Final Assignment: Digital Distribution

            To better reach my target audience of college-age students, I plan on submitting my digital media production to the Calumet Theatre homepage so they can upload it to the Club Indigo page.  Because my medium choice depends on audience interest in the club, adding an informational PowerPoint to the main page will help me reach my audience and inform them about Club Indigo while stimulating further interest in going to a movie and dinner event.  By making sure the PowerPoint functions off of the Club Indigo home site, I feel that the interaction between my audience and my presentation will help achieve a Web 2.0 method of sharing the information in the digital realm.

            To better understand how my audience will interact with my presentation, it is important to understand just what components of Web 2.0 will be important to the PowerPoint and potential viewers.  By putting the presentation online as a link to the PowerPoint, I am giving the audience the opportunity to learn more about the club through a digital medium.  According to the Boyd article, one of the four main goals of Web 2.0 is stimulation, which is also a main factor in my decision to have the theatre host my presentation (Boyd).  A stimulated audience is an interested audience, and an interested audience will be far more likely to attend a club event than those who are uninformed.  The other benefit to having my PowerPoint on the Calumet Theatre homepage is it will help the theatre get attention by the amount of traffic that looks for the page or presentation through a search engine like Google or Bing (Wallace).  An increase in site traffic for the theatre not only helps the odds of my presentation being seen by my target audience, but also helps Calumet Theatre generate revenue it can then use for advertisements of its own, furthering the Web 2.0 network of interactivity among members.

            For other aspects of Web 2.0, I can see a forum developing for the theatre page so they can vote on future meals/movies or create a review section so new member can get a better understanding of how the club functions and what themes they would like to try and attend.  This collective intelligence is the main point Tim O’Reilly was making in the article we read about what Web 2.0 is and how it functions as an “upgrade” of the internet used years ago (O’Reilly).  Even if the forum is a simple discussion or wiki, the benefit to having an interactive community of Club Indigo patrons would be a great way for members to share stories and show their friends all that they are missing out on (Wikipedia).  For members to have a say and learn about the club before attending is similar to the theory in the Wright article on Wired.com that states Web 2.0 members now learn by doing rather than reading (Wright).  An open-source forum could also help the Calumet Theatre start their own message boards or forum links that could be used in junction to help promote the events that are coming up or require input before performance time.

            By focusing on the key aspects of Web 2.0 as they relate to audience interaction, uploading my PowerPoint for Club Indigo to the Calumet Theatre home site would help promote the site and attract the intended audience.  Introduction of interactivity with the media is a great way to get people interested in a topic, so it only makes sense that my audience should have a way of viewing and promoting my advertisement in their own ways.  Every person who views the PowerPoint and visits the Club Indigo site is one more potential patron, which has been my goal since beginning my digital media production.

Sources

Boyd, Danah. "Streams of Content, Limited Attention." Danah. N.p., 17 2009. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/Web2Expo.html>.

O'Reilly, Tim. "What is Web 2.0." O'Reilly. O'Reilly, 30 2005. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html?page=1>.

"Internet Forum." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 13 2012. Web. 13 Dec 2012.

Wallace, David. "Web 2.0 Technologies and Search Visibility." Search Engine Watch. N.p., 18 2006. Web. 13 Dec 2012. <http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2066711/Web-2.0-Technologies-and-Search-Visibility>.

Wright, Will. "Dream Machines." Wired. 20006: n. page. Web. 16 Dec. 2012. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/wright.html>.

Video Game Culture

    Though I am by no means an "expert" on video games or video game culture, multiple nights spent controller-in-hand has made it quite apparent what type of culture gaming has become over the years.  To me, it seems as though the gaming industry has started to fragment itself into distinct groups of gamers all trying to be the best in their favorite games.  Though this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it makes finding like-minded gamers with similar skill levels significantly easier, it does seem to contradict the theories in the Jenkins and Wright readings.
    This is not to say the readings are incorrect, but I think that the ideas of games being used as instruction-supplements as presented in the Wright article is a slightly debatable topic.  Most games that are played and purchased today are not strictly for education, and focus more on objective-play, usually through collaborative effort of a team.  Though it is true that many games are played without looking at the instruction manual first (some games don't even have instruction manuals, just a standard button layout and the usual legal jargon), this has introduced the "learning curve" concept to gaming which keeps experienced players with many logged hours far above the skill of players who are just learning the game or are new to a series.  It is often difficult to climb to the top of the learning curve, and it all too often seems like game designers release new content right as you reach the top, but I think it is this constant challenge to be better that keeps gamers interested as opposed to what they are learning.
    As for the Jenkins pages, I think that he makes a good point of how provocative games could be compared to what the current trend in cinema was and how the crossover at the time could be viewed in a negative light.  There is no doubt that games with questionable content more often make the news rather than movies following similar story lines, but the question is why?  Where Jenkins argues that cinema has been perfected over the years to move audiences and influence emotions, I feel that the ability to simulate real-world situations connects with gamers on a deeper level than movies will ever be able to.  One such experience I have with this concept is in the game Civilization IV where you can re-create the Manhattan Project and develop nuclear weapons in-game for use on hostile factions.  As soon as I unlocked this technology, I used it to try and take another step towards victory, but I did not account for how dramatic and upsetting the cut-scene for the nuclear weapon was.  You see the missile launch from a base an fly towards the target, and as you are thinking "was this really the BEST option?" the missile strikes the target city and levels it. The sight of erasing a city from the map, even a digital one, was extremely depressing and really made me wonder what was going on when real life nuclear weapons were in use. 
    Seeing as gaming culture is constantly evolving and changing, I think the Wright and Jenkins articles are a good place for new gamers to gain insight into the world of video games.  Experienced gamers, however, may find the articles slightly outdated but can still appreciate what views on gaming have been.  One thing everyone can agree on: gaming is its own media that makes its own trends and acts interdependently of other media forms.

Web 2.0 and Digital Media

    After an extended hiatus for the blog-world, it''s time to get back in the swing of things with Web 2.0 as a new topic for our class.  For those of you who, like me, do not know what web 2.0 is, it is essentially the new internet technology and systems that are being created to improve the overall access and quality of the internet.  Keeping in mind that this is a VERY brief definition, there are a few specific points that I found pretty key to the overall theory of this new and improved web.
    One key component of Web 2.0 is the interaction of the audience and the internet as a whole.  Just like our previous discussions on connection and alienation from the internet for some users, similar topics appeared through the readings and articles.  The Boyd article, for example, had a section devoted to the different core components of a new internet, specifically the focus on a system of internet-democracy and online power.  For me, a democratic internet already exist inside a little community called Reddit.com where community members contribute information and it is edited by other members to determine what is trending or worthy of further research.  From jokes and silly memes, to breaking news and cutting-edge science, everything is accepted and improved upon by the community.  This type of self-run internet government is far from a new concept, as is hinted in the O'reilly article on "What is Web 2.0," but it has provided a key stepping stone and frequent reference for sites that are trying to advance the internet community and culture.
    The O'reilly article also covers (in much greater detail) the different aspects of the internet that Web 2.0 is aiming to change or improve upon.  The type of internet highlighted in this article is a dynamic, adaptive system that connects users in ways that enable rapid information transfer that would spread to include all members of the internet community.  This raises the question of digital nativity and how this new web would impact those members of the internet community who are still just learning how to use the internet to its full potential?  Though Web 2.0 introduces self-improving software and adaptations that emphasize site popularity over site technology, it also introduces new challenger for those of the digital community who are not digital natives or immigrants.
    All things considered, the theory of Web 2.0 is a very interesting topic that I look forward to studying more in the coming weeks.  It seems that in the modern technological world, obsolescence is a part of technology as much as it is in the theories that surround it.  We may be on the verge of an even better internet experience, all we need to do is take the next step in Web 2.0 and figure out the logistics.