Technologies and the Future of Writing Spring 2008

To me, this is an example of the cultural lag most of us are experiencing. Executives, typical of the white male dominating elites, are not ready to embrace this new video storytelling technology. Blurring the lines between reality and fiction is groundbreaking storytelling. We participate in interactive video games via our computers, why not interactive storytelling. Again, this whole concept to me is absolutely brillant!

Collaborative video storytelling.....who would have thought!

I think that Beckett is on to something, but the TV world just isn't ready for it yet. I think that we may see shows similar to "Lonelygirl" soon, because people want to be involved and participate in what they watch. Why do you think that shows such as Dancing with the Stars and American Idol are so popular? It's because everyone gets to be their own judge in a way. Also, they develop "relationships" with the contestants. They want their favorite singer to win or their least favorite to get booted off. Successful shows such as these are highly interactive.

I think that this feature is what made so many people interested in it before, and led them to be currently interested. There were no boundaries with this show. It's creators were free to do whatever they wanted with the show. This is part of what made it different from an ordinary television show.

So, Internet as a writing space remediates early TV as a writing space, which was at the time remediating radio as a writing space. Only later did innovations for each particular space come to exist.

It must have been a tough choice for the creators to trade a deal for the freedom to screen their shows wherever they want, but it only makes sense. The designed the series for a writing space that was based on sharing, so signing exclusively with a website would defeat the point.

Interestingly enough, while this separate collaboration doesn't happen in TV or film, it does happen with longer book series. For example, Star Wars books are authorized by George Lucas but written by multiple people. Sometimes single series within that larger group are written by different authors.

Oddly enough, this idea contradicts the remediation theory. Instead of saying, "it's like film, only [insert difference here]," they're saying it's unike film.

There's a big difference here before the standard of television and today's internet. Interativity is a lot more involving, and a person can grow more emotionally attached as opposed to the "passivity of television." Emotional attachment equals addicted viewership, which equals popularity and success of the show. It's really an ingenious new medium for the entertainment industry to consider.

I do not thing it's a good idea to blur reality and fiction. As we saw in "A Rape in Cyberspace," problems arise when you mix VR and RL.

That's an interesting concept to consider when you think about it. By having separate vlogs, you're able to give separate points on view on different "issues" going on in the characters lives, and it makes the audience feel like they can relate even better. Some movies give you the first-person-point of view, so you know exactly what one person is thinking (like Bree), but you don't know the mind of the other characters (like Daniel). By giving them their own "spotlight," the viewers can form a greater attachment and interest in the stories presented.

Even after people realized that the story was fictional, they still retained their viewership, and that really testifies to the success they had. But even then, Beckett and Flinders didn't choose to "sell out" on the idea; they've kept it as they intended it, and I think that's a pretty important thing to observe. They didn't try to modify it to fit onto the big screen so that they could earn even more money from it.

I guess any publicity can be good publicity.

It didn't seem to matter whether she was real or not in the end. People wrote to her and contacted her regardless, and now she i watched more than ever. People become angered at being tricked, but fascinated all at once.

I don't think it has to be boring. If you are really creative you can make it interesting.

The concept that this is a whole new form of entertainment seems totally spot on. People treat YouTube differently than they do television. It kind of seems like an evolved reality show phenomenon.

It wil soon blow up. Everything starts out small-if they get enough views it will go big sooner than later.