Friday, October 8, 2010

Professional content still dominates, while Web 2.0 hones our skill leading us to becoming professional



After reading Air after Web 2.0 by Lev Manovich, I agree with Manovich’s opinion that even though the internet is democratized and used as a giant stage for everyone who has access to it, professional produced content still dominates people’s sources of news and media. People still watch fox and CNN news, go to movie theaters watching big budget movies in 3D, and listen to trashy shitty main stream pop songs by singers like Miley Cyrus and Beyonce. However, there are some exceptions, people got famous from sharing their content on internet in Web 2.0 age. Perez Hilton got famous with the power of his Youtube video channels and his sassy Hollywood celebrity gossip website perezhilton.com. And there are numerous democratized celebrities on Youtube who are those online stars and famous bloggers whose face are still mysteries for their audiences. Whereas, as the article stated, according to 2007statistics, only between o.5-1.5 percent of users of the most popular social media sites contributed content on the internet. This means the chance we ourselves become professionals and dominate the source is still pretty tiny.

Except social communication and content sharing, we can totally utilize the internet nowadays to hone our skills in our interested domain. I got really inspired by Rachel Crowl’s lecture about social media and artist. The part where she talked about how she practices her photography skills was really inspiring. I’m interested in film making, according to Rachel, I can just join any film forum that shares and discuses films online and upload my works for other people’s advices. This is a fast and easy way to gain more knowledge and get feedbacks. Actually, I started practicing my editing skills by doing music video editing just like the fan made AMV stated in the article Air after Web 2.0, and post it on Chinese video website and sent the link to the forum I was in to share insights and get feedbacks. Personally I thought  it was really helpful.

Here is one of the fake AMV I made years ago.


2 comments:

  1. Jinglei, first of all, I was personally surprised to read your strong thoughts about the "shitty" mainstream pop songs of artists, such as Miley Cyrus, which are shared on web!
    As far as I can infer, you are trying to portray that professionally produced content is still accessed more than nonprofessional data. However, it is also important to keep in mind that Wikipedia, one of the most widely used social media websites, is run by non-professional users. Any user is able to submit his/her content to the website, and once the content has been "edited" and is "reliable," it gets published online. However, there is no way to keep track of the many resources that Wikipedia uses in order to collect and publish that content. Hence, Web 2.0 is certainly not reliable under such situations.
    Nonetheless, you are also right that there are some exceptions where Web 2.0 has played an advantageous role in society. Not only have people become famous after sharing their content, but this form of web has also allowed users to gain immediate access to communication; something that would have never been possible without such social media.

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  2. Okay, put it out there and see what happens. People can see what you're doing and get involved if it is something that resonates with them. This is what makes Web 2.0 a breakthrough...the stronger possibility of finding like minded people to exchange ideas and thoughts with.

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