Changing Media II

Remember that annoying MySpace friend who abused the bulletin function? You had nothing against this person, but you un-friended him/her specifically because theirs was an oppressive blog-slaught of posts on the most minute details of their lives. Nothing significant or quotable, just fifty posts a day on the finer points of The Bachelor and relationship vagueries. Well that person got their due with Twitter, the micro-blogging social network that ranks third in membership worldwide behind Facebook and Myspace.

What makes Twitter special is how it functions as the antithesis of its "superior" networks. There is little in the way of customization: an avatar and a background. Posts are restricted to 140 characters or less. You can't run ads or provide information on the focus of your Twitter. There's no throwing Chris Brown, giving flair or sharing flowers; it's just raw nuggets of your life. There are prominent users such as Oprah Winfrey, Dave Matthews, and Barack Obama, who use Twitter to speak to fans directly. But Twitter best distinguishes itself by encouraging users to post from a mobile device, which has proven in some cases to be life-saving.

As a cultural phenomenon, Twitter embodies the American penchant for offering specialized versions of the same product. If Facebook is an herbal-infused, deluxe fruit drink and MySpace the gaudy, neon-emblazoned energy elixir, then Twitter is the Coke Zero of social networks. It emphasizes boiled-down functionality over myriad distraction. That stripping back of conventions reveals that we have more in common with that MySpace bulletin nazi than we ever wanted to admit. No matter what you take away from the Interweb, the only you thing you can't remove is you.

Changing Media I

In 1999, Napster changed media forever, not by allowing hoards of cheap media hogs to hoard media hoggily, but by revealing that media buyers didn't care as much for packaging as previously believed. The unfortunate closing of EGM and a recent issue of Wired confirm these notions. The advent of file-sharing, along with other medias going to the internet, has revealed that consumers don't necessarily need something they can hold. They need something they can experience.

The biggest benefit of this movement: cost. There's no packaging for digital music/video and most websites are free. Plus, information is both uploaded and updated at a pace no print outlet could match. Media is easily stored on your hard drive or device and can be discarded at your leisure. There's no fortified packaging, no killing the garbage men with half-read daily news and no figuring out "Where I'm gonna shelve all these movies."

The downside: it can't last this way, at least not with the non-music/video sites. In a country where commodities must be priced--no matter how intangible--to keep people working, the bottom has to drop out eventually. The music industry responded quickly to Napster by packing discs with companion DVDS, T-Shirts and even scented packaging earlier this decade. Meanwhile, Napster went legit and iTunes started selling digital music. Advertisers, tired of the faulty distribution practices of the magazine industry, are flocking to online versions of mags. The consumer seems to win all around: less mess, less cost, high bandwidth, instant updates. But where there used to be thousands of paying subscribers to EGM, there are now thousands of 1Up.com-ers that only pay their free time. We may have to start shelling out.

I could be wrong about this. Dan Hsu's theory on magazine distribution implies that advertisers get their money's worth online because the ads guarantee more views per dollar. In other words, information may remain free at your favorite websites. Only time will tell. For now, try not to get creeped out by ads like this one. It is small price to pay, after all.