Better than Free!! =)

This week blogging will be “Better than Free” by Kevin Kelly
Introduction
Before I read this article, I was attracted by the topic of this article – “Better than Free”. What is better than free? Everyone likes free things. Everyone goes for it when there are free things. I was curious about the idea of – Better than free.

“Better than Free”

The internet is a copy machine

                The author stated that “The internet is a copy machine”. It is the most suitable words to describe the information on the internet. It is because that everything on the internet will be copy again and again. For example, when we are out of idea on doing an assignment, we will find the information on the internet and get some inspiration and idea from it. From this, we copy the idea of other people’s work and make it into ours.

How can we make money with the “copy machine” while the information can be easily copied in millions? The author had stated there are eight intangible values that are better than free.

Eight intangible values that are better than free:

Books and Internet

1.       Immediacy – People can get free copy online for free but still there are people will pay money for it. Why so? Because people want the immediacy. For example, when a new “Harry Potter” was released, there are people lines up in front of the book store in the early morning just to buy the books.  There are even people that camp it in front of the book store the night before it release just to get the books. Internet can’t do all this. Another example, people will still spend money to watch movie even though the movie will be free to watch or download through internet sooner or later. Why? Because of immediacy. They want to enjoy the movie once it was release.

To stand out - personalized

2.       Personalization – There are bloggers earning money by blogging; the more visitors they have to their blog, the more money they earn. There are many bloggers around the world. They blog about different stuff everyday and how does a blogger to make his or her blog stands out in order to attract the visitors? The answer here will be personalized. This makes them different from other bloggers and makes the visitor remember and differentiate them from other bloggers easily and visit their blogs frequently.

Get help from Manual

3.       Interpretation – How people learn a new thing? For me, I prefer guidance from others – people or manual. The author gave a good example in the article - there are companies like Red Hat provide paid support for free software and they earn money by support and guidance.

Online shopping vs in store shopping

4.       Authenticity – Nowadays there are many people selling clothes through internet because it is cheap, more convenience and so on. But still many people still prefers to go to the shops and buy it. It is because they can know the quality of the clothes and the actual size, and make sure it is perfectly fine before purchase it or they can go back and change it if something goes wrong. They feel that the shop will be more reliable and warranty. Online shopping can’t do that. People do not know the quality of the clothes, the actual size of the clothes, odes it fits and whether the clothes in perfect form. Therefore, people rather pay more and go to the shop to buy clothes.

5.       Accessibility – Accessibility talk about backed up. The author state that the ownership sucks and he gave a good example of it - Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires.

The environment of a football match

6.       Embodiment – Internet is a virtual world. You can’t touch or feel the internet. It the same goes to the information and everything available in the internet. It means that it do not have the feeling of embodiment. For me, I like to read through an article on a paper more than on a laptop screen. It because I can easily take notes at the side on the paper or make a mark on it to remind myself. Other than that, when you watch a football match through your laptop screen is so much different from watching live in the stadium. You can’t enjoy the environment in the stadium, the excitement and the feel when everyone is shouting together; become sad when they team you support missed the goal and so much more. It is much more fun to watch it live in the stadium, that’s why, there are many people willing to paid the expensive tickets and watch it in the stadium.

7.       Patronage – “Audiences want to pay creators” – Kelly. It’s so true and this makes the music records to sales while there are songs available online for downloading. Like the author said, the fans feel connection between them and their idol when they purchase the album. It also shows the appreciation to their hard work. Another example is that people will purchase song thru iPod while there are songs available online for download.

Harry Potter =)

8.       Findability – “No matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless.” – Kelly. The author clearly state that a work that can be seen and can be found is very important and valuable. The internet has all sort of information and there are millions and millions of information of work, so it’s not easy for a specific work to be seen. This is known as clutter on the internet. For example, if J.K Rowling publish “Harry Potter” through internet it has huge possibility that her work won’t be seen and this lead to work that not sales. Besides that, people can easily make copy with it or stole her idea and produce a better work.

These eight facts are the basic things for people that want to earn money from conducting the business online. So, you should understand it, remember it if you want to conduct a business online or offline.

Media convergence

This week blogging – ‘The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence’ from Henry Jenkins

What is media convergence? Media convergence means that the use of several media on the same time. The typical example is that when we doing our assignment, we will use Microsoft word, listen to music, chat with friends, using social network – Facebook on the same time. Basically is media convergence means multitasking. People will not want to own a device that does not have much function or application. Now, even a basic mobile phone has mp3 function, camera, video recorder, can online and so on. This is known as the shift of technology.

The new technology/ new media

I remember when I was young, I did not know what is Internet but now, we can’t survive without Internet. The internet is the basic need for everyone now. People used internet to search for information, get information, for social purpose and even for education like e-learning, for assignment and so on. The widely used of the internet shows the shift of technology from traditional technology like books to internet. Like me, I rather used Internet to search for information instead of books. It is because internet has wider information and its very convenience.

 Another typical example of technology shift

The author stated that media convergence impacts the way we consume the media. It is very true because we multitasking every day. For example, we use mobile photo to take picture, edit it and post in on Facebook or mail it to other people. While we edit the photo, we may on the mp3 player on mobile phone – typical multitasking. As i mention just now, I used Microsoft word to type my assignments, listen to music, and chat with my friends, on Facebook and sometimes, I even watch the television program while i'm doing my assignemnt. We are multitasking at every minute, every seconds because of the new technology.

The uses of mobile phone/laptop/tablets/pc

The author stated that “Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift.” The author means that media convergence also link to the shift of technologies, industries, audience and so on. The shift of technologies and industries had focus on the internet because internet is the basic for people. Because of that, the behavior of audience also changed. One of it is that, audience behavior has change from passive to active. For example, last time, audience from traditional media is passive which they just take what it showed on television without giving any opinion or comments while the audience on the new media – Internet is very active. They can give comments; speak out their thoughts on Internet. For example, Harry Potter fans can share their thoughts, opinion and feeling with others fan on internet like forum or even social network like Facebook.

“Convergence is also a risk for creative industries because it requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media” – Jenkins

The companies have to rethink what the consumer wants and the consumer needs in this new era. They need to make changes in order to fit to the audience and to attract the audience attention. For example, many people do their business online because Internet has larger audience, no physical borders, free and so on. Many companies have their own webpage and advertise online to attract people’s attention or create awareness. Traditional media like newspaper also have online news because people do not read newspaper but read news online. For example, The Star newspaper has its own webpage which called The Star Online. A business that does not change accordingly or follow the trend will be outdated, difficult to fit in the society, and even get eliminated from the market.

As a conclusion, the media convergence changes the way we consume media, our daily life as we attached to our mobile phone, communicate with the new technology more than communicate with people. People will spend more time with the new technology instead of the time with people. Therefore, media convergence had its bad and goods. Do you agree with me?

Intellectual Monopoly

This week blogging will be “Against Intellectual Monopoly”

In this article, the author used the Watt story to relate to the intellectual property. The story begins with James Watt created the steam engine. Watt wanted to become the only one to provide this steam engine and earn money from it so he used the patents to protect his right toward the steam engine. He also wanted to prevent others from producing cheaper and better quality steam engine. With this, he can keep the price of his steam engine high. He had monopoly the production of the steam engine and this slowed the economic growth. This is an bad example of intellectual monopoly.

Intellectual Property

First, what do you think of intellectual property? For me, intellectual property means that the owner or the creator owns the ownership for what he or she created and prevent people to used it to earn money.  For example, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, the author of Harry Potter owns the ownership for the harry potter’s story, the character inside the story, and basically she own everything about Harry Potter. She can earn money by selling the story books; sell the copyright to the movie industry and so on. She can do whatever she wants towards the story and Harry Potter. Because Harry Potter is very popular, many people will to use the name of “Harry Potter” to earn money and Joanne Kathleen Rowling have the right to sue them about it.

There are three broad types of intellectual property recognized in most legal systems which are patents, copyrights and trademarks.

The three broad types of intellectual property:

1.    Patents – Patents is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.

2.    Copyright – Copyright is the right given to the author to protect the original work of the authorship. It applies right to the copy, and author has the right to make copy and earn money from it.  Copyright have a longer period compare to patent. For example, in United State, the copyright apply through the life of the author and plus 70 years the author die.

3.    Trademarks – Trademarks serve to identify the providers of goods, services or ideas. For example, the yellow man from Digi is the trademark for Digi. Whenever people see the yellow man, they know that it is from Digi. Another example is the Apple logo from Apple. People will know that an advertisement is from apple when there is an Apple Logo on it. People recognize a several brand from its trademark.

Which one is the Apple's Logo?

For me, copyrights, patents and trademarks is very important to protect ones right for his creation. Without it, there will be no new creations or idea because everyone is too scared to share their creation or idea. They scared that what they have created will be used by the others and earn money without their knowing. This is very unfair for the creator. For example, people illegally download the music through internet is very unfair for the artist because the artist make living by selling their music. So, when people can have it online for free, what will the artist do for living?

            Back to the topic, intellectual monopoly has their bad and good part. From the Watt’s story, we know that one of the bad parts of intellectual monopoly is slower down the economic growth. There are many good part of intellectual monopoly. The creator or owner can have all the rights towards their creation. For example, the author of Harry Potter, Joanne Kathleen Rowling has the ownership for everything about Harry Potter. If she did not monopolize Harry Potter, there will be different version of story of Harry Potter. People will use “Harry Potter” as a character in other story and this may confuse the reader.

As a conclusion, I think intellectual monopoly is not a bad things, people can own what he or she had created. This is their rights as the creator of it. What do you think about it?