As Class Starts

I figured I'd do one last post in a sad attempt to receive a better grade for this assignment. As a whole I really enjoyed this class because it was a topic that was relevant to almost every single person in the class. It was contemporary, it was new, and it was interesting. I learned things that I had no idea were such a large part of our culture and our society. I loved the social media and transmedia portions of class due to the immersion of those topics within my everyday life. With social media, I use it every single day, and saw the true impact that it has on our lives when we talked about it in class. For transmedia, I had experienced it almost all of my life with Star Wars and Pokemon. I played the video games, collected the cards, watched the TV shows, and experienced the movies. It brought me so much joy as a kid to see the Jedi and Sith being mentioned in the movies and shows fighting beside me as a 10 year old boy; to see the Pokemon I spent hours catching and training every morning before I went to school. These transmedia franchises evolved with me over time. As I got older, I began reading the books and playing the more complicated video games. Even as a 21 year old in college, you get a special joy of turning on a Pokemon game and reliving all that you had done as a child, of playing with a toy lightsaber, and of rewatching the classic movies and shows. Transmedia has created a new powerhouse for franchises that allow them to outlast their competition and build their own society, culture, and universe that fans will take part in for the rest of their lives.

In a Galaxy Far Far Away...

Imagine a universe, so large and expansive, that stories can be created out of thin air, where billions of people are unknown, and historical events are just a thought away. In the Star Wars universe, there are almost endless possibilities for these things. Due to the size and magnitude of the universe that George Lucas and LucasArts have created, the world of transmedia can be utilized to an extreme. Books can be written about places that no one knows about, comic books can chronicle the story of an unknown hero, and a video game can be created to allow users to fight in a war no one knew happened. Transmedia has allowed the Star Wars franchise to remain in a profitable situation since its inception. Countless number of books, comics, TV shows, and video games have been created in order to maximize the stories that come of of the universe. This has allowed fans to become more involved with the franchise the likes few franchises have ever achieved. For example, in the video game Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic, you create your own character who can forge his or her own story, forever changing the Star Wars universe based on their decisions and actions. That sort of power and control makes fans devote themselves in ways a traditional film never could before. All of these avenues of media also help appeal to such a large range of demographics, from those who enjoy reading, to kids who want to play video games and read comics, to casual fans who want to watch a TV show every now and then. The utilization of transmedia in such an expansive and ever growing universe has made the Star Wars franchise a self-sustaining idea that can last the test of time with the proper execution. Other franchises have begun to realize the power that transmedia has and have began its implementation into their franchises as well. Sooner or later, companies will realize that if they want to live on with their franchises, they will need to make transmedia a key priority.

Digital Nativity

The Wikipedia definition of a digital native: A digital native is a person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies and through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater understanding of its concepts. Alternatively, this term can describe people born during or after the 2000's, as the Digital Age began at that time; but in most cases, the term focuses on people who grew up with the technology that became prevalent in the latter part of the 20th century and continues to evolve today. In our readings, Boyd acknowledges the fact that this is, in fact, not an accurate means of stereotyping our generation. In reality, many children that have grown up in this period of time are just as technologically illiterate as the generation before us. While many youth do have a much more developed understanding and proficiency with technology, it does not mean that each and every single member of this generation shares in that knowledge. Technology has been implemented in various aspects of our daily lives, which has allowed someone who grows up utilizing it their entire lives to become more familiar with it, and therefore more proficient with it. Without a doubt there are many members of the previous generation that are much more knowledgeable and experienced with technology compared to those of the digital native generation. It is unfair to assume that just because of a person's generational disposition, that they are associated with this expectation of knowledge and familiarity. Technology and its various means and sources is not for everyone, and by placing individuals into this category due to their age is almost prejudicial to them. You make them feel as if they should know these things and are odd or out of place if they do not. The idea of the digital native is false, just as Boyd points out, and it is an unfortunate stereotype that all youth will likely have to deal with as the times move on. 

Copyright: Is it Alright to Copy?

Copyright has become a standard of American living for the better part of this last century, and it's power and importance has continued to grow and spread. With the rise of the internet, and other various mediums to share and communicate, people want their ideas and creations to stay THEIR ideas and creations. While people have always wanted to copyright books, poems, music and film, the spread of copyright has expanded to sayings and slogans for major companies and individuals. One example in sports is the term "3-Peat" which was copyrighted by former coach Pat Riley. It was originally coined for the "three" "repeated" championships by the Chicago Bulls in three consecutive years, and is looking to use it for his Miami Heat team, should they accomplish the same feat. Another recent sports trademark is that of Johnny Manziel, and his "Johnny Football" copyright. The term was used to refer to him due to his success in college football over the last two years which included him becoming the first freshman (although not a true freshman) to win the Heisman Trophy. Sports have always been a high profile entertainment business and not unlike its counterparts, it has its fair share of copyrights. Before any game is televised on national television, the league of whatever teams are playing, typically airs a brief message stating that all video and audio that is about to be shown cannot be copied or reproduced without expressed written consent from the league itself. Each of the major sports leagues have their copyrights for almost every aspect of its sport, which allows them complete control of its exposure to the public. This prevents others from copying the games and showing them elsewhere for their own broadcast, it also means sports talks shows and television programs need to work out a deal in order for them to effectively cover that sport. So networks like ESPN and ABC need to have a contract with the leagues in order to broadcast and cover the sports. Copyright is a pivotal aspect of the sports world, as an entertainment industry, in order to remain successful.

Youtube: Almost Better than Limewire

A good number of people in the early to mid 2000's have likely heard of the service Limewire, which allowed users to download media that was shared over servers. People would find the song or video they were looking for and then download it. The speed of the download often depended on how many people had the exact file you were looking for available to download. Such services are now dead and or dying due to the illegality of its nature. What has become one of the more common ways to download free music has come by means of the website YouTube. Individuals can legally watch YouTube videos anytime they want, but unfortunately don't always have the rights to download what is being shown. Music videos are very common on YouTube and often are very high quality and exactly what people are looking for. How do you get said music into an MP3 format available to download you ask? Simple. There are numerous sites such as http://www.youtube-mp3.org/ that allow you to enter the URL of the specific video you are attempting to get the music from, and turns it into a downloadable MP3 file for you to use as you please. On their site, they state the basic cause of the site "YouTube-mp3.org is the easiest online service for converting videos to mp3. You do not need an account, the only thing you need is a YouTube URL. We will start to convert the audiotrack of your videofile to mp3 as soon as you have submitted it and you will be able to download it. Different from other services the whole conversion process will be perfomed by our infrastructure and you only have to download the audio file from our servers. Because of this our software is platform-independent: You can use it with your Mac, a Linux PC or even an iPhone. All our conversions will be perfomed in high quality mode with a bitrate of at least 128 kBit/s. Do not worry, our service is completely free. We need approximately 3 to 4 minutes per video."  As simple as that.

NFL Social Media

Arguably the most popular sport in America, the National Football League is an almost $38 billion dollar sport, with the average worth of an NFL team coming in at $1.17 billion dollars. With this sort of money being thrown around, it makes even the most minute incidents ones that could be catastrophic for some. The NFL has the largest presence on social media with 6.6 million people following JUST the NFL's account. The television network for the NFL has just under one million followers, Roger Goodell, the NFL's commissioner has almost half a million followers, and just the New England Patriots have nearly 900 thousand followers. Not to mention the players themselves: Chad Ochocinco (a retired player at that) has 3.65 million followers, and Tim Tebow (another player currently not in the league) has 2.55 million followers. The player who currently plays, with the most followers is Reggie Bush of the Detroit Lions at 2.8 million people who see what he tweets daily. Just imagine the amount of individuals that follower the league, and then a TV show about the NFL, then their favorite team, then some players on the team, and then some writers for that team: the amount of people seeing social media for the NFL is almost incomprehensible. The power that the NFL has in the social media market is almost unlike any other. Social media has allowed fans, players, and other personnel to interact with one another in ways never thought possible before. These interactions help drive home the depth of involvement fans have with players and teams and enriches their overall experience. This is a positive outcome of a business as successful as the NFL using social media in order to promote itself as well as its employees and fans by means of a medium accessible to almost everyone. While there are some drawbacks, and many ways for social media to create a negative situation, the power that it has to promote these teams and players and the platform it gives them, is something that is good for all parties involved.

Social Media Possibilites

For this post, I am going to look at the various possibilities that social media can have. Social media to some people is the greatest thing to happen, while others see it as the worst man-made creation in our generation. While there are negative consequences like any other thing, social media has created so many positive opportunities for those involved. Social media has allowed communities to form that has brought people together from all over the world to unite with a common interest or goal. It has allowed people to stay in touch long after they are unable to see one another for whatever reason. Due to the ability to share and post pictures and videos, people can share these memories with one another over the world with a click of a button. For social movements, social media has allowed a medium from which to spread their cause to millions of people. They can post videos, images, and statements to advertise their cause and attract potential supports. Also, they can create events which can help bring supporters together at a time and/or place. Social media has the means to coordinate and organize large numbers of people and allows them to communicate with one another. It also creates an online identity for those who create profiles on these social media sites. This allows people to identify with others who have similar online profiles, as well as show off their interests and allegiances to all of those who see their profile. Specific social media sites specialize in different aspects of interactions amongst its users. Facebook has created a place for everyday interactions between "friends" and allows users many options for interacting with one another. Twitter is mostly news related due to its chronological timeline and 140 character limit. Instagram shares images and videos to its users. Pinterest allows users to "pin" images to their profile's pages and share them with those who follow them as well. These sites have created an entirely new dynamic to the social culture of our generation, and will forever change the way people socialize until the next significant social change occurs.