Daily Archives: April 17, 2015

Come on DJ Keep Playing That Song… What is it is like to be a DJ?

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Before I joined to this group project, my idea of DJs were pretty vague. People standing before turntables with headsets, moving on rhythm, continuously nodding to the beat while closing their eyes and stopping the vinyl record occasionally with their fingers, rewinding and playing music to get people to dance… that’s all. Although something tells me it is not that easy, so I did some research on what is it like to be a DJ, how you can create the career path to be a DJ, how much money the DJ can earn and so on.

You can also check out this Documentary about the DJ and Producer Lifestyle

https://www.careersinmusic.com/dj_nightclub-dj/

Here are some points people not familiar with DJ culture may find them interesting.

  • There are two different kind of DJ careers: those who just play the music and those who create music and play them as a performance.
  • The DJ needs skill of networking and social skill to build a fan base.
  • The DJ cannot pursue money as his/her priory goal. Sometimes they must play unpaid. After becoming famous, they earn money from performing and from the royalty of their own tracks. “On average, a reasonably successful DJ can expect to make a few hundred dollars per show.”
  • Many DJs work few hours at weekend nights, from Thursday to Saturday.
  • DJs must work with promoters, bookers, night club managers. At first you become friends with them to let them book you.
  • To be a DJ, you will be offered to perform gigs for free, so people will know you, and you can build fan base. Then your DJ career may on a right track though it is pretty competitive.
  • There is no working union for DJs though as a tracks owner they belong to a music royalty organization.

My conclusion is, it is for your weekend jobs. The interesting thing is as part of their necessary tasks, building a fan base by using social media is recommended. I believe our site will help many DJs who doesn’t have enough time or skill to do that. Even if they have, it is always nice to have extra sites to collaborate with their works and ways to have deeper engagement with fans. In a DJ’s world, social media is powerful and it is going to be more powerful as the era of Web 3.0 arrives.

Technology and Social Networks

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2014-04-20 22.18.01

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instant messaging, Video conferencing, Web meetings: These and many other collaboration and social media platforms are now an everyday part of people’s lives around the world. Why this phenomenon happened?

1. People want to change the traditional ways of communicating and chase new and interesting forms.

2. The Internet makes these kind of instant communication possible via social media

3. Computers and smart phones have become necessary things in our life.

How does social media makes our lives different?

1. Building a new culture

2. Making the communication more efficiently

3. Providing more interesting learning experiences

4. Sharing personal opinions

5. Changing traditional way on finding jobs

So, we want to build a new social network including these features to improve people’s lives. What we want to build is a website for musicians/DJs and party information.  With respect to DJs, this is a musical subculture; it is an important part of a party. Second, we will provide a platform for DJ culture lovers to communicate. Third, you will learn more about DJs musicians and music through our website. Fourth, you can make your comments in particular zone. Fifth, we provide party information. If you are a DJ, you can find a job through the site.

Because the social networks are based on modern Internet, different new technologies will shape the features of social media. According to the related articles. These technologies shape social networks:

1. Arduio

2. RFID Tags and Transponders

3. Geomagnetic Sensors in Mobile Devices

4. Optical Pattern Recognition and Augmented Reality

5. OpenID,OAuth and Identity Graph

6. Mind Reading

7. Natural language processing

We could adopt these technologies, but we do not have to. Depending on the design of our social network we will adopt the appropriate technology.

Ethical Considerations for miXXerS

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“Further well trodden themes in social networking research – such as identity, use/non-use, motives for use, privacy, surveillance, friending, commodification, and user exploitation – all surface issues with ethical dimensions”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I was tasked with looking at the ethical issues that may arise in developing miXXerS. Ethical issues that arise with interactions between users, online and offline communities, social network developers, corporations, governments and other institutions are complex. Social networks have changed how we create and/or maintain social relationships/roles and there are ethical implications of this.  Each stakeholder can have diverse and also conflicting motives and interests and the same will be the case for the mixed audience of miXXerS. Social relations between people who have/desire some type of relationship or affiliation personal, business or otherwise are at the core of social networks. For miXXerS this is no exception.

Moreover, in building technological systems computer scientists often tend to build what they think would work best for the user without necessarily considering ‘disclosive computer ethics’. Instead of viewing the technology as a neutral actor this instead focuses on the moral norms and values embedded in information technologies, applications and practices. We therefore would like to build a system which considers the ethical implication of the technology itself as well as the ethical use of the site.

“the emphasis in technology design should be on achieving the greatest good for the greatest number, and developers of social networking sites are seen to have ethical responsibilities for ensuring that their designs are oriented towards achieving the desired goal. The developers, on the other hand, appear to hold a user-oriented view – they make social networking sites for people to play with.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Social networking sites can facilitate deception, social grooming and defamation. Given miXXerS is a site which combines not only music but also parties we must be aware of this. Users will be able to report unethical use of the site per our policies and we will design features which will help to support ethics. This is important. One report found that “active social networkers show a higher tolerance for activities that could be considered unethical.” and that “It appears that they are more willing to consider things that are ‘gray areas’. However, there are skeptics of such arguments. In addition, given the data that is derived from free use of the site is important for our business this also raises ethical questions which all social network sites struggle with as it has become a defacto business model for the web.