Join us tonight at Pixel for the first ever Ithaca Ignite and see if I can only talk for five minutes about how the story of Faust fits into file sharing at the dawn of the print age.
research and writings at the crossroads of journalism, cultural anthropology, technology, and reading.
Archives for category: praxis
Last week two opposing editorials appeared on TechCrunch representing the two oppositional poles of a discussion on reading and the iPad. On the side of the iPad killing reading was Paul Carr’s NSFW: I Admit It, The iPad Is A Kindle Killer. I Just Wish It Weren’t Going To Kill Reading Too . In opposition to Carr, stating the iPad is going to fundamentally change reading and we need to rethink books is Dear Authors, Your Next Book Should be an App, Not an iBook, written by 21 year old ((The only reason I called out the authors age is that it was invoked twice within the article, once by TechCrunch and once by the author himself. I’m assuming that being 21 years old is important to understand his right to comment on these issues (as opposed to the fact that he’s a Reynolds Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship at NYU, and on the board of CoPress). For the record, as of presstime, Mr. Carr is 30 and I’m 35. Hopefully our ages are as important to our messages as Mr. Brown’s is to his).)) Cody Brown.
On the weekend of its launch Cory Doctorow and others (like myself) critiqued the closed nature of the iPad development platform and its relationship to innovation. Others have written in support of it.
What is it about the iPad that activates discussions like these? I mean, it’s a wonderfully engineered device, but it’s not all that and the proverbial bag of chips. Though it may replace some people’s “traditional” computers ((in particular folks who use a computer primarily for eMail, web surfing, & light word processing)) , neither the desktop, nor the notebook, will be going away anytime soon. And, while Apple will probably capture the slate tablet market, there are tons of competing tablet devices on the way. However, if the iPad had “just” been a tablet (like upcoming models from HP, Dell, or Google), I doubt that we’d be been having such focused conversations.
Having been witness to lots of debates on the iPad and its potential effects on publishing by pragmatic folks who, though technologists, are excellent at getting beyond the spin, I don’t think most of these discussions can be dismissed as simply buying into hype .
Nor is it necessarily the given reality of the situation, though transformations within the marketplace, like the move in publishing to agency model pricing is most definitely based in the immediate real. For the most part these conversations, take for example Carr and Brown, are fixated on the future.
So what’s driving all the churn?
I propose that the iPad is the metaphor ((I’m thinking about a metaphor in terms of Wittensteinian categorization, and not necessarily as Lakoff and Johnson do.)) that has allowed/enabled existing ideas to be developed in new (and potentially more productive) ways.
The iPad’s promise of a tight “device” (versus computer) experience, able to be “infinity” expanded through apps, creates just enough space of ideation to activate all the debates that we’ve seen (open v. closed, book v. app, etc). What the iPad adds to this discussion is a common understand of interaction and experience that allows us to greatly refine the discussion.
Beyond the specifics (like app store pricing and agency models), the iPad offers an “open bounded” experience — neither as single purpose as an “eReader” or as open as a “computer” (or perhaps even a “website) — with an easily understood interface (emphasizing the immediacy of touch) and platform (the easy availability of apps). If you’re in a ‘modern’ ((I admit that Modern is a deeply problematic term. I had initially “first-world”, but that is equally, if not more, problematic. Any suggestions?)) country and within a general age/demographic grouping, you don’t need to have held an iPad to participate in the discussion — we can easily conceptualize the experience from interactions with other technologies (computers and cell phones being obvious examples, but also think about interactions with touch screen interfaces in retail and other locations).
The brilliance of Apple, for better or worse, is the iPad’s intuitiveness ((Intuitiveness should be thought of as a mediation between intangible individual and cultural expectations about how a device should work and its material functioning. It emerges in dialog with an ever emerging total social experience of technology, and is therefore a constantly moving target.)) — using an iPad is far easier to imagine and explain than any other type of computer (including Macs).
If we take the iPad as both the subject of and a metaphor for the arguments, we can try and “step outside” the discussions to see what’s actually being argued. And the answer is, “the future.” Each of the debates, and positions held there in, encapsulate a specific ideology/imagination of a future (for publishing, for software, for users) which have been going on for quite a while. Should devices (with the iPad standing in for all) be open (democratic) or closed (authoritarian)? Will literacy fail or be irrevocably transformed? Is all development positive? And what is lost when, with the move to digital production and distribution, “all that is solid melts into air?” ((Marx and Engles, The Manifesto of the Communist Party))
From this perspective, the increasing heat of these reactivated debates should not be a surprise. Previous discussions about future ((I’d go so far as to say every discussion of the future, as like technology, the discussions around it are in an ever emergent state. Thus categories and concepts are always being created and modified)) suffered from lack of a shared conceptualization of computing. We might have conceptualized unfettered computers with transparent interfaces, “elegantly” fitting into our lives, but I don’t think that most of us were truly able to imagine them, at least in a shared way. Turning Marx’s quote on its head, Apple has taken the conceptual and given it a material form. And it doing that, it’s (momentarily at least) reshaped the discussion.
Disclaimer 1: I haven’t played with an iPad yet.
Disclaimer 2: While I agree with everything Cory Doctorow wrote about the iPad, I still want one. Please don’t judge me…
Today is launch day for the iPad, and, it’s going to be remembered as an “important” day in the development of computers, as the launch day of the iPhone represents an important day in the history of the mobile phone (and, as we’ve discovered, the eReader and the computer). That said, I think it’s important to stress that the iPad is not a computer.
In an editorial published yesterday entitled “Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either)“, Cory Doctorow makes the case for why the iPad is not a “revolutionary” product when it comes to user empowerment. Take a moment and go read the article. Seriously… whether or not you agree with Doctorow’s conclusion this is an important discussion.
I for one agree with Doctorow. Apple, by extending the “successes” of the iPhone with the iPad, is defining a new, restrictive, device space – one in which the device you purchase is wired shut (I’m borrowing both the phrase and concept from Tarleton Gillespie ((For an excellent summary of the parts Gillespie’s argument that are especially relevant to this discussion see his article “Designed to Effectively Frustrate.”))) . As Doctorow points out, as with the iPhone, the iPad is a device that you buy but don’t own.
- Even though you paid hundreds for it, you can’t take it apart without voiding the warranty. ((Note that the iPad and the iPhone were by no means the first devices to forbid the user from taking them apart.))
- Even though you paid hundreds for it, you can’t customize it in an non-Apple approved way it without voiding the warranty. ((The iPhone was, however, the device that popularized the App store model which has since been embraced by Google and Microsoft.))
- Even though you paid hundreds for it, you can’t load apps from 3rd parties without going through the Official App store without voiding the warranty.
To appreciate how this model is different, think about a car. I can perform routine maintenance on my car without voiding the warranty (provided I do it correctly). I can put alternative grades of gas in their car without voiding the warranty. Most importantly, I can open up the hood and take a look at the engine without voiding their warranty.
The iPad is, to borrow another metaphor from Gillespie, a car whose hood is welded shut. If you break that seal, even if you don’t touch a thing, you’ve voided the warranty. Further it’s a car in which I can only put in approved gas, and that gas can only be bought from the manufacturer of the car.
This all leads me to why the iPad and other upcoming tablets are not computers. The computer, as we understand it, was the ultimate in customizable equipment. Take a trip to the grocery store and take a look at the magazine rack. Even at a time when magazines are ceasing print edition, you’ll still find numerous magazine dedicated to how you can mod your computer. And even if you aren’t interested in modifying your computer, you still have full choice over what software you can load on it. You can purchase software at computer/electronic stores, big box business stores like Staples, and even at supermarkets and dollar stores. You can also download software from countless websites. There’s no approval processes. For better or worse, anyone can write and distribute software. For all the reasons stated above, this isn’t the case with the iPad.
The iPad is not a computer. It’s a device which the user has limited control over.
An argument has been made that this closeness doesn’t matter when the platform is so easy to program for that a 13 year old child can create and market their own app through the store. The problem this argument conflates access to authoring tools and a marketing channel with control over the device/distribution. Put it a different way, yes that child can build their own app. That’s nothing new, precocious children have been programming for years! What this argument fails to take into account is that the child’s ability to distribute that app is controlled not by the child but by Apple. If Apple decides that the app is inappropriate — of course, everything that junior-high-school-age boys produce is always appropriate —then it will be removed from the store. Once that happens, there is no way to load it onto the iPad, even if that child ops to eMail it to friends. Private distribution, outside of the app store, is not a option.
And while someone might say that the child could get around this restriction by building their application on the web, there are two problems with this model. First, there is still no easy way to charge for access to a web app. Second, and more important, the primary graphic tool for building web applications, Adobe’s Flash, cannot run on the iPad.
Others have suggested that the iPad is nowhere near as closed a platform as the printed book. While this is a bit of an “apples vs. remote controls” type of move, even if we take the comparison seriously, I don’t think it holds up. Yes, I can’t directly change the content of the book. I’m not easily able to add pages or words for example (at least not additional printed words). However, I’m free to alter the book in any way I want. I can make notes in the margins. If I’m a dadaist (or a ransom note writer), I can cut the book apart and reassemble the words in different formats. And I can also choose to create my own book, radically altering the form of the book, as well as its contents.
What is particularly interesting for me, as a social scientist, is that this “locking down” of the iPad and other tablets can be seen as reversing a key trend of modernity/promise of technology. According to its proponents, the “computer/internet revolution” enabled us to move beyond the “mass” prefix. No longer were we the “mass produced” culture of the industrial age. Technology enabled choice; it allowed us to personalize our commodities and our media. Mass media was replaced by web 2.0 where anyone could create their own content and share it.
The iPhone, the iPad, and a number of other devices on the horizon, step away from this. In the name of user experience ((Note that I don’t want this to be an either/or situation. Just about every decision Apple has made can be justified in terms of user experience. Of that there is little question. However, failing to acknowledge the trade offs that are occurring because of this and contemplate how this may be indicative of a larger trend would be a mistake as well.)) we are taking a step back towards Fordism (“You can have any app you want on your iPod as long as it’s approved by Apple.”) Cynically, one might argue that what this is really doing is pulling the veil off of the “mass customization” that we have really been experiencing ((See Mark Andrejevic’s iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Internet Era for a particularly excellent summary of this position.)) — that we have never realized the freedoms promised to us by technology. I’m not quite that cynical.
I, like Doctorow, think it’s important for a space of experimentation and resistance to be available. ((This is a fundamentally different position than being technological Utopian — I don’t think technology is the solution, its what the people do with the technology that matters.)) And the failure of the iPad, and a number of other tablets that look to be on the way, is that it doesn’t provide that space. If anything, the iPad works to enclose possibilities, not expand them. My hope is that this model will not win out. My expectation (especially considering that after writing all of this I still want an iPad) is that this will be the future (or at least for a while).
Why I won’t buy an iPad (and think you shouldn’t, either)
One of the many technologies on displays at this year’s TOC was Qualcomm’s new Mirosal display technology. This and Pixel QI‘s tech will probably kill the eInk reader. Both technologies are low powered, “quick” refreshing (though not as quick as a traditional LCD, color displays. While they do consume more power than eInk, my understanding is that they are far lower draw than a traditional LCD. That means that the battery on an eReader (or tablet) powered by this technology should be able to easily last between routine charges. Note that all of the smaller displays in the background are demoing Mirosal as well.
Qualcomm Mirasol Color Display from Matt Bernius on Vimeo.
A couple points of clarification. The handheld unit running the video-loop is not an eReader. Nor is Qualcomm/Mirasol getting into the eReader business. They are, at this point, just providing the displays. The Qualcomm rep confirmed that we would see Mirasol on an eReader by years end, but could not confirm the manufacturer/marketer. My guess, based on Qualcomm’s previous relations and the desire to make a big splash with this technology, is that it will either be a Sony or Kindle reader. I don’t think there are other players big enough out there to compete with those two for the technology.
![[Rendering of Notion Ink Adam]](http://www.waking-dream.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/notion_ink_adam_4.jpg "notion_ink_adam_4")
As far as it’s competitor, PixelQi… we will see that premier on Notion’s Ink Adam tablet (pictured above) later this year. The Ink Adam is a really interesting device that has the potential to give the iPad a real run for its money in terms of feature/price set (see comparison chart below – click for higher resolution version).
(BTW, you get my narration in the video because I was not able to synch up with the official Qualcomm rep, and the nice fellow working the booth isn’t allowed to be interviewed)
One of the great things about attending O’Reilly’s Tools of Change, or any good conference for that matter, is that you get the chance to kick different ideas around with really, really, I-mean-really bright people. In talking with folks from BookGlutton, Harlequin (yes that Harlequin… you know, the progressive publishing company – see previous post on their reading experiments), and others, I’m more convinced than ever that social reading is the next killer app, especially as tablet computing goes mainstream.
By social reading, I mean platforms that allow people to interact with each other through reading. In a perfect world, it connects authors with readers, and readers with each other.
Sounds simple enough, right? But how do you make the experience so compelling that people want to join, return to, and participate in the community? And equally important, how do you find a way to make it into a sustainable business?
Rather than pondering “how do we create a “Facebook” for readers?”, I think we can find answers to the first question by looking at a “parallel” experience: social music sites. In particular, I’m going to use one in particular, The Sixtyone, as possible model for a social reading experience.
Brief disclaimer: In January of this year, The Sixtyone went through a site redesign that was not particularly well received by members of the community (both artist and listeners). For the purposes of this write up, I’m choosing to not engage with that debate. You can read a brief summary of it here.
The Sixtyone
![[The Sixtyone]](http://www.waking-dream.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/TheSixtyOne-300x233.jpg "TheSixtyOne")
The Sixtyone, named after the US highway, wants “to enable the creative middle class, providing talented artists the opportunity to make a living making music.” Artists upload their music to the site, along with supporting information such as lyrics, band pictures, and tour information. Users can browse, listen to, and comment on songs, create playlists that other members can view, share their music of choice via social networking sites, and purchase MP3 downloads.
![[The Sixtyone Interface]](http://www.waking-dream.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SS-2010-02-25_18.18.09.jpg "The Sixtyone interface")
What differentiates The Sixtyone (or “t61” for short) is the fact that it also builds gaming into the experience. Listeners and artists are able to earn “reputation” by completing different tasks. The more reputation you have, the more you are capable of influencing aspects of the website, such as which songs are promoted to the homepage.
Let me give you an example: each time you return to the site you gain a certain number of reputation points. You also gain a number of hearts. Hearts are used to mark songs that you like. The more hearts a song acquires, the higher it’s rank on the site, the more chances that the song will be seen by people and receive more hearts. Plus, if a song performs well after you heart it, you’ll earn reputation points for picking a winner. Players can also earn additional reputation and hearts by completing quests such as the following one:![[Sample Quest]](http://www.waking-dream.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/SS-2010-02-25_18.15.06.png "Sample Quest")
At the time I wrote this, I’d tallied up some 555 reputation points, playing over 50 songs, and completing a number of quests. That ranks me as a level 3 user, on the way to level 4. Right now, I’m not able to do much more than heart a song once. After I reach level 5 I’ll be able to go back and give those songs an additional hearts, letting me get even more reputation from those songs if they get popular.
BTW, to prevent gaming, you need to listen to a song for at least a minute before hearting it. This prompts the listener to spend time learning about the artist, checking out other songs that they have, and getting recommendations on similar artists.
Once I have enough reputation, I can start spending it to influence the site. The primary way is by promoting a song to the home page. Every three hours there’s a reputation “auction”, where people make bids to “revive” a song. For example, at this moment, 724photography (level 10) is willing to pay 14,652 reputation points to move Iron and Wine’s Boy with a Coin to the homepage.
Artists also have to play the reputation game. The number of songs that they can post is tied to their amount of reputation. So rather than dumping one’s entire catalog onto the site, artists have to pick and choose (and promote) songs that they thing are strong enough to build up their reputation. Otherwise, they can’t add more material.
Lessons to Learn (aka the Whuffie Model)
The first is to make sure you are focusing on the right verb. It’s easier to explain this by example. t61 is about music. So rather than focusing the experience on discussing music, it builds everything around listening to music. I don’t think the importance of this can be overstated. There are limited discussion capabilities built into the site, but they are not forefronted.
If you’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, the rest of the lessons that can be learned from the site should be more than a little reminiscent of the Whuffie System described in the novel:
- Give participation value—Ok, so in the post Farmville world, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that gaming can drive participation. However, what differentiates t61, is that by playing, I get the chance to influence the site by paying to promote music (which may, in turn, can help me gain more reputation). Likewise, for artists reputation has a direct influence on how many songs they can have on the site.
- Influence/Reputation only has value if you can lose it— Paying means paying. If I bid 14K of reputation to move a song to the homepage and I win, I lose that hard earned reputation. I may gain it back if a lot more people heart that song while it’s on the homepage, but there’s no guarantee.
- Finding the right quests— Align the goals of users and the site. Part of what makes t61 work is that it pays me to do what I already like (listen to music). Most of the quests revolve around listening to new songs or ones with low heart counts. This lets me get more reputation through completing the quest and by helping promote good songs before they get big. Both actions reward me for sharing music I like.
- Don’t make it too easy—I need to listen to a song for at least one minute before you can heart it. A minute is a long time to sit through a song that you don’t like. Likewise, you only get X number of hearts to dole out during a 24 hour session. Once they are gone, they’re gone. You either have to earn more through a quest or wait for them to refresh.
So how to apply this to Social Reading?
Building on t61’s example, I think that a Social Reading site has to be a reading experience first and a discussing reading experience second (an some are already doing this). This is a the model lends itself to poetry, short and episodic stories, and other content that can be read in a single sitting.
In terms of quests & reputation, I think those translate easily enough that I don’t need to go into detail.
What particularly jazzes me about this model, in terms of reading, is the playlist. I think that this has a lot of potential, especially in economic terms. I have to admit that I haven’t bought anything from t61 yet. Part of the reason for this is that I can easily access the song on the site, and while I’m logged in I can listen to it as much as I want. Reading is a little different. When it comes to reading, I want to be able to have the content at my fingertips (either electronically or physically). And while this may say more about my relative interest in books versus music more so than the market, I’m willing to pay to take my books with me.
So where does the playlist come in? Imagine what happens when we change the nomenclature from “playlist” to “edited edition.” I think there is a real possibility that people would be willing to buy collections of stories assembled by other individuals within the community who they trust. Authors could even get involved – remember that the iTunes store has been using this model for years. And, provided that the content is well tagged/structured, it’s entirely possible to have both an electronic distribution model and a print-on-demand model as well.
Admittedly, there’s a lot that needs to be worked out here. For example, if one’s collection gets bought, should she get reputation points or a financial cut? Based on some research I did years ago on YouTube revenue sharing, a financial cut may not be necessary, especially if the site is attentive to responding to user’s desires. Likewise there are questions about ownership and licensing of the content.
All that said, there’s a lot of potential to use this type of model to create a really compelling (and profitable) user reading experience. The real question is whose going to give it a shot?