Flash: Multimedia Embraces HTML 5
Steve Jobs in an open letter last April criticized the legacy media platform for being power hungry, non-proprietary, lacking in security, unfriendly to mobile applications, non-touch, and just wrong for the future of multimedia applications
Revisiting “Multimedia”
The term “multimedia” has struggled over the years to keep its relevance but continues to be one of the major monikers of technological change in the media area.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.4: Global Money and Spreadsheet Capitalism
Spreadsheet technology was foundational for digital monetarism because it provided a calculative tool that became universally available and provided immediate feedback via the accessibility of the personal computer.
The Meaning Makers: Google
Television’s global advertising revenues of $151 billion is expected to grow significantly. That figure represents a major growth potential for Google. As TV becomes part of the link economy, every click represents an intention, an interest, a bit of meaning that is stored in Google’s huge data bases.
Back from Hawaii
I mention this because I think there is an interesting economic linkage between grandmother-mother-President that bares some scrutiny. I have no idea if they had contentious or controversial discussions. But I do wonder if the President’s mother’s emphasis on entrepreneurship had been influenced by her own mother’s experience as a banker.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Review of Blogs from apennings.com June 2010
The Meaning-Makers: WPP
This is my second post for The Meaning-Makers series. The first discussed advertising behemoth, Omnicom, one of the top four global holding companies in the advertising, PR, and media buying field along with the Interpublic Group and the Publicis Groupe. This industry continues to be dominated by 4 major holding companies and the case can be made that have significant power over the production of meaning in our world.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.3: Data Packets for Dollars
Using the new X.25 series of packet-switching protocols embraced by the ITU, banks developed extensive international networks and clearinghouse systems to offer information services for the movement of credit information and money and to settle accounts. The supranational fund of electronic eurodollars that emerged out of the OPEC surpluses of the 1970s’ oil crises an provided an important step to the global Internet as the packet-switched technology was implemented in banking networks to coordinate the resultant flows of international currency exchange and debt.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.2: Eurodollars, Petrodollars
How did this world of global digital monetarism emerge? How did fluid capital transcend the containment policies and boundaries erected in the period up to 1970s to develop in the 1980s and beyond into a global financial environment where computerized algorithmic trading have created complex high transactional volume markets for an array of currency derivatives, stock index futures, CDOs and other computer based financial instruments?
The Move to “Smart TV”
OK, so the term “Smart TV” is an oxymoron. Still, something is afoot here with Google, and to a lesser extent Apple (not to be underestimated) getting into the mix for the creation of a post-network television environment. I’m teaching a New Technologies in Advertising and Public Relations course this summer at NYU and we got a gift on the first day of class when Google announced a cooperative agreement with Sony Television, Intel, and Logitech to produce a new viewing (and advertising) experience called Google TV.
iPhone vs Android?
We’ve been hearing a lot about competition between Apple and Google over the Smartphone. These statistics add some perspective, although they don’t add the trend lines. One trend line of course is that mobile penetration is still increasing. Another is that Android, Google’s new operating system for smart phones such as Motorola’s Droid and HTC’s [...]
The Meaning Makers: Omnicom
Who produces the meaning in our media-saturated society? I don’t have an easy answer to this question but I’m starting a new series called the Meaning Makers, that explores the companies, people and practices engaged in the production of our culture(s) desires, and mentalities.
Meanings that Mean Something
One of the things they did was to try to identify commonalities in the types of meaning people value by interviewing people from different cultures and countries.
This is my second post for The Meaning-Makers series. The first discussed advertising behemoth, Omnicom, one of the top four global holding companies in the advertising, PR, and media buying field along with the Interpublic Group and the Publicis Groupe. This industry continues to be dominated by 4 major holding companies and the case can be made that have significant power over the production of meaning in our world.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.3: Data Packets for Dollars
Using the new X.25 series of packet-switching protocols embraced by the ITU, banks developed extensive international networks and clearinghouse systems to offer information services for the movement of credit information and money and to settle accounts. The supranational fund of electronic eurodollars that emerged out of the OPEC surpluses of the 1970s’ oil crises an provided an important step to the global Internet as the packet-switched technology was implemented in banking networks to coordinate the resultant flows of international currency exchange and debt.
How IT Came to Rule the World, 2.2: Eurodollars, Petrodollars
How did this world of global digital monetarism emerge? How did fluid capital transcend the containment policies and boundaries erected in the period up to 1970s to develop in the 1980s and beyond into a global financial environment where computerized algorithmic trading have created complex high transactional volume markets for an array of currency derivatives, stock index futures, CDOs and other computer based financial instruments?
The Move to “Smart TV”
OK, so the term “Smart TV” is an oxymoron. Still, something is afoot here with Google, and to a lesser extent Apple (not to be underestimated) getting into the mix for the creation of a post-network television environment. I’m teaching a New Technologies in Advertising and Public Relations course this summer at NYU and we got a gift on the first day of class when Google announced a cooperative agreement with Sony Television, Intel, and Logitech to produce a new viewing (and advertising) experience called Google TV.
iPhone vs Android?
We’ve been hearing a lot about competition between Apple and Google over the Smartphone. These statistics add some perspective, although they don’t add the trend lines. One trend line of course is that mobile penetration is still increasing. Another is that Android, Google’s new operating system for smart phones such as Motorola’s Droid and HTC’s [...]
The Meaning Makers: Omnicom
Who produces the meaning in our media-saturated society? I don’t have an easy answer to this question but I’m starting a new series called the Meaning Makers, that explores the companies, people and practices engaged in the production of our culture(s) desires, and mentalities.
Meanings that Mean Something
One of the things they did was to try to identify commonalities in the types of meaning people value by interviewing people from different cultures and countries.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Developing Applications for Apple’s Mobile Devices
http://apennings.com/multimedia/developing-apps-for-apples-iphone-and-ipad/
The iOS is notable for its user interface. Apple made history by commercializing the graphical user interface developed by Xerox Parc for the Apple Macintosh and continues to push development in this area with the haptic or touch user interface. Apple likes to call this the ‘Human User Interface” and they outline several Human Interface Principles that potential developers should take to heart.
The iOS is notable for its user interface. Apple made history by commercializing the graphical user interface developed by Xerox Parc for the Apple Macintosh and continues to push development in this area with the haptic or touch user interface. Apple likes to call this the ‘Human User Interface” and they outline several Human Interface Principles that potential developers should take to heart.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Social Media Curriculum
http://apennings.com/social_media/social-media-some-thoughts-on-curriculum/
Social media has been part of our curriculum for the last several years. I redesigned the foundation courses for the BS in Digital Communications and Media in 2005 and included two courses that cover social media, the Digital Media Management I and II series taught by Igor Shoifot of Fotki.com (now living near Silicon Valley and teaching for UC Berkeley) and Collaboration Technologies that has been taught online by Kristen Sosulski. Last year I developed some ideas for a MS in Social Media and more recently a 2 credit course that would provide an introduction to the promises and perils of social media. The MS didn’t quite fit into the mix here yet but the small course, which seemed almost more difficult to conceptualize, might work out. In any case I thought I would share some ideas I had for developing a curriculum framework for teaching about social media.
Social media has been part of our curriculum for the last several years. I redesigned the foundation courses for the BS in Digital Communications and Media in 2005 and included two courses that cover social media, the Digital Media Management I and II series taught by Igor Shoifot of Fotki.com (now living near Silicon Valley and teaching for UC Berkeley) and Collaboration Technologies that has been taught online by Kristen Sosulski. Last year I developed some ideas for a MS in Social Media and more recently a 2 credit course that would provide an introduction to the promises and perils of social media. The MS didn’t quite fit into the mix here yet but the small course, which seemed almost more difficult to conceptualize, might work out. In any case I thought I would share some ideas I had for developing a curriculum framework for teaching about social media.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Google's Investments in Data Centers Provide a Competitive Advantage
Google’s Competitive Advantages – Fixed Costs
http://apennings.com/media-strategies/googles-competitive-advantages-fixed-costs/
This post examines how Google's massive investments in data centers and fiber optic networks makes it difficult for any other company to effectively compete against Google. Except perhaps Microsoft.
http://apennings.com/media-strategies/googles-competitive-advantages-fixed-costs/
This post examines how Google's massive investments in data centers and fiber optic networks makes it difficult for any other company to effectively compete against Google. Except perhaps Microsoft.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
How IT Came to Rule the World
The series can be read in more detail at
http://apennings.com/category/how-it-came-to-rule-the-world/
http://apennings.com/category/how-it-came-to-rule-the-world/
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
How IT Came to Rule the World: Four Methodological Concerns
This is the fifth post in the mini-series How IT Came to Rule the World ©
Four methodological concerns that shaped this project are worth noting.
The first has to do with technology and its transformative relationship with society and institutions, in particular, the reciprocal effects between technology and power. The term “technostructuralist”, coined by Majid Tehranian, in his Technologies of Power (1989) is useful in that it referred to how information technology needed to be viewed within the context of institutions and power in general. Tehranian often compared this stance to a techno-neutralist position – the position that technologies are essentially neutral and their consequences are a result of human agency.
The second concern is the importance of using political economy to frame the general discussion. This includes classic issues like the price system, labor and corporations as well as the significance of peer production and gift economies. Economists like Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Fredrick von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Jeffery Sachs are also important as their ideas have been consequential in shaping the modern world.
The third is the relationship between information technologies and the production of meaning. Technologies are part of a set of practices that frame information and meaning. The spreadsheet, for example, combines the power of lists and tables with other calculative abilities that “in-form” meaning and organize sets of knowledge that run organizations and structure lives.
Lastly, an inquiry into the state of democracy in the age of IT dominance is important. Can IT contribute to a social structure that allows and empowers people to participate in the conditions of their lives?
Four methodological concerns that shaped this project are worth noting.
The first has to do with technology and its transformative relationship with society and institutions, in particular, the reciprocal effects between technology and power. The term “technostructuralist”, coined by Majid Tehranian, in his Technologies of Power (1989) is useful in that it referred to how information technology needed to be viewed within the context of institutions and power in general. Tehranian often compared this stance to a techno-neutralist position – the position that technologies are essentially neutral and their consequences are a result of human agency.
The second concern is the importance of using political economy to frame the general discussion. This includes classic issues like the price system, labor and corporations as well as the significance of peer production and gift economies. Economists like Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Fredrick von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Jeffery Sachs are also important as their ideas have been consequential in shaping the modern world.
The third is the relationship between information technologies and the production of meaning. Technologies are part of a set of practices that frame information and meaning. The spreadsheet, for example, combines the power of lists and tables with other calculative abilities that “in-form” meaning and organize sets of knowledge that run organizations and structure lives.
Lastly, an inquiry into the state of democracy in the age of IT dominance is important. Can IT contribute to a social structure that allows and empowers people to participate in the conditions of their lives?
How IT Came to Rule the World: Three Regimes
This is the fourth post in the mini-series on How IT Came to Rule the World ©
This project is organized to analyze and articulate three historical regimes that shaped the computer and telecommunications systems leading to the Internet and a proliferation of IT and digital media. Regimes are historically unique configurations of commercial, military and political power that carve out particular paths of social organization and technological development. To help articulate their dynamics, I have named them: containment capitalism, digital monetarism and global e-commerce and security. At times intentionally and at times inadvertently, each of these regimes contributed significantly to the development of IT, the Internet, and its World Wide Web of e-commerce and social media.
Over time, these regimes shaped an informational and technological environment that was sequentially dedicated to:
1) a military real-time hemispheric radar defense system to protect against a nuclear attack;
2) an international regime of capital decontrols, electronic money and financial news flows, and;
3) an electronic environment for social networking, surveillance, and global business to business (B2B), business to government (B2G), business to consumer (B2C), and consumer to consumer (C2C) transactions.
These three regimes at times overlapped, often conflicted, and frequently worked in conjunction with one another. However, the overall result was an unsteady yet unwavering trajectory towards a realization of computer codified information and calculative ability as well as the transformation of the telegraph and telephone system into a device for communicating digital information. It was a path with no sure outcome, no clear sense of its heading, but one that was disciplined by political and economic forces into slowly emerging national, then global, webs of digitalistic communications.
This project is organized to analyze and articulate three historical regimes that shaped the computer and telecommunications systems leading to the Internet and a proliferation of IT and digital media. Regimes are historically unique configurations of commercial, military and political power that carve out particular paths of social organization and technological development. To help articulate their dynamics, I have named them: containment capitalism, digital monetarism and global e-commerce and security. At times intentionally and at times inadvertently, each of these regimes contributed significantly to the development of IT, the Internet, and its World Wide Web of e-commerce and social media.
Over time, these regimes shaped an informational and technological environment that was sequentially dedicated to:
1) a military real-time hemispheric radar defense system to protect against a nuclear attack;
2) an international regime of capital decontrols, electronic money and financial news flows, and;
3) an electronic environment for social networking, surveillance, and global business to business (B2B), business to government (B2G), business to consumer (B2C), and consumer to consumer (C2C) transactions.
These three regimes at times overlapped, often conflicted, and frequently worked in conjunction with one another. However, the overall result was an unsteady yet unwavering trajectory towards a realization of computer codified information and calculative ability as well as the transformation of the telegraph and telephone system into a device for communicating digital information. It was a path with no sure outcome, no clear sense of its heading, but one that was disciplined by political and economic forces into slowly emerging national, then global, webs of digitalistic communications.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
How IT Came to Rule the World: Disciplining IT
This is the third post in the mini-series on How IT Came to Rule the World ©
While the focus here is primarily on the US and its role in developing data communications and computer technologies; IT has increasingly become global in its innovation, marketing, and production. The strength of the US “military-industrial complex,” the predominance of its currency and financial markets (as well as its capital markets that over funded its e-commerce capability and created the credit crisis of 2008), and the strategic role of its policy makers all contributed to the development of digital information technologies and a “disciplining” of the modern Internet. Consequently, these technologies are also involved in shaping modern American society, establishing new rules and protocols for daily life, and in the application and practice of power at the political level. Information and communications technologies have also been “permissive technologies” facilitating the movement of capital overseas, the management of off-shore production and research facilities, and the networks of global e-commerce and social media.
While the focus here is primarily on the US and its role in developing data communications and computer technologies; IT has increasingly become global in its innovation, marketing, and production. The strength of the US “military-industrial complex,” the predominance of its currency and financial markets (as well as its capital markets that over funded its e-commerce capability and created the credit crisis of 2008), and the strategic role of its policy makers all contributed to the development of digital information technologies and a “disciplining” of the modern Internet. Consequently, these technologies are also involved in shaping modern American society, establishing new rules and protocols for daily life, and in the application and practice of power at the political level. Information and communications technologies have also been “permissive technologies” facilitating the movement of capital overseas, the management of off-shore production and research facilities, and the networks of global e-commerce and social media.
Friday, July 23, 2010
How IT Came to Rule the World: Regimes
This post was the second of my mini-series on How IT Came to Rule the World originally published at apennings.com ©
The answer to the question of how information technology (IT) emerged is a complex one. A number of forces can be seen to have infused and shaped its development. The thesis in this project is that modern information technology developed out of the trajectory of US statecraft and its involvement in several political economy regimes which emerged successively and sometimes concurrently in the post-World War II period up and through the turn of the second millennium.
A regime refers to a system of political economy, including the reigning governmental and military power but also the dominant modes of distributing capital and producing goods and services. A regime is a structural alignment between political institutions, corporate and market forces, and the dynamics of human agency – the energy and talent of people working creatively and in collaboration within these structures.
Through relatively consecutive yet overlapping regimes, the system of computerization and telecommunications moved from military and space development, to commercialization, particularly for electronic finance, to the World Wide Web’s e-commerce and social media environment. As social media continues its phenomenal growth, it is on one hand a vehicle for personal empowerment and productivity; and on the other hand, part of an apparatus of surveillance and discipline.
The answer to the question of how information technology (IT) emerged is a complex one. A number of forces can be seen to have infused and shaped its development. The thesis in this project is that modern information technology developed out of the trajectory of US statecraft and its involvement in several political economy regimes which emerged successively and sometimes concurrently in the post-World War II period up and through the turn of the second millennium.
A regime refers to a system of political economy, including the reigning governmental and military power but also the dominant modes of distributing capital and producing goods and services. A regime is a structural alignment between political institutions, corporate and market forces, and the dynamics of human agency – the energy and talent of people working creatively and in collaboration within these structures.
Through relatively consecutive yet overlapping regimes, the system of computerization and telecommunications moved from military and space development, to commercialization, particularly for electronic finance, to the World Wide Web’s e-commerce and social media environment. As social media continues its phenomenal growth, it is on one hand a vehicle for personal empowerment and productivity; and on the other hand, part of an apparatus of surveillance and discipline.
How IT Came to Rule the World: Churchill and McLuhan
This post restarts my mini-series on How IT Came to Rule the World originally published at apennings.com ©
0.1 One of Marshall McLuhan’s most celebrated intellectual “probes” was his paraphrase of Winston Churchill’s infamous “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Churchill was addressing Parliament some two years after a devastating air raid by the Nazis that destroyed the House of Commons.[i] McLuhan reworded Churchill’s concern in the 1960s with a more topical “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” Writing in a time when the electronic media was exploding in the American consciousness, McLuhan undertook a commitment to understand the role of media, particularly electronic media in modern society and his probe serves here as a point of departure for understanding the emergence of information technologies and simultaneously interrogating their impact as a force increasingly “ruling” the modern world, both in terms of cultural, economic, and political power as well as the preponderance of protocols and procedures ordering our digital world.
[i] “On the night of May 10, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again, and how, and when.” He continued with the above quote arguing for the Chamber’s restoration, citing its “form, convenience, and dignity.”
0.1 One of Marshall McLuhan’s most celebrated intellectual “probes” was his paraphrase of Winston Churchill’s infamous “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Churchill was addressing Parliament some two years after a devastating air raid by the Nazis that destroyed the House of Commons.[i] McLuhan reworded Churchill’s concern in the 1960s with a more topical “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.” Writing in a time when the electronic media was exploding in the American consciousness, McLuhan undertook a commitment to understand the role of media, particularly electronic media in modern society and his probe serves here as a point of departure for understanding the emergence of information technologies and simultaneously interrogating their impact as a force increasingly “ruling” the modern world, both in terms of cultural, economic, and political power as well as the preponderance of protocols and procedures ordering our digital world.
[i] “On the night of May 10, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again, and how, and when.” He continued with the above quote arguing for the Chamber’s restoration, citing its “form, convenience, and dignity.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)