Track it. Build it. Use it.

Work with me here —

Hash tags. Notifications. Status updates.

They all have one thing in common: they bring those of common interests together. Their existance is primarily to sift through the clutter of 24/7 news to suit what best interests you. When you think of how useful these forms of collecting data is, it makes you wonder how people of similiar social groups even share their news. What of this new age? Has media evolved the way we quench our thirst for news or like-minded people?

Having been exposed to Lev Manovich, the Professor of Media Theory, the clogs of my mind become active almost to the brink of overdrive. How do we hope to resolve the ever changing nature of the global village, with new-news becoming old within seconds? How do we trace all the right information to quench our thirst for news?

The use of filters would be an ideal, as well as subscriptions to various news outlets. Most especially if they are targeted towards a certain point of interest or want to create a portal of engagement via one topic.

But how would people know how to filter these updates? New media as it stands is following the 3 out of the 4 key trends Lev Manovich outlined:

Automation

“Automatic creation and modification of new media objects”
How many updates to social media platforms do we get on aveage a month or two? It’s not because the creators are only adapting to the feedback from users of social media platforms, its because they want to create more tools to monitor and increase engagement across the world.

Variability

“Multiple versions of new media objects”
MySpace vs. Facebook, Twitter vs. Pheed, Instagram vs. Pick. There are tons of various versions of the same social media platform, hence the reason hashtags are one of the best ways to track or filter through news in the clutter. The more unique and trendy the hash tag is, the easier it is to avoid having to sift through all the boring and get to the good.

Transcoding

“Convertibility of new media object into another format”
It used to be only available via desktop/laptop, yet now social media can be used in every gadget possible. From the computer > tablet > smartphone and mind you even some MP4 players enable apps to be downloaded and used at the users convenience.

Because of the constant development and change of technology along with the communication between people globally, its hard to say for sure that we can easily track. The concept of a database as Manovich has described isn’t as simple as it once was, therefore integration of using media that has adapted to the World Wide Web would be more benficial.

Monitoring the levels of engagement via keywords commonly used, the rate of which content is shared and surveilling their location on a global scale are simple ways to which companies are able to determine how active the World Wide Web is. How frequent the activity is, whether certain topics or ideas trigger a wave of reactions and interactions, and how individuals respond as a result of all the buzz.

It’s a rather old school approach and no doubt it’s probably implemented already in the task force. But how much of it is used to better understand the digital culture the Internet has created? Are we tracking the digital activities we engage in for better understand or for more marketing/PR ploys to engulf consumers in the materialistic world? Gotta use the Internet for good!

Track it. Build It. Use it. But don’t abuse It.