Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Future of Electronics in Media
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sharing
Sunday, March 29, 2009
What's a Newspaper?
Newspapers are in especially rough times. With more and more companies cutting costs, merging, or even shutting down. In February of 2009, Rocky Mountain News closed down, leaving The Denver Post as the only major daily newspaper left in the city. Other papers, such as the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has recently started publishing its work strictly online, leaving The Seattle Times, like The Denver Post, the only remaining major daily newspaper in the city.
Why the sudden shift? Well, the poor economy might seem like the obvious answer, but it’s not just that – it’s technology. Advertising revenue for the papers have dropped sharply – about 17% in 2008 – according to the Newspaper Association of America. One possibility is that readers are migrating towards digital media and the internet to get their news, and along with the viewers come the advertisements. This is why many newspapers have created an online counterpart. It’s worth noting however that just about every news story you find on these websites can be traced back to an actual ink-and-paper story done for an actual newspaper.
Here are links to a few articles that talk about this issue in a bit more detail:
http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2009/03/no_news_would_be_good_news_on.html
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2009-03-17-newspapers-downturn_N.htm
There have been a few things to help keep these papers afloat however. Aside from advertising online, some companies, such as the Wall Street Journal, have been charging consumers to gain access to their business stories, information and data, and it’s been working. This is a very limited solution however, as the Wall Street Journal is a very prestigious business publication, and caters to specific demographics, which are clearly willing to pay for its content. The same cannot be said for most other publications.
The other possible solution is the electronic reader. Both Sony and Amazon have created their own versions of this fancy device, though they’re very close as far as functionality is concerned. For this entry I will focus on the Amazon Kindle.
The first major innovation worth noting is the “electronic-paper” display, which imitates the look of real paper, making it much easier on the eyes compared to a traditional LCD and other bright screens. The device is completely wireless, weighs only
The device has exploded onto the market, and Amazon already released the Kindle 2. Some updates to the device include a reduction in size, to a mere 1/3 inch in thickness, 25% more battery life, more memory, 3G wireless technology, and a text-to-speech feature.
For more information on the device(s), visit Amazon’s Kindle pages:
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA
http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA
Since one can subscribe to newspapers and magazines on the device and have them delivered electronically, there is still hope out there for the struggling companies. I haven’t used the device myself, so I don’t know if advertising has worked its way in yet, but I’m sure it’s not far off – at least for the magazines and newspapers. This cannot be the sole solution however, as the device will most likely not become ubiquitous. It will help though. It’s a step in the right direction as the print industry, which once stood proud, must now learn to walk again in an ever-advancing technological society.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Music, Radio and the Internet
Another technology to have seen drastic changes is radio. You have your traditional AM/FM radio, then you have your satellite radio, and finally, you have your internet radio, which varies greatly. For sites like Pandora.com or Slacker.com, you can create and customize your own “stations,” or you can get streaming music from FM radio company websites, iTunes radio stations, and many other websites. Then you have podcasts as well. You can even find most songs up on YouTube. The possibilities are almost endless.
There is more music at our fingertips than ever before. The ability to listen to and broadcast just about anything is made possible via the internet. You can even get a lot of this stuff on smartphones, which I talked about last week. Pandora has applications for the iPhone, Windows Mobile phones, and various Sprint phones as well. Now that is something I’d actually appreciate on a smartphone.
If these options weren’t enough, there are a ton of methods to get your iPod to play through your car speakers. Some include wireless FM transmitters that you attach to your iPod and play through a specific radio station, ones that plug into the device’s headphone jack and are attached to a “cassette tape” that you put in your cassette player, if your car has one, and then there are kits you can buy to hardwire directly to your car’s radio. I actually have the Dension icelink Plus kit for my car, which is hardwired to the back of the radio, with the wire running through the back and coming out the side of the glovebox, and going into a mount with the small rectangular iPod output, which attaches to the center console of the car.
With so many options, I find myself very rarely listening to traditional FM radio for music. The only time I do is in the car when I forget my iPod and really want to hear music, but even then I occasionally won’t both because there will either be commercials, or I won’t like the songs being played. With technology the way it is, it’s almost difficult to not find and listen to music you like, be it new music or music you’ve heard before.
This is a major benefit to lesser known artists. Things like iTunes, YouTube, Myspace, among other internet tools and websites have allowed independent artists to get their music out there, and if enough people like it, even make some money out of it. I’ve seen this happen all the time with original songs from YouTube users, where after enough people watch and comment and ask for the song, it ends up in the iTunes download store.
Personally, I feel like all this change is for the best. Sure, CD sales might be down, but those benefit mostly the record labels anyway, and not the artist themselves. The internet allows the artist to shine, and focuses on them, and them alone. In this age of customization and infinite musical discovery, nearly anything is possible, and I feel like it’s a win-win situation for both the consumers and the artists.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Is Your Phone Smart?
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Television and Convergence
If you walked up to a random stranger on the street and asked if they had both a television and a computer with internet access, odds are they would say yes. However, if you asked them if they had a television with internet access, they’d probably say no. They might even shoot you a funny look, who knows. Even while we live in an era where internet can be accessed almost anywhere, on almost anything, even an iPod (the iPod Touch), most people don’t expect television to be on that list. We live in an age of convergence, but I feel TV and the internet will, for the most part, remain separate.
This separation is due to several factors. When people browse the internet, they’re usually on a computer, and they’re usually doing other things as well, such as talking with friends, doing homework, listening to music, etc. These things just aren’t ideal to be doing on a television. If there’s only one television in the house, then you would need to use that for internet, meaning there would be a lack of privacy. It would also just be uncomfortable to try to do without a proper setup, because you need to use a mouse and a keyboard, and you’ll also be further away from the screen if on a couch or chair or something. In addition to those things, if someone else in the house wanted to watch TV, it would be tied up. And when people use the internet, it’s usually not to check something quickly, but tend to be on it for an extended period of time, so it would stay tied up for a bit, or they’d be rushed to get off.
There may also be a few benefits, such as watching videos from YouTube, or Hulu, or other web pages on a larger viewing platform, like a television screen. However, these applications are limited. I feel the more ideal option would be to simply view what your computer is displaying on a television screen. That way, not only can you view websites, but you can also watch videos or movies, view pictures, and listen to music saved to your hard drive, as well as play video games. This of course also includes any videos, movies, pictures, music and games from the internet. And all one would need is a simple S-video cable, or an adapter if deemed necessary, depending on the type of television you have. Either way, it's a cheap method for essentially using your television as both a TV and a computer.
I personally feel that is a much more practical option. The second best alternative I feel would be a TV card for your computer, so that, among doing everything else on your computer, you can also watch the same television that you get on your normal TV. The following link goes to a New York Times article from
Here’s a short sample of the article for those who wish to get the gist of it:
“Sony's stance is that consumers don’t want an Internet-like experience with their TVs, and we’re really not focused on bringing anything other than Internet video or widgets to our sets right now,” said Greg Belloni, a spokesman for Sony. Widgets is an industry term for narrow channels of Internet programming like YouTube.
Ditto for Sharp Electronics. “I don’t think that consumers are yet ready to access all content on the Internet on the TV,” said Bob Scaglione, senior vice president for marketing at the Sharp Electronics Marketing Company of
He added: “For now, it’s more important to deliver content consumers want on a TV and let them do their browsing on a PC.”
There is already a form of computer and TV convergence via the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. Using
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Introduction to Electronics in Media
Hey guys, since this is the first post, I thought I'd start with a bit of an introduction. Yes, this is my first time blogging, and I already feel like it's going to be a lot of fun and a great experience. It's no wonder why so many people have begun to create their own blogs already, be it for personal pleasure, or for business. Though there is so much to cover in the world of media, I decided to focus on the consumer technology/electronics aspect of it. This topic interested me for several reasons. First, I’m a big technology buff, and always think the new stuff is cool. I grew up around computers and video games, and always tried to be ahead of the curve as far as new progress in technology, which seems to be harder and harder nowadays with so much out there. I honestly believe that you couldn't find any other field with such rapid progression and new developments and products than in electronics and media. Some of these things include cell phones, televisions, computers, movies, music, games, and not just the hardware of these things, but the software as well.
These things cover communication, information, and last but not least, entertainment technologies. An important thing worth noting here, which some of you may have already realized, is that it has become more and more common for these three facets of technology to be intertwined. This media convergence has its benefits, but how far can this idea be taken and still prove viable over various dedicated devices? What works and what doesn't? How much convergence is too much convergence? What hardware/features are worth the money, and what are wasting it? These are just some of the topics I plan on addressing throughout the semester.
Another issue concerning media in more recent times is piracy. This isn’t just for a few songs either. Nowadays, people can download movies, TV shows, computer software, even video games for the newer consoles like the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360. Will hardware sales ever be affected by this, or is the number of consumers participating in these downloads smaller than we think? Has it really affected the industry, or was this change bound to occur eventually? These questions and more are things I’d also like to touch on in the weeks to come.
I will most likely focus on one technology at a time, tying in the idea of convergence and possibly the threat of piracy for each along the way, and then giving a broader overview towards the end of the semester. I will also most likely relate what all that means as far as numbers and sales go. As a student majoring in Journalism and Media Studies, I know how important knowing the numbers and the business aspect of these things is. I will also start to form some projections regarding the future of the technologies that I discuss as the semester progresses.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!