Characteristics of New Media

Digitality:
New way of encoding info. 0's and 1's - binary code. How computer works, electricl pulse on or off. All progamming or entering information into a computer is based on this code. Byte is piece of 8 bits of information, a series of on or off pulses. Huge amounts of information easy to deal with in a tiny code.
Interactivity:
New ways of streaming information, compressed to travel through the air (satellite system), ISDN cable (broadband) and telephone cables, cable cable with satellite systems. Given more width so that multiple strands of information can be sent via one feed. Limited amounts of bandwidth, the more people using it the more bandwidth used. Interactive, so you can interactive with it and each other, say yes and no to it, can get it to respond and respond with it, and reply to it: feed that goes both ways. This changes the way it is used, rather than information going one way, it is now shared and responded to. compressing of digital information means you can upload as well as download.
Hypertextuality:
Organisation in texts. No longer linear, so rather than going from A to B, you can go A to Z or X to Y, like shuffling your songs. Can jump whichever way you'd like, wherever you'd like, like a dvd and the difference from a video. Can read a text whichever way you want, making a difference to the producers who have to make this possible, and need to realise you may jump out of their text and into somebody else's. Think about websites.
Dispersal:
How information can be and is shared and communicated. To do with market share, size and take-up (who's using it.). how much access users have and how producers target users and maximise their markets. couple with digitality creates huge market for producers.
Virtuality:
Already-discussed ideas linking with reality and representation. Verisimilitude, like iconography, is how real something is. cartoons are representational. some virtual worlds also representational. what is real? mimicking and representation of the world. who, why and how?
Convergence:
New technologies merging into one, like companies. MP3's showing photos. where will it go next and will people use it? Think about size: both of data and hardware, new possibilities.
Audience:
How does the audience use the technology? Do they actually use it? has it changed the way they use it? did they use it before and has it changed the way they use it if it has been updated? has the technology been led by consumer demand or by the industry? have the people who've made it made us think that we want it? who actually has access to these things? who is disenfrancised?
Regulation and Control:
Is there any control over the technology's use? who's doing the controlling and should it be there in the first place? what's done about copyright issues? What are the implications of control and people subverting it? is it realistically possible to have this control? what impact of this on the producers? what potential impact is there for the government?
Ownership:
who owns the technology and does it make a difference? how much money they have, use the market, compete with one another and how they use their money and their brand to sell various things: games console manufacturing is a good example of this.

Second Life

Second Life is an internet-based programme that was launched in 2003 by Linden Research, Inc, that came to the world's attention in late 2006/early 2007. The participants, "Residents", basically build another life, but online. They can interact with other "Residents" through motional avatars, which forms an advanced form of social networking. The clients can socialized, take part in group activities, trade virtual items: everything you do in life, just on the internet, and therefore more fun.

However, Second Life does not stay in its virtual reality. The currency, named the Linden Dollar, is tradable for real world currency through a marketplace consisting of clients and the "Linden Lab". It makes me wonder what these clients are being sucked into, personally, both mentally and financially.

The whole idea behind Second Life is based on a novel by Neal Stephenson called Snow Crash. The Linden Lab even stated that the goal behind their corporation is to create a world just like the metaverse described by Stephenson. However, this is not to be taken lightly, as this is not a game scenario, there are no characters to play and goals to reach before the finish; this is an ongoing development of a new world, and the name "Second Life" is a very appropriate one.

This is, however, not the only virtual world scenario to have been created, or to have been successful. Others include There, Active Worlds, IMVU and, for the more adult amongst us, the Red Light Center. Second Life itself has over 20 million registered accounts.

I myself was invited to join the site entitled IMVU earlier on today. I explored the options, interested to see what in fact is the attraction of these sites, and found something that, as much as I hate to admit it, actually proved quite endearing. The first step to joining up was to create your 3D avatar. This itself would seem a big attraction, as there were no overweight or greasy-haired choices here. You could create a whole new you. It went on to show choices of residence, you could choose your friends etc. However, I did not take it further than that, not wanting to commit myself to something that, quite frankly, I found a very dodgey idea.

Web 2.0

Unlike the name suggests, the term "web 2.0" does not refer to an updated version of the world wide web; instead, it facilitates the ways in which the use of the w.w.w. has changed. According to Tim O'Reilly,

""Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."

Personally, I did not quite understand the terminology Mr O'Reilly was using here, so my own interpretation is that web 2.0 refers to the way in which the users have now become the creaters, and that the internet has in fact become a free space. It is now somewhere to be creative as well as consuming the products of others, to share one's own opinion as well as access others. Obviously there has been changes in technology, but the basic ideas of the web remain the same, it is the way one uses them that has changed.

"Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform."