quickly. While some were clearly annoyed at this interference, others did not lose their sense of humour. One user congratulated his fellow twitterers with "Happy Chinese Internet Maintenance Day!"."
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