A controversial new video chat service, Chatroulette, has spread like wildfire around the Web, and already major media outlets are chiming in on what it means, good or bad.  Now, although I generally agree with its already well-established reputation for being “creepy“, full of mostly males in their 20s masturbating on camera and generally behaving indecently, as a student of the Web and on-line communication, I thought it might be worth looking at Chatroulette as an authentic survey and insta-polling service.  Instead, I learned what was actually happening on Chatroulette, and that helped paint a picture for what it’s really all about.

My first study of the service, wherein I informally surveyed users about their usage… well, anyone who would actually take the time to speak with me (as opposed to being skipped – or, as this videographer put it, “nexted”)… proved to me that the service is more than just for the lewd-minded.  My survey actually led me to conclude that the primary purpose of the site isn’t just for sycophants to misbehave, but rather, for twentysomething men to go about looking for members of the opposite sex to simply connect with.  It that regard, it’s not much different than traditional dating services and from a lot of the behavior that takes place in the social media space already.  In other words, it’s not just about sex, but interpersonal co-ed communication (err, I guess that’s sex, too… but I can’t presume most users are actually looking for sexual encounters, in that regard).

Of course, my first study took place late at night, so I felt it wise to take a look at usage during the day as well (I’ll have a Prime Time usage study up eventually… the service is often down due to its newfound popularity during early evening hours).  My prediction was that I’d find more females on Chatroulette during the day.  Whether that was because more women are supposedly at home and have free time during the day, or more women are taking an interest in the service due to its recent media coverage, I cannot say.  It was just a hunch, but it ended up being mostly accurate.  However, I must strictly note that this was NOT a scientific study, and based on differences in time-zones, and the fact that several of the women I talked to were in timezones that were already well into evening hours, I’m leaning on the service’s new popularity having to do with finding more women.  And more non-US users.

Below are my findings.

If you want to talk to women, daytime is the best time.

Average age claimed: 26

This is significantly older than the late night study, however this mean was generated by a wider range of ages, from 18-40.  The median age was about 27.

Like I discovered during late night, CR is not all male nudity during the day, but only slightly less so.

Like late at night, skipped connections (“nexted”) are the norm…

A key difference between late night and daytime was that I saw more nudity than I talked to people, during the day… although, I did get skipped less…

It’s possible during my late night survey, users displaying nudity simply nexted me before I could see that they were showing any nudity.  Good for me, haha!

Chatroulette has grown in popularity with added media attention.  The service was not listing the amount of people on-line, instead simply listing “>20,000″

Chatroulette is VERY international now

85% of the people I interviewed were from outside of the United States, primarily in Europe, particularly Norway.

What respondents liked about Chatroulette:

“Chatroulette is random, it’s like “zapping” (channel changing) on TV.”

“Great communication.”

“Girls!”

“Quick interactions.”

“Weed smokers.”

“Random Dutch people.” (spoken by a woman from Norway)

What respondents DID NOT like about Chatroulette:

“Lack of actual communication.”

“Male genitalia.”

“The sex stuff.”

“Rude people.”

“Old men.”

Based on some of these quotes, my general conclusion is that people love the random interaction on Chatroulette, but they hate the sexual content. HOWEVER, a significant percentage of users are on Chatroulette for the sexual content.

Ultimately, you just have to take the good with the bad. Also, there are seemingly more women on Chatroulette during the day, or, at least, now that it has grown in popularity, and many people are looking to have actual conversations with people, as opposed surfing it for sexual encounters.  Of course, the majority of users are still men, probably no matter what time of day you visit the service.

Image from Dangerous Minds

Chatroulette, the fascinating new Web video chat service from 17-yr old Russian wunderkind Andrey Ternovskiy, is rapidly taking the Internets by storm.  Whether you think Chatroulette is an uncensored mess with unseen potential or it’s just the best thing going right now, it’s only a matter of time before everybody is talking about it.  With that in mind, I felt like conducting some informal surveys directly on Chatroulette to see what it’s all about.

I found that, despite a reputation for being a phallus-plagued 4chan-esque Internet backwater, most users are looking to Chatroulette for a fun, genuine chat experience with a member of the opposite sex.

Before I dive in to the numbers, in short, Chatroulette is a Web vidchat service akin to the non-video chat service Omegle.  Like Omegle, Chatroulette matches random webcam users with other random webcam users, no login, prior criteria, or preferences required.  Already, Chatroulette is producing craigslist “Missed Connections” and some pretty hilarious “Chatroulette Reaction” screencaps (NSFW!).  It appears that the general consensus around the blogosphere is that, like much of the Internet, lewd behavior and exhibitionism is the modus operandi of the site.  Following are some non-scientific figures I’ve produced to both challenge and support such conceptions.

Chatroulette Late Night Usage

On 15 February 2010, I conducted an informal survey of Chatroulette to find out how and who is using it.  Beginning at 10:40 pm PT and with my webcam fully enabled and my face completely visible (it should be noted that I am a white male in my late twenties, and I was wearing a backwards baseball cap in a fully-lit space), I engaged in the service, making approx. 100 connections (webcam only to webcam only, 97 in all) during a one hour-long period.  Occasionally, (meaning roughly 5 failed attempts) I held up a sign indicating I was conducting a survey, but this appeared to be less effective in drawing participation.  Instead, with each attempted connection I introduced myself verbally, asking various survey questions to whoever would respond.  Certainly, this survey was incredibly non-scientific! Only 8 useful connections (as in, chats concluding in actual survey completion) occured, but every connection made provided actual visual data, allowing a majority of the data below to be recorded.  Nevertheless, this data is prone to a heavy degree of error, although I feel the numbers validate some generally useful observations.

The overwhelming majority of Chatroulette users are male.  Big surprise!?

Average user age (claimed) – 22 yrs old

Of the 8 useful connections made (meaning, concluded in an actual survey taking place), accounting for roughly 11 answering respondents claiming certain ages, the mean age was 22, while the mode was 21.  By my cursory observations, most users appeared to be of legal age for using the site (16 yrs old according to the site’s disclaimer).

For all the talk of penises and masturbation plaguing Chatroulette, a surprising number of users appeared fully-clothed and with fully visible faces, apparently intent on chatting as opposed to displaying a lewd act.  However, as you’ll see in the chart below, it appears that users are looking for a specific kind of person to chat with.  I was “skipped” (meaning, the user on the other end rapidly disconnected or hit “Next”) approx. 75 percent of the time.  As noted above, I did nothing to disfigure my appearance or shock other users, attempting to look as plain as possible.

Because the majority of Chatroulette late night users were male, and because I was male, the high-volume of “skipped” connections I experienced generally indicates that Chatroulette is being used for chat encounters with the opposite sex.

Chatroulette begins when a user clicks “Play” – and I find this terminology to be particular apropos because it really is a game just to find one person who will speak to you.  Of my 97 connections, only 8 resulted in actual chats.  Because “skips” happened so immediately and frequently, I can’t venture to guess that I was being ignored because I was conducting a survey, as most users did not take the time to find out because I wasn’t female.

Chatroulette is popular.  During my informal survey I noted the amount of users on-line to fluctuate between 20,000 and 30,000.

25% of respondents indicated that they use Chatroulette on a daily basis, with the same percentage reporting using it “rarely” or for the first time that night.  12.5% indicated that they use the service once a month, with the remainder indicating they use it several times a week.

Most respondents were from the US, with one being from the UK and one on-camera group from Canada.

1 Chileno who blocked his or her camera requested that I show them my “tits”.  Apparently my facial scruff and clearly visible male face was not enough to dissuade them.

1 user was clearly under the influence of alcohol, another respondent was smoking a bong and blowing smoke in to the camera the entire time we chatted.

Survey responses to “Favorite thing about Chatroulette”:

“Meeting random people”

“Anonymity” (user typed this out because she did not know how to pronounce it, and was thankful that I uttered it allowed for her so she could learn how.

“It’s weird”

“Meeting people from different countries”

“All the crazy sh-t”

“The concept is awesome”

“Nudity” (mentioned by female respondent… Canadian female respondent)

Survey responses to “Least favorite thing about Chatroulette”:

“Masturbating men” (near-universal response)

“Penises” or variants of the term

“Old men” (mentioned by a female respondent)

“Masturbating pedophiles” (mentioned by a male respondent)

Conclusions

Chatroulette is living up to its reputation as a service full of obvious random encounters and voyeurism. However, Chatroulette, even late at night, is not entirely chock-full of perpetual visages of male genitalia and annoying requests for “boobs” and “tits”.  In fact, it would appear that Chatroulette is being used by young people to find other young people of the opposite sex to simply video chat with.  Of course, that may lead to “boobs”, “tits”, or otherwise exposed male genitalia later on, but that denies any other less malignant possibilities.

If anything, like most social media, Chatroulette reflects the real, echoing actual life experiences while eliminating restrictions of time and geography.  Before you pass on Chatroulette, take another look at it’s more productive branding, messaging and communicative possibilities.

I should note that, all things consider, this survey was conducted late at night, so a daytime and primetime (early evening) survey will also need to be conducted, as well as mirror surveys conducted by a female considering the extreme male-to-female ratio of users.  I encourage anyone and everyone to study the matter further, and do a much better job than non-scientific me!

COMING SOON – Chatroulette day time usage, Chatroulette primetime usage

Abstract

Pocketmedia¹ storytelling can help change the culture of the developing world. This cultural change creates a new marketplace for certain storytelling information and communication technologies. This paper discusses pocketmedia use in small economies around the world.

Introduction

Emerging in many nations with underdeveloped economies², the practice of pocketmedia storytelling is a growing field generating many new human narratives around the world.

Pocketmedia storytelling encapsulates the creation of stories and media assets using digital handheld or mobile devices. A pocketmedia device allows users to capture audio, video, or still imagery and distribute these recordings to the Web. These recordings, or digital cultural artifacts, tell important cultural stories, share news and information, entertain, educate, or otherwise communicate various messages, although they may vary in form, effectiveness, and/or level of audience exposure.

As a whole, pocketmedia devices are considerably less-expensive than traditional audio and video storytelling production equipment, such as digital video cameras and high-end digital audio recording gear. Therefore, the low cost of pocketmedia technology softens the entry barrier to the practice of pocketmedia storytelling, promoting its emergence in small economies.

Because pocketmedia-generated texts are distributed on-line, they become a part of the global networked information economy³. Therefore, the audience for such stories is not limited to the economies in which they are produced. Users of pocketmedia from the developing world are able to engage equivalent users in more advanced economies, serving to usher participants wherever they may be towards a level playing field for the exchange of information and the improvement of the global society.

The proceeding sections define pocketmedia storytelling, document examples of its use in the developing world, and postulate on how pocketmedia establishes a new and vital marketplace for specific kinds of information and communication technologies in countries where more expensive storytelling production equipment may not be widely accessible.

Pocketmedia storytelling

Despite prior and concurrent efforts by various businesses to stake a claim on the pocketmedia moniker⁴, the University of Washington’s director of Electronic Relations has invited the on-line community to help define the term “pocketmedia” for the rest of us (Hayward, 2009). In an April, 2009, entry to the UW’s “Flip the Media” blog, Harry Hayward explained that the term has yet to be defined by credible agents, asking readers to begin crafting a definition (2009).

Hanson Hosein, director of the Master of Communication in Digital Media program at the same university, offered this definition of pocketmedia:

“[P]ocketmedia” means everyone is a communicator, a filmmaker, a journalist, a content creator, a community organizer, a rabble rouser, a message disrupter, a salesperson, a marketer, a broadcaster, a narrowcaster. [Why?] Because pockets transcend class, culture, gender, occupation, ethnicity and geography! (Hosein, 2009).

Thus, pocketmedia is defined not only by the devices which enable its creation, but also by the content created and the effect distributing that content has on both author and audience.

Pocketmedia storytelling is a unique type of content creation. As I define it, pocketmedia storytelling takes place when content captured entirely with a pocket-sized device is generated and distributed for the purpose of communicating an idea (or set of ideas), specifically telling some kind of story. Pocketmedia devices can be cellular phones, Flip Media camcorders⁵, point-and-shoot digital cameras, or other small devices that fit in the average clothing pocket. Typically, the format of captured content will be comprised of moving images, but still imagery and audio can also be captured and used to craft pocketmedia stories.

Finally, it should be noted that while any individual pocketmedia-produced content item may communicate certain ideas and exist as de minimus abstract narrative through strictly objective interpretation, such as a profile picture, ideally, pocketmedia stories will possess some level of Aristotelian methodology⁶, or they will otherwise take on a persistent communal narrative as they become repeatedly shared. However, the application of any methodology is not always necessary to qualify any content item as a story in the liberalist sense.

Global pocketmedia

The world is witnessing – and will continue to witness through its ongoing rapid penetration – the global dissemination and adoption of mobile phone technology (Kalba, 2008). Because of this widespread diffusion, handheld and mobile devices enabled with pocketmedia production functionalities (e.g., audio recording features, video recording features, web browsing capabilities for uploading content, and so forth) are naturally becoming more available in the developing world. Thus, participation in pocketmedia storytelling cannot be limited to users in advanced economies.

Unfortunately, according to a recent report from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a global “digital divide” still persists between those in the developed world that have Internet access and those in the underdeveloped world who do not (Tryhorn, 2009). For instance, many developing nations continue to lack widespread wired telecommunications infrastructures capable of supplying broadband Web access (2009).

Thankfully, Vodafone, a major supplier of mobile phones to the developing world – and thus a good indicator of market direction in emerging economies – maintains that mass market Internet access will be achieved through mobile approaches (Borthwick, 2009). Moreover, emerging markets consultant Tomi Ahonen argues that mobile phones are increasingly becoming the “first screen”, or first method by which users in the developing world access the Internet (Ahonen, 2009).

Ultimately, mobile devices are closing the digital divide, enabling pocketmedia creation in the developing world.

At this very moment, it is not difficult to imagine any number of mobile users, in any given developing nation, picking up their pocketmedia-capable devices and producing pocketmedia stories, even as you read this. Or, to borrow the logic from infinite parallel universe theory⁷, the simultaneous diffusion of pocketmedia devices and wireless broadband would indicate that “anything that can happen, will happen”. In other words, pocketmedia storytelling is set to become a global phenomenon; culture happens.

Nations and Examples

There are many voices seeking to define what is meant by the phrase “developing world”, more so than could be discussed fairly here. For purposes of this paper, the UNDP⁸, or United Nations Development Programme’s 2009 Human Development Index⁹ (HDI) was used to select nations in which to find examples of pocketmedia storytelling.

The HDI ranks nations according to human development statistics (Human Development Reports, 2009). As HDI scores factor in individual countries’ gross domestic product¹⁰ (GDP) with other assessors of human development such as life expectancy¹¹, the HDI becomes our yardstick for measuring what constitutes economic size as compared to living conditions. Generally speaking, a nation with a low HDI score will exhibit poor living conditions, thus low GDP – or, in other words, a low HDI means a nation has a small economy and can be labeled as “developing”. Conversely, nations with a high HDI score are considered “developed”.

Using the 2009 HDI, I have chosen two nations considered to have medium human development, namely Kenya and Iran, and another nation considered to have low human development, namely Guinea, as economies from which to share examples of pocketmedia storytelling. Although the rate of device penetration may vary from nation-to-nation in these examples, the fact that pocketmedia storytelling is taking place in these economies indicates some level of emerging marketplace foothold. This growing foothold is helping these nations to situate themselves as active participants within the global networked information economy.

Finally, I have deviated from the HDI and chosen to use Israel and Palestine as another example of an emerging market for pocketmedia storytelling.

Pocketmedia in Kenya

The African continent presents itself as one of the best places for growth in pocketmedia storytelling. According to the ITU, as of March 2009, Africa has the highest growth rate of mobile subscriptions world-wide (Mensah, 2009). At MobileAfrica.org, a blog about the social impact of mobile technology, journalist Ann-Ryan Heatwole recently reported that citizen journalists in Kenya, among other African nations, are being trained to use cell-phones, such as the Nokia N79 with built in video camera functionality, to capture and edit news stories (Heatwole, 2009). This information indicates that devices with pocketmedia functionality are beginning to penetrate growing mobile markets, such as that found in Africa.

Kenya stands as no exception to this African growth in pocketmedia storytelling. In 2007, citizen journalists were already using pocketmedia devices to record stories of life in the slums of Nairobi (Elmendorp, 2007). In late 2007, and spilling over in to the next year, Kenya saw a wave of violence following their national presidential election. Kenyan bloggers were able to capture video and tell stories of the violence using cell phones, distributing this content on-line (Haber, 2008). Reports like this reflect the growth of pocketmedia in Kenya, as well as across the rest of Africa.

Widespread diffusion of pocketmedia devices may help educational institutions like the Kenyan-based East African School of Media Studies¹² empower more video storytellers. Donald Giesen, University of Washington alum and director of the school, has expressed on the UW’s Flip the Media blog a pressing need for video capture equipment at his school, which as of April 2009 possessed only one camera (Giesen, 2009). Instead of costly higher-end equipment, Giesen may be able to acquire more inexpensive pocketmedia recording devices. Giesen could deploy these inexpensive cameras, such as the Flip camcorder, or encourage use of video-capable cell phones, to help meet the production needs of his students.

Pocketmedia in Iran

Like Kenya in 2007 and 2008, Iran saw its own share of violent protests during the immediate aftermath of this past summer’s heavily disputed Iranian presidential election. Once more, pocketmedia helped citizen journalists and other observers to capture stories of the violence and share these videos with the rest of the world via the Internet. One particular cell phone video, capturing the point-blank shooting death of protester Neda Agha-Soltan, was shared widely by users of the micro-blogging social media service Twitter¹³, capturing the attention of the social media world (Neda’ becomes rallying cry for Iranian protests, 2009). Twitter users created a hashtag¹⁴ entitled #Neda to share tweets¹⁵ in her honor (2009). At the time of publication of this paper, the Neda hashtag is still tracking several tweets per hour, nearly six months after Agha-Soltan’s death.

The example of Neda Agha-Soltan and the pocketmedia video of her death is testament to the power of pocketmedia content in the hands of social media users. Although the Iranian government reportedly attempted to prevent foreign journalists from reporting on protests, citizen pocketmedia creators in Iran were able to circumvent their information roadblock and share news with the global networked information economy (Mercier, 2009).

Pocketmedia in Guinea

As previously noted, pocketmedia storytelling need not be limited to audio and video. Sometimes pictures taken on cell phones can be used to communicate a story, even if not by the strictest interpretation. Images can be circulated by pocketmedia users, creating a collective mental-communal narrative of events captured. Device-to-device file transfers via Bluetooth, USB, email, or uploaded and downloaded with social media Web services like Flickr, Twitpic, and Facebook, can facilitate the generation of these collective social narratives.

This was the case recently in Conakry, Guinea, where an anonymous cell phone user snapped images of Guinean soldiers targeting and raping women during the crackdown of a public political demonstration (Nossiter, 2009). These pictures have been shared across the Guinea citizenry thanks to pocketmedia technology (2009). Since Guinea is a predominantly religiously conservative nation, the images have fueled express public rage at the behavior of the government, and are helping to change the international opinion of Guinean leader Moussa Dadis Camara (2009).

Ironically, perhaps the further proliferation of pocketmedia technology like the cell phone camera will eventually spell the ouster of the dictator Camara. Yet again, the power of pocketmedia to change a developing nation is being exhibited.

Examples such as the October Guinean cell phone pictures, the death of Agha-Soltan in Iran, and video blogging of violence in Kenya all clearly indicate that an emerging market for mobile devices with pocketmedia functionality exists in the developing world.

Gazamom: An example of pocketmedia for Israel and Palestine

Not all pocketmedia storytelling in the developing world focuses on raw journalism or popular current events. Pocketmedia devices can also be used to create messages of social and political change, helping to bridge the digital divide. Sometimes this can be achieved simply by relaying personal stories. No where does this seem more useful than in Israel and Palestine, where in many ways the developed world and the developing world collide on a daily basis.

In April 2009, Palestinian blogger and mother of two Laila El-Haddad, documented her ordeal trying to travel with her US born children from the United States back to Gaza via Eqypt (Hussaini, 2009). El-Haddad was stopped at the border by Egyptian authorities, and after many hours of interrogation was prevented entry to her homeland (2009). Using Twitter, she posted updates of her experience and mentioned using a Flip minoHD camcorder to record her journey (2009). Yet again, pocketmedia, in this case the Flip camcorder, was put to use for purposes of pocketmedia storytelling. The story of one Palestinian mother’s attempts to bring her American children to her developing home state demonstrate the growing global prevalence of pocketmedia.

If more Palestinians begin using technology like the Flip camcorder to tell their personal stories, perhaps social and political change will occur in the Holy Land as hearts are softened and voices heard through pocketmedia. As a developed nation with plenty of broadband Internet diffusion, Israelis will have the opportunity to become exposed to these texts and shape new opinions based on knowledge acquired from the global networked information commons.

Conclusion

The mass adoption of mobile phones and other mobile communication devices with Internet accessibility in the developing economies of the world will help to promote the use of pocketmedia technology and the production of pocketmedia content. Though the economies from which this pocketmedia storytelling will emerge are meager as compared their counterparts in the developed world, their cultural entries, as assets in the data recesses of the global information economy, represent the beginnings of a larger global-societal shift. This global-societal shift happens in the way in which developing nations and developed nations communicate with one another. Pocketmedia storytelling is a catalyst of this shift.

Thus, there stands today a global emerging marketplace for pocketmedia devices because pocketmedia storytelling can change culture in the developing world. This cultural change, signaled by the pocketmedia production of new cultural artifacts, as depicted in all of the examples above, help define a new marketplace for this particular type of storytelling information and communication technology.

References

Ahonen, T. (2009, November 10). The Digital Divide in Numbers: TVs, PCs, Internet users, Mobile around the world. In Communities Dominate Brands on blogs.com. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/page/2/.

Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.

Borthwick, R. (2009). Strategies for Mass Market Internet Access in Developing Countries. Vodafone. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/treg/wsis/c6/doc/vodafone.pdf.

Elmendorp, R. (2007, September 5). Rocketboom on Cell Phone Reporting in Kenya [Video file]. On YouTube – ROCKETBOOM’s Channel. Video posted September 2007. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxznVB0kGNk.

Giesen, D. (2009, April 7). Flipping the Media Africa-Style. Flip the Media. Retrieved 3 December 2009, from http://flipthemedia.com/index.php/2009/04/flipping-the-media-africa-style/.

Haber, J. (2008, January 1). Kenya Media and Bloggers Fight Back Against Ban on Riot Coverage. Current. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://current.com/items/88803419_kenya-media-and-bloggers-fight-back-against-ban-on-riot-coverage.htm.

Hayward, H. (2009, April 16). What is pocketmedia?. Flip the Media. Retrieved 3 December 2009, from http://flipthemedia.com/index.php/2009/04/what-is-pocketmedia/.

Heatwole, A. (2009, November 13). Voices of Africa: Citizen Journalists Reporting with Mobile Phones. MobileActive.org. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://mobileactive.org/case-studies/voices-africa-citizen-journalists-reporting-mobile-phones.

Hosein, H. (2009, April 16). April 16, 2009. Comment on Flip the Media – What is pocketmedia?. Retrieved 3 December 2009, from http://flipthemedia.com/index.php/2009/04/what-is-pocketmedia/#comment-3369.

Human Development Index. (2009, December 4). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdi.

Human Development Reports. (2009). Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/.

Hussaini, A. (2009, April 11). Palestine: Gaza Mom Back in the US. GlobalVoicesOnline.org. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/04/11/palestine-gaza-mom-back-in-the-us/.

Kalba, K. (2008, June 23). The Adoption of Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets: Global Diffusion and the Rural Challenge. International Journal of Communication [Online] 2:0. Retrieved on 4 December 2009, from http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/216.

Mensah, K. (2009, March 2). Africa tops mobile growth rate. Africa News. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://www.africanews.com/site/Africa_tops_mobile_growth_rate/list_messages/23470.

Mercier, G. (2009, June 22). The Revolution of Neda, Twitter, And Facebook. News Junkie Post. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://newsjunkiepost.com/2009/06/22/the-revolution-of-neda-twitter-facebook/.

‘Neda’ becomes rallying cry for Iranian protests. (2009, June 22). CNN. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/21/iran.woman.twitter/.

Nossiter, A. (2009, October 5). In a Guinea Seized by Violence, Women Are Prey. The New York Times. Retrieved on 4 December 2009, from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/world/africa/06guinea.html.

Poetics (Aristotle). (2009, October 31). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetics_%28Aristotle%29.

Tryhorn, C. (2009, March 3). Nice talking to you … mobile phone use passes milestone. The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2009, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/03/mobile-phones1.

Footnotes

Self-contained narratives are iterations of a larger type, what we have classically referred to as “movies” or “films”.  Movies can be anything from that 15 second clip of a dog on a skateboard to a two-hour long Netflix stream of Spider-Man 3.  To a degree such videos can serve a functional external purpose – for example, the skateboard video could be co-opted by a skateboarding website to help generate pageviews, and we certainly understand a large Hollywood movie like Spider-Man 3 is going to have all kinds of licensed merchandise tie-ins – but invariably, “movies” are, in the old media sense, individual SKUs meant to be consumed on a per-performance basis.  By individual SKU, I mean that we think of these movies as products, something we would have traditionally exhibited on the aforementioned per-performance basis; we’d sell tickets or rent the DVD or otherwise distribute, or commoditize, these self-contained narratives for no other reason than to create a viewing experience, or an individual performance of a narrative which, hopefully, would be paid for individually.  Moreover, the experience can end when the curtains close and the lights come up.

Now, the fortunate thing about the Web is that anyone, anywhere, even collaboratively over great distances, can produce movies, the 15-second or 2-hour variety, completely unrestricted, and post them almost anywhere on-line.  From there, movies can take on new life in the social media space, too, in that they can spread an idea, help build a filmmaker’s portfolio and reputation, foster a meme, and perhaps lead to further work for the filmmakers.  Also, movies can become an active part of participatory culture.

The unfortunate thing is that, as digital commodities with a reproduction price of zero, movies on-line are painfully difficult to sell as self-contained narratives.  Almost all must (or inevitably will via infringement) be shared for free.

Which brings me to our second variety of Web video, material that serves a functional external purpose… As explained above in our skateboarding dog or Spider-Man examples, Web videos with functional external purposes can also be self-contained narratives – most, in fact, are.  However, web video that serves a functional external purpose does not rely on itself as a monetizable commodity.  As indicated, in today’s information economy, ones-and-zeroes are tough to sell on a per-unit basis.  The only goods that can still command a reasonable price are tangible ones.  Thus, wise digital storytellers will realize that their Web videos will go further and produce a higher return on investment if they serve a functional external purpose.  Viral videos that directly or indirectly share information about certain products or services which must be obtained elsewhere easily and immediately fit in to this category.  However, don’t conclude from this that Web video should only exist as a marketing or advertising strategy.  There are many examples of how Web video can serve a multitude of external purposes, purposes which exist outside of the narrative of your video.

Web videos that serve a functional external purpose exist to inform viewers about cultural artifacts, social conditions, or related material assets.  They explicitly or implicitly offer viewers a choice about an outside agent(s).  That external subject matter may or may not be featured in the video, but somehow the video will direct viewers towards such agents, inviting them to do something tangible.  A TV station’s news clip can inform the public about a dangerous situation, such as a police stand-off in a particular neighborhood – the viewer is implicitly invited to make a choice – go or do not go to that neighborhood.  A documentary about small business owners facing up against large chain stores can indirectly invite viewers to take political action in their home town.  A short video about the ills of alcoholism can explicitly invite viewers to donate time or money to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  A promotional piece for the latest James Bond film can encourage the audience to purchase tickets at a local cinemaplex or to buy James Bond DVDs.  A comedy clip on Funny Or Die can help create a fanbase surrounding a particular actor or actress, indirectly inviting the viewer to consume that performers craft in other forms, such as watching the star in his or her latest TV series.  An entire Arrowsmith music video anthology could be posted to a music service for free, inviting users to remix and mashup the videos, creating additional cultural artifacts while simultaneously promoting Arrowsmith concert tickets and merchandise.  All of these examples represent ways in which Web video can serve a functional external purpose.

I believe the days in which we pay for movies in the traditional sense are swiftly coming to a close.  My proposal for a solution to the net neutrality debate represents one way in which traditional movie content can be monetized (it behaving as a selling point for distribution services, but that particular solution is more pipe-dream than anything).  No, instead I think the best way to monetize Web video, even old-fashioned “movies”, is to use them as a platform to communicate messages about functional external purposes – or, if not that, such as in our TV newsstation example, to at least inform the public of societal circumstances (in which case you make your money through your reputation as a reliable news source, selling what advertising space you can).  Fostering a free information commons and encouraging participatory culture only helps to spread the messages you share through video.  If you try to control your content and expect people to pay for it as a standalone product, you will fail because you are working against the tide – you fail to understand that by digitizing your content you are changing the way it is used and consumed.  Forward-thinking institutions and businesses recognize this and are wise to marry their content to functional external purposes.

My hope, as a New Media Producer, is to help organizations create video that serves a functional external purpose and promote that video within the social media landscape.

I am applying for PhD programs in Mass Communications and I need to write my entrance essays. But instead of the humdrum normal approach, I am revolutionizing the writing process for my entrance essays to grad school by inviting the on-line community to comment on my essays. We’ll toss some comments back and forth, then I’ll post a new draft, rinse and repeat until it’s perfect. (See, cool, right?).

I built a website from scratch specifically for the cause. Will you please take a look and contribute?

http://www.kennymcnett.com/mystatementofpurpose

I wish him the best of luck in his endeavor. I’ve already posted my own comments to his first essay, hoping to scare him out of his wits and remind him that doctorates are about research, not his experiences as student body president! haha All kidding aside, his project seems like a winner and it is fast progressing – I am sure a wise academic institution or four will happily admit him. Make sure you check out his essays and leave your thoughts.  Another ‘hooray’ for the Open Web.

This is a video presentation I put together for my Net Economics course, as well as to inspire my co-workers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and everyone else for that matter, to “get in there and play” when it comes to building the information commons through social media.

With the tools we now possess to get vast quantities of data from user interactions on-line, to monitor chatter on blogs and in social networks like Myspace, and to trackdown to the very minute just what people are tweeting about, should government and law enforcement agencies attempt to do more to monitor the web for death threats and talk of plots to carry out murderous rampages?  And then, to what extent can they respond within the law?  Sure, I’m a staunch proponent of free speech of all kinds, and the thought of the NSA warrantlessly wiretapping my telephone makes me cringe, but the questions people will be asking in the coming days deserve some serious consideration.  It’s not just what could have been done to prevent this needless violence, or even what is being done now by various agencies, it’s SHOULD we monitor and then HOW do you deal with obvious threats?  We have the tools to find out, right now, what people are saying about Coke or Pepsi, so why not track chatter on shooting threats and the like?  Nobody wants to be policed on-line, but if you have the tools and wherewithal, why not?

Note:

Special thanks to Mashable’s post about the Sodini blog, which helped spur this entry.

More examples of the discussion and killers’ posting to the web before they carry out their deadly attacks:

Finland Shooting 2007

Threats against San Francisco area BART cop

Tea Party Death Threats on Twitter

Coming into the program my life was all about entertainment.  I was working in Los Angeles for a special effects and animation company as a render guy, and prior to that I worked in interactive TV broadcast operations.  Beyond that, I got an undergraduate degree in, essentially, video games and interactive media from USC.  And, on top of all that, I did a dozen other creative things in my nearly ten years down south; homebrew video productions, creative writing, entertainment industry-related odd jobs, and so forth.  At the root of everything has been this desire to be a silly, creative person and a silly, creative storyteller.  It really didn’t occur to me that what I was becoming was a serious producer of new media content until just a few years ago.  I was actively engaged in social media, distributing my movies on YouTube and blogging my wonky ideas and stories with Nucleus and shaping an on-line identity with Myspace… I had become a participant storyteller (as Jenkins might call it) in the throes of convergence culture.  Social media was in my blood, but that fact hadn’t been clearly defined to me yet.  Everything I did was just silly – the serious side of things hadn’t hit me yet.

It was when I joined the MCDM that my role as a social media communicator became clear, where the serious came in to view.  Admittance in to the MCDM was an academic stamp of approval for my addiction to new media, and a gateway to a focused career in web video and social media – a new and perfectly suited venue for my otherwise ‘silly’ creativity, as applied to the serious or the silly.  Because it wasn’t that my life was all about creativity and I had found a suitable new outlet for it, it was that my life was about communicating ideas, serious and silly, and that this outlet, the web in all it’s ways, was inherently a creative one where silly and serious could happily collide.  Fiction and non-fiction not only coexist here, they procreate here!  This is where the new folk culture is happening, and I’m happy to be a part of it.

Now, most of what I have read and what I read today about social media and related matters is automatically agreeable to me.  Clay Shirky, Larry Lessig, and Henry Jenkins, among others, are my heroes.  These folks get the new ‘folk’.  The Internet has empowered us in ways never before seen, and a sort of digital democracy is sweeping the globe.  It’s changing everything… but, yes, yes, we’ve heard this all a thousand times already.  Really, what more can I say about the matter?  Social media is the new sliced bread.

Indeed, the folk culture coming out of the web is extremely fascinating to me.  Here we have this space where brilliant (and absurd) concepts and ideas are born out of a kind of beautiful bastardization of prior thought and effort.  Marshall McLuhan would have predicted this so.  It’s a baby of a thing, a 30-something year old medium very much in a sort of early golden age (maybe?, history will tell).  But, the lingering problem of monetization is still this deeply rooted, pulsating zit on the forehead of the Net; too deep to pop, and too painful to deal with for so many.  And that problem exists because the ideals of web culture are counter-intuitive to the medium, to the infrastructure of reality.  Somebody has to pay for all of this.  But so much good happens because no one is paying for anything.  The web rests between a rock and a hard place.  It has to put feet down on both sides of the fence somehow.

I think how it gets it’s feet down is why the MCDM exists, to answer such questions.  But this is a great playground, and I see myself as just another kid in the playground.  But, a self-aware kid, one who has and is gaining the knowledge one needs to effectively communicate in the medium and help others do the same.  I believe in the ideals of transparency, of responsiveness, of open source, of “lolz” and everything else web culture embraces.  I also believe, as my new acquaintance Ray Heacox put it to me today, to paraphrase, that the big and high-gloss productions can co-exist with the lo-fi trampoline accidents.  The web becomes (no, it is) a space for all of these stories, all of our stories.  So, what do I want to do when I grow up?  MAKE all of this.  Tell these stories.  Big and little.  I just want to be there.  I already am there.  It’s who I am, we’ve just put a fancier name on it.

I hope that answers the question.

So, the big questions that I am sure are being researched in the halls of academia today, especially in the field of linquistics, are probably these: How is the internet altering language?  How is the internet creating new words and new meanings, or even new languages, such as “AOL speak” (think the letters L-O-L, as in laugh out loud) or “1337 speak” (that’s the word “leet” – for example the 3′s are backwards E’s – as in, “elite internet user speak”, something only other nerds are supposed to understand)? Are typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors merely another way people are accepting written communication as the next evolution of the English language?  Is all this hurting or helping the English language? And so on and so forth.

My observations are thus: writing and speaking have always been in two separate camps.  I can get away with saying certain things out-loud, or phrasing certain things certain ways, all of which generally make perfect sense to listeners, while not being called out on it or even considered necessarily “grammatically” incorrect.  Most people don’t stop to think about it because they are listening for the gist of your words, the kernel of meaning contained in the hyperbole.  Speech is received and interpreted in a very different way than what we actually read with our eyeballs.  There, voice, intonation, inflection, and interpretation of meaning happen much differently.  But, the very words in the dictionary that are traditionally reserved for the pathology of spoken communication have been co-opted by the Internet.  Terms like “chatting”, “discussion”, “commenting” and so forth.  In print, I imagine, you would never refer to a letter to the editor and the corresponding response from the paper as “talking”, but turn on CNN for five minutes and you are bound to hear Anderson Cooper say something like “Let’s see what people are talking about on-line…”, or something similar to that.  Writing is not talking, plain and simple.  But, thanks to the Internet, the definition of what talking means has changed.

So, when we see web-based writing, be it an email from a friend, a comment left in a forum, or some silly blog entry like this one, are we reading this communication, which is now somehow artificially the act of talking, or are we listening to these exchanges?  How far can we go in redefining the very act of writing, which is what I would argue 90% of web communication is, to be completely considered speaking, not writing, to one another?  Yes, it’s a question of semantics, but one that annoys me.  I’m not technically chatting with someone on-line if I never utter a word from my mouth, and neither are they.

Which brings me to the YouTube Audio Preview: are we getting to a point that gaffes, mistakes, and errors made in the formulation of written words and written sentences will inevitably have to be considered as acceptable as the natural gaffes, mistakes, and oratorical errors heard with the ear in aural exchange?  Say it isn’t so!  Meaning can be completely lost when typos, misspellings, and logical missteps are so replete you have no idea what the person is trying to communicate.  Worse still, many people have truly crazy things they want to write on-line (excuse me, we call it “say” on-line now, they want to “say” things).  Most people are familiar with how bad commenting on-line can be, and no place seems to be more atrociously grammatically and logically inept when it comes to written language than in the commentary found on YouTube, as noted in the XKCD comic embedded above.  This web comic further illustrates just how silly most people would feel if they never took the time to actually consider what they were saying on YouTube:

Well, low and behold the folks at YouTube went ahead and implemented an Audio Preview tool for text you enter into the comment field on YouTube videos.  The XKCD blog covers it here.  Marvellous!  What an invention.  But, will “hearing” yourself before you post stem the tide of idiocy in YouTube comments?  Probably not.  It seems bad writing online (and yes, this is ALL pretty much written communication no matter what Anderson Cooper says it is on TV) is here to stay.  Even my writing, I am certain, is rife with goofs and gaffes.  Check out SomethingAwful.com’s fake creation Jeff K for a perfect example/mockery of what I mean.

Now, before you assume I’m griefing it all, I still feel there is plenty of on-line cultural “speech” creation to love, such as 1337 speak, because it acknowledges ones understanding of web culture and adheres to a more complicated vernacular than just being simple bad grammar or unintelligable numerical and symbolic coding.  Leet is great.  No, not even popular slang like LOL is a target for me, as slang had always existed well before the Net.  Basically, when you do it on purpose, that’s fine by me.  It’s when you can’t even bother to spell check, or re-read what you just typed before hitting the return key, or take a few minutes to Google or search through Wikipedia before asserting or recycling a dubious statement (however unreliable such sources may actually be), or even merely take a moment to think about what you are trying to communicate before typing – that’s when I get irritated.  The Internet is a collaborative writing project which is succeeding in killing the written word as an artform and communication tool, instead of elevating it.  But, maybe Audio Preview will help us see just how incoherent we all sometimes can be in our print forms.