MashUps

The internet is radically changing, people are constantly thinking of new and innovative ideas that revolutionize how users interact with the web. Mashups are a great example, a user is able to combine data or functionality from two or more sources to create a single integrated application, thus creating a service that was not originally provided be either source. Society has realized that it's better to provide tools for users to work with then a fully featured framework for presenting information. Likewise, open source development are following the same trend. Although Microsoft owns the monopoly allot of people are now beginning to adopt Linux. Reason being is that Linux encourages users to have control over every aspect of their OS and even provide open source development packages for creation of home brewed applications. Similar to how web services provide API's to interface with their content. It follows:

• simplicity = limitations

• complexity = freedom

you choose....

References

http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3470650293/sizes/t/ flickr image

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=mashup&btnG=Search&meta=

Media V.S Reality

It's All Around Us

Ok, it's 1.14 pm and i've just come back from a lecture. Walking to my resident's I stumbled across a rock that trigured a train of thought. Got me thinking about the compossition of the rock, the attributes and properties in which that rock could be used for. Surprisingly enough, it's interesting how human's take pleasure in categorising objects according to their structure. After watching the Matrix the night before, I imagined the rock being represented as a finite set of mathemtaical formula's. In actual fact, all media is not fare from that truth. Abstract as it sounds, the same principles controlling the relation between all materilistic objects are similar principles that governs the relations between all intellectual objects.

The Intelectual Realm

Ok, so you have heard my oppinion but not entirely convinced? If you could record the precise actions of a person playing a video game. Then on another day, replicate those exact actions... in theory after a finite number of button presses your character would end of up at the same spot. Straight forward as it sounds, one may alter those these instructions but also give same result. Furthermore, the sum of two numbers may give a different result each time the operands are changes but the addition process is the same each time it's onlt the context that is different. A composer of a piece of media may want to challange the responder to think a certain way. The principle's used in the creation of that partiular piece of media is similar to other piece's of media that fits into that same gonre, e.g. advertisement. The composer may use different techniques to protray their message but the net effect is the same. Just like, the attributes and properties in which that rock could be used for.... :-)

My Pheosophical Understanding

May of mentioned this in a previous post: "I stongly believe that their is a finite amount of information assocated with every instance of intelect just the context that differs". In all my area's of disicipline I like to apply this logic and understanding how it fits into the blueprint of knowledge.

References

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/2968547143/sizes/sq/

sourcing the crowd

Spontanilsly Unpredictable
Crowd souring is an interesting methodology that breaks a task into little pieces and distributes them among general people over the web. Each person contributes their own independent ideas that often result in spontaneous and unpredictable media. For example Swarmsketch all web user's to contribute a line of 100 pixals to compose an image of a given topic with in a allocated time frame.

The Collaboration Effect
So fare we discussed how crowd sourcing can be used liven up the day of a depressing individual, but what else is it useful? A wiki is a platform for collaborative information where individuals share information of their own area in their own area of discipline. Great things about wiki's is that their online communities are always growing and as individuals contribute their own slice of information the diversity of the content also grows.

References

http://www.flickr.com/photos/menteblu61/2057136966/sizes/t/ flickr

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&ei=PCcySsmSJZe-tAPGjZXqBg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=crowdsourcing&spell=1

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/crowdsourcing_million_heads.php

Information is Data

Whithout data what is media?
The answers is OBLIVION! If the capitalization didn't catch your attention, then let me explain... Media as the name suggests is the means of expressing information. How we interpret that information depends on how the data composing the representation is structured. Ok, that was a mouth full... so we have established that the structuring of data is in fact information and by extension media. According to the pionere of apple, Steve Jobs, "Data can't be analysed unless it is organised". The rules that govern how observers interpret information is much like a multi-level rule based system. First there is the syntax, unit sentences, expressions and finally the resulting information. One common application that involves knowing how to use this rule based system is advertisemnt. Composers recognise that different structures of data can effect how information percieved.

Data Structures

As stated, composers recognise that different structures of data can effect how information is percieved. This statement is only a conjecture, that is until it is proven...

PROOF:

Suppose you were to ask to look at the folloing symbols and identify one distinguishing feature?

0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

0 F 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0

The magority of people would undoutably identify 'F' as the distinguishing feature. Reason being is that it stands out, *pun intended* :p. Othere techniques such as scaling, color, shape, position and movement are also effective for visually distinguishing features. Composer's commonly use these teckniques ro present information rather then just sequenial text. If you look to your right, you will see a word clowd that counts the frequency of each word in this post and present them accordingly. I will let you choose wich words you think have the greatest frequency :-)

References

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2007/01/winning_lotto_numbers.html flickr image

Lecture Notes