people’s tendency to follow the crowd..

I have selected the articles about Facebook and IMDB. I intended to elucidate how typical it is that people only follow the pack without having their own opinions. I have realised that I easily follow the stream if I do not see the signs.

A few weeks ago I saw District 9. First, I didn’t think so much of the film. I thought it was cool and well done, but I didn’t think so much about the details. But later I checked up some reviews to get a better view of the movie, on a few websites. Most of them who had written about the movie had the same opinion as me. But on one website I found a long review that was full of criticism about the film.      I began to read and realised how my opinion of the film was changed. Immediately, I began to realise how bad the film actually was, and that the story was lame. At the same time it was easily to understand the story and its message.

Like it said about Facebook in the text, “it seems everyone is friends with everyone else these days”. So who is a real friend and who is not? I have many Facebook friends, but at the same time I don’t even talk to half of them, in most cases. I’m only familiar with them. I’m an active member of Ultimate Frisbee, so because of that I have got to know lots of people all over Sweden. And no, I’m not familiar with all of them, but everyone knows each other in one way or another.

 Actually, I am a person that prefers few close friends than many shallow friends. So why do I have many shallow, who I do not have any direct contact with? I don’t know really, I mean it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes it’s good to have many Frisbee-Facebook-contacts if tournament is coming up and you want to reach everybody quick. So in that case it’s good to have everybody gathered. But honestly it’s weird to have so many friends and most often you don’t even know half of them. It’s like trend, everybody just has to have as many “friends” on their Facebook account as possible.     

The articles connect to each other because they describe people’s tendency to follow the crowd. In my analysis, I describe my own views because it is easy to relate to. So to sum up, in the future I will think more critical.

Good copy bad copy.

Copyright, yes or no?

Essentially, I’ve been reflecting over the downloading issue. I think the question of copyright is complicated. It’s difficult to have an opinion, everyone has good arguments. At the same time the development is going just one way – more people will break the law, you can just hang on or be an outsider. Usually people always hang on but in the media business it might have gone a bit too fast. The question is, are people ready to change the copyright law?  The music industry, in this case, have big problems to hang on to how thing change. The system is a cat-and-mouse game, no body will give-up. It is for themselves to decide what’s right or wrong, or just for the individual, to follow the process.

I have been reflecting about how it would be if the music industry would support those smaller music performers. If they had gotten that support, they might have had a chance to grow “bigger” or more famous. I mean; most artists would love to create music for a living.

But then the question is, will people pay for music in the future? Right now Spotify is the biggest “music for free” business in Europe, but they have also changed. I remember when Spotify came, in the beginning you could get access to Spotify in two ways. One way was if you paid for it or got an invite. If you were paying for it you wouldn’t be bothered with commercials but if you had got an invite you heard it every 15 minute. Nowadays it’s the same but you also can get it in your iPhone and other mobiles, I think.  It’s funny; everything gets more and more expensive but we buy it anyway. But people want music for free. Why are we not ready to pay the musicians for their work? Of course; if we can get something for “free” we take it happily. But is that right to download somebody’s tracks that she/he has been working on for months? I think not.

Sure I would love to support smaller music performers, who downloads music and twist it in their own way. But like one of the people who was interviewed said “the most interesting issue is; who really owns what?”  I think we have to deal with that specific question for a start, and then come up whit a good compromise.

Triumph of the nerds

Hi guys!

From the beginning, computers were nothing more than enormous machinery in well air-conditioned rooms. But nerds, like Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allan and Bill Gates wanted to develop a computer for personal use. At the same time, they were not alone with the idea of the first “computer”. Altair was built. It was a type of counter. It had small lamps that brightened up when you clicked the several switchers back and forth. The counter was hard to understand, anyway it had a really good success.

But Bill and Paul were really excited to develop “that personal computer” and they had great success after months in a garage only living by eating pizza and drinking Coca-Cola. They invented software for the Altair, the demo succeeded. Bill didn’t finish university and joined Allen instead to dominate the new industry.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak invented the first computer which had a screen and actually looked more like a “computer”. After a wile they invented a program which had the task to figure out mathematical tasks.

I think the film “Triumph of the nerds” was really interesting; to see that you can start an enormous industry revolution in your own garage. That a dream can come true if you really work hard and believe in your idea! From amateur to millionaire, I like that!

/ Julia