Prosumer & Crowdsourcing

In 1980 the futurist Alvin Toffler came up with the term Prosumer in his book The Third Wave. The word Prosumer is a blend between consumer and producer. Toffler used the term to describe a type of consumer who get involved in the production process. Link.

The most famous websites are based on prosumer work are YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. Without the massive video uploaded from users (consumers) YouTube won’t be that popular. So in this situation the prosumer is the producer and the consumer of information. Also Apple don`t make iPhone applications, customers do that. Also with Google for example Google translating allows customers to involve in the service, not to mention Wikipedia. All of the above are type of Crowdsourcing websites.

In the above YouTube video Jeff Howe argues that “communities are able to form simply out of shared interest, a shared passion for a hoppy or craft”. To Howe the Internet made it possible to for a virtual crowd that allows people to come together and share interest. According to Howe Crowdsourcing is “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated employee and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call”. But the question is why would we do it? Why would a person upload a video on YouTube for free, so more users “customers” can play it, while YouTube stick ads all around and get paid for it from the advertisers! The most logical view to see it is as a win-win situation since we get entertained for free and for example in websites like Answers.com we get all kind of information for free. But also we should not forget the classic con of this which is basically with the example of Answers.com, is it reliable?

Finally, we were always some type of prosumers, think about when you read a novel, your imagination produce the visual side of the story!



Politics in Second Life

In 2007 Estonia held the first online voting for the national parliamentary election. It was a big turning point for Politics in second life. Alec Charles, principal lecturer in Media at the University of Bedfordshire wrote an article about Estonia: The Electronic State: Estonia`s New Media Revolution. Charles state that “technology becomes a tool for the reinforcement of existing power structure” because using e-voting system is seen as an advantage of the educational and capable groups. Charles also talks about when the official government stopped printing its publication and made it exist in an almost exclusive electronic form which a third of the population cnat access and how that increases the existing power structure! Link.

So, it appears like a flawless great idea since it`s making the voting process easier and the government services more practical, but not everybody can access the internet and even among the people who can access the internet many of them are not good in it.

Barak Obama used Second Life heavily to win the 2008 election. And since entering the white house his administrating used social networking and Internet tools, such as facebook , YouTube and twitter to interact with the public. Link. In the same campaign Obama announced his Vice president by sending a text message to his supporters.

The current events in Egypt also reflected in Second life not only with social network like facebook and twitter but also in 3D virtual community websites like Secondlife.com when Anti-Mubarak speeches were banned from Second Life Egypt by the owner of its sim whose clearly a Mubarak supporter. Link. In real life, the people in Egypt were banned from sharing national decisions for almost 30 years under Mubarak`s brutal regime,  and now it can happen in Second Life too! So, is second life really different after all? Or is it simply “he who owns the gold, makes the rules”.