What is Me-casting?

Mecasting is a voluntary act where your share information on yourself to a group of people (friends) or for the public at large. Mecasting is all about the urge in us to get the message out on who we are, what we are doing, and what we think and create. Coupled with this urge is a desire to keep the information we share current with the aim of remaining relevant to others. This act of sharing on going personal data via any online distributed medium are considered mecasting. The leading pioneers apart of the social ladder are:-

Blogs: Blog  is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are themed on a single subject.

 
Facebook: Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, family or public.

Flickr: Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application in the world. Show off your favourite photos and videos to the world.

Foursquare: foursquare, is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check-in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby.

Podcasts: A multimedia digital file made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, etc. Podcasting offers a variety of content for listeners to consume how they want, when they want and where they want.

    
                                   

MySpace: MySpace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake.  It is the leading social entertainment destination powered by the passion of fans. Music, movies, celebs, TV, and games made social.

Skype: Skype users to communicate with peers by voice, video, and instant messaging over the Internet. Phone calls may be placed to recipients on the traditional telephone networks. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free of charge, while calls to landline telephones and mobile phones are charged via a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features, including file transfer, and videoconferencing.

Twitter:Twitter is an online social networking service and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". Instantly connect to what's most important to you. As you can follow your friends, experts, favorite celebrities, and breaking news.

YouTube: YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos with friends, family, and the world.

Webcams: A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi. This common use as a video camera for the World Wide Web gave the webcam its name. Other popular uses include security surveillance and computer vision and there are also uses on sites like video broadcasting services and for recording social videos .

Webcams are known for their low manufacturing cost and flexibility,making them the lowest cost form of videotelephony.  

The evolution of technology continues to advance, while social media tools converge, mecasting grows near to its ultimate goal that “for any given individual to supply a real-time, online, on demand broadcast of their life, as it being lived.” As hardware becomes wearware, the ability to share first person experiences becomes easier.

We are more attracted to the real and live over the contrived and reproduced, this is why Facebook is growing at the cost of broadcast TV. This is flowing onto TV networks themselves to adopt live reality shows to maintain audience. Jerry Springer has proved people would rather watch a real life soap opera than a Hollywood recreation. Although broadcasting show no sign of departing our current media landscape, could be under threat by its conflicting allay mecast.

Entertainment 3.0

What is Joost ?

Joost is an online distribution of TV shows and video content, set top box for 2009, that uses peer-to-peer TV technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player, in late 2008 this was migrated to use a Flash-based Web player instead.

Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project", Zennström and Friis assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about six cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. According to Zennström at a 25 July 2007 press conference about Skype held in Tallinn, Estonia, Joost had signed up more than a million beta testers, and its launch was scheduled for the end of 2007.

Joost also produces news updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.

What is Web 3.0?

I agree with the stament made by Sonja Hyde moyer, Smh Project
the fact is i think when there is one version or evelment of the web it it automatically considered an upgrade on the previous abilites of the web. In the end we can decide or create of fraction of the web where it . I think that the web is constantly evovling we may get carried away with defining ecactly what era it is as advanced in the web the most users and producers are we will long be conuting and forgetting the indivdual characteristics of each web.
In comparison to Richard MacManus

sharing softwares

Web 2.0

All the things you need to know about Web 2.0, this is especially for you!

Who is Michael Wesch? Michael Wesch is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State Univesity. Michael Wesch has been exploring the effects of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the implications of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society.

What is he famous for? Michael Wesch created a short video, " Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us". Released on Youtube on January 31 2007, it quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere and was viewed over 10 million times. To be exzact 11,491,361.

He was one of the pioneers of Web 2.0, exploring the effects of new mdeia on society and culture. he evetually turned to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. His videos on culture, technology, education, and information has not only been viewed by millions, but tranlated in over 15 languages!

3) What IS Web 2.0?
4) How has it impacted on how we relate to others?
5) Why is this significant for media studies?
6) How has Web2.0 impacted on a media institution or media form of your choice?
7) What does it hold for us in the future?

How has Web 2.0 evolved from Web 1.0?

I have included a simple table on the  evolution of the web from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 where we are now. It was an interesting day in media as we dig deep into the meaning behind Web 2.0 and how its the next generation of the Internet. how is has become easy for us not only to inform, for what myself and millions of people having the power to construct our use of the web to interact and most importantly connect with the world.

I think it is the most popular and fascinating thing the web and how it plays a massive part in our usage we spend hours on end. For example  blogging, looking at Facebook profiles, listening and downloading music and how can i forget the huge popularity of apps. What they all have in common is the fact it is free.

This brings me to the focus of our media lesson today, as we introduced to Assistant Professor of Anthropology Micheal Wesch. Well Mr Wesch is famous for releasing a video on YouTube on January 31 2007, which quickly became the most popular video in the blogshere. Intrestingly topped American Superball promos and commercial, that cost over 3 million dollars to produce. Against a Micheal Wesch's costless video designed on a home desktop out does big time production companies. 

I think I am not alone when I say on the power of users is uncomprehensible, and it will continue more update it self, and refreshing for further user connection in around the world!

Do watch an insightful video (above) about the opinions on the vision of students today. I can share one statement was "I will be studying a subject that won't exist in the near future".

The Long Tail

What is the Long Tail?

The Long Tail focuses on how our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits", such as, mainstream products and markets at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niche markets in the tail.  As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

What Long tail isn’t?

There are many distortions of the term, but the most common one is to use it as a newly-positive synonym for "fringe". Invoking the Long Tail is not a magic wand to explain away the apparent lack of demand for what you've got.  The Long Tail is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for poor-selling product. Or weak sectors. Or bad ideas.

What can is it used for?

One example of this is the theory's prediction that demands for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. But the same is true for video not available on broadcast TV on any given day, and songs not played on radio. In other words, the potential aggregate size of the many small markets in goods that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross that economic bar.

The drive to build a market and obtain revenue from the consumer demographic of the long tail has led businesses to implement a series of long-tail marketing techniques, most of them based on extensive use of internet technologies. Among the most representative are Viral marketing: The intentional spreading of marketing messages using pre-existing social networks, with an emphasis on the casual, non-intentional and low cost, commonly through YouTube videos, viral emails and standalone microsites. Including eBay (auctions), Yahoo! and Google (web search), Amazon (retail), and iTunes Store (music and podcasts), amongst the major companies, along with smaller Internet companies like Audible (audio books) and Netflix (video rental).

Why is the Long tail important for the media?

When consumers are offered infinite choice, the true shape of demand is revealed. And it turns out to be less hit-centric than we thought. People gravitate towards niches because they satisfy narrow interests better, and in one aspect of our life or another we all have some narrow interest (whether we think of it that way or not).

What is the effect s of online access?

In his Wired article, Chris Anderson cites earlier research, by Erik Brynjolfsson, Yu (Jeffrey) Hu, and Michael D. Smith, who first used a log-linear curve on an XY graph to describe the relationship between Amazon.com sales and sales ranking. They found that a large proportion of Amazon.com's book sales come from obscure books that were not available in brick-and-mortar stores.

They then quantified the potential value of the Long Tail to consumers. In an article published in 2003, these authors showed that, while most of the discussion about the value of the Internet to consumers has revolved around lower prices, consumer benefit (a.k.a. consumer surplus) from access to increased product variety in online book stores is ten times larger than their benefit from access to lower prices online. Thus, the primary value of the internet to consumers comes from releasing new sources of value by providing access to products in the Long Tail.

What is we-media?

This is the first I had come across the terminology “We media”, so in order to gain a better understanding; I looked into it more through research. I will proceed to illustrate through my short essay, what I think the meaning behind “We media” is, and its relevance to today’s media consumers.

In a nut shell ‘We media’ looks at how audiences are shaping media platforms such as, Print, Broadcasting, and E-media, in its future of news and information.

In today’s media industry, there is an increasing desire for information in media through the use of technology. Today’s society receives information in three ways.
The first is that people are gullible and will read, listen to, or watch just about anything. The second is that most people require an informed ‘intermediary’ to tell them what is good, important or meaningful. The third, is that people are smart, and will want to figure it out themselves, by finding their ‘own version of the truth’ and come to their own conclusion.

I consider “We Media” as a way to begin to understand how ordinary citizens, empowered by digital technologies, connected through knowledge around the globe, are contributing to, and participating in their own truths; to their own kind of news.

We are free to select our own media topics through the use of blogs, social networks, and other web related forums such as, YouTube.   This is evident as there is active participation of being a media consumer into their own media producers. I think that We Media reveals something about society and the way people learn from each other.

Over the past two centuries we have seen a dark side to We media. It feels like a new era has been thrust upon us, an era of ‘enlightened anxiety’. We now know more than ever before, but our knowledge creates anxiety over harsh truths and puzzling paradoxes.

The fact is, the media has a huge influence on the way we interact, in the way we live, work, shop, play, engage, collaborate and network.  I have learned that We media sheds light on the access to advanced technologies,  presents a powerful vision for the reshaping of media information, and news is conducted and received amongst audiences; for media consumers two centuries ago in comparison to today’s media cultured society.