Date: November 5, 2008; Filed in Journal
The Internet has become what I am sure very few imagined ultimately. As a decentralized, global platform that now has well over a billion people using it in some form or fashion, our mass communications and creativity have become an important part of daily life for many. Like all computer technology before it, computers and the Internet are evolving rapidly. The works and communications made possible through sites like YouTube or deviantART will eventually be enhanced or replaced. Already, we see larger creative grassroots projects taking place online, creating more fantastic productions at every step. Take a look at the following links and videos to see just what is getting done online today.
When elections roll round, I am always flabbergasted at some of the statistics news agencies cook up. I’m no conspiracy theorist, so I can’t say I’m given to any sort of belief that any wide scale crookedness is going on; however, I do think election time brings out the worst in a lot of people, leading to many individual reporters and writing companies to pump out what I’d refer to as nothing other than utter bullshit.
For example, the Associated Press recently published an article, Black turnout is strong in early voting in the South. This is, by far, one of the worst articles I’ve seen this year. It bears little that suggests logical thought and uses statistics in such a way that even I believe someone’s trying to get the results they want out of writing this.
Date: October 20, 2008; Filed in Journal
Throughout the entries in this series, I have not spoken about many limitations outside of the technological ones that once and sometimes still do exist. However, technological limitations are not the only limitation to grassroots creativity online. As polished as tools have become, politics are as stubborn and slow-changing as ever. The limitation I speak of is that of copyright law. While copyright is arguably a worthy cause and is perhaps even necessary for a market to function well, the Internet has changed the speed at which creations are created and how things are shared. Archaic and over-powerful copyright laws that last as long as 70 years after an artist’s death in some countries do not mesh well with new technologies that enable the creation, sharing and downloading of content within very small amounts of time, all over the world. In a way, this has created a divide between those in support of existing copyright law, those looking for reform and those entirely against the concept. While concepts of fair use soften the edges, they rarely solve the problem entirely, to date.
Date: October 15, 2008; Filed in Journal
At the end of my previous entry on grassroots creativity online, I mentioned that the adoption of technical developments, like cascading style sheets, was vital in making Web applications more usable. Another important development that was gaining in popularity by 2004 was broadband Internet, which offered much higher speeds than dialup. Internet Explorer 6’s dominance in the browser wars, while not seriously harmed by any means, did begin to meet some competition in the 2004-launched Firefox (which was more standards compliant at the time) and Opera. These and other similar, technical changes presented users with better tools with which to browse the Web, higher download speeds to browse with and more usable designs to work on in Web applications. The result gave users more choices and more to do.
Date: October 10, 2008; Filed in Journal
When it comes to grassroots creativity, reliable tools are necessary for accomplishing some things online. It was not until this century that many online tools have even been created, much less made usable and reliable for the average user. Comparing the Internet of the 90s to that of the early 21st century is very nearly [...]
Just a little something to remind any passersby that perspective is truly everything. If you want to believe the world is coming to an end, that’s fine and dandy; it’s your business. But at least do it with more of the available information under your belt. Anything less is just not good enough!
Date: October 5, 2008; Filed in Journal
In Grassroots Creativity: A Very Brief History, I mentioned that the historical nature of computers and the Internet has led to and encouraged an abundance of individual and group-based creativity online. The 90s–particularly the mid to late 90s–furthered this as the World Wide Web became more popular and affordable to the everyday public; in 1998, the AT&T company of the United States released research showing online traffic was increasing over 100% annually (Coffman & Odlyzko 1998). Desktops and browsers became more user-friendly as well, partially due to browser wars, increasing the size of both the participating group and audience in many cases.
