Tag Archives: cyberculture

ringtones and false dichotomies

Recently I’ve been involved in a fair number of conversations with musicians and band managers where the topic of downloads – complete songs versus ringtones – comes up. Much marvelling then ensues about why consumers are perfectly content to “steal” musical content in the form of entire songs but pay real money for ringtones.

Now, the issue they don’t understand isn’t monetizing their work. They get that selling ringtones is a nice way to make money. They just can’t get beyond the creator’s perspective that the work only has value to the listener in it’s entirety.

The working assumption is that a ringtone is merely a small piece of a larger work, not it’s own entity. The 3 minute pop song has more value because it is “complete,” a supposition that misses some of the psychological and anthropological implications of cellphone ownership and identity-building entirely. I’ve been digging around in The Literature a bit because I’m sure there’s loads of theories about why people choose certain ringtones. I haven’t come up with any great summaries yet, as it’s slow going and I have other things on my mind.

I don’t know why it’s hard to understand that ringtones aren’t really for the phone’s owner. One exception being when someone chooses ringtones that differentiate one caller from another for convenience of amusement, rather than to tell others something about themself as the owner of the phone. Family members calling my phone are signified by the Addams Family theme song, for instance. Jim Dornan, Katherine Harris’s former campaign manager apparently programmed his phone to play the theme from the Exorcist when she called.

Your ringtone sets your phone apart from others in the crowd. Or, paradoxically, in the case of people who load the latest hit, it can help you fit in with the crowd.

Ringtone selection broadcasts information about the individual who owns the phone and it’s information that individual chooses to try and shape the way they are perceived by their peers. Ringtones are not privately consumed like tunes on an ipod, they’re broadcast into the public sphere and they’re loaded with layers of cultural meaning due to the fact that they are also musical.

If you want to focus on the issues relating to cognition, there’s loads of scholarly blahblahblah on the psychology of ringtones over on google scholar. Personally, I’d suggest ambling over to the site of the RutgersCenter for Mobile Communication Studies – they have enough information to keep you busy for a long, long time.

bookmark bingo

Do you ever go through your bookmarks and wonder just what the hell you were thinking?*

For example, I opened a folder marked “goats.” In it, I found a bookmark for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which is held every year during the first weekend in May. I haven’t been there in years.

Next was the Maryland Small Ruminant Page, a handy bookmark if ever there was one. The last bookmark was for Purina’s GoatChow page (goatnutrition.com).

On a (goat) related note, this year as a special gift to all our friends and family, we donated a goat through heifer international (with profuse apologies to the vegetarians). Mostly because I couldn’t stop saying, “Give the gift of a goat!” but also because it seemed like a nice thing to do. And giving a pig seemed like it had potential to be, um, problematic, seeing as this was a Hanukkah/Christmas type gift.

*small digression: While Dr. Noodles was on sabbatical last year I had great fun creating mysterious files of bookmarks on his computer (my favorite was “porkrinds, microwaveable.”) Somehow, I suspect that the bookmarks I just found were actually my own doing, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still looking for someone to blame.

Gene Kan

I was saddened to learn that InfraSearch’s Gene Kan has passed away. His name might not mean anything to you but I’m posting some links anyway because I want to, and because his name should mean something to you if you follow music and technology.

updated
Gene Kan, Pioneer of Gnutella Site, Dies, from the Washington Post

a touching friend’s reflection on Gene from the old gonesilent.com site.

Gene Kan: How Gnutella Happened

And, from the Atlantic online site: Peer-to-Peer: An e-mail exchange with Gnutella developer Gene Kan.

It’s just such a loss. I have nothing profound to say.

CyberCulture

I’ve been talking with faculty in Anthropology and CompSci about developing a course in Digital Culture that I could possibly teach after I finish my Master’s Degree next year. I have to finish Comprehensive exams and complete two major projects between now and then, so I don’t want to get too excited yet….

If you were teaching (or taking) a class in cyberculture, what would you want to cover? Cyberpunk? the Digital Divide? Urban legends? Online fandoms? Gender? Privacy? What else?