a thaumaturgical compendium

I’m in the midst of designing my graduate media law class for next semester. Even though it isn’t directly part of the interactive communication major (it’s required of all graduate students in the School of Communications, I think), I’m taking a heavily “interactive” leaning to it. That means that instead of spending 80% of the time on freedom of the press and libel, which is the standard sort of thing, I’m going to be spending a lot more time on things like telecommunications regulation, privacy, intellectual property (with a good look at virtual environments and the rise of DiY fabrication), digital rights management, jurisdictional issues related to the internet and that sort of thing. Oh, and so we’ll be talking about mash-ups, like this one (via chutry):

Just what you need: another game of Pong. But there is something less fun than facinating about this Massively Multiplayer Pong. Each side is played by a team of several people who, though constant feedback, “vote” where the paddle should be.

One way to play is to place your vote where you think the paddle should be. But if, for example, one of your teammates is asleep, you have to compensate, voting, say, for a position lower than the ball will actually hit. Often there is a mis-match, with four people playing against one, and this provides a small experiment in control and politics. Who wins at pong, the dictator or the direct democracy?

Mr. Calacanis is at it again, attempting to monetize the world of user-created media. I don’t, like some, think that a recent influx of cash somehow means the automatic death of the read/write web. All new media go through a period of maturation that often includes colonization by profit-seeking organizations and individuals. But in this post Calacanis seems to me to be so completely tone-deaf, so myopic…

To summarize, Wales has vowed (it seems) to keep Wikipedia completely ad-free. Not necessary—not the only way to do a project—but I think its a good stance both ethically and practically. I know that I wouldn’t feel as good about contributing to a site that was generating $100 million in ad revenues. I frankly think that there is a good chance this would poison the well of good intentions and happy thoughts that seems to make Wikipedia work. Whether the non-commercial aspect of Wikipedia is part of that magical concoction of ingredients that makes it work is open to debate, but I think Calacanis’s claim that Wales is somehow irresponsible for not commercializing the site is crass and closedminded. While it seems a childish refrain, if he thinks he can do it better as a commercial site, he should start his own site, and monetize that.

Perhaps what is most striking is Calacanis’s third note:

Note3: In my mind it is unconscionable to not monetize the Wikipedia when a leaderboard would do NOTHING to take away from the project. Let’s do it people! Even if it’s not with AOL, give the inventory to John Battelle or Google to sell—every day that goes by we lose a million bucks that could change the world.

Advertising and other forms of content have always had an uneasy relationship. There is a reason people don’t expect, for example, Vogue to be an unbiased judge of just about anything. Naturally, major newspapers are also driven by advertising, but this has evolved over a long period of time and, frankly, still compromises the integrity of these organizations to a certain degree.

The point behind advertising is to persuade consumers to behave in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise behave. The expense is justified by the profit they can draw from these changes in behaviors. That’s why companies might be willing to buy (the idea that they would be “donating” is disingenuous) ad space on a site that has drawn attention as a credible source of information. The only currency Wikipedia has is its credibility, and frankly this is not as shored up as it might be. Accepting advertising might well produce a significant short-term profit, but it would be at the expense of the goose laying the eggs.

Sure, you can find ways to clearly differentiate between paid and unpaid content, but given that wikis remain a new idea to many visitors, and there are not yet the clear conventions that allow viewers to make judgments, it would be immensely unwise for Wikipedia to squander what credibility it has gained on a quick short-term sellout. Since I have no reason to ascribe alterior motives to Calacanis, I can only believe that he has bought into the myths that undergird the process of “monetization.” Doesn’t he know that successful drug dealers never sample the product?

This is very last minute. I announced this on the SL research list and to some folks individually. Trying to assemble some folks to present their ideas on Second Life. Generally, I’m hoping to hook with ICA’s theme this year, which is (in part) about the politics of creation—at least, that’s how I’m interpretting it! However, any work you are doing on Second Life would be of interest.

The International Communication Association meeting is in San Francisco this year, for May 24-28. The deadline for proposals for the conference is Nov 1, but I’m hoping to finalize a proposal this weekend. If you are interested, send me your 150-word abstract now. That’s right, go to your mail client and send me 150 words on your paper. Unless “now” is after Friday, October 27. Then, you are likely too late.

(Last minute? Who? Me?)

This was behind a pay-wall before now, but the Chronicle of Higher Ed has an article on the relationship between Wikipedia and academia. I was quoted in there, and it focusses a little on the Isuzu Experiment but I guess that’s not all bad. As always, I think that there is space there for missed nuance (the nature of a short article), and I feel like I should hedge some of the things there. For example, although I do mostly make changes anonymously, in part because I am a known wikispammer and I don’t want the name to influence people’s perception of the edit. However, in the case of the Com Theory article, I did do it as myself. It doesn’t show up in the history because the article was moved (from “Theories of Communication”). And I know that traditional institutional scholars do contribute to Wikipedia, and that contribution is often valued.

But, please do challenge the things I said there and elsewhere. I’ll be part of a an online discussion run by The Chronicle titled Wikipedia: Beat It, Join It, or Ignore It? this Thursday, October 26, at 3pm EST (19:00 GMT). Hope you can join in.

Don’t ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, Mr. Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more. (ah-ah, Mr. Heath)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

So, the IRS wants to know how to tax items in virtual worlds, including Second Life. A whole article on this over at the SciAm. But isn’t there already a metaphor there? It’s already been used in some of the articles. When you work in Second Life, you sometimes “send money home” to the real world. If you send it home, shouldn’t that be the part that is taxed? Isn’t that the obvious solution? After all, it’s not like you are going to replace your place in Malibu with a beautiful house in Second Life, and move into a U-Store-It in real life, is it?

The only place this starts to break down is when you start to look at what Second Life “stuff” replaces real life “stuff.” Not surprisingly, it is in the realm of virtual goods. I might go to Second Life to see a movie, for example, and that might replace my viewing in RL. Heck, maybe I keep my “cable” TV in Second Life and only watch it in my Second House. Does that mean that it is tax free? (Yes.) Or maybe I have virtual drinks with virtual friends at a virtual club—should I be taxed on the money that I will eventually pay for this? Or maybe I just go there to get the news.

I’ll admit, John Perry Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, which seemed more than a little quixotic at the time, seems to gain more traction when it comes to taxing Second Life. Couldn’t they just pick up a flag of convenience? Say, Switzerland?

(Thanks to any world for the heads up.)

For the last year, I have tried to work standing up. If it was good enough for Donald Rumsfeld, among others, I figured it would be good for me. I also realized that when I was trying to brainstorm, I tended to walk around, and that my best ideas came when standing in the shower. As if this weren’t reason enough, the kicker was the work of a doctor at the Mayo Clinic who had hooked a slow-moving treadmill to his desk. I figured I would build toward that, but wanted to make sure standing up was the way to go.

In the long term, there were lots of solutions. There were some very pretty stand-up desks available, though it seemed Ikea was the way to go. The Ikea Jerker (heh.) is an extremely popular modular computer desk that can be configured as a stander. Ikea also has a cool desk that can be adjusted from sitting to standing height electronically. But before I got too crazy, I decided to just adjust things on the desks I had at home and at work so that they could be used while standing; thus set-ups like the one pictured here. As one colleague noted, he felt like he should be giving me his airline tickets or something.

Little by little pieces emerged. I bought a cheap stool, and put in double layers of padding under the rug. Nonetheless, standing for more than eight hours a day is just too much. Yesterday I fell hard on one knee while out walking, and since that made standing especially difficult, I took it as the last straw. Luckily, I still hadn’t thrown out my old desk chair. I am back sitting on my butt, and never happier. I still wish I could stand up sometimes to work, and I may go back and get that Ikea desk if I win the lottery at some point. But for now, I’ll remain seated.