For most people my age, I'd say downloading music is about equivalent to getting dressed in the morning. It is a habitual action, one that people take time doing, and use care and consideration when choosing what to download. There are various way to download music. One can use stores like iTunes or Rhapsody, and others use the more frowned-upon method of file sharing. When thinking of the latter way of obtaining music one obvious candidate pops into my head... by some it is loved, by others it is hated, but to all it is called Lime Wire.
Recently, as I was browsing CNN.com I stumbled across an article called "Lime Wire seeks legitmacy." The title basically gives away what the article entails, however, as I was reading through I was struck by how this company was trying accomplish exactly what we have been studying in class. Lime Wire is trying to expand, it is trying to reel the other big names of music onto their side and become legal and yada yada yada. Later on in the article it starts talking about a more internal kind of expansion, like making Lime Wire users be able to make profiles and creating a "peer-to-peer service." In essence, Lime Wire is trying to transform from an online group to an online community.
Lately, I've been learning that creating an online community is not a goal easily obtained. In class, we discussed the necessities a group must have in order to become a community. Phrases like trust between users, there must be a dependency, frequency, a shared interest, a sense of belonging, and there must be participants, all floated around and enveloped the class until we became determine to come up with more guidelines. In the end, there were over 30 different requirements that we felt were necessary for a group to have in order to become an online community. So when I first started reading the Lime Wire article, my immediate reaction to Lime Wire trying to build a social networking site, was why? Why would they even bother trying? Since the company is already knee-deep in a court case against the music industry over file sharing, don't they already have a few strikes against them? What would posses them to, ontop of all that Lime Wire is already dealing with, attempt to create an online community for its users when it is not a goal easily obtained?After some reflecting, I looked at the article again. The article points out the huge success of Facebook and MySpace, and how Lime Wire trying to create an online community environment is a selling point. It is alluring to label execs.
Online communities are not just a term used in class that I will soon forget about after this semester ends. No, online communities are something that is ingrained in society and will continue to be in my life long after COMM 301 is over. They are popular, popular enough to help lure label executives away from the idea of denouncing Lime Wire and instead convincing them to partner up with the company. Since this is so, then online communities certainly must bring in the cash. Look at all the ads that pop up on Facebook and MySpace these days. Companies want to be involved with online communities because, even if they are hard to create, they are popular moneymakers. Looking at it that way, Lime Wire is pretty smart, and label execs are probably smart to join in with the notorious company. If Lime Wire's community becomes successful, but companies watch from the shore, then they'll be hit with the tidal wave of the mass popularity and influence of an online community, and left in the sand as Lime Wire sails to the future.
1 comment:
Limewire trying to become a social community brings me back to the days of Napster. We all know that it was shut down because it was illegal but I can recall chatting to my friends on Napster and listening to each others’ music in middle school. We used to do this when Instant Messenger was having problems. The creators of Limewire, much like the creators of Napster, are smart. They understand that if users have a social attachment then they are much more likely to log on more often.
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