I missed a really great post by John Gruber from this past summer where he takes the music industry to task for their griping that Apple’s iTunes has too much power in the world of online music distribution. Basically, they want an open, “interoperable” digital rights management (DRM) scheme. Unfortunately, DRM is, by its very nature, proprietary. It builds a little wall around media files that only lets in the right paying customer. If you put the plans to that wall out there for everyone to see, then all the little cracks and openings in that wall will be visible to everyone. An open DRM is a broken DRM and that’s the same as no DRM, and that’s clearly not what the music industry wants.
Says Gruber:
The industry’s idea of a “perfect” DRM scheme is one that is not controlled by either Apple or Microsoft, and which gives only them (the record industry) complete control over what users can do with their downloads. Such a scheme does not exist, and it does not exist because it isn’t possible.
And then…
The music industry’s insistence upon DRM is what put the [iTunes Music Store] in the position that Apple now enjoys; the record industry is decrying a lock-in advantage that they themselves handed to Apple so they could deny their customers (i.e. us, the people who listen to music) the interoperability they now say they want.
DRM is, in my opinion, bad eight ways ’till Tuesday for nearly everyone, but none of those ways are nearly as delicious as how it maintains such a concentration of power in the hands of Apple and how the music guys absolutely hate that.
The New York Times has added the ability to submit their stories to social bookmarking websites like Digg.com. TechCrunch says:
Although you could always manually add The Times stories to news sharing sites such as Digg and Newsvine before, the capability to do it directly from the story means that The Times is paying attention to where its stories are shared, who reads them, and, more importantly, what they are saying about them.
I think this is a certified Big Deal. One more step towards a new world order…
As I was driving home tonight one of Clear Channel’s biggest Minneapolis stations ran a bumper ad that said
Your iPod can’t find new music…tune into Cities 97 for new music…
It took a second for all of this to sink in. Within a few years, a gnat-like company that only black turtle necked people associated themselves with is now…The Man.
Ah…America.
Before you equip the nursery with a plasma screen read on….
I’ve heard lots of conversation lately from parents about their kids’ screentime (television, computer, games, anything with a screen) limits, habits and the effects thereof.
To those folks I offer these thoughts from MIT profession Henry Jenkins about children, new participatory media, and ethics in the age of technology. In his recent article “The Future of Literacy Education in a Participatory Media Culture” (Threshold, Winter, 2006) he writes:
“Generals tend to fight the last war rather than adequately prepare for future conflicts. Many current media literacy efforts are the pedagogical equivalent of the Maginot Line: still protecting children from the old “threat” of mass media as if the digital revolution never occurred. Television is still enemy number one, media consumption is still understood in passive terms, the focus is still on effects rather than ethics, and proposed solutions still range from “turn off your television” to critical reading skills. Meanwhile, network executives are struggling to hold onto their younger viewers as they increasingly spend more hours playing games or chatting online than watching broadcast media. So what would it mean to rethink media literacy for an age when the computer game, not television, is the dominant medium in young people’s lives?
I am one of the principle investigators for the New Media Literacies Project, launched this past spring by the MacArthur Foundation. We wantto identify skills, knowledge, and competencies young people need to become meaningful participants in the culture around them – skills central to citizenship, community life, and cultural expression. We will design and test new approaches to media literacy through schools, after school programs, public institutions, and commercial culture.
In this new landscape of video games, cell phones, podcasting, blogging, instant messaging and other kinds of media-intensiveexperiences, children are participants – not spectators, not even consumers in the traditional sense of the term. They are actively shaping the media. These new media forms and the cultures that emerge around them offer young people new opportunities for emotional growth and intellectual development but also require new kinds of ethical responsibilities. The goal of media literacy education in the 21st century should be prepare kids to live within a more participatory media culture. ”
A far cry from “Hey, teacher! Leave these kids alone” — this seems to be a call for more intense and intentional communication with our children, our students, and young people around us in their realtime lives, their media culture participation and their development as responsible and independent thinkers.
Maybe we should worry less about limiting screentime and more about peppering their screentime with teachable moments…as someone around the office has been heard to say “Playing video games with my son IS quality time- in the same way fishing together might be.”
To hear someone smarter than myself say more on this topc see Dr. Jenkins’ further body of work.
If you’ve not seen the Chicago-based band “OK GO” dancing in their backyard, it’s probably because you don’t get email from a High School student on a regular basis. Lucky for you, we’re here. The band’s video- a DIY backyard dance done dance-team style by 4 thirty-ish hipsta dudes- was posted on YouTube with an invitation for viewers to learn the dance, post their own version of the video and compete for a chance to dance with the band, onstage, in concert.
The video itself is charming. Check it out!
Now check out how many people want to get behind a band they imagine does cool stuff in their back-yard. Everyone loves that idea! Really EVERYONE!
There are 2576 YouTube posts- some better than others- related to the video and the band. And OK GO feels the love. They’ve recently been invited to Good Morning America, The Cobert Report, and they’ve done a back-to-school fashion ad for JC Penny.
I just love to see the little guy make a big splash!
Now check out their TREADMILL DANCE–I’ll be organizing a diy video of that one. IM me if you want in!
From 2005:
In a very bad sign for public radio (Minnesota Public Radio, in particular), I’m finding myself listening to non-podcast, non-musical content less and less. I used to be an NPR junkie (you know, the kind of guy who actually listened to the pledge drives). But lately, roughly coinciding to a month or so before iTunes integrated podcasts into the Music Store, I find the only time I listen to the radio any more is the 10 or so minutes every couple of days I find myself in the shower (yes, it’s true, I don’t shower every single day!).
This, I think, is more of a Bad Thing for public radio than for other forms of talk radio mostly because of the demographics. Now, mind you, I don’t know what Rush Limbaugh’s demos are, but I’m assuming that the average income level of NPR listeners is higher than Rush’s (or Al Franken’s, for that matter). If so, then I again assume that more public radio peeps have iPods or other digital media players than AM radio-lovin’ truckers. If so, then it’s entirely possible more and more people like me will find themselves listening to the radio less and less. For a medium that depends on convincing people like me to send them cash once a year to stay in business, this is not good.
Anyway, I find myself with WAY too many podcast options. The ones I find myself listening to regularly are This Week in Tech (TWiT), Diggnation, On the Media, and the Slate’s daily podcast. I’ve also just discovered the MINI-centric WhiteRoofRadio, the Potter-centric Mugglecast, and the airline-insider-centric Fly With Me (one guess what their theme song is) which only add to my podcast burden. Add to that Christopher Lydon’s Open Source, the iLounge and Engadget podcasts, and the occasional music I might want to listen to, and you see my predicament.
When am I supposed to listen to all this stuff!?! I can’t walk around all day with my headphones on and I’m only in the car for so long (in fact, I find myself looking forward to long drives just so I can make a dent in the list of unlistened to ‘casts). I have kids who feel all media was invented to entertain them, so I can’t listen around the house (god forbid we stop listening to Kidz Bop). Basically, I’m screwed. And so’s public radio. It’s only a matter of time.