101 Culture

This is a blog about the emergence of a digital culture. What might it look like? What can we see already?

And all my other details are kept at benmason.org.


Archive
2011 (5)
2010 (42)
2009 (50)

Searching digital

Obox Signature Series

Culturally digital comedy from Baratunde Thurston

Here's a presentation from comedian Baratunde Thurston at Web2.0 conference.

He talks about a couple of comedy experiments that he started on Twitter and a multitude that he was involved with or watched.

It's well worth a watch. And watch it considering the topics I bang on about on this blog: That with digital media and the internet everything is becoming more collaborative and open. And also how successful ideas start small and public and then grow a evolve with participation.

The audience/producer line is very blurred in the examples Thurston gives. The two projects he founded are comedy collaborations that start with a single tweet. They then grow and evolve into other media, as I've discussed here before.

Nice work.

How to tell stories in the digital age

I've long been meaning to write about the future of storytelling. At Hyper we've done some work on a famous BBC drama brand which looked at how to tell stories in a digital culture.

But today I came across this talk which does a great job and inspired me to write this post.

It's clear that the future of storytelling will be less linear and more collaborative than the books and films we take as standard now. Everything in the information age is becoming less linear and more collaborative.

But when considered alongside music 'piracy' and a decline in TV ad revenues, there's a lot of fear about the value of storytelling in the digital age and whether anyone will be able to afford to invest in high quality production. Will the combination of the internet and digital media production mean that everyone will produce content for free but no one will be able to produce professional content? 

Lance Weiler talks a good stance on this in his talk. He takes it as given that content is decreasing in value. And therefore asks what is the value proposition to come. And given the collaborative nature of the coming age, he talks about storytelling as service related rather than production related.

He also talks about the fluid nature of digital information and the need to tell stories that evolve through people's networks on their terms. Something I've discussed here before. And along the same theme, he talks about how he constructs stories against three audience types: watchers, players and agents (people that are involved enough to affect the direction of the story).

When discussing what might happen to storytelling in digital media with another Hyper client recently, I talked about campfires. Before recorded media, stories were told around campfires. They adjusted to their audience and they evolved over time as they moved from campfire to campfire via many storytellers.

Storytelling in a digital age seems to be moving towards a similar power structure - the story spreads itself and moulds around its audience. This contrasts to film production where one central producer retains control of the storytelling process until the end of the film viewing. The difference from the campfire age being that different media available to the teller (film, image and text, as well as the traditional audio) and the size of his audience (global population, perhaps).

So rather than theorise anymore, here are some brilliant examples from around the connected campfire:

We Tell Stories

An investigation into storytelling by Penguin which involved six different authors telling six stories over six weeks. The formats varied from writing stories live to using a map as the format to read from. 

http://wetellstories.co.uk/

 

Good Radio Club

Using Twitter to have an open discussion about a live radio programme as it plays.

http://goodradioclub.co.uk/

 

Loose Fish

A project to adapt classic works of literature for digital age. This is a personal project of someone experimenting with storytelling on the web and trying to find a method that fits the way people use the web. 

http://www.loose-fish.com


This project includes:

The Good Captain

An adaptation of Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno. Since the story is told in the first person, it was well suited to Twitter. Once told on Twitter, the story was republished in book format, available as a download or printed.

 http://www.loose-fish.com/waifpole/the-good-captain/

 

Spoon River Metblog

A modernization of the poetry serial Spoon River Anthology written and published in the form of a fictional local city blog and hosted amongst non-fictional city blogs in the Metroblog syndicate.

http://spoonriver.metblogs.com/

The next Loose Fish project will be a contemporary version of Pride and Prejudice told using Facebook, Twitter and web services.

 

Tube Gossip

A collection of comments overheard on the London Tube.

http://www.themanwhofellasleep.com/gossip.html

 

SXStarwars

The public reenactment of scenes from Star Wars on Twitter started with just a few friends playing Star Wars characters and by the time they’d finished just minutes later, so many people were involved that the production carried on with new participants taking on parts. 

http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2009/03/18/twitter-trench-run/

 

Noone Belongs Here More Than You

A website promoting a novel which shows the author learning to make the website as she goes along. 

http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/

 

I Love Bees

From the very simple to the more complex, I Love Bees was a campaign to promote Halo 2, a blockbuster computer game. It took the format of an ARG (alternate reality game). ARGs are collaborative games or narratives where the story exists on many platforms in the real and virtual world at once and is non-linear. Think of the most complex treasure hunt possible and you’re in the right area. For instance, a participant might have to call a phone box to find a code to type into a website to get the next clue. Participants share their clues online to try and solve the puzzle collaboratively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_reality_game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_love_bees

http://ilovebees.com/

  

Lonely Girl 15

The show focuses on the life of a fictional teenage girl named Bree, whose YouTube username is the eponymous "lonelygirl15", but the show does not reveal its fictional nature to its audience. After the fictional status of the show was revealed in September 2006, the show gradually evolved into a multi-character show including both character videoblogs and action sequences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_Girl_15

http://www.youtube.com/user/lonelygirl15

#Rihannalive and why everything online needs to be an event

I just caught the end of Rihanna's album launch gig live online from Nokia.

It was quite amazing to watch a gig live with what, due to Twitter, seemed like millions of others live online.

As Jay-Z made a surprise appearance, it just emphasised how important it is that putting content online is made into an event. Doing something live is a way to keep it scarce and therefore valuable.

Someone tweeted, " hope the bootleggers recording this so i can watch it later too ". I'd say the music industry probably has a lot to look forward to with this format. It's scalable to any size of artist. And with the power of Twitter to spread content fast and bring vast audiences together, it works as marketing for big brands as well.

#rihannalive trended. Even #BrazilLovesRihanna seemed to be everywhere.

The gig was a mile from my house. And I could have got a ticket through work (Hyper does the Nokia Music social media work). But I caught it by accident after seeing a tweet.

The much discussed 'attention economy' is easily understood in this situation.Kudos to Nokia.

The web could replace the law

Rtuk_feature_matrix_01
There's some interesting discussion over at the BBC's Digital Revolution blog this week. They're discussing the effect the web is having on our brains. Whilst none of us actually believe we're heading towards a matrix-like future with jellied bodies and our brains plugged into the hive mind, the future might be closer than we thought.

"@oxfordyorick offered some very interesting insight... that our increased networking may be leading to a not altogether beneficial hegemony:

'the odd result that extensive Facebook exposure seems to be contracting the list of first names used for newborns: it is as if linking to larger intimate groups, and seeing what names they use, is causing a higher degree of mutual name-copying and the proportion of first names occupied by the top ten, names, say is shrinking in the English speaking world. This effect, if transferred to the realm of ideas, could be one we might not like: peer pressure to conform might grow in a way that would not need to be enforced by any Government or law.' "

So the web could replace government? That's too scary for Monday. To be re-visited.

Another artist speaks out against Lily Allen

There have been some nice points from Steve and John since my two rants about music and the music industry. And Lily Allen has resigned from the cause, since her 'illegal' mixtapes were found on her website.

But I have to post this either way. An open letter in song, using an Allen track as the backing, from Dan Bull. "have a ban CDs appeal - then people would pay to see bands for real"

And while we're here, let's remind ourselves of The Amen Break, a mini-documentary about a 6 second drum break on which the whole genre of Jungle is based on and for which the list of the copyright owners stretches around the world but nowhere near the original creator. It's well worth a watch if you haven't seen it already.

100 000 connected garages

Before the internet there were, I'm sure, plenty of people making stuff in garages. But not much of it was being sold. Most of the stuff we buy is still made in factories, big centralised spaces with capital, a workforce, logistics for delivery and economies of scale.

Now the internet has connected all those garage-dwelling crafts-people. And digital technology means designs for 3D objects can be sent to printers or cutters (known as CNC routers) which create them. So the economies of scale are disappearing because these tools mean making objects isn't that expensive. And the higher chance of being connected to someone locally who can make it means distribution costs will diminish. All of which paves the way for a brilliant network like www.100kgarages which connects makers and designers, ideas and production tools, altogether in a loose network.

It's great to see the themes oft-noted in this blog like distributed organisations, loose structure and connectivity between individuals seen in the area of manufacturing rather than just information swapping. Wooden networking, if you like.

And if you like picturing a future where lumbering factories are replaced by a nimble network of garages fast-producing one-offs, then check Cory Doctorow's latest novel Makers, serialized here.

Whuffie bank launches

Picture_4
A non-profit organisation called the Whuffie bank has launched. It seeks to "new currency that rewards people for their positive contributions on the web".

There's more about it here and here.

The concept of Whuffie is pertinent to this blog. With so many connections online and so many tiny transactions that are almost worthless (in current measures), the idea of a reputation-based currency is interesting. Web-heads spend so much time interacting in tiny ways with so many people. And it's valuable to us, otherwise we wouldn't do it. So perhaps a standard currency would encourage more fluid transactions online. It's a big idea, originally by Cory Doctorow, and it'll be interesting to watch it develop.

Here's their TechCrunch50 presentation:

Your Whuffie balance is derived by their algorithm. It's derived from your contribution (retweets), your reputation, endorsements from others and the content of your messages. People can make Whuffie deals with each other, or they can pass it around. And the plan is to allow people to use Whuffie for cash transaction as well. There are Whuffie credit cards and you can print bills.

It's at this point that I get confused. The Whuffie needs an exchange rate with the dollar. And so the Whuffie needs to have a perceived value for that to happen. So what it actually is is just a measure of a person's contribution to the web. This is valuable. I can understand someone's contribution without knowing them.

Whether it can become a realworld currency remains to be seen. That requires scarcity. Doctorow's novel described a post-scarcity economy where everything was free for the taking. We haven't reached that yet. There's an abundance of information online. But the value of the information depends on its context. And that might be the problem with Whuffie. It's not based on context. It seeks to create a standard value for reputation. But reputation, as pointed out in the questions session, is based on your relationship with the person, which is context.

Value music and pizza, not records

Lily Allen takes a stand against FAC, the group of artists that is speaking out against the governments plans to cut the internet connection of 'music pirates'.

But all her thoughts come from a desire to protect the industry, not protect music. "you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your arse off to repay. When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and as the artist, you have to pay for them"

The recent music industry has been built around recording technology. The record was the item of perceived value. The first album was sold in 1909. The industry has honed itself to produce records, mostly polished collections of 3.5 minute tracks.

But consider a definition of music: "an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner". It's a form of communication. The internet has made communication cheaper and easier. It should be a great thing for music.

We may lose a few record labels. We may lose some recording studios.

But people still desire great music. So there will be commercial value in it somewhere. People just need to think a bit more laterally. I was in a pizzeria last week and someone made a simple point. In that situation, we're willing to pay for pizza and beer. But the cutlery, table, chairs and plates are considered free. Even the music in the background is considered free.

So if there is to be a large music industry, it needs to adjust its model so that recordings are perceived as free or cheap, because as I've previously explained, they're not scarce anymore, but that something else in the music is expensive.  Either make recordings much cheaper to produce and easier to buy or hide the cost in something of greater perceived value. I'd recommend trying both.

UPDATE:
A song pushed my way by @shakeandvac

"Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)"

More piracy/privacy bungling from our government

The UK government has published an amendment to the Digital Britain Report which suggests cutting off the internet connection of "hardcore pirates". The BBC article also suggests "illegal downloaders" will be penalised.

We know that a hardcore minority of people share lots of content. But cutting off their network connection seems drastic. The risk of cutting off the innocent parent because their child has shared some insignificant pop song online cuts at the very heart of the freedom of speech. The next step after this is scanning all emails to check copyright content, akin to opening all our mail.

The issue to solve here is how to support the creative industries. This is the only viable reason for worrying about file-sharing. This discussion is best summed up by the mistake of confusing a "music industry" with a "record industry". The record industry was built off the back of recording technology. Music is recorded and distributed on vinyl, tapes and then CDs. These copies are scarce and therefore valuable. Massive profits ensued.

But now digital code and the internet has made it almost free to distribute copies of music. The recordings are not scarce anymore. So there isn't much value in them.

This is the record industry, not the music industry.

So if the government wants to ensure the value of its music industry, it needs to help it find a valuable product. Music is as relevant as ever. And the artists have talent that is scarce and therefore valuable. We've also developed an amazing distribution system called the internet which means an artist could access an audience of billions at very low cost. Surely there must be a reason to celebrate in there. Cash aside, we can spread brilliant music to everyone at low cost. And an artist can build a relationship with their audience, like Imogen Heap does well. This creates additional value in her live performances, her merchandise, even her records.

The record industry will never be worth what it was. Copies are almost ubiquitous. And let's support artists in finding an audience and creating something scarce and valuable in their work. If art is to be commercialised then do it well, like Rockstar selling tracks within GTA IV.

Let's not restrict the very freedom on which the internet is based in order to persecute a few teenagers sharing files. By all means, keep distribution of copyrighted material as illegal, and persecute those that seek to profit illegally from the copyright of others. But realise that trying to stop file-sharing by restricting the flow of information is a perversion of the internet, detrimental to our future and will not save the creative industries.

The internet means information can be shared more easily than before it. Let's focus on how this can benefit humanity rather than protect antiquated industries.

[image from]

Entertainment moves from media-space to shop-front

Grand-theft-auto-iv-screen-5

Although this isn't news, Rockstar's move, last year, into music downloads is a clear indication of how entertainment can be funded in the future.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2008/03/rockstar-and-amazon-bring-digital-...
 
We're used to movies, magazines and TV being a housing for advertising. And this status quo has been threatened by digital technology. In an interactive world where users have control, they can skip ads. Rockstar's deal with Amazon allows users to download tracks they hear ingame to be listened to outside it.
 
The entertainment platform has become a shop rather than an ad platform. This could easily be extended into artwork, clothes and even perhaps holidays, at a stretch. The entertainment platform makes the real-life product attractive (as TV ads do now) and provides a way for the user to purchase there and then. It seems to be a better world for the buyer (less intrusive ads, easier purchase) and a better world for seller (more efficient and trackable promotion).
 
As more media becomes comprehensively interactive, this seems like a model to watch. It's not revolutionary but it's smart and simple.

Next