101 Culture - Watching digital technology change culture

Guardian editor-in-chief hits out at Murdoch's paywalls

"It's not a 'digital trend'. It's a trend about how people are expressing themselves, about how societies will choose to organise themselves, about a new democracy of ideas and information, about changing notions of authority, about the releasing of individual creativity, about resisting the people who want to close down free speech.

"If we turn our back on all this and at the same time conclude that there is nothing to learn from it then, never mind business models, we could be sleepwalking into oblivion.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jan/25/guardian-editor-paywalls

Video of 3D printing in action

So awesome.

via MAKE and @webponce

A decade of change in media production

This brilliant mashup of last year's pop says more about the changes we've seen in media production over the last decade than it does about pop music in 2009.

Facebook versus Google

Facebook and Google are both in the advertising business. They grab attention and interrupt it with paid-for messages. But Xmas search traffic shed some new light on the competition. Facebook traffic overtook Google on Xmas day only.

Traditionally there is a clear divide in advertising between 'direct response' and 'brand' advertising. Direct response is an insurance company saying 'call us now'. Whereas brand advertising is more emotive. It tends to aim to make you think or feel differently about something, rather than spend all its effort making you run to purchase immediately.

Google has the market for search advertising sewn up. This is direct response. You want a plumber, Google sends you to whichever plumber bid the most on 'plumber'.

No one has cracked the online brand advertising model. There is no standard format or model yet. Facebook looks closest. They have the attention. They just need to develop their 'pages' offering a bit and find a standard that the ad industry is happy with.

And this is why Xmas day traffic is significant. It's a day when people are not getting anything done. They're relaxing. They're in the same frame of mind that people are in when they're watching TV, the greatest brand advertising medium there ever was.

Watch out Google. The brand advertising market tends to be 10 times the size of the direct response.

Let’s make a Dream Machine

So I've been excited by 3D printing for a while. Obviously (nerd). But reading Makers has reminded of an idea we had last year. It came together between Asi, Lea and Oli and me. And even Matt has got involved.

And I reckon the best way to get it made is to start by publishing it. So here’s the idea:

The Dream Machine

We pull a feed of people’s dreams from Twitter. We then grab/generate 3D images of the objects they describe. We then 3D-print the objects in the machine.

“I definitely dreamt last night that my grandmother got three cats - a black one with tusks, a blue one, and a rainbow one.”

(taken from Twitter when writing this)

The Dream Machine would have a screen with the auto-generated images on them. You just click your button and it’ll print your object.

It’s a vending machine. Maybe on Oxford street. Maybe in the Tate. Wherever.

Let’s make it. Anyone know where to start?

Xmas decorations made from your social data

Damn. First post post-Xmas-post is about Xmas. And a tongue-twister.

Blame Russell Davies. RIG wanted to do something with 3D printers. They ended up making Xmas decorations from thee data each of them generated online last year.

Apertures used on Flickr.

Snowmen whose head's represent the number of Twitter followers one has:

It's just brilliant. And although they weren't all made with printers, I'm envious they've got to play with them.

So I'll share an idea we've had for 3D printers. But not until the next post.

Christmas jetted

Well it's time to shovel the snow from 101 Culture and get back to blogging.

With that in mind, here's a Christmas tree with a rocket attached.

Happy New Year all.

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