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...l Interaction and Gifting A big part of the lifecycle of media, and the consumption experience, concerns the social situations in which these experiences take place. For example, the gifting of media shows understanding of the person receiving the gift: intertwining the ability to successfully give a gift with the recipient’s ability to successfully curate their collection and make that available in an appropriate manner [5]. Without that understanding the gift can be less valuable. The gifting of digital objects can go part way to fulfilling the gifting obligations felt in social interaction [25] but the interviews show a decline in gifting media. If a piece of media is available in the cloud its value is relatively low – even if the monetary value of the physical media is not. This means that it is harder to understand and sustain its status as a gift of some value [23]. “I did, but I haven’t [bought music as a gift] anymore, probably because I am not sure what people have got, and whether they would appreciate having…” Much of the movement in media technology has been focused on the personal consumption, many times at the expense of communal consumption of media. Mobile streaming, p...

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...lessness is a point we will return to later in our design discussion. Curation and Ownership Sease and McDonald [22] in their paper on home media collections document at length the work involved in curating a complex home collection of media. What was clear from our interviews was that the act of media curation is a radically different activity for each of the format types we are discussing in this paper – physical media, local computer files, and cloud-based media. It appears, though, that there are experiences which transcend these differences. For DeNora music is a ‘technology of the self’ [6]; a part of the social work done to “construct, reinforce and repair the ‘thread’ of self-identity”. Music can be a key component in the work of identity as it offers a “sense of both self and others, of the subjective in the collective” [7]. So the act of curation is not solely a personal, organisational or optimisation activity; it echoes Goffman’s point that the action of applying make-up is not only orientated towards presenting oneself for observation but it is about identifying with an ideal for one’s own gratification “to be stabilised, justified” [10]. MUM 2015 Media and Applications 6...

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...hanges streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical and digital mementos, and what this shift implies [14, 21], however very little has been said about the role of consumer media in these studies. Lindley et al [17] point out how there may be some value in considering the web as an archive in itself and not just as a means of finding new media, or as a backup for content hosted offline. INTERVIEWS We conducted thirteen interviews in total, five in Sweden and eight in the UK, recruiting ‘early adopters’ of digital media and cloud technology – people who used services such as Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, Google Docs and Soundcloud. We recruited five women and eight men, between 26 and 38 years old (median...

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...% of early adopters who had even tried streaming media in 2006 [27] the growth of streaming media services is apparent. The advantage of these services is that media can be accessed without the need to download the media, or buy physical formats such as CDs or DVDs. Payment for media is either at a fixed rate, or free and subsidised by advertising revenue. Despite this popularity, there is little literature which investigates the changing nature of media and cloud computing. One exception is work by Odom and colleagues which explores what it means to be in possession of an object in the cloud [20] highlighting the problems inherent in the curation, control and access of such objects. In further work [21], the design opportunities of bringing digital, cloud-based possessions into other settings, such as the home, are discussed. While it does not directly address recorded media, Marshall et al explored the challenges that users encounter in understanding how cloud services work, in particular in collaborative settings [18]. More specifically with respect to media, Brown et al examined the emergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The c...

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... cloud [20] highlighting the problems inherent in the curation, control and access of such objects. In further work [21], the design opportunities of bringing digital, cloud-based possessions into other settings, such as the home, are discussed. While it does not directly address recorded media, Marshall et al explored the challenges that users encounter in understanding how cloud services work, in particular in collaborative settings [18]. More specifically with respect to media, Brown et al examined the emergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a l...

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...d gestures such as swiping and pinching to perform actions such as playing media or changing exactly what media each physical object represented – either a playlist, an album, a friend's music history or a genre-based radio station. The cubes were also able to be interacted with spatially, by placing cubes beside one another in order to expand playlists or in combination with gestures to copy or move content as shown in Figures 2 & 3. There have been a number of related tangible music systems which have focused on one particular aspect of the experience of media such as the MusicCube device’s [1] focus on portability, the Music Cards’ [8] focus on the share and transport of playlists, the Nomadic Tangible Music Player’s [28] focus on control of the consumption experience and the Music Wall’s [11] focus on co-present awareness. We produced the working prototype using devices called ‘Sifteos’ (www.sifteos.com) – small, wirelessly connected cubes (measuring about 1 inch across) with a colour display on one face and a touch interface. The Sifteos supported much of the functionality that was desired. Technical limitations caused some problems, however. Sifteos can connect and talk to ‘each...

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...s Multimedia (MUM 2015) 3 RELATED WORK Cloud media has quickly grown into a major way of accessing video, audio and related media. Services such as Spotify, Pandora, Netflix and the like are systems where a large library of media is streamed over the internet to computers, mobile devices and TV connected video streamers. As of 2015, Netflix has around 57 million streaming subscribers, Spotify has over 20 million paying subscriptions and 75 million active users, and Pandora has around 79 million active users. Compared to the only 13% of early adopters who had even tried streaming media in 2006 [27] the growth of streaming media services is apparent. The advantage of these services is that media can be accessed without the need to download the media, or buy physical formats such as CDs or DVDs. Payment for media is either at a fixed rate, or free and subsidised by advertising revenue. Despite this popularity, there is little literature which investigates the changing nature of media and cloud computing. One exception is work by Odom and colleagues which explores what it means to be in possession of an object in the cloud [20] highlighting the problems inherent in the curation, control an...

Citation Context

...e changing nature of media and cloud computing. One exception is work by Odom and colleagues which explores what it means to be in possession of an object in the cloud [20] highlighting the problems inherent in the curation, control and access of such objects. In further work [21], the design opportunities of bringing digital, cloud-based possessions into other settings, such as the home, are discussed. While it does not directly address recorded media, Marshall et al explored the challenges that users encounter in understanding how cloud services work, in particular in collaborative settings [18]. More specifically with respect to media, Brown et al examined the emergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files w...

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...e argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical and digital mementos, and what this shift implies [14, 21], however very little has been said about the role of consumer media in these studies. Lindley et al [17] point out how there may be some value in considering the web as an archive in itself and not just as a means of finding new media, or as a backup for content hosted offline. INTERVIEWS We conducted thirteen interviews in total, five in Sweden and eight in the UK, recruiting ‘early adopters’ of digital media and cloud technology – people who used services such as Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, Google Docs and Soundcloud. We recruited five women and eight men, between 26 and 38 years old (median age 31.3) of which 11 were Spotify users and five used Netflix. We used adverts on Facebook and Google t...

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...he frictionless nature of file based media even further than the previous relationship to digital files. While with digital files one could very quickly 'have' an artist’s complete discography – there is no cost so thus no real meaning to 'having' cloud media. This means that there is no ‘sacrifice’ involved and thus the perceived commitment to a particular artist, music, movie, or media form is much less. It loses much of its meaning in terms of its connection to the user. This costlessness is a point we will return to later in our design discussion. Curation and Ownership Sease and McDonald [22] in their paper on home media collections document at length the work involved in curating a complex home collection of media. What was clear from our interviews was that the act of media curation is a radically different activity for each of the format types we are discussing in this paper – physical media, local computer files, and cloud-based media. It appears, though, that there are experiences which transcend these differences. For DeNora music is a ‘technology of the self’ [6]; a part of the social work done to “construct, reinforce and repair the ‘thread’ of self-identity”. Music can be...

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...ossessions into other settings, such as the home, are discussed. While it does not directly address recorded media, Marshall et al explored the challenges that users encounter in understanding how cloud services work, in particular in collaborative settings [18]. More specifically with respect to media, Brown et al examined the emergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical ...

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...to some extent, dependant on the visibility of musical choice and the ability to make these choices visible as a badge of identity and membership. However intertwined with the digitisation of music is the disappearance of many of the practices that could be used to make visible a musical identity – browsing a certain section of the record shop and displaying CDs around the player are being replaced with non-performative actions. Using these themes we produced an annotated ‘design catalogue’ of potential concepts, drawing upon the conceptual design work of researchers at Goldsmiths – as Bowers [3] puts it: [an annotated portfolio is] “a means for capturing the family resemblances that exist in a collection of artefacts, simultaneously respecting the particularity of specific designs and engaging with broader concerns.” Our design catalogue started with 10 sketches of systems for the home utilising an array of pre-existing technologies such as tablets and televisions as well as a range of speculative hardware, software and service integrations. Each of these designs highlights different aspects of the opportunities that cloud media services offer in combination with local practice. This...

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...lable offline, but this is an action to be taken on an entire playlist and not an individual file. Our participants showed that they understood the results of these two different actions, yet lacked the grammar to express them unambiguously. “We were both saying, ‘Oh, listen to this’ and we were sending each other tracks” Similar ambiguities were present when talking about sharing playlists and media with friends. The action of sending a song or playlist to someone using services such as Spotify is inherently different than sending a file or a CD. These problems allude to those set forward in [9] –that the move to cloud-based systems calls for a move away from traditional file-based language and to something more suitable to the actions and affordances of services such as Spotify. Interfacing with the cloud While a common computer science concept, the notion of ‘the cloud’ was certainly an ambiguous one for those we interviewed, even those who worked with technology. That said, there was a reasonable understanding of the differences between server-based services, where content came over the Internet, and local file-based systems, where content was kept on local devices. The clear adva...

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...o successfully give a gift with the recipient’s ability to successfully curate their collection and make that available in an appropriate manner [5]. Without that understanding the gift can be less valuable. The gifting of digital objects can go part way to fulfilling the gifting obligations felt in social interaction [25] but the interviews show a decline in gifting media. If a piece of media is available in the cloud its value is relatively low – even if the monetary value of the physical media is not. This means that it is harder to understand and sustain its status as a gift of some value [23]. “I did, but I haven’t [bought music as a gift] anymore, probably because I am not sure what people have got, and whether they would appreciate having…” Much of the movement in media technology has been focused on the personal consumption, many times at the expense of communal consumption of media. Mobile streaming, personal head mounted cinema displays and even the streaming of media from personal devices to shared screens and speakers moves the control and awareness of that control into the hands of the originating device owner. One aspect of the social experience that is well supported by ...

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...ct represented – either a playlist, an album, a friend's music history or a genre-based radio station. The cubes were also able to be interacted with spatially, by placing cubes beside one another in order to expand playlists or in combination with gestures to copy or move content as shown in Figures 2 & 3. There have been a number of related tangible music systems which have focused on one particular aspect of the experience of media such as the MusicCube device’s [1] focus on portability, the Music Cards’ [8] focus on the share and transport of playlists, the Nomadic Tangible Music Player’s [28] focus on control of the consumption experience and the Music Wall’s [11] focus on co-present awareness. We produced the working prototype using devices called ‘Sifteos’ (www.sifteos.com) – small, wirelessly connected cubes (measuring about 1 inch across) with a colour display on one face and a touch interface. The Sifteos supported much of the functionality that was desired. Technical limitations caused some problems, however. Sifteos can connect and talk to ‘each other’ but cannot connect to a PC or the Internet. Our solution to this was using a dedicated Sifteo with a web camera pointing at...

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...n artefact and a hesitation to part with them, even though eBook technology itself had produced something often more usable in some respects than paper books themselves. Social Interaction and Gifting A big part of the lifecycle of media, and the consumption experience, concerns the social situations in which these experiences take place. For example, the gifting of media shows understanding of the person receiving the gift: intertwining the ability to successfully give a gift with the recipient’s ability to successfully curate their collection and make that available in an appropriate manner [5]. Without that understanding the gift can be less valuable. The gifting of digital objects can go part way to fulfilling the gifting obligations felt in social interaction [25] but the interviews show a decline in gifting media. If a piece of media is available in the cloud its value is relatively low – even if the monetary value of the physical media is not. This means that it is harder to understand and sustain its status as a gift of some value [23]. “I did, but I haven’t [bought music as a gift] anymore, probably because I am not sure what people have got, and whether they would appreciate...

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...perform actions such as playing media or changing exactly what media each physical object represented – either a playlist, an album, a friend's music history or a genre-based radio station. The cubes were also able to be interacted with spatially, by placing cubes beside one another in order to expand playlists or in combination with gestures to copy or move content as shown in Figures 2 & 3. There have been a number of related tangible music systems which have focused on one particular aspect of the experience of media such as the MusicCube device’s [1] focus on portability, the Music Cards’ [8] focus on the share and transport of playlists, the Nomadic Tangible Music Player’s [28] focus on control of the consumption experience and the Music Wall’s [11] focus on co-present awareness. We produced the working prototype using devices called ‘Sifteos’ (www.sifteos.com) – small, wirelessly connected cubes (measuring about 1 inch across) with a colour display on one face and a touch interface. The Sifteos supported much of the functionality that was desired. Technical limitations caused some problems, however. Sifteos can connect and talk to ‘each other’ but cannot connect to a PC or the I...

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.... What was clear from our interviews was that the act of media curation is a radically different activity for each of the format types we are discussing in this paper – physical media, local computer files, and cloud-based media. It appears, though, that there are experiences which transcend these differences. For DeNora music is a ‘technology of the self’ [6]; a part of the social work done to “construct, reinforce and repair the ‘thread’ of self-identity”. Music can be a key component in the work of identity as it offers a “sense of both self and others, of the subjective in the collective” [7]. So the act of curation is not solely a personal, organisational or optimisation activity; it echoes Goffman’s point that the action of applying make-up is not only orientated towards presenting oneself for observation but it is about identifying with an ideal for one’s own gratification “to be stabilised, justified” [10]. MUM 2015 Media and Applications 6 One of the confusing aspects of cloud media services is that in granting access to a massive library of media, the notion of a personal collection is obscured. In curating a personal collection of media, one is not only organising media for...

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... a genre-based radio station. The cubes were also able to be interacted with spatially, by placing cubes beside one another in order to expand playlists or in combination with gestures to copy or move content as shown in Figures 2 & 3. There have been a number of related tangible music systems which have focused on one particular aspect of the experience of media such as the MusicCube device’s [1] focus on portability, the Music Cards’ [8] focus on the share and transport of playlists, the Nomadic Tangible Music Player’s [28] focus on control of the consumption experience and the Music Wall’s [11] focus on co-present awareness. We produced the working prototype using devices called ‘Sifteos’ (www.sifteos.com) – small, wirelessly connected cubes (measuring about 1 inch across) with a colour display on one face and a touch interface. The Sifteos supported much of the functionality that was desired. Technical limitations caused some problems, however. Sifteos can connect and talk to ‘each other’ but cannot connect to a PC or the Internet. Our solution to this was using a dedicated Sifteo with a web camera pointing at it, using the display to communicate with a PC. In using Pick Up and Pla...

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...ther settings, such as the home, are discussed. While it does not directly address recorded media, Marshall et al explored the challenges that users encounter in understanding how cloud services work, in particular in collaborative settings [18]. More specifically with respect to media, Brown et al examined the emergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical and digital mement...

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...ore generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical and digital mementos, and what this shift implies [14, 21], however very little has been said about the role of consumer media in these studies. Lindley et al [17] point out how there may be some value in considering the web as an archive in itself and not just as a means of finding new media, or as a backup for content hosted offline. INTERVIEWS We conducted thirteen interviews in total, five in Sweden...

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...ergent, social practices around sharing playlists [4] and digital music more generally [19]. The changes in social practices brought on by the introduction of recording and file sharing to the social structures around video consumption is explored by Barkhuus & Brown [2] and by Jones [12] with her investigation of the changes streaming media services are causing in home life, especially with respect to broadcast media. While we argue later that the frictionless quality of obtaining media can dilute its value, sharing files with friends has been seen as a way to impart meaning to digital music [15] and sharing music playlists a way to add meaning to social networks [13]. There is a large body of work on personal archiving – especially the management and maintenance of personally produced content such as photos and videos, drawing distinctions between physical and digital mementos, and what this shift implies [14, 21], however very little has been said about the role of consumer media in these studies. Lindley et al [17] point out how there may be some value in considering the web as an archive in itself and not just as a means of finding new media, or as a backup for content hosted offl...

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...nal consumption, many times at the expense of communal consumption of media. Mobile streaming, personal head mounted cinema displays and even the streaming of media from personal devices to shared screens and speakers moves the control and awareness of that control into the hands of the originating device owner. One aspect of the social experience that is well supported by most cloud-based media services, or by 3rd party services alongside them, is recommendation among friends – traditionally in the form of Mixtapes this form of sharing is supported with public, shared, and sendable playlists [24]. “People sometimes put comments on Facebook saying ‘Oh, I like that track you’re listening to.’” With file-based media there is the possibility of transferring the file to someone else’s device to give them the music, so long as digital rights management tools to restrict copying had not been employed in the creation of the file by the original distributer. Indeed, online systems also radically change the social features around media and this has been one area where different systems have attempted to explore the expanded opportunities to share details of what one is listening to or is in one...