First Article: O’Reilly

After an initial discussion as to the problems regarding the definition of Peer to peer networking, O’Reilly doesn’t continue with the consequences and usefulness of peer to peer networking. What can be considered the most useful part of this network?

And let’s face it; most computer users will agree that the most important aspect of peer-to-peer networking is a couple of things;

First of all the ability to check your email inbox from any computer with an internet connection anywhere, and therefore communicate with anyone all the time. This matters since not everybody owns a computer that they have full access to all of the time (shared computers at home), or it’s not optimal in terms of software, hardware, or speed. As a teen, I knew kids who had a hotmail adress yet not even a computer at home. O’Reilly doesn’t call this online email service P2P, because your inbox is machine dependent. I happen to disagree.

Secondly messenger services such as ICQ or MSN Messenger. These are applications that allow for quick chat with only peers that you állow to chat with you. Very much unlike an online chat room, where anyone can come and speak to you. O’Reilly does call this P2P, even though signing in and use is much the same as with online email services. The information of the messenger service is also stored online. In fact, MSN Messenger is linked to an msn or hotmail email account.

Thirdly the downloading and uploading (sharing, I’ll say) of music and video files. This is the spark that ignited the idea of P2P and illustrates O’Reilly’s definition. The limitless possibilities of file-sharing allow for a use of the internet and PC’s that is truly user-friendly and defies the laws of industry, commerce, and copyright. It’s freedom.

Second Article: Rutherford

Rutherford’s article is not so different from O’Reilly’s article as they both deal with descriptions of peer-to-peer networking. The second article, however, focuses on the industrial and commercial side of this coin. What products, services, software and applications can be made to still make a profit from P2P?

Almost every internet and software company is trying to produce applications to get a piece of the action. P2P is interseting simply for the fact that it attracts a great deal of people and therefore users, and wherever there are many people, there is money to be made from advertising.

The most important thing to remember is that whatever is made needs to be innovative. It needs to be new, interesting, creative. There is no sense in duplicating previous programs simply because they were succesful. There áre enough downloading applications. Kazaa, Gnutella, Shareaze... just to name a few. Most companies would like to have users pay for their services or for songs – as a user myself I’m against this. Why sell something, a piece of music, which is inexhaustable and can be sold yet kept also? But for designing software that should be used legally instead of secretly it’s a neccessity. An idea would be to offer software and games in the same way as music; Napster style. This can be illegal (as there are corporations that produce these games and applications), but it can also be completely legal; by sharing software that users of the same network produce and decide to share by themselves. The sharing of games and software already occurs, but only on a small scale and not in a single large network.

P2P is also used by large corporations making use of the large amounts of idle time many PC’s have. Rutherford agrees that by this method billions of dollars can be saved – but can you also máke billions this way?

These are just a couple of ideas to broaden the horizon of peer-to-peer networking and to prove that its limits have not yet been reached.

Third Article: Boase & Wellman

Boase and Welman discuss at lenght the possibilities of a biological and computer virus, and its success in different types of networks. What computer virus would be most successful, in what way would it operate, and what network would it try to infect?

A computer virus is only as successful as the amount of PC’s it can infect and how fast it spreads. Regardless of what the virus does (some sabotage certain actions, disable virus scanners while others destroy the whole harddrive of a PC), the speed of the infection determines its effects. Boase and Wellman describe three types of networks; the densely knit group and the ramified network. Wedged in between those is glocalization – what Boase and Wellman describe to be a ‘rather densely knit clusters of relationships that also have many ramified ties to other people and groups’. Therefore a succesful virus targets these densely knit groups but jumps from group to group using a larger network. Eventually this will work best and spread more heterogeneously.

The most infectious viruses are the type that exploit a small leak in the Microsoft Windown system. Since so many users around the world use this on their PC, a virus using this would be easier than a virus that tags along with an email or a floppy. A floppydisk would take longer, and emails with attachments are hardly ever opened if the sender is unknown or if it’s untrustworthy. Of course, a patch that can be downloaded from the Micorsoft site can close such a hatch in the software system and stop the spread of the virus.

Therefore, the best viruses are those that allow a large time for infection, and remain dormant for even longer (the “stickiness factor”). For biological viruses we refer to this as the incubation period. Dormant viruses should be equipped with a timer so that all of its copies can ‘awaken’ so to speak, at the same time around the world. In this way there will be little time for the Microsoft software designers to produce a patch to combat this virus.

Benkler

From Consumers to Users

Yochai Benkler puts the focus, in his article, on the regulation process of the information environment, he makes that quite clear early on. But as his arguments progress, it is terribly noticable that Benkler is quite coloured in his perception.

He writes that American journalists have become “people who write on the back of advertisements” - commerciality, he writes about the Supreme Court and the First Amendment and the FCC. In other words, he’s arguing a rather narrow argument. How does Europe and Asia and Africa relate to his argument?

Benkler explains fully how the law and organisations have tried to control and mold the American network system, yet says nothing to actually hów. The networks in America weren’t set up by the government (Britain), haven’t grown from the historically varied groups within the population (The Netherlands), yet they have grown from the dominant radio networks in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as everywhere else.

European Countries have very different network systems, but there are more diffences within Europe than between the US and Europe. Laws and regulations apply to smaller stretches of land and smaller enterprises. If one corporation swallows up two others, monopoly can’t help but occur, as there are only a limited number of networks that can hold their head above water. See, Benkler doesn’t mirror his findings on international systems, nor does he discuss court cases held in Europe. If he’d make these reflections his argument would improve and be considered international. As if the European market isn’t so valuable to large corporations, or in Africa there is constant anarchy, or Asia isn’t as well-connected as it is.

Lessig

Lessig makes a very interesting point in his article; how before the Recording Industry Association of America had filed a suit against Napster it had a meager 200,000 users. After the software was discussed in the media, however, it’s users grew to an astonishing 57 million. Isn’t this something to be learned from?

The actions of the RIAA and their need to make their point clear to everyone who would listen (that they would not tolerate copyright violation) indirectly caused an explosion of the file sharing software. Now, of course the program developers should be considered first and foremost as the law-breakers, but what would the internet world look like (or rather, sound like), if this software had never been produced? We’d still be making CD’s off the radio, taping concerts to listen back later on.

I mean, somewhere along the line, somebody paid for this music. But as a recent study from Harvard shows, the music production companies and labels aren’t actually losing money due to downloaders. In fact, most of the music that circulates on the web for free, isn’t even sold by record companies (anymore)! So, some advice for handling the new Napster; Kazaa, Gnutella, Shareaza, etc. Don’t spend too much time, money or attention on this new software. That’s exactly what they crave, since it will help them sell advertisements-placement.

Dan Harries

In his article, Harries states that the computer screen has in so many ways become a television screen for many users. His research into the history and aspects of streaming film and television through the internet is an interesting read – and yet he remains condescending about the power and abilities of the World Wide Web. Why?

Harries realizes while discovering the troubles with streaming television and film that what the internet promises to involve and be is actually a farce. See, the internet combines many media. Film, for one. On the net you can find information about a film produced 5 decades ago, watche the trailers, buy movies or even watch certain films online. Problem is, the latter is poor in quality. Secondly, television. The internet can connect us to streaming television and news, but it won’t ever get the same amount of ratings, as Harries explains. Thirdly, games. Online games are very popular, but let’s face it; they’re not near as sophisticated as computer games played óff the net, or even in arcades or with the Xbox. Lastly, newspapers. Though many newspapers have websites that offer much of the same information behind your own desk, people still buy them. Why?

Küng-Shankleman ‘Inside the BBC & CNN: Managing media organizations’

Culture is an anthropological term, and hard to define in corporate and economic terms. Küng-Shankleman agrees with this, yet continues to refer to corporate culture and layers it into Artefacts, Espoused Values and Basic assumptions. Isn’t a business, corporation or store a product of that same culture?

Since culture is a powerful thing, a business cannot escape it’s environment. Even an international corporation has to bend to the rules of the places it operates in. Problem is, culture is a vague and abstract concept. Layering the idea of culture (like Küng-Shankleman has done) improves the clarity.

In terms of an international corporation, or even branch-offices within the same country, communities will always differ. Say, for example that we take 2 Subway restaurants. One in the birthplace of the restaurant; Connecticut, USA, and the other in one of the eight Subway restaurants in Madrid. The first layer, the Artifacts, is the top layer. This won’t differ much, only slightly in terms of space and housing. The second layer, the espoused values, will probably be the same right down to the letter. But the last layer, the Basic assumptions, will never be the same. See, this comes down to the attitudes of personell, and the Spanish culture. This last layer are paradigms, dogma’s, the central concepts to Spanish culture that a weekend job can’t change. Most Spanish stores won’t open to about 11:00 AM, and won’t close till late at night.

But what it comes down to is this; other cultures have different rhythms, different ways of proportioning their day. An international food chain such as Subway will have to change their rules & principles (Espoused Values) to accommodate their staff and consumer audience. A corporation can try, but it will not change culture as a whole.

De Mooij ‘Global Marketing and advertising’

     Layers of culture or dimensions of culture are both ways of redefining a vague concept. How does the idea of high-context and low-context culture relate to modern communication tools such as the internet, which crosses borders like no other means of communication has ever before?

     If anything, the internet should be a mixture of high- and low- context communication, just as it is a mix of cultures and countries. However, it’s not. Just like most modern media, western culture dominates the internet and English is the language used most (considering that more people on earth speak Mandarin Chinese than english) online. I don’t think this is a coïncidence. People meeting online don’t know eachother and try to to find a common way of communicating (English!). The idea behind high-context culture is that people generally follow the same rules or know eachother well (such as in a close-knit community). The internet is neither, and is as a consquence it is a low-context culture, following Western-American culture.

According to Nixon, “Specific cultural forms, practices and representations contribute to or disrupt various forms of social hegemony.”

     Of course culture can be a place to stumble, and many cultures find it tought to connect. Especially when it comes to vital matters such as politics, cultural differences can be the difference between being rude or polite, in a sense between war and peace. Or how about the formal code for a restaurant? Courtroom? Concert? Or the difference between adressing friends, the elderly or your little sister? Culture can be the cause of friction.