Kevin Kelly

I thought what Kelly had to say about web 3.0 is very interesting. In the next 5000 days of the web so much will be accomplished. So much will be discovered. It is crazy to think that the web has only been around for 5000 days and that we have come this far. Just trying to imagine what it will be like 5000 days from now is mind blowing. There will be personal assistants in every persons pocket. There will be help to make any decision in everyone's pocket. The web will take over everyone's life and there is nothing that we are going to be able to do about it.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is the future of the internet and there are many ways in which I think it will go. The web will take a turn for the better in the beginning until we get too reliant on it. It will be everywhere we are and there will be nothing that we won't know because everything we need will be at our fingertips. The uses we will have for web 3.0 will be unlimited, at least until web 4.0 comes out.

Midterm Paper

In recent years the world has become much more computerized and technologically advanced. As a result, much of what we do is Internet based. From movies to TV shows, many movies are streamed online. Some of the most popular forms of video are “homegrown” video clips many of which are found on YouTube. In order to capitalize on this, many advertisers and TV shows have started to mimic this amateurish style, hoping to draw larger crowds. But, I do not believe that amateur films and commercials will become any more popular than they already have.

First, there are many important factors that go into a good movie. Being made to look like an armature film takes away from the movie experience. When many people go to the movies it is to escape from the normal, from the everyday. When you take that experience and turn into the everyday, you take away from the experience that moviegoers are looking for.

To see this demonstrated you merely have to look at two recent movies that were made in the armature style. The first, Cloverfield, airing in January 2008 was a pioneer movie being one of the first to appear in this style. With much excitement and hype it earned a gross total of just under $170 million. One of the next movies to come out in this style was Paranormal Activity airing in September 2009. This only grossed roughly $142 million, a significant decline from Cloverfield.

Another reason that amateurish films will not earn the same amount that other movies earn is because of the recent surge in 3D and Imax movies. It is a different way to see movies and is becoming rapidly popular due to the recent advances in both fields. The viewers enjoy seeing movies in this way because it is a different experience. Once more it something out of the ordinary and in being this it is more appealing to the public.

People enjoy seeing movies that get more and more technologically advanced. Here is where competition also comes into play. Once one company comes out with a new and exciting way to film or a show a movie, every other company puts out a movie that is similar so as to keep up with the other companies, and keep their name on top.

Many advertisements will also lose money if they film their adds in this way. The average American likes things that are commercial looking and have certain glamour to them. If you take that away from the add then you take away it’s appeal to the viewer. Another reason is that people tend to remember things that are catchy and creative, and in remembering, they will be more likely to purchase that product. In order to keep their adds catchy and appealing they need the production and “Hollywood” spin on it, otherwise it looks like something that anyone could make themselves.

A lot of television companies are also starting to attempt to cash in on the new craze of “homegrown” films. They are coming out with mini clips of their shows called webisiodes. They are short and often have very little to do with the series that they are based on. Although they are funny and clever they do not hold a candle to the television shows themselves. They have high ratings among people who follow the shows but they do not have high ratings with the entire viewing population. They also make very little money in advertising and they can sometimes be costly to make causing the company to lose money.

The only field in the amateurish category that seems to be prospering is reality TV. Reality TV has been one of the leading television categories, starting with the first major hit in 1999 with Big Brother. Since then it has done nothing but expand. Every major television company now has at least one reality show, and many of them have as many as five, with sequels and spinoffs to many of them.

Though the reality TV business seems to be doing well every other form of “homegrown” film cannot compete with the Hollywood production of their field. They simply do not have the attraction that the professional production companies have to the public. Although they were appealing at first, they have taken a severe hit from the Imax and 3D industries. I feel if the continue to make these amateur films the production values will continue to drop and the industries will end up losing money.

Project Proposal

The project that I am choosing is about the "homegrown" films and television shows that have become more prevalent as time has gone on. I will write a paper on the upcoming use of this type of amateur film making.

Partner Questions

1. We believe that the quality of home-grown amateur videos will continue to get better over time because the technology that individuals use will become more advanced as time goes on. Technology has been on the rise for as long as the personal camcorder has existed, and it will only continue to get better.

2. People have different views on what is involved in articles. The pieces of information may be interpreted differently and therefore the articles would be categorized differently from person to person.

3. Without transparency the world would not be able to communicate the way we can today. The lines of communication would be much harder to reach and we would not have the accessibility we are used to. It is more important in the offline world because we need to be able to communicate with each other face to face, as opposed to online via the internet.

Questions

I think that we do see too many advertisements. Everywhere you go there are many posters, billboards, and other forms of advertisements trying to bring you in. Even relaxing on the beach there are planes that fly by with banners behind them. People 20-30 years ago dealt with fewer ads in my opinion. Also, the companies were not as vicious with their need for profit. Everything was a lot more laid back in those days and today everyone became up-tight and needs profit immediately.

In the future I think that we will see more of those scanning billboards that have a scanner twenty feet or so in front of it and then by the time you pass it has a product that interests you on the screen to make it a shopper-unique market.

Digital Nation

The video we watched in class was very interesting. It showed us how much we really rely on technology and how much it affects our life. There are many impacts of technology that we deal with everyday. There is not a time in the day when we are not using technology to make our lives easier and simpler.
One of the most interesting parts of the video that I want to watch is the video game addict portion. It looks very interesting and there seems to be a reat deal of it going on in asia. I had no idea that there were so many people who were addicted to video games and had a problem with playing them all the time.
Technology has a huge impact on the world and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it from coming. Many people think that we rely on it too heavily, others believe that it can only help us in what we do, but in all honesty we are going to have to wait and see what happens because no one can predict the future. We can only guess, and as of right now there is not much for us to base anything off of.