WEBVTT 00:00:03.002 --> 00:00:08.012 The change in the architecture of the media is completely connected to a change of the control 00:00:08.012 --> 00:00:11.006 With the broadcast system you have one person in one station 00:00:11.006 --> 00:00:13.008 deciding what gets put out over the airwaves. 00:00:13.008 --> 00:00:17.068 When you have distributed network like the internet everybody can be a server. 00:00:17.068 --> 00:00:20.088 There's no distinction between the broadcaster and the receiver: 00:00:20.088 --> 00:00:22.004 every computer does both. 00:00:22.004 --> 00:00:27.012 You can take your home laptop and run a server off of it that can distribute movies and music 00:00:27.012 --> 00:00:31.068 and webpages and email in the same way that the biggest computers at google can. 00:00:31.068 --> 00:00:31.076 there's no fundamental difference between the computers they have in iraq in their server rooms 00:00:31.076 --> 00:00:35.052 00:00:35.052 --> 00:00:38.004 and what you have on your desk 00:00:38.004 --> 00:00:39.006 In the old system of broadcasting, 00:00:39.006 --> 00:00:42.076 you were fundamentally limited by the amount of space in the airwaves 00:00:42.076 --> 00:00:46.044 you could only send out 10 channels over the airwaves in television 00:00:46.044 --> 00:00:48.068 or even with cable you had 500 channels. 00:00:48.068 --> 00:00:50.076 On the internet, everybody can have a channel; 00:00:50.076 --> 00:00:53.008 everyone can get a blog or a MySpace page; 00:00:53.008 --> 00:00:55.048 everyone has a way of expressing themselves 00:00:55.048 --> 00:00:57.072 and so what you see now is not a question of 00:00:57.072 --> 00:00:59.028 who gets access to the airwaves, 00:00:59.028 --> 00:01:00.084 it's a question of who gets control 00:01:00.084 --> 00:01:02.008 over the ways you find people. 00:01:02.008 --> 00:01:05.044 You start seeing power centralising in sites like google, 00:01:05.044 --> 00:01:08.006 these sort of 'gatekeepers' that tell you where on the internet you want to go 00:01:08.006 --> 00:01:11.006 the people who provide you your sources of news and information. 00:01:11.006 --> 00:01:15.028 so its not only certain people have a license to speak 00:01:15.028 --> 00:01:16.068 now everyone has a license to speak, 00:01:16.068 --> 00:01:19.004 it's question of who gets heard. 00:01:19.004 --> 00:01:22.068 So one of the biggest questions we're facing in a world of many speakers 00:01:22.068 --> 00:01:24.004 how do you find what's good? 00:01:24.004 --> 00:01:27.036 Are we gonna go to a system like the old media where you go to CNN 00:01:27.036 --> 00:01:29.028 and they pick a handful of people to focus on 00:01:29.028 --> 00:01:30.028 and you read what they say 00:01:30.028 --> 00:01:32.002 or are we going to go with something more like the internet 00:01:32.002 --> 00:01:35.048 where everybody has a chance of being heard, a more democratic system. 00:01:35.048 --> 00:01:38.044 One of the most interesting technologies for doing something like that 00:01:38.044 --> 00:01:40.008 is a system called collaborative filtering, 00:01:40.008 --> 00:01:43.068 where everybody expresses their opinions on what they like and what they don't like 00:01:43.068 --> 00:01:47.044 and the computer tries to match you up with other people who have similar preferences 00:01:47.044 --> 00:01:50.076 and recommend you things that they also like that you didn't know about before. 00:01:50.076 --> 00:01:52.084 It's the same kind of system you see on Amazon 00:01:52.084 --> 00:01:55.016 where people who bought this book also bought this book 00:01:55.016 --> 00:01:58.000 people are trying to experiment that not only with books 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:01.012 but with blogs, web pages and news stories all across the internet, 00:02:01.012 --> 00:02:04.004 they're trying to find ways and things that you've never heard of before 00:02:04.004 --> 00:02:06.002 and bringing them in front of you 00:02:06.002 --> 00:02:08.004 Mass media had this fundamental paradox 00:02:08.004 --> 00:02:10.036 because it was aiming at a huge audience 00:02:10.036 --> 00:02:12.076 but it wanted to convince everybody they were an individual 00:02:12.076 --> 00:02:15.036 you see all these ads on television all the time like 00:02:15.036 --> 00:02:17.006 'buck the trend, buy these jeans' right!? 00:02:17.006 --> 00:02:20.028 and it's on a show that 4 million people are watching, 00:02:20.028 --> 00:02:24.000 you're not going to buck a trend by doing what 4 million other people are. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:27.004 Now that the internet is actually making these nitch things possible 00:02:27.004 --> 00:02:29.004 the mass media is incredibly threatened 00:02:29.004 --> 00:02:33.048 no longer this idea of bucking the crowd and being your own 00:02:33.048 --> 00:02:36.028 it's no longer just a theory you can actually do it on the internet 00:02:36.028 --> 00:02:40.056 And what we're starting to see is tools that take power away from the big conglomerates 00:02:40.056 --> 00:02:42.048 and start to distribute it to small groups. 00:02:42.048 --> 00:02:47.028 And so there are a bunch of issues in a system like that there are questions of funding you know, 00:02:47.028 --> 00:02:50.052 how will these small groups get paid and how will the random blogger be able to live 00:02:50.052 --> 00:02:53.006 in a way that an investigative journalist can now 00:02:53.006 --> 00:02:55.092 because there's one giant source of advertising 00:02:55.092 --> 00:02:59.088 you know there are question finding people, how will I be able to find the stuff I'm interested, 00:02:59.088 --> 00:03:02.008 and the stuff that's trustworthy and reliable 00:03:02.008 --> 00:03:04.072 and so for each of these there are new technologies 00:03:04.072 --> 00:03:06.068 people are trying all kinds of different things 00:03:06.068 --> 00:03:08.028 and all of these say different things about the internet 00:03:08.028 --> 00:03:12.004 there is still experimentation in this, since everybody can just go up and start a website 00:03:12.004 --> 00:03:15.068 with a new piece of technology that try and solve one of these problems 00:03:15.068 --> 00:03:18.068 We're seeing lots of different possibilities, lots of different funding models 00:03:18.068 --> 00:03:23.044 lots of different recommendations systems and who knows what will work best 00:03:23.044 --> 00:03:25.008 we have a chance to try it all and see what falls out 00:03:25.008 --> 00:03:27.088 So there are a couple of interesting funding models: 00:03:27.088 --> 00:03:30.006 One of course is this standard model of advertising, 00:03:30.006 --> 00:03:35.008 you go to a bunch of big corporate sponsors and instead of having them fund a television show 00:03:35.008 --> 00:03:36.004 you have them fund your webpage 00:03:36.004 --> 00:03:40.000 but a more interesting one is you do the same thing with nitch groups 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:45.012 instead of going to IBM/Ford or a big company, and having them buy a banner on your website 00:03:45.012 --> 00:03:47.068 you go to people that actually care about the readers you have 00:03:47.068 --> 00:03:50.076 if you're a design weblog you go to design companies 00:03:50.076 --> 00:03:53.088 if you're a political blog, you go to other politicians 00:03:53.088 --> 00:03:58.004 you have a very targeted narrow group of people who are really interested in the subject, 00:03:58.004 --> 00:04:01.076 thats an audience advertisers really love 00:04:01.076 --> 00:04:04.068 another possibility is to turn directly to your readers for support 00:04:04.068 --> 00:04:07.072 you see blogs say, I wanna go to a trip to New Hampshire 00:04:07.072 --> 00:04:10.044 to cover the american political conventions 00:04:10.044 --> 00:04:12.000 will you support me? 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:13.004 and the readers pour in money 00:04:13.004 --> 00:04:16.072 these people are very dedicated they feel like they have a personal connection 00:04:16.072 --> 00:04:17.008 with the person writing 00:04:17.008 --> 00:04:21.000 they are eager to spend money to support it! 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:23.088 Another thing is that you simply work of volunteer labor 00:04:23.088 --> 00:04:27.004 you have people that have a day job thats an expert in a subject 00:04:27.004 --> 00:04:30.036 and they just enjoy talking about it so they rate stuff in their free time 00:04:30.036 --> 00:04:31.044 and publish it on the internet 00:04:31.044 --> 00:04:34.000 or they have readers who read their site and contribute stuff 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.068 and it gets compiled into one exciting source. 00:04:36.068 --> 00:04:39.004 So I think there are lots of interesting experiments, 00:04:39.004 --> 00:04:41.000 people are trying lots of different ways 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:48.006 One of the errors you had with television, right, could only provide one level of interest 00:04:48.006 --> 00:04:52.036 it was funded based on adertising not on how much people cared about the programme 00:04:52.036 --> 00:04:56.028 advertisers were going to pay the same no matter how exciting or how compelling 00:04:56.028 --> 00:04:58.016 or how interested an audience was in a show 00:04:58.016 --> 00:05:01.092 so what you ended up with was fairly boring shows that appealed to lots of people 00:05:01.092 --> 00:05:04.004 because that's what advertisers wanted 00:05:04.004 --> 00:05:06.016 they wanted lots people watching the shows 00:05:06.016 --> 00:05:08.028 whereas in a normal market economy what happens is 00:05:08.028 --> 00:05:10.036 if you really want something you pay more for it 00:05:10.036 --> 00:05:12.028 you just can't do that with television. 00:05:12.028 --> 00:05:15.004 So one of the interesting things about broadcast is that a lot of what you like 00:05:15.004 --> 00:05:17.004 depends on what other people like 00:05:17.004 --> 00:05:19.024 there are only so many shows out there 00:05:19.024 --> 00:05:20.002 they are all kind of bland 00:05:20.002 --> 00:05:22.000 so what happens, you have these megahits 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:27.000 like American Idol or lost, where everybody at the water cooler is talking about this show, 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.012 so you have to watch it because otherwise you can't keep up with them 00:05:30.012 --> 00:05:33.056 whatever social factors get involved 00:05:33.056 --> 00:05:35.068 you have this sort of process of rich gets richer 00:05:35.068 --> 00:05:40.036 one thing takes off because thats what everybody else is doing! 00:05:40.036 --> 00:05:43.072 One nice thing about the internet is that it allows for so much more variety 00:05:43.072 --> 00:05:48.000 that nitch products can get so much more attention and interest 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:50.076 So they've the run the numbers and this this proven mathematical fact 00:05:50.076 --> 00:05:54.068 that as long as some percentage of what you care about is whether other people 00:05:54.068 --> 00:05:58.068 like it or now you're gonna end up with this patterns of hits and failures 00:05:58.068 --> 00:06:01.072 if you have two things which are equivalent in quality, 00:06:01.072 --> 00:06:04.068 one of them is liked by one more person than the other one, 00:06:04.068 --> 00:06:06.012 you're going to go that one 00:06:06.012 --> 00:06:08.004 there's some small chance that you're going to go to that one 00:06:08.004 --> 00:06:09.076 and everybody's going to start going to that one 00:06:09.076 --> 00:06:11.016 and all of a sudden you have harry potter 00:06:11.016 --> 00:06:14.088 this one book plucked of nowhere that suddenly becomes this massive mega-hit. 00:06:14.088 --> 00:06:18.012 not because it's a hundred million times better written than every other book 00:06:18.012 --> 00:06:21.000 but simply because everybody's reading it 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.008 and putting stuff on the internet doesn't change that, 00:06:23.008 --> 00:06:27.004 you still care about what your friends like, still wanna read what everybody else is talking about, 00:06:27.004 --> 00:06:30.076 ou still wanna do what's popular because you think maybe other people have a valid opinion 00:06:30.076 --> 00:06:34.002 and maybe you wanna talk to them about it maybe you want to join part of this community 00:06:34.002 --> 00:06:37.024 but whatever your reason is, as long as you care about what other people opinion 00:06:37.024 --> 00:06:38.008 you're going to end up with these hits. 00:06:38.008 --> 00:06:39.004 You just have this social signifier that everybody cares about 00:06:39.004 --> 00:06:41.068 You just have this social signifier that everybody cares about 00:06:41.068 --> 00:06:45.008 everybody's watching American Idol doesn't matter how good the show is 00:06:45.008 --> 00:06:49.048 I mean it has to be somewhat decent so people watch it, but once everybody's watching it, 00:06:49.048 --> 00:06:54.002 talking about it, you know, it suddenly becomes this megahit for no real reason, 00:06:54.002 --> 00:06:56.008 right, just because it's a social phenomenon 00:06:56.008 --> 00:07:00.006 and what television does, it chops off the tale and it throws away all the other shows 00:07:00.006 --> 00:07:03.004 people would like but don't care enough about to be megahits 00:07:03.004 --> 00:07:06.068 and instead pours all of its money into these cheap produced shows 00:07:06.068 --> 00:07:08.072 well you can't get rid of hits, right 00:07:08.072 --> 00:07:11.004 it's a fact that people would wanna do what their friends are doing 00:07:11.004 --> 00:07:15.052 you can't avoid that but what you can do is say there's the whole rest of the world out there 00:07:15.052 --> 00:07:19.000 there's a whole rest of what people care about other than what everybody else is doing 00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.004 Everybody has their own particular interests everybody has something that fascinates them 00:07:22.004 --> 00:07:25.072 and what the internet does is it allows them to 'do' that 00:07:25.072 --> 00:07:29.008 to get involved and find other people who share these things 00:07:29.008 --> 00:07:33.024 one of the exciting things about Wickipedia is that it doesn't just have articles on 00:07:33.024 --> 00:07:36.002 you know, 100 most popular things or 1000 most popular things 00:07:36.002 --> 00:07:39.028 you can pick the most obscure subject in the world and there's an article about it 00:07:39.028 --> 00:07:43.004 Because for EVERYTHING, there's someone who cares a great deal about it 00:07:43.004 --> 00:07:46.006 and that's what television, that's what radio doesn't provide, but the internet does! 00:07:46.006 --> 00:07:50.008 it provides a way for you to get in touch with those other people who really 00:07:50.008 --> 00:07:52.048 care about this completely obscure thing 00:07:52.048 --> 00:07:56.004 It doesn't just go into the direction of topic, it goes into the direction of time 00:07:56.004 --> 00:07:58.052 You can go back in time and find all the shows that have been canceled 00:07:58.052 --> 00:08:00.084 find all the articles that have been deleted 00:08:00.084 --> 00:08:04.004 you can go back and find everything that has been lost in major culture 00:08:04.004 --> 00:08:05.048 and it's got a place on the internet 00:08:05.048 --> 00:08:09.068 Youtube music videos from the 70s and the 80s that you can't find anywhere these days 00:08:09.068 --> 00:08:11.048 you can watch at your leisure 00:08:11.048 --> 00:08:13.068 I think lessening the power of the hits 00:08:13.068 --> 00:08:16.072 bringing down the things from the top and making it more egalitarian 00:08:16.072 --> 00:08:18.008 is the something we should always strive for 00:08:18.008 --> 00:08:21.008 it may be really difficult it may not be super possible 00:08:21.008 --> 00:08:24.008 but it's something to hope for, to drive for 00:08:24.008 --> 00:08:26.072 and what that means is 00:08:26.072 --> 00:08:31.002 throwing away as much as possible all the things that give you hints about 00:08:31.002 --> 00:08:34.004 you should do this because other people like it 00:08:34.004 --> 00:08:37.052 it's very tempting when you're building a website or programming system 00:08:37.052 --> 00:08:39.088 is to start sorting things that are really popular at the top 00:08:39.088 --> 00:08:43.012 but all that does is, that it makes it less democratic and less fair 00:08:43.012 --> 00:08:48.028 you have to have continual pressure, to try and pull things from the bottom from the tale up 00:08:48.028 --> 00:08:51.044 give everybody a chance to look at everything and if you do that 00:08:51.044 --> 00:08:53.072 maybe, you won't get completely rid of hits, 00:08:53.072 --> 00:08:55.068 but you can start to ???? some of their problems 00:08:55.068 --> 00:08:59.004 I mean that's one power of data mining is that construct to find obscure subjects 00:08:59.004 --> 00:09:01.088 that you wouldn't have found simply because they are not popular 00:09:01.088 --> 00:09:03.092 you know one of the tools of recommendation 00:09:03.092 --> 00:09:06.092 can be to pull you to the less popular stuff on the tale 00:09:06.092 --> 00:09:10.000 The random article button on Wikipedia is really cool in this sense 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:13.024 you can just wake up every day and read about some completely random topic 00:09:13.024 --> 00:09:17.008 that you never heard of except for the fact that there's an article on the Wikipedia about it 00:09:17.008 --> 99:59:59.999 and boy are there some completely random topics on Wikipepdia