Head in the Clouds

I've had my head in the clouds for the last few months. I've been researching and writing the last chapter of my dissertation, which is on cloud computing and the economic, aesthetic and cultural impact of moving our music collections to cloud-based services like Spotify, MP3 tunes, etc. The argument, in a nutshell, is that music in the cloud is both what Jonathan Zittrain calls contingent (i.e. dependent on the service) and what Nicholas Carr calls complentary (i.e. secondary to the service selling it). Cloud-based music services offer users some novel and unique methods for finding and using music, but they also further encroach on the rights of users and musicians, and further commodify our behaviours around music (i.e. listening habits, recommendations, etc.)

In the next few weeks, I'll be putting up a bit more info on the dissertation, now that it's done. The whole thing will be available shortly, (under a shiny and friendly creative commons license I'm proud to say) from this site.

For now, let's just say that the deposit draft is done (hence the pic) and I'm waiting with my fingers crossed to see what my examiner(s) think.

I've been distracted from the blog for other reasons too. Things are really busy over at Midnight Poutine and I had a somewhat unexpected early visit from two adorable new housemates, Rachel and Justine. I'm glad they are here, and I'm glad I get to spend some un-distracted time with them finally.