The Web Is Dead. Long Live The Internet

In an article written by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, "The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet," the two discuss the slow death of the world wide web as it is slowly phased out by smartphones, new technology, and Web 2.0. With the new emergence of applications on iPhones and smartphones such as Blackberrys, it is easy to agree the furture of the web is obsolete. People no longer depend on laptop or desktop computers for directions or social networking. They are able to find things like that while on the go or nearly anywhere with a dataplan or WiFi connections. Is this neccessarily a bad thing? The article seems to think yes and no.

“Sure, we’ll always have Web pages. We still have postcards and telegrams, don’t we? But the center of interactive media — increasingly, the center of gravity of all media — is moving to a post-HTML environment, we promised nearly a decade and half ago. The examples of the time were a bit silly — a '3-D furry-muckers VR space' and 'headlines sent to a pager' — but the point was altogether prescient: a glimpse of the machine-to-machine future that would be less about browsing and more about getting." (Anderson,Wolff, 2009)

The Web, they say, is shrinking and rapidly. It was an inevitable fate brought on by the capitalist innovators of the new media. As the innovators come out with new technology to sell like iPhones and smartphones, the past generation of technology is almost immediately phased out. It becomes irrelevant, forgotten, and a dinosaur among people and their peers. New HTML data is the furture of the internet. There is no more coding and fancy ways of typing out a paragraph to publish it. It is all done automatically. Easy and simple and that is the way people want to live and experience the Web these days especially when they are using it on their phone in the middle of no where in particular.

People want things brought to them and given to them. Nobody likes to look and browse through anything. People know exactly what they want and when they want it and they are more than willing to empty their pockets of cash in order to get that service. The web is dying and it is because people want to live an easier life and corporate innovators are looking for new technology to target lazier people with.

The Pirate's Dilemma - Changing the Game Theory

In the final chapter of Matt Mason's book, The Pirates Dilemma, Mason summarizes his points about piracy and its benefits to the social media culture in the past century. He discusses how piracy drives human innovation either to combat piracy or improve media integration into everyday life. Mason touches upon the radio DJs, the remixed culture, and youth counter-cultures of the last half of the 20th century. Mason argues that mass culture needs to look at, analyze, and touch upon youth cultures and look at how they influence media on a day-to-day basis. He argues that piracy and youth culture go hand in hand but they do not act in self interest but the opposite. In today's world of media, either you are a pirate or you will be targeted by one.

"Because all these ideas are coming together in the wider world at the same time, a new period of chaos has ensued as the Information Age has grown into a petulant teenager itself. Now we are all capable of acting like pirates, or being devoured by them. Now we all have to consider what the new conditions of this difficult adolescence mean, and how we should approach them." (Mason, 2008, 232)

Mason's quote outlines the way people react to new media as a means of sharing information across the Web. The Web was created as a means to openly contribute and share the information that is put fourth no matter what kind. People cannot expect to add information via the Web without expecting knowing that their information is going to be looked at and shared. We can't lie. The reason we put information out there is for people to see either subconsciously or consciously. There is no way around it. Unless people want their information shared with hundreds or even thousands, keep it on paper...and don't let it fall into a scanner.

People and pirates alike cannot act in self interest over the Web. The answer to the Pirate's Dilemma lies in the game theory of working together to achieve the best goal right for everyone. If everyone assumes that everyone is acting in self interest, they too will act in self interest for what is best for them. In the end, doing so will result in both parties getting the short end of the stick. The theory behind acting in self interest dominates the forces of politics, economics, decision making, and psychology. Yes, everyone knows musicians, artists, and media industries hate piracy and would love to destroy it. But really, the answer to stopping piracy is not awareness and it certainly isn't tainting files with spyware. The answer is, there isn't anything anyone can do about it except accept it. Awareness doesn't work. Nobody cares, seriously. If people can get away with stealing something they want with no remorse, they'll do it. If people actually cared about the industry they were stealing from, they would actually pay to support it. They should feel lucky that half the people willing to rip off the media industry aren't able to either because they don't know how or because they don't have the right software. That is why people still shoplift CDs and DVDs, then get caught. Piracy is not encouraged and it certainly isn't tolerated but really, what more can people do? It's the easiest and, sometimes, the only way for people to obtain media and consume it.

Yes, piracy is needed but to a certain extent. One pirate will not obstruct the entire media industry but people who feel the need to become pirates themselves are not only putting themselves at risk but also putting the industry at risk. One opposed to one billion pirates is a huge difference but it is also hypothetical. In short, don't be a pirate...but support them.

The Pirate's Dilemma - Boundaries

We have all seen new forms of media come and go over the past century. One of those forms was the record disc and its uncanny ability to record sound for the first time in history. People came together from all over town and gathered in houses, dance halls, and disco lofts to socialize, party, and connect with one another while being able to escape their daily lives. Before the internet this is what people relied on for social interaction and open source entertainment.

In chapter five of Matt Mason's book, The Pirates Dilemma, Mason discusses the revolutionized movement of youth culture from the 1950's and 1960's and how their social ideas drove them to develop new forms of media to build social interaction. It is exactly like how youth culture from the 1960's had encouraged them to hold dance parties in lofts, collect records, and find new methods to get high or get together. For youth, the desire to be together with friends had driven them to become productive in order to create faster and easier ways to connect and have fun. Mason also argues that the computer had been invented by young adults whose views were shaped on hippie psychedelic social ideas were integrated into the PC's development.

"The PC, as we shall now see, also was designed to be a social machine like the Loft—a way of sharing information that offered new freedoms and possibilities while posing a serious threat to some oppressive systems of old. It has since birthed what is known as the open-source movement, which started out as a way to build computer operating systems but is fast becoming a design for life...The great transformative technology of our lifetime was more than just a triumph of engineering and finance. It was, just as compellingly, the result of a concerted effort by a group of visionaries—fuelled by progressive values, artistic sensibilities and the occasional mind altering drug—to define the idea of what a computer could be: a liberating tool to expand and enrich human potential." (Mason, 2008, 143)

During the later half of the 20th century, phonographic music industries feared the new emergence of the cassette tape and home recording would kill the record music business, yet, in fact, it was the opposite. This new form of media allowed music DJs and music listeners to share the experience of music with one another and almost instantly, the dance lofts were brought into the home. It was the first form of file sharing and like file sharing, it was despised by music industries from all over the world. Yet, there was little that could be done to stop the sharing of files and illegal downloading of software, music, and media. Web 2.0 is a mass media form used to collect and distribute information and other forms of media and was the perfect catalyst for the Pirate's Dilemma. With the help of Web 2.0, people are no longer restricted by boundaries or obstacles in the search for new media entertainment and social interaction. The personal computer and web freed people from the world restricted by boundaries and distances and people are now able to share media with each other now more than ever.

We Invented the Remix

In Matt Mason’s book, The Pirate’s Dilemma, Mason discussed the prospect of remixed culture and what it held in the wake of the “free culture.” The remixed culture is a new wave of media produced by media consumers who edit and add their own expressions, art, and opinions into the work of others for nearly any reason whether it be for entertainment, fun, or even blackmail. The remixed culture, Mason argues, is a “conscious process used to innovate and create,” and to take something that already exists and redefining it to how you want to see it in your own vision. Mason argues that even through remixed culture “raises questions about the nature of creativity and originality,” the remixed culture has evolved into something bigger; a mass movement by artists and media consumers that spans across hundreds of different industries. But if remixed culture is so controversial and “uncreative,” why is it so popular?

The remixed culture is nothing to be thought of as “new.” It is instead a long history of artists and musicians coming together and mixing different sounds and beats. The remixed culture started the disco, the hip hop, and dance halls. It is a culture that is even bigger today than ever, and still, it keeps growing. Now with the aid of the internet, more and more people have access to music, video, and file sharing. They can share their work with others. Some will find it funny, others will find it cool, and the rest will hate it. And while people are out sharing their new version of someone else’s song, people will be coming up with new and easier ways to remix and reinvent popular culture and make it their own.

“The remix is gradually winning the war with a paranoid entertainment industry, proving itself to be a valuable form of expression, levelling playing fields for artists and entrepreneurs, and constructing new meaning to from old material. The last battle is in sight. It is the future of the past, and perhaps the ultimate democracy, open to infinite criticism, reinterpretation, and improvement.” (Mason, 2008, 101)

The Pirate's Dilemma - The Tao of Pirates

Matt Mason's book, The Pirate's Dilemma, openly discusses how youth culture is responsible for shaping and re-shaping remixed culture and consumerism. Mason argues that the pirating of products such as digital entertainment and copyright infringement is necessary for its distribution and improvement on all levels of development. In the second chapter, Mason talks about the history of piracy and it's roots in Britain and the United States in the early 20th century. He discusses how piracy was actually responsible for the TV networks, radio, and web culture people see today. He argues that piracy should be praised for its hand in the progressive evolution of remixed culture that it openly shared world wide. Mason suggests that without piracy, there is no choices to be made in media in the sense that people are limited to the media they consume through financial stability and geographic location. He quotes: "Pirates highlight areas where choice doesn't exist and demand that it does. And this mentality transcends media formats, technological changes, and business models. It is a powerful tool that once understood, can be applied anywhere." (Mason, 2008, 46)

Though some may find areas to disagree with Mason, his arguement on piracy offers something more than just telling people to share "stolen" media. He talks about the momentum of the free people, the boundaries that restrict people from experiencing new forms of media, and how piracy shapes the world we live in today. Mason raises the points of pirate radio in Britain of the 1960's as well as the Sealand sea fort that was used to house "illegal information" in international waters for people willing to pay to keep it there. He uses these examples in history to bring forward a new premise that people need to understand; piracy is a necessity in the development of social media and remixed culture. He suggests that piracy is a valid marketing flaw and that those in that market should consider pirates as a competitor as opposed to a problem.

On the talk of Web 2.0, people are contributing what they want to whoever they want via the web. People are bringing each other all kinds of new media from all over the world every second.

"Pirate radio gave everyone the chance to become DJs, but today a new connection to the internet is all you need to broadcast to the entire world. Individuals with the pirate mentality are using the web to become journalists, comedians, porn stars, prophets, TV producers, and many other things besides, and it is quite conceivable that the media may one day be conquered by pirates all together." (Mason, 2008, 48)

It can be argued that nearly everyone on Web 2.0 is a pirate. What people seem to forget is that this new generation of pirates are not outlaws but instead are a generation of people pressed on sharing new ideas and media through different medium without even knowing it. This is the pirate mentality and when piracy is all about. People no longer have to rely on professional news journalism when all they need to do is look up someone's blog and contribute to it. Whether or not the net is expanding for the better is all relative; but we mustn't forget that all of it is expanding because of people with the pirate mentality.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

    In an article by Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Carr discusses the downside of using Web 2.0 as a medium to access mass information. He argues that using search engines such as Google, distract the viewer from the content of the information that he or she is viewing. Carr also suggests that the amount of information that people are absorbing is slowly decreasing the attention span of Web 2.0 users. In a quote by Carr from his article, he admits to the fact that he, himself, has noticed a significant change in the way he thinks and analyzes information he sees on the web.

"...Media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." (Carr, 2008)

From Carr's perception, users of Web 2.0 are unknowingly having the carpet pulled out from under them. He urges caution and concern for heavy internet users who continually absorb and contribute to the database of the web. Yet, Carr proves this to be a difficult feat to the extent that internet users are addicted to the convenience of the internet's mass information accessibility. Google is robbing people of their very own attention spans. People may or may not believe this to be true but it's possible that Google, as a universal medium of acquiring an infinite amount of information, is depriving people of keeping their attention on specific topics and information; not in the real world but in the digital one.

Although this concern for people's mental abilities to keep in check may be in for some change, it is not necessarily a bad thing that this new medium of Web 2.0 has so much to offer. Looking at it from the perspective of cause and affect, we may agree that the web has a lot to offer society in terms of information and accessibility. However, as a result, the only trade-off people may have to come to terms with is their ability to keep interested in the infinite amount of information they have access to at their finger tips. Perhaps this effect of attention loss may not be the most unsettling but really, it could be merely a trade off for acquiring more information. Although some people might find themselves spending less time on one page than another, the amount of information they may find themselves skimming through may hold something more to offer than the last. In short, I believe that people may find Web 2.0 to help them acquire more information than less even if it means that information isn't as specific or in depth as people may find it from reading a book or article.

Carr suggests that the new forms of today's media are re-shaping and reprogramming the way people learn, function, and think. He argues that the old forms of media will have to adapt to keep up with the new forms or become irrelevant and forgotten. It is the main reason people are finding a lack of interest in much of the media they consume today. "The Net’s influence doesn’t end at the edges of a computer screen, either. As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets." (Carr, 2008)