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Online social networking seems to be the buzzword nowadays when it comes to activities on the internet. With a host of websites offering services that would connect you to your friends, family, co-worker, distant acquaintances and people you might have met at your childhood summer camp, such as Orkut.com, Friendster.com, MeetUp.com, Hipster.com and Facebook.com, and as most of these services are offered free of charge, it makes one wonder: what is in it for the entrepreneurs behind the social networking sites? What kind of a business model are they following? But most importantly, if the firms operating these websites are offering their services for free – and some of them, like Orkut.com do not even show advertisements either – how do they generate their revenue? How do they cover their costs? And at the end of it all, what is in it for them?
Taking a look at how online networking websites work, all that an interested user is required to do in order to sign up, is to fill out a detailed and lengthy online application in which he or she gives details related to what his or her home address and phone number is, which industry does he or she work in, what are his or her primary interests and hobbies, where did he or she go to school and so on. Websites like Orkut.com even go as far as to inquire about your political interests. In short when signing up, you are surrendering quite a bit of information about your personal, your professional and your social life to a firm, you don’t even know. A quick look at the ‘Terms of agreement’(who reads those anyway?) of these services reveals a clause that states that the information a user is so willingly typing away in the form will be used within the organisation and it’s affiliates, however, it will not be revealed or leaked outside the organisation and its friends.
The next step after filling out the registration form is to ‘invite’ say around ten to fifteen friends who would be interested in using this service as well. After you have painstakingly typed out all of the e-mail addresses of the ten or fifteen friends you could think of, now you are free to use the service, after of course, you verify your e-mail address. Phew.
As of this moment, not only can you use the social networking service and be a part of the ‘hip’ online crowd, but the website knows almost everything useful there is to know about you – including who your friends are. For those of your friends who are interested in staying in touch with you (and others) and signing up for the service, they would have to go through the same process of signing up, giving out information, inviting more friends and verifying an e-mail address. The mechanisms of the steps just mentioned work just like an evil (read: annoying) chain e-mail.
In turn the website keeps collecting more and more information about its users. And the information keeps on growing to include more and more people all the time. The information collected by these social networking websites is perhaps more comprehensive than any marketing survey ever conducted on such a humongous scale and in short would be any marketers dream.
Taking Orkut and how it works for example; what separates Orkut from other social networking websites is that an interested user cannot just ‘sign up’ for the service; he or she has to be ‘invited’ so that at the end of it all, Orkut becomes a growing community of ‘trusted individuals’. Being invited to anything feels good, and if a user knows that the only way to avail a service is by invitation only, he or she will feel like he or she is part of an exclusive group, or an online fraternity of Orkut-ites, if you will. This way Orkut can ensure that there are at least two individuals on Orkut who know each other, that these are ‘real’ users and that their social network can be closely monitored to observe the trends in their social interaction with other users online. With currently no ads being displayed on Orkut, and being an affiliate of Google, and since they are not allowed to leak out your information outside the organisation – ruling out the possibility of selling user information to marketing firms – how does a social networking website like Orkut, generate revenue?
The answer, when it comes to Orkut, is quite simple. Google being the one of the popular search engines, dedicated to organise the information that the online world contains, it has in short, millions of users – but it doesn’t know anything about them. With the online world within its grasp, Google did not have a user database through which to know what kind of users use their services the most. In waltzes Orkut, the answer to all of Google’s user-database problems and provides it with a plethora of information about what people like, where they come from and who their friends are.
You have to be living under a digital rock, if you didn’t know that the mastermind behind Orkut was Orkut Buyukkokten – yes, Orkut was named after him. Buyukkokten, after joining Google, developed Orkut by working on it once a week, as is a requirement of all Google employees that they devote at least one day a week to their personal projects. The day that Orkut was introduced on the internet, their system collapsed because more users then expected signed up for the service. Furthermore, Google owns all of the technology developed by its employees, whether it is in the time devoted to their personal projects or not.
Now that Google has all of the user-information that it needs and more, it can introduce more customised searches in order to accommodate its users – and its advertising clients. But how will it know which user is searching what? By integrating all of its Google e-mail accounts with its Orkut accounts. That way, they know for sure whether the person searching for a recipe for a Chicken Tandoori is really you or not. Note that when you are signed into your Orkut account and you open another window, of the same browser, and click on Google.com, your Google e-mail address is displayed prominently in the upper right hand corner of the browser window. Yes, they (read: Google) are watching you.
At the end of the day, don’t be surprised if while logging into your Google e-mail account, you see a text-based ad for ‘Chicken Tandoori’ recipes by XYZ organisation, playing right above your e-mails in your Google e-mail inbox. Nothing comes for free, not even your e-mail account or the online social-networking service you signed up for, you pay for it by giving up every ounce of privacy you have online and letting an organisation spy on every move you make (or don’t make) in the World Wide Web.
Change itself is the only true constant in life. That phrase rings closer and closer to home with each passing day given the rate at which advancements in technology in almost every field imaginable are being made. Nowadays, with every other person possessing enough skills to be considered half-a-techie, it is becoming increasingly difficult to catch up to where the cyber-world is moving. It makes one wonder that how are we, as people who supposedly benefit from these advancements, going to be affected by it.
The area of technology affecting our lives at home has been debated upon a countless number of times. Intel recently made the first real breakthrough towards having a digital home through by rolling out VIIV technology. Through this, home entertainment and all forms of communication can fit in one box and accessed from various places from around the house. The implications of technology are not limited to the home only and are affecting more and more people in their work lives and skills pertaining to them.
Newer communication methods have made it easier to work from home. High-speed internet coupled with e-mail and web-conferencing does away with the need for a person to be physically present in the workplace. Documents can be e-mailed and web-conferencing can always be employed when a constant presence is essential Services offered by numerous companies like Skype and Net2Phone allow users to make telephone and video calls over the internet. This has made web-conferencing easier and much more convenient for not only the business user but the average home-user as well.
An increase in such technology-related advancements and creations will signal a gradual demise of the traditional brick-and-mortar business along with the birth of what is referred to as ‘hidden economies’. People working from home for companies that are not located in the same country as them earn in local as well as foreign currencies, while spending that income in their home country. Teleworking has also assisted in the recent increase of cafés with high-speed wireless internet and customised corners for coffee-fans to station their laptops on and work. The reasons behind users logging on from coffee shops while having their own reserved corners are due to the environment being less stressful than a workplace and offering less distraction then at home.
Faster and easier communication has also served in flattening the tall hierarchical structures in the workplace. It has become much easier for a person situated near the bottom of the hierarchy to communicate directly to another placed near the top. This serves to hasten up the decision-making process since a person does not rally through numerous individuals to get the point across to the top management anymore. This also creates the need for working individuals to possess greater communication skills and develop faster decision-making since faster and effective communication would require a person to display quick judgement, leadership and initiative (in an ever-changing world, you cant stick to one concept for too long). There will be a greater need for individuals to think far ahead, develop strategies and have the ability to be able to see it through.
There will be a lesser need for manual labour since most of the manual work is expected to be done by robots. That only leaves the task of supervising the robots and ensuring the whole process goes trouble-free. Also, generic skills such as reading, writing, and problem-solving will also be in demand since individuals in almost all fields of work will be expected to deal with little gadgets now and then.
On the social front, with more and more women entering the workplace and things becoming easier for housewives to work as well, we will witness an increase in dual-income families or, in the case of single-parents, single-income families. However, with work potentially spilling into overtime (or time reserved for children at home), there could be an increase in conflicts and crossovers between work and family life.
Technology is not just changing the way we live or work. It is currently in the process of reshaping entire industries. Entrepreneurs with small-scale businesses catering to a certain niche in the market only are now popping up everywhere. Collectively, they pose a significant threat to large-scale corporations serving the same product or service on a wider level.
At this point it wouldn’t be practical to predict whether technology is good or bad, what is important is that it is here to stay. Whether one likes it or not, technology will infiltrate every aspect of a person’s life: at work, home or during play. Sooner or later individuals will have to learn to adapt to it. The way things are going, the sooner done the better.
The development and growth of electronic music on the internet has been phenomenal to say the least. What started out as a trend between a couple of individuals to share encoded files, which when played, produced music, turned into an alternative that record labels now consider a huge threat to their revenue and are increasingly considering switching towards it themselves as a medium through which to market their clientele.
Music and computers came together when the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced the first modern-day synthesiser. Originally created for the purpose of industry professionals studying the science of sound, introducing the synthesiser opened a world of possibilities for musicians. The amalgamation of computers and microprocessors meant that comparatively large quantities of music data could be stored on a computer.
Making advancements in music technology Sequential Circuits developed the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format in 1981. What differentiated MIDI from the synthesiser was that other then allowing the transmission of sound information, it identified the structure pertinent to the file itself. The creation of MIDI spurted a rapid growth in the development of electronic music and all hell broke loose the moment this advancement found its way to the internet.
The MP3 (Moving Pictures Experts Group-1 Audio Layer 3) format, which revolutionised the way we listen to music, was developed in the 1980s by the Fraunhofer Institute, a German research firm. It is a compression format that condenses audio files, incurring only a small difference in sound quality. The more the file is compressed, the worse the sound quality of the file becomes. The Fraunhofer Institute went on to develop the first MP3 player in the early nineties but the resulting application wasn’t up to the mark and was abandoned.
Around the same time in 1995, the Progressive Networks released, what was then described as, an application enabling internet users to select and play music clips from a menu and listen to them immediately. The application was the Real Audio Player that was integrated the RealPlayer 4.0 into the Internet Explorer 4.0 in 1997.
Also in 1997, Tomislav Uzelac, a developer at the Advanced Multimedia Products created the AMP MP3 Playback Engine which, after being released over the internet, was used by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev who altered it by giving it a Microsoft Windows outlook and renamed, the Winamp. The creation and free-availability of the Winamp is what is believed to be really responsible for the MP3 craze that raged from then on till now. Justin Fankel and Dmitry Boldrev also recently created the MacAMP.
Winamp’s launch into the cyber world boosted the growth of numerous encoders, search engines, players and so on but none could match what Napster had to offer. Napster’s history has been riddled with controversy and court-cases, which rendered it infamous, and as a hero to many MP3 pirates. From the day it was launched on the internet in 1999, Napster was a direct threat to many record labels since by connecting users to each other’s hard drives, it allowed users the opportunity to search and download any kind of popular music within minutes. However, Napster was charged with copyright law violations by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was ordered to shut down. This move may prove to be ineffective when it comes to MP3 downloads because there are many other application software and websites which are currently offering the same services that Napster did back in 1999.
Another breakthrough when it comes to music over the internet is the online streaming of the internet radio which was first introduced by Carl Malamud in 1993. More important then that, Radio HK, the first full-time, internet only radio station began broadcasting in February 1995. This method of broadcasting used a web-conferencing reactor that would in turn be connected to an audio CD that would move in almost-endless loops. However, pretty soon, Radio HK then converted to using the servers of RealAudio.
What revolutionised online radio and made it accessible for all was when in 1999, when the ability to net-cast 10 minutes of data by anyone was made available by a company called BMP. The software used, MyCaster, was built like an MP3 player which sent a stream to the MyCaster website, while the user would have been listening to the tracks. The MyCaster website would then provide an amplified stream for their users to access. Unfortunately, MyCaster went down with the internet bust in 2001.
Music in all forms has been appreciated by people of all ages. With more and more diverse viewers logging into the internet everyday, the demand for music will constantly be on the rise. With peer2peer file-sharing in vogue yesterday and internet-radio today, who knows what the future brings in terms of trends and mode of transmission that the music of tomorrow will bring.
How many times have you wished that you could just ray-gun someone of out your sight? Or while stuck in the infamous Karachi traffic, wished there were beaming stations from where all you had to do was say “energise” and you would then conveniently be transported (beamed) to the destination of your choice within seconds? From where did such ideas enter into our heads anyway?
Science fiction or Sci-Fi as it is popularly known, has been a part of literature ever since an over imaginative person discovered he or she could write. It included things the writer thought was to come and create a magical world without any magic spells, potions and unicorns. Instead, these objects would be replaced by man-made gadgets and inventions that were capable of performing wonders. Science fiction writers wrote based on what they thought the world would be like several decades or centuries after the time-period that they were in.
Literature categorised as science fiction is described as those in which the author creates an illusionary world involving hypothetical, physical, biological, technological, philosophical, historical or cultural constraints. This is done for the purpose of relating or exploring specific aspects of human behaviour, life or the universe under these new, contrived conditions. These writers reflect their awe for science and their hopes of what scientific research could yield. However, it also displayed their fears in cases where scientific research would end up reaching harmful conclusions, the consequences of which would have to be suffered by all mankind, animal-kind and earth-kind. A quick read will make it clear that Sci-Fi writers are more prone to write about the future they hope will not happen rather then that which they would want to.
One thing needs to be taken into consideration however, and that is that predictions made by science fiction writers are deeply influenced by those scientific possibilities that are mutually understood by people in that era. Also there is a considerable portion of fantasy in science fiction and many science fiction writers have also written what is known as fantasy literature.
Decades after popular science fiction writers forecasted the future of mankind, one wonders how accurate their predictions were. Now that we are in the ‘future’ that they used to write about, how has the advancement or deterioration of mankind measured up to the imagination of these Sci-Fi writers?
Some of the predictions that did end up coming true are from the popular classic book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne. He is considered to be the first to ever merit being catagorised as a science fiction writer. Most of his books including his first best-seller Five Weeks In A Balloon, From the Earth to the Moon and two other books that later got adapted to screen-plays, The Mysterious Island and the famous classic, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, deal with voyages and exploration where his characters are constantly marvelling at the new scientific discoveries that they end up making.
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Jules Verne had predicted that there would be self-propelled submarines that would be capable of diving and travelling underwater at very high speeds. He also predicted in the same novel that electronic watches that would be far more accurate then analog clocks and that electric generators would be used to propel very large sized engines. Furthermore, he predicted that underwater aqualungs (portable cylinders with compressed oxygen in them) coupled with adequate wetsuits would enable deep sea divers to remain underwater and work on the ocean floor for longer periods of time. He also spoke about how submarine warfare would render ships travelling on the surface of the water absolutely helpless against them.
Another popular science fiction writer, H.G. Wells has written books that set the background standard for other science fiction writers to work on. He has written one screen play, Things To Come, in which he tried to depict, in detail, the horrifying implications of World War II. Out of all his books, two of the most well-known were adapted for the big screen quite successfully. First one being The Time Machine, in which he showed time-travel through the ages and the result of the human race. The other was War of the Worlds in which he depicts the horrors of an alien invasion on earth.
In his book, Things To Come, which was published in 1933, H.G. Wells ended up with a few successful predictions including that World War II would start in 1940 and would involve all of the major countries in the world as well as air-raids and dog-fights between enemy aircrafts. He also predicted the implementation of gas warfare.
Amongst his non-war related predictions from the same book, to have been invented by the year 2054, was the introduction of air-conditioning, video tape recording and commercial television and televised broadcasts reaching almost all parts of the world. All of the inventions mentioned above have been introduced to mankind well before 2054.
A prediction that did not end up being successful was the reconstruction of the world till it reaches utopia in the year 2054. Hopefully by then, ‘enlightened’ human beings would have gotten rid of all kinds of instruments that lead to death and destruction. One of the predictions that yet to come true is that citizens will be wearing personal communication devices on their sleeves at all times. This is oddly reminiscent of the use to cellphones nowadays which most people have and keep on their self almost all the time.
In his book, When the Sleeper Awakes, H. G. Wells predicts the invention and use of all-purpose liquid food, portable television sets, use of automatic doors, mechanised agriculture and ‘light globes that change night into day’ (light bulbs). Those predictions that sound like fun, but yet to be realised, are an automatic clothes-making machine, special ‘pleasure cities to placate the masses’ (Dubai, perhaps?) and moving conveyor roadways. He also predicted that most of Earth’s population would be concentrated in great super-cities.
Brian Aldiss, another science fiction writer who wrote primarily about space travel and nuclear technology, in his book, Who Can Replace A Man, predicts space flight to Mars and sound being used as a weapon.
His predictions still to see daylight is the introduction of robots to serve and support human communities and robot wars after mankind becomes extinct. He also predicted anti-gravity to have found its way to Earth by the year 2500 A.D.
Whether or not the predictions of science fiction writers come true or not, we can safely state that these writers possessed an extra-ordinary imagination. They provided us with countless stories and transported us to faraway lands, the idea of which would have been inconceivable to most people at that time. Famous inventors are those who have a great imagination coupled with the skill and drive to realise them. Sci-Fi writers simply provide them with a direction where to begin with.
A non-techie attendee at an informationation technology and telecommunication exhibition describes her enlightening experience
ITCN Asia was being held at the Expo centre in Karachi last month for three whole days and I was required to attend and get ‘educated’ on what the latest gadgets and services in information technology available in the market were.
Upon entering the Expo centre on the third day, I was pleasantly surprised to see a whole band set up at the reception. My joy knew no bounds when I assumed there was going to be live music. Upon closer inspection, my heart sank in bitter disappointment when I realised the instruments, a guitar, keyboard and drum set, were simply shells of what they were ‘supposed’ to be. I was offended at seeing that the guitar was without strings. It was an insult to the instrument itself.
Moving on, the hallway was full of blown-up advertisements of various mobile operators, mobile phone companies, television channels and maps of the exhibition. We, me and my colleagues, headed towards the area which seemed to be generating the most excitement from the crowd: the hall which hosted stalls by all the mobile operators in Pakistan.
The stalls themselves were humongous and had interesting shapes. The music playing from each stall was deafening. What was even more irritating was the fact that Telenor had Ali Zafar’s Channo on repeat mode. When it came to stall size, Mobilink beat all but failed to generate a crowd. Telenor on the other hand had everyone in the hallway going nuts. Standing on chairs, Telenor employees were throwing dozens of company-branded T-shirts, caps and badges high into the air towards the crowd and the recipients, in turn, would desperately try to catch whatever they could. Somehow it reminded me of the stories about medieval noble men throwing pieces of bread to the poor and hungry. The reaction was the same. And oh, I found out Telenor is starting a service that is faster than GPRS and would work just like a regular high-speed internet service.
A sudden, major shift in the crowd from the Telenor stall towards the Ufone stall soon revealed that Ufone was also throwing away freebies. Also present were a few Indus Music video jockeys (VJs). After a while these VJs were moved to a separate, tiny little makeshift room to be stared upon by their gaping admirers while they just sat there, had their photos taken and chatted amongst themselves. If this isn’t analogous to the modern-day zoo, where humans are both the animals on display and the spectators, I don’t know what is.
Not to be left behind, Mobilink employed a little two-wheeled cart that moved around the hall carrying their colours and logo. The person driving it looked like he was having fun. Seeing him, I desperately wanted to have a go.
The next hall we entered displayed everything related to computers, MP3 players and television sets, some from companies that I had never even heard off. What was refreshing to note was that Playdium had a stall where they had wide screens on display which some attendees were playing video games on.
Moving on, I found out that Intel had launched its second version of dual-core processor (dual-core? Wait, processor?). HP claimed to have the best PCs (the casings were amazing) and laptops in Pakistan while a relatively unknown company was giving out MP3 players via a lucky draw.
While turning round a corner, my attention was caught by 10 or 15 people, all dressed in black, wearing black caps and carrying little flags. They stopped in the middle of the hall and while waving their tiny little flags around and started to yell, “Acer! Acer!” I immediately decided never to buy an Acer product, even though I had yet to figure out what exactly they sold.
The stall that stole my heart, the products which still dance in front of my eyes and haunt me while I sleep, was Apple’s. Forget the iPods that most people, minus me, are carrying around nowadays, Apple’s MacBook looked very tempting. I’m not a Mac user, but I was ready to convert then.
One of the things I learnt was that the exhibition organisers know nothing about musical instruments or how to treat them. If I ever had my own company, I would never pull the Acer stunt and scare potential customers away and that Apple products cost three times as much as those by any other company in the same industry. Most importantly, it doesn’t matter whether you use their product or not, getting a free t-shirt from any company will, at that moment, make you happier then ever before.
From the first ezine to the current, this article seeks to solve the following questions: what is an ezine? Where did it come from? And where is it headed?
Ezine, how many internet users can actually relate to that word? More so, what exactly is an ezine? According to Wikipedia ‘an ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website’. So technically, an ezine is a publication posted periodically on a website and is also part of the spam emails that one is constantly receiving from various organisations promising all sorts of miracles in return for a seemingly small amount they would periodically charge on one’s credit card.
What really constitutes an ezine then? Further investigation needed to be done since the definition provided by Wikipedia did not have much to offer. Most ezines have an option through which readers can post their comments on an article or to reply to the comments posted by other readers. All this leads to what is known as ‘online interaction’. This naturally leads to the following question: what is then the difference between an ezine and an online forum?
An ezine is an electronic publication which is periodically updated and is either sent via email or is uploaded onto a website. An online forum on the other hand invites members to engage in discussions regarding a certain topic or subject of interest. Since most ezines have the ‘comment-on-the-article-posted’ option, an online forum could also be part of an ezine. Therefore, part of an ezine could also act as somewhat of an online forum. But an online forum is not an ezine. Make sense?
The next question that pops up is whether ezines are a recent phenomenon? Are they a product of the internet boom? Or have they been around for a lot longer than most people think? Online sources claim that the first ever ezine was a result of a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) media and the computer hacker network called Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) which was formed in 1984. The name was derived from the Hexadecimal value DE AD BE EF (read dead beef), the value depicting the debugging method used for initialising unused memory. The cult’s goal was “Global Domination through Media Saturation” and were the pioneers not only in developing the first ever ezine, but had also begun to exchange audio files in MP3 format in 1997, long before it became common. They were the first hacker group to have their own Usenet newsgroup (alt.dan.cult-dead-cow) and also developed and released different software for system administration. They invited journalists and hackers to most of their conferences, stayed in touch via underground ezines and now maintain their own web-log on their website. In fact, cDc gained media attention and credibility after one of their members briefed President Clinton on internet security and they were the first ever hacker group to receive official approval by the United States government to “export strong encryption in their 6/4 System application”. In summary, cDc was the first ever ezine, created in 1984 by an underground hacker group and steadily gained popularity with time reaching the height of their notoriety when the United States government sought their guidance concerning internet security and granted them permission to export strong encryption in one of their application programs.
Moving over to the subcontinent, more specifically towards Pakistan, it can be safely said that the first ever ezine is Chowk.com. Launched and maintained by a group of Pakistanis and Indians, Chowk.com was formed in 1997 and was created as a “platform to publish, discuss and debate writings on a variety of issues that are important to the people of India, Pakistan and other South Asian countries and a place to express and exchange ideas, discover eclectic thoughts, get useful information, meet new people, engage in social change” and for the enjoyment and education of the reader. With time, Chowk.com has managed to amass over 20,000 registered members and contains 3,500 published articles. The articles are not confined to a specific genre or subject. The writer or a reader can talk about and comment on practically anything as long as they conform to the guidelines which mainly has to do with refraining from using abusive language or causing another member undue discomfort. Pushing the technicalities aside, Chowk.com provides for a good read with well-rounded articles and interesting discussions taking place amongst the writers and the readers. The privileged few who get to keep their own columns (rightfully so) have their work arranged in a chronological order which makes it easy to access the articles by a specific writer. Chowk.com also offers the option of a reader emailing an article to a friend or ‘monitoring’ an article and the comments made on it by other readers.
With time, Chowk.com has managed to attract a variety of readers from diverse backgrounds and varied age groups. It would be difficult to profile the Chowk.com reader because of the way they have categorised articles on their websites. There is a section for those who like to discuss current affairs, a section dealing purely with fictional literature, one section about the issues pertaining to the society, another on anything related to a person’s academic life and so on. The Chowk.com reader could be anyone or of any age and gender.
Another ezine, now dead, is Bandbaja.org. The brain-child of Safwat Saleem and under the patronage of Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Bandbaja.org was created in 2003 by several college students to promote quality entertainment journalism. It rounded off a healthy and loyal following soon after its launch. According a Wikipedia, it was known for its “blunt views and the promotion of modern popular music as a social and even political tool.” To the disappointment of many regular readers, the website went offline in 2005. Although rumours are being circulated of Bandbaja.org making a come-back soon, there have been no valid claims in support of that.
For those who knew about Bandbaja.org, it provided endless hours of good reading and a medium through which they could feel ‘connected’ to others who share their point of view on the musicians within the industry. Mainly composed of individuals with an active interest in the comings and goings of the entertainment industry, the typical Bandbaja.org reader would have to be someone between the ages of 14 and 32. Their reviews and interviews mainly covered current musicians which is why it is assumed they did not have much of an older audience.
The success of Bandbaja.org propelled a rapid growth of desi entertainment ezines all over the internet. Some of them include TheSaturdayPost.com, Revaj.com, and Raw.com.pk. Sadly, none of them measure up to the quality of work that made the Bandbaja.org articles stand out. Chowk.com on the other hand has managed to do amazingly well for itself, improving quality of content with time. Ezines can prove to be a valuable source of information for many with people already using it them as references. Realising the potential that ezines hold, many newspaper and television channels have ‘internet editions’ of their publications and programmes. Ezines are relatively easy to create as all a person needs to do is register a domain name and get contributors. The only drawback is that there is no way a certain piece of information can be validated and information may at times prove to be unreliable. Also, when it comes to ezines, one is led to conclude that Pakistani ezines have yet to explore areas other than just entertainment and literature.
A music buff’s quest to discover the perfect P2P software
The day I discovered that music could be downloaded – free of cost – using relatively simple P2P software was the happiest day of my life on the internet. It opened a world of possibilities for me. I could download any song that I wanted. I did not have to make a list of CDs to friends and relatives traveling abroad–for those not available in Pakistan–all I had to do was get an internet connection, install the software that connected me to thousands of users across the globe and using their libraries of MP3s, I could search and download to my heart’s content.
Kaaza, the software in vogue at that time had the advantage of being the first of its kind to be introduced to our local internet user population. The speed at which one could download songs was frustratingly slow: it could take from one to four days for a song to download depending on how many people on the network could share the file and how long one remained online. Those were the times when the concept of cable internet or a LAN was still relatively new and very few areas within the city offered the service.
After cable internet had been introduced in our area, I was heartbroken to discover that Kaaza wouldn’t work on it. The reason given to me back than was too technical for me to understand and I really didn’t care. What mattered was that I couldn’t download free music anymore. Friends who had no trouble downloading from other software suggested some that might work for me. They ranged from Kaaza Lite to Morpheus to Phex. They came nowhere near the simplicity of Kaaza and proved too complex for me to handle. All I wanted was to search and download songs, pictures and videos how difficult was it going to be finding software which could provide me with the above mentioned services? In my sad, depressed state of not finding the right software, I had given up all hope and had resigned myself to actually buying music online. My Kazaa years were over.
I found the answer to my prayers when a certain someone in a certain radio station introduced me to certain software that they used to download music. I went mad with joy and proceeded to spread the word around as fast as I could. It turned out “everyone” had been using that software for a quite a while.
Fast forward to 2006 and I can download an average of 150 to 200 songs a day depending on whether I spend the entire day on the computer typing, searching and selecting appropriate MP3s. The software that I now use is LimeWire and it takes an average of five minutes per song and ten minutes per music video to download.
With LimeWire, I thought I had found ‘it’ at last: the perfect downloading P2P software. LimeWire on the other hand, did have its drawbacks: relatively unknown tracks couldn’t be found and a track simply wouldn’t download if there weren’t enough users online to share it, even if the search engine conjured up the MP3 as being ‘available’ on the network. Getting back to the point I was about to make, I had thought I’d found the perfect software, till I was introduced to Azureus. A program that uses bit-torrents (sounds cool doesn’t it?) to download.
The best part is that all I have to do is go on a torrent compatible website, type the name of the album (yes, I have advanced from searching individual songs to entire albums) and select an album depending on the number of people who can share it and the number of people who are having it downloaded on their systems. It takes an average of one to four days for each album to download (similar to my Kazaa days), but it’s worth the wait because it beats having to search individual songs to download. Plus you get to see what the original CD cover looks like as each torrent file usually contains one.
From Kaaza to nothing to LimeWire and then to Azureus, not only have I discovered how P2P has evolved with time but have also noticed significant changes in the way I search online and the kind of music I download. I’ve also noticed that the idea of having the whole world’s music library at a single tap of your keyboard can be exciting at first, leading one to download all kinds of obscure music (most of which I haven’t listened to, but like to keep to show off) but after a while, it becomes a bit of a burden when one discovers they’ve downloaded practically everything cant think of anything else.
Spider talks to four professionals and asks them about the hardware and software they use to get the job done.
Sabeen Mahmud:
“I bought my first Apple Macintosh computer in 1990. It was an all–in-one unit with a nine-inch screen and a single floppy drive. It had one megabyte of RAM, an eight megahertz processor and no hard disk. This machine, along with Pink Floyd, changed my life forever.“
Currently the COO of b.i.t.s., Sabeen has been associated with computers for over 15 years now. Having produced her college newspaper and the Asian Womens’ Magazine on her Macintosh while at college, she joined Enabling Technologies (ET), a firm specialising in multimedia development, after graduating. Sabeen believes that she has a natural inclination for multimedia authoring and graphic design and when the internet was introduced in Pakistan, she gravitated towards Web development. She ran Solutions Unlimited – a sister concern of ET – from 1999 to 2000, while managing projects at ET and teaching New Media Development at Hamdard University. In 2001, she joined b.i.t.s. as a New Media Architect where she also performed the additional roles of managing the day-to-day operations and looking at areas of business development. She considers the Faiz–Aaj Kay Naam interactive CD, on which she worked as a lead programmer and graphic designer, as her greatest achievement to date.
Amean J.:
“I’m an Apple person. Everything is compatible with my iPod so everywhere I go, I have everything with me. I’m more of an iPod freak than a computer freak.“
A professional photographer and part-time teacher, Amean attained his Bachelor in Fine Arts from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and a Masters in Arts from the University of Luton, United Kingdom. Besides getting local acclaim for his unique style of capturing images, Amean’s work has also been mentioned in foreign publications such as The New Yorker, Colours, and Graphics and Communication Arts. In 1998, he established 18 per cent grey, a Karachi based photo studio, with a team dedicated to ensuring the finest details are maintained in the photographs produced. 18 per cent grey has managed to acquire a diverse portfolio of clients, by using photography for graphic design, print and multimedia productions, advertisements, annual reports and corporate work.
Babar Shaikh:
“I have never really been a fan of completely falling slave to computers as such. I have friends who have slept right underneath their computer tables, woken up and gotten straight back into their chairs and that’s kind of sickening because I don’t fancy their lifestyles at all.“
Musician, film-maker, writer and artist, Babar Shaikh has, at the age of 27, proved himself to be as capable as any of the veterans working in the same field. Babar formed the band Dusk in 1994 and they released their debut album 2.5 kilometres from the Tower three years later. Babar then concentrated on his academics and graduated from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture to become an art director in an advertising agency before taking on film-making as a full-time profession. He has to his credit the Kitni Sadiyaan video by Mizraab, which stayed on number one for several weeks. Not limiting himself to music videos, Babar has made several documentaries, of which Tabdeeli found its way to the Kara Film Festival in 2005. Babar also teaches at the Karachi University and at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.*
Hussain Ali Talib:
“I first used a Windows personal computer back in 1998 and have been hooked ever since the first time I used the Web to surf and chat on mIRC.“
Currently working as the editor of E-doer’s Digest and Netexpress, Hussain Ali Talib started his career with Rasala Publications when he was in college and has been with them since. He initially joined Rasala Publications as an intern in 1999 and ended up working there part-time while continuing his education. After graduating in 2001, he joined Rasala Publications as a full-time employee. Having been with Rasala for over 10 years now Hussain Ali Talib says that he enjoys working there as it provides him the opportunity to work in a challenging and exciting environment. Hussain Ali Talib describes himself as less of a person–fascinated–by–technology and more of a writer.
Interview:
Q. What kind of a computer system do you use right now?
Sabeen Mahmud: Apple Macintosh Powerbook G4 15″ with 512 megabytes of RAM, 80-gigabyte hard disk, Airport Extreme (802.11g), Bluetooth, FireWire 400 and 800, USB 2.0 and internal CD/DVD writer with the following extras: 17″ LG LCD monitor, Apple wireless mouse and keyboard, Apple’s Mighty Mouse, LaCie 250 gigabyte Brick external hard drive, Harman Kardon SoundSticks and an iPod Shuffle with the Mac OS X operating system.
Amean J.: I use an iMac. I’m an Apple person. It’s the last generation of iMacs. Not this one (the one that is out right now), it’s the one before that. I’ve been working with the latest OS 10.4.6. That is the newer system on it. And it’s a beautiful machine.
Babar Shaikh: I use a Compaq Presario laptop. I like the convenience of a laptop and it has really been used and abused by me. It’s an AMD Athlon and it’s kind of better for European countries because it gets really hot and it really feels like it’s on fire all the time. I borrowed it from a friend of mine, for a very little while, who is an audio engineer.
Hussain Ali Talib: An Acer Aspire (AMD processor, 128 megabytes of RAM) with Windows 98 operating system.
Q. What kind of programs do you have installed on your computer?
Sabeen Mahmud: Fireworks (Graphic Design), VoodooPad, NetNewsWire, Safari, Camino, Firefox, iCal, Apple Mail, Adium, Skype, iChat, iTunes, TextEdit, Pages, Keynote, OmniGraffle, OmniOutline, iPhoto, iWeb, RapidWeaver, QuickTime, Timbuktu, MarsEdit, Merlin,Transmit, System Optimizer X, LimeWire, iSync and Interface Builder. The only Microsoft program that I occasionally use is Excel and I am awaiting the release of a spreadsheet program that will enable me to be 100 per cent Microsoft free.
Amean J.: Well, Photoshop for one, Safari for browsing and what else do I use? I use my mail software and iTunes very much. I love iTunes. I haven’t really started exploring Garage Band and I use iLife quite regularly which includes the address book, calendar (all of my appointments are on it) and everything is compatible with my iPod so everywhere I go, I have everything with me. As far as high-tech software is concerned, it’s just Photoshop for me. I haven’t tried Aperture yet, the new software by Apple, so I won’t know how to figure that one out yet.
Babar Shaikh: What do I use most of the time? That would be Internet Explorer to browse the internet, Microsoft Word as most of the stuff that I write is on that. For listening to music there is Windows Media Player.
Hussain Ali Talib: Basic office utilities: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook.
Q. What do you use your system for?
Sabeen Mahmud: Graphic design, interaction design, music, blogging, website design, audio editing, video editing, presentations and demonstrations, E-mail, Web browsing and RSS newsfeeds, page layout, project management, accounting, research, writing, system/application tweaking and modelling.
Amean J.: E-mailing, for sure. I prefer contacting my clients through e-mail for a few reasons. One, I just prefer typing as compared to talking and two, for documentation reasons because everything is documented. Three, to talk to friends all over the world. Four, music for sure and five, for editing my photographs. I don’t manually edit photographs any more.
Babar Shaikh: Other than what I’ve already mentioned, Dusk, which is my band, has been on the internet since 2001 and I’m usually updating my website and stuff but have never really been a fan of becoming a slave to computers as such. I really don’t believe in stuff like MP3s. Sure, I do have MP3s on my computer but stuff like MP3s and all this iPod culture, I don’t support it at all. I have friends who I think download hundreds and hundreds of gigabytes of really obscure music but when you talk to them, they’ve hardly listened to any of it. They just like to collect the tracks.
Hussain Ali Talib: Work related tasks, organising contacts and material. Internet-based research and communication.
Q. How long have you been using computers?
Sabeen Mahmud: I have been using Macs (the only computers I have ever and will ever use) since 1990. I started with a Mac Plus that had no hard disk, a single floppy drive, and one megabyte of RAM. I learned how to use MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint, and MS Word on that computer. Since then, I have used the following Macs: SE, Colour Classic, LC III, IIvx, Quadra 840 AV, PowerMac 8100, PowerMac 8500, PowerMac 7200, PowerBook G3, iBook, and Powerbook G4 12″. Indirectly, I have used every Mac produced since the Mac Plus, as we used to sell and service Apple products. I have been using my current PowerBook for four months.
Babar Shaikh: I started using the computer in 1997. It was definitely never a part of my life before that, it was never a necessity. Mainly, I was into trading underground demos for my band through snail mail. Before that, I didn’t really realise that a computer would be necessary.
Hussain Ali Talib: I have been using computers since 1997 and this particular one for the last couple of years.
Q. On average, how much time do you spend on your computer everyday?
Sabeen Mahmud: 12 hours
Amean J.: At least four hours if not more, because even when the work is done I’m usually online at night as well, doing something or the other.
Babar Shaikh: I think my basic usage of a computer is usually two to three hours a day, or maybe a little more. I check my e-mail maybe four or five times a day and that’s usually for 10 to 20 minutes and the rest is I guess when I have to check out some stuff or get some references for my film work.
Spider’s Email Box
The misplaced tool
In the cover story ‘Tools of the trade’ in the last issue of Spider, it was mentioned that Babar Sheikh’s band ‘Dusk’ released an album titled ‘2.5 km from the watchtower’ when it was infact his band ‘Ganda banda and the 3D cats’ that released that album.
Khurram
barzakh@gmail.com
From being virtually non-existent to becoming an industry-in-the-making, animation finally seems to have taken off in Pakistan. Spider decided to talk to those involved – both veteran and promising newcomers – on how they see the current animation industry and the factors affecting its growth.
Company Profiles:
Sharp Image: Founded in 1994 by two entrepreneurs, Tahir Moosa and Amyn Farooqui, Sharp Image evolved from having its premises in a small 10×12 room to a state-of-the-art studio and lab equipped with facilities for 2D and 3D animations, design, post-production and special effects. Having built up its reputation over the years, Sharp Image has managed to carve a significant niche for itself in the market with its expertise in 3D animation and special effects and have completed more than 900 projects so far. Their clientele include high-profile companies such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, J. Walter Thompson, Page 33, WAM Films and Ambience Films.
Post Amazers: Generally acknowledged as the largest post-production and animations house in Pakistan, Post Amazers was established in January 2002 by Asif Iqbal with the objective of providing local producers and directors an alternative to going abroad for the post-production of their projects. Striving to provide a world-class standard, its services include a wide range of post-production, animation, art direction and broadcast design facilities. They have done work on the film Son of the Mask and gained popular acclaim after creating the character of “Captain Safeguard” for Unilever Pakistan.
Zeeshan Parwez: A resident of Peshawar and considered a “revolutionary” director by many die-hard fans, Zeeshan Parwez is a film-maker and music producer by profession with a Masters degree in Marketing from Peshawar University. Having founded an AV studio eponymously called Zeepar Studios, he has been making documentaries and music videos for several years. He has his own show on Indus Music called “On the Fringe”. He also has to his credit the “Freestyle Dive” video which won the Indus Music Award for Best Breakthrough Video.
Ali Kapadia: One of the most promising newcomers in the multimedia and animation industry, Ali wowed Pakistani viewers with the direction of his first video for the band Evolution’s song “Mujo Mei”. Holding a degree in Information Technology, Ali is also a double multimedia champion, having won the Softcom (ACM GIKI) for two years in a row (2003 and 2004). A perfectionist to the core with an experimental attitude, Ali’s area of expertise is actually interactive media.
Interview:
Q. How would you describe the animation industry in Pakistan as it stands right now?
Sharp Image: Generally speaking, it’s very good. I think the only difference at the moment (between the Pakistani industry and the international industry) is that of scale. And by scale, I mean there is less manpower, investment, time et cetera. If we start to take care of these factors and if money is invested, people will learn. The only thing that is lacking here is a background in art. Our “art” is not mature at this point when it comes to the animation industry. But yes, work is being done.
Post Amazers: Currently, I think it’s a very small industry, if I were to make a rough calculation, it would involve not more than a hundred talented, what I can call, professionals in this industry. So it’s a very small industry. In terms of business again, it is not a big industry. I would say not more than a million dollars. Which is worth nothing. I don’t think this industry is big enough to even be called an industry.
Zeeshan Parwez: You can’t really call it an industry at the moment because the only animation work that is going on in this country supports a few major projects. A few brands such as Safeguard, who took the initiative to promote their product using traditional 3D animation as their target film for children… and it worked like anything. For my nephew, Spiderman and Captain Safeguard are one and the same thing. These projects are highly corporate-based because big organisations have the financial clout to carry out such a project. We would have had an animation industry if we had full-length cartoons as well as half-hour cartoon follow-ups, indie animation movies, anime festivals and more animated music videos. To my knowledge, I think there have been just five or six partially animated videos in this media boom period that we’ve been facing.
Ali Kapadia: Right now, we’ve got loads to learn. Not in terms of technicalities but in terms of aesthetics, standards and especially team building. I’ve seen the work of some of the most brilliant animators, designers and artists from Pakistan. But unfortunately, most of these people end up making cookies jump out of a box and into a cup of tea. When you turn on the TV, it seems as if these great artists don’t even exist. Anyone would say we are far behind but in reality we’re not. I think we are at a point where we are beginning to realise that importing expensive mega computers and learning all those techniques is not enough, we need something else. What we need is a special breed of people, crazy maniac people, rebels who argue against the current standards, who eventually get discarded by their own employers for their stubborn nature and end up working on their own experiments. Belief is an important role player here, belief in one’s ideology and ideas.
Q. Has the industry been evolving? How?
Sharp Image: It is definitely advancing everyday. Compared to what has been done in the international market, there is still a lot that needs to be done and there is definitely room for improvement. If we get some truly enthusiastic people in this industry then that’s very good because it is a form of art. I don’t think the industry is in a mature phase right now but it is definitely a start. People are now becoming more and more aware.
Post Amazers: Before, I think some four years back, there was no such animation industry – in terms of anything happening in this country, in terms of character animation or story telling. The animation that was going on before was all about product animation. They made a Dalda container or a toothpaste tube – things like that, or anything related to the basic advertising component of animation. Until now animation has bee dependant on the advertising industry. I don’t think the advertising industry is the only one that can bring up the animation industry. The reason being that if you take animation to a higher level, then you are talking about children’s programmes, feature films and other things which don’t currently exist.
Zeeshan Parwez: I can now rightfully say that animation standards and output quality are increasing day by day because post-production houses are delivering amazing work. There was nil evolution in the 1990s when a little bit of traditional 3D was used to replicate the product or animate the brand’s name in many TV commercials. For me, real work started off some time around 2002 in most of the post-production houses. Since then, quality animation and compositing work is being done in TV commercials and promo movies. Many freelancers are getting modelling work from Hollywood as well.
Ali Kapadia: It has evolved enough to make a statement. The kid can speak now – big deal. People won’t pay attention until the kid says something interesting and for that, the kid’s brain needs a certain type of intellect. Now, if there are some brains out there who disagree and branch out from the standard, they bear the pain of being the only people who adhere to their ideology. They will end up making a masterpiece that hasn’t been created to sell a soap but rather, is solely a piece of original imagination and belief. That is what makes industries evolve.
Q. What do you look for in an animator?
Sharp Image: To give expression to a character, you create lines. You can’t expect that from an MBA. It is a combination of art and science and hence is considered “digital art”. It may not be conventional art but it starts from conventional art. A person who has an inclination towards art and who has a developed aesthetic sense as a result of that interest is preferred.
Post Amazers: What we look for is basically traditional skills in art. So, we look for drawing, we look for sculpture or traditional painter. What happens as a result is that we get the basic talent and then 99 per cent of the time, we provide them with in-house training. Up till now, there has been no proper training for animation in this country. One should invest on people who have the skills to be an animator because animation is about feelings, it’s about acting, it’s about creating a life and a model, whether on paper or on a computer. We look for traditional fine art skills and not technical skills because the latter we can provide within six months to a year.
Ali Kapadia: Respect for details. It’s all in the details. The more observant an artist is, the more detailed his artwork will be. Again, you need a personality that takes your mind far enough to fetch those details and then come up with an interesting way to implement them. You need to be a khuar.
Q. What would you tell someone who wants to enter the industry?
Sharp Image: If you want to do anything in animation, first acquire skills in traditional art. If it is too late, try to learn how to draw and develop your own aesthetic sense so that you may be aware of different perspectives, angles, proportions, anatomy et cetera. Because when you sit down to make something, everything comes out in a very haphazard manner. You may start out making a boy but might end up making a girl.
Post Amazers: Animation requires, like any other art, a lifelong observation and feeling about it. If a person decides to enter into it all of a sudden, then it won’t work. The good thing is that in every nation and every culture there is a certain percentage of people who are inclined towards art. If these people come, then they will be more successful than people who don’t have the observation or required skills. My advice would be that required skills and passion are mandatory. It’s a very tough profession takes a lot out of you. It’s not 9:00 am to 5:00 pm situation. Unless and until you are well equipped with the skills, it’s very difficult. So, until you have those skills, you cannot draw on a piece of paper and you cannot draw on a computer.
Zeeshan Parwez: What I can suggest is one should hit the books, install filter screens on their monitors (for long hours of work), have a proper mindset to achieve something, have coffee and then start their computers. I knew nothing about serious animation. I just had a clear way of how to go about it with 2D animation and I made “Freestyle Dive” without any help here in Peshawar. Man, if a lazy guy like me could do it, trust me, anyone can.
Ali Kapadia: There are two things to do. First, get yourself a dream. Without this, you are headed nowhere. Second, run towards your dream. Make your way towards it no matter what it takes. Negotiate with obstacles: start getting used to bearing physical limitations, staying tired, overworked, sleepy. You have to work like an insane maniac because there is no other way. Forget what the elders say. It’s true, they really don’t know what’s best for you. In the words of Nadeem Farooq Paracha, “stop talking to your parents, start talking to your dog”. It’s stupid to say money makes the world go round. What makes the world go round is energy. It’s not philosophy, just simple science.
