A Semester In Review

Already?

That's it?

Yes, the semester has come and gone in it's entirety. Here is a recap of all of the wonderful things we have learned since the midterm. Things from art and animation to the music industry, a personal favorite, and things as deep as augmented reality and the future of television and technology. The question is how is all of this media and technology impacting our world and changing our lives?

Shortly after the midterm we moved onto a section about art and animation. Included in this section was an article on a Wiki page. This assignment was to read about common sources of stress. In the middle of finals week as I write this, I cannot help but laugh at the irony of this article. Stress is something everyone deals with in one way or another. The article claimed that social issues, life experiences or even adverse experiences during a key development phase can all be factors of stress. You may be wondering how does stress factor into media and stress? Well, have you ever been checking your tweets and then all of sudden you see a shocking headline from the local news station? Yesterday I was just flipping through some tweets and the title "A 17-year-old-girl is recovering after she was shot in the back by people she met on Facebook." I couldn't help but blurt out, "What?!" Instinctively I clicked on the link to the article to see what happened and to re assure myself this was not a cruel joke the news organization was playing. Sometimes.. it's the little things, like worrying about other people that stress us out the most.

As the semester progressed we moved onto what possibly was my favorite part of ICOM 101, our discussions about the Music Industry. I wish we could have spent more time on this section but the articles we read were really interesting. The article "A Change of Tune" proves and shows that the music industry is struggling. By providing some facts to back up their words The Economist quoted that "The record industry is not growing." Granted, this article is from 2007 and quite a bit has changed in this industry such as improvements in digital recording and production cost have changed, the music industry is still struggling. Music is such an integral part of media and how we live our day to day lives. I'm not suggesting that the music industry will die, but time has certainly shown that we (as a people) have called for things to change. The switch to digital certainly has a huge impact on the music industry. At the same time that digital recoding programs started becoming popular, the .mp3 became popular. It was very difficult for them to get ahead of this demand. Just as the same rate that the studios were learning this skill it was being demanded in the market.

An additional article we read discussed the future of music and it's integration into social media. The article questions that "Even if Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hadn't been introduced to Spotify... it was probably inevitable that the two companies would hook up." I'm not sure it would have been Spotify by I definitely support the idea that social media would have connected with music. As stated earlier, music is such an integral part of life. At the F8 Conference in 2011, Zuckerburg said something along the lines of music is something we want to share with friends, it is a social experience. Whether we make it or not, every aspect of music is social. People singing to other people, or for them, usually about emotions and feelings or events shared with other people. Now that the two have joined forces, can you imagine it any other way?

After music, the class moved onto a section about mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is something fairly recent. With the introduction of smartphones more and more people have a platform where advertisements can pop-up. From this article, there are certain trends that advertisers have been watching. As you scroll down the list, some of these topics may seem very obvious. Because smartphones are on the rise so is the amount companies spend on mobile advertising. Also, social media has gone mobile. While staying on the mobility track, tablets are becoming increasingly more popular. While tings may seem awesome on your smart phone there is still some debate on what is best: Mobile apps vs. Mobile websites as well as accessibility vs. time.

In a separate article, there is great concern for talent pool of people going into advertising. The amount of skill is narrowing down the amount of people who are qualified to do the jobs. There are simply more skills necessary than many of the people have. It is tragic that you can have 15 years of experience and be out of a job because you have failed to learn one software.

As an ICOM class we took some time to dive into augment reality, or AR, and decipher what it is all about. AR is an application of an extra "sense" to your existing senses. Currently AR is available wide spread for smart phones but there is development that one day everyone will have glasses of some sort of projectory device.  The guest speaker had a very relevant point, that one day everyone will use AR. After the technology is developed, the cost will reduce and it will be a common household integration. It has been said that one day, your fridge will show you what you need or your car will project the map onto the window.

I think the original impact of media into our lives was when the TV became a household staple.  From the black and white boxes we have now advanced so much that we can fit the same technology into a three inch thick panel. Technology is incredible. But what might the future hold for TV? Some would like to think that one day, TV will have a similar set up to Pandora where the user will get specific content that only pertains to them rather than viewing a network show along with several thousand other viewers.

Along with personalized TV we will soon have something called interactive TV. There are already basic examples of this. Comcast is currently running an commercial about interactive TV and how you can become involved. The technology is here and is being developed but how does that change from regular commercials? Well, iTV is different because in a normal 30 second commercial the viewer would only see that content, with iTV, the viewer can learn more about the product as well as interact with other aspects of the commercial. There is additional content needed for an iTV ad.

I've still got a few things to say about TV. With recent advances in game systems and voice integration, it is now easier than ever to be able to have an interactive experience with your technology at home. Because of the Xbox Kinect, users can now control their TV's verbally. Simply say a command as simple as "Xbox, change the channel to (insert channel)." Also, with the introduction of Siri from Apple, the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV will also have voice recognition software. With all of these updates and upgrades, Xbox hopes to become a staple in many people's home, similar to Apple TV, as a platform to transform TV viewing. Xbox was the first gaming console to offer extras like Netflix.

If the technology didn't speak for itself in the different ways that it has changed the world then I'm not sure any amount of words will do it justice. From the development of TV to Augmented Reality back to the changes of the Music Industry, technology is always changing and advancing.