There’s a special culture out there that is really driving communications technology. If we understand its workings and watch its creations, we can discover tomorrow’s innovations and phenomenons before they happen. Observe.
Don’t worry, this will all make sense shortly. Here are some slides to get you primed for this discussion…
Before coming to the UW MCDM, I worked in Los Angeles. I was a another cog in the machine that we call the “entertainment industry”. I spent the majority of my post-college years working for an interactive television company, originally known as GoldPocket Interactive (later purchased by Tandberg Television, which was subsequently acquired by Ericsson). I was what you call an “Event Operator”, often just referred to as a “Master Control Operator“, a phrase powered from traditional TV broadcast operations. Essentially, I ran interactive TV events.
During my free time between work-related tasks, and when systems were running smoothly, I also spent a lot of time on-line learning about the Internet’s varied cyberculture, specifically the idea of 1337.
Now, before I go more into 1337, let’s cover the issue of interactive TV. As an MCO for GPI/TTV/Ericsson, I ran “trigger control” for executing and monitoring iTV systems. The conceit behind iTV is simple: turn TV in to a two-way channel akin to the web. When you interacted with your programming at home, you needed someone on the other end to talk to, basically. No one was actually interacting with me though – it was all purely systemic. I was just a button pusher.
iTV is a convergence technology. It takes two previously unmarried mediums and blends them together to form a new communications method. And, like so many new technologies, its path to widespread diffusion has been a tumultuous one. The on-screen program guide from your cable or satellite TV provider is technically iTV, so in that light iTV has seen widespread adoption. However, more advanced applications, at least in the US, are not yet widely deployed, with the exception perhaps of on-demand systems.
Perhaps for many users the marriage of their Internet connection and their TV is a strange concept. Sure, the two are currently courting one another, but it seems that technologies like IPTV (TV over the Internet) are more likely to take hold once people actually even know they exist. We’re stuck at step one of Rogers’ Innovation-Decision Process (Rogers, 1983).
Now before you say “What about Hulu or YouTube or fill-in-the-blank-site?”, let me clarify what we’re ideally aiming for here – a total blending of TV and web-browsing as a complete on-demand experience. The set-top box (cable or satellite box, with its DVR and everything that goes with it) being wholly combined with the home PC in one solitary entertainment and computing device. Watch any show, any time, blended with social media and a given show’s or content provider’s web presence, all seamlessly integrated. A total experience.
Major questions abound, though. How do businesses control their content? How is this monetized? How will it all work? Like those who scratched their heads at Arizona State University in 1999 when they were trying to solve their problem of archiving digital records (Olsen, 1999), media conglomerates today need to know how everything is going to be recorded and measured and tracked, in perpetuity. They’ve got dollars to follow. This wouldn’t be a huge problem if digital piracy wasn’t a huge problem.
So, let’s get back to 1337 culture. A culture exists on-line which is always one step ahead of the content providers and system manufacturers. It’s called l33t, or 1337. 1337 is a numerological way of saying “leet”, meaning, elite. By my estimation, 1337 is the true bedrock of future technology – nerds and gamers and programmers in their basements and in the labs of computer engineering schools hacking away at systems that will probably become everyday technologies for the rest of the world months or years down the road. 1337 has its own language, its own humor, and spawns the most fascinating movements on-line. 1337 culture is passionate about computing, games, entertainment, and the web. 1337 does everything first. And 1337 is better than you. Period.
Who is 1337? Well, it’s not an organized body – it’s an incongruous culture, a way of life, it’s open source, and that so even when it’s profit-driven. 1337 finds a way to make things free. Mark Zuckerburg was 1337 when he unveiled Facebook. Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey were 1337 when they gave us Twitter. Shawn Fanning was 1337 when he introduced Napster. Pioneers are 1337. Even memes, in their origination in the forums of sites like 4chan or FARK, are 1337. Lolcats are basically the product of 1337 culture, because 1337 culture gets the joke before you do.
iTV, at least the way content providers would like to make it happen, is not 1337. Christensen et al. postulate on newer communications technologies like VoIP, WiFi, and multiple-service operations (e.g. cable companies offering phone services, phone companies offering TV, etc.) in their book, Seeing What’s Next (2004). These new technologies are disruptive technologies for big incumbent players like AT&T or TimeWarner. iTV, on the other hand, is more of a sustaining innovation for comparably sized players in the content providing arena. NBC, Fox, and CBS have jumped all over the likes of Hulu or TV.com. They are becoming forced to do so because iTV is also a disruptor – it becomes 1337 when the general concept becomes recreated through piracy in the hands of the file-sharing, torrent downloading masses; 1337 can get what it wants on-demand for free.
For example, 1337 culture circumvents the advertising on Hulu (or bypasses such services when there’s a lack of desired content) when they so wish. They pick up a show through places like the Pirate Bay. 1337 always finds a way to get what it wants, and that sets the precedent for the web. To paraphrase John Gilmore, the net looks at any form of preventing a person from doing what they want to do and routes around it. 1337 doesn’t need the establishment. 1337 is open source. 1337 is free. For every Vonage there’s a Skype. For every Netflix there’s a torrent.
Perhaps Ben Bagdikian would be upset with this thievery. Like when he decried the moral depravity of American television in Media Monopoly (1997), he might witness this underground culture of hackers and hooligans today and cry moral depravity once more. But, he might also notice a generation of people empowering themselves and taking control of their media in a democratic way. 1337 isn’t about hurting others, though they often do things “for the lolz“; 1337 culture is about sharing the things people like with one another.
Just like this elite web culture’s ability to circumvent every blockade to accomplish this sharing, the power of the web to instantly gratify is potent. On-demand video is quickly becoming a supervening social necessity, so much so that old-school TV carriers now offer web content on-demand (more on supervening social necessities can be found in Winston’s Media, Technology and Society, 1998).
For the dating crowd, to share just one example, Comcast in Seattle provides video personals through their on-demand services (Mapes, 2008). Maybe this is a feeble attempt to tackle the on-line dating circuit, though. Having one service, compared to the boundless amount of dating services and sites already on-line, is almost laughable. Nonetheless, providers want to play the on-demand game. They’re desperate to beat down the 1337 entrants. But, 1337 is ahead of the curve. They already answer pay services like eHarmony with free personals on OkCupid.
1337 may not always be moral, but 1337 happens. Lidwien van de Wijngaert and Harry Bouwman surveyed a slew of college kids in their 2008 study of locally available wireless file-sharing and asked the question: would people share their stuff if everyone could easily connect via WiFi or similar technology in a localized area in order to do so? The answer was generally ‘yes’, at least amidst same genders and in situations where trust has been established and all parties mutually benefit. Of course they would. 1337 culture has been sharing with one another for mutual benefit for ages. Torrent files are prime examples of this sharing mentality. This sharing, again, has forced businesses to play by new rules, and is why we have sites like Hulu today.
But, what we’ve been talking about here is merely content, which is what most 1337 people really care about. What good is the toy if you can’t play with it? Convergence technology like IPTV needs convergence culture. Henry Jenkins talks about convergence culture in his book, aptly titled Convergence Culture (2006). In it, he discusses how convergence is creating new works of art through things like fan fiction and user-generated content. But, convergence culture goes beyond just that – it incorporates the commodification of prior works of art in to new, mashed up pieces. 1337 doesn’t just share copyrighted material with one another – 1337 chops it up and creates new masterpieces sometimes. This content not only re-popularizes people like Chuck Norris, it gives birth to the aforementioned lolcats. (I suppose it has its pros and cons.)
In summary, if we don’t pay attention to 1337, we’ll miss the next big things. 1337 is where everything starts. While old businesses seek to control through sustaining innovations like that found in iTV or other on-demand systems and communications technologies, the elite web culture finds ways to circumvent that control and make their own connections with others through the content that they share and love. Some young programmer somewhere will always find a way to get through the wall. He or she will tell the world, and then businesses will invariably have to work to catch up.
The Internet has given rise to this leet culture, and it’s never going away no matter how many barriers you stand up. 1337 yearns to be free, and that’s a desire no profit-driven corporation can overcome.
Prognosticators would be wise to watch 1337 culture, because the future is 1337.
References
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van de Wijngaert, L., & Bouwman, H. (2009). Would you share? predicting the potential use of a new technology. Telematics and Informatics, 26(1), 85-102. doi:DOI: 10.1016/j.tele.2008.01.002
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Tags: 1337, communications, convergence culture, convergence technology, file sharing, hackers, IPTV, iTV, on-demand, television, torrents, web culture