Archive for the ‘material culture’ Category

The Future of Media

Monday, March 10th, 2008

On the subject of Media and Material Culture colliding in digital, let me say in my own world we are recording to digital in most audio and digital projects and we are distributing in digital. This is having serious profound impact on the nature of products and services which seem to be the modern economic model.

This is where I get excited. I found this video in a Barbie Doll aggregation feed that we pulled. (Thanks Vijith !) The video on YouTube depicts two six year olds, one filming and one showing off his tricks around a Rubic’s Cube. What is amazing is that these two kids have GLOBAL DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION. That is revolutionary and the impact is total. What can be the same.

There is a confluence of data happening. Why ? Simple. There is a general convergence overall happening. I trace it back to digital. As a Media it is so interesting because it jumps formats easily and has become a ubiquitous tool for hardware and software. From HD Quality to GPS, the internet, and mobile wireless the new frontier looks unlike anything outside of science fiction.

The fact that we aggregated this video from two six year old syndicators, might I add (free syndication from Google) is reason to look at social media sector differently. Will it be a world syndicated by Hearst Publishing and YouTube ? The answer will lie in the economic model of developing internet communities.

From Material Culture to Media Culture

Monday, March 10th, 2008

archaeology.jpgWhen your tech company is founded by an Archaeologist. These pictures were taken of my excavated structure during a meso-American Mayan archaeological excavation that I worked on in the Naco Valley of Central Eastern Honduras. The year was spring 1995, 2 years after an image was centered on the new World Wide Web. It was digging in these trenches that influenced my path into ‘media culture’.

The emergence of profound tools on any given society will always change the society. It does not take a background in material culture to see the impact digital is having on our lives and society — just try to capture the attention of most children without a screen.

archaeology2.jpg

One thing is completely certain in these ever changing times; nothing will ever be the same now that digital has begun. I was mussing to a colleague that in a world with ubiquitous GPS quite soon one will know longer be able to claim that one was lost.

These are the subtle facts belonging to the most major paradigm shift to hit organized human culture arguably since the emergence of agriculture and settlement.