Differences & Repetitions

Back in June I blogged about “Algorithmic Culture,” or the sorting, classifying, and hierarchizing of people, places, objects, and ideas using computational processes. (Think Google search, Amazon’s product recommendations, who gets featured in your Facebook news feed, etc.) Well, for the past several months I’ve been developing an essay on the theme, and it’s finally done. I’ll be debuting it at Vanderbilt University’s “American Cultures in the Digital Age” conference on Friday, March 18th, which I’m keynoting along with Kelly Joyce (College of William & Mary), Cara Finnegan (University of Illinois), and Eszter Hargittai (Northwestern University). Needless to say, I’m thrilled to be joining such distinguished company at what promises to be, well, an event.

The piece I posted originally on algorithmic culture generated a surprising — and exciting — amount of response. In fact, nine months later, it’s still receiving pingbacks, I’m pretty sure as a result of its having found its way onto one or more college syllabuses. So between that and the good results I’m seeing in the essay, I’m seriously considering developing the material on algorithmic culture into my next book. Originally after Late Age I’d planned on focusing on contemporary religious publishing, but increasingly I feel as if that will have to wait.

Drop by the conference if you’re in or around the Nashville area on Friday, March 18th. I’m kicking things off starting at 9:30 a.m. And for those of you who can’t make it there, here’s the title slide from the PowerPoint presentation, along with a little taste of the talk’s conclusion:

This latter definition—culture as authoritative principle—is, I believe, the definition that’s chiefly operative in and around algorithmic culture. Today, however, it isn’t culture per se that is a “principle of authority” but increasingly the algorithms to which are delegated the task of driving out entropy, or in Matthew Arnold’s language, “anarchy.” You might even say that culture is fast becoming—in domains ranging from retail to rental, search to social networking, and well beyond—the positive remainder of specific information processing tasks, especially as they relate to the informatics of crowds. And in this sense algorithms have significantly taken on what, at least since Arnold, has been one of culture’s chief responsibilities, namely, the task of “reassembling the social,” as Bruno Latour puts it—here, though, by discovering statistical correlations that would appear to unite an otherwise disparate and dispersed crowd of people.

I expect to post a complete draft of the piece on “Algorithmic Culture” to my project site once I’ve tightened it up a bit. Hopefully it will generate even more comments, questions, and provocations than the blog post that inspired the work initially.

In the meantime, I’d welcome any feedback you may have about the short excerpt appearing above, or on the talk if you’re going to be in Nashville this week.

On December 9th, the website Patently Apple, which monitor’s the computer maker’s patent applications, came across a filing for an intriguing new application sharing feature.  In a nutshell, it would allow iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Mac apps (coming in 2011) to be downloaded not only from Apple’s proprietary servers, but also directly from devices belonging to one’s peers.  Here’s a graphic from Patently Apple outlining how the proposed feature would work:

The idea behind the peer-to-peer sharing function goes something like this.  Someone you know shows you an app.  You decide you like it, so you establish a wireless connection to your friend’s device and presto! The app is yours, without ever having to log on to Apple.  At some point down the line, one or the other of the mobile devices would report the transaction back to Apple, which would in turn arrange for the appropriate billing.

It’s difficult to draw meaningful comparisons between the analog and digital realms, but let me take a crack at it anyway.  Imagine for a moment that a friend of yours is reading a book.  You give it a quick inspection and determine that it looks interesting to you.  Instead of trudging to the library or bookstore, or ordering it online, your friend just happens to have another copy she’d be happy to sell to you directly.  And so on and so on, for every friend of hers who is also interested in the book.  (Somehow, the proceeds from each sale find their way back to the distributor.)

If Apple follows through on this patent application — and there’s no guaranteeing that it will — then it could fundamentally alter how we understand and go about transacting for digital goods.  In addition to a fixed, centralized point of point-of-sale, there would now be millions of decentralized, mobile points-of-sale.  Buttressed by a sufficiently robust incentive system (say, a free 99¢ app after 10 paid shares, or something to that effect), you can only imagine how many apps would end up getting sold between friends.  We are all salespeople now.

In some ways, Apple’s proposed peer-to-peer app selling system isn’t anything new.  People have long discovered new products through interactions with friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances.  It’s not a coincidence that these types of communications are the basis upon which viral marketing is built.  What is different, however, is the way in which Apple could conceivably close the gap between word of mouth advertising and a completed, commercial transaction.  Ideally, the two moments would become virtually indistinguishable from one another.

The other odd bit here, which no one seems to be commenting on, is this: under the proposed system, people would be paying Apple hundreds, even thousands of dollars for its hardware, which would in turn allow them to buy into the company’s mobile app sales force.  That’s right — you get to pay for the privilege of working for Apple Computer! This is assuming that the meager incentives you receive for selling are, on balance, incommensurate with the high cost of the hardware.  If it wasn’t abundantly clear by now, Apple truly has a bullpen full of evil geniuses in its employ.

Get ready to go to work.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Late Age of Print, the final chapter of the book focuses on the extraordinary literary sensation that is Harry Potter. So, needless to say, Harry Potter has been on my mind quite a bit lately, especially with today’s release of the first installment of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I don’t have much to say about the latest film, honestly, not having yet seen it — although I intend to, as I’ve seen the previous six movies and have read/enjoyed all seven books. Instead, what I’ve been thinking about lately is the age of Harry Potter, or rather that of his fans.

I teach an undergraduate course at the 300 or Junior level called “The Cultures of Books and Reading”; during one week, we focus on the many-headed Harry Potter phenomenon. When I first launched the book class, back in 2006, I was excited to realize that my students were basically Harry’s contemporaries. Those among them who were eleven years old — Harry’s age — when the series launched in 1997 were twenty in 2006, which is the typical age of most college Juniors.

But now it’s four years later, and those twenty year-olds are turning twenty-four. Yes, that’s right, twenty-four — practically a quarter century. Graduate school age. Marrying age. Getting established in one’s career age. Even baby-having age. I’m feeling old just writing about them! Indeed, it’s not just that Harry Potter and the actors who portray him and his friends on screen have grown up. The whole fan culture surrounding Harry Potter has grown up, too, to the point where, as with Star Wars fans, we might even start thinking about a whole new generation of Potter enthusiasts.

This is what the release of the first installment of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows really means. It marks the beginning of the end of the film adaptations, yet it also marks the beginning of the beginning of the next generation of Potter fandom. What role, if any, will the books, films, toys, games, candy, costumes, etc. play in their lives? And what new meanings will the Harry Potter franchise take on once the torch gets passed, or rather shared?

Most of my friends seem to have developed World Cup fever, including those who, up until now, haven’t shown any particular interest in soccer/football. I suppose that’s how you end up with one in every two people on the planet watching at least some portion of the tournament.

But for those of you who, like me, are suffering from the opposite condition — World Cup hypothermia — I’m happy to share this most excellent clip from The Simpsons. Enjoy.

Goodbye,

good luck,

good riddance.

You’ve left our Constitution a pittance.

We the people, GWB?

More like an imperial Presidency

suborned by your muscle, Dick Cheney.

May yours not be an enduring legacy.

So goodbye,

good luck, and

good riddance

as you exit the stage,

having roused us at last from our complacence.

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(Okay, so I’m not much of a poet, but you get the drift.)

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Perhaps the only thing more daunting than squaring off in front of the United States Supreme Court is having to go head-to-head with Stephen Colbert on his television talk show. Lawrence Lessig handles things beautifully in discussing his latest book, Remix: Making Art & Culture Thrive in the Hybrid Economy (Penguin, 2008). Bravo, Professor Lessig.

Be sure to check out Lessig’s Blog for some creative remixes of the segment.

P.S. Happy 2009, y’all!

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There was a telling moment in last night’s Inside the Actors Studio interview with Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter in the film adaptation of the bestselling book series. About midway through the video sequence embedded above, host James Lipton asks Radcliffe how he felt about the various romantic pairings author J. K. Rowling had crafted for her characters. Lipton then admits that he once believed Harry and Hermione Granger would eventually end up together, whereupon the studio audience applauds. “Vox populi,” Lipton observes.

Radcliffe’s response? “The Harry Potter series is not a democracy.” Truer words haven’t been spoken.

• voting in record numbers.
• recognizing that your vote does make a difference.
• showing us that red can indeed become blue.
• understanding what “change” really means.
• knowing when enough’s enough.
• lifting the veil of tyranny.
• celebrating last night in the streets.
• bringing out your best selves when you were baited to bring out your worst.
• choosing someone unashamed to utter the word “peace” in public.
• showing that Presidents need not only be named John, Bill, James, or George.
• determining before bedtime who would be the next President of the United States.
• electing Barack Obama!

From the bottom of my heart, America, thank you. Now help this list grow by adding to it in the comments, posting it to social networking sites, and circulating it via email.

If you can believe it, today is the 10th anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. This is the sweeping piece of legislation that, among its many provisions, criminalized the hacking of digital rights management technologies. In the process, it also criminalized activities that were once perfectly legal and commonplace, such as making personal dupes of copyrighted materials you already owned. So thanks for rolling back our hard-fought fair use rights, technology and entertainment lobbies! It’s been a great decade.

P.S. If you’re searching for a more sympathetic account of the DMCA, you might want to check out this blog post.

Leave it to Oprah Winfrey. She’s already changed what people read. Now she’s out to change how they read by giving Amazon.com’s e-reading device, Kindle, her coveted endorsement.

Oprah’s official announcement came today on The Oprah Winfrey Show, although for several days now Amazon has been teasing the big news on its home page.

Amazon has been excruciatingly tight-lipped about who’s been buying Kindle and how many units it’s managed to sell. The consensus among technology commentators seems to be this: since its debut last November, Kindle has found its way mostly into the hands of older, gadget-savvy early adopters who don’t mind dropping $350 on a stand alone mobile e-reading device.

Given how few people I’ve actually seen with a Kindle, I’d venture to say this is a rather small cadre indeed. Significantly, all but one of the Kindle users I’ve observed over the last year has been male.

In other words, Winfrey’s endorsement could prove to be a real game changer. She has enormous reach among women between the ages of 18 and 54. That, combined with the Oprah Book Club, makes her an extraordinarily influential figure with exactly the population that purchases the most books in the United States.

The real challenge, it seems to me, will be for Winfrey to persuade her audience to part with a large chunk of cash during a major economic downturn. Amazon’s decision to offer a $50 “Oprah Winfrey” rebate–about 15% off of Kindle’s retail price–will be a major incentive in this regard. (By the way, the rebate also happens to be a smart way for Amazon to move its existing stock of Kindles to make way for generation 2.0.)

The other challenge will be for Winfrey to convince her audience that what makes a book a book are its words and images, and not its physical form. That could prove to be an even harder sell in the long run. As Jeff Gomez has observed in his book Print is Dead, it’s hard for many people to shake the image of books as things made of paper, ink, and glue, which they’re supposed “to hug…in bay windows on autumn days, basking in the warm glow of a fireplace with a cup of chamomile by their side.”

The genius of Kindle is to marry e-reading with on-the-go book distribution. Its downfall thus far (beyond the concerns I’ve raised about its interface and matters of privacy) has been Amazon’s apparent inability to connect the device with less gadget-inclined book readers. And in this regard, Oprah’s endorsement of Kindle can only help bring e-reading to within eyeshot of the mainstream.