Digital Nativity

e cultures

2009-08-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

i am a big fan of Ólafur Elíasson and his creations. absolutely brilliant stuff. even working as an account executive in tribal ddb, i try to push installation ideas like these for campaigns when i can. (well i am fresh off the campus, u c).
i have always been interested in the choice of mediums used by artists to respond to cultural shifts. digital technologies have certainly changed the way we live and also the way in which we reflect, we communicate, we perceive. no wonder then that some brilliant work is happening world over that explores the implications of digital intervention in our lives.
one such excellent project i came across was called 'fashion victims'. the reason i loved this project is because i have always advocated communication of efforts that goes into consumption. i have discussed this here and here and here ..
in fashion victims, the mobile communication has been given a tangible face. the electromagnetic radiation converted as patterns on clothes.
check out e culture fair.wish i could go there. :|
will share interesting stuff in this space. share if u know something innovative as well.
cheers,

So bad that it’s good..

2009-08-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

Gunda. rick-roll. three wolves moon.
what is common in all these memes?
all went viral and reached millions. true.
all are immensely successful in creating a subculture around themselves. true.
and all were so bad, that they were classic in some respect. and here's an insight that perhaps can be exploited to create brands online.
who can forget mithun's 'do char cheh aath dus, bus'. or numerous people rickrolled online and offline. or the amazingly mediocre t-shit selling like hotcakes. (hmm.. i have never seen hotcakes sales figures really.. or a queue for buying it. where did this expression come from anyways.)

all these examples treaded on a fine balance. an exactitude of badness that necessarily has to go beyond mediocrity. i will not ponder on the measures that need to be undertaken to be exactly bad enough to get viral, but rather lets take a little time to appreciate that it pays to be bad. (hmm.. by that logic i should get an increment in my salary.. ahh.. nevertheless)

why & how they achieve their fandom? their unrivaled positioning in a space as of yet untouched by brands.

i guess the answer lies in the unnerving globalised world we live in, which is highly fragmented. so, culturally speaking, one can be a continuous media consumer who only taps into the fringes of multiple cultures exempting the mainstream or mass cultural memes altogether. this is unnerving because, this kind of culture consumption would rob a person of a cultural anchor. it is here that cultural pastiche burps out blobs of memes that people cling to for a while, before swinging into the marshy lands of another fringe. well this is bound to happen when the conscience towards outside information has to be spread over such large infoscapes. borrowing from Mcluhan's 'media: extension of man' idea, its as if our tentacles growing ever wider, becoming more fragile and numb.
Like a partially deaf ear, which required shouting at to be heard, our addiction to information has got us swinging from extremes such as bad, good, mundane to core, bare and naked, swimming in excesses.. etc.
ok that explains the importance of seeking extremes, but not the particular incidence of memes of bad extremes. well, i guess that has its root in the 'unnerving' sensation that i talked of earlier. the infiniteness of the info that one has to its disposal chops off the benchmarks that a person tries to build. the ensuing uncertainty created thereby, leaves a few routes for one to emerge out of it without looking 'uncool'. its always safe to make fun of something else which is not fantastic, while being sly and appearing 'real'. it also quenches one's need to be deviant, within the narrow sphere of web.

youtube's awesomeness

2009-07-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

sheer awesomeness that is youtube..
a while back i was searching for bryan adam's song ' here i am' on youtube. the video is that of the song alright, but the music that gets played is something else altogether. this is something that is happening regularly, with big music labels stripping their audio content from youtube. *
well the awesomeness is in what youtube has done in this situation. the audio that gets played instead is of, presumably, other artists who want to market their music but don't have big labels to back them. youtube puts a label which indicates where the content is sourced from. the link takes to the artist's youtube page.
well, in this case the track is pritty shitty. but i see a brilliant opportunity here for youtube to make money on something that was a cause of headache to them earlier.. wonderful strategy by them. smart buggers.. and it helps the small guys as well, the small guy gets to ride on some established reputation and gets sampled. sampling is essential for any sale, now isn't it?

well, one thing they forgot to do though.. if they could put the music that is somehow similar to the one that was supposed to be playing, then perhaps youtube would piss off less no. of people and actually turn this into a trend of sorts where new artists similar to your fav artists is found through this feature. i see some big marketing moolah saved, and made.

* [quite stupid really. the avenue for paid music content, afaik, is portable music (apart from accessorised offshoots such as ringtones, RBTs etc) . In one of my research conducted earlier, not a single respondent had ever bought music for consumption on their PCs/laptops. though some had spent on RBT, exlusive music content on CDs, etc. making availability of your music on youtube UNCERTAIN is turning off people from both youtube and the content. hey, there are options.]

digital divide

2008-09-16T05:07:00.001-07:00

It happened a while back when we were going to Lothal on bikes early in the morning. Before going off, we were sitting at Chhota (canteen in MICA) for tea. I heard a rajasthani/kutchie folk song being played somewhere. It sounded interesting. It was coming off a cell phone of boy who worked at Chhota. (the guy in the pic) I asked him if it was radio and what channel. He said that it was mp3s. i was intrigued. i asked where he got it from. He replied 'internet pe milta hai na'.. He had downloaded the songs on a friend's cell phone, then from there he bluetoothed it to his cell.
we were all :O then. Among the ten of us who were going to the trip, hardly half had bluetooth or GPRS enabled phones. :P Here I am. I write paper on digital natives. Am intereseted in media effects of new media. and I still havent used bluetooth (except for on laptop). :|
It was a wonderful moment :D

an experiment

2008-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

When one talk of DN, some of the strongest ramifications of this concept is in the field of education. Indeed, the increasing ineffectiveness of education system n pedagogy were the reasons that the concept of DN came to fore.
A few days back, I was thinking of the same while attending a lecture, and thought of an experiment. Essentially, I want to experiment if teaching efficacy increases if we uses multiple media simultaneously during the course of lecture. A normal class here at MICA, employs visual aids (projector, boards, charts, papers), audio aids (speakers, mics) but the use of this media is mostly one sided (though the class participation usually is quite high in conventional sense. Laptops are 'down' during lecture though, faculty just doesn't trust us :P).
what i propose is use of social media such as twitter, social networks, wikis etc real time during a lecture to create a more collaborative atmosphere in a lecture. I talked with prof. Chandan Chatterjee about this idea, and he seemed enthused by it. I am busy for a while due to the course load, however, soon i hope that the class is conducted as soon as we define the matrix to measure the result by and other modalities of it. Please share your ideas to refine this experiment, so that it be more fruitful.

2008-05-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

I found something pertinent and am posting it here verbatim -

A search of the Nexis database of English-language publications worldwide finds zero uses of the phrase before 2005 but 600 since then. It appeared in The New York Times apparently for the first time in a quote on May 24:

“Unlike people 65 and older who immigrated online after spending their youths thumbing through reference books, today’s children are digital natives who are fluent in the language of online searches,” said Marc Prensky, an educational consultant and the author of ‘’Don’t Bother Me Mom — I’m Learning!'’

Escape to the other real

2008-05-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

It all started with emoticons.
the simple one's - :P, ;)
the anime one's - (0_0) , (u_u), (^-^)b...
then avatars in chat.
Secondlife took it to a whole other level, where an alternate reality is constructed. It is an internet based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc. A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another. (source - wikipedia article)

well, the real thing of consequence about second life is that, that it has a virtual currency - Linden Dollar (Linden, or L$) and is exchangeable for real world currencies in a resident to resident marketplace facilitated by Linden Lab. This allows for second life to be more than just a leisurely diversion to a serious alternate platform for people to interact and conduct their business. It is the platform where most of the residents would be digital natives. Thus these platform provides for a good opportunity to marketers to target their product in much focussed way and making the experience much more enjoyable and informative than a regular communications. Many real companies have set up stores on second life, such as Dell.
Now we are seeing even governments getting interested in the virtual world. Last year a Beijing municipality announced that they will be creating a special zone called the China Virtual Economy District or Cyber Recreation District. This physical business park will be supplemented by a virtual business space called the Dotman World being jointly created by the Beijing Cyber Recreation Development Corp and MindArk ( the Swedish company which created Entropia Universe). It will be the biggest initiative by any government in the world to use Virtual Worlds as a serious business development and promotion multiplier. It will transform the business and social spaces and processes. (- news source, indusgeek post )
Here we have an interesting scenario for Digital natives:
what if governments embrace virtual worlds bigtime like in china, what would be the implications for people in long run?
Being a digital native would be incentivised. In any case, Broadband has people hooked more to net than TV. broadband penetration would be actively increased. Also with the setup of new virtual world sites such as 'small world' where one can access virtual world over web browser only instead of installing a dedicated client software, its becoming even more accessible. Small world also allows for one to share images, watch videos, listen music together with others in the virtual world. This i believe is quite interesting and a step in the continuous evolution of web 2.0.

Some services might be preferred to be handled over the virtual world rather than the real one. How about outsourcing all interaction with the ugly organisation we call government to virtual world. I guess virtual world apart from being a social ground could be a brilliant and efficient place to transact information among larger groups of people.
Think about the seriousness with which one handles affairs with government. and it being performed in an environment that had its root in the philosophy of anonymity and healthy disregard to formality. Well this is not the first time that formality found its champion in cyberpunk manifestation. There are many companies with their outlets on secondlife, and I would like to know if they have changed their way of interaction for the sake of medium or are they sticking to their old form for the sake of consistency. I wonder what would happen to the language of governance.

How would proliferation of alternative identities in terms of avatars affect the interactions of DNs in future?
What if you prefer the avatar version of your friend over his/her real self? Are you conveniently neglecting the part of someone's personality you don't like and choosing the ones u do? The person being broken down into his qualities and characteristics. On the one hand there may be health fallouts of a hardcore digital native lifestyle like obesity and on the other hand, the generation today is much less acquiescing of imperfection in others. In this intensely competitive and non pardoning environment, building healthy relationships is that much more difficult. And since a person can wear a digital mask of a avatar, the relationship building tends to be superfluous or goal oriented. We have examples of healthy relations being built on the cyberspace but either they are exceptions or the relationship was built over some real interactions aswell.
you might be the best of friends on the chat for years, but when you interact in real or even over a telephone call for the first time there is that sense of shock and uncertainty and hesitation.]

please do comment your views.. this is no small question, and demands a bit more consideration.

don't/ Do download this song

2008-05-21T02:31:00.000-07:00

Arrgghh.. the ethical questions hound us? or do they? digital natives are devided over the ethical question regarding free downloads, piracy etc. and its reflected in popular media thus ...
Wierd Al Yankovic's 2006 song 'don't download this song' was one of his first outright political songs. See the kickass video of the song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz-grdpKVqg.

The song was released exclusively on August 21, 2006 as a digital download. It is a style parody of "We Are the World" and other similar charity songs. The song "describes the perils of online music file-sharing" in a tongue-in-cheek manner." - wikipedia

Here we see Wierd Al's strong criticism of file sharing of paid content.

However at the same time we have MC Lars's response with his song 'download this song' where he says -

Hey Mr. Record Man
The joke’s on you
Running your label
Like it was 1992
Hey Mr. Record Man,
Your system can’t compete
It’s the New Artist Model
File transfer complete
Download this song!
Download this song!
Download this song!

Is MC Lars a digital native and wierd al a digital immigrant? MC Lars points out that "Music was a product now it is a service".

BTW, MC Lars the self-proclaimed originator of "post-punk laptop rap". His tracks come under the genre of 'nerdcore'. I had not known for such a genre to exist :P. Now that I know, i will explore it a bit more, for some more clues of DN culture.
check this out - internet relationship. its one of MC Lars songs. quite interesting. :D
and then Igeneration.

oh so visual II

2008-05-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

People. stand up and give me some listen. There's some kickass mighty awesomish research going on the west coat of US. check this out --> collegehumor
The video is a demonstration about microsoft's new products - seadragon and photo synth. The reason I am so kicked about this technology is its potential to revolutionise the way we perceive and organize digital information. This has humongous sociological implications.
Seadragon essentially aims to change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network. It promises :

Speed of navigation is independent of the size or number of objects.
Performance depends only on the ratio of bandwidth to pixels on the screen.
Transitions are smooth as butter.
Scaling is near perfect and rapid for screens of any resolution.

Combine this with Photosynth which takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space.

With Photosynth you can:

Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend.

and thirdly, check out microsoft Surface . It seems microsoft is set to change the way we perceive, organize and experience content and conversation. Though google and yahoo have a lead in terms of accessing and searching information.

Now pause for a minute there, and try and ponder how this will effect us. Digital natives would lap it up all once its accessible (by that i mean, price, ubiquity and cost to system in memory and processor speed). Switching from one content to another would be seamlessly, organically, easy. and hence there are even more possibilities of new kinds of mashups and whole new kind of content creation. the archiving and bookmarking of content would take on a life of its own, and there is finally a real possibility of co creation.

I am told not to go Marshall Mclluhanish for this blog, but I can't help it here.. :P
This tech when accessible will lead to fundamental changes to the way we think, since text would no longer be central to out 'literacy'. and hence the hegemony of the lettered man over the unlettered one would be a lil weaker. :D Here probably my socialist romanticism is taking me ahead of myself, but its a true possibility that the notion of literacy and ability to think would be freed of the shackles of linear logic of west, a manifestation of text. There could be real resurgence of eastern logic in mainstream. (Though in today's world, we are increasingly dependent and using visual cues and sanitizing the rest of the senses. Its as if we don't want to smell anything at all, everything everywhere is so sanitized. I guess, in the course of evolution Japanese would be the first ones to lose their nose :P. I don't know of taste- if we are tasting more or less tastes than earlier- but we are definitely sanitizing the sense of touch as well. Sexuality and physical touch being incriminated, and the nucleated relations maintained across concrete walls through digital airwaves.)
Ok, and what would be the immediate imperatives.
since one can pack in more information in the 'screen real estate', there will be a fundamental change in the way one navigates through information.
this will lead to even more of information hunger, cause there is a little uncertainty associated with this interface as to 'have i missed something'. since more and more information is packed it the screen. Though, this aggregation will help to make sense of even complex stuff, so comprehension of visual data would be much more enhanced. and in these uncertainties lies the commercial ad opportunity, if the ad is rich and valuable in info.

Social use for social media could be possible at public spaces, making digital ecosphere truly ubiquitous. (since according to these guys, Four-fifths of the world population will carry mobile Internet devices within five to 10 years and within five years everything that matters to you will be available on a device that fits on your belt or in your purse.) and the prophecy might turn true with social network and social media ubiquitous like air.

Mobile Communication

2008-05-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

Mobile Communication

The media landscape has changed dramatically in recent decades, from one predominated by traditional mass communication formats to today’s more personalized network environment. Mobile communication plays a central role in this transition, with adoption rates that surpass even those of the Internet. The widespread diffusion and use of mobile telephony is iconic of a shift toward a new ‘personal communication society’, evidenced by several key areas of social change, including symbolic meaning of the technology, new forms of coordination and social networking, personalization of public spaces, and the mobile youth culture. The increasingly personal nature of communication technology in the desire for ‘perpetual contact’ would shape the device and its usage. The symbolic significance of mobile communication devices is part and parcel of the progression from a mass to a network toward a personal communication society.

Personal communication technologies are distinctive from other network technologies (e.g. the computer) in that they are often worn on body, highly individualized, and regarded as extensions of the self. It has been said that they make us individually addressable regardless of where we are. Young people are using the mobile phone to help configure important social developments in their lives. These changes can be seen in many key areas, including peer relations, domestic ties, and identity formation.

Beyond its unprecedented rate of diffusion and the mobility factor, personalisation plays out an important role in defining the new social dimensions. The technology might enable ‘cocooning’ to take place as individuals shut themselves off from co-present others while plugged into their mobile phone.

The biggest challenge facing mobile networks is going to be engaging, retaining, and squeezing money out of the younger generation. Though the current crop of 15-24 year-olds is incredibly tech-savvy, it appears that most aren't keen on paying for any services other than voice and SMS.

Thanks to the culture of getting nearly everything for free online, including social networking services, music, video, and other user-generated content, mobile operators could find it tough to turn these "digital native" young people into heavily paying customers.

#Mobile phone usage depicts new forms of coordination: instrumental- and expressive- coordination. Instrumental-coordination entails instrumental uses of the mobile phone, such as coordinating basic logistics, redirecting trips that are already under way, or making plans with others entirely ‘on the fly’. Expressive-coordination refers to the expressive and relational dimensions of mobile communication, such as chatting with family members or occasionally checking in with friends via text messaging.

Planning social activities is a priority for many DNs, and the ‘real-time’ nature of mobile communication plays a vital role in this process. Thus, if a social gathering changes, it is easy to get word out. If a party is boring, those who arrive first can send a message to others and alternative plans can be developed. Privacy is an important nuance to these novel forms of connection and coordination. Much of what young DNs have to say to one another can now more easily be said (or thumbed) ‘under the radar’ of their parental observation. Thus, the mobile phone not only lowers the threshold for interaction among young people, it does so in a way that offers increased privacy and autonomy from their parents.

Usage of DNs

They use text messaging exclusively with friends, while relegating parents to voice calling or voice mail, allows them to utilize characters that are unique to their social networks, hence, demonstrating network membership and sharpening the boundary separating insiders from outsiders It allows for a type of ‘connected presence’ where peers are continually updated as to one another’s situation. Previous to the adoption of the mobile phone, individuals would have more bounded interaction with friends. They would perhaps save bits of information in anticipation of their next meeting and then use that time to update each other. The mobile telephone means that there is no longer the need to deal with this backlog of information. The members of a social group are frequently updated as to the issues and events taking place among their peers. Finally, the mobile phone serves as a form of identity for young people. The brand and the model can say much about the owner. The identity of DNs is also played out in the number of names in the contact register, the number of SMS messages received recently, ring tones, wall papers, and special icons.

DNs rely on peer group interactions and social network ties to establish a sense of self, and mobile communication affords greater freedom for them to carry out their social relations as they see fit. It plays such an integral role in the lives of young people that it has actually become an important part of who they are, feeding into the symbolic meaning of the technology. As a result, the mobile phone is among the most personal of today’s communication tools, and, therefore, its iconic of the rise of personal communication society.

The fashion of a mobile phone is so integral to some users that it actually intersects with the function of the technology. The fashion of the technology is socially significant to the users who are forming and expressing their identity.

One additional social effect of widespread mobile technology availability is peer-to-peer journalism, in which regular citizens become eye witness journalists by capturing and broadcasting news events using their mobile devices.

# Social Implications of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personal Communication Society
Scott W. Campbell* and Yong Jin Park
University of Michigan

The Digital Ecosphere - II

2008-05-14T03:24:00.001-07:00

The digital Ecosphere is made up of all the electronic gadgetry that helps people to stay connected to others, that helps them access and experience the media and content(entertainment, information) and that that helps them make life a bit easier in general due to digital intervention.
So the improved refrigerator that communicates to your cell phone when the milk carton is empty is a part of digital ecosphere, however the traditional refrigerator is not. For our purpose here, we would assume the digital ecosphere to be made up of digital devices that have components of communication and content creation/delivery only.
Every one has its own ecosphere defined by the individual usage. So, one might prefer watching TV, but someone else might use TIVO or computer to watch the same content. Thus the importance of various devices differ with users.
Lets try to understand this through the concept of 'personal circuit'. personal circuits are unique and habitual behavior patterns of media consumption across preferred media distribution channels, technology platforms and content types.
The three forces that have the most significant impact on the formation and appearance of an individual’s Personal Circuit are the location, distribution channel and frequency of an individual’s preferred content or activity.

Location: Places where the digital native uses digital devices: at home, at work or “on-the-go.”
At home: The digital ecosphere that pervades one at home consists maximum of digital devices amongst the three. along with leisure and entertainment devices, there are utilitarian devices and communication ones. The digital native 't be concerned much with the second category. DNs though are heavy users of communication and entertainment devices. we will explore the details more later. The possible devices used during being at home are:
Cell phone, phone, TV, PC(chat, email, IM, movies, music, books, whatever!), music system, game consoles, etc

on the move : on the move one has constraints of time and space and thus only mobile devices come to play here. The device most preferred is cell phone, though the other devices could be portable music player, electronic book reader, laptop etc.

At work/school : cell phone, PC/laptop, portable music system, etc. There is constraint of rules, mobility or space at these places and thus the usage of the devices at these places is defined.

The Digital Ecosphere I

2008-05-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

Digital Ecosphere I

The digital natives, survive on the “digital oxygen” of portable music, ubiquitous connection through cell phone, and would avoid going to places where these connections – that connects them to their friends, multimedia, information, etc – might cease. (this would have implications for travel, tourism n transport industry) This ecosphere is composed of digital devices such as cell phones, portable music players, computer/Laptop, TiVo (and such digital tools that transfer control of content of mass media to the user), digital camera, gaming consoles etc.

These devices essentially cater to the following characteristics of Digital Native:

Control: Digital Natives don’t want to be ‘subjected’ to content, but would rather choose what they want to experience. This desire for control affects the preference and use of digital devices around them. Hence DNs would rather watch their favorite TV program on Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) and Web TV. They prefer ‘experience’ to a simple message being casted (broad or otherwise.) on them.

Impatience: Digital Natives own multiple devices that provide access to a very wide range of communication and content services. They are increasingly consuming several types of content at once, rapidly switching attention from one source to another, a manifestation of the time poverty that afflicts them. In the US, 25% of teenagers’ media time in a typical day consists, of overlapping media experiences. (Source: NPD Group’s “Kid’s Leisure Time II”, 2007) This incessant hopping from one media/content to another in search for something better, results in ‘attention thinning’. Also, the explosion of choices had necessitated them to ‘snack’ on the “micro-chunks” of content. Micro chunks are essentially stripped down, fragmented format content. DNs access these through Search engines and RSS feeds that allows for search 'bits of content' that is relevant to them. DNs increasingly snack on content such as TV episode recaps, Sport Highlights, User created short films, or single music tracks.

Digital Natives are efficient ad avoiders as well, if the ad is perceived as non entertaining or non informative.

Community Interaction: In this age of nucleated relations and liberated individuals, digital natives fulfill the need of community interaction through the use of new technologies to communicate, interact and stay connected on their own terms. Digital devices allow them to remain connected to their friends 24/7 and at the same time afford them certain degree of control and privacy.

The community interactions are being shaped by the need of DN to belong and the need of an identity. Like in real life, these needs are met in the digital world with community formation based on conversation. Internet has turned the world into a global village and one can indulge in conversation with anyone and anytime from anywhere. This is assisted with such digital tools such as social networking websites, chat, IMs, blogs etc. Digital natives are quick to see the benefits that could accrue of this “crowd sourced” intelligence. They trust ‘peer-generated’ or ‘crowd sourced’ content for opinions, help, or even purchase decisions. Amazon.com and netflix.com are making good use of this trait by recommending the buyer on their website, things that fellow buyers have bought with similar interest. About 60% of Netflix’s movie based customers decided upon their purchase decision on user recommendations tailored to their individual tastes. (Marketwatch, “User Generated Content: Recap of 2006 and what to expect in 2007,” 4 January, 2007)

Also, the conversations (comments) contribute 30% of the volume of the blogosphere.

Originality: Digital Natives, being vanguards of digital everything and aware of it - are hungry for 'new', 'innovative', 'different' like never before. This might have a clue as to why DNs switch from one service to another so frequently, and with much passion.And in the vein of the spirit of digital nativity, they are actively creating a lot of original content. This content maybe in the form of video on youtube, create music with the help of soundsnap, share it on myspace or numerous such sites, presentation slides on slideshare , data on data360 or swivel, original artwork on deviantart and artuproar, stories and experiences on blogs... If there ever was an intellectual revolution, it is now with everyone empowered to think and express freely without fear.

21st century has ushered the youth into a confident world, confident to express their identities, confident to be independent minded. Coupled with the growing competition that they face, there is a need to demonstrate one's abilities and originality like never before. DNs do so by publishing creative online identities through personal profiles on social networking sites. A significant industry is growing to enable users to customize their profiles. DNs are using professional quality technology (in some cases, widely available thanks to piracy) to create better quality content. Some companies actively provide these tools to promote innovation and harness talent.

In the next post, we will discuss the components of this ecosphere.

Who are these digital natives anyways?

2008-05-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

This blog is already 7 posts and exactly 7 days old, and we haven't really set the ground yet. My bad! (another of the DN manifestation - usage of global lingo. check out urbandictionary)
Before going any further lets get to know who we are talking about when we refer 'digital natives' (DN). Is this a matter of age, as some sources define it by the generation born after 1985? Damn! According to this definition, i missed the bus by a year. Would Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons not be Digital Natives?
Also, this would be widely variable across geographies, class etc depending upon the nature of digital ecosystem evolution and penetration.
So, who are these digital natives? Like a native of a city/state, digital native shares the language, the culture, the habits/mores to a certain degree with fellow technology users. They have distinctive ways of working, learning and socializing. As Marc Prensky would describe it - they share 'the accent' - the behavioral nuances in the way things are done, communicated. And this accent is born of the digital ecosystem (we will discuss the digital ecosystem in a little more detail in another post. ) that pervades a usual digital native.

So a DIY test to know if you are a digital native (as against digital immigrant) would include questions such as :
1. Do you multitask or do u prefer doing things one at a time?
2. Do you need to be 'connected' through cell phone, internet etc all the time?
3. Would you read something online or would you rather take a print out of the text and then read?
4. Is google your first port of call for any query?
5. Do you trust comments in social networks/blogs more than a person commenting them 'in person'?
6. Is grammar the greatest pleasure of life? :P

If you rather multitask, even when you have the luxury of time, you have the symptoms of being a Digital native. Is your cell phone and internet connection like oxygen to you? Can you 'survive' without being connected for a few days? would you trade a meal with some talktime? hmm.. you seem to be a serious contender for being a digital native. If you assume high level of functionality to be easily available in various platforms, you know who you are.
To get a digital world passport, the digital ecosystem should be your self's extensions, and its use, second nature to you. You should have a clear understanding of the assumptions underlying the interactions in this ecology, the chores necessitated out of it, etc.

This is how I see a digital native. This way its not a function of geography or age. Its purely a behavioral identity. Though the characteristic behavior is a function of class, affluence since it necessitates access to technology. So, DNs form a larger group by percentage in developed countries than in developing countries. Also, the evolution of DNs in different countries started at different times and i believe will have different trajectories. So while the average age of video gamer in UK has grown from 21 in 1998 to 27 in 2006#, in India, the average gamer would be younger (we need data here). Also, about different trajectories of DN is subject to the different way in which technology is introduced and rolled out. For eg. sms isn't as widely used in US as it is in India. This must have implication in the way people interact with each other.

The digital immigrant that we contrast to digital native are characterized by their 'immigrant behavior' in the technological ecosystem. They doubt digital manifestation that DNs take for granted. For eg. They would call up the recipient to check if the person has received the email.
They aren't confident of usage of the digital tools. The doubt 'should i click OK?', is indicator of being a digital immigrant. DIs often face difficulty in multitasking and prefer the linear logic.
Like any immigrant, the DI always retain some 'accent' even though they might have come to terms with the digital world and comfortably put to use the digital devices. This accent is apparent from behavioral nuances such as a penchant for order and linearity of argument in document, preference to read printed word as against digital words on screen etc.

The interactions between Digital Immigrant and Digital Native would lead interesting insights and I would explore it in another post.

# BBC, “Gamers in the UK,” December 2005.

a lil' clarification

2008-05-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

ok. I should have done this earlier. Here's the disclaimer : Most of the content on this blog contains my 'thoughts' and the posts are meant to put forth an argument to elicit some debate. Hence the thoughts might be divergent to opinions u might find elsewhere. Please do let me know if you find some irregularities in the argument and facts. i love debates. :D

whats with 'em namez.

2008-05-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Eating up vowels, remixing and mashing up differet names, chopping to convenient length, in quest of originality creating a langauge of our own. wlcm t th lngg f 21st cntry. (welcome to the language of 21st century. well, i did go overboard with this one, but sometimes i wonder, what if vowels do go extinct. how would globalization and fight for identity throughout the world shape the language in this scenario?)
In '1984', George Orwell envisioned a new language invented by the establishment - 'newspeak'. It also had shortforms, mashups, and similar traits to the one we are seeing in the web 2.0 era. however, the context is polar opposite. In the novel, the language is a product of an authoritarian regime, whereas the the new language we are helping to shape is a ramification of demographic nature of the new media and new digital technologies.
Even here, the demographic that is at the forefront of this change is the DNs - the young and technologically savvy. A look at their sms's, emails, IM chats show their penchant for topicality of word inventions in usage (and apparently, there is no leaking of information even though the mesage might contain a totally new, mashed up or otherwise, word. DNs understand each other's context pretty well. ) , convenience (short and easy usage of the device. twitter is successful because it allows u to shoot of small messages across multiple platform effortlessly. i can send my message through a widget, through its website, cell phone, or through IM, and the messages can be viewed just as easily and in just many platforms.).
The difference between the usage of sms in India and the rest of the world also must have implication in how the usage shapes the language and attitude. I have a hunch that the sms shortening of words and hindi word versions in sms have a role to play in the confident usage of hinglish in general interactions.

Digital Native culture through proverbs

2008-05-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

The last post was sooo teel dear. Well, for the uninitiated

teel dear (tl;dr) = Too long; didn’t read.

In this twitter age, I know I have sinned with my preposterously long posts earlier in the blog. But let me assure you, I am trying to be rid of the disease, and I am a advocate for brevity. I had even started a community on orkut about it.

btw, this blog is about the new proverbs that this digital age is creating and how and what they indicate. please do add to the list, any proverbs that has digital native connotation to it.

1. all your base are belong to us - This legendary statement connoting victory in gaming was born of bad translation of Japanese in an arcade game. The words though since have grown bigger and find relevance outside of gaming enthusiasts aswell.
2. Information wants to be free" - It is an expression that has come to be the unofficial motto of the free content movement. Its philosophical implications pervade all things digital and its shaping the way one approaches to technology and its use.
3. “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” - ah. the sublime pleasure of anonymity and the attendant voyeurism. try to see its effect in 'real interactions'. also information seeking in real life is affected due to the absence of benefits of internet. the result is hesitation and unwillingness to accept the price of information.
who's to say, you cant google up everything.
on a side note, i have observed that people these days postpone their curiosities. point in case, i once saw a journalist being nonchalant in asking questions to the interviewee. i didn't quite get it, aren't journalist paid to be inquisitive and curious? I noticed though that he had scribbled a few key words. It turned out that the 'meeting' was only a formality. He could have got a lot of info as and when required by calling up, googling, etc. when one has these options, there is no urgency attached to the process of information gathering. bookmark it, save it, archive it, burn it. out of all the information one downloads, how much does one actually go through (read, see, hear etc) ?
4. Ping - It’s been adapted into everyday lexicon to replace other means of contact. Instead of calling/IMing/Emailing me, people at work say they will “ping” me.
5. “Should I click okay?” – A hallmark digital Immigrant question. DI are much too conscious and skeptical of their action in digital space.

please add some more indicators of DN culture.
until then, have a brilliant weekend.

oh so visual

2008-05-08T23:40:00.000-07:00

Digital Natives (DNs) like their information served in 'multimedia' and not just one medium (like the ever so abundant text) and Yahoo knows it. Yahoo has come up with a new spruced up search interface called 'glue'. Glue essentially changes the way one uses the search utility, eliminating the need for a few clicks in certain instances, all the while making the result page much more interesting with videos, images, Y! answers, maps, news and any other relevant sources and multimedia being made available on the result page. The service hasn't been rolled out across geographies and queries yet though. As of now, it is only a Y! India feature with only a few categories of searches (sports, travel, entertainment, health, stocks, and tech).
for eg. I wanted to know about good beaches in Konkan (where I plan to spend this weekend :D) and searched for 'konkan' and the result page threw up wikipedia's entry about konkan, news, y! answers, images along with the traditional search results in a narrow left pane.

however, when i narrowed down my search a bit with the phrase 'konkan beaches', it threw up the traditional search page. :(
ALong with Yahoo’s Search Monkey Project, which allows developers to change the way search results are displayed, Yahoo Glue starts to make sense. Yahoo doesn’t have to create the templates for every single search category, instead developers can do that. Thus making it relevant and scalable.
These changes are indicative of maturing of 2.0 phase of web, where having created many media innovations, scattered in different directions, now tools are emerging such as netvibes, friendfeed and now Y! glue that help make sense of all the media, making it all the more accessible and easy to manage. There is an OpenID movement going on, and the wrangle between facebook's api platform and google's show of muscle with its open API that would shape our social graph on web. Maybe this sanity bringing measures, would make it easier for digital migrants to 'migrate' better.

a lil trawlin'

2008-05-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

Being a digital native, my first instinct before doing anything is to google up the query instead of thinking it through myself#. so here I am, having decided the structure of the white paper that is to be written and poised to write the entry in this blog that should elucidate the start of the discussion, but instead am writing an entry thats a chronicle of my trek through numerous blogs and other interesting outposts on web related to digital native discussion. lest you think that this post would hence be any less valuable, think again, there are some interesting links that I came across during my scavenging. not everything is directly related to the query at hand, but as is the non-linear nature of surfing (funny, I am presenting this post in text - a linear logic, to advocate digital nativity, whose hallmark feature is being non linear. well until we have a better alternative, lets stick to text for now.) I would share some other interesting stuff as well, in no particular order.

a. friendfeed.
this is one of the hottest new service on the web. It generated a lot of discussion in many of the silicon valley blogs. the guys who started it are ex-google employees who have steered such google projects as google maps, adsense, and google group.
I started it using it yesterday. It essentially aims to be a one stop shop of all social networking tasks. it creates a news feed incorporating all the social networking websites. so u can have twitter, gchat status, blogs, youtube videos etc., all at one place. Now that the social media is getting crowded, it was about time for such a service to emerge. Its interesting and simple.
though i wonder how would these guys make money out of it.
2. speaking of monetizing, the debate about facebook's over valuation just refuses to ebb. facebook had to face much criticism with its beacon service. aswell, their revenues, don't justify the valuation...by far. its mostly speculation. lets not get into details here, but speaking of social network websites and their revenues...
3. google still hasnt figured how best to squeeze the max out of the social networking website for ad revenue. its myspace deal again, in the vain of earlier point, seems highly ambitious with $900 mill guaranteed doll out to myspace. speaking of ads in social networks..
4. Alexander van Elsa runs a good blog, and has a recent entry about ads in social networks here.
5. oh btw, just so u know, last year global ad spending on social network websites shot up 155%, to $1.2 billion, says researcher eMarketer. This year, eMarketer expects it to jump 75%, to $2.1 billion. u can find my reference here.
6. time for some interesting device usage info...
mobile videos has found surprisingly slow adoption. People mostly view mobile videos on PCs or laptops. :P
Also, thought of as the best bet a year ago in 3g ready markets, people find lil' relevance of video call, owing to visual privacy concerns. lessons for 3g roll out in India in the offing.... :P u don't want to repeat UK's dizzying valuation for 3g licences, now do u?
7. US adults who download podcasts now outnumber those who publish blogs.
I am trying to find relevant Indian nos. but my hunch says, that podcasts still haven't caught up with the popular imagination of the digitalarati in India. Though many of the digital natives I know, use i pods, laptops and are aware of podcasts, they themselves don't use it much.

_____
#. we had to write an essay 'has internet made us dumber or smarter' as a part of entertainment media coursework. (well, ma'am threw this assignment as a challenge after being subjected to a presentation containing a lot of predictable, googled up, argument. hence it wasn't as much of a media sociology assignment, but a demand of a confessional.) I chose to advocate that we are dumber being slave to digital wonts. not as much because i really believe in that argument, but to make a sarcastic statement. I started the essay with an admission that, to write this assignment, my first instinct was to google it up, if at all I can find anything related. I could have argued that its smarter to stand atop the 'collective wisdom' garnered after being subjected to many different point of views through website. however, who would take that extra step ahead and above that heap? having achieved the purpose, most of us won't bother to try and think by themselves. I argued that the technology is impeding our quest and preventing us from original thinking by allowing us to build rational excuses through the use of technology. It advocates, by being, incremental improvements in thought process, and not necessarily original thought germination. (well, an argument is the process born of selective rationalization. hence i am leaving out the possibility of social interaction over internet that is a fecund ground for brainstorming and new idea generation. ;) )