Wednesday 22 April 2009

Prometeus - "The Media Revolution" inc. 'Me the Media'

H/T straight away to Gerd Leonhard for flagging this up 5th June 2008.

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April 4th 2009, Gerd left a Tweet which showed up on FriendFeed.

That was my introduction to this most stimulating free download e-book "Me the Media" written by Jaap Bloem, Menno van Doorn and Sander Duivestein which I'm skimming through at the moment. McDawg is a slow reader.



If you want buy a physical copy of the book for about 20 bucks, go here.

OK. So shooting forward towards the end of the book, I wanted to flag up the following section.

If you would rather watch this fraction, rather than read, there are two YouTube videos.

PART ONE

PART TWO

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The main reason for writing this post was to quote the following and possibly, obtain some thoughts/comments from teh blogosphere.

ENDS

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The Prometeus scenario is undeniably science fiction. At the same time, it contains the following elements that are more than plausible.


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All started with the Media Revolution, with Internet, at the end of the last century. Everything related to the old media vanished: Gutenberg, the copyright, the radio, the television, the publicity.

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The old world reacts: more restrictions for the copyright, new laws against non
authorized copies. Napster, the music peer to peer company is sued.
At the same time, free Internet radio appears; TIVO, the Internet television, allows
to avoid publicity; the Wall Street Journal goes on line; Google launches
Google news.

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Millions of people read daily the biggest on line newspaper. OhmyNews written by
thousands of journalists; Flickr becomes the biggest repository in the history of
photos, YouTube for movies. The power of the masses.

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A new figure emerges: the prosumer, a producer and a consumer of information.
Anyone can be a prosumer.

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The news channels become available on Internet. The blogs become more influential
than the old media. The newspapers are released for free. Wikipedia is the most
complete encyclopedia ever.

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In 2007 Life magazine closes. The NYT sells its television and declares that the future is digital. BBC follows.

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In the main cities of the world people are connected for free. At the corners of the
streets totems print pages from blogs and digital magazines. The Virtual Worlds
are common places on the Internet for millions of people.

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A person can have multiple on line identities. Second Life launches the vocal avatar.
The old media fight back.

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A tax is added on any screen; newspapers, radios and televisions are financed by
the State; illegal download from the Web is punished with years of jail.

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Around 2011 the tipping point is reached: the publicity investments are done on the Net. The electronic paper is a mass product: anyone can read anything on plastic paper.

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In 2015 newspapers and broadcasting television disappear, digital terrestrial is abandoned, the radio goes on the Internet.

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The media arena is less and less populated. Only the Tyrannosaurus Rex survives.
The Net includes and unifies all the content. Google buys Microsoft. Amazon
buys Yahoo! and become the world universal content leaders with BBC, CNN
and CCTV.

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The concept of static information—books, articles, images—changes and is transformed into knowledge flow.

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The publicity is chosen by the content creators, by the authors and becomes information, comparison, experience.

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In 2020 Lawrence Lessig, the author of Free Culture, is the new U.S. Secretary of Justice and declares that copyright is illegal.

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Devices that replicate the five senses are available in the Virtual Worlds. The reality could be replicated in Second Life.

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Any one has an Agav (agent-avatar) that finds information, people, places in the
Virtual Worlds. In 2022 Google launches Prometeus, the Agav standard interface.

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Amazon creates Place, a company that replicates reality. You can be on Mars, at the
battle of Waterloo, at the Super Bowl as a person. It’s real.

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In 2027 Second Life evolves into Spirit. People become who they want. And share the memory. The experiences. The feelings. Memory selling becomes a normal trading.

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In 2050 Prometeus buys Place and Spirit. Virtual life is the biggest market on the planet. Prometeus finances all the space missions to find new worlds for its customers: the terrestrial avatar. Experience is the new reality.

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