How Networks Operate

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Tim Chapman

The week 4.2 readings by Albert-László Barabási focus on networks and how they operate. Not only are networks found on the Internet, they are also a part of nature and our everyday social lives.

When describing networks, we need to remember that all networks adhere to two laws as they evolve.

1. Networks are always growing, little by little, node by node. They don’t stay the same size.

2. Network nodes link with one another based upon preferential attachment. Nodes usually link to hubs that are already linked to many other nodes rather than linking to a less connected node. In other words, nodes prefer to link to popular ones, rather than linking to any old node.

The reading shares how the network of Hollywood actors works according to the laws above. The producer chooses actors that have had many roles in the past, because he knows that popular actors will draw bigger crowds than lesser-known actors.

Actors with more links have a higher chance of getting new roles. Albert-László Barabási

Thus, the richer get richer idea is at work here. Popular actors get chosen, whilst making it harder and harder for new actors to enter the scene.

It also works in a similar way in the network of employers. When we go to an employer to find a job, we hand in our resume. Will he choose to hire us? It depends whether you have enough links on your resume and life experience to warrant a job. The employer is usually looking to hire the person who has the most links to the relevant skills, good character, or work ethic required in the vacant position.

In the same way as the Hollywood example, a well-rounded worker with impressive links to the right areas should never have trouble finding work. This is because of preferential attachment, the fact that employers are looking for the best option or choice available.

Networks are all around us

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Tim Chapman

In lieu of the Australia Day Monday classes, we watched a video at home about the power of the Six Degrees of Separation. It was pretty amazing to see how the discovery of network science is opening the way for further understanding of so many different problems and areas of life.

Everything appears to be connected in ways that were absolutely unpredictable just ten years ago, or even five years ago. Professor Marc Vidal

It’s going to completely change the way we think about the world. Duncan Watts

The World Wide Web would be an obvious way that we are connected these days, yet the Six Degrees networking idea is relevant to many examples in life. The video shares how a network is often made up of hubs and nodes of various types and sizes. When I think of hubs around the world, this could be cities, schools, the local supermarket, or even a waterhole that people flock to on a hot day. These are examples of places that are a hub for people, and therefore an area where networking is at play.

Last night I was at the Melbourne Airport, and I feel a place like that gives great insight into the world as a small network. As I wandered through the International Terminal, I saw many flights on the departure board heading out to all areas of the globe. So many people were all gathered together at the airport from different countries, cultures, and social networks.

And it makes me wonder, if we gathered everyone inside the airport at one time and represented the portion of the world population that they are each connected to, imagine the number of people right across the world that would have connections with the small collection of travellers gathered here in Melbourne!

It is for this reason that the video mentions the danger of viruses breaking out in airports. If a virus is spreading at an airport, then travellers will be taking that virus over to their destinations, allowing the virus to spread across the world much quicker than if it was contained in one particular area.

Networking is an intriguing subject, and one that I’m sure will continue developing over the coming years. I will be more aware of networks around me from now on, and I’m sure I’ll be surprised at the amount of times that I notice networking at work.

For a in-depth look into the Six Degrees idea, read Esther’s post.

Week 3.2 Symposium on Hypertext Narrative

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Tim Chapman

The Wednesday workshop of week 3.2 felt a little bit of a hump day of sorts for me. After this class, we would have a full week off due to the Australia Day holiday on the Monday, and we would also be exactly half-way through the Summer Semester!

But let’s not get too carried away.

In this symposium we were tackling the topic of hypertext narratives. It was mentioned that hypertext is quite a unique technology, and therefore cannot be compared to print media. The hypertext narrative must be treated as its own entity.

A question was then raised about why we need or would want a text with no clear meaning? And I must say that I struggle with this notion as well. If we direct the meaning of a text, then what’s the point of us reading it? If I’m the one designing or determining the storyline, then it kinda loses the significance in my eyes. I may as well be the author of the book, writing it for another’s enjoyment. When I’m reading a book, I’d probably rather that someone else has placed the contents together in a way that they feel would be best for me.

I dunno, maybe we’re just so used to books, magazines, newspapers and print media in general. Or is it just human nature to want something definite, rather than having a choice of how a narrative might end? Maybe we’ve been trained to just be passive readers, and therefore we have trouble adapting into the active reader mindset?

I guess it comes back to viewing print media and hypertext in a different light to each other. Hypertext is fluid, whilst print text is stationary. They do differ, so there must be a place for both these days. We just need to learn to enjoy and value the unique qualities of both.

You should also read Jake’s enlightening post, Reconfiguring Narrative.

The Long Tail of Online Sales

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Tim Chapman

What if the top hits of the entertainment scene were not the biggest revenue raisers? In the Long Tail reading for this week, Chris Anderson suggests that this may well be the case for many online sellers.

Websites such as Amazon, eBay, and iTunes have discovered that there is strong demand for not only the hits, but also for the many lesser-known items, alternative music, and second-hand products. The hits might only make up a small portion of total choices out there, but the rest of the market goes on for a long, long way – thus Anderson speaks of it as ‘The Long Tail’.

A great example of the Long Tail sales making up a large portion of online purchases is on the huge online site, Amazon.com. As Anderson points out:

More than half of Amazon’s book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles.

Anderson shares a 3 point guide to how online entities are seeking to gain the most out of the Long Tail:

1. Make Everything Available

2. Cut the price in half. Now lower it.

3. Help me find it

A music streaming site that has really put these three rules into action very well would be Spotify.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abulhussain/4349671648/

To begin with, Spotify has made many tracks available to the music fan. In fact, there are countless artists and genres to choose from! And best of all, it’s free! They have followed the rule of keeping the Long Tail as cheap as possible, gaining their revenue from the advertising that airs between songs. And lastly, they do their best to ensure that listeners can find the lesser-known music by suggesting various artists that they may also enjoy.

Spotify boasts a Discover page which shows various artists that you have listened to lately, and for each artist it suggests lesser-known artists that you might like based on their similar sound or genre. This is a great way of plugging the Long Tail, and giving some of the not-so-famous music some airtime and followers.

Hypertext to change how we read

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Tim Chapman

A book that never ends.

It is an interesting concept, and one that is described in the Douglas reading.

What if you had a book that changed everytime you read it? Michael Joyce

What the? I had never heard of such a book until I encountered the topic of interactive narratives. An interactive narrative is a story in which the reader determines the path that the narrative may take. The author provides many alternative routes that the reader can explore through in order to discover a new storyline every time they read it. Indeed, there may be so many combinations of possible narratives that even the author may not have even thought of every path that the story may take.

Hypertext is a perfect technology to use to create interactive narratives. Books have lasted throughout the centuries, but now people are intrigued by this new way of storytelling. Douglas shares of the potential of hypertext, suggesting that much discovery and further exploration of the technology is still to come.

If the book is a highly refined example of a primitive technology, hypertext is a primitive example of a highly refined technology, a technology still at the icebox stage.

Douglas mentions how interactive storytelling meets a desire that many readers have – a desire for the inexhaustable story. A book no longer has to stay the same every time you open it up. It’s like the reader is given a role in authorship. I feel a great example of this is in video games.

In many video games, the participant controls characters as they journey through their own world. Someone had to create this world and all the various scenarios that the character could enter into, yet once it has been designed and completed, that’s when the game player comes in and chooses how the story will be told.

Take Grand Theft Auto for example.

A complex city has been designed and put in place, along with many challenges, opportunities, and nice cars to drive around. The ‘reader’ is then free to explore the city and create the narrative based on what he wants to do. People can play the game many times and encounter different scenarios every time. That’s why people are drawn to the games, because the experience isn’t the same every time.

And I think it is similar with hypertext narratives. People enjoy being able to come back to a book later on and explore a totally different storyline, a whole new experience, and a brand new ending.

While you’re reading, check out James’ post Before HD there was Kodachrome.

Want to know more on interactive narratives? Here’s a short clip sharing how they have been used to gain a profile in the business scene:

Just one cog in the chain…

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Tim Chapman

Week 3.1 Symposium

You may think of writing as an individual task that we do on our own. If this is the case, think again!

Monday’s symposium made me think again. We discussed how through the rise of hypertext, we now need to write with the awareness that we are writing as part of a larger discourse. It’s not just the content that I’m creating, because my content is just one chunk of many other texts on the internet that can all be related, linked, and read together.

The little network we have amongst our class is a great example of this. We are all writing our own posts and creating our own work, yet we are constantly linking to each other’s posts. We read one post then follow the link to another post and read what they have to say. In this way, we are encountering a larger discourse, not just each individual article that we read.

And through hypertext and hypermedia, we as readers can become active readers not just passive. We can direct our own reading, choose which link we will click on, and have an endless reading experience if we so desire.

Another topic that came up in the symposium was that creative discourse is a collaborative task. Our input joins up with other online contributions to form the discourse.

And I feel that a great example of this in our course would be our wiki pages. We are working in groups of three or four people to create a creative, informative wiki page about the topic we have been given. We each contribute our own work onto the wiki, and as we do this the finished product is achieved.

It is an interesting process to work with others to achieve the desired outcome, but it is an activity that we are involved in every time we post onto our blogs. We are part of a much larger discourse than we may imagine, and our input adds to the rich, diverse, range of opinions and perspectives that floats around the World Wide Web.

Wednesday Symposium week 2.2

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Tim Chapman

The temperature hit 41 degrees on Wednesday for our Networked Media workshop, but inside RMIT it was a very comfortable 20 degrees. In fact, I almost had to grab a jumper it was that cool! The attendance was a little light on due to the weather, but for me uni was the best place to be on a day like that.

The symposium was a useful time of discussion as we looked into the readings and other topics that came up. We spoke about how the readings were relating to how to store knowledge and information in a useful and practical way. And then delving into how accurate that information is anyway.

We also looked at hypertext, and understanding how it can be used to include information that links to other information. Nelson wasn’t fully sold on the idea of hypertext because at that time it was fully textual. However, nowadays hypertext has been broadened to include ‘hypermedia’, for audio/visual media can also be linked in this way.

The symposium then took a bit of a random tangent off in the direction of web search engines. Elliot brought up an interesting point, saying that large Internet providers are currently debating how much search engine results should be tailored based upon the individual’s past web history, browsing interests etc. They are worried that having the results focused too heavily to match the individual’s characteristics, they may in fact be limiting the individual from accessing areas of the Internet. It’s complex, I know!

Finally, we were introduced to two types of determinisms – technical and social. These terms are used to describe society’s relationship with technology, or how technology relates to us.

Technical determinism is the idea that the advent of new technologies determines the way that society and cultures operate. And then the social determining of technology is the idea that if society wants a particular technology, they’ll probably find a way to achieve it.

Personally, I feel that both ideas can be true at times. Technology has definitely changed the way that we operate, and I believe that if society wants and needs a certain type of technology, they’ll work to either achieve it or find something that would do a similar job.

Over and out.

Writing has its place – week 3.1 readings

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Tim Chapman

Is writing a waste of time?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinni/4048982287/

This is a thought I’ve encountered whilst working through my first year of Professional Communication studies. Jay Bolton understands my concern, and through his reading for this week I now more fully appreciate writing as a craft on its own.

Bolton explains that writing is a technology that is not as obviously productive at first as farming or carpentry, yet as time passes we can see that writing is the great preserver of culture, history, and other technologies. Indeed, writing is just as much a craft as other trades are, it is just using a completely different skill set.

Bolton continues by noting an important difference between writing and other crafts such as construction or architecture. In most fields, craftsmen can put down their tools and head home after their work is done. However for writers, detaching themselves from their work is not so easy. For some reason, writing seems to constantly play around in your mental thoughts. You might turn off your computer and finish writing that essay, but then throughout the day it’s like you are still writing in your head.

“Walter Ong and Jacques Derrida have insisted that writing exercises this constant influence upon our mental life.” Bolton reading

It is for this reason that I don’t think I could ever be a journalist. I don’t think I would be able to switch off from ‘work mode’ because I would forever be thinking about, and listening out for potential new stories. Obviously some people would thrive on it, but I’m feeling exhausted just thinking about it!

I feel that one reason why blogging has grown so popular recently may be because it is a great way of getting thoughts down on paper as soon as you think of it. You don’t have to work to a deadline like journalism. Instead, when bloggers get an idea, they can simply go straight to their computer and write it down.

Also, people often feel more comfortable sharing their private lives on a blog than through face to face means. Janet Murray shares about this in the Landow reading:

“Some people put things on their home page . . . that they have not told their closest friends. The enchantment of the computer creates for us a public space that also feels very private and intimate.”

George Landow goes on to describe how bloggers can use hypertext to then link individual blog posts to each other. By doing this, the writers are…

“allowing readers to put events in context and get the whole story without the diarist to have to explain again.”

And then also through hypertext, the blog reader becomes a more active reader, one that can add text or link to another site at any time. They are empowered to become a creative, more interactive reader.

Thanks for reading. You should check out Esther’s informative post about navigating hypertext.

Gadgets to drive us into the future

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Tim Chapman

I was reading the Herald Sun this week when I came across an interesting article about futuristic inventions that could change the way we use our cars. These were just some of the thousands of products on show at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas last week.

What are we talking here…how about when we are stuck in a traffic jam (think Hoddle Street at 5pm), we have a car that can switch into autopilot whilst you sit back and relax? Or, a car that could park itself, by itself, while you are already in the supermarket buying your groceries?

Not bad, huh? I must say I do enjoy hearing about new and exciting devices with radical abilities, and these new products were no exception! Take the Traffic Jam autopilot for example. All you need to do is make sure the car is pointing the right direction, and it then it will choose the optimal speed and start and stop without you lifting a finger. And in the last year, this technology has shrunk from taking up all the boot space, to fitting inside the glove box!

The self-parking technology is equally impressive . Not only does it park the car park itself, but when you are finished shopping, you open an app and tell the car to come and get you!

This is just one example of how our smartphones will become more and more connected with our cars as time rolls on. In fact the article points to research that has found that by the year 2020, many of our cars, appliances, and houses will all be connected to our phones.

Just imagine the possibilities this could afford us! It’s a little scary, actually.

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You can read the Herald Sun article here.

Thank God You’re Here

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Tim Chapman

“Your world awaits… good luck!”

You remember that line, right? It’s the quote that the host would say on popular television show Thank God You’re Here just before the well-known celebrity would walk through the door into an unknown situation. You know the drill, the actor would then have to interact with others on that set, but everyone else knows the script except them!

I must say, it’s one of my favourite shows because I feel it really showed the skill of the comedians that went on the show. Some of the lines that they come up with just on the spot is amazing! It’s no wonder that they can make a career out of the funnies when you see them at work under that kind of pressure!

Some of my favourite performances on the show would have to be Hamish Blake, Merrick Watts, Tony Martin, Matthew Newton, and Ahn Do. Speaking of Ahn Do, there’s quite a funny one of him acting at the launch of a brand new futuristic car, so it kinda fits with the course too 😉

Ahn Do… the man who laughs at his own jokes before he says them! Here it is, enjoy.

Tim Chapman

Media of the Networked Variety

Monthly Archives: January 2014