Apple provides access to college lectures through iTunesU. This image is a screenshot of David Brady, Associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University, giving a lecture on "Markets, Trade, and Globalization."
It is almost uniformly part of the human condition to love a great deal. I know of the occasional bizzaro-being who refuses to take advantage of living social or groupon, because he claims they are low-class, or the schmendrick who actually pays a higher gas price at neighboring gas stations because he claims the quality of gas is better at the more expensive station. But with irrational beings aside, finding that good bargain can be a source of tremendous joy and reward.
Today’s post is how the great deal goes beyond just market goods. It’s about the whole experience of acquiring new things or new experiences for a price that feels too good to be true.
My roommate told me about Zamzar last week. With Zamzar, users can copy the hyperlink of a YouTube music video and convert it into an mp3 file. It’s pretty user friendly and very fast. Where LimeWire was illegal and not good for downloading anything on the fringe, Zamzar appears to be legal and gives its users access to the almost anything their hearts’ desire. I could do a whole song and dance about how good music is the magic that makes millions of moods morph from melancholy to merriment, but we all know this, so instead, I’m going to highly recommend using Zamzar and I’m going to plow into a different subject.
Zamzar revolutionizes the realm of downloading music by providing the option for an internet user to copy and paste a music video hyperlink into a box on its site. Zamzar then converts this hyperlink into an mp3 and emails you the converted file.
The internet is nearing the height of perfection. Right now there is access to almost any sort of media for free, if you have the know-how. Movies, tv series, books, language acquisition software, podcasts, college lecture series, etc. are all out there to be obtained through varying shades of legality. To me it feels like there is a ticking clock for this reality and pretty soon some powerful IT tycoon will influence lawmakers to clamp down on the glorious freedoms that are afforded to us. So enjoy web while the getting’s good.
Also at the moment, companies are vying for internet users and making life wonderful for us. It feels like we are being led through this incredible courtship phase where companies are bending over backwards trying to make things convenient for us. If you look at iTunes, Google, YouTube, and Facebook, it seems that we are at the apex of convenience. Sure these sites are trying to be as convenient as possible to lure us into habitual use, before they turn on us with small fees (New York Times) or unrelenting ads (Pandora). But by and large we are in the era of good stealings for the internet.
Outside of personal relationships, the internet is the single most powerful tool available for building happiness. It offers access to skills that provide job mobility, free access to media, and what often gets overlooked is that since the internet provides access to so many free things, it is serving as an active agent to drive down prices of media goods that aren’t free. For example, newspapers have to keep the cost of their print product low to compete with the freeness of the web.
So even in an economy where 75 percent of individuals are working part time, with a median income of $19,000 there’s a booming black market for free media which internet users can tap into.
Farewell for now, but in the meantime:
- Get Zamzar
- Peruse iTunes U and start learning something valuable for free
- Podcast your life
- Go to your library and see if you can view periodicals/magazines online for free through their eCatalogs
No comments:
Post a Comment