The Future vs The Past of Entertainment

Since leaving MIDEM my thoughts have been all ajumbled, but as they begin to settle, one thing that seems strikingly clear is the contrast between the dominant rhetoric I heard there, particularly from those within the music industry proper, and the rhetoric I heard at …

Relating to Fans Means Helping Them Relate to Each Other

Here, for your reading pleasure, is a PDF of the talk I gave at MIDEMNet last week titled Making The Most of Online Music Fandom. Bruce at Hypebot, one of the excellent people I met there, was kind enough to do a near-instant writeup.

I identify 5 key social practices …

We Are Ready to Barack and Roll

One thing I love about my new President is that he inspires his followers to create in ways that erase the boundaries between politics and fandom. Here's to President Obama:

I've got this image on today:

Now let's fix the world.

Spring Classes!

I've finished up the syllabi for the two classes I'm teaching this semester.

I'm teaching an undergraduate course called Communication On The Internet. The sections of the course outline correspond to the chapters of my book Personal Connections In A Digital Age, which …

See you at MidemNet 2009

Next week I am headed to France to attend my first MidemNet conference. I'll be offering a "master class" called "Making the Most of Online Music Fandom" in which I will overview the social activities that motivate fans to engage one another, how the internet …

Fans: Curatorial Masters of the Web

Now in their 1970s, my parents have belatedly come around to Beatlemania, suggesting strongly that either my fandom genes are inherited from parents who'd simply failed to express them, or there's some kind of reverse inheritance going on in which my parents have picked …

Bringing Trauma to Your Mobile

I am just back from a very inspiring weekend attending the Futures of Entertainment 3 conference hosted by the Convergence Culture Consortium. One of the most exciting elements was getting to hear directly from several media producers who are doing fascinating …

The Risks and Advantages of Social Network Sites

I was recently a guest on Kansas City current affairs show Up to Date on Kansas City NPR affiliate, KCUR. My co-guest was Michael Zimmer of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who is an expert on issues of ethics, privacy and the web. Our guest-host Stephen Seligman …

Life on the Move: Social Network Roundtable audio now up

Last week I attended the Association of Internet Researchers' 9th annual conference, this time in Copenhagen Denmark. One of the things I did there was participate in a roundtable about social networking research called Life On the Move put together by Daniel Skog (Ume

Futures of Entertainment 3

I'm very happy to announce that I'll be speaking at Futures of Entertainment 3, put together by the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT:

Convergence culture has moved swiftly from buzzword to industry logic. The creation of transmedia storyworlds, understanding how to …

How Last.fm strengthens relationships and creates new ones

One of the big questions raised by social networking sites is what the heck those "friendships" really are. In this paper, written with my former Ph.D. student and now Ohio University professor Andrew Ledbetter, we examine this in the case of Last.fm. Based on a large …

Fan Labor: Exploitation or Empowerment?

Hi there. Remember me? Ok, so I've been an epic blogging fail lately. But there's a good reason! I've been writing full length things. Like the 2 papers I'm about to share here.

This coming week I'll be in Copenhagen presenting at the Association of Internet …

First Issue of Transformative Works and Cultures

Congratulations to everyone involved in the successful launch of the new fandom journal Transformative Works and Cultures! Here is the Table of Contents and live link to the first issue.

Transformative Works and Cultures

Vol 1 (2008)

Table of Contents

Editorial

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Affective Audiences: This is Going To be Good

[housekeeping note: i hope to slowly ease back into more regular posting in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, here's the CFP for something I am very excited about]

Call for Papers

Affective Audiences: Analysing Media Users, Consumers and Fans

Preconference …

What to do when fans post live videos

Prince may be eagerly suing everyone who posts live videos of his shows on YouTube, but the Swedish label Songs I Wish I Had Written, headed by Martin Th

Fall Classes are Upon Us

Yeah I know, I've been a very lame blogger of late. Part of the reason is that I've been distracted by trying to get my courses in order for the fall semester, which begins next week.

For those who are curious, here are the new syllabi for my graduate seminar called "

Online Music Discovery in Action

An anecdote from my weekend. First, a cut to the moral: Online music discovery is largely about architecture within and across sites, personal connections and serendipity. Focus exclusively on algorithms and radio streams at your peril.

Between about 1988 and 1992 I …

Internet Inquiry is Here!

I got my hard copies of my new book Fed Ex today, and it's being offered at 2/3 the regular price at Amazon so if you've been waiting to order it, now's the time!

How Trent Reznor Nails It

Along with Radiohead (though in fact far beyond them), Trent Reznor is often held up as one of the heroes of new media music promotion. This raises the usual litany of questions: Could this work for a new band without a huge following? Is this unique to him? Is this THE …

Nike McFly Update

One of the most read posts I ever wrote was this one about sneaker fan efforts to get Nike to manufacture the McFly seen in Back to the Future II.

They got their wish. Kind of:

...the guys that run the McFly 2015 Project, a grassroots movement that has been trying to …