@chrisdtc101 -Chris Barnes
A new media object that I, along with many other people, have come into frequent contact with is Spotify. Spotify is a downloadable music service that can be used for free and offers millions of songs to listen to whenever you want. Because it is a new media object, Spotify meets Lev Manovich’s five criteria for new media: Numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding. First, for numerical representation, all the music on Spotify was recorded (likely on a computer), and then each song was stored on the Spotify app. The second criteria, modularity, is where the websites link to one another. In the case of Spotify, you can click on ads that appear on the bottom and right sides on the screen. Spotify rotates a number of ads as well as plays audio ads every few minutes between songs unless you pay for the ad-free version. The third criteria, automation, is where everything is, as you might guess, automated. Once you click the play button, Spotify continues to plays songs out of your playlist until you tell it to stop. It also automatically plays ads between some songs whether you want it to or not. For the fourth criteria, variability, Spotify offers millions of songs for free listening. It also offers a Pandora-like radio service where you can play a radio station based off a genre, artist, album, or song that you enjoy. The last criteria, transcoding, is where Spotify offers a wide and diverse range of music from sondtracks, classical, electronic, hip-hop/rap, metal, and anything else you can think of. You can choose which songs you want to listen to, put them in order, and unlike radio services like Pandora, you have complete control over what is being played.
Having met these five criteria as stated by Lev Manovich, the Spotify music service is a great example of new media objects.