Open source, closed wallet.

I have been extremely preoccupied (with grant proposals) since my last post. This post has been in draft since the beginning of the month but remains pertinent.

I found this, which says that Juan Alberto Belloch (mayor of Zaragoza) has a site which is a clone of Menéame which is a clone of Digg. Further investigation stumbled upon this bit of old, but related, news:

Spain's Juan Alberto Belloch is running for office on the "Linux platform" -- betting his political future on the power and appeal of open-source software. Belloch, candidate for mayor of Zaragoza, plans to build a network of "Open Cities" across Spain, each with its own team of technical experts charged with developing open-source software for use within the city and throughout the country. ....

"We want to be the Redmond of the European free software world," Belloch said. ... The mayors of Seville, Lleida, Mataró, Madrid and Gijón also support the plan. ....

Belloch began his romance with Linux four months ago, after meeting with a local Linux users group. Members were invited to a meeting to discuss open-source software and the possibility of providing free wireless access to Zaragoza residents. "These guys were just amazing," Belloch said. "They were very different from other kinds of activists I've worked with. They were not demanding, shouting or even asking. Instead they were actually doing things. (my emphasis)

Despite strong connotations of "geek" worship in the article, it brings to light many interesting points about the possibilities for expansion of open-source software. I hope that plans for free wireless access for residents have gone through. There seems already to be a divergence here between Spain "catching up" with the technological advances in other European and North American countries and the possibility of surpassing the services offered. I know of wireless hotspots in New York, but they're not free.

With the benefits of Internet news archives, we now know that Belloch is mayor of Zaragoza and has expanded his participatory technology efforts into designing a Digg-like site of his own. I often refer to these sites as being comprised of "user-generated" content, but I much prefer Digg's description of "user-powered" content. It says so much more, no?

Back to the beginning, Adolfo Estalella (blog author and ethnographer) has recently posted about Twitter, a site which I also believe deserves some attention. His exploration of the press coverage and personal experiences of twittering is well worth reading.

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Spain's Cuatro launches YouTube web portal

Spanish television channel Cuatro is launching a portal on Google's YouTube, showing clips of the broadcaster's most popular programs to try and build a young audience in and outside Spain. The move by Cuatro, a free-to-air channel launched by Spanish TV group Sogecable in November 2005, follows a similar move by the BBC earlier this month. "With a community of millions of young users on line, YouTube is a perfect platform to reach new viewers," Cuatro's director of content Elena Sanchez said in a statement on Thursday.

YouTube, bought by Google last November, first gained popularity for short, comic sketches that were created and posted on the site by users. It has also faced increasing legal threats from big media companies, including a $1 billion lawsuit from media conglomerate Viacom Inc, angry that the site has become a popular means of pirating their television shows. Cuatro is Spain's sixth most popular free-to-air channel, with an audience share of 6.4 percent in 2006. [source]

Well, it is no secret that a website designed to allow users to post their favorite video content will result in the posting of popular television and other visual media programming. Of course, much of the content on YouTube is user-generated and personalized video, but many people also supplement their online viewing with commercial programming. In many ways, Internet, and computers in general, have become analogous to the television revolution. The difference, of course, is the Internet is faster to respond to the demands of users who want to choose - and, importantly, contribute to - their own content.

It is, therefore, about time that more European television stations realize the possibilities - and financial dangers - inherent in Internet video sharing supplementing existing programming. To what extent the spread of Internet programming is bound to be the death of television reminds me of the debate surrounding VCR being the death of the movie industry or cassette tapes being the end of the music industry.

It is true, as Cuatro argue, that YouTube is an excellent source of young viewers - or viewers of any age - for their programming. The tactic of putting television programmes online for later or continued viewing (including archives of past episodes, previews of newer episodes, discussion groups, photos, blogs, etc.) is no longer 'new'. Most networks do it in some respect. Is there, then, a qualitative distinction between this practice, and using an already popular platform (YouTube) to cash in on an already expansive user base?

As an anthropologist, I am not entirely interested in the corporate economic outcome of these activities per se, but more how they relate to the actuality of human society on the ground (in the home, that is). Are people moving away from collective television viewing and towards more isolated, individualized viewing online? I would venture that there is more convergence. People are more likely to combine various types of technologies (including viewing content on mobile phones or video iPods) than to abandon one for the other. Even if Cuatro and other companies offered full-length episodes of programmes online for free, would viewers abandon their TV sets?

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