Six Pixels of Separation

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one word: shame... technology is the future of pornography

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Its great that there are resources for kids to reach out to, such as Kids Help Phone. The fact that such information is being exchanged and put into the public domain is scary to say the least. I am the father of two young ones and I wonder how I am going to deal with the internet as they grow older. I think that responsibility lies in the parents. I remember as a teen my friends and I found a `dirty magazine' and we hid it in my garage. Well my parents found it and explained to me the issues surronding pornography. I feel that parents who are in the dark about the internet should learn more so that they converse with their teenagers. That said, I still have friends who are scared to join Facebook, maybe they are right to be scared but today its a necessary evil.

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This is a pretty strong debate. I think everyone can acknowledge that 'costs' go beyond cash paid/earned, but I think Mitch was focusing on the tangible as that is what most businesses care about. I ran across this thought provoking perspective from Adam Gurri on Chris Anderson's blog:"The internet has made it possible for the content industries to look more like the acting industry: people giving away content for free because they enjoy it, while making money with a paying job.�Source:
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2009/01/guest-post-acti.html

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Because kids come to us (Kids Help Phone) and trust us with their questions and concerns, Kids Help Phone has a
unique and insightful record of what kids are saying when it comes to bullying of all kinds.Here is another report Kids Help Phone did on Cyberbullying.
http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/media/21704/2007_cyber_bullying_report.pdf

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Everyone panic - teens are BEING TEENS.http://techdirt.com/articles/20080604/2209331313.shtml

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So lets say we don't need to waste energy trying to keep a grain of sand from hitting the beach. Being able to say theres a problem or I don't like this is a lot easier than giving a solution. Maybe part of the reason teens are doing this to rebel as a teen, be funny, explore something taboo. Society shouldn't parent kids parents should parent kids. Its hard to say generally whose to blame the parent or the kid. But there are just some things you can't control.

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I think kids will always find new ways to push the sexual boundaries, each generation pushed it one step further. If it wasn't online nudity, it would be something else.But for us pre-internet adults, the other reason we value privacy is because we are worried about who is out there that will abuse of this information and come and stalk us or our kids. 8-10 years ago, I was one of the first people i knew to have a "personal website" containing my resume and a bit about my life. Others around me were shocked that i would make this information public.8-10 years ago, not many people had a website, so my info was probably easier to be found by predators. Today, EVERYONE is one facebook, and if you think you have scandalous pictures of yourself, don't worry, someone probably has worse.Suddenly. you become anonymous in this sea of personal information.So, i wonder, are our traditional fears still rational? Online predators exist, we know that, but if EVERYONE is sharing their information, doesn't it make it harder for them to find YOUR kid?Has private information become less valuable and more of a commodity?

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I think we as adults are failing in this:- we're not even aware of the problem so we haven't even started to address it.
On one hand, I'm a particularly private person - don't share much - but on the other hand, I don't do anything that would upset me if it was public, and I don't feel that I could be threatened by anyone making public anything about me.
So, do I let my children define their own version of privacy and what's appropriate to share with others, etc, but try and keep them cognisant of the possible consequences of their actions? Unfortunately, no-one is that prescient, particularly not a hormonal teenager - what's appropriate for them at the time, may certainly not be later in life. :)

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One of the main problem behind such kind of act is that, now teens & young adult are more advanced in tech than there parents. So there parents are not aware of such kinds of act. At last these teens & young adult end up doing such kind of act. Regarding "privacy" they should be educated about up to what extent they should expose their personal life in public, since now growing tech spread things like wildfire.

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It is so refreshing to see this web post.
All of you in this industry have an incredible position to make a real difference in this issue.Kids Help Phone is in a unique situation to really understand what kids are saying about this issue, so check out this report:
http://org.kidshelpphone.ca/media/36409/safety_in_online_relationships_full_report.pdf
It is an analysis of responses from kids, off our website, and incorporates significant research done by leading experts in the study of online behaviours. It tells a compelling story about the ways our young people are interacting online and provides a snapshot of the ways children and youth in Canada are building relationships and socializing through this ever-evolving medium. The report’s main goal is to highlight the gaps between what kids know about online safety and their online practices. It is our hope that this report will help inform emerging policies, education and technology.All of you in this industry are in a fantastic position to help make a difference in the lives of Canadian children and youth. It is important that we as adults work together with technology providers, educators, social service providers and our children to ensure that young people are staying safe online.

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there's also something to be said about having parts in both ends of the viewer/viewee relationship. it's what i exemplify with gossip girl (really!) when i'm presenting about this whole thing: you may be the one taking the picture one day, and the other day you may be the one having our picture taken. it changes the way one views "privacy" becuase the fourth wall - and the fifth, sixth, and seventh - have all been broken. so what's privacy when the very mechanism that presents you back to yourself is the one you use to find out about other people?

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Re: Mitch's comment on whether people ignore ads or just ignore bad ads....First off, although it's popular to say that people don't like ads, research shows it's simply not true. In fact, in many publications - Vogue comes to mind - ads are a big part of the content. Want to see the latest fashions by D&G; - it's in the ads.Even "bad" ads are often read word for word. How many of you bought electronics during boxing day sales? How much time did you spend scanning newspaper ads (or retail web sites which are basically all ads) looking for the best deal on that monster TV? Oh I forgot, no one here watches TV anymore .....

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I think people who have grown up with the internet being a part of their lives have a completely different definition of privacy.When you combine teenagers with raging hormones, an exhibitionistic culture and tech that makes taking pictures of yourself a 2-second process, of COURSE you're going to have this kind of behavior happening. I don't necessarily even think there's anything inappropriate about it. Irreponsible, yes, but thats hardly the most irresponsible thing that teenagers throughout history have tried.Theres a whole other post to be had about America's puritanical sexual attitudes and being ashamed of our bodies, etc, but possibly not twistimage appropriate :)

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When discussing the future of content revenue models, it always seems to fall back on some version of advertising playing the role of the intrusive slurring bore we must suffer at the bar because he pays for our drinks. I, for one, think advertising should be given some time off to go dry out.There's a some other people that need to pony up a few rounds -- the hardware manufacturers and the data merchants. As more and more content goes digital, accessing it requires specialized, ever-evolving, expensive devices -- and the cycle is only getting faster. We buy new mobile devices, phones, TVs, game consoles, and iPods every few years. Then we license ever-more bandwidth to get us increasingly detailed content even faster. How much money do we spend as a society to just so we can access content? What is a 66" 1080p flat-screen and a THX-Certified sound system good for without someone on the other end making Battlestar to watch on it?I'm not saying it would be easy, but if all the content producers could get together and act as a group, couldn't they force Big Hardware into requiring that all devices possess a valid license to access the global content stream? Then, once a price for a second of eyeball-time has been established, advertising can come back defray the costs of interested individuals instead of great rooms of people at a time.Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

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cockrox -
You touch on the issue of art, and how artists are to maintain the wherewithal to continue creating. This is a salient issue for authors too, since literary fiction now seems to be in crisis in the mainstream. To big publishers, enlarging the canon of literature is not the priority it once was. In olden times there were actual 'patrons of the arts', who would provide financial support and introductions to artists and authors whose vision the patron believed deserved greater exposure. I don't write literary fiction, but I've certainly read and valued it. In today's chilly publishing climate, maybe it's time for patrons of the arts to rise from the ashes once again to back worthy self-published efforts. Either that, or authors of lit fic and other artists will have to come up with some as-yet-undiscovered means of supporting themselves. Many artists have only scorn for commerce, but their very survival---or at least, that of their art---may soon depend on it.

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I wonder what Picasso or Leonardo (da Vinci not Di Caprio) would have done in the time of Twitter and Facebook. If artists have been reduced to mere "content providers" whose real task is no longer the mastery of their craft but the mastery of social networking sites in order to create a broader awareness for their "brand" of a probably watered down version of their true art (had they more time to produce it ) in order to keep the content flowing and interest in their site/blog, etc; what then of the quality of the actual content? And all this for free? And if everyone can do this because it's so easy to create your own presence, should they? Is everyone really that talented? Or is there an aweful lot of noise out there in need of a filter?Sure you can find lots of good content for free out there. But will we ever see true masterpieces again and if so, how often? How long can and do some of these talents sustain themselves on little or no compensation? And why should it be the birthright of Generation Whatever to have free access to all content 24/7? Because we've set it up this way, that's why and that's all they know.Quality content requires quality time to create. And the people who take the time to create quality content should be compensated, as opposed to needing a day job to support their true passion and perhaps true talent. I like the subsciption model as a means of compensation for the content provider and a way for their followers to access the content and provide a sustainable future for that content provider.The key to changing the prevailing model might be to start a trend whereby someone on high (most popular bloggers, YouTube artist, etc campaigns for this or another fair model by charging for their content and then subscribing to other content sites and blogging about it to their followers; all in an effort to educate the world that free is not necessarily better and help raise the bar out there in cyberspace to a higher level. Ramen noodles are cheap, yes and most can afford them. But to taste a fine meal prepared by a chef, made with the freshest ingedients should be experienced if but once to know what is possible. Like the CARD says, "Membership has it's priveleges." Maybe we could all benefit by this membership and raise the bar by following this custom and supporting our online and offline community.

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Since we're all reading Mitch's question differently and arguing semantics, here's another angle to consider: Freedom.Social Media tools allow the FREEDOM to create content and publicly publish it like never before. And even as content creators bear the brunt of the cost of content (vs. consumers) in time/effort, it is increasingly more "free" to open up new channels (wordpress blog, for example).Ergo, we are free to create content. We are free to consume it. Content is FREE.

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Even if content is free it still takes time for us as consumers to watch/read it. The filters and the monitization of content is where I as a consumer feel the value is.Attention costs time and even free content will be ignored if it's not worth the attention time required to consume it.High quality content is always worth the attention, having access to trusted filter/montization authorities is where I feel the future of free is headed.

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Clearly the times they are a changin'. There is plenty of good content available for free. But the best content that garners large numbers of people who come back again and again will be able to attract advertisers. And that's a good thing. There are cases of blogs that have attracted large enough audiences and advertiser revenues that the blogger has been able to make the blog a full-time profession. And theoretically, at least, that enables the blogger to dedicate more time to developing better content, although there is a time cost involved in managing that business dimension. But in most cases we'll still need new revenue models. One reason is that fragmentation of audience will mean relatively small revenues for most individual content providers, certainly compared to the income old mass-media content providers could demand in "the good old days." (Just kidding.) So that might mean a subsidized model combined with some kind of payment from the audience. At the same time, I can imagine that a Google AdWords model applied to other advertising forms (like videos that the viewer clicks on if interested) might be very attractive to advertisers because of their superior effectiveness vs. the old interruption model. Superior both as a result of better targeting as well as viewer opt-in. I agree with one of the comments ahead of mine (perhaps yours Mitch): of course there's crummy advertising, but the key point is that even "average" advertising isn't an annoyance if it's relevant to the receiver and if it is served up as an invitation to view. That's something that the online space can do much more effectively than the old traditional media channels.

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Of course, content isn't free, and the price you pay for it is related to the value it has, either from the content creator perspective or the reader/viewer's perspective. You either pay for it directly, you're exposed to advertising, it is used to build brand value or someone is using your demographic data to build a profile that is eventually used or sold for marketing purposes. Or all of the above.
Publishers of content have a business to run and need to earn their living... Don't they?

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I think this is a great topic to discuss, now days we have twitter, facebook, youtube, myspace and so on... social networking channels.
This is a growing process without plan, like a bacterial growth. Like Chaos theory or Fractal math.The world is going that will give us as result a chaos consequence of a natural as human are to grow without a financial or potential business plan.The best good practice in my opinion is Google, they start free for search free to find but if you want to be the first on the list you must pay. millions of indexed pages are now at Google.So far and for good those social sites will be the new TV but the question will be how?Easy organized Ideas and filtering trash content, provide the most accurate and quality content will be drive to the success.

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I'm an indie author who's watched the homogenization of American literature at the hands of media megaconglomerates with growing horror. Those once-mighty media megas are now being hoisted on their own petards, but they've left a ravaged countryside in their wake where literature is concerned, focused as they've been on killing the midlist, finding the next blockbuster and getting celebrities into print. The good news is, the failure of Big Pub opens the door to entirely new paradigms in publishing---including perhaps, for the first time ever, successful publishing models which incorporate advertising as a revenue stream rather than a cost. Product placement and ads bound into books have been tried only experimentally in the past, and without much success. But if product placement can work in movies, why not in books? I'd like to be able to capture the realism of one of my characters drinking copious amounts of Diet Pepsi, say, or maybe being a rabid CSI fan, but to do so opens a can of licensing and permission worms. Why shouldn't companies welcome that sort of exposure, and see it as a new advertising opportunity? Instead of paying per click, perhaps companies could pay per book sold or something similar. All I'm saying is, when old methods have failed and new opportunities abound (i.e., POD, podcasting, ebooks), it's time to slaughter the sacred cows and indulge in some radical innovation.

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Interesting question. At present content is free - quality notwithstanding - and I cannot imagine the public's willingness to switch back to a premium or subscription format anytime soon. Resistance to change is strongest when the wallet is concerned.Major changes in the way we normally do things is always a disruptive process, and the media & advertising alliance has probably just started down this path. From an online perspective, I believe advertising will obviously survive (as I agree that it does work), however it will flourish in a very targeted environment, and this does not include behavioural. Just because I am watching some hockey highlights does not mean that I play hockey, therefore ads for the new top-end skates will be lost on me. Targeted ads within a quasi-closed social network however that can learn and adjust from my personal profile would have a higher probability of click-through success….and this comes back to content. There are so many people shouting from their soapbox, I cannot hear myself think. I would prefer a web2.0 community where participation is qualified to ensure integrity and quality of content.Advertising will meander but eventually settle in an environment where audience composition is clearly defined and the market quantification is transparent, as the advertisers’ ROI will be the determining factor.

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Content isn't free, but the costs for development could be paid for from leisure (ie. hobbyists). In short, for many, the consumption and production of content are both commodities, (subsidized by day-jobs of course).That said, if content production is leisure, that would imply it should be taxed heavily, which wouldn't gain a lot of support from this audience I presume. :)Thus, the real money happens for companies/products that open the door for people to engage in content production. What Twitter eventually does to make money is going to be very very important in the end.

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No, content is not free. The cost is either financial, physiological (time and effort spent), emotional or opportunity. Someone always pays. Over the long term, content creation must be rewarding (in some way) to both the creator or the consumer or else the content will eventually stop coming.

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