Thursday, October 7, 2010

Endless Possibilities

“The whole PC V.S Mac’s wars are just nerds masturbating! If you are a true artist, you can make the tools you have work”. Rachel Crowl was nothing short of extraordinary with her talk on Wednesday about her life, how she got to this point, web 2.0, and just life advice to us young artists today. This specific quote hit me the hardest because for the longest time I have always felt like Mac’s were more superior to PC’s. I waited over half of my life to own my very own Macintosh machine; to hear that a PC can do the same things was a reality shock. Outside of that, I feel like Crowl had so much information to offer our class. She took us through the history of the Web and how we got to web 2.0. She said that the social media democratized self publishing. The entire aspect of self publishing did not take off until blogs came about. I find this to be rather fascinating considering most of our class requires us to blog about social issues and we can share our artistic ideas with the world. “The comment were the glue”, Crowl said. She is absolutely right! If you think about it, rather I write complete and utter bullshit for a blog, or something impressively brilliant, it means nothing to me if I get no reaction from my classmates for it.  Sure, I get graded on my blog, we all do; but the insight and comments make the blog that much more special. Strobist was one of the first blogs to show photography to the world. According to Crowl, Scripter was also one of the innovating websites that helped the Web excel further. When asked what would be the future in web 2.0 she said a quote from another innovator who said, “Nobody knows anything!” Her advice to us was to try something. Tools are getting cheaper, possibilities are endless, so why not be fearless? Impressive     

This is a trailer of the new film Social Network. I feel like this relates to Rachel Crowl's talk. What do you think?

4 comments:

  1. I was never into Mac vs. PC war, but I do know quite a few people around me who debate and argue about the two all the time. So it did strike me as well when Rachel Crowl said that they are just nerds masturbating and that Mac and PC are merely tools (and that their superiority really depends on the users).
    I think Social Network would be an interesting film to watch, especially after reading and discussing about Web 2.0 in class. To know the origin of and how much one has to go through to build what we take for granted today is something we ought to know if we want to truly understand how Web 2.0 works!!

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  2. I think "The Social Network" is really pertinent to what we've been discussing. It seems to address the beginnings of the landslide of technological integration we're caught in right now. Facebook, especially since it started giving the option of adding apps to your page, has been a key player in the Web 2.0 phenomenon.
    As far as the Mac vs. PC battle is concerned, I am firmly a Mac user. I was raised using Macs and they do what I need them to do the way I want it done. However, this choice comes from an individual with very little experience with PCs. I don't dislike PCs, I just prefer a Mac for my purposes.

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  3. Thinking of the comment feature of Blogs as the glue of it all, is so apt. The comments allow for open communication and flow of ideas among a diverse group of people. And I agree that having people comment on something you have worked on imbues the work with extra worth.

    As for the Social Network preview, I agree with Maki that the film would interesting to watch putting it in the context of what we've learned in class and, that as frequent users of the internet, we should have some concept of its development. Also, this film relates to what Rachel Crowl said about the ingenuity of Facebook: the social component is built in, not an add on. Web 2.0 is has its basis in communication and the fact that a movie was about about Facebook's inception just goes to show how interested people are in this type of social platform.

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  4. The Social Network seems like it will be the first of many more Hollywood biopics on digital inventors to come. These are the most powerful, in terms of getting inside our heads, people in the world and some of them are far from household names.

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