| Play from beginning |
| 00:00:03 | The change in the architecture of the media
is completely connected to a change of the control |
| 00:00:08 | With the broadcast system you have one person in one station |
| 00:00:11 | deciding what gets put out over the airwaves. |
| 00:00:13 | When you have distributed network like the internet everybody can be a server. |
| 00:00:17 | There's no distinction between the broadcaster and the receiver: |
| 00:00:20 | every computer does both. |
| 00:00:22 | You can take your home laptop and run a server off of it that can distribute movies and music |
| 00:00:27 | and webpages and email in the same way that the biggest computers at google can. |
| 00:00:31 | there's no fundamental difference between the computers they have in iraq in their server rooms |
| 00:00:35 | and what you have on your desk |
| 00:00:38 | In the old system of broadcasting, |
| 00:00:39 | you were fundamentally limited by the amount of space in the airwaves |
| 00:00:42 | you could only send out 10 channels over the airwaves in television |
| 00:00:46 | or even with cable you had 500 channels. |
| 00:00:48 | On the internet, everybody can have a channel; |
| 00:00:50 | everyone can get a blog or a MySpace page; |
| 00:00:53 | everyone has a way of expressing themselves |
| 00:00:55 | and so what you see now is not a question of |
| 00:00:57 | who gets access to the airwaves, |
| 00:00:59 | it's a question of who gets control |
| 00:01:00 | over the ways you find people. |
| 00:01:02 | You start seeing power centralising in sites like google, |
| 00:01:05 | these sort of 'gatekeepers' that tell you where on the internet you want to go |
| 00:01:08 | the people who provide you your sources of news and information. |
| 00:01:11 | so its not only certain people have a license to speak |
| 00:01:15 | now everyone has a license to speak, |
| 00:01:16 | it's question of who gets heard. |
| 00:01:19 | So one of the biggest questions we're facing in a world of many speakers |
| 00:01:22 | how do you find what's good? |
| 00:01:24 | Are we gonna go to a system like the old media where you go to CNN |
| 00:01:27 | and they pick a handful of people to focus on |
| 00:01:29 | and you read what they say |
| 00:01:30 | or are we going to go with something more like the internet |
| 00:01:32 | where everybody has a chance of being heard, a more democratic system. |
| 00:01:35 | One of the most interesting technologies for doing something like that |
| 00:01:38 | is a system called collaborative filtering, |
| 00:01:40 | where everybody expresses their opinions on what they like and what they don't like |
| 00:01:43 | and the computer tries to match you up with other people who have similar preferences |
| 00:01:47 | and recommend you things that they also like that you didn't know about before. |
| 00:01:50 | It's the same kind of system you see on Amazon |
| 00:01:52 | where people who bought this book also bought this book |
| 00:01:55 | people are trying to experiment that not only with books |
| 00:01:58 | but with blogs, web pages and news stories all across the internet, |
| 00:02:01 | they're trying to find ways and things that you've never heard of before |
| 00:02:04 | and bringing them in front of you |
| 00:02:06 | Mass media had this fundamental paradox |
| 00:02:08 | because it was aiming at a huge audience |
| 00:02:10 | but it wanted to convince everybody they were an individual |
| 00:02:12 | you see all these ads on television all the time like |
| 00:02:15 | 'buck the trend, buy these jeans' right!? |
| 00:02:17 | and it's on a show that 4 million people are watching, |
| 00:02:20 | you're not going to buck a trend by doing what 4 million other people are. |
| 00:02:24 | Now that the internet is actually making these nitch things possible |
| 00:02:27 | the mass media is incredibly threatened |
| 00:02:29 | no longer this idea of bucking the crowd and being your own |
| 00:02:33 | it's no longer just a theory you can actually do it on the internet |
| 00:02:36 | And what we're starting to see is tools that take power away from the big conglomerates |
| 00:02:40 | and start to distribute it to small groups. |
| 00:02:42 | And so there are a bunch of issues in a system like that there are questions of funding you know, |
| 00:02:47 | how will these small groups get paid and how will the random blogger be able to live |
| 00:02:50 | in a way that an investigative journalist can now |
| 00:02:53 | because there's one giant source of advertising |
| 00:02:55 | you know there are question finding people, how will I be able to find the stuff I'm interested, |
| 00:02:59 | and the stuff that's trustworthy and reliable |
| 00:03:02 | and so for each of these there are new technologies |
| 00:03:04 | people are trying all kinds of different things |
| 00:03:06 | and all of these say different things about the internet |
| 00:03:08 | there is still experimentation in this, since everybody can just go up and start a website |
| 00:03:12 | with a new piece of technology that try and solve one of these problems |
| 00:03:15 | We're seeing lots of different possibilities, lots of different funding models |
| 00:03:18 | lots of different recommendations systems and who knows what will work best |
| 00:03:23 | we have a chance to try it all and see what falls out |
| 00:03:25 | So there are a couple of interesting funding models: |
| 00:03:27 | One of course is this standard model of advertising, |
| 00:03:30 | you go to a bunch of big corporate sponsors and instead of having them fund a television show |
| 00:03:35 | you have them fund your webpage |
| 00:03:36 | but a more interesting one is you do the same thing with nitch groups |
| 00:03:40 | instead of going to IBM/Ford or a big company, and having them buy a banner on your website |
| 00:03:45 | you go to people that actually care about the readers you have |
| 00:03:47 | if you're a design weblog you go to design companies |
| 00:03:50 | if you're a political blog, you go to other politicians |
| 00:03:53 | you have a very targeted narrow group of people who are really interested in the subject, |
| 00:03:58 | thats an audience advertisers really love |
| 00:04:01 | another possibility is to turn directly to your readers for support |
| 00:04:04 | you see blogs say, I wanna go to a trip to New Hampshire |
| 00:04:07 | to cover the american political conventions |
| 00:04:10 | will you support me? |
| 00:04:12 | and the readers pour in money |
| 00:04:13 | these people are very dedicated they feel like they have a personal connection |
| 00:04:16 | with the person writing |
| 00:04:17 | they are eager to spend money to support it! |
| 00:04:21 | Another thing is that you simply work of volunteer labor |
| 00:04:23 | you have people that have a day job thats an expert in a subject |
| 00:04:27 | and they just enjoy talking about it so they rate stuff in their free time |
| 00:04:30 | and publish it on the internet |
| 00:04:31 | or they have readers who read their site and contribute stuff |
| 00:04:34 | and it gets compiled into one exciting source. |
| 00:04:36 | So I think there are lots of interesting experiments, |
| 00:04:39 | people are trying lots of different ways |
| 00:04:41 | One of the errors you had with television, right, could only provide one level of interest |
| 00:04:48 | it was funded based on adertising not on how much people cared about the programme |
| 00:04:52 | advertisers were going to pay the same no matter how exciting or how compelling |
| 00:04:56 | or how interested an audience was in a show |
| 00:04:58 | so what you ended up with was fairly boring shows that appealed to lots of people |
| 00:05:01 | because that's what advertisers wanted |
| 00:05:04 | they wanted lots people watching the shows |
| 00:05:06 | whereas in a normal market economy what happens is |
| 00:05:08 | if you really want something you pay more for it |
| 00:05:10 | you just can't do that with television. |
| 00:05:12 | So one of the interesting things about broadcast is that a lot of what you like |
| 00:05:15 | depends on what other people like |
| 00:05:17 | there are only so many shows out there |
| 00:05:19 | they are all kind of bland |
| 00:05:20 | so what happens, you have these megahits |
| 00:05:22 | like American Idol or lost, where everybody at the water cooler is talking about this show, |
| 00:05:27 | so you have to watch it because otherwise you can't keep up with them |
| 00:05:30 | whatever social factors get involved |
| 00:05:33 | you have this sort of process of rich gets richer |
| 00:05:35 | one thing takes off because thats what everybody else is doing! |
| 00:05:40 | One nice thing about the internet is that it allows for so much more variety |
| 00:05:43 | that nitch products can get so much more attention and interest |
| 00:05:48 | So they've the run the numbers and this this proven mathematical fact |
| 00:05:50 | that as long as some percentage of what you care about is whether other people |
| 00:05:54 | like it or now you're gonna end up
with this patterns of hits and failures |
| 00:05:58 | if you have two things which are equivalent in quality, |
| 00:06:01 | one of them is liked by one more person
than the other one, |
| 00:06:04 | you're going to go that one |
| 00:06:06 | there's some small chance that you're going to go to that one |
| 00:06:08 | and everybody's going to start going to that one |
| 00:06:09 | and all of a sudden you have harry potter |
| 00:06:11 | this one book plucked of nowhere that suddenly becomes this massive mega-hit. |
| 00:06:14 | not because it's a hundred million times better written than every other book |
| 00:06:18 | but simply because everybody's reading it |
| 00:06:21 | and putting stuff on the internet doesn't change that, |
| 00:06:23 | you still care about what your friends like, still wanna read what everybody else is talking about, |
| 00:06:27 | ou still wanna do what's popular because you think maybe other people have a valid opinion |
| 00:06:30 | and maybe you wanna talk to them about it
maybe you want to join part of this community |
| 00:06:34 | but whatever your reason is,
as long as you care about what other people opinion |
| 00:06:37 | you're going to end up with these hits. |
| 00:06:38 | You just have this social signifier that everybody cares about |
| 00:06:39 | You just have this social signifier that everybody cares about |
| 00:06:41 | everybody's watching American Idol
doesn't matter how good the show is |
| 00:06:45 | I mean it has to be somewhat decent so people watch it,
but once everybody's watching it, |
| 00:06:49 | talking about it, you know,
it suddenly becomes this megahit for no real reason, |
| 00:06:54 | right, just because it's a social phenomenon |
| 00:06:56 | and what television does, it chops off the tale and it throws away all the other shows |
| 00:07:00 | people would like but don't care enough about to be megahits |
| 00:07:03 | and instead pours all of its money into these cheap produced shows |
| 00:07:06 | well you can't get rid of hits, right |
| 00:07:08 | it's a fact that people would wanna do what their friends are doing |
| 00:07:11 | 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 | there's a whole rest of what people care about other than what everybody else is doing |
| 00:07:19 | Everybody has their own particular interests everybody has something that fascinates them |
| 00:07:22 | and what the internet does is it allows them to 'do' that |
| 00:07:25 | to get involved and find other people who share these things |
| 00:07:29 | one of the exciting things about Wickipedia
is that it doesn't just have articles on |
| 00:07:33 | you know, 100 most popular things or 1000 most popular things |
| 00:07:36 | you can pick the most obscure subject in the world
and there's an article about it |
| 00:07:39 | Because for EVERYTHING,
there's someone who cares a great deal about it |
| 00:07:43 | and that's what television,
that's what radio doesn't provide, but the internet does! |
| 00:07:46 | it provides a way for you to get in touch
with those other people who really |
| 00:07:50 | care about this completely obscure thing |
| 00:07:52 | It doesn't just go into the direction of topic,
it goes into the direction of time |
| 00:07:56 | You can go back in time and find all the shows that have been canceled |
| 00:07:58 | find all the articles that have been deleted |
| 00:08:00 | you can go back and find everything that has been lost in major culture |
| 00:08:04 | and it's got a place on the internet |
| 00:08:05 | Youtube music videos from the 70s and the 80s
that you can't find anywhere these days |
| 00:08:09 | you can watch at your leisure |
| 00:08:11 | I think lessening the power of the hits |
| 00:08:13 | bringing down the things from the top
and making it more egalitarian |
| 00:08:16 | is the something we should always strive for |
| 00:08:18 | it may be really difficult it may not be super possible |
| 00:08:21 | but it's something to hope for, to drive for |
| 00:08:24 | and what that means is |
| 00:08:26 | throwing away as much as possible all the things that give you hints about |
| 00:08:31 | you should do this because other people like it |
| 00:08:34 | it's very tempting
when you're building a website or programming system |
| 00:08:37 | is to start sorting things that are really popular at the top |
| 00:08:39 | but all that does is, that it makes it less democratic and less fair |
| 00:08:43 | you have to have continual pressure,
to try and pull things from the bottom from the tale up |
| 00:08:48 | give everybody a chance to look at everything and if you do that |
| 00:08:51 | maybe, you won't get completely rid of hits, |
| 00:08:53 | but you can start to ???? some of their problems |
| 00:08:55 | I mean that's one power of data mining
is that construct to find obscure subjects |
| 00:08:59 | that you wouldn't have found
simply because they are not popular |
| 00:09:01 | you know one of the tools of recommendation |
| 00:09:03 | can be to pull you to the less popular stuff on the tale |
| 00:09:06 | The random article button on Wikipedia
is really cool in this sense |
| 00:09:10 | you can just wake up every day
and read about some completely random topic |
| 00:09:13 | that you never heard of except for the fact
that there's an article on the Wikipedia about it |
| 00:09:17 | and boy are there some completely random topics on Wikipepdia |
