New Media Comentary.
I Am Zlatan
Concept video: I Am Zlatan Biography App from Bonnier on Vimeo.
Not only is Zlatan Ibrahimović the BOSS on Fifa 12, and responsible for more than his fear share of game changing goals by yours truly, his “I Am Zlatan” biography App for the iPad is ingenious. The concept of repackaging a text heavy book into a visually reliant interactive app with a $9.99 price tag not only opens his biography up to a whole new market of fans, but it creates a far richer experience.
I don’t need to tell you that for a sportsman, what you can produce on the field is far more important than what you say and do off it. So the integration of video highlights throughout the app lends itself extremely well to this type of biography. The inclusion of interactive timelines, visual stories about his tattoo’s and information sorted geographically on an interactive map also add to this amazing new experience that highlights how new media is transforming the way we consume book.
Imagine the depth this platform would give to an actors or directors biography!
Check out the app here.
Online Video to Double by 2015
" Netflix's video streaming already accounts for more Internet traffic than anything else on the Web, making up nearly a quarter of all Internet traffic, according to a recent report by Sandvine Inc., a networking equipment company.
Individual Internet usage is also expected to more than triple to nearly 25 gigabytes a month for an average user in 2015 from 7 gigabytes. That would be like watching six HD movies, 30 TV episodes and a 3-D move a month, compared to the average user today who could watch three HD movies and five TV shows.
I Am Awesome, Watch Me Grow.
You know those awkward moments when you're chilling in the shower just thinking about how cool you are and all the clever things you've said. This is like that, except its got cool music behind it.
Did Ryan Giggs Kill The Newspaper?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you have no doubt heard about the escalating “freedom of information” battle surrounding Twitter and the breach of numerous injunction orders. This is a debate that has been brewing for sometime and as it rapidly approaches boiling point authorities are struggling to put a lid on the emerging pot of internet activists. For the first time in the lengthy saga that stretches back to 2009 Twitter has bowed to pressure from the courts and made it known that they will “comply with a law, regulation or legal request” The statement follows in the wake of a flurry of publicity surrounding the naming of English Football star Ryan Giggs as the holder of an injunction that protects details of his personal life. Just hours after the move by Twitter, an anonymous user mocked authorities by posting a fresh batch of injunctions on the mini-blogging site. Despite quickly being removed, the post attracted hundreds of followers who wasted no time in plastering the names all over the web.This blatant disregard for the court warnings, and the inability for authorities to enforce injunctions has once again put the issue of “free information” under a spotlight.
The social web, and the ease in which it facilitates the dissemination of information is at the heart of this debate. In this new environment we are all broadcasters. We can share and access information from a huge range of sources, and if we choose we can remain anonymous in the process.
The movie The Green Hornet, which I just recently watched for the first time paints a nice picture surrounding the spread of Information and should help explain the rise in the social web. If you haven’t seen it, the film is about Britt Reid (played by Seth Rogen) a party boy and heir to his father’s Newspaper fortune. “When Daddy gets murdered, Britt hires a secretary, Lenore Case (a superfluous Cameron Diaz), who is older and smarter than he is. [And] teams up with Kato (Taiwanese singer Jay Chou), the family chauffeur, a gadget-maker and martial artist, to exact revenge.”
Adapted from the 1966 TV show, The Green Hornet is set in a historic land where News Paper’s were the worlds primary source of information. Throughout the movie we are repeatedly reminded of the power that these News paper’s possessed, and how easily the news could be manipulated. After inheriting the paper from his father, Reid wastes no time in harnessing it’s influence to establish his alter alter-ego - The Green Hornet - as a household name. Sitting at the head of the News Room table he fires off headlines and stories to his staff despite the warnings of Mike Axon, one of his fathers trusted advisors.
As the story progresses we learn that Reid’s father was being bribed by District Attorney Frank Scanlon, and was slanting the news in his favor by refusing to print stories about the rise in crime. As a result there was a wide-spread public disillusion that the D.A. was doing a sterling job fighting crime. When in actuality there was a ruthless gang-war tearing the city apart. This revelation is in contrast to his father’s claim in the opening scene of the film. With his son sitting in his office he yells down the phone that “he will never jeopardize the journalistic integrity of the newspaper for some random mayors political agenda.” highlighting the fact that despite the best intentions, it is far to easy for the news to be manipulated when controlled by a single individual or conglomerate. The ease in which public perception was manipulated by the newspaper coupled with the public’s inability to garner another source of information is a sharp contrast of todays “social” society where Twitter and Youtube are fast becoming staple sources of news.
Another interesting observation from the movie is the way the villains obsess over how they’re perceived. This is a notion that is introduced in one of the opening scene’s where two rival villains argue over what makes them scary.
In the scene Benjamin Chudnofsky, the head of crime in the city, sits down with a young hot-shot drug dealer who threatening his dominance. The flamboyant drug dealer - Crystal Clear - dismisses the aging Chudnofsky as a boring washed up old man who “dresses like shit”. He claims that today, in order to get to the top, you need style, you need a catchy name, you need henchmen dressed in Gucci and Armani, and you need to leave a calling card that people can use to spread word of your scaryness. This strong emphasis on perception and the reliance on word-of-mouth to build up their reputations highlights two of the key factors in the emergence of the internet and prevalence of the social web.
When exploring any new media, or information communication technology (ICT) I always look at it through the eyes of Marshall McLuhan’s Laws of the Media. This concept was created as a means of understanding the effects that new technology has on society. McLuhan concludes that four things happen whenever a new technology is adapted, these effects are universal, they happen to all new media and human artifacts, and they happen simultaneously.
In terms of Marshall McLuhan’s laws the rise in the “social web” represents the “Reverse” law, whereby the Newspaper has been pushed to the limit of it’s potential as a source of news. In the example of the Green Hornet this is highlighted by its inability to accurately report on the state of crime, in the case of modern society it represents the inability of traditional media to report on things that are protected by injunctions. McLuhan’s law states that when this happens we see a reverse effect whereby a new technology emerges with opposite characteristics. In this case, the social web. In today’s society Twitter and Youtube are widely used by the individual to disseminate information free from agenda and influence. Word of Mouth is now the norm whereby information is Tweeted and Re-Tweeted on Twitter at an extremely rapid pace. The power of traditional media has taken a huge hit as people shift away from the notion of being spoon-fed news and move towards a word-of-mouth environment where they can consume news directly from the source.
So while authorities and law-makers scramble to adapt to this changing environment and snatch back some of their control, ultimately they are fighting a loosing battle.
The days of a single source of news are gone, the individual now has the power.
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