assorted observations and collected inspirations.
Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. The big content companies are TERRIBLE at doing both of these things, so it’s no wonder they’re not doing so well in the current environment.
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And if you can stand me sounding even crazier, here is this: making money from art is not a human right. It so happens that technological and societal blahbity bloos have conspired to create a situation where selling songs about monkeys and robots is a viable business, but for most of human history people have NOT paid for art.
— Though sites and services put up a visible fight, I’m way more interested in hearing from the actual artists any new anti-piracy laws supposedly protect. Jonathan Coulton provided one of the most clear-headed and useful perspectives I’ve heard so far.
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According to a survey of more than 1,000 moms conducted by The Parenting Group publishing company and BlogHer, 71% of moms do not go more than one day without using the Internet, with 40% saying they can go only a few hours without using a mobile phone and the Internet. (Comparatively, only 18% say the same about television.) In fact, 79% said that cell phones are a necessity, compared with 42% saying the same about a typical landline.
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At the same time, families are still heavily reliant on face-to-face for intra-family communications. While 81% of moms use Facebook and 57% use blogs on a daily basis to communicate with each other, only 2% use Facebook to communicate with their kids.
— Aww, isn’t that cute, moms using the internet. But luckily not to talk to us, their children. (via MediaPost)
Handy infographic: state of social media and the internet (via Column Five).
I go on the internet. Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me. Like the lost time between leaving a party drunk and materializing somehow at your front door, the internet robs you of a day you can visit recursively or even remember. You really want to know what it is about 20-somethings? It’s this: we live longer now. But we also live less. It sounds hyperbolic, it sounds morbid, it sounds dramatic, but in choosing the internet I am choosing not to be a certain sort of alive. Days seem over before they even begin, and I have nothing to show for myself other than the anxious feeling that I now know just enough to engage in conversations I don’t care about.
— The internet is destroying our humanity. Review (sort of) of the latest Shteyngart novel, Super Sad True Love Story. Lovely writing, frightening thoughts. (via n+1)
“The State of the Internet”, a compilation of the giant numbers that document our global digital usage.
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Like, there could be the greatest review of a band on Pitchfork,” he said. “And the next day: there’s five new reviews. And what I think that transmits is: ‘this is great…’ and then the next day, ‘this is great…’ and the next day, ‘no, wait: this thing’s great.’ Which projects this idea that you don’t really need to pay attention to for anything for too long, even if it’s great. Because there will be something else great tomorrow. How are people supposed to be invested in anything when that’s the attitude that’s put out there? Going back to our job of creating music fans: I think people become attached to things and invested in things when they can learn about it and focus on it. Go in a record store. Pick it up….. You’re making a real decision there. You don’t get that from looking at shit online.
— PREACH IT, BROTHER. Merge founder and Superchunk frontman on the over-stimulating churn of music fandom in the internet age. (via The Awl)
Now is becoming a lot denser. There’s a lot more information in per unit of Now. The Now is getting shorter. The horizon is getting narrower. Now has gone from days to hours to seconds.
— Nova Spivak, on the increasing demand on our attention of the real-time evolution of the web. (via Gigaom)
