Using the Net to improve your English : Watch online TV shows

There’s many way to improve your English online in so far as most of the Web is in English (around on 70%). As soon as you’re browsing you’ll arrive on websites in English even though you didn’t intend to. That’s the way it is, it tend to change (there were hardly any French speaking people on the Net back in the early 1990s) to there so much content in English that it would be too bad to miss them.

‘What can i do if I suck at English?’ you’ll ask me. Maybe the best idea is not to go back to you old grammar and vocabulary books – probably full of dust since you opened them in Junior High School. You probably know the basics and you mainly need to practice, so as to pick up idiomatic sentences and to get used to the way English speaking people really communicate. In this case Internet could really help you.

To learn English you can simply look up on Anglo-Saxon the same topics you’re used to look up in your native language. It’s so much easier to go further a matter of language if you already know something about the subject you’re reading about.

With the development of high speed internet access there is more and more video content on the Net. You could use them to improve your English in so far as more of these contents comes from the US. YouTube videos can be nice to watch, sometimes they are hilarious but I think that most of them won’t teach you anything about how to speak English. If you like TV shows you’d better watch some that really easy to find online nowadays.

I’m kind of a TV series addict, I watch plenty of them – such as Lost, 24, the Sopranos or Six Feet Under - and most of the time in original version, not only for to improve my English but simply to watch them as soon as possible. A couple of years ago you could only download them on p2p network if you didn’t want (couldn’t wait?..) to get the DVDs. Nowadays TV channels put them directly on their website directly after they has showed on amercian channels. Currently you can follow the third season of Desperate Housewives on the website of ABC . There are no more excuses not to know English well enough so as to deal with everyday life situations. Actually, you can only watch Desperate Housewives on the website of ABC from the US. That's too bad..French people have to find an other solution to watch the 3rd season

YouTube as an example of Net economy strategies

YouTube is a video sharing website that relies on a huge social network. Indeed the video contents on the site come directly from its users who want to share their videos and upload them on the YouTube server. Besides its interesting strategic positioning in terms of using mass participation so as to increase the contents, YouTube is a key indicator to understand what’s going on over the Internet nowadays.

The company was founded in February 2005 by three employees from Paypal and was sold for 1.65 billion to Google in October 2006, that means that in less that two years a company without tangible assets can be seen as important enough so as to be bought by number one Internet company. The price Google bought YouTube worth so much more than what the company actually is : 67 employees, numerous computers and servers. Nowadays the value of an enterprise doesn’t only refer to its tangible assets but also to its strategic positioning. Success stories within the Net economy such as Google, Ebay and YouTube can be explained by the same phenomenon: these companies were the first one to offer something new and useful on the Net. Once they are the first ones in their field there’s no way to overcome them, except if you have a new revolutionary idea.

Insofar as YouTube became the leading site for providing online video content, Google understood the importance to own such a company because it probably stay the first one in that field except if a new company offers new functionalities. Moreover Youtube users represent a huge amount of people to whom Google could provide profitable services.

The Following Video was the most viewed one ever on Youtube with .... more than 39 million watchers...Ok this is kind of funny but probably not THAT hilarious.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

Don't give up, don't give out

Internet is a great tool to find information and any kind of content (text, music, or video). People who are familiar with the Internet tend to think that’s easy to get what you want or to get what seems to you interesting while you browse the Web. Yet that’s no that easy for everybody to do what you want online. Have you already try to explain how to look up for information on the internet to someone who has no idea how it works? Believe me, you’d rather not.




There are two main reasons why that can be difficult for people to use the Net and why you have to be perseverant in order to master it. On the one hand they have to deal with computer. People like you and me – I suppose you’re kind of familiar with computers if you read these lines – tend to forget what a shift it is to access information through a computer, compared to traditional way to do so such as books or radio shows.

Moreover so as to browse efficiently, you don’t only need to know how to use a computer but you also need to figure out where to find what you want. Most Internet users have their favorite sites they use as a good starting point to enter the network and to look up for information. Sometimes you’re looking for something you really don’t know about, therefore you have to use search engines not only Google but also Kartoo or grokker that display interactive maps of the network.

Commonly use search engines require perseverance from the users because they display so much results that you have to learn how to select the relevant ones. If your request is a bit too broad or if your key words tend to be homonymic with something absolutely not different, don’t give up and put some efforts and stick to your search, there’s 99% of chance you’ll get what you are looking for.

Insight is a necessary quality for information seeking on the web

Internet is an incredible library of knowledge. Nevertheless insight from the part of the cybernauts is absolutely necessary for a major reason which is completely related with the nature of the media. Indeed most of the information you can get appeared on a computer screen which can be tiring. We are not used to look up deeply for information that way. As far as I am concerned, I noticed that most of the time the web page is a bit long, or there is a lot of text – likewise a book – I am sometimes not focused enough on what I found. That’s why I think that insight is a necessary quality to use internet properly.

Internet is getting faster and faster…but you still need to learn patience.

Can you remember the time when Internet was working on 28.8kpbs. It is not such a long time ago event though we almost forget about it. At that time, you needed almost one minute you download a web pages with a couple of pictures. Even worst was the time you need to download a movie trailer : for one minute of low quality video, you needed to download for more than an hour sometimes.

Nowadays high speed internet connection are spreading in western countries such as France, but that doesn’t mean that patience is no longer an important quality on the web. Indeed there are so much content online that you have to take the time to find the sites that really fit with what you wanted to know. Even though search engine such as Google are so much more accurate than the first ones, it always take time to find the right content that will really teach you something.

Discipline within P2P networks

With P2P networks you have to be generous because the wealth of the network depends on what users share with one another. But there is a second human quality which is necessary : discipline. Indeed on a P2P network there are implicit and rules so as to make the network works properly. You have to abide by these rules For example, on Soulseek – my favorite p2p software for music – people have to be correct with other users for everybody to get the files they want, and some users can dictate their rules (e.g. each peep as to give away a certain amount of data and can’t download more than a certain amount of files at the same time for the same user. Discipline is important insofar as it allows you to gain reputation on the network so tah people are nicer to you and allow you to download more from them.

Web 2.0 : Economy of generosity

With the development of internet – and especially web2.0, a new model of organizations appeared on the web. In some cases, it can even be considerate
as a new business model based on human qualities such as generosity. This new business model can be seen as a major evolution in the way people relate to one another in the field of business.

The common use of the internet which has been spread alongside with Web2.0 technologies is currently renewing the capitalistic business model. Henceforth generosity is in itself a business model, which completely contrasts with the economy of rarity in place for ages. The most famous examples of such a model can be found in both Wikipedia. The idea behind Wikipedia is a pure example of generosity from both the people who provide the contents and the organisazion. One can argue that this is not a real business model because it does not create any money, but it is surely an E-culture organization.

If you want to know more about this new economic model, check this blog on Doc Searl's view of "Business of morality".

Do you really think kthat Social Networks are useful?

With the appearance of Web2.0, we hear more and more about “social networking”. What it is exactly and what is its potential?

The most famous exemples of social networks are MySpace, Friendster or Classmates (the first one in Europe). The concept of social network was created by J. A. Barnes in 1954 with its book Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish (if you want to know more about his work, check this summary) and refers to a “social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds” (definition from Wikipedia).

It is an old concept but it has been updated with the web insofar as it allows the existence of “virtual communities” - according to Howard Rheingold’s concept. Indeed Internet allows people to communicate and creates social bonds without seeing each other.

Howard Rheingold.

He said everything about virtual communities ten years before everybody knew what it was.

For now it seems that most of social networks are not successful in matter of the qualitu of the bonds created by people. How many MySpace profiles with more than 1000 friends can be seen? Do they actually keep in touch with all of them, or at least a tenth?



Nevertheless online Social Networks are potentially major if they are used properly. Indeed they can allow people who share the same interest to get in touch with one another. Moreover a social network can be the perfect area to create of community of practice that stimulate each other so as to generate collective intelligence.

DRM : how entertainment industries refuse to deal with the issue of the evolution of its economic model?

In Wikipedia, DRM is defined as “technologies used by publishers (or copyright owners) to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work”.

Beside the technical aspects, it is interesting to study DRM as a symptom of the clash between traditional content providers (music majors, movie industry) and cybernauts at the Information age. The first ones want to preserve the traditional channels to provide entertainement content towards people whereas some of the others who access it for free as digital files (throught P2P networds). This phenomenon raises a major issue : how musical and movie industry could survive if they do not develop into a new economic model and if P2P practices keep on growing?

Currently it seems that entertainement industries do not want to ask themselves this question, they prefer to reply to the threat by using DRM. I don’t think this is the right decision for two reasons. On the one hand hackers and P2P communities always have the tool to bypass the DRM as soon as they are implemented. On the other hand it seems that DRM affect mostly legitimate purchasers who are not to good with technologies and who would like to listen or watch what they bought on any format and device hey want. Indeed contents protected by DRM cannot easily be transferred from one device to another. As far as I am concerned, I hate it when I can’t easily burn a CD to play from Itunes files so as to play it in my car. The easiest and fastest way to do so is always to check on some P2P network to find the same files without DRM and burn it.

Links :
The official site of DRM consortium
French activists against DRM
Soulseek : the best p2p network to find electronic music. I know its wrong...

The future of Information : Mass medias towards mass participation

In the last six months, cybernauts carried out a breakthrough in matter of Information economy. For the last century, Information has been the private area of Mass Medias and worldwide news service companies - such as Reuters or the AFP.

The evolution of Internet towards Web 2.0 allows internet users to provide information content which can be spread all over the world without the help of Mass Medias or news companies. Henceforth anybody can report what he have seen and receive an immediate feedback about the information he provided.

The channel of the information provided by this new content provider are no more limited to text (blogs) but can be audio (podcast) or video files. With the evolution of cell phones and the decrease of digital camrecorder prices, anybody can record the video of major events he happened to be part of. If these events worth it they can send it on the web almost immediately on the web and receive immediate feedback.

The first example of the phenomenon appeared with Asia’s 2004 Tsunami. But it seems that it turns into a common practive (e.g. last autumn riots in France) and that traditional mass media are getting more and more interested in this. For exemple, worldwide first information TV channel CNN created I-Report and Al Gore participated in the creation of Current TV - which aim is to be the first TV channel “created by the people who watch it”.

Are Podcasts able to oust mass media?

Podcast appeared a few years ago but it can already be seen as a revolution as far as radio broadcasting is concerned. Most of musical or video contents used to be provided by mass media – such as TV, or radio – but since Podcast broke out people can chose the shows they want to hear/watch. Moreover everybody can easily create a Podcast and broadcasting through the Net. The idea behind the success of podcast is that everybody can choose and provide content. As a consequence mass media are losing the hegemony as contents providers.

Technically a podcast is a file that can be found on the web, that provide audio or video content that can be played on a computer or mobile devices – such as MP3 players, personal phones.


The word podcast refers to the most famous MP3 player on the market : Apple’s Ipod. It is not only the current best seller player but with Apple’s advertisement campaign, it turned into an item that refers to a certain lifestyle - which definitely fits with the imaginary behind podcasting. Nevertheless some purists want to use the name Webcast or Netcast in spite of podcast because it refers to a private trademark even thought the word is not registered by the company.

If you are interested, check the largest podcast database.

If you want to know more about the history of podcasting