Everyone knows that middle-aged sexual predators lurk in chatrooms, posing as insecure tweens looking for a friend; or friend other insecure tweens on MySpace; or that if you don’t lock up your wireless network tight, terrorists are going to tap into it and turn your naivete into massive-scale crime; or that that email with the suspicious subject line is a virus that’s going to delete all your files (even if you do have a Mac); and that if you don’t forward this message of holiday cheer to 42 people by midnight, an axe murderer will sneak into your room at 3 am and— ZZSWAR9ARG7Z

You get the point.  There are dangers hiding behind every hyperlink.

I don’t mean to be flippant (no, that’s a lie; I do, but it’s strictly rhetorical)—the Internet can be a scary place, and scary people use it.  I’m all for parental controls and spam queues.  What I’m not for is the underlying premise beneath Internet fear-mongering—because it’s not always just “Stranger Danger.”

Some of the outcry against danger (or obscenity, or perversion, etc, et al) comes with a call to action that frightens me more than any technological boogeyman—if the Internet is dangerous because it’s so open, because anyone can do, really, anything, why not regulate?

In 1993, SF author Bruce Sterling (“Junk DNA,” remember?) wrote an article called “A Short History of the Internet,” which you can find in its entirely online, and which I highly recommend.  For my part, I’ll focus on just a few key facts, some of the points from the reading assignment for today’s American Studies lecture on “The Internet Revolution.”  So:

1. The very openness and decentralization of the Internet that makes it “dangerous” was built into its most basic structure—from the perspective of a Cold War scientist, you see, a communication network would have to be as decentralized as possible in order to still function after a nuclear holocaust wiped out God-knew-where in the United States.  With this in mind, the less authority—the better (sounds strange for a military-government program, doesn’t it?).

2. And after decades of evolution, that’s what we still have: no authority.  Sterling asks:

Why do people want to be “on the Internet?”  One of the main reasons is  simple freedom.   The Internet is a rare example of a true, modern, functional  anarchy.   There is no “Internet Inc.”   There are no official censors, no bosses, no board of directors, no stockholders.  In principle, any node can speak as a peer to any other node, as long as it obeys the rules of the TCP/IP protocols, which are strictly technical, not social or political.

Sixteen years after those words hit shelves in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and that’s still true: it’s simple science fact, and no less amazing for it.

Online, you are what you type, upload, or post—identities are fluid.  It’s true that might mean a fifty-year-old man staring at a glowing screen in his basement could pretend to be a junior high girl on a some Edward Cullen fan site, but it also means that young Peter Wiggin can blog and be seen by the world as an elder statesman.

It’s freedom to be creative without the stigma of age, sex, race, or anything else that might lead someone to prejudge you before looking at your work or ideas: online, you are your ideas.

Blogger and SF writer Cory Doctorow’s name (which I feel I mention every other post) is almost synonymous with Internet freedom.  Publishing his novels under a Creative Commons license for free distribution online (DRM-free, I might add), Doctorow could almost be a character from one of his own books—Alan/Adam/Albert/Avi, for example, from Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, spends the time he’s not brooding about his troubled childhood as the eldest son of a mountain and a washing machine, setting up a free, open, wireless network for the people of his local town.

(I did say almost a character.)  In any case, he practices what he preaches, and in all his books shows just how cool our world is.  I’m going to have to quote Makers again– we’re living in the “weirdest and best time” in the history of the world.  Witness the astonishing success of modern anarchy:

“No one needed to draw a map of the Web,” Kurt said, “It just grew and people found its weird corners on their own.  Networks don’t need centralized authority, that’s just the chains on your mind talking.”

I have to give my professor credit—revolution was a good title for the lecture.  Even after our first Revolution, observers (read: Alexis de Tocqueville) noticed a tension in American society between liberty and equality, freedom and democracy.  Oftentimes, they clash (see any debate on social welfare programs—the object is equality of outcome, but at the expense of freedom to use and dispose of one’s property, money).

But no political arguments in this post about liberty and equality: the anarchy of the Internet is one of the only places where you don’t really have to choose.

Dieses Kapitel ist San Franciscos Booksmith gewidmet, versteckt im legendären Haight-Ashbury-Viertel, nur ein paar Türen hinter Ben and Jerry’s an eben dieser Ecke Haight und Ashbury. Die Leute von Booksmith wissen genau, wie man eine Autorenlesung veranstalten muss – als ich in San Francisco lebte, war ich ständig dort, um unglaubliche Autoren zu hören (William Gibson war unvergesslich). Sie produzieren auch kleine Sammelkarten für jeden Autor – ich habe zwei von meinen eigenen Lesungen dort.
Booksmith http://thebooksmith.booksense.com 1644 Haight St. San Francisco CA 94117 USA +1 415 863 8688

Anmerkungen:

The Brady Bunch = Die Brady Family

Little Brother – Kapitel 16 (Zum Download rechtsklick “Ziel speichern unter…” oder einfach den Feed abbonieren)

Wenn euch eklatante Fehler auffallen, oder ihr sonstige Anmerkungen machen wollt: Ich freu’ mich drauf!

David Weinberger interviews Cory Doctorow on copyright and future of books in this podcast:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2009/11/19/radio-berkman-137-cory-doctorow-in-defense-of-%C2%A9/

I pretty much agree with much of what Cory says. I have to admit, though, that I heard the interview at the end of long work day when my mind was already powering down, so I didn’t catch all the subtleties of what was said. Put your thinking caps on and have a listen for yourself.

I’ve had a passive interest in copyright, in general, for quite some time now. One point that Cory hints at, but doesn’t say explicitely, is that copyright law isn’t there to just protect the rights of the creator of a work. It also protects the public’s right to consume and use the copyrighted work. This is generally referred to as fair use. Of course, this isn’t to say anyone can redistribute a work freely as they wish, such as with a digital copy of book online. But it you purchase a work–digital or not–you should be the owner of that work. That’s fair.

Here’s a brief summary of the interview from Daniel Dennis Jones, the producer of the podcase at the Berkman Center:

While you’ll probably be able to find Makers, and Cory’s other books, at the most popular bookstores in the nation – you can also find most of his novels and non fictions books on the web as a free digital download – not only free as in beer, but under a creative commons license so you can feel free to download, remix, and redistribute! While some in the industry say free downloads kill profits, encourage piracy, and destroy respect for copyright – Cory effectively says, bring it on!

So it may have caught some of Cory’s followers by surprise when he came out in support of copyright at the National Reading Summit in Toronto last week. Wait, was he actually supporting the arguments of publishers who fear the death of their industry at the hands of millions of file sharing bibliophiles?

But while many in the publishing industry might argue for copyright restrictions to protect the future of the book from download happy readers, Cory is actually arguing for copyright as a means of protecting the existence of books from the hands of overly litigious publishers.

There is a distinction, he says, between the kind of licensing that publishers use to prevent readers from sharing, copying, or even permanently owning a text – and theview of copyright that would actually safeguard the rights of the reader. And what we learn from the publishing industry in this space can be used in film, music, software, and any other kind of digital media.

A scalpel is a useful tool that deals with the human body. It can do wonders and it’s indispensable in certain contexts. This does not mean it’s a tool for picking your nose.

People regularly misunderstand social media – and then blame it for their own blunders. Especially Facebook. Misunderstand it, and you’re liable to get caught by the police. If you’re that sort of person.

The 2.0 criminal database is here. And it’s a good thing, up to a point.

The question is, if advertisers can have access to all of your Facebook profile information (together with everything you can access about others) just as completely as they would if they had your password, then shouldn’t the police have the same right? They’re never going to sell you anything, they won’t spam you and they’re more likely to obey all kinds of laws.

Still, it feels… uncomfortable. We tell ourselves that the real danger of giving this kind of access to law enforcement is that they might take it several steps forward and bite into our civil liberties (yes, go read Cory Doctorow).
But isn’t our real problem the fact that we know someone with authority may be watching? It could explain why don’t mind advertisers as much.

In a way, we’re all opting to participate in a worldwide panopticon. Scared we might be observed, never knowing if and when we are. At the same time, wanting to be observed by the right people… Only now, instead of passive imprisonment and transparent walls, we actively create the system. All it needs to be complete is for someone to build the tower in the center… and watch.

Somehow, without me noticing, the science fiction writers I remember from magazines of the early-2000s appeared on my bookshelf again.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been on a mission to find copies of the first SF stories I can remember reading—two of them I knew for sure came from an issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine; two of them might be in one of a number of old anthologies of my grandfather’s; and one of them might just be from a dream I had years ago and inflated into a dystopian epic (it happens).

In any case, after diligent Google searching and telephone inquiries with a used bookstore in Oregon, I was able to get a listing of the titles and authors of short stories in Asimov’s from 2002 to 2005.  The problem was that it’s a monthly magazine, and I couldn’t remember if my subscription had begun when I was a freshman in high school, or when my older sister first brought back those QSP-issued order forms for the annual magazine drive.

So: after nearly 7 years, I couldn’t remember the authors, or the titles (shoot, I couldn’t even remember the year).  This may have something to do with the fact that back in those halcyon days of yore, I was a very sweet, very impressionable middle-school girl who found herself horrified by the lurid cover illustrations and pulp fiction content of the publication—a semi-nude, iridescent faerie was not, after all, what Dune and Contact had prepared me for.

I read no more than two or three issues, tossed the rest out, and did not renew my subscription.  I would stick to the classics, I decided.

But for 7 years I’ve managed to vividly remember two stories—or at least, bizarre details from two stories—from one of the few issues I’d read.

The first was about a woman with some sort of genetically-engineered pets franchise: they had a strange name (ploompies?  ploofties?) and were globular, translucent, pulsing masses of the buyer’s own DNA.  And somehow, these creatures were so appealing that the owner could hardly help but bite into them—and get a taste of something sharp and metallic (in my orthodontics-oriented middle-school mind, that jagged pain you get from biting down on a piece of tinfoil with a filled tooth).

The second story had something to do with a girl and her dog; they lived in the “real world,” or rather, the physical world, because when she grew up, she would have to abandon her body and lived in a completely virtual world, like the Internet.  Some accident happens to the girl, and her body is lost—she herself is just barely uploaded in time, but the dog can’t be saved.

This isn’t much to go on.  But paging through lists of titles online, I spotted one called “Junk DNA.”  Alarms went off in the brainpan.  I bought a used copy of the January 2003 issue of the magazine, and checked my PO Box daily until it arrived.

The first story, about the bizarre pets (Pumptis, as it turns out), was indeed “Junk DNA,” by Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker.  And here’s the passage that had so stuck with me:

In a dizzying moment of raw devotion, Janna suddenly found herself sinking her teeth into the unresisting flesh of the Pumpti.  Crisp, tasty, spun-cotton candy, deep-fried puffball dough, a sugared beignet.  And under that a salty, slightly painful flavor—bringing back the memory of being a kid and sucking on the root of a lost tooth.

Why that particular imagery was so memorable, I don’t know.  More interesting is the fact that the genre of the story is one I’ve been raving about for the past few months:

“Junk DNA” is science fiction story about a business venture and all the backroom politicking that goes along with economics, invention, and the market.  Sound a bit like…?

(My post on) Cory Doctorow and Makers, his very recent epic of robotics, business, and the “New Work” (like the New Deal, but way more free market);

(My post on) David Louis Edelman and his Jump 225 series, for which “cyberpunk” hardly does justice as a classification—the corporate intrigue behind Bio/Logic and MultiReal (and how could there not be corporate intrigue with sociopathic entrepreneur Natch at the helm?) is just as intense as the science;

Charles Stross and Glasshouse, which won the 2007 Prometheus Award for “libertarian SF” (This, friends, is my life goal), or The Atrocity Archives, which is something of a spy thriller with a science fiction element closer to Lovecraftian horror than anything else (take a look at the January 2003 cover illustration and you’ll see where I’ve found a connection with Lovecraft).

Even one of the authors, Bruce Sterling, will be appearing on my bookshelf when The Caryatids arrives in the mail in a couple weeks.  And the last page of the January 2003 issue is a sort of preview of coming attractions feature, listing authors and stories for the next issue—one of them, by the way, is Charlie Stross).

To think, I thought these were new discoveries.

Mystery Story #2 also happened to be in the Jan. 2003 issue—“Pick My Bones With Whispers,” by Sally McBride.  This was a major lucky break, as I would never have remembered that the second story imprinted on my malleable brain had been the winner of the Pretentious Title Award for 2003.  (Is McBride trying to be ironic?  I sincerely hope so…)

And once again, the topics that fascinate me today, I discover, are absolutely nothing new.  The research I recently did on the millennial generation’s changing conception of the Internet (or, for them/us, Cyberspace)—from a tool to a place that has been increasingly explored since childhood—is all there in the saga of Lizbeth and her faithful virtual pup, Fritz:

Though I’m twelve, there’s still a lot I can’t do in the children’s Net areas, even if Fritz was letting me in deeper and deeper all the time.  There were dark places I couldn’t go, forbidden subjects I couldn’t get data on, tantalizing things I couldn’t see or join or do.  Sometimes it was humiliating to be a flesh-and-blood person.

This sounds so much like one of the responses I got from an interviewee for my paper that it’s almost shocking.  She doesn’t use the Internet to the same extent of her peers—and so (like Lizbeth, albeit less dramtically) resists absorption into Cyberspace.  She told me:

“Everyone talks about how big the Internet is, and I know, because I can go on for hours and hours and still feel like I’ve never gotten into the core of it.  If the Internet was real life, I would be non-existent.”

This interviewee in particular doesn’t care for science fiction—she enjoys borrowing my DVDs of Firefly, but that’s about it.  No 2003 Asimov’s Science Fiction for her.  And still, she easily could have spoken those lines from McBride’s story.

This—like the theme and subject matter of recent novels by authors like Stross, Edelman, and Doctorow—tells me that there’s something in the culture today stories like “Junk DNA” and “Pick My Bones With Whispers” (I’m sorry, I still really can’t type that without cracking up) picked up on in 2003: the increasing interconnectedness of technology and economics, and the transformation of the Internet into an environment rather than just a tool.

Getting that old magazine in the mail today was like a wave of nostalgia, but after reading through those stories again, the sentimentality was gone—the things I missed and remembered for 7 years are mainstream now.

Best-selling writer Cory Doctorow on change and its discontents.

When Mary Shelley wrote “Frankenstein” in the early 1800s, the issue was not corpses brought back to life. The novel captured anxiety about then-emerging technologies such as the steam engine, as people began to ask whether we know what we’re doing with what we invent. We’ve been asking ever since, with science fiction a handy way to track our comfort level with technology.

By this measure, we’re still anxious but getting more optimistic that we’ll be able to cope even with today’s accelerated pace of change.

Consider the world of “Makers,” the latest by best-selling writer Cory Doctorow. This novel is set in a not-too distant future, when the creative destruction of technological change has created an economy so efficient, with profit margins so thin, that traditional companies can hardly stay in business.

The inventor-heroes of “Makers” take technology to its conclusion: They figure out a way to use three-dimensional printers to produce copies of machines and most anything else at close to no cost. This sparks “New Work,” with geeky investment bankers scouring the country to fund promising artisans who use the technology to build things cheaply. The heroes also run a series of entertainment rides across the country in abandoned Wal-Marts, until Disney unleashes its lawyers on them.

Mr. Doctorow, a Canadian living in London, has a keen eye for the pressures on contemporary business. In the novel, an M.B.A. brought in to work with the inventors explains, “The system makes it hard to sell anything above the marginal cost of goods, unless you have a really innovative idea, which can’t stay innovative for long, so you need continuous invention and reinvention, too.”

This theme captures current anxieties. Technology lets low-cost providers take market share away from established companies, as Detroit auto makers and Paris fashion house designers have seen. Even high-tech companies have a hard time building sustainable businesses now that good ideas are copied so quickly that they become commodities.

“Every industry that required a factory yesterday only needs a garage today,” the fictional business manager explains. “Here’s what I think the point of a good market is. In a good market, you invent something and you charge all the market will bear for it.” Then someone figures out a way to do it more cheaply or accepts a lower profit margin, “until eventually you get down to a kind of firmament, a baseline that you can’t go lower than, the cheapest you can produce a product and stay in business. That’s why straight pins, machine screws, and a ream of paper all cost basically nothing, and make damned little profit for their manufacturers.”

In the world of “Makers,” and perhaps in our own world, “we’re approaching a kind of pure and perfect state now, with competition and invention getting easier and easier—it’s producing a kind of superabundance.”

Mr. Doctorow paints a bleak picture of the process of getting there, even if many of us take a more benign view of increasingly efficient capitalism. “Makers” features widespread unemployment, with 20% of workers relocating to look for jobs. Even with scientific advances—obesity is solved, for example—life is brutal. There are squatter neighborhoods alongside abandoned strip malls.

Mr. Doctorow’s science fiction also includes the too-true prospect of venture capital firms deciding that the next big thing in technology is financing litigation over copyright and other intellectual property. There are also amusing comments on business. One character describes trying to make change at large companies as being “like turning around a battleship by tapping it on the nose with a toothpick.”

Mr. Doctorow practices what he preaches about new economics. He was the first, in 2003, to publish a novel released at the same time under a Creative Commons license in a free e-reader edition. “Makers” sells in hardback, but chapters are available for free downloads—a reminder that the convenience of the printed book is worth the $24.99 purchase price to some readers.

He plans to sell his next book, a collection of short stories, in various price ranges, which he thinks will maximize his revenues. There will be a free download or audiobook, an inexpensive paperback, a pricier hardback, plus one book for $10,000 that lets the buyer commission a short story.

In an online essay for the literary magazine Tin House, Mr. Doctorow wrote that “science fiction writers don’t predict the future (except accidentally), but if they’re very good, they may manage to predict the present.”

In a time of great change, fiction can sometimes provide better understanding than facts alone. “As the pace of technological change accelerates, the job of the science fiction writer becomes not harder, but easier—and more necessary,” he writes. “After all, the more confused we are by our contemporary technology, the more opportunities there are to tell stories that lessen that confusion.”

L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal

__________

Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704888404574550264045617406.html

Dieses Kapitel ist Chapters/Indigo gewidmet, der nationalen kanadischen Mega-Kette. Ich arbeitete zu der Zeit bei Bakka, der unabhängigen Science-Fiction-Buchhandlung, als Chapters seine erste Filiale in Toronto eröffnete; und es war mir schnell klar, dass da was Großes am Werden war, weil zwei unserer klügsten und bestinformierten Kunden bei uns reinschneiten, um mir zu berichten, dass sie für die Leitung der dortigen Science- Fiction-Abteilung angestellt worden seien. Von Beginn an legte Chapters die Messlatte für eine große Buchhandels-Filiale hoch – mit erweiterten Öffnungszeiten, einem freundlichen Café mit vielen Sitzplätzen, Selbstbedienungs-Terminals und einem erstaunlich vielfältigen Sortiment.
Chapters/Indigo: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Little-Brother-Cory-Doctorow/9780765319852-item.html

Little Brother – Kapitel 15 (Zum Download rechtsklick “Ziel speichern unter…” oder einfach den Feed abbonieren)

Wenn euch eklatante Fehler auffallen, oder ihr sonstige Anmerkungen machen wollt: Ich freu’ mich drauf

Cory Doctorow Photo by Jonathan Worth.

This interview has it all.  Well, some of it.  In pieces.  Kinda glued together.

Click here to hear the podcast of my interview with Cory.

I called Cory on Thursday November 12th, 2009 from Control Booth B at CJSF.  He was in his hotel room getting started on a day of media publicity for the launch of his new book, Makers, published by Tor Books.

I have no idea whether I was his first interview of the day but I am certain that I wasn’t his last.

He did TVOntario, CBC’s The Hour with George Strombo and countless other interviews throughout the day.

He eventually finished with a talk at the Toronto SF reference library, the Merril Collection, where his old friends at Bakka Phoenix Books (where Cory once worked as a bookseller) sold out of books for him to sign.

His talk the next day at the National Reading Summit was a huge success according to all of my sources in Toronto.

Well, all of my sources except the Globe and Mail’s John Barber, who apparently couldn’t be bothered to actually show up.  Not that a little detail like being physically present prevented him from writing about it.

But back to the interview that you may or may not have already started listening to.

It’s a bit of a reanimated corpse brought together by magic and electricity.  The sound quality is off and my recording software kinda crashed about half way through then came back to life again and then died for good.

So I apologize for the quality and I promise that I’m going to get this whole ’sound’ thing figured out.  I finish the show off with a recording of Cory’s reading from the Makers that night at the the Merril Collection Science Fiction Reference Library in front of his home town audience.  It’s a great piece about Suzanne Church’s first encounter with a few of the Makers. A scene that I allude to earlier in our talk.

I still like the interview, though.  I’m sorry that an infernal machine ate chunks of our conversation about DRM and most of the talk on Google Books and everything about his With a Little Help Project that he’s cataloging for Publisher’s Weekly.

Here’s the video from his excellent talk on TVOntario:

]]> http://idm09.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/facebook-how-private-is-it/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:35:02 +0000 ccohen1 http://idm09.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/facebook-how-private-is-it/

In the article titled “Mass Interpersonal Persuasion: An Early View of a New Phenomenon” BJ Fogg explores the role mass interpersonal persuasion (MPI) plays in social networking sites. Fogg believes MPI, a new form of persuasion, emerged when Facebook launched its Facebook Platform in May 2007. The new platform allows third parties to create and distribute web applications to all members of the site combining interpersonal persuasion with the reach of mass media (2).

He explains a course he created at Stanford University teaching the psychology and metrics of Facebook applications. Students were instructed to test various options and use data to create and distribute their applications, competing against big companies and professionals to attract users (3).

Fogg describes the six components of Mass Interpersonal Persuasion. An important point to note is that these components have existed before the Facebook Platform, however, they had never been used all together until now.

The six components are:

1. Persuasive Experience: An experience that is created to change attitudes, behaviors, or both. As Fogg states, “MIP focuses on changing people’s thoughts and behaviors, not simply amusing or forming them. So this is point number one: Success with MIP hinges on a persuasive experience (4)”. MPI relies on various methods of social influence in messages such as direct request, moral appeal, deceit, complements, favors, competition etc. to gain users (5).

2. Automated Structure: Digital technology structures the persuasive experience.  Software and code allows consistency and continues the persuasive experience over and over. These technologies also make it easier for people to share the experience with others by clicking a few buttons, making it more likely to be promoted (6).

3. Social Distribution: The persuasive experience is shared from one friend to another. An example of this is getting invited to an application, inviting 10 friends, and then those friends invite 10 friends and so on distributing it through the social channel (6). This gives the persuasive experience more credibility because people trust their friends and feel safe inside of the website. Inviting friends and accepting invitations becomes easier because users do not need to go to a different website or register for a new account (7).

4. Rapid Cycle: The persuasive experience can be distributed quickly from one person to another. Facebook makes awareness instant causing momentum and enthusiasm. Facebook notifies members of quickly growing groups via Newsfeed creating a buzz and attracting more users (7).

5. Huge Social Graph: The persuasive experience can potentially reach millions of people connected through social ties or structured interactions. For example, Facebook connects millions of people linking together different users and creating extensive distribution paths (8).

6. Measured Impact: The effect of the persuasive experience is observable by users and creators. Fogg states, “for example, people need to see how many people have joined the group in the last 24 hours, or how many people have installed the app today, or how much money has been raised in the last month” (8).  This means that the measurements are actual and not potential. Facebook allows all users to see basic information about and stats on all apps. There are also websites such as,

http://statistics.allfacebook.com/applications that give more extensive stats as well.

Availability of stats are important and facilitates MPI in three ways. First, because it gives feedback on the success of inviting ones friends and increases motivation for people taking part the experience (8). It also creates buzz because if you see a lot of your friends joining an application you might develop an interest to check it out as well.  Finally, it allows creators to improve their persuasive experience by testing different approaches and options to find what works best (9).

Fogg explains the difference between MIP and viral adoption. It is true that both MPI and viral adoption involve social distribution and persuasive experience; however, the other four components of MPI are not required for viral adoption (10). He compares MPI to other genres such as viruses, forwarding emails, network marketing, chain letters, and gossip however the difference is that none of these have all six components as MPI does (10). The things that do not matter in MPI are the technology used, the topic, and the initial intent of the creator (12). Finally, Fogg states that the landscape for mass media is changing and the power of persuasion is no longer centralized as everyone can impact others with blogs and videos (12). He optimistically thinks we can use MPI to benefit society and praises it’s potential.

In “Social Network Sites” Danah Boyd aims to address “ how the architecture that frames social life is changing and what it means for a generation growing up knowing that this shift is here to stay” (1). She begins by explaining the way that new social technologies today are changing the meaning of what is private and public. This is similar to the Notaro reading “The Lo(n)g Revolution” as she claims blogs too remove private and public barriers.These new technologies are changing social interaction and information distribution among teenagers.

Boyd explains the way in which social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo work. A user creates an account, uploads pictures and information to represent them, adds friends, and comments on other profiles. Users can either add a small private network of close friends or add thousands of random public friends with similar interests. Boyd believes social network sites are the latest generation of ‘mediated publics” or places where people can gather publicly through mediated technology. Public spaces allow people to make sense of the social norms that regulate society, let people express themselves and learn from the reactions of others, and let people make certain expressions real by witnessing them (2).

The four unique properties of mediated publics are:

• • Persistence: What you say will always be there
• • Searchability: Anyone can be found and actions can be seen in pictures
• • Replicability: Digital media such as pictures and conversations can be copy, pasted, and altered.
• • Invisible audiences: “In mediated publics, not only are lurkers invisible, but persistence, searchability, and replicability introduce audiences that were never present at the time when the expression was created”.

One of the challenges of mediated spaces is that it is more difficult to determine the context of something as well as who you are speaking to. Teenagers on social sites speak according to the norms they find acceptable among their peers often times showing off and just hanging on. There are also two other audiences consisting of parents, teachers, bosses, and authorizes, and then marketers, scammers, and spammers. It is difficult to reach a large scale through these sites; however, there are cases where videos spread all the way though a network into the mainstream.

A major risk with these public profiles is how easy it is to track down almost anyone. This becomes a problem because often times these profiles are not “adult approved” (4). Teens deal with this by “resume-ifying” their profiles, using fake names, and denying access of adults to “their space” (4). Boyd asks, if it’s so easy to access information is it always ok to do so? She claims it is foolish to assume that society will hold restraint. As she rightly states,  “College admissions officers and employers will continue to try to get a portrait of the ‘real candidate’. Smitten admirers will continue to try to uncover any juice on their crush. And the press will continue to treat any digital data as fair game when publicly destroying someone’s character” (4).

The idea of others accessing seemingly private information also appears in “Scroogled” a piece of fiction by Cory Doctorow. In the story a Google employee learns that the Department of Homeland Security and the American government are working with Google to track search histories and track threats. The employee completely loses his privacy to Google. Teenagers, like regular search users do not even realize the amount of information they are giving to the websites they use. Although this story was exaggerated, it could act as a wake up call for naïve teenagers. Teenagers on Facebook tend to forget about the four properties  (persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisibility) and feel as though Facebook is a safe private space for them and their friends. They do not think that putting personal data and images on their pages will have any repercussions but it is important to remember that Facebook owns all of their information. Even when you completely delete your Facebook account instead of your content expiring Facebook can do whatever they want with it. As their terms of service state:

“You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof”.

Although we may feel safe in our networks and groups we must still be aware of the information we are putting on the Internet. Similarly, as Notaro states, “Blogs are vehicles to express our experiences, feelings, firm beliefs and frustrating uncertainties, however these are not just personal preferences but originate and are defined within broader political and social settings.” This is true to Facebook because people forget exactly who is accessing their information, photos, and status updates. Yes, we can set privacy settings and only add people we really know, but even still one sometimes does not realize the sensitive information they are putting out there, how hard it is to completely remove it, and who actually owns it.

Boyd stresses the importance of educators should understand how social networks and mediated publics work and shift the lives of the youth. She advises educators to engage, discuss consequences, educate through conversation not power, explain mediated and unmediated pblics, and discuss morals (6).

Makers by Cory Doctorow

Published: October 2009 by Tor Books.

ISBN: 978-0765312792

The review:

Makers successfully predicts the present.  Super talented people create amazing new things amid economic collapse.  For technophiles, visionaries, inventors, speculators; anyone who makes things.

About Sean Cranbury:

Sean is the host of Books on the Radio, co-conspirator of the Advent Books blog and book trade lifer.

He has worked with books since ‘89 as an independent bookseller, managing editor at House of Parlance Media, Inc, organizer of Bookcamp Vancouver, marketer, promoter, events organizer.

His talks at the SFU Digital Publishing Workshop entitled Digital Rights Management vs the Inevitability of Free Content has endeared him to traditional publishers and writers from sea to sea.  Sean facilitated sessions on DRM & Free Content at Bookcamp Toronto and Bookcamp Vancouver.

Sean also consults in the non-profit sector (health care and the arts).

Introduction

In 1974 Raymond Williams wrote an essay about the impact of television on society, “Television: Technology and Cultural Form.” In it, he expressed concern that while television had the ability to offer “extreme social choices” and could potentially lead to a “more educated and participatory democracy,” it also has the ability to further limit and regionalize the way we think and interact with one another to the few choices offered to us by large corporations and institutions.

In today’s reading, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: the Blogosphere as an alternative Public Sphere?”, Anna Notaro begins with this excerpt from Williams’ article in order to put her own into context. While Williams’ assertions are seemingly out-of-date, they can be reapplied to the technology of today, which is the Internet. Her goal for this essay is to explore the political implications of the Internet and she wonders whether the Internet will remain a delimited public arena in which intellectual exchange freely flows between ordinary people, or become highly monitored and limited by potentially anti-democratic values. She concentrates on the “blogosphere” in particular (a term coined by William Quick in 2001 to refer to the “intellectual cyperspace” that bloggers inhabit), and its role in relation to “the intersection between technological change and a reformulation of the public sphere.”

Notaro goes on to explain Williams’ idea from his 1961 article “The Long Revolution,” that there are three long, simultaneous revolutions occurring—the democratic revolution, the industrial (technological) revolution, and the cultural revolution. Williams had an optimistic view of these revolutions, arguing that the public’s desire to govern themselves was directly related to the development of industrial organization (or in more modern terms, the development of new technologies), and that the cultural revolution then, reflected the public’s desire to allow everyone to actively learn and participate in culture as opposed to a small group of people. The link between these three revolutions is less obvious today, and Notaro wonders whether it is possible to continue to be optimistic about this relationship. Is this democratic desire still relevant in a time when large companies are all fighting to be the ultimate controllers of our consumption?

Habermas’s Public Sphere

Notaro next explores Jurgen Habermas’s idea of the public sphere, and how much of it has changed or remained the same in today’s technological world. Habermas’s idea, in “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere written in 1962,” was that in 18th century Europe, the public sphere emerged as a forum for critical discussion amongst the public, which would allow for the free sharing of ideas, ultimately serving as a check to state power. In the more modern times of the Internet, the public sphere has evolved. Notaro is skeptical about applying a concept that was formulated in a different media world to the current media environment, especially due to one aspect of Habermas’s idea of the public sphere—discussion strictly as a form of rational debate, ignoring any sort of emotive language that could be used in a free flow of ideas. He believed that everyone should have “a common interest in truth, no matter their status.”

This idea has been critiqued due to its narrow-minded nature. Modern theorists argue that this idea implies a “public” only open to the elite and educated, while more realistically in today’s technological world, there are many publics that include anyone and everyone, in the form of list-servs, chat rooms, blogs, and gaming communities. Many media scholars seek to discard Habermas’s view of the public sphere completely. Others believe that there are still modern implications of his theory. Notaro is hesitant to discard Harbermas’s idea of the public sphere as being completely irrelevant to the modern media world, however she argues that even if it can be applied, Habermas’s public is only a small component of the numerous publics that exist on the Internet today.

Internet and Electronic Democracy

Many scholars believe that computer-mediated communication opens the doors for democratic progress by enabling widespread discussion and the ability to make each and every voice heard. Rheingold, one scholar, among many others, who believes in this newfound democracy, strongly believes that technology, “if properly understood and defended by enough citizens, does have democratizing potential in the way that alphabets and printing presses had democratizing potential.” These scholars see the Internet as a utopian, electronic agora (public forum of ancient Greece). In line, to some extent, with Habermas’s public sphere, blogs and news groups engage people in discussions of public and political relevance, promoting a more widespread democracy.

However, there are also many media scholars who lack this optimistic view of an electronic democracy. Benjamin Barber conjured three different scenarios of what could happen with the relationship between technology and democracy: the Pangloss scenario, the Pandora scenario, and the Jeffersonian scenario. The Pangloss scenario refers to the ability of technology to serve corporate agendas. The Pandora scenario refers to the idea of the government utilizing technologies in order to control the public and create an “invisible tyranny” which takes away freedoms and limits privacy. The Jeffersonian scenario is refreshingly optimistic compared to the first two, and refers to a society in which the government and its citizens use technology in order to promote active participation in democracy online and elsewhere.

Backtracking for a moment, Barber’s Pandora scenario directly ties in to the second reading of the day, “Scroogled” by Cory Doctorow. In this highly imagined story, a Google employee comes back from a long vacation in Mexico to find that the Department of Homeland Security, along with the entire American government, has partnered with Google to gain access to the search histories of citizens in order to monitor their actions online as a way to eliminate any sort of threats to the security of the nation. I won’t get into too many details of the story, but the main character, Greg, is interrogated by the DHS on his way home for some completely innocent, yet seemingly threatening searches he made while he was away. His friend and fellow Google employee, Maya, explains to him exactly what happened while he was gone and informs him that once the government gain access to a person’s Google identity, it monitors it forever. There is no more privacy whatsoever. Maya tells Greg she has created a software capable of completely wiping out and masking online identities so that the government can no longer track them. Chaos ensues, and by the end of the story, the software is used by Google as a form of political corruption, in order to erase the questionable histories of certain political candidates.

This whole scenario seems completely fantastical, but at the same time it is unsettling to realize that this sort of government control is completely possible with today’s technology. This story, combined with many of the ideas I will discuss shortly, brings up my own questions about the democratic value of the Internet as well as ties back to questions of freedom in the use of the computer due to interfaces. But I will come back to that at the end.

Now, back to Barber’s last scenario (Jeffersonian), which envisions a more democratic society. This scenario again reflects people’s tendency to think that new technology allows for some democratic utopia to form. Rheingold, while he advocates this utopia, still realizes that the Internet can be easily commodified and while it seems like the Internet allows the public to break free from traditional media’s monopoly over their attention, in reality it is just another means for companies and the government influence public discourse. Carl Boggs is one scholar who seriously doubts the Internet’s democratic capabilities, saying that it does not in fact “empower ordinary people,” but rather “the global village…operates at the expense of real communities.”

At the end of this section Notaro leaves us with a paradox: the online public sphere will always lack a certain democratic value due to the inequality and irrationality of certain online discourse, but at the same time, the Internet draws in many different people, enables many new connections and allows for democratic discussion. She concludes that our understanding of democracy and the Internet need to be reworked and continuously developed on a “glocal” scale, and that this democracy is worth fighting for in order to protect ourselves from media conglomerates.

The Blogosphere

Notaro briefly outlines the development of weblogs by referring to Rebecca Blood’s Weblogs: a history and perspective (2000). Blogs began as a way to discuss specific scholarly topics to a more personal diary, that transformed consumers into creators of information.

Blood stresses the importance of blogs today in a world where we are exposed to so much information so frequently that it is difficult to stop and reflect on any given piece of information anymore. She claims that modern blogs are one remedy. Notaro notes that since Blood’s article in 2000, blogs—both directly political in nature and simply reflective—have contributed to national and international political dialogue, especially after September 11th. One example she gives is that of Salam Pax from Baghdad. He wrote a blog about the mood of the city as it awaited the U.S. bombing, which created a buzz around the world. These random, unprofessional blogs have begun to have a real impact on the journalistic world. Notaro argues that bloggers and journalists are all part of the same family of writers, and that all blogs have some journalistic aspect, whether or not they live up to professional standards.

Notaro then defines the blogosphere. She explains how blogs are collective in nature and foster ongoing active participation—through comments—by tons of people anywhere in the world. The computer language is a common one that eliminates certain political and cultural divisions between different regions of the world. She says that this transcendence of physical and cultural borders “presents a case of interactivity in a local/global public sphere that may re-energize democratic values.” Despite this, Notaro questions the novelty of such a public sphere. She thinks that perhaps the idea of ordinary people discussing in the public sphere is old news, and connects it back to Habermas’s idea of the public sphere emerging way back in the 18th century.

Andrew Baoill sets out to find this connection between Habermas and the blogosphere. He identified three factors of Habermas’s theories: inclusivity, disregard of external rank, and rational debate. He claims that while the blogosphere is somewhat inclusive in that anyone can start a blog, it cannot help but favor certain blogs over others, failing to disregard rank. Further, the fact that there are so many blogs out there, very few of them will be given a chance for rational discussion. Therefore, the blogosphere does not live up to Habermas’s ideal public sphere. Notaro concludes that the blogosphere is just a “constellation of intellectual space” where people can freely express themselves, as they feel necessary, without much order to it.

One problem is that because there is so much information out there, people begin to filter out only the things they want to hear without listening to what other people have to say. It creates “echo chambers” where the individual becomes important and the public sphere begins to decline. This divide between the individual and the public is becoming more and more apparent.

Notaro then describes a report done by the Hansard Society, which assessed the state of political blogging in the UK. These are some of the findings:

• Blogging has the potential to significantly impact on political engagement and political processes as they provide an opportunity for alternative informal voices to enter into the political debate without a great deal of cost or effort.

• Blogging breaks down the barriers between public and privates spaces and allows elected representatives to put across their individuality and personality.

• The availability of low-cost, low maintenance authoring software means blogs are far easier to construct and update than conventional websites.

• The most appealing blogs are those which provide genuine debate between bloggers and visitors to the blog. Blogs that do not offer this facility give visitors little reason to return.

• At the moment, political blogging is still regarded as the pursuit of internet connoisseurs rather than ordinary members of the public. While our jury found blogs easy to navigate, they found the tone of content unappealing.

• Blogging has the potential to be of enormous benefit to MPs and other elected representatives who use it as a listening post rather than another tool to broadcast their ideas, achievements or party dogma.

Notaro notes a paradox in these findings: while politicians are needed in order to represent the diversity of the public, blogs wind up eliminating the need of individuals to be spoken for by someone else. This feeling of individualism provides a great sense of democracy in that individuals no longer feel the need to have their opinions represented by others, but instead people want to express their own opinions for themselves. Notaro celebrates the death of one ideology and the birth of a “digital nation” full of individuals. She calls them Digital Citizens. 

I would like to connect parts of this reading back to our discussion of the desktop interface. In my last post on the reading by Steven Johnson, I mentioned that the original desktop released by Apple was considered revolutionary in that it enabled the ordinary person to be able to use the computer and “understand” its functions. Apple advertised the interface as providing a sort of freedom, which would allow people to have an equal understanding and ability to use the computer. We discussed, however, that in reality this understanding is false and that while we think we are being given choices and freedom within the interface, we are actually being completely influenced by the designs of the interface designers and only know and understand what they allow us to. This ties back to the skepticism of scholars like Benjamin Barber about the true freedom that the Internet allows us. Perhaps we believe that we have complete freedom on the web, but in reality the Internet is filled with advertisements and agenda of all sorts, so that the content we see is in fact regulated to some extent, whether we realize it or not. Do you think that the Internet is limiting or is it truly free? Further, do you think that something like “Scroogled,” where we literally have no freedom whatsoever, could actually happen? Are we heading in that direction?

A friend linked me to the discussion that’s been going on in writerly circles about donation buttons, direct selling to your readers and whether it’s possible to make money from online publication. Here are the posts I’ve been reading:

Since plenty of bright people will be putting forward their two cents of thoughts into the discussion I’m not claiming mine are the ultimate answer. Here’s where I stand on some of the questions that have been asked.

Steven Brust asked what people thought about him putting a donation button on his website to help him with his finances because he is “bad at money management”.

To this I’d say he’s perfectly free to put such a button on his site just as visitors are free to ignore it. I personally wouldn’t use it to donate to him. While it’s true that the author gets a pretty pitiful percentage of the cover price, this is how conventional publishing works. Very few people make large amounts of money from their writing – most writers do not make enough to support themselves, let alone their family. I’m not saying this is how things should be – but I’d rather look at solutions that affect the whole system and donating to Brust wouldn’t be a solution to anything other than gaining him a bit more cash.

I donate to Brust by buying every last one of his Dragaera books, regardless of quality, typically in hardback. I then later buy again in paperback and donate the hardback to charity. If he’d like to make some extra cash from me then offering me something that would appeal to me as a fan of the novels would be a better way to persuade me. But again, I personally would prefer to donate extra content to my fans – hoping to persuade them into buying more books.

I also don’t think being bad at money management is a good enough reason for a “moderately successful novelist” to ask for money. I can understand his problem, I can share his pain (I too am Not Good at money management) but I think you shouldn’t ask dedicated fans (who have already bought the product, see below on those who haven’t) to pay something for nothing.

Paul Raven asked “leaving aside dead-tree or digital books bought in the traditional manner, where do you pay to read fiction, if anywhere? What does it take to get you to pay, and what amount seems reasonable to you for what you’re getting – if anything?”

The answer to this, for me, is I don’t pay for fiction except from booksellers. I gain my reading matter either from a bookshop or online seller, for free as a review copy or gift, for cheap from a second-hand shop or (occasionally, but not often) borrow them from a library. I do pay for some online services (generally the ad free version or premium version of a site I use) but I have never donated money to an author or paid an author directly for their product. It would take a lot for me to be persuaded to. If Ursula Le Guin was in some sort of extremis (in danger of being without shelter or food) then I would donate to her and if she produced a book that was only available to be be bought direct from her website, I would buy that book. But she is my favourite author.

I think I might make more of an exception for physical book objects or book-relate objects sold at promotional events. If I went to a book fair and found an author signing copies of their books and a table of books to be bought, assuming that I liked that author’s work in the first place and the prices of the objects seemed reasonable, I might then buy a self-published book by that author. As for what constitutes a reasonable amount, I wouldn’t pay anything higher than publishing company prices (between £4,99 and £14.99) and I’d be less likely to buy something at the high end.

Cory Doctorow asked
a) Will people donate to support a free book? How much? Will they donate more to support an audiobook or a print edition?
b) How much work does it take to replicate a professional publisher’s contribution to publicizing and distributing your book?
c) How much demand is there for premium editions, and what characteristics make those premium editions more valuable?

My replies are:

a) If you’re donating in order to gain a copy of a book, how is that book free? I would describe this as buying a book. I personally prefer physical book objects because they are easier on the eye and I can read them in the bath.

b) Publicity and distribution are THE main things a professional contract gets you. (Also good editing if you’re lucky enough to have an editor who you work well with, but that’s not a given.) Even when the marketing of a book is effectively zero, you’re still benefiting from the name of the publishing company, a listing in their catalogue, and the kudos of professional publication. A known name like Macmillan is worth a lot to an author, especially when compared to a smaller lesser known publisher or a self-published title. I don’t think it’s possible to replicate this sort of distribution or publicity. Self-published books have to find a different method of distribution and a different kind of marketing. Viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing are good for this type of title but very difficult to create yourself.

c) A premium edition would have to press a quality of specialness that I actually wanted.

JKR’s special charity editions of her tie-in Harry Potter title were handwritten by the author. I personally don’t give a damn about having a personal handwritten edition, I like print. It pains me to think of an author I cared about wasting their time laboriously copying out their words when they could be getting on with a new book. I wouldn’t want to support them in doing this for fear it would become popular.

When it comes to books I don’t want or need them to have lots of bells and whistles. I barely remember to read the ‘Forward by Famous Person’ sections and when I do I find them so full of lushing up and soft soap I don’t care for them. I don’t need more artwork or a free CD or a special bookmark. I just want the words.

I wish it was easier for authors to make money from their writing. But right now I don’t see a way to achieve that.

Cory Doctorow has offered himself up as a guinea pig to test two areas of hot debate: 1) does offering a work as a free e-book lose or gain the author money in the long run, and 2) would an author make more money on a book by self-publishing or by going with a traditional publisher.

Here’s what he says:

I’m a contrarian on both of these propositions: that I’m losing money by giving away e-books, and that I’m losing money by using a publisher. I have a nice little Goldilocks gig going—not too hot, not too cold, just the right amount of DIY, independent publishing and just the right amount of professional support and administration from my publisher to sell. But I’m as curious about both propositions as anyone. While it’s fun to argue about whose intuition is more correct, I think facts on the ground beat a priori assumptions every time. So I’ve come up with an idea to get some facts in evidence, while making some money and raising a little hell.

So Doctorow’s third collection of short stories With A Little Help will be done using a self-publishing model, and he’s going to keep track of the sales numbers and actually share the data.

Data he’ll be tracking:  Profit & Loss, E-book, Audiobook, Donations to him, Print-on-demand trade paperback, Premium hardcover edition, Commission a new story for the book for $10,000 (already sold), Advertisements, and Donation of books.

He’ll be posting monthly to Publisher’s Weekly.  His first post is here.

Keep an eye out on what happens with this experiment in the next year or two.

It’s difficult to know at first sight whether Rupert Murdoch doesn’t understand the internet, or whether he is just going through contortions to to delay the likely loss of value it represents for his multi-billion dollar media business. The evidence for the former is that News Corp was late in engaging with the internet, despite his well-publicised splash on MySpace. The evidence for the latter is that News Corp’s businesses tend to be built around businesses where value can be defended through infrastructure, and his latest remarks are designed to defend this. There’s a third theory as well; that he’ll make deals wherever they make sense.

Obviously such considerations are opened up by Murdoch’s recent remarks that he plans to exclude his newspaper content from the Google search engine. The broad sweep of strategy had some detail added to it by his “chief digital officer”, the other, less famous, Jonathan Miller, who explained that Google didn’t provide very high value consumers:

The traffic which comes in from Google brings a consumer who more often than not read one article and then leaves the site. That is the least valuable of traffic to us… the economic impact [of not having content indexed by Google] is not as great as you might think. You can survive without it.”

The Ad Lab blog at MIT tries to dig into this case, and in a way that looks for some rationale for News Corp, but the story they tell doesn’t match the data they’ve dug up; on the News Corp financial services, Google is second or third largest search traffic provider, on news services it’s usually top.

Squeeze points

The evidence for the clash of business models comes from a look at News Corp’s preferred businesses, and they’re typically in sectors where a squeeze point in the value chain offers some control over the market and creates barriers to entry. In the newspaper business, that’s the sheer cost of printing presses and the complexity of distribution networks. In the pay-television business it’s the encryption technology (where News Corp also owns businesses which do the encryption) and the rights deals with sports bodies and studios. Both are backed up by some of the best competition lawyers that money can buy.

The competition between such business models and the internet is like the battle between water and stone; water will win, but it will take time. This is the best explanation for Murdoch’s positioning; he gets the internet perfectly well, and understands its long term impact on his businesses, and is looking to squeeze out value in the meantime through whatever delaying tactics are to hand.

Cory Doctorow points out that the MySpace acquisition – certainly overpriced – was offset by a sale of the search rights, and  that Google competitors out there might – just – pay for exclusive rights to search News Corp’s online properties. Using the ‘Boston Box‘ model, this suggests that Rupert knows the game’s up for the papers, at least in the medium term, and that he will milk his cash cows (high market share, low market growth) for what he can get.

Playing the lobbying game

And maybe there’s a lobbying game going on here as well. The old joke about the definition of chutzpah is of the boy who who kills his mother and father and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. As a well-practised monopolist/oligopolist, Murdoch knows one when he sees one, so drawing attention to Google, particularly, makes sense. I think we’ll see more of this from News Corp in its public pronouncements in the future. (Indeed, James Murdoch may even now be regretting wasting his Edinburgh platform on attacking the BBC and Ofcom).

And we’ll see more positioning along the lines of ‘ickle-lickle newspapers being beaten up in the playground by big ugly internet monsters’. The other part of Jonathan Miller’s remarks at the Monaco Media event, in which he also acknowledged that News Corp wouldn’t go it alone, is likely the shape of kite-flying to come:

“We will lead. There is a pent up need for this. There has to be a resolution for the free versus pay debate otherwise we cannot afford to pay for things like news bureaus in Kabul.”

I’d like to believe Cory Doctorow’s account of Murdoch as, Kane-like, “an out-of-touch moustache-twirler who’s set his sights on remaking the web as a toll booth”, and Doctorow seems alarmed – rightly – by Murdoch’s attack on the notion of “fair use“, which is one of the deep underpinnings of independent and academic research, and of free speech. These things are dangerous fall-out from people trying to hold onto an empire as it starts to totter. Murdoch’s position here is designed to cause ambivalence, as News Corp so often does. I’m supposed to believe in the value of the freedom of speech and information created by news bureaux ‘in Kabul’, (and of course News talks about Kabul and not about Gaza). But I also know, over and over, the way in which that news is distorted in the Sun and the New York Post. This isn’t about protecting independent news media; it’s about welcoming the decline and fall of a media monopoly.

Update, 15th November: John Naughton notes in his Observer column (available here via his blog) that people rarely pay the full value of content in print media either – and usually, it’s not even close.

Update, 16th November: Emily Bell argues that this is about politicking by News Group:

The Murdoch threats to block the search engine, take away his highly original content and build a big paywall are a signal to politicians with a grasp of digital markets that he would like something done about this. For all his public dislike of big government, Murdoch’s most audacious business gains have always come from playing a brilliant political game.

I finished Cory Doctorow’s latest novel last Sunday, at a commercial break during the season finale of Mad Men.  Notable for portraying a Don Draper losing his cool, one scene has the frustrated ad man shouting:

“I want to work!  I want to build something of my own.”

In the context of having just read Makers, that’s a telling line.  But I’ll explain—

Twice the size of Eastern Standard Tribe and absolutely dwarfing his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Makers is an epic of economics, technology, corporate psychopaths, and people who “just want to make things.”  It isn’t Homer, but there’s definitely something Greek about the fates of a number of central characters—fatal flaws, tragic irony, all that—and by the time I logged out of Preview and filed Makers away on my desktop with the other PDF copies of Doctorow’s books, I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but I was sure that Doctorow had succeeded in capturing and articulating something significant in the culture.

Here’s why:

Makers tells the story of the birth and untimely death of an economic movement reporter/blogger (and initial protagonist) Suzanne Church calls the “New Work,” aimed at turning ancient, lumbering “dinocorps” into flexible teams of innovators.  In the words of Tjan, one of the “suits” who works with the original New Work team of Perry Gibbons and Lester Banks (an eccentric pair of hacker-inventors who act more like an old married couple than a business partnership), the purpose of the New Work is this:

“We’re going to create a new class of artisans who can change careers every 10 months, inventing new jobs that hadn’t been imagined a year before.”

And when reporter Suzanne questions the stability of that sort of system, he argues passionately for his idea—

“That’s a functional market,” he insists, going on to deliver a free market sermon that made me want to stand and applaud:

“If you want to make a big profit, you’ve got to start over again, invent something new, and milk it for all you can before the first imitator shows up. The more this happens, the cheaper and better everything gets. It’s how we got here, you see. It’s what the system is for. We’re approaching a kind of pure and perfect state now, with competition and invention getting easier and easier—it’s producing a kind of superabundance that’s amazing to watch. My kids just surf it, make themselves over every six months, learn a new interface, a new entertainment, you name it. Change-surfers…”

It doesn’t sound like stereotypical science fiction—alien invasion, cyborgs, and omnipresent governments of a nightmarish dystopia.  It’s our world, the world today, with bloggers outstripping traditional print papers and corporate bureaucracy doing its best to smother fluid, mobile models of small groups of innovators under the weight of its own inertia.  It’s at once the “weirdest and best time the world has yet seen.”

But Dickens and faux-Chinese proverbs will have out—if it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and everyone knows that to live in interesting times is a curse.

That’s something Doctorow’s characters learn the hard way.

For the sake of saving the plot for the readers, I’ll just say this: the brilliant whirlwind of creativity we find in Part I isn’t the end—Parts II and III take us from this dizzying height to a doldrums of frustration and stagnation.

It’s what our high school English teachers would call a “chiasmus,” a crossing of paths or slopes or fate lines, with characters selling-out or buying in or suing or countersuing each other so fast that I can’t tell who to root for anymore.

But if one thing is clear, it’s this:

The title of the novel could apply to literally every character in the story, all of whom express at some point or another a deep desire to make/do/create.  But their hands are tied by red tape, or they’re strangled by lawsuits, or their fate lines are snipped off with the shears of the bureaucratic Atropos: inertia.

“All he wanted was to have good ideas and make them happen,” Doctorow writes of Sammy Page, a Disney dinocorps executive trapped by the rigid structure of the company.  “Basically, he wanted to be Lester.”

But the politics engulfing Lester’s once-happy life as an inventor selling his creations on eBay make it so that even Lester can’t “be Lester”: “Why couldn’t he just make stuff and do stuff? Why did it always have to turn into a plan for world domination?” he thinks.

Sound something like Don Draper?  (or maybe Howard Roark?)

Cory Doctorow writes on his blog that his science fiction represents “radical presentism,” a prediction of the present rather than the future—meaning that in Makers it’s our world today he’s looking at, probably the reason the novel’s so unnerving.  Doctorow creates a cognate of modern America, a place in a frenzy of invention and creativity—until the idealism dies.  The tragedy is that the frustrated desire to just make stuff doesn’t die along with it.

AMC, at least, is catching on to the cultural drift—if a little after Doctorow—and I have to say, the Mad Men finale is a bit more optimistic than the fifteen-years-later epilogue of Doctorow’s epic.  The smaller, more flexible new agency of Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price, after all, is staffed completely by makers.

Cory Doctorow has an excellent column on Locus Online about  sex and other mature subjects in Young Adult Fiction.  Here’s the heart of the piece:

There’s really only one question: “Why have your characters done something that is likely to upset their parents, and why don’t you punish them for doing this?”

Now, the answer.

First, because teenagers have sex and drink beer, and most of the time the worst thing that results from this is a few days of social awkwardness and a hangover, respectively. When I was a teenager, I drank sometimes. I had sex sometimes. I disobeyed authority figures sometimes.

Mostly, it was OK. Sometimes it was bad. Sometimes it was wonderful. Once or twice, it was terrible. And it was thus for everyone I knew. Teenagers take risks, even stupid risks, at times. But the chance on any given night that sneaking a beer will destroy your life is damned slim. Art isn’t exactly like life, and science fiction asks the reader to accept the impossible, but unless your book is about a universe in which disapproving parents have cooked the physics so that every act of disobedience leads swiftly to destruction, it won’t be very credible. The pathos that parents would like to see here become bathos: mawkish and trivial, heavy-handed, and preachy.

Read the rest of the column here.

Volevo scrivere qualcosa sull’intervento di Raul Montanari, che dalle pagine di Satisfiction, la free press letteraria diretta da Gian Paolo Serino, propone per i suoi romanzi l’etichetta di post-noir.
Solo che da lì è scaturita una discussione talmente interessante che al quarto commento sono caduto in un sonno così profondo che è andata a finire che mi hanno seppellito vivo. Meno male che Kill Bill 2 ci ha insegnato come si esce da una tomba, altrimenti mica ero qui a scrivere.
A ogni modo, la chiusa migliore alla questione l’ha data Giampaolo Simi su Nazione indiana:

Se parliamo di post-noir saremmo inoltre di fronte al post di qualcosa che a malapena [nella letteratura di genere italiana] c’è stato.

Amen.

Però è affascinante l’entusiasmo che Serino ci mette nell’introdurre la discussione:

Una nuova definizione che vuole travalicare i generi, le gabbie giornalistiche ed editoriali e che, partendo dal carteggio tra Raul Montanari, Grazia Verasani e Gianni Biondillo, coinvolge scrittori, editori, lettori anche fuori dalla carta in un mondo che è davvero diventato post-noir.

Affascinante soprattutto quando ti rendi conto che Serino i generi ha iniziato a travalicarli in modo molto disinvolto. Per esempio, è convinto che Neil Gaiman sia un autore cyberpunk:

Forse Neil Stephenson?

ps: per carità di patria, taceremo sulla “provocazione” di Vasco Rossi, sempre sulle pagine di Satisfiction.

Thought I’d share two things I’ve read recently. Both demonstrate how there’s great possibilities for authors, poets and all varieties of writers and creatives to get their work out there, all using the free-flowing intertubes, while still making money.

First, via a post in Spike – the Meanjin blog, I’ve learnt that uber-nerd and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow is conducting an experiment for his new book, With a Little Help. He’ll be releasing the book in myriad ways: from free Creative Commons-licensed digital copies, to a premium special-edition book valued at $10,000, and all sorts of stuff in between. Hence, the term ‘freemium’. This is somewhat similar to what Nine Inch Nails did with their music recently, but in a broader and more openly experimental way. This is all to explore what you can do when you give stuff away for free, but also self-publish and sell stuff via print-on-demand, or offer other freelance services. A big ol’ mixture. Check out his Publishers Weekly Column for even more detail. I’ll be reading his regular updates on the process with interest.

Cory Doctorow: experimenting with 'Freemium' for his new book

Second, PoetrySpeaks is a new website and a new business model, kind of like iTunes for poetry, or Facebook for poets. What’s especially cool about it is that it offers a combination of free and paid material from ‘classic’ or established poets, as well as both curated and user-driven spaces for less well-known poets to get their stuff out there, and even get paid for it. While the site still needs a lot of building up and a broader international diversity, it’s promising to see that the works of both established and emerging artists can stand side by side, giving everyone opportunities to spread their words and ideas and maybe make a little moolah.

So whether you write books or poetry, or whatever you create, it’s worth exploring the possibilities of the internet. Sometimes giving stuff away for free online can end up being very rewarding.

For our assignment this week, we have to A go through a podcast directory and subscribe to a few podcasts through our reader or itunes and B embed a library related video from youtube, right? For A, technically, I have itunes. I can’t stand it though, I only have it because I have an iPod and I’m forced to use it. So I went with option B.

Anyway, I checked out a Directory (the podscope link seems to be dead, or I couldn’t find any actual links on it to podcasts), and the only podcasts I was remotely interested in, were discontinued! I checked out something called ‘destructomundo’, when a couple of guys apparently teach you how to survive the end of the world. I’m always looking for Zombie combat techniques.

The archives are available here. But no new episodes, so I decided to simply forego the whole processing of sifting through dead links, and head exactly where I knew there were podcasts. Specifically, to Mr. Cory Doctorow’s website, CrapHound. To my glee, he has a podcast where he reads excerpts from his books.

Which makes me happy.

Ifg you don’t know who Cory Doctorow is, check out his Wikipedia Page. I own one of his books, and I know he’s fighting in the copyfight (which is about digital file sharing and copyright laws). I know all of his books are available for free download (legal, free download) somewhere. This is because of the copyright license he used. I’m not sure on the exact details, but it’s free. He’s a pretty cool dude, especially if you consider his penchant for capes and goggles.

See? I told you so.

Anyway, I am looking forward to that.

For embedding a library related video… well, let’s see what I’ve found.

I’ve found that youtube is down for maintenance. Check back later for a library related video.

I kinda had this feeling that since I was Cory Doctorow for halloween I should actually get to blogging about things.   Kinda feel like life is going quite fast at the moment.  Research is going alright, I still feel pretty dumb, but that is expected as a first year i guess.   GR is going,  Homework is still a pain to get around to doing, but it keeps me motivated i guess.   

Halloween was pretty sweet.  and by halloween I guess I really mean the day before halloween, since that is where I did most of my living of the day.  Started it a bit early so that I could bring my costume in early and not get accosted for it.   I played it pretty low key and kept most of it in my bag,  Made some plots, but Marc Dropped by to ask some questions about MacFusion and the the whole SSH mounting system on mac (macFUSE).    Currently it just installs on my machine no issue, but for his snow leopard there was some futzing that needed to be done.  It at first was not liking the fix, but that was fixed by checking the mount point permissions.   Although I lost a bit of time working on it.  I don’t think that it is time to switch to snow leopard with all of its quirks.  

I continued on, addressing a bundle of emails from the research group.  I do enjoy this new email system that is different with this research group, but I am worried that I am over emailing people.    With my new office setup, I actually see much much more people, which is nice, but sometimes a distraction.  But it is really only a distraction, when people dont want to do anything, like on the Friday before Halloween.  I explained my costume twice to other grads, and started to feel like I should have been someone more mainstream, but alas,  they seemed to like the balloon.  

I continued working, and noticed that I needed to work on reading papers, since I have been falling behind on that account.  Soon enough it was 3, so I headed over to mayer to get my account in order, and get my check.  I picked up Jacob’s and dropped it off at SE before heading back to cass.  I grabbed some BK, since I was getting peckish.  I guess I should have seen if others wanted food, but i failed on that account.    Afterwards, it was a quick email before dressing up in costume.  ”Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat”  lol.   But really I just put in my contact, since I was lazy in the morning, and got my sunglasses on, and cape in order.  Darcy dropped by and got ’shot’ with her crazy costume. I headed upstairs to BASH and started drinking.  Bash was pretty fun, but I started to feel idiotic for picking such an obscure costume.  At least it was easy and that I had everything.   I left the balloon downstairs, since I thought it was going to be windy.   Trevor was the spectacle with his bleeding jesus costume.     

Afterwards, I headed downstairs to clean up my office before heading out.  Darcy was still putting on her costume, and swung by to ask where she should put all of her bullet holes and the sort.   Vanessa rolled by, and again I had to explain my costume.  James also rolled by and was joining us for the festivities which was nice.    We headed out in two groups, since Darcy had to grab her boots and coat.  

When we got to the GSA event, it was quite filled.  Much more than last year.    There was three different lines, One for the porter/pale,  one for a IPA/pale,  and one for wines, and mixed drinks.   There was a semi constant flow of pizza which was good.  The smoked porter was good as well.   I also had the appletini.  Yeah Marc, I said it…   All in all it was quite fun.  Especially messing with jacob’s costume.     I actually went out and met a couple of people.  and my lack of costume kinda helped, but I was not quite sure honestly since it was setup like a club, and I could not discern other’s body language that well.

We then headed out to Darcy’s new apartment to continue the party post gsa event.  Her New pad is pretty sweet.  I was winding out after the event, and I was not too talkative.  Did talk to Casey and others.   On the bus? / walk to the bus, I talked with Ellie, and got her to come out as well.    As the party started up, I ended up with a whole log of calls and started to get angry directing people to the apartment every few minutes.  I ended up silencing my phone since I was just getting angry with it after trying to pawn off my duties to Jacob.  I thank Hosam for taking up the slack.   I returned to my quiet post drinking contemplative state, which most people think that I am angry, but I am just self reflecting about life in general.  I thought about my current state of being, and decided it was time to go home, to escape all the loud talking.  Said night to friends and talked with Mike on the way out.

I was mainly thinking that I need some motovation to get out and do things around SD.  I have started to make lists of things that I want to start doing, but I have no motovation to do them.   and a good half of the list is limited because of the singularity issue at hand.  but we will see how that works out.

I deposited checks this morning, and headed out to a beach for a bit.  it was a nice get away from the office.    I kinda want to find me a life outside of physics, but everytime that I do, I feel like I am not pushing enough effort into physics.

People hate technology. They really do.

Of course, this is a vast generalization, and really what I mean is that businesspeople hate technology. But even that’s not true, because plenty of businesspeople out there embrace it and use it for exactly its intended purpose – to provide a new way of providing something consumers want, and in exchange, receiving monetary profit.

Which means that it’s not that businesspeople hate technology, it’s that business-dinosaurs hate technology, because they’re too blind to realize that change is inevitable, so they should embrace it and figure out a way to incorporate it into their business model.

And for some reason, well-established artists seem to be least creative when it comes to inventing ways to take advantage of technology, because they’re so incredibly stuck in the old paradigm of Intellectual Property. I wrote about this several months ago, and as a self-published author of a fantastic book who’s completely loused up the marketing process, it’s something I think about quite often.

In response to how much easier it is to copy and distribute art today than it was even 10 years ago, an organization called Creative Commons has created a “some rights reserved” license, a.k.a. the Creative Commons license, which lets the copyright-owner choose the conditions upon which copying and redistribution are permitted.

By now, most people are aware, at least vaguely, of the existence of the Creative Commons license. Many, I suspect, still haven’t seriously considered using it. Why? Because using this license requires throwing out all the books you’ve read that tell you how to break into the business. It requires a D.I.Y. approach to publishing, and it requires trusting that if you give someone something for free, the money will flow in your direction. Stephen King tried this approach nine years ago, and it was ultimately unsuccessful. Fair enough – he’s already got a model that works for him.

But Cory Doctorow recently published a column in Publisher’s Weekly about how he’s done exactly that. Here’s someone who clearly has no problem coming up with ingenuitive ways of marketing his work, and has reaped the rewards as a result.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Cory Doctorow, Diablo Cody, Stephen Elliott, and the other mad artists working in the world of modern technology. Come up with something new, and dedicate your time to it.

Because the more time I spend in this business, the more I realize that there are few things harder than finishing a book – but marketing that book happens to be one of them.

The book trailer for Burn Me Deadly, Alex Bledsoe’s latest Eddie LaCrosse novel, is finally here! Just click on the title or the jacket on the right to be taken to Alex’s blog where you can view the trailer. Then come back on Monday, November 9 when we’ll have an interview with Alex, who is the author of Blood Groove, The Sword-Edged Blonde, and the upcoming Burn Me Deadly (available November 10, 2009). Alex is going to talk to us about his Eddie LaCrosse series, Blood Groove, and divulge some nifty advice on connecting with your readers through your characters when writing a fantasy. Don’t miss it! I’m serious! Don’t make me come looking for you . . .

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 

Okay, yeah, so it’s early, but I’m going to be a’haunting Saturday, so there will be no blog time. It’s a celebration and that very special time when Basement Cat rules the night and seeks souls (hehe). So now for my most favorite Basement Cat I present:

Isn’t evil insidious? And cute.

Okay, I’ve played enough – on to the links:

Today is Wednesday, so clear your evening calendar and don’t miss Audrey Shaffer’s Open Chat Wednesdays at the Writer’s Chatroom. From 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. EST, you can take your questions and writing related issues to a group of vibrant writers who are encouraging and helpful about topics from plot issues to marketing your novel.

Let’s talk. No really, it’s all about dialogue. Dialogue can sometimes make the difference between awesome or bland characters. Striking the right balance is a technique, so head over to Sterling Editing where you can find three great posts: How Not to Write Dialogue; How to Write Dialogue; and a nifty Editcast on Dialogue.

So your novel has a sagging middle, and your antagonist is kind of blah? Check out this great link tweeted by @motsjustes and posted by Deborah Turrell Atkinson at the Type M for Murder blog where Donald Maas gives you some tips for Creating Your Villain.

According to everyone who responded to my post on character-based vs. plot-based novels, the general consensus was character! @motsjustes (who is none other than than Annlee at Mots Justes) tweeted this wonderful post from K.M. Weiland on How to Inspire Readers with Ordinary Characters.

Then head over to Mots Justes to read Usage Thursday: Top Nine Misused Words and make sure you say what you mean and mean what you say! Know what I mean?

Make sure your novel isn’t clichéd by reading this nifty post on Essential Reading: the 42 Essential Third Act Twists by web comic Dresden Kodak and tweeted by @CafeNirvana and @thecreativepenn.

@CafeNirvana give us this special Halloween treat by Megan Crewe on Ghosts, What They Mean and Why They’re Important to Us.

On the lighter side, @Thom_Roe tweeted this amusing little gem from The Huffington Post on Unnecessary Quotation Marks.

Agents! Who needs them? Right? Well, maybe not. Before you approach a publisher without an agent, you might want to head over to BookEnds and read Jessica’s post on how Agents Do More Than Sell Books. While you’re there, you might also check out her other post on The Influence of a Blog. Jessica gives some great detail as to what should be on an author’s web page or blog.

Cory Doctorow, pioneer or the Internet’s version of Timothy Leery, substance or flash and glitter? Hey, no judgments from me, I’m in the “wait and see” crowd; although, I do question “free” as a marketing strategy. Doctorow is conducting an experiment to prove that “free” sells (an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one). Author Michael Stackpole spends some time Desconstructing Cory Doctorow’s “Experiment” and in all fairness also examines What is Cory Doing Right? Both posts are extremely interesting reads.

Speaking of prices, if you haven’t heard of the Walmart/Amazon/Target price wars, you really need to pay attention. There’s been much fussing and cussing over the whole thing, but Eric does a nice job of discussing the issue at Pimp My Novel with his posts: This Week in Doom: Walmart.com and Walmart.com: Part Duex.

OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS

Thanks to @thecreativepenn for tweeting that Red Blade Press is now open for dark speculative fiction short-story submissions. They are not accepting submissions for novels. According to their web site, there is a very narrow deadline for submissions:

Only submissions received between September 17th 2009 and November 30th 2009 will be considered. Any submissions received outside this timeframe will be deleted unread.

So if you have a short-story up to 7,500 words, check out the Red Blade Press. You can also find more information about the anthology here.

Alan Baxter has tweeted that Realms of Fantasy magazine is re-opening and accepting submissions. Go to Locus Online for their post on Realms of Fantasy Re-Opens for details on where to find submission guidelines.

MORE NIBBLES AND LINKS

Great links can always be found at Andy Shackcloth’s Sunday Wash-up where Andy posts the best links that he can find on the Internet. He has over thirty great links this week, so don’t miss the Sunday Wash-up.

That’s it for this week, folks, be sure to visit on Monday (November 9, 2009) when Alex Bledsoe comes to visit!