Tag Archives: ITUNES

Convergent Media

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In their work Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life, Graham and Young use iTunes as a perfect example of convergence technology in action. The application was created by using three aspects that never mixed together before: media content, computer hardware and communications. Moreover, authors pointed that what significant for iTunes is characterizing the whole modern media industry. Graham and Young go very deep in their explanation how technological progress affects and shapes society and as a result, how society affects it back. Authors bring a lot of different points of view from many researchers and sociologists but in general, picture looks for me like Ouroboros – a snake eating its own tale. Society creates technology, technology reforms society. But what  really kept my attention was the point  that authors just lightly touch: even with ability to create modern media with using ideas of democracy and equality people built it in absolutely opposite way. All modern media companies built with corporate structure – very strict and limited.

Another good passage, in my opinion, was about four aspects that shape technology: design, marketplace, policy debates and end usage. Authors pointed that technology is a content, in other words, technology is a key moment in understanding trends of modern society. Design part shows the cultural level, policy discussion reflects level of social responsibility, marketplace displays value and end usage – level of social adaptation.

Media Convergence

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Living in the twenty-first century non-text media are taken for granted; mainly because society have gotten so accustom to it and it is no longer a “big deal” to most. Technology is evolving everyday and after reading the article: Content, Computing and Communications  by Graham Meikle,  I am even more happy about its release. Apple  released iTunes, which is an application that keeps track of songs by creating a virtual library, It is also used to play, download, and organize digital audio and video . In 2003, the iTunes store was unveiled customers were then able to quickly find, purchase and download the music they want for just 99 cents per song. Thereafter videos, podcast, books and applications can be purchased or downloaded for free. I use iTunes every day because for me it keeps me entertained and it makes my life as a business owner so much easier with some of the applications. Despite the fact that  iTunes  may have certain issues like not being able to have more than a certain amount of songs in your library according to how many gigabytes you may have; In my opinion as with everything else there will always  be issues and complaints  from consumers even if it is something as amazing as iTunes.

I remembered having a discussion with my mother about traditional media and how she is learning and enjoying all these new and alternative multimedia and applications like Pinterest,Pandora and Poshmark. She reminisced about when she growing up, she had nothing but books, regular broadcasting radio and letters; there were no such thing like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where you can find friends, post your thoughts, videos and high resolution images for the world to see and even advertising a business.

Because I am living in this century I prefer the alternative to the traditional print and media; because with just the push of a button you can listen to an almost never ending list of music selected by you or you can watch a movie or television show “on the go” via Netflix or Hulu. In my opinion, all of the alternative audios, videos , etc., are amazing and life changing in some cases; that will forever keep changing, making it challenging at times to keep up with but nevertheless the changes are welcoming for me.

Media Convergence creates less clutter.

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The reading “Media Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life” by Meikle & Young talked about media convergence which is basically the coming together of media content, computer hardware & software and communications.  ITunes is the example chosen by the reading to illustrate this but I would go one step further and say the IPhone, Androids and other mobile phones really capture the idea of media convergence.  Imagine this scene you’re a passenger on the train and you want to listen to music so you take out your Mp3 player, then you have an urge to watch a movie so you take out your portable DVD player but all of a sudden you feel your cell phone starts to  vibrate so now you take that out.  I know it’s a very scary scene but that was probably what it was like for someone who wanted to be tech savvy in 1999.  Today we take the train and we can make a call, check your social networks, listen to music, watch a video and browse the web all on the same device.

Another theme of the reading is that individuals may build new technology but it is society that decides its purpose.  One example the reading gives is that when the phone was invented it was marketed for business it wasn’t until after the masses got a hold of it that its social impact was realized.  Even twitter which was originally invented to get messages out to friends, but twitter as helped to accelerate the Egyptian revolution and at times it is the fastest way to get relevant news.  I don’t think even the creators of twitter could of foresaw this coming.

When it comes to my own personal use of media, I tend to be all over the place. For video of course I use Netflix, I also have a lot of TV apps like ABC, NBC, ESPN and many more.  If I want to watch live TV I just use the Optimum app on my IPad, it’s also able to control my DVR.  For music I tend to use Spotify to listen and I use either iTunes or the Google play store to purchase/download music.

Who’s smart now?

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Non-text Media Technology always seemed like ‘no big deal to me’, part in which has to do that when the iPod came out in 2001  – I was about 14. Most of my life, I have downloaded music and transferred it to an iPod. Reading the article Content, Computing and Communications, made me recognize how iTunes, created by Apple is truly a ‘Genius’ software. Yet, with all these stupendous features, we, the consumers are quick to blame the companies when minor things go wrong. Prime example, “this stupid phone never works correctly”. Wait a minute.. you have 500 songs in your playlist and 10 movies streamed, AND you’re complaining. This service is so slow, this video won’t buffer. I actually YouTube’d the video The Wilderness Downtown, and despite what the author wrote about, another thought came to mind. The boy in the video is running throughout the entire video, signifying that no matter how fast you run, man will never be as quite and swift as the internet. All those events are happening in the background and he is still running throughout it all.

Smart TVs offer Pandora and Netflix features. Pandora compared to iTunes is more friendly for the lazy. A station will play and play until you tell it to stop and its free music. And it has a similar feature as iTunes, they have recommended stations. The drawback is you cannot download the music for storage. iTunes has the hassle of choosing, downloading, and buying music, and once that is up, then they can do the tedious work of recommending songs for you and creating Genius playlists.  Netflix for me might be the coolest thing because growing up, I remember my mom  taking my sister and I to blockbuster and then getting yelled at because we returned it late. Now, with the touch of a button, I can pay for my movie, and not worry about late fees, or traveling. People used to have to rush home or find a TV when a show was on. Now you can DVR it and store it for however long your heart desires. Another feature is On Demand. This might be why we are so lazy! Everything is so easy, all you need it a finger to experience any type of non-text media.  The best part is, over the years, the features have become free or much more affordable.