Cognitive Surplus

· “When you buy a machine that lets you consume digital content, you also buy a machine to produce it.”
· Each year among the world’s educated population, we have a lot of free time: 1+ trillion hours.
o Over a billion people carry cameras
o Over 3 billion active cell phone accounts
o 2 billion people are online
· The trend today is to move towards more interactive experiences than passive ones.
o Shirky claims that it spent 100 million hours to create the Wikipedia.
· Americans spend about 200 billions hours watching television.
o Time Americans watch tv = 2000 Wikipedias

What are we going to do with it? Problem: Need a way to get to work. Solution: A social media tool: PickupPal.com. Focus: Provide enough information to solve a problem quickly

“The easier it is for the average person to publish, the more average what gets published becomes.”

What’s the connective tissue of society? Today, public + private media have fused into one.

Which tools take off? The ones that let folks do what they want to do.

Motivation affects outcome!!

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation: 2 Personal Intrinsic Motivators: desire for autonomy / desire for competence

What’s an amateur? “Someone who does something for the love of it...”

The web may be the best example of a long tail. It fascinates us because of the diversity of thought.

Why do we create & share online? Does it go beyond making friends? Working towards noble goals?

· “Writers of fan fiction often work in the world of affection, where the goal is to be recognized by others for doing something creative...”

People participate because they want rewarding experiences.

· Youtube: 24 hours of video a minute X 60 minutes/hour X 24 hours a day X 365.25 days per year = 12,623,040 hours of video per year

· Twitter: 300 million words a day X 365 days/year = 109,500,000,000 words/year in 140 characters or less!

· What does technology bring to the equation? “The increase in our ability to create things together, to pool our free time and particular talents into something useful, is one of the great new opportunities of the age, one that changes the behaviors of people who take advantage of it.”

· What is culture? “It isn’t just an agglomeration of individual behaviors; it is a collectively held set of norms and behaviors within a group.”

· “The Social” How do we get folks working together? “Improve their ability to function together through the creation and maintenance of shared culture...”

With positive social interaction comes sharing.

· Different Types
* Personal sharing
* Communal sharing
* Public sharing
* Civic sharing
*Uncoordinated - sharing a video on YouTube
*Discussion forum - self help
*Creation of something for public
*Transform society

Successful groups will reward its members for its contributions & sharing.

UWB radio transmissions

What might you do with access to UWB radio transmissions if you had a receiver in a car?

In the eighth chapter of Blown to Bits, Abelson describes ultra wide band radio transmissions. The use very low levels of energy for short range high-bandwidth communications. Basically they can carry more information in a shorter period of time in a small distance. I would love an UWB radio transmissions if I had it in my car. I would definitely transmit music, videos, and stuff to the receiver. I have an older car in which I had to install a radio with more upgraded options and one option was plugging in my iPod with a cord, however, it doesn't work. I would love to use the UWB radio receiver to hook up with iPod and possibly my iPhone. Technology has endless possibilities.

Ken Zeran

What might you have done differently if you were in the position of artist Ken Zeran, mentioned in this chapter?

Ken Zeran was brought up in the seventh chapter of "Blown To Bits". Someone had posted Ken's number on an AOL advertisement about t-shirts about the bombing in Oklahoma City. However, Ken did not having anything to do with the t-shirts and Ken would get harassment calls from radio stations, people, and everything about the advertisements. He asked AOL to remove the advertisement, but the same person re-posted the advertisement with his phone number again. Once AOL told Ken that they would prohibit the user re-posting the information again, they did not do so, therefore Ken had to call the police to surveillance his house for protection. Once radio stations got the right story, they apologized. Ken attempted to sue AOL but AOL was not held at the same standard as the poster, therefore he lost.

I would do the same thing except maybe take it a little further. Get more protection and somehow use a social network to get his situation out to the public. He could have gotten people to follow his social network to have them become aware of his false identity that this person was presenting.

The Bit Value

What's the value of a bit? It seems that going after folks who have traded songs or movies online is a huge expenditure of effort and money. Is DRM-protected content the way to go? If you don't agree, propose another method for the distribution of digital multimedia so that content creators can still be compensated.


After reading chapter 6 of Abelson's Blown to Bits, bits hold a lot more value than I thought. The cost of illegally downloading a song could range from 200 dollars to even 150,000 dollars. Having these fines be so much, definitely discourages people to act in illegal downloading. However, some people think in the sense that they are "invincible" and that nothing will happen to them and they won't get caught. Therefore, DRM-protected technology was brought into play. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. According to Wikipedia, the term describes the "access control technologies that can be used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals to limit the usage of digital content and devices. The term is used to describe any technology that inhibits uses of digital content not desired or intended by the content provider." DRM-protected technology basically limits the illegal sharing of the technology. But somehow people always get their way around the limitations. I believe that DRM is the way to go, if there was a better way, I feel like these days, we would have it or be working on it. In the future I do believe that there will be a better way to monitor illegal downloading and to hold people accountable, but for right now I do believe DRM is the way to go. DRM does have limitations, but doesn't everything? Not all things in life are free. DRM has helped prevent illegally downloading, which was a main concern for the RIAA. Content creators are still compensated as well, which is another goal to rid of illegal downloading. Therefore, DRM is definitely the way to go. And until there is a way around DRM, it will be around for a long time.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

FOAF-style network

What professional benefits do you see by investing some time in a FOAF-style network?

When I think of professional benefits, I automatically think of jobs or anything will high standing status. FOAF, friend of a friend, I believe is very effective. For example, going through the application process for colleges, some students that I graduated with got some pulls to colleges because of FOAF. Either family friends, coworkers of their parents, etc, friend of a friend, they got some leverages on certain colleges that other students did not have. This definitely carries over into the professional world. Sometimes I feel like this job force is all about connections, who you know through connections to simply get your name to the boss. Once you have your name in the boss' mouth, you stand above the other's you're competing against for the job, simply because he has you in mind. Also, using FOAF, another person knows their work ethics and could predict their future with the company, giving another benefit. They can basically judge if the person is suitable for the job. It's a safe decision because the company knows who they are hiring. People can use the FOAF style by searching for people that can take the job. Having a connection can make all the difference. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with my brother, who just graduated college with an engineering degree, about my future job opportunities. At the end of the conversation, he simply said, "Well if you ever want to look into an engineering job, I could definitely get you one." And just like that, I'd have a job, even if it wasn't my college degree. FOAF pulls strings for people. FOAF can feed from friend to friend to friend. It is very beneficial for professional standards because word gets around like wild fire. If you know a person who you are friends with who is capable of having a job like your own, why not hire them? It's a win win situation. FOAF definitely has professional benefits.

Prisoner's Dilemma

Considering the Prisoner's Dilemma in this chapter, provide your own insight on how sites such as eBay "work" for most participants of this popular online auction site. Do they really work? Or is there too much risk?

Shirky sums up the description of the four possibilities of the Prisoner's Dilemma. They are: 1. We each stick to our stories, they've got no evidence, and they keep us both overnight. 2. I stick to the bystander story and you turn me in. You get the reward, while I get charged. 3. I turn you in while you stick to the story. I get a reward, while you get charged. 4. We turn each other in. We both get charged. Shirky notes that the worst outcome, being number four is the rational one.

With eBay, as from personal experience, this site kind of works like this. EBay definitely works, it would not be as successful as it was today. The more you sell an item, the more credibility and a higher ratings you will attain if you provide good service. If the seller provides good service and has a high score, then there is no guessing game on how good the business is. However, if the person has no credibility, then the guessing game begins. If the person has never sold an item before, most people stay away because you never know what item or items you're getting. You don't know if the person is selling good quality products, if the item they have online really is the product, and so on. That's when eBay is too much of a risk. When there is the unknown of the seller and the buyer, there is a lot of risk. When there's too much risk, the Prisoner's Dilemma for eBay becomes: 1. Both the seller and buyer hold their end of the deal. Both are rewarded. 2. The buyer doesn't follow through on the deal and the seller ends up with a loss. 3. The seller doesn't follow through on the deal and the buyer ends up with a loss. 4. Both the seller and the buyer do not hold their end of the deal, both being empty handed in the end. Another risk is that the seller could be selling their product for too much, tricking the buyer into a "good deal" when it really isn't. When a seller does not have credibility and great history on eBay, risk involves a lot. Trust needs to be made between the bond of the buyer and the seller. Trust from the seller is that the item they're selling is indeed what they are describing and is not overpriced. And trust from the buyer is that they will pay the seller their money for their product. With trust, outcome number one is the most rational and the most desired from eBay consumers.

It all seems tricky, but eBay has been on the web for years, so it obviously does work. Buyers and sellers just need to trust one another, and a smooth transaction can be made. And most buyers and sellers do trust each other, giving eBay great success.

When a Society Adopts New Behaviors

Based on the quote from this chapter, "revolution doesn't happen when society adopts new technologies-- it happens when society adopts new behaviors," do you agree or disagree? Cite examples to support your position.

I fully agree with this quote. These days, revolution evolves because society needs new things for their new behaviors. Society doesn't happen because new technologies evolve, we produce the technology because of the new behaviors. For example, when the Internet was invented. The Internet is the infrastructure to support electronic mail. Once the Internet started to have its boom, the Internet was revolutionized. The revolution started when people realized that there was no other way mail should be sent. Behavior effects technology; behavior effects revolution. Society's behaviors have shaped the Internet. Our behaviors called for the Internet to be updated, to be faster, to explain more, etc. Our behaviors shape technology which shapes our revolution. Another example is the cell phone. Society invented the cell phone because we wanted phones that we could use outside the home land lines. Then, people wanted cell phones that had texting, so people invented texting. Now a days, people want faster Internet on their phones, so cell phone companies are trying to provide their customers with faster and better Internet. Our behaviors clearly shape our technologies. Revolution happens when society adopts new behaviors because we invent and shape our society by our new behaviors, having the Internet and the cell phone two prime examples.