becoming invisible

1. If Shirky is right, and we’re headed to a period where social media tools like YouTube, Flickr, and social networks like Facebook become “invisible,” what’s the impact on things you spend money on as consumers? Books? Movies? Music?

I think already we are starting to see a trend towards not actually buying music, movies, or books because they are so easily accessible on the internet. Whenever I want to hear a song, I just type the name of it into youtube and a few seconds later it is playing for me and many times I can choose about twenty different versions of the same song if I wanted to hear a remix or the unedited version or even a remake of it. It is similar with books and movies, although I do not think that these markets are quite at the same point as music. There is a plethora of books online through google books that one can read for free and hulu.com offers a wide range of movies and t.v. shows that you can watch for free at your convenience.
While these forms of entertainment can, for the most part, be accessed at zero cost, I think that the way customers will be spending more of their money is by buying different "media players." Whether it is an ipad, a tablet, ipod, kindle, laptops, or even phones, I think that consumers now expect to have free media, and what they are willing to spend their money on are the devices that most effectively puts that media at their disposal.



2. Consider the concept of a “community of practice.” How can such a community offer opportunities for learning?

A community of practice offers so many different opportunities for learning that it is almost too difficult to even measure how much knowledge one can gain from it. With the ability of anyone to post something that is accessible to virtually the entire world, we (as the rest of the world) have the opportunity to see and understand different aspects of life through the eyes and words of someone else. Whether these people who post information online are experts in the field about which they are posting or not, does not take away the potential for us to learn something new. We can learn things like 100 different ways to make a basket, to the history of the American flag from the eyes of a 25 year old liberal female. The opportunities to experience life and learn from the perspectives of so many different people is almost too overwhelming, but allows us to form our own perspectives and ideas and contribute to the public conversations.