Communication according to someone who has no idea what they're talking about

so this is the last post I will be writing for Media Industries. Basically most of what was discussed in class today was what is going to be on the exam. Apparently cable cutting is important, so keep that in mind. Also Strangelove broke the computer.

not quite like this

Anyways, while he was discussing cable-cutting I realized I haven’t written a blog about cable-cutting, and what better time than right now to discuss it. Saving the best for last I suppose you could  say. Cable Cutting is the idea of individuals unsubscribing from their Cable providers because of services like Netflix and other internet television providers. Basically people are streaming their computers to their televisions for free (or the price their ISPs charge them for internet. Therefore, rather than paying for both cable and internet people are choosing to only pay for internet and watch TV shows and events over the internet.

the internet on your TV

Cutting Cable is something that I feel will potentially one day replace cable providers. The reason I can see the internet becoming the new TV is because the internet does not force you to pay for packages of content like the cable providers do. On the internet, as I mentioned in the last post, one can merely watch, subscribe or pirate whatever they want, whenever they want.

this is ought to get me some 'views'

So this is it I suppose, the last post for Media Industries. Hopefully I will find time to write during the summer, because usually I always get out of ‘writing shape’ over the summer and then my first essay of the year (come September) is just awful. I have enjoyed writing this blog, it has really kept me on my toes and has made me think about the internet and how the TV will probably never be fully replaced by the internet but rather the cable companies be replaced, or forced to become more user friendly and internet  based. And on that note it’s exactly two weeks until I leave fore Cuba.

thank you, it's been a pleasure. Have a nice Summer

I’m sitting in DMS at the end of the second floor hallway, in what I assume is the greatest writing/study location on campus. Seriously, the chairs are comfortable and the view is great, I can see the Mackenzie King Bridge and it’s Laurier or Nicholas (I can’t remember what the street is actually considered) intersection. Although it is not a particularly nice day, it is still a great view, I am very entertained. Seriously, if you ever get the opportunity to sit up here, go for it.

Anyways onto something more important. I have started reading the article Strangelove posted entitled ‘It’s (not) the end of TV as we know it’ and from what I’ve read so far, it appears that TV is in fact, contrary to popular speculation, not coming to an end. Seles writes about how even with the internet people are still watching more television than ever. The argument is that although people are not paying for TV as much, they are still watching their shows, pirated or not, on TV sets. The television will probably never become  completely extinct, it will just be integrated or upgraded in order to become more internet friendly. Because as Strangelove has the computer monitor and the Television are almost the same thing. they’re both made of LCD or plasma, and they both allow users to view whatever they want. That is four hundred words in my books, and that means this is the end of this post.

A lot of TVs these days are coming equip with internet access as well. For example I recently bought a new Television and as soon as I plugged it in it asked me to hook it up to my wireless internet. Strangelove mentioned in his class the other day about Apple and their Apple TV. My father recently bought an Apple TV box, and I have to say it’s  a pretty cool idea. As Strangelove put it however, it’s not that Apple is creating something genuinely new, but rather they are creating new relationships. I think what Dr. Strangelove means by this is that Apple is not trying to recreate the Television with their new Apple TV, but rather they are trying to change the way you and your TV interact, and the relationship between the TV and it’s audience. Because on Apple TV and on televisions that are internet friendly, the audience is constantly in control, the audience can choose exactly what they want to watch, and they can watch it whenever they want.

it's coming

Today marks the half way point of my total blogs for this class, so that’s exciting. Anyways, Strangelove has been talking about internet usage lately, or at least he showed a few videos that related to how today’s generation is growing up naturally understanding how technology functions, as opposed to the previous generation who had to suffer through learning the technology similarly to learning a new language.

the LOL edition

anyways we watched a movie about American kids and how they are becoming more and more involved on the internet, and about how the kids using the internet are becoming younger and younger. Most schools these days are teaching and incorporating internet and computer usage into their curriculum, some as early as kindergarten or grade one. The video really made me think about how learning to use technologies such as computers and the internet always came natural to me, and it made me think about my parents and how they are not on or have heard of half of the websites I use everyday.

this is a little gem they have yet to discover

The video then proceeded to show Korean children who have beenn forced to go to a form of rehab in order to get over their ‘internet addiction’, this I found a little disturbing but it kind of made sense that people would become addicted to something as amazing as the internet. I suffer from a similar addiction to my  iPhone.

 

ghost vibrate is a bitch

What really disturbed me was the fact that in Korea children as young as seven were learning songs about how the internet community works and they almost seemed brainwashed. It’s as though the internet was something that the kids at one time feared, but were now singing about. I’m no expert but I have been told countless times (especially as a child) that the internet is a dangerous place for children. I approve of children being taught how to use the internet at a young age, I just hope that they were not becoming too comfortable with the idea of the internet being a ‘friendly place’ to meet new friends.

not a place for seven year olds

Anyways that’s my two cents about the internet and Korea and how the two co-exist.

In Other news, this makes me happy:

#boom

Today in class we spoke about the internet bubble of the late 90s and early 00s. When the bubble popped (as bubbles typically do) it caused the markets to lose a trillion dollars.

WAIT!!!

Strangelove talked about how the internet bubble caused the markets to collapse. He explained that the crash was caused by the investors foreseeing or betting that the internet was going to replace in store shopping. Retail shops and things of that nature were said to be doomed. However what the investors failed to account for (apparently) was that everything on the internet needs to be delivered or shipped to the consumer. Gas is expensive and gas runs the trucks and planes that deliver said product. The reason that “bricks didn’t turn to clicks” as mentioned in lecture is that it just was not economically feasible for things like groceries to be delivered to every household every week. Plus to add to that, people like to shop. I for one enjoy hanging out in shopping malls and walking around stores when there is nothing else to do. People enjoy spending time out of their houses with other people.

I asked Google Images to find me a picture of 'people shopping' and this came up on page four... seems legit

I enjoy the stock market and learning about the mistakes of investors in the past. I did some research on the dot-com bubble and what really caused it to collapse. Through this research, and I use the term ‘research loosely’ I found that according to Wikipedia (don’t hate, it’s a blog) there were a number of companies all competing with the same plan to monopolize their sector. Meaning that everyone was competing for complete control of their given business sector on the internet. Basically Sony, Panasonic and  several other corporations were planing on becoming the only internet source for products such as headphones and televisions. Unfortunately when everyone is planning to be the sole owner of an industry, especially a new industry, two things are needed. 1) money, lots and lots of money and 2) space, your company need to be the ONLY company in said sector. Unfortunately for those investing in the internet in the late 90s no corporation had both those things at the same time. Space was, from my perspective, probably the most difficult of the two things to acquire. Big corporations practically print money, especially during a bubble, and therefore I feel as though the constant competition is more or less what destroyed the dot-com bubble, greed is a bitch.

you can thank the people of Occupy Wall Street for this little number

So that hopefully works for today, this makes the fifth blog I’ve written so far this year. I should probably get my shit together soon, I have notes written on what I plan on blogging about, its not just a matter of actually writing them.

in other news the weather is nice out finally and Abe Froman the Sausage King of Chicago is back doing his thing outside of Taberet. If you do not understand this reference to Ferris Bueller you should probably re-evaluate what you're doing with your life...

I (@bfrizell)  have survived my week without Twitter! It’s a miracle. honestly it was not nearly as hard as I expected. I went through minor withdrawals and some of my friends got a little upset with me for texting them a lot more this week. Apart from that though it really wasn’t very difficult. I just had to tell myself when I thought of something I would typically Tweet, not to reach for my phone because there was no way for me to access my Twitter account.

this dog in a trench coat really helped get me through the hard times

However now that I am back on Twitter it feels great, I’m not going to lie, I really do enjoy reading other peoples random and typically useless thoughts, as well as contributing my own.

Anyways enough about my Twitter addiction; for now. This week in class Strangelove talked about how Google and Apple and corporations similar to those organizations do not sell products, such as phones and computers etc, but rather they sell information. Basically what he was saying is that it does not cost Apple 700 dollars to make a single iPhone even though that’s the price they charge for the phone. What Apple is selling is the information inside the iPhone, all the technology and research that went into making that iPhone. The same can be said for Google and Facebook, they make their money selling information, information about their users to corporations for advertising and marketing purposes. ‘Ads By Google’ are all over the internet, almost every website one visits these days is littered with them, and this is because they are cheap and they can be mass produced across the web to multiple demographics and target markets.

oh perfect! Just what I needed, solar panels and to be reminded that I'm getting older

Professor Strangelove in Friday’s lecture talked about a few, more abstract, concepts as well. Concepts such as sex tapes and masturbation. However, before he went off on a tangent, Strangelove was initially talking about how international trade agreements such as NAFTA and the EU are forms of warfare.  This statement really intrigued me because I had never thought of trade agreements like that before. But after Strangelove explained what he meant I completely agreed with him. Countries such as the USA agree to trading partnerships with like NAFTA because they know we have raw materials that they need and they know we need an economy to sell our materials. However, what the US also knows is that our need for a large, and relatively close, economy outweighs their need for our raw materials. With this in mind the USA uses their power in order to sway the outlines in the agreements. The US ca use their trading power as a way of getting what they want in other industries, such as the media and marketing. The US can change the laws of the nations it neighbors, and this abuse of power can be considered a ‘peaceful form of warfare’.

so there it is, another week another blog. I’m exhausted now so I’m going to take a quick nap before class.

here's a picture, goodbye