A few months ago I was encouraged to answer various questions concerning the 30 most listened to artists on my last.fm profile. During a feverish June evening I wrote more or less thoughtful answers to these questions which I amid to publish on Facebook at some point. That point never came, since I never do what I intend on doing. So, now I will make a new plan (which I most likely will fail to adhere to as well) and publish some of these short texts on airportline instead. With videos. Here is the first post in this new series which I will give the extremely boring and informational name: Last.fm top 30. For those of you who wants to be friends with airtportline on last.fm, just search for hypotetisk. Ok, lets go!
1. How did you get into 29 (Band Of Horses)? Found them on Myspace when I was working for my former Swedish University in the boring summer of 2004. I was calling new students to still their concerns with their forthcoming student life. I also had too much free coffee. I heard the song The Funeral (see above), put the phone down and listened to it five times in a row. Not kidding. Music does that to me sometimes, just stop things, movements. It made me feel alive again, even though I was trapped in an office of a feminist PhD researcher with an Almodovar DVD on the table.
Airportline is relocating until Tuesday. We will take our giant theoretical capabilities and move them eastwards, to the great city of Berlin. That's right. It was three years ago I went the last and me and my compatriot at the time ended up in many a situations that have produced great stories. What will the city bring this time? The only place not to find out is here, although I might share some thoughts along the way, who knows. Maybe I will take a photo of a random wall and fool you into believing it has historic significance. Only thing I know right now is that I have shit to do and that I need to meet MyspaceTobias at some place called Hackesche Höfe tonight, ah, these Germans and their German language.
I'll leave you with a song that illustrate all that is great with music, disregard the fact that they're Canadian, and the end, yeah, I'm telling you one time: You gotta look out for love!
Yesterday I held a presentation about Web 2.0 and what impact and possibilities it has on the relationship between the business world and the user/consumer. Here is a small part of what I was talking about:
Who is controlling this trend and who is benefiting from it? According to Deuze the internet is some kind of battle ground where ‘symbolic, financial, and cultural battles are fought.’ (p. 27) Jenkins describe the development of web 2.0 as a two-way process where a top-down corporate driven process meets a bottom-up consumer driven process which burrs the previous clear line between producers and consumers of media. It gives the user more freedom. A second perspective focus on the making and sharing of content on social network sites such as Youtube, Myspace and Facebook. Jenkins claim that this development mean that companies can increase revenue and that it enables people to ‘enact some kind of agency regarding the omnipresent messages and commodities of this industry.’ An example of this trend where both sides benefit through collaboration is Authonomy. This is social network site for writers. The idea is that you publish your novel or part of a novel and then people interested in reading can read and comment on it. This gives writers a good arena to interact with each other and to improve their writing. It also gives Harper Collins a fast lane to find talented writers that people like. Three authors were recently offered publishing deals based on their work on the website.
And as Deuze points out, web 2.0 ‘opens up new platforms and services for participatory or collective storytelling and exchange, yet also closes down the market for intellectual property in walled enclaves patrolled by business watchdogs.’ An example of the latter phenomenon, where companies try and retain some of the control which they have lost during this development is Warner Music’s decision to leave youtube late last year. Warner did not think they received enough money from the deal and have now pulled a lot of content of the site from stars such as Madonna, Linkin Park and Red Hot Chili Peppers (La Times, 21st of December, 2008). Thus, companies participate when there is a profit incentive, or when the profit incentive is built around interaction.
You can now enter the weekend a bit more knowledgeable.
