Possible Final Project Subject

Lawerence Lessig "Free Culture: The nature and Future of Creativity"
"If piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission-if "if value, then right" is true-then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of "big media" today-film, records, radio, and cable TV-was born of kind of piracy so defined. The consistent story is how last generation's pirates join this generation's country club-until now.
Film
The film industry of Hollywood was built by fleeing pirates. Creators and directors migrated from East Coast to California in the early twentieth century in part to escape controls that parents granted the inventor of filmmaking, Thomas Edison. These controls were exercised through a monopoly "trust," the Motion Pictures Parents Company, and were based on Thomas Edison's creative property-parents" (page 53).

Klaas Vs Flo Rida - Where's Your Right Round Head

DJ Hero 2 - Bad Romance (Tiesto Mix) (Expert 5 stars)

Discover Your Web With Stumble Upon

Discover Yourself With

Stumble Upon.          StumbleUpon is a free tool that discovers new websites based on your interest. It learns what you like, and each time you click the stumble button, you are taken to one new website from another. There are over 500 interest to choose from and tens of millions of websites. The difference with stumble upon is that it is tailored to your interest.  The website is personalized to its user to help link their interest, friends, and similar users. When generating a Stumble Upon account, you are asked your interest from the list of subjects. There is a broad range of topics to choose from, they are put into your "interests" and chosen at random when you stumble. The interest range from all types of hobbies, sports, spiritual, games, movies, fashion and even personal advice.  User can Stumble at random or they can select a one specific interest to search. The site uses different kind’s media such as photos, video, cookbooks, and puzzles. Overall, StumbleUpon is a great form of participatory culture, because the websites utilization of many forms of media in combination with its social networking community. Joining this network is an advantage for all because it entertains, inspires, and educates you on topics that are relevant to you. Sumble Upon search engine that connects with your with your community by your common likes and interest.

The website allows you to rate your websites, thumbs up or thumbs down. The more someone stumbles the better it gets, since it learns your interest and more personalized. They use your rating and ratings of others to determine what sites are best for you. The websites liked are then saved on your profile page giving you the ability to revisit them. StumbleUpon also allows you to share your interest through email, or other users.  Depending on what you select as a “like” the website also generates a list of suggested friends who find the same sites on their like list. This is a great way to find friends with similar interest if that is something you would like. Otherwise, it is cool to snoop around on other people’s site to find pages/sites you may also enjoy. Looking at what your friends have found interesting on Stumble is great for networking, since your friends generally have the same interest as you do. Linking and sending the site you have found is also an option. This is a great connection to make with friends, new or old.

Stumble upon creates an engaging culture for its users and becomes quite addictive. Depending on how much effort you put into the site, the site puts in double to keep you interested. Unlike other personalized search engines, Stumble Upon uses all forms of media. When you click stumble you never know if you are going to get a photo, video, quotes, or some other cool website. It introduces you to new websites in an entertaining yet educational way which is hard to do. Stumble Upon is not just another YouTube that gets you to watch videos that are usually pointless and repetitive. This website inspires people with new topics and websites with each click. Personally, it makes me want to look at more, and share the website with my friend. I share the website with my friends not because they are stupid or funny, but because they are relevant to their life. I also send useful links to my friends such as, recipes, articles, photos that can be inspiring and interesting.

Stumble Upon acts the same way YouTube does for cultural politics as authors Jean Burgess, and Joshua Green stated in the article YouTube’s “Cultural Politics." Both sites on the Internet "where marginal, sub cultural, and community-based modes of cultural production a design incorporated within the commercial logic's of major media corporations." Burgess and Green feel YouTube is being used to its advantages, for useful content videos. For the most part, its resources are being used in the best way possible during our generation. If you look past the silly and generic YouTube videos of cats, there is a whole world of YouTube including drama and content. The videos have meaning and can play a role in politics, education, learning, debates, music, movies and more. The ordinary activities of its users, in theory, could constitute practices of cultural citizenship. Its uses can be educational but are mostly used for mind-less entertainment. 

The article states that YouTube is also great because it takes the relationship between the individual and the community in cultural differences, creating a mediated social world like Stumble. It is individual and collective because of its shared likes and dislikes through the networks accounts. One of the biggest differences in YouTube and Stumble Upon is that YouTube content is posted by the viewers. Allowing people to put whatever they would like on the Internet serving as both an advantage and disadvantage. If you want to find someone playing the guitar to a Dave Matthews song, there are a hundred choices to choose from. With so much to choose from difficulties may lie when trying to find something specific, but on the plus side who doesn’t a like variety?  

In conclusion, Stumble Upon is a new upcoming search engine that allows you to be in control. From the beginning you select the type so of media you want present in the site and the websites in which you want it to appear. The different sharing ranging from email to facebook creates social networking in new ways. Friends can stumble online together and link the website they found by post it on each other’s wall. Each time someone finds something they think would interest them or others they can like it and save it for later. People should want to be on stumble as a way of advertising. This website has unlimited possibilities that can only be explored to its fullest if we all take the time to Stumble!