The video in the official website about the music industry is an example of the benefit. Kristin Thomson, an artist, discusses the change in the music industry. In the past decade, music has changed dramatically. The technology today and the services provided online help artists to “create, promote, and distribute” their music. It is beneficial to artists obviously because their music can get to a bigger audience and the public in general. The changing question is whether this change affects artists and their revenues.   The project is called “Artists Revenue Stream”; the project focuses on how much an artist can make a living. Different people from different areas within the music industry were interviewed, from songwriters to artists themselves. Interviews were the easiest and more accurate way to figure out how much money they actually earn. How people in the music industry actually make a living depend on what they do. There are various things to be done. The composers write; they make a living from copyrights and licenses. Composers use publishers to connect songs to artists and publishers get money from that. Although publishers are not necessary in the process, it is easier for composers, but they might lose some revenue. Recording artists earn a living through recording labels, which earn a large share of wholesale revenues and copyrights. Recording labels are responsible for getting music out to radios to commercials, helping to promote recording artists’ songs. Once again, it is possible for artists to go on their own, but it is extremely difficult to be successful.

It’s been less than 20 years since everything sort of started. Emails and text messages are seen for the first time, and instant messaging was a boom only 15 years ago. Now most of us cannot imagine life without these technologies. But what if technology suddenly ceases to exist? It’s not at all impossible.

In Burma a few years back the military government shut down the entire internet in that country as to not empower the people to rise against them. The outcome was not pleasant, and people’s efforts were stifled. Information could not be passed in and out of country that easily anymore.

Technology makes things easier, but we cannot be complacent either. We have to prepare ourselves somehow, for one day things we take for granted might not be there anymore, due to a lack of resources, or a dictatorial government desperately wanting to cling to power.

This essentially means a large scale prank. The beauty of this is that when many people do it, it’s cool. For less outrageous acts (not dancing like monkeys in Starbucks), when many people behave in the same way that is normally out of the norm, for example in Rome, a mob of people were asking for a book in the public library that never existed (source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3134559.stm), you would tend to believe that it couldn’t be fake, and that that book really exists, just because of the sheer number of people doing it.

This all can be achieved, and with large turnouts, thanks to smart mobbing, as well as the limits of your imagination. All for a good fun on a Sunday afternoon.

This essentially means a large scale prank. The beauty of this is that when many people do it, it’s cool. For less outrageous acts (not dancing like monkeys in Starbucks), when many people behave in the same way that is normally out of the norm, for example in Rome, a mob of people were asking for a book in the public library that never existed (source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3134559.stm), you would tend to believe that it couldn’t be fake, and that that book really exists, just because of the sheer number of people doing it.

This all can be achieved, and with large turnouts, thanks to smart mobbing, as well as the limits of your imagination. All for a good fun on a Sunday afternoon.

This is excellent in terms of what it could mean to the people of the world. This democratization of technology means that people, if they should decide to take to the streets, have a far more efficient platform and power to inflict change towards a society they deem needs changing. This wide spread, minute-by-minute information can also means less casualties as people can run away in time, as well as more participation, as you can send emails to anyone, or anyone can be following your Twitter account.