Diary 2.0

Since the breakthrough of this generation’s internet era, Web 2.0, the users have become a bigger part of the internet-industry. An example of this is the blogosphere which has developed a lot through the last years. At first blogs were like an old-school diary. Now they have become a tool for moneymaking and propaganda.

Tim O’Reilly describes a blog, in the article “What is Web 2.0?” written in 2005, as a individual’s home page in a diary format. What happened to the traditionally way of documenting one’s life? Just writing down your thoughts and experiences with a pen on paper for your own eyes only. Nowadays, people have dropped their pens and started to give their deepest thoughts and more away for anyone to read. People even earns money to write about themselves.

Lev Grossman writes in the article “Time’s person of the year: You”, 2006 that a lot people use the internet to make money or to be noticed. Blogging is just one example. There’s also movie making and music producing. There are plenty of young people, mostly girls, in Sweden that earns money on their blogs. Some earns more than most of grown-ups do. In their cases blogging has been turned into a full-time work.

Humans have a crave for attention nowadays. It’s like if something can’t be seen, it doesn’t exist. In this case if you’re not on the internet, you don’t exist. People have different goals for their blog’s purpose. For example, some want to make much money (like the Swedish girls I mentioned earlier) and as I wrote in the beginning a blog can be used for propaganda. I don’t mean propaganda in a Hitler-way though. People wants to sell products, make the readers to believe that a certain life-style is the best and so on.

As I mentioned before, the blog-industry has developed insanely and continues to do it. It started as a hobby where people shared their lives and experience into a million dollar-industry. Has this evolution stopped? Or will the bloggers become even more influential and powerful? Time will tell.

To shoplift online

The biggest crime issue today is not robbing or murdering. It’s downloading. The investigation of piracy is a big subject nowadays and a solution seems to be far away.

The documentary ”Good copy, bad copy” made me think whether it’s right or wrong to share files. Basically everybody have downloaded something. Even though it’s illegal nowadays in Sweden, people continues to do it. Getting a free product instead of paying for it is very tempting.

I think downloading can be compared with shoplifting. If you steal a shirt, that’s the same thing as stealing a song or album from an artist. Both have worked on the product. Both deserve and want to be paid. People often think shoplifting is a bigger crime than downloading. I think it’s the same thing.

An example from the documentary is when the producer “Techno Brega” explains his way of making music. He downloads an already famous song and remixes it. In other words, he steals a song to make own money out of it. He also claims that CD isn’t a good business and that might be true. Artists can make money in other ways for sure. For example play shows and have their songs played on the radio but I’m sure they rather want to be payed for the hard work behind the CD then the shows. In basically every cases they want to get paid for both. For example, which teacher want to just get paid for holding lectures? They want to be paid for correcting the examinations too.

Even though I compare piracy with shoplifting, there’s a few positive things about it. The music spreads easier and to be honest, no one affords buying all the music they want to hear. Another good reason to download is to see if the album or movie is worth paying for. If it is, buy it. Both parts win, the maker gets paid och you get a great movie to watch or an album to listening to.

Lastly, the main reason to buy albums and movies instead of download it, is that the producers of the product can continue to make great albums and movies. Without consumers the quality will reduce and the music- and movie makers might not afford to produce records and films in the future.

Nerdy geniuses makes history

A fact I find very fascinating while watching “Triumph of the nerds” is that the evolution of computers was made by, so called, nerds who wanted to impress their friends. Bill Gates for example, he started of as a technique nerd who barely showered and ended as a billionaire. All because of his enthusiasm to technology.

The documentary shows how the computer industry developed since the first computer. This computer opened a whole new industry. That computers has gone from barely fit into a garage, to be portable is unbelievable. The evolution has been both fast, enormous and still is.

Today almost everyone knows how to use a computer. Windows ’95 is the main reason which made it easier to use a computer. It started as a project back in the 70s by Bill Gates and his company Microsoft. Since the release of the program it has been updated several times.

Lastly, I want to sum up by saying how incredible this evolution has been. A few people who lived for technology and looked for status ended up in a billionaire industry. If the evolution continues in the same speed our computers will be a lot different next decade.