2 weeks ago
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
The Decade of the Torrent
Looking back over the decade there can be only one thing that be said to have completely changed everything about Anime Fandom. It effected everything, even beyond anime and Anime Fandom. It was the internet. Specifically, BitTorrent.
In 2002 some guy created BitTorrent. Although there had been a "peer to peer" exchange of files previously it had only been small files, mostly mp3. BitTorrenting was different. It broke large files into smaller pieces and distributed them through a group of peers instead of one computer to another. Suddenly, you could distribute large files easily. Large files like videos.
Taking advantage of this, anime fans began distributing new anime recorded right off the air. With the easy access to these new shows a new phenomena of fan subtitling groups emerged along with easy digital subtitling.
Of course the advent of YouTube and improved digital streaming video has taken this to another level. Never before has it been so easy to watch so much anime.
What have we done?
In 2002 some guy created BitTorrent. Although there had been a "peer to peer" exchange of files previously it had only been small files, mostly mp3. BitTorrenting was different. It broke large files into smaller pieces and distributed them through a group of peers instead of one computer to another. Suddenly, you could distribute large files easily. Large files like videos.
Taking advantage of this, anime fans began distributing new anime recorded right off the air. With the easy access to these new shows a new phenomena of fan subtitling groups emerged along with easy digital subtitling.
Of course the advent of YouTube and improved digital streaming video has taken this to another level. Never before has it been so easy to watch so much anime.
What have we done?
Pikadon Redux?
*possibly NSFW/politically incorrect link to follow*
"I had seen enough "Blade Runner/The Day After" movies that I had half expected to encounter mutants walking around town or troglodytes emerging from the sewers.
Meanwhile, near Ground Zero just below the precise spot where the Nagasaki bomb had detonated, I saw several American fast-food restaurants including the smiling face of Colonel Sanders."
The Future of Comics (for balance)
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The Future of Comics and Other Publishing
James Hudnall
You can probably date yourself by remembering how much comic books cost when you were a kid. Was it a dime, a quarter, a dollar? Can you believe they cost $4 now?
As the greenies would say, that’s unsustainable. Comic books used to be common. If you went in any kids house in the 50s or early 60s you would probably find some. Not so much anymore. Comics once sold everywhere magazines were sold. You could buy them in drug stores, supermarkets, seven-elevens, newsstands, even some liquor stores. But the so called “newsstand market” was a hostile place to comics publishers, and a shrinking one.
These days, it’s hard to find comics anywhere outside of the comic book store. That means that comics have become a “destination product.” It’s something you need to know where it’s sold, you have to physically go there and if you’re lucky, they might have what you’re looking for. However, most comics retailers order to sell out. So the odds are, you may be unlucky if you don’t come on “comics day,” the day the books come in from the distributor.
And that’s another problem with comics these days. There is only one distributor.
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