9 Me Me Media
Terry Wolfisch Cole may seem like an ordinary 40-year-old mam and Girl Scout troop leader, but her small-town Connecticut neighbors known the truth: She?s one of the “Pod People.” At the supermarket she wanders the aisles in a self-contained bubble, thanks to her iPod digital music player.Through those little white ear buds. Wolfisch Cole listens to a playlist mixed by
her favorite disc jockey—herself. ”Deejay Terry” knows precisely which upbeat songs can keep her feet shuffling ahead during the dreary experience of shopping. “ try not to sing out loud, and I take the earphones off when I get to the deli counter or cash register,” Wolfisch Cole says, but otherwise, she?s sealed off in her own listening booth, signaling “do not disturb” to the outside world. At home, when the kids are tucked away, Wolfisch Cole often escapes to another solo media pod—but in this one, she?s transmitting instead of just receiving. On her computer web log, or “blog,” she types an online journal chronicling daily news of her life (recipes, family updates, or “whatever floats my boat” ), the shares it all with the web. She has attracted a faithful audience who, she says, “seem to actually want to read that my kids threw up on the floor today. Who?d have thunk it?” Wolf Cole－who also gets her daily news customized off the Internet and whose digital video recorder (DVR) scans through the television wasteland to fine and record shows that suit her tastes－is part of a new breed of people who are filtering, shaping and even creating media for themselves. They are increasingly turning their backs on the established system of mass media that has provided news and entertainment for the past half- century. They?ve joined the exploding “iMedia” revolution, putting the power of media in the hands of ordinary people.
The tools of the movement consist of a bubbling stew of new technologies that include iPods, blogs, podcasts, DVRs, customized online newspapers, and satellite radio. All are being embraced by a public increasingly hungry for media control. A new study by Arbitron has found that 27 million Americans now own one or more on-demand media devices such as an iPod or a DVR. And it?s not just techies or teenage nerds joining the fray: Arbitron?s senior vice president Bill Rose says the study shows that the appeal of do-it-yourself media is already crossing demographic lines and will continue to spread.
Devotees of iMedia run the gamut from the 89-year-old New York grandmother, known as Bubby, who has taken up blogging to share her worldly advice (her motto:” Everything you are going through, I already did.”) to 11-year-old Dylan Verdi of Texas, who has started broadcasting her own homemade TV show or “vlog,” for video web log, covering topics that include breaking news on her braces. In between are countless iMedia enthusiasts like Rogier van Bakel, 44 of Maine, who blogs at night, reads a Web-customized news page in the morning, travels with his fully loaded iPod and comes home to watch whatever the DVR has chosen for him. Everything is filtered according to his interests, which include libertarianism, songs
by the art-rock band Kaiser Chiefs, and anything involving the Belgian cartoon character Tintin. Rosen and others trace the beginnings of the iMedia revolution to the invention of the TV remote, which marked the first subtle shift of media control away from broadcasters and into the hands of the average couch potato. It enabled viewers to vote with their thumbs－making it easier to abandon dull programs and avoid commercials. With the proliferation of cable TV channels in the late 1980s followed by the mid-1990s arrival of the Internet, controlling media input wasn?t just a luxury. “Control has become a necessity,” says Bill Rose. “ Without it, there?s no way to sort through all the options that are becoming available.”
Those options swelled in the past three years as a kind of perfect storm of new personalized media technologies has come together. First, Apple?s iPod burst on the scene and quickly attracted 10 million customers (by one estimate, iPods are selling at a rate of 40 per minute). The digital music players allow users to download music off the Web, song by song, to create their own music mixes, bypassing radio deejays and record stores. Podcasts arrived in 2004, enabling people to download entire radio programs or create their own radio shows. The same year, blogs exploded as a mainstream phenomenon (there are 10 million out there now), allowing almost anyone to become a pundit. The development of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) made it easier for bloggers and readers to keep tabs on one another. RSS also helps make possible the creation of personalized online newspapers － the Daily Me, as dubbed by technologist Nicholas Negroponte －made up of headline, article summaries and links to content that matches one?s precise interest. Television and radio have also been transformed by technology. DVRs provide more control to viewers, as does video-on-demand. And the fastest-growing segment of radio is satellite, offering choices that appeal to even the narrowest tastes. (The Sirius satellite radio system has an Elvis channel).
All of these new developments notwithstanding, there?s more to the iMedia craze than gadgets, gizmos and additional channels. Observers say the trend has been fueled by restless creativity among those people formerly known as the audience－who will no longer sit still for mass-produced, one-size-fits-all media. Chicago insurance analyst Andrew James, 30, says he?s had it with “stupid banter from idiots on the radio－my iPod takes care of that,” Jayme Maultasch, 26, a New York ad executive, gets his news from blog feeds because, he says, “bloggers are free to tell it the way it is, while the mainstream media has become too packaged, too cautious.”
Moreover, the iMedia generation isn?t content to be on the receiving end; they want to have a voice in the new media. “Consumers now have more power, access and choice,” says Robert A. Iger, president and COO of Disney. Echoes Brian Collins, an executive creative director at the Ogilvy & Mather ad agency: “The new technology is unleashing all of this pent-up creativity. In the past, only people with vast resources could create media. Now those barriers are coming down.” When that happens, the iMedia age will be fully upon us, and it will be Utopia－to some people. Grass-roots media activists like Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, envisions a world in which citizen journalists will be able to report on their local communities in a way that the mass-market media does not. Jeff Jarvis, who runs the popular blog Buzzmachine. com, says that people empowered by iMedia will challenge the mainstream media and present their own version of events. “Basically, it means more voices will be heard, because more people will own the broadcast tower,” he says. “And in a democracy, that?s a good thing.”
Well, maybe. Some worry that the iMedia society now forming may be fractious, self-absorbed an
d narrow-minded. One of the problems with personalized media, says University of Chicago professor Cass Sunstein, is that it creates what he calls “the echo chamber effect.” When you can create and shaper your own media experience, “you tend to exclude topics and viewpoints you wish to ignore. That just reinforces what you?ve always believed, and it?s a recipe for extremism.” It also makes it hard for a democracy to function, Sunstein says: “Without shared experiences, we?re going to have a hard time understanding one another and agreeing on things.” The futurist Watts Wacker, co-author of The Visionary?s Handbook, foresees a similar scenario. “In the personalized media world, we?ll return to tribalism,” he says. “The tribe will consist of people who believe what you believe, and who connect with you through shared media, like blogs.”
Jarvis doesn?t fret over the loss of shared media experiences. “ Was it really so grand that we all watch Dallas at the same time?” he asks. And he sees blogs bringing together diverse viewpoints: “On my blog, I link to people I disagree with.” But Sunstein maintains that often when bloggers do like to opposing viewpoints, “they do so in order to ridicule or cast contempt upon the other side.” (Anyone who witnessed the hostile crossfire between blogs during the 2004 Presidential campaign can attest to this.)
Another concern associated with the iMedia revolution is that as it barrels past the established media gatekeepersbroadcasters, editorsit may create a media free-for-all. Rights issues could prove thorny: If you create a podcast, can you use somebody else?s music? Not if he has a good lawyer, says Sam Whitmore, editor of Sam Whitmore?s Media Survey online newsletter. “You can bet Disney would hammer somebody who tried to use ?The Mickey Mouse Club? theme. I predict we?ll see lawsuits, and somebody is going to lose his home over something he podcasts.” There?s also the privacy matter: If you shoot homemade news from the community center, is it okay to transmit your fellow townsfolk?s images over the Internet? “We may be entering a world where there?s no such thing as being off-camera,” says Whitmore. “That?s exciting to some and scary to others.”
Meanwhile, who will become the next media gatekeepers? One scenario circulating via a film on the Internet prognosticates that the Big Media Boss of the future will be an entity called Googlezon (a merger of Google and Amazon), which will replace the press by funneling personalized news and information directly to customers. (Google web products director Marissa Mayer syas: “ I don?t think we will become the gatekeepers; I think there?ll be democratization of information.”) Certainly, power will reside with companies that can manage and sort vast amounts of information and then redirect it to you, based on your preferences. Amazon already does this, using algorithms to create recommendations of which book you should buy next, based on what you?ve read before. News, entertainment, even advertising will increasingly be directed at individuals, based on their previous consumption or behavior. Says Bob Lutz, chief technology officer at Nielsen Media Research: “Your smart TV will know who?s watching, and will decide which ads should be shown.” That strikes some as slightly Big Brotherish. “It raises about who gets to define who we are,” says Joseph Turow, a professor with the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “I may not want somebody making assumptions about me and deciding what I should be shown on my TV.” Turow also worries that this kind of targeting could be used to discriminate, offering differing prices or services to people based on the desirability of their “media profile.” Perhaps the biggest worry is that too much media will cut us off from the life around us. People spend ten hours a day with media, according to a study by the media research company Veronis Su
hler Stevenson. And time spent with solitary forms of media is that much less time spent with other human beings. Michael Bull, a University of Sussex professor who specializes in studying the behavior of iPod users (earning him the moniker Professor iPod), says that Pod People tend to live in a state he calls “absent presence－you?re there, but you?re not really there.”
Author Douglas Rushkoff posits that media yields a more productive and enjoyable experience when it “brings people together－whether in the viewing itself or at the water cooler the next day.” Since the iMedia experience fails to offer that, Rushkoff thinks people may gradually discover it?s not as much fun as it?s cracked up to be.
But few believe the movement is going to show down. And even critics of iMedia say there are benefits to be reaped－convenience, choice, information, an opportunity to be heard－if we can manage the problems. Sunstein recommends that iMedia users make a conscious effort to expose themselves to contrary ideas and voices－to break out of the bubble every once in a while. And Professor iPod has this practical suggestion: Now and again, try taking those buds out of your ears.
9我我媒体
特里Wolfisch科尔可能看起来像一个普通的40岁的老妈和女童子军的领袖,但她的小镇康涅狄格州的邻居知道真相:她“s“豆荚人。”她在超市游荡的通道独立的泡沫,多亏她的iPod数字音乐播放器。通过这些小小的白色耳麦。Wolfisch科尔听的播放列表混合
她最喜欢的光盘jockey-herself。“播放音乐的特里”准确地知道这欢快的歌曲可以让她的脚洗牌之前在沉闷的购物经验。“尽量不要大声唱歌,我把耳机当我到达熟食柜台或收银
机,“Wolfisch科尔说,但除此之外,她“年代封锁在自己的听亭、信号“请勿打扰”的外面的世界。 在家里,当孩子们藏,Wolfisch科尔常常独自逃到另一个媒体舱但是这一个,她的传递,而不只是接受。在她的电脑网络日志,或“博客,”她类型在线杂志记载她生活的每日新闻(菜谱、家庭更新,或“随我的小船”),股票与web。她吸引了一个忠实的听众,她说,“实际上似乎想读我的孩子今天吐在地板上。“d铛吗?”
狼-科尔也被她的每日新闻定制的互联网和数字录像机(DVR)扫描通过电视荒地罚款和记录显示,适合她的爱好的一部分,新一代的人过滤、塑造,甚至为自己创造媒体。他们越来越多地背弃了建立系统提供了新闻和娱乐的大众媒体在过去的半个世纪。他们已经加入了爆炸iMedia”革命,把媒体的力量手中的普通人。
运动的工具由一个冒泡炖的新技术,包括ipod、博客、播客、dvr,定制的在线报纸,和卫星广播。都是受到公众越来越渴望拥抱的媒体控制。市场的一项新研究发现,2700万年美国人现在拥有一个或多个随需应变的媒体设备,如iPod或DVR。和它不只是技术人员或十几岁的书呆子加入竞争:市场”年代高级副总裁比尔玫瑰说研究表明,diy媒体的吸引力已经穿越人口行并将继续蔓延。
信徒的iMedia丰富,从纽约89岁的祖母,称为乳房,谁拿了博客来分享她的世俗的建议(她的座右铭:“你正在经历的一切,我已经做到了。”),11岁的迪伦威尔第的德克萨斯州,他已经开始广播自己的自制的电视节目或“视频博客,视频网络日志,包括主题,包括突发新闻括号。之间的无数iMedia爱好者喜欢Rogier van Bakel,44岁的缅因州,晚上的博客,读取
Web-customized早晨新闻页面,旅行和他满载iPod和回家看无论DVR为他选择了。一切都是过滤根据他的兴趣,包括自由主义、歌曲
艺术摇滚乐队凯泽酋长,和任何涉及比利时卡通人物丁丁。
罗森和其他跟踪iMedia革命的开端电视遥控器的发明,标志着第一次微妙的转变从广播媒体控制的平均沙发土豆。它使观众投票的thumbs-making放弃无聊的项目,避免广告变得更加容易。随着有线电视频道在1980年代末的1990年代中期互联网的到来,控制媒体输入不是只是一个奢侈品。“控制已成为必要,”比尔说。“没有,”没有办法整理所有的选项都变得可用。” 这些选项增加在过去的三年里作为一种新的个性化的媒体技术的完美风暴。第一,苹果的iPod爆炸现场,很快就吸引了1000万的客户(据估计,iPod销售的速度每分钟40)。数字音乐播放器允许用户从互联网下载音乐,歌曲,歌曲,创建自己的音乐混合,绕过电台主持人和记录存储。播客抵达2004年让人们下载整个广播节目或创建自己的广播节目。同年,博客作为一种主流现象爆炸(现在有1000万),几乎每个人都可以成为一个专家。的发展Really Simple Syndication(RSS)博客作者和读者更容易互相监视。RSS也有助于使可能的创造个性化的在线报纸——《每日我,作为被技术专家尼古拉斯·尼葛洛庞帝-由标题、文章摘要和链接内容相匹配的一个精确的兴趣。
电视和电台也被改造的技术。dvr为观众提供更多的控制,如视频点播。和无线电增长最快的部分是卫星,提供选择,吸引甚至最窄的口味。(小天狼星卫星广播系统有一个猫王通道)。 所有的这些新发展,但“iMedia狂热的年代比小玩意,小玩意和额外的通道。观察人士表示,这一趋势已经受不安分的创造力在那些人原名观众不再为批量生产的静坐,放之四海而皆准的媒体。30岁的芝加哥保险分析师安德鲁·詹姆斯说他”与“愚蠢的玩笑从白痴radio-my iPod负责,“Jayme Maultasch,26日纽约广告执行,从博客新闻提要,因为他说,“博客是免费告诉它的方式,而主流媒体已变得过于包装,太谨慎。”
此外,iMedia一代不是在接收端内容;他们想要有一个声音在新媒体。“消费者现在有更多权力,访问和选择,”罗伯特·伊格尔说,迪士尼的总裁兼首席运营官。回声布莱恩·柯林斯的执行创意总监奥美广告公司:“新技术是释放所有这些被压抑的创造力。在过去,只有大量的资源可以创造媒体。现在这些障碍正在下降。”
当这种情况发生时,iMedia时代将完全在美国,”一些人。草根媒体人士和Dan Gillmor一样,媒体,我们的作者设想的世界公民记者能够报道他们的当地社区,大众媒体不。杰夫?贾维斯,广受欢迎的博客亲身经历。com说,人们由iMedia授权将挑战主流媒体和现在自己的事件。“基本上,这意味着更多的声音会被听到,因为越来越多的人将自己的广播塔,”他说。”,并在一个民主国家,那是一件好事。”
嗯,也许吧。现在有人担心iMedia社会形成可能会暴躁,自私和狭隘。的一个问题与个性化的媒体说,芝加哥大学教授卡斯?桑斯坦(Cass Sunstein),是它创造了他所谓的“回音室的效果。“当你可以创建和塑造者自己的媒体经验,“你倾向于排除主题和观点你想忽视。这只是加强了你“ve总是相信,”导致极端主义。“这也使得民主很难函数,桑斯坦说:“如果没有共同的经历,我们将很难互相理解和达成一致的东西。“未来学家瓦瓦克,远见卓识的合著者”手册,预计类似的场景。“个性化的媒体世界,我们会回到部落主义,”他说。“部落将包括相信你所相信的人,和谁联系你通过共享媒体如博客。”
贾维斯不担心失去共享媒体的经验。“真的那么大,我们都看达拉斯在同一时间吗?”他问道。他看到博客汇集不同观点:“在我的博客上,我链接我不同意的人。“但桑斯坦认为,通常当博客做喜欢相反的观点,“他们这样做为了嘲笑或蔑视在另一边。”(人目睹了博客之间的敌对的交火中2004年的总统竞选期间可以证明这一点。)
iMedia革命相关的另一个问题在于,过去建立媒体gatekeepersbroadcasters桶,editorsit可能创建一个媒体混战。权利可能是棘手的问题:如果你创建一个播客,你能使用别人”年代音乐吗?说,如果他有一个好律师山姆·惠特莫尔山姆·惠特莫尔的编辑媒体调查网络通讯。“你可以打赌迪斯尼将锤人试图利用?米老鼠俱乐部”的主题。我预测我们会看到诉讼,有人会输在他家中播客。“有”的隐私问题:如果你拍摄自制的社区中心的消息,可以传播你的市民“图片在互联网上?“我们可能会进入一个世界,那里没有这样的东西出现在镜头之外,”惠特莫尔说。”,“令人兴奋的和可怕的。”
与此同时,谁将成为下一个媒体把关?在互联网上一个场景循环通过电影预言未来的大型媒体的老板将一个实体称为Googlezon谷歌和亚马逊(合并),这将取代媒体通过将直接向客户个性化的新闻和信息。(Google web产品总监Marissa Mayer说:“我不t认为我们会成为守门的;我认为会民主化的信息。)当然,力量将驻留的公司可以管理和大量的信息,然后把输出重定向到你,根据你的喜好。亚马逊已经这样做了,使用算法来创建建议接下来你应该买哪一本书,根据你之前读。新闻、娱乐,甚至广告将越来越多地针对个人,根据他们之前的消费或行为。鲍勃?鲁茨说,首席技术官尼尔森媒介研究:“你的智能电视会知道谁”看,并将决定哪些广告应该显示。”
一段时间,会稍微老大哥。“这引发了关于谁来定义我们是谁,”约瑟夫·特罗说Annenberg传播学院的教授沟通宾夕法尼亚大学。“我可能不希望有人对我进行假设和决定我应该显示在我的电视。“特罗也担心这种目标可以用来区分,提供不同的价格或服务人们愿望的基础上他们的“媒体资料。”
也许最大的担忧是,太多的媒体将我们从我们周围的生活。人们每天花十个小时与媒体,据媒体调查公司的一项研究。Veronis Suhler Stevenson发布孤独的形式的媒体和时间是花更少的时间与其他人类。苏塞克斯大学的迈克尔?牛教授专门从事研究iPod用户的行为(获得教授的iPod的绰号),说Pod人们倾向于生活在一个国家他称之为“缺席的力量”那里,但你“不是真的。”
作者道格拉斯·洛西克夫指出,媒体产生一个更有效率和愉快的经历当它“将人们一起观看本身或在第二天水冷却器。“自从iMedia经验未能提供,洛西克夫认为人们会逐渐发现它“不是很有趣,但“年代了。
但很少有人认为,运动是要展示。甚至批评reaped-convenience iMedia说有好处,选择,信息,知道我们的机会可以管理的问题。桑斯坦建议iMedia用户有意识让自己相反的想法和声音打破泡沫每隔一段时间。和iPod教授这种务实的建议:现在,试着把那些花蕾从你的耳朵。