Facebook Music: the new Standard?

In our discussion in class last week, we discussed our jobs as new media creators. Part of this job is to use pre-existing standards that exist in the media industry to make it easier for users. This is the most true and most evident on the Internet.
The article I found this week comes from MSNBC.com. According to the article, Facebook is trying to make their way into the digital music arena. It states in the first paragraph that the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, is considering the move due to MySpace’s launch of its own “MySpace Music.” MySpace, along with many other social networking sites, has had their own music player as part of profile pages for many years now. It has become so prominent that it is now an acceptable method, if not a standard. With Facebook adding their own music player, social networking sites with music players can quickly become a standard. There are simple buttons that have been around for decades (play, pause, next, etc.). In class, we also talked about maximizing capability as new media creators. This is what Facebook is trying to do. They are maximizing what people can do on their website. Adding music give a whole new dimension to what is possible on Facebook.com.
Going back to the earlier weeks of Social Responsibility in the Media; towards the end of the article on MSNBC, the reporter states “Facebook did not immediately return calls seeking comment.” This goes back to Klosterman’s article discussing how reporters will wait for a certain amount of time before going ahead with the information that they have. This makes me wonder how long this reporter waited before going ahead with the article without all the information that was needed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27237227/

Post 4: The Interface

Technology has progressed a long way in the past couple decades. These advances have affected every industry in some way. The film industry has been affected a great deal by the many advances in every aspect of the movie-making process. From cameras and film to editing methods to movie theaters. The article I found for this week’s blog is about a brand new advancement in a local movie theater near you.
The article is about 5 Hollywood studios that have agreed to help pay for a $1 billion dollar upgrade for movie theaters across the U.S. and Canada. They will be aiding the local movie theaters to pay for the new technology hook-ups to set them up to be able to play 3D movies. There has been an increase in movies that are made to be shown in a 3D format. In the next year Disney is planning to release five movies in 3D.
These advancements in technology are helping cinema break away from the “imprisonments” that Manovich mentions in his book. The movie industry and technology are seeing that you can break the ties of normal movies by adding that third dimension to a movie theater. Manovich goes on to say that the perception seen in classic cinema was taken form Western painting. Movies are now stepping up and including the same three dimensions that paintings have always had to make them more unique and interesting.
As with anything else this is simply another tactic for the movie companies to make more money in the long run. Although they are spending the money now, it will all come back to them plus a whole lot more in the future. As Michael Lewis, the chief executive for RealD (the company responsible for 97% of the 3D add-ons in movie theaters) says, “this triples our footprint, we’re trying to work with everyone to get as many RealD screens out there as fast as possible.” If they already have 97% of the market, tripling that would greatly increase their company size.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/10/02/digital.movies.ap/index.html

Post 3:What is New Media?

In chapter 1 of Lev Manovich's book, The Language of New Media, he discusses the definition of new media as well as what makes it different from old media.  He states that it is an assumption that "any form of communication requires a discrete representation."  His example uses the english language and sentence structure.  Each conversation is made of sentences, sentences are made of words, words are made of letters, etc.  According to Manovich, photographs do not have any "units".  

Digital photographs do however, have units.  Each image is made up of pixels, each of which has a color and a brightness value.  Digital photography is one of the newest forms of new media.  In the past decade, digital imaging has made a huge impact on the world of photography.  The article I found this week is about the "death" of Kodachrome.  Kodachrome is a portion of Kodak Imaging, the company that makes film for photographers and videographers.  They now only make film in one format.  A spokesman for Kodak states in the article that the film sales are down and that they might stop making it all together.  

As Manovich says, "modern media contain levels of discrete representation" but the sample is never quantified.  Does this mean that digital is in some way better than film?  I don't think so.  Both have their own benefits and set-backs.  On the surface, it can appear that new media is better simply because it is new, and old media is outdated.  When you really look into it, both are valid forms of media.  This makes me wonder why old media is dying out.  Do people not have the respect for it that I do?  As the article from CNN states, the niche of people who buy Kodachrome products is consistently shrinking and eventually the profit will not be enough to keep the production lines running.