Social Media
Social
media refers to
any media shared online (e.g.,
videos, music, photos, news, etc.). Hitwise reported that “increased
broadband penetration, combined with the rise of con-sumer generated content
and the proliferation of webcams and cell phone and home video cameras have firmly entrenched online video
viewing into the habits of entertainment seekers in the United States.”
YouTube
YouTube, launched in late
2005, is the leading
Internet video
site. In true Web 2.0 fash-ion, the entire site is based
on user-generated content. Users upload videos, and rate and comment on videos
posted by other users. YouTube’s Quick Capture Flash software makes it easy to
upload content directly from a webcam. Users can browse videos by cat-egory,
tag, or by following “related video” links. Highly rated videos are featured on
You-Tube’s homepage. While many professionals and film students post content on
the site, the most popular submissions are often simple spoofs or home videos.
Because of the viral network effects of YouTube, these amateur videos can
quickly gain worldwide attention.
Users can subscribe to other users’ content,
share videos with friends by e-mail, or embed videos directly into their blogs
or other websites. YouTube addresses privacy and spam concerns by allowing
users to set videos as “public” or “private” and flag inappro-priate material
for review by YouTube’s staff.
Less than a year after its official launch,
YouTube was acquired by Google (which had its own less popular Google Video
site) for $1.65 billion. Less than six months after the acquisition, Viacom
sued YouTube for $1 billion for copyright infringement. The Digital Millennium
Copyright Act of 1998 protects companies from prosecution due to user actions
if they work in “good faith” to remove offending content. However, interpretations
of this act vary, and it has become a point of contention for many companies.
You-Tube is developing a mechanism that automatically detects copyrighted
material. Currently, illegal content is removed from the site manually.
Internet TV
Many mass-media companies now offer full-length
episodes of popular television shows on their websites to tap into the
increasingly popular Internet television market. The av-erage American watches
4.5 hours of television a day, not including Internet television.
Sites, such as Joost, Veoh and MobiTV, have
emerged as a new way of watching television. Joost, for example, uses semantic
technologies to help users find programs that interest them. (See Section 3.18,
Future of the Web.)
Limited by copyright issues, Internet TV sites
must make deals with mainstream networks to offer their content online. Viacom
made a deal with Joost, allowing the site to include some shows from networks
such as MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central. As users take back the power to choose
what they watch and when, networks may find themselves making more deals with
Internet TV companies. As technologies continue to improve, Internet TV has the
potential to radically change the television industry. Already, smaller content
creators are able to gain access to worldwide audiences. In late June 2007,
MySpace joined the market with its MySpaceTV. With MySpace’s enormous
member-ship, it could rapidly become a direct competitor to YouTube and
Internet TV websites.
Internet TV allows advertisers to target their
markets more precisely than with broad-cast television. Advertisers can use
demographic information, such as location, gender and age, to serve appropriate
ads.
Digg
Digg
features news, videos and podcasts, all posted
and rated by users. It has gained pop-ularity by allowing users
to “digg” or “bury” posts and user comments. Valuable sites, marked by large
numbers of diggs, are moved to the Digg front page where other users can easily find them. Formulas were adjusted to make
sure the “wisdom of crowds” was not being hijacked by users trying to promote
their own posts. Sites that are “dugg” and featured on the homepage typically
experience a traffic surge. Bloggers can add Digg buttons to their sites,
making it easy for readers to “digg” their posts.
Digg uses
collaborative filtering to help reduce spam by “burying” it (users can vote
against posts they don’t like). Users can also set the threshold of diggs to
automatically filter out content with low ratings. The site was criticized for
removing popular posts of HD DVD security cracks (on the advice of lawyers);
however, Kevin Rose (Digg’s
founder) decided to support the crowds and “deal
with whatever the consequences might be.” Digg has additional social networking
capabilities; users can view their friends’ Digg activities and the Diggs of
other users with similar interests. Some Digg-like sites include Netscape,
Reddit and Newsvine.
Last.fm
Last.fm is an Internet radio website that uses Web 2.0 concepts to make music
recommen-dations
and build communities. The site provides open source desktop software that can
be integrated into most popular music players. Its scrobbling feature tracks
the music users listen to so that Last.fm can provide users with personalized
recommendations. A stream-able radio with “discovery mode” and a network of
like-minded listeners help users find new music. Groups and an events section
add social value. The site also offers tagging and wiki pages for artists and
record labels.
Digital Rights Management
(DRM)
Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems add software to media files to prevent them
from being misused, but these
systems restrict compatibility with many media players. Companies want to
protect their digital products from illegal distribution; however, users want
unrestricted access to media they’ve purchased.
iTunes, Apple’s music store, has been criticized for restricting
users’ access to their own music by allowing only up to
five computers to be authorized to play any given file. However, Apple’s Steve
Jobs advocated a DRM-free music world in February 2007, arguing the greater risk for piracy is in
DRM-free CDs, which make up the majority of music sales.90 CDs
remain DRM-free because many CD players are not compatible with DRM systems. In
June 2007, Amazon offered DRM-free downloads from more than 12,000 record
labels, and both iTunes and Amazon sell DRM-free music from EMI (one of the
four major record companies).
Podcasting
Podcasting
was popularized
by Apple’s iPod portable media
player. A podcast is a digital audio file (e.g., an .mp3) that often takes on
the characteristics of a radio talk show (though without live callers). Much as
blogging has made journalism accessible to everyone, podcasting has introduced
a more democratic form of radio broadcasting. Podcasts are easily created with
audio software and can be played on a computer or portable media player. The
files are posted online at individual websites or distributed via programs like
Apple’s iTunes. Listeners can often subscribe to podcasts via RSS feeds.
Forrester Research pre-dicted 12 million households will be regularly
subscribing to podcasts by 2010.
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