Has FaceBook changed the world?

Arab Spring 

December 2010

-Tunisia-Ben Ali

- Dictator 

- Police state 

- Press censorship 

- Corruption 

Mohamed Buazizi- He burnt himself outside the town hall in Tunisia because no one was listening to him. He police refused to write a report about what happened to him. So he burnt himself outside the town hall, no media, no press came to record what has happening to him, what he was doing. The incident was not on TV, but ordinary people of the society become citizen journalists and recorded what was happening. They made videos viral about what was happening, they posted it up everywhere by use of internet. 

Azyz Amami- "the reason why i hate myself so much is because i have no right". They could not give their view about something or they couldn't give opinions about something because they didn't have the right to. He later then says that "you can't live if your afraid. 

Sleem and Azyz then thought it was not fair on what happened to their best friend, Mohamed. So they decide to protest, in the protest no media was involved because they will all scared of the Ruler, Ben Ali. 

- Everything was recorded on mobile phones and shared around the whole world. 

- Went viral

- Then got picked up by Al Jazeera news channel 

- 6th January, Sleem and Azyz were arrested

- 150 people were already dead in the protest. 

- 15th January Ben Ali gave an lecture about censorship and demoracy. 

- He used the old traditional media to get his lecture out, he used TV.

Another protest then took place again in front of the place where Sleem and Azyz were arrested.  They tried making this protest a big one, so protesters hacked the the unions websites and sent off a message to everyone about the protest. 

- People were getting warning signals on Twitter and Facebook of which route to take.

- Their was live mobile streaming, which shows how immediate the internet is.

- Ben Ali could not do anything about things going viral because the internet does not have a central tube, it cannot be censored. 

- At the time quarter of people in Tunisia had home broadband and 90% of them had a mobile phone. 

Ben Ali ruled for 24 years and it only took 28days for him to come from dictatorship to pluralism and democracy. 

My  view: I personally don't think that there would be revolution without Facebook because people will not be able to raise their voices about what is happening around the world. It will always be the government who will make the decisions and face the negatives of it. A new world will not be created, the government will always be dictating. Facebook allows millions of people to give their views about small issues and things which take place, so i think without Facebook there will be no revolution.

Egypt
- Vodafone was switched off by the government, so that no one can have access to the internet. 
- This also stopped people from having updates about what was happening. 
- This was a very intelligent move which the government took, as they know that by closing Vodafone network, people would not be able to communicate, this is the reason why then decided to walk out of their houses and get on the streets to find out what was happening. People started protesting again when they left their houses, not only a few people came out, hundreds of people came out. 

YouTube revenues may rise by 50% to $5.6bn

YouTube's advertising revenue is going to rise up by more than 50% to $5.6bn in 2013. A report was generated which conforms the treat posed by the internet to traditional TV ads. The report by eMarketer claims that YouTube has become such a draw for advertisers that it will account for 11% of advertising revenues at Google. The eMarketer estimate tops previous predictions. In May, Morgan Stanley predicted that YouTube's gross revenues would reach $4bn in 2013. Google has not revealed YouTube's earnings, but eMarketer research suggests that the search engine got a bargain when it paid $1.65bn for the site in 2006. However, YouTube does not keep all the advertising revenue and must pay a share to advertising partners and providers of content. Google's public statistics for YouTube include the fact that the service attracts 1 billion people watching more than 6bn hours of video a month, with 80% of its traffic coming from outside the US, and 40% of its viewing time happening on mobile devices. Advertisers are keen to buy slots on YouTube because of its young audience, who prefer to watch TV programmes through their computers, tablets and mobile phones rather than conventional televisions.

My view: I personally think that this is so true that Youtube's revenue would rise because due to them being very successful in the market. The reason why the advertising companies are rising their prices is because so many young people use it through their smartphones, tablets, computers rather than the old traditional way, Television. The advertising companies are very smart they know they will generate really good revenue from whatever they are advertising because more than 1 billion users visit Youtube each month, over 6 billion hours of videos are watched each month, 100 hours of videos are uploaded on Youtube every minute. 

Instagram takes on Twitter with new private messages feature

instagram have made their competition more hard because they are now trying to compete with Twitter by introducing private messages that allow users to send to groups of up to 15 people. Kevin Systrom, the chief executive of Instagram, described the new Instagram Direct feature as "a simple way to send photos and videos to your friends". Instagram users can access this newest feature by downloading the latest version of the app from either the Apple Appstore of Android Play Store.Users will be able to send images privately to a maximum of 15 people. Systrom said there was a limit because "it's not about spamming people that you know" but rather "sharing moments with friends."Although users will be able to receive direct messages from people they don't follow, these will appear in a "pending requests" section, where users can choose whether or not to accept images.This is Instagram's first major announcement since they introduced a 15-second video feature, which also aimed to increase the amount of time users spend with the app. Systrom said that Instagram now has 150 million users and called the app "super addictive" with "more than half of our users on Instagram daily" Snapchat lets users send images or video that expire after 10 seconds, and claims it has 5 million active daily users. Messages are deleted shortly after the recipient has seen the image. Whatsapp is a much more basic service that allows users to create individual and group conversations with anybody who has the app – users sent an average of 15bn messages every day in November.

My view- In my opinion I think that the advancements in new/digital media has allowed social networking sites to do such things or to introduce things like this. This fulfils the desire of the audience and it would allow instagram to attract more active users. This would make instagram much more popular and it would allow them to generate more revenue. I think the reason why instagram did this was because the want to keep their active users satisfied with the services they are offering. This would also allow them to compete with one of the biggest market leaders, Snapchat.

The Sun attracts 117,000 paying subscribers to its Sun+ digital service

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/06/sun-paying-subscribers-paywall

The Sun newspaper has attracted 117,000 paying subscribers to its £2-a-week digital service. News UK's tabloid UK's biggest selling paper, reached 100,000 digital subscribers in four months – it took stablemates the Times and Sunday Times a year to reach the same level of paying customers after their online content went behind a paywall in 2010. The Sun needed to attract more than 350,000 paying subscribers to Sun+. The reason why they need to attract 350,000 users is because they will cover their loss, which they made in online advertising. The editor of the Sun, David Dinsmore Said that The Sun was not looking to target overseas users like the Daily Mail. "In reality our marketplace is very much the UK at the moment, we have 60 million people here to focus on," he said. "We are in the process of hiring a social media team, we have been remiss [in this area] in the past. It has been an ad hoc affair. We are a product across all platforms and it is key to have that social-media marketing opportunity.

News UK revealed some details of the subscriber base of Sun+. The biggest single group (30%) are 25 to 34, which Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief marketing officer at News UK, said "blows out the myth young people won't pay for [digital] content". Almost half (47%) of sign-ups for the paid service are via mobile. The Suns Subscribers are split between 60/40. 60 Males and 40 females. Sun+ subscribers are split 60/40 between men and women, although this is expected to balance out to an extent once the football promotion slows down, and there is a "slight" London bias to sign ups, with the capital's denizens considered to be early adopters.

My view: From my prospective i think that The Sun will cover all their loss with the money from their new subscribers. If they carry on setting targets and achieving them targets then they will beat other newspapers online. They will also need to take in consideration that they need something on their online content which will attract the females, as they have more of a male audience because of the football. So if they have something on their for females, it would balance out the the number.

How Apple Maps won on UK iPhones over Google Maps

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/26/apple-maps-europe-google #

Apple's Maps app for the iPhone is getting millions of users as soon as it became available; enough, according to ComScore, for Google to lose 23m users in the US.
Apple Maps became the default on the iPhone - and most people don't change defaults. On the iPhone, in addition, it's particularly hard to do so without "jailbreaking" the device; though on a standard phone one can use different mapping apps, any geographic link in an email or calendar appointment will open in Apple's app.Google lost some many users because Apple beat their map, people find Apple maps much more advanced and easy to understand. The reason why Apple won is because its more attractive and they make it look more professional. 

My view: I knew this was going to come as the recent update in the software has made significant improvement. It has eased the use of the software, which generally attracts a mass users. The reason why i think Google lost users was because there maps are old tradition, which doesn't make it look professional. Apple have got an much better professional map, which attracts the audience to use it. The reason why i think Apple have an much professional map is because of the improvements made to the software.

The Virtual Revolution episode 2

The virtual revolution part 2

Notes:
-The web is shifting power.
-Twitter was developed in San Frisco in 2006.
-Iran June 2009- presidential election - Protesters tweeted everything which happened to get the information out to the world about what was happening because any media institution who tried recording what was happening got arrested.
-First 18 days 2 million tweets send out of Iran
Wikileaks- Allowed people to anonymously blow their whistle on the government.

Quotes:
Dr Aleks Krotoski- "A quoter of out planets population is connected to the internet"
Jeff Bezos- "Its driven transparency is driving the perfection"
Stephen Fry- "it is a hugely powerful tool for the state, it controls us and knows about us"
Vint Cerf- "No body has power to turn the internet on or off"
Clay Shinky- "If you want to participate, you have the mean to participate"

New/digital media

 The developments of new/digital media means the audience is more powerful in terms of consumption and production. Discuss the arguments for and against this view.

A pluralist prospective would argue that the audience have much more control over the internet because of the advancements made in new/digital media. They would argue that the audience are the producers and we don’t have to rely on big conglomerates to give us the information, as we are producing it and getting it from ordinary people.  The advancements in new/digital media has made ordinary people active consumers, as they are producing their own content. “The internet is an empowering tool” (Al Gore), he quotes that the internet is an empowering tool, as it is allowing normal people to create content, which could be accessed by anyone around the world. One example of ordinary people being producers and how it helped spot out the wrong is the Rodney King case. A normal citizen recorded the incident on his mobile phone camera and published it everywhere, available for the audience. People who do such things are referred to citizen journalists, as they are giving out the important information for free. This shows that the new/digital media has gone much more advanced as it is letting normal people do such things.

On the other hand a Marxists would argue that even though ordinary people are creating the content, who is getting the money for it? At the end of the day it is the multi money making conglomerates that are getting all the revenue created from the content which is produced by ordinary people.  So they would argue that producing all the content and giving it out, but not getting any revenue from it means you are still not in control over the internet. It will still be the big media institutions who will be getting all the revenue. One of the biggest media institution, News Corporation still charge for the online content because they know that people would still buy it even though they charge £8.67 each month. Why do they pay for the content when they know that they could get the information from other sources, the reason why they pay for it is because they trust the source. “A  minority of media producers always serve a majority of consumers” ( Pareto’s Law) The reason why this would support a Marxists prospective is because it says a small amount of media producers always serve the big amount of consumers. So it suggests that it is still the media producers/ institutions that are still in charge of what to be shown to the audience. This connotes that a Marxists would strongly disagree with the point that the audience have much more power over the internet.

To tackle the Marxists argument another pluralists prospective would argue the audience are in power over the internet because that’s the reason why YouTube is so successful today.  The reason why YouTube is so successful today is because of (UGC) user generated content.  Ordinary people are creating content and posting it up on YouTube, which allows them to get views and generate money. One example of UGC is SourceFed which is a YouTube channel.  They post up 5 videos about the main news of the day, but they would make it much more simply and smaller so that the young age can enjoy it. This is a perfect example for UGC because its ordinary people creating this and they are giving the news out for free. This also suggests that new/digital media allow them to do this, which means the advancements in new and digital media has given power to the audience. “The internet has given readers much more power, the world is changing and newspapers have to adapt” (Rupert Murdoch) Him as a multi billionaire has quoted that the world is changing. The reason why he says newspapers have to adapt is because things like SourceFed are giving out news for free, which means people won’t buy newspapers. That’s why he says the worlds changing newspapers have adapt.

A Marxists would strongly disagree with the fact that the audience have power over the internet because the media institutions just “inject the audience with the information” (hypodermic needle) they don’t allow the audience to give their opinion they just inject them with all the information they have. They don’t even allow the audience to think. The people who decide what information has to be shown are gatekeepers. They are the ones who make the decision on whether something should be shown to the audience or not. Marxists say that they are still in control in terms of production.  

 The advancements in new/digital media let the Arab communicate with each other so that could receive freedom. Arab spring is a perfect example for pluralists as you could argue that it let them raise their voice. People in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya are now able to see who they actually are, and they can identify their personal identity. If the new and digital media did not allow people in them countries connect then they would have been all unemployed, they would have no right, they would have been controlled by the government throughout their life. The internet let them raise their voice and let them stand out and speak for themselves.

According to a Marxists perspective the audience do not have power over the internet. This is because in reality shows such as Big Brother, individuals are in control by the surveillance cameras. Highlighting they do not have full control of their behaviour. This establishes that the audience have less power in terms of consumption and productions. They camera is controlling all the individuals on the show, which means that they are in less power of themselves. This means that the internet has not given full control of itself to the audience.

I believe that audience have much more power over the internet, due to UGC and citizen journalists. Ordinary people are creating their own content which they then distribute around the whole of social networking sites. They have the power to produce something and then the power to make it viral. Even though it doesn’t get them any money, I still strongly believe that the audience are controlling the internet. We don’t have to wait for media institutions to feed us the news because we as ordinary people are creating the news. “The internet is the most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke) they believe that the internet is a part of everyone’s life in today’s generation. 

PlayStation 4 queues begin to form ahead of Friday's UK launch

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/27/playstation-4-queues-friday-uk-launch-sony-ps4-lounge-london

People in Britain have so much eager to get their hands on the new Playstation 4. They have already started queueing in central London, 2 days before its official launch. Friday was the day when it was the day when it is officially going to be on sale. Sony have announced that people who have no pre-ordered the console, will be able to get one at midnight launch event in Convent Garden. People started pre-ordering them in August. Customers who are queueing for their consoles will be able to watch a performance by the rapper Tinie Tempah and will be given pizza and energy drinks to keep them awake. Sony's UK & Ireland managing director, Fergal Gara, said:"We really wanted to offer some way for people to buy on launch day, and this is a fantastic opportunity for anyone that hasn't already pre-ordered to get their hands on a PS4 on day one. "The excitement in the run-up to our UK launch has been phenomenal, and we want to thank gamers for their support by giving them the chance to take a PS4 home at the earliest opportunity.The new console launches across the UK on November 29, priced at £349, with over 400 stores hosting special midnight openings on 28 November.

Key facts/ statistics
The PS4 is billed as being 10 times faster than its predecessor, the PlayStation 3, which was released in 2006. It has a Blu-Ray/DVD optical drive, digital video recording, 8GB DDR5 RAM, an 8 core single-chip x86 AMD Jaguar CPU, AMD Radeon graphics core next engine GPU, 500GB removable hard drive and internal power supply.

My view: I believe that Sony will still be making a vital amount of money due to the success of the consoles made in the past. The fact that people who have not pre-ordered, already started queueing up two days before the launch, shows that it will be a big success. Even though people now days are much more in too smartphones, I believe that this game console would still be a big success and Sony will generate a really good amount of money from it. I think the reason why Sony have launched the console in the end of December is because they know it's christmas and they will get loads of sales. Sony will sell a big amount of consoles to people as they will buy them for presents and for themselves.