Annotated Digital Culture Links: May 29th 2009
Links for May 28th 2009 through May 29th 2009:
- Cambridge study: DRM turns users into pirates [ Boing Boing] – “A long and deep study of user behaviour in the UK by a Cambridge prof confirms that when an honest person tries to do something legal that is blocked by Digital Rights Management technology, it encourages the person to start downloading infringing copies for free from the net, since these copies are all DRM-free.” [Via] [Full Study] [(Readable) Study Summary]
- Illegal downloads soar as hard times bite [SMH] – Asher Moses suggests: “Hundreds of thousands more Australians have turned to illegal download sites in the past year to save money on movies, music, software and TV shows during the economic downturn, new figures show. Total visits by Australians to BitTorrent websites including Mininova, The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, TorrentReactor and Torrentz grew from 785,000 in April last year to 1,049,000 in April this year, Nielsen says. This is a year-on-year increase of 33.6 per cent. The figures, which do not include peer-to-peer software such as Limewire, are in line with a Newspoll survey of 700 Australians in April, which found almost two-thirds of respondents said they were more tempted to buy or obtain pirated products in tough financial times.” (I wonder if more immediate legal options to purchase tv would actually fare rather well in these tough times – more folks willing to pay a little to watch something at home rather than a cinema ticket?)
Annotated Digital Culture Links: May 24th 2009
Links for May 20th 2009 through May 24th 2009:
- Zoinks! 20 Hours of Video Uploaded Every Minute! [YouTube Blog] – “In mid-2007, six hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute. Then it grew to eight hours per minute, then 10, then 13. In January of this year, it became 15 hours of video uploaded every minute, the equivalent of Hollywood releasing over 86,000 new full-length movies into theaters each week. Now, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute …”
- Watching YouTube [YouTube Bibliography] – Nifty bibliography of YouTube-related research, complied by Michael Strangelove, available in multiple versions under a Creative Commons license.
- JURN : directory of scholarly ejournals in the arts & humanities – “Links to selected arts & humanities ejournals. Journals listed are either free, or offer significant free content.” (An excellent list, nicely categorised and the perfect rebuttal for students who claim they couldn’t find any sources and they didn’t have time to visit the library!)
Slow Blog Month …
I realise it has been quite a while between posts, but I have a good reason!
Hopefully when the pile of marking that awaits me is less daunting, your semi-regular blogging service will resume! 😉
Annotated Digital Culture Links: May 4th 2009
Links for April 29th 2009 through May 4th 2009:
- The Hunt For Gollum (HD version) – a Film & TV video [Dailymotion] – An extremely impressive 40-minute Lord of the Rings fan film focusing on parts of the appendices to Tolkein’s novels. [Via Fan Cinema Today]
- REMIX now ccFree [Lessig Blog] – “The Bloomsbury Academic Press version of REMIX is now Creative Commons licensed. You can download the book on the Bloomsbury Academic page.” The Bloomsbury Academic Press version of REMIX is now Creative Commons licensed. You can download the book on the Bloomsbury Academic page. [Direct PDF link – 5Mb]
- Oprah Already Bored With Twitter [Silicon Valley Insider] – “Oprah Winfrey is one of the most famous people on Twitter, with a huge following. But it seems she is already bored with the messaging/microblogging service. It’s been almost four days since @Oprah last sent a tweet, asking Hugh Jackman if he wanted to catch dinner. In total, she’s sent 20 tweets in 11 days. Almost half are from April 17, Oprah’s first day on Twitter, when Ashton Kutcher and Twitter CEO Evan Williams appeared on her show.”
A Little more on Susan Boyle
I thought Natalie Tran’s take on the Susan Boyle phenomenon was rather to the point:
If you prefer your commentary a little more academic, Henry Jenkins has useful points (including why her Boyle’s success is not an example of viral video) in his post ‘How Susan Spread and What It Means’.
Annotated Digital Culture Links: April 24th 2009
Links for April 23rd 2009 through April 24th 2009:
- A little cynicism about the Susan Boyle phenomenon [Just TV] – Some useful points to think about in terms of the dramatic rise (or spread) of Susan Boyle, the Britain’s Got Talent competitor who has taken the internet by storm. Mittell asks why so few people are allowing for the possibility that Boyle’s appearance was more manufactured than it appeared – this is reality tv, after all!
- calling a customer a brat: twitter and the distinctions between public and private [jill/txt] – A cautionary tale: in Norway a teenager wrote on Twitter, complaining he couldn’t legally purchase a song in Norway which was available in the US. A Warner Brothers’ representative in Norway saw the tweet, and twittered back a response which basically called the teenager a brat and suggested (sarcastically) that he should just pirate it. The exchange was widely linked to, Warner Brothers had to issue a public apology. Jill notes this is a clear case of folks on Twitter not clearly understanding that it’s public space: “… if the record company exec had been talking to a journalist rather than firing off 140 characters from his sofa he would almost certainly not have called a would-be customer a brat. He would have moderated his tone and choice of words according to his awareness that he would be quoted.”
- Oprah effect: 43% jump in Twitter traffic – Technology Live [USATODAY.com] – “Oprah Winfrey’s effect on book sales when she supports a new title is legendary. She may have even contributed to the election of the nation’s first black president with her endorsement of Barack Obama. So what happened in Twitterland after Winfrey started Tweeting, and used her TV show as a platform to announce her online Twitter presence? According to market tracker Hitwise, traffic to Twitter went up 43% in a before and after survey of the Oprah Effect. Additionally, on April 17th, the day of Winfrey’s first Tweets, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors, Hitwise says. By comparison, Hitwise says Facebook’s ratio of new visitors in March were 8%.”
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