Interactivity?

I first want to thank all of you for your insightful blogs and class disscussion. Because of your participation I was able to understand the material from last week. It was helpful to hear interpretations of the readings from different perspectives. I left the class feeling alot better about those readings, so thanks! As for this week, I think I got a better grasp of the material. I also like how the readings for this week make reference to the authors we read from last week. It connects everything together like the web we are studying! ;)

Most of the readings provided some sort of long definition of Interactivity. In simple terms, my definition of interactivity is the exchange of information through a certain mediumfrom one party to another and vice versa.

In Chapter 2 of Web Theory, the author explains the complexity of information and networks. Because of the web, information sharing now transcends the dimensions of time and space through intricate networks. Digitization has made information sharing so much easier because of the simplicity of binary code. The author defines interactivity as follows: "Interactivity implies an elaborate system of feedbacks that can respond to the requests and decisions of any user." (p.31) In this context the author is discussing interactivity as a form of cybernetic activity with respect to the information shared in the web's networking sysyem.

Tim Berners-Lee's chapters from Weaving the Web are mostly about his personal story on how he came up with the world wide web. His is an interesting first hand account of how the web came about. In his mind interactivity is the bridge between different computer operating systems.

After much deliberation over the many definitions of interactivity, Kiousis defines interactivity as "the degree to which a communication technology can create a mediated environment in which participants can communicate (one to one, one to many, and many to many), both synchronously and asynchronously, and participate in reciprocal message exchanges (third-order dependency). " Even after providing this tentitive definition, Kiousis still needs to clarify his hybrid definition.

In Downes' Defining Interactivity, he goes even further into the depth of defining interactivity. Downes let's us know that the definitionof Interactivity, like the definition of new media, is changing every day.

And as for The Long Tail, interactivity plays a large role in this theory. This article from Wired describes the new business model of interactivity that evokes the powers of The Long Tail. I'm not exactly sure what the Long Tail really is, but I think it is the long list of media (books, movies, music) that have ever existed. Amazon, Itunes and Netflicks all use the power of the Long Tail to sell many unpopular titles to non-mainstream customers, and make just as much money, if not more than old school companies like Blockbuster do. I do believe that The Long Tail has viable expectations for future buisiness models. We are already seeing the success of Amazon, Netflicks, and itunes. It is only a matter of time before other companies catch on to this ingenious business model and conform to it.