Age of the Remix (For Real This Time)

I and others scoffed at William Gibson when his July 2005 article posited that we're firmly within the Age of the Remix. In a way, he's right. These days, it's easier for your run-of-the-mill pro-am artist to release a book, movie or album thanks to the proliferation of computer technology. DJ Dangermouse's Grey Album showed that with a nice software set up, you don't even need original content to make...uh, original content.

But surely no one would think that "the record, not the remix, is the anomaly today." For the most part, people consume art and don't put more art back in the system. (Let DRM get entrenched and it will stay that way, but I digress.)

Since his article was published, however, a few interesting steps have been taken towards finally entering this much-lauded era of prosumerism, where there's not a clear differentiation between those who make art and those who "use" it.

Linked is Slashdot's new feature known as Backslash. Contrary to Slashback, where updates on previously posted stories are grouped in one big "update" post, Backslash takes a selection of insightful and varied comments from a previous post and summarizes the discussion in a brand spanking new post. Now, frontpage Slashdot stories are composed entirely of Slashdot comments.

While not as convincing as Backslash, YouTube has introduced an NBC-sponsored Make Your Own "The Office" Promo contest. Using a (notably limited) supply of promo materials from NBC, you make your own promo for The Office, and the winner will be aired nationally. Nice contest, not a great example, though.

I even touched on the Age of the Remix meme in my thesis defense, pointing out that video games are works created by both the producer and the consumer, since the user's input results in a different playthrough each time. This is especially apparent in games like Oblivion, The Sims and Second Life, where user-created content fuels the game experience (Second Life), and open-ended game mechanics help the user to either select their actions from a broad spectrum (Oblivion/Sims).

The fact of the matter in all of this is that, despite The Grey Album, despite Backslash, despite Second Life and despite cult remix favorites like Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Takeshi's Castle/MXC, there is too much of an IP cold war in American culture. The fear of rights-owners unleashing lawsuits on parody/remix artists (even when it's actually legal, like in the case of Weird Al Yankovic's Amish Paradise) creates a chilling effect on really cementing prosumerism into the American culture.

An Introduction to Site Syndication

Hi there, and welcome back to Knee of the Curve. It's been a long time since I've posted; hopefully I'll be able to keep my posting frequency up now that my thesis presentation is over with.

What I'm posting about today is the technology known as website syndication. Websites that are syndicated make their content available in a common format that doesn't make assumptions about what software is reading them. Thus, a syndicated website shares its content to be used by other sites, and by visitors without actually visiting the official webpage.

There are two popular ways to do this: via two different languages called RSS and Atom. Since the two are virtually identical to the end user, we'll just call them "feeds." For an end user, syndication works like this: you use a feed reader to "subscribe" to site feeds, and read their content as soon as they're updated.

So, first things first, you need to get a feed reader. For any operating system, Firefox and Thunderbird do the job nicely in their own ways. Thunderbird treats RSS feeds like emails, and Firefox treats them like bookmarks ("Live" bookmarks, to be precise). Mac users can try Safari out, but I prefer the exceptional NewsFire. Linux users, try Akregator (for KDE) or Liferea (for GNOME).

You've installed your feed reader, and subscribed to feeds, now what do you do? Well, just wait for the content to roll in. Soon, you'll be reading your frequently viewed websites' content without ever having to launch a browser window:



Post any questions in the comments, and happy feedreading!