Extra Credit: Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is an idea that all content on the internet should be equal. This means no discrimination towards certain sites or certain items on the internet. Having network neutrality means that no sites can be blocked, slowed down, or sped up more than the rest. As of right now the internet is set up where companies that pay more for their domain and their service have more benefits. This means the more powerful, better known, and wealthier companies all can get the benefits of speed. This means their pages will load faster, and the content will also load faster and in better quality. This is especially true if the content is an image or a video.
Many websites out right now have video on demand. Websites such as youtube.com allows users to pull up any video they wish, at any time, if that video is available on the site. This website is widely known and is constantly undergoing changes to make it better and more user friendly. One benefit of being such a big, widely known website is the money. With the money that youtube.com brings in from things like advertisements, they can afford better bandwidth. This means their videos load fast. This makes it harder for other lesser known sites to compete with YouTube.
There are many people and companies in the world that are for net neutrality, but there are also many against it. Large telephone and cable companies such as AT&T and Comcast do not like the idea of net neutrality, and they hope to get rid of it. They want this so they can not only tax any companies who want more bandwidth, but also so they can promote their own search engines by giving them the desired benefits for free.
The large companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get congress to rid the world of net neutrality. If they can get away with this, it will allow them, along with any large wealthy corporations who wish to pay for it, to have all the benefits of high speed. This would leave everyone else in the dust. If something like this does happen, it will put the future of the internet at risk.
Net neutrality has been around for a long time. It has been a part of the internet since the internet started years ago. The reason many are panicking about the network neutrality debate is because the large telecommunications companies have already mentioned their plans to destroy network neutrality. If the large corporations have their way with net neutrality it will affect the millions of everyday internet users, like myself.
Without net neutrality the smaller, weaker, poorer competition would die, and this would lead to only the large corporations being available. If this happens, the telecommunications companies can then raise the prices even more, making it impossible for the large companies out there to stay online. If all the websites online die, and leave only the telecommunications companies, they will have all the power and we wont have any say or any control. It is similar to Wal-Mart shutting down many smaller competitors until there are no more, then raising the prices. If what I said happens, and net neutrality is destroyed, it could be the end of the internet.

1000 True Fans

The article “1000 True Fans,” written by Kevin Kelley proposes the idea that an artist will only need an audience of 1000 people willing to contribute a day’s paycheck per year in order to make $100,000 a year. Kelley defines “True Fans” as those willing to buy everything an artist has to offer. He also says that with advances in technology and the popularity of the internet it is very easy for an artist to directly connect to their fans. By maintaining a direct connection it will be easy to maintain a loyal fan base.
Once the artist establishes their True Fans there will be a greater number of lesser fans. Lesser fans are defined as fans who buy only certain products produced by the artist. With a committed base of 1000 True Fans and a number of lesser fans, Kelley says that artists should not aim for super-stardom but for becoming a micro-celebrity or for micro-patronage. While many artists do not dream of this it is a way for them to make a living doing what they love.
The number of people involved with the artist will affect the number of True Fans needed to support the project. The correlation is linear. The number of True Fans needed directly relates to the number of people involved. The number of fans needed will also depend on the given profession. A designer may need a different number of True Fans than an author. Kelley gives an example of an author who asked their True Fans for a donation of $100 per month to publish chapters of their book online. When the book was entirely online they then published it for the rest of the fans. Kelley is incredibly enthusiastic about this method and makes it sounds like this is the answer for all artists.
Both “The Reality of Depending on True Fans” and “The Case Against 1000 True Fans,” both by Kevin Kelley bring up the more realistic aspects of relying on True Fans for a living. The first article recognizes the lack of evidence for “1000 True Fans” and gives an article by Robert Rich to support his previous claim. Rich dealt with his fans directly through his own website and needed his window of exposure in order to get started. He used a few small labels and says that the internet was a great help. Although he makes a living he admits to not making more than a garbage man and says that most of his fans in Russia do not pay for his music which lessens his profit.
The second article says that, based on research, very few artists rely entirely on True Fans for their income. It takes a lot of work to maintain a True Fan base and many artists do not have the knowledge or abilities needed to focus both on their art and their fans. Also, many artists would rather focus solely on their art and not on the demanding job of maintaining their fan base.
The final article “The Problem With 1000 True Fans” was the most realistic when it came to addressing this theory. The article cites five key reasons why surviving on only 100 True Fans will not work. The first problem is that gathering the 1000 fans is hard. The artist will need to be a little bit famous first in order to gain 1000 True Fans. Second, the available number of people is not the entire population of the world it is only the number of people willing to spend $100 a year on an artist. This makes it a lot harder. Third, with a limited number of people willing to spend $100 on art per year this means that artists will have to compete for these people. This means that some people will have to be willing to spend hundreds of dollars a year on multiple artists. This group is even smaller than the last. Fourth, chances are that True Fans will not stay True Fans forever. This means that an artist will constantly need to gain new True Fans every year in order to maintain their 1000 making it an ongoing struggle. And finally, the fifth and final reason is that just because a True Fan will spend $100 a year does not mean that the artist will receive $100 dollars a year.
When reading the first article I found it to be kind of unrealistic. It seemed like an easy concept but there were too many factors not recognized. It made it sound like anyone could do this incredibly easily, and there are people out there just waiting to be your fans. Even the second two articles missed many of the main points when attempting to address the main issues. I found the fourth and final article to be the most informative and the most realistic. My first thought when reading Kevin Kelley’s first article was exactly what the author of the last article addresses in his fifth point. Although you may make the $100 dollars from each person, it doesn’t necessarily mean you get that much to keep. The money has to go to your supplies, your tools, and your help with the projects if you have any. All in all, I think the idea has potential but is not a realistic plan for everyone to make a living.

The Long Trail

Joe Simpson wrote a book in 1988. It was called Touching the Void and it was about a mountaintop tragedy in the Peruvian Andes. It sold well in the beginning, but it was nothing special. Soon it was forgotten until another book with a similar plot line was madea decade later. It was called Into Thin Air and it sold great right from the start. After the new book was released, the older book's sales starting booming and eventually outsold the new book two to one. 

The reason the boom in sales kicked in when it did was because of amazon.com. The website noticed buying patterns of many people and eventually offered them a recommendation of the book Touching the Void if they were interested in the book Into thin Air. Many people took the website's advice and bought the recommended book and the sales were greatly increased. 

When the new book came out, people using amazon.com were able to find it easily.They were also able to find the older book published a decade earlier. The older book most likely would have not been found or purchased by all the people out there if it were not for amazon.com. Without the technology there would not have been recommendations to buy it, nor would there have been a place to buy it from. 

With the way the world is today, millions of people are avid users of the internet. Many people use it and need it for work. Many more people use it for educational purposes. Then there are those who use it for play. Whatever their purpose, the point is that billions of people in the world use the internet. Most of them use it on a regular basis. 

With all the people using the internet it has made it very easy to do things that would have required much more effort and supplies than before the internet. E-mail is an amazing way for people to stay connected with each other. Rather than using time, money for postage, and paper, people can just type a message and click to send it anywhere in the world. This makes life so much easier for those of us who use the internet a lot. 

This also makes it a lot easier to do many other things. One of which is but products. Many people use the internet to buy books, software, magazines, music, and movies. These are some very common things offered from many different large internet corporations. There are also sites like ebay.com that allow people to buy almost any random object from other people anywhere in the world. Ebay allows the users to be connected not matter where they live. 

One reason why so many things are posted and offered on the internet, other than connecting people from all over, is it is cheaper than shelf space. On sites like Amazon, the items offered are sitting in warehouses until the time when they need to be shipped out because they have been purchased. This means it isnt really costing any money for the item to sit and not be purchased. With stores and theaters the company must sell a certain amount within a certain time period, otherwise they lose profit. This makes it harder on the stores and also makes for less options when you go to the store to buy an item. 

The internet makes it easier to buy almost anything you could want out there. In a time where fuel is priced extremely high it is also nice to be able to purchase something in the comfort of your own home. The internet purchasing crowd is ever growing. More and more people are turning to this smart method of purchasing that has more selection, is sometimes cheaper, and is overall easier on the buyer. 

Internet Namespaces

In the age of the internet many people have their own personal websites. Many companies have their own websites too. Seeing how there are roughly six billion people in the world it is guaranteed that there are some people with the same name. Also, with companies from countries all over the world there are bound to be some conflicts over who gets the first pick for website names.
It seems most of the time that the higher power gets first pick. In a situation where an average person has a website named after a celebrity the celebrity usually wins. Years ago, Canadian Jeff Burgar created a website called www.jrrtolkien.com. He may have done this because of the possible payoff he could get when the real Mr. Tolkien wanted to start a website under his name. Burgar’s website was taken from him from the World Intellectual Property Organization. This was because the name J.R.R. Tolkien’s name was a business in itself. There have also been situations with companies and individuals fighting over names, companies and cities fighting over names, and companies fighting with other companies. In most cases the big company wins.
With so many namespaces coexisting, limitations have been put on them. Such as, you can have a website called ford, as long as you were not making cars. To me it sounds like they will allow you to have the name you wish, or similar names, as long as you stay away from the big business that shares the name.
Name spaces are clashing like crazy. With so many websites out there now, and many with similar names, people have to be very creative when naming their business sites. Especially pharmaceutical sites, in which so many names are very similar to other, they are easily mixed up. Sometimes the desperation for a name results in the best outcome. Look at two of the biggest sites in the world; Yahoo!, and Google. These names were most likely thought of to be simple, unique, and most of all catchy.
Jeff Burgar is often accused of being a cybersquatter. He claims he is not and he just uses the websites in the context of freedom of press. He says he should be able to make carmenelectra.com if he wants, and have it be a tribute to her. I don’t know where I stand on this topic. I think he should maybe have a name similar to hers, but maybe add something on the end to make it a little different. In the other hand, he is smart for taking some of the prime internet real-estate. If I did this it would be with the hopes of getting a large payoff by those who really need the name. For instance, Carmen Electra could make a large payoff, in one way or another, to get her website.
Names are what we use to talk about individual people. If we say a full name such as Brad Pitt, people assume we are talking about the big actor who is married to Angelina Jolie. Well, you’ve probably heard the saying about when you assume, so ill spare you, but when I said that name I was talking about someone different. Years ago I saw a television show about people with celebrity names. There was a man named Brad Pitt. He was nothing like the celebrity, but he often had trouble with this name. Let’s just say for instance he makes a website for himself about whatever he wants. It could be pictures of his dog, or his own standup comedy he posts online for people to watch. It seems wrong that the big-shot actor can just come and take the name away from this man and leave him with no compensation.
I think when it comes to names of websites, it should be a first-come, first-serve system, as it used to be in the beginning of the internet boom. If an average person registers a site with a name of a big corporation or a celebrity, too bad for that corporation or celebrity. If they really are a big corporation or celebrity then they can do the fair thing and buy the site from the average person. Just because they are bigger and richer doesn’t mean they are exempt from rules and laws. If someone beat them to the punch, then hooray for that someone, and good luck to them on getting a payoff.

Tim O'Reilly's Thoughts on Piracy and Online Distribution

In the article the author, Tim O'reilly, explains a lot about piracy and sales. He talks about how hundreds of thousands of books are published a year yet few hit shelves and even fewer survive after that. Many end up in a warehouse then eventually to a recycling bin. This reminded me a lot of the movie "Startup.com" because they tried so hard to make a good website and in the long run failed. Many websites are built every year and many end up dying fairly soon after creation. This is usually due to poor backing. 

The article also explains that pirated copies of different products cause for a great loss in money. The author says that what is thought to be lost is usually made back due to the newly acquired fans that may have benefited from the copy. He also explains how his daughter is a big fan of downloading from legal internet sites, and because of her he has been introduced to many new songs that he likes, and he has actually gone out to buy the CDs. 

Customers will usually try to do whats right. He tells about how some of the items for sale on his website have been illegally copied and put available online. Although the small amount of pirated copies doesnt have much of an effect, the company still contacts the people and most will take it down. The only people who dont take it down are usually from other countries and they do it because their laws dont enforce it and because it is way too expensive for others in he country. 

According to the author, shoplifting is worse than piracy. Shoplifting steals from the store unnoticed, then can be redistributed, and the potential store buyers cant get a copy because there is no more. 

Although many big companies claim to be losing money from pirates, they could be wrong. He says that losing money is all just mathematics and a numbers game. For many people to even find the music they want they need a middleman. The internet is usually that middleman. By using this, the people still find the song they want, plus possible other songs from the same place and now they are a bigger fan of the music than they were before. The author also believes that the internet could very easily take over the way we sell many things such as music. 

The author says if the quality is there, and you can get it for free or really cheap, why pay? Many good things that would normally be paid a lot for can usually be found for a lot cheaper or for free. 

Although there are pirates the products are all still out there. He says the ultimate lesson is "Give it to him in as many ways as you can find, at a fair price, and let him choose which works best for him. I agree with this. I think no matter what the law forbids and no matter what companies do, pirating will occur. I think by offering the product in many different places people will have options. If they feel the need to have the product they will pay the money for it, if they have the money, or they will get it by other means. Either way, whether its music, movies, or books, if people want the product they will get it. 

Startup.com

The film Startup.com shows the story of two men who try to start a new website in the beginning of the new internet age. The men, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman, were friends all through high school. After graduation they stayed good friends and eventually went into business together. The film shows all they went through to try and create their own business. It is all shot using the real people rather than actors, and it is all real events rather than using sets, scripts, and having directors.
In the late nineteen-nineties the two friends, Kaleil and Tom, have the idea to create their own website. Before this point in time the internet was not nearly as popular as it currently is, and it was also not as well known. At the time when the two friends starting making the business the internet was just becoming really popular and widely known. Kaleil and Tom had the idea to make a website on this ever growing internet for the public to use.
The friends had the idea to make a company that was government related. The plan was to make a company that allowed the public to deal with municipal governments. This means they could do such things as pay parking tickets online in the convenience of their homes. The company they wanted to start was originally called Public Data Systems. The name was later changed to Govworks instead which lead to the creation of the website www.govworks.com.
After initially deciding on what to make the website about the two friends had to figure out how the website would work. They would also need money and backers for the company. The first person to loan money to the two was Mrs. Herman, the mother of Tom Herman. She believed in the company and wanted to help them get started.
There were many other small backers that helped the two friends by loaning money to help them start the business but it just wasn’t enough. Kaleil had to go around and try to find money in different places. He worked hard trying to pitch his idea to rich people and companies and asked for money to help get his business underway. Eventually they had lots of different sources of money for the business, including different venture capitalists. The total amount of money raised for the business was somewhere in the tens of millions.
In all, the company only lasted a few years. Throughout the course of making this film, the two friends had lost their third partner, who had to be bought out of the company, went through many girlfriends, lost many employees as the company died down, and also had a few rough moments in their friendship. In the end the company died. Kaleil and Tom stay good friends to this day and have also started a few new companies since the death of www.govworks.com. This film showed the rise and fall of their dream. In failing with the company, the two men learned many useful things about making a company and also about themselves.

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