According to the Kiousis article interactivity can be put into two different categories. This is because the term has been defined by several different disciplines, all of which have different defining terms. There are communication definitions and non-communication definitions. In the communication area, interactivity is usually related to technology in some form. Prior to reading the material I would have completely agreed that interactivity is technology based and that Steuer’s definition “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form of a mediated environment in real time,” was the be all end all. However, I now think that interactivity can be defined as a combination of several definitions. Based on this, my definition of interactivity is a situation in which effective communication is accomplished thru perception, personal interaction and technology with an end result that is controlled in some cases and not in others. This is just way too much for this one word.
I agree with pretty much everyone else that The Long Tail reading was the most interesting of them all. The Long Tail is essentially the opposite in the spectrum of media hits. To reach the long tail a company goes beyond what society had deemed the “hit” by offering an abundance of choices for consumers, for example Amazon not only promotes the “hits,” but they also offer you the lesser of the mainstream personalized based on your interactivity with their website. This illustrates the technological portion of the definition of interactivity.
