The Next New Thing

Have you heard of beach body, or perhaps some of their products such as p90x, or insanity. These two videos are work out videos that challenge your body for a 60 to 90 day period in which they claim you will get incredible results. I for one am a p90x graduate with amazing results and a believer of the videos. But I also know that not every one can do such an intense workout because it is not designed for someone who has never worked out before. Another challenge with the videos is that ones you have completed them, there are no new work outs. There isn't anything new about the videos, if you do the entire program when you complete it you can probably do the workouts on your own, but if you take some time off and come back for a round to you might need to watch the videos again, but the videos will contain not just the same workouts, but also the same background musics and the most boring part, the same dialogue. For this reason I suggest a website with live video streaming of different variety of classes.

Take the concept of the insanity videos that don't require any any weights, but instead of replaying all the same moves all the time you can do the classes live at a specific time, or a prerecorded session that was posted earlier. You will not get bored of the classes because the music changes, you can pick from different instructors, and there can be different levels of difficulties in the classes. Along with this would be a chat room so that you can interact with any one else who is also doing the classes. You can help support each other in a growing community where you can post up pictures of yourself to show the results that your getting from these workouts. You can also seek advice from people if you have certain injuries and want to replace certain workout moves with others. Of course the website would include a diet section where people can again comment on whats working for them and  giving their own healthy recipes and eating routines. 

This of course would not work for everyone but for people who are intimidated by a gym, or feel like they want to learn about working out before they go to an actual gym could come together. The best part is you can do this at the comfort of your own home. The cost would be small because the personal trainers hosting don't need to a large room to host the class since its students will be at home, and there really wont be a limit to how many people can be joining in live. 

In order for something like this to work it would need to be launched by a reputable company like beach body since they have multiple work out at home videos which have been successful under their belt. They can use the faces of Shawn T or Tony Horton who are well known faces to started up, and then ad more personal trainers as needed to ad more classes. The most important thing though is creating a sense of community. The more people feel connected with each other in supporting each other and wanted to post up pictures of their success, the more likely they are to return. 

P2P File Sharing

Do you remember the days when people used floppy disk to share files from one computer to the other. Or when the internet was to slow that images on a website was a nightmare to load. Well those are a thing of the past, and with faster internet and better computers and a new era of digital technology people are sharing everything in the internet, whether its via email, Google docs, or illegal websites. File sharing over the internet has become very common, but while certain content is certainly acceptable to share, other is not. 

To share a video that you created over the internet with a group of friends is acceptable, but how would you feel if they began to share it with more people ? Some people might not mind, but when it comes to movie companies and record labels the illegal peer to peer sharing of their content is costing them millions of dollars in sales. P2P is a way of sharing files when your computer is connected to the internet and the program automatically shares your media with others who are searching a file that you have via a software program such as bit Torrent or other websites. Many years ago a program called Napster was created by three young men who wanted to allow people to share their music freely. The website ran into legal trouble and was forced to shut down. Today they run a more legal operation. Napster was a pioneer for P2P websites like the one created by Bram Cohen bit Torrent. The concept is the same except that Cohen discovered a way to have files to be downloaded faster then any other website, and because of the speed in which the large files transfer now it is not just musics that is being transferred but long media such as movies are being downloaded illegally on websites like this every day. The war on pirating and illegally downloading these files has been going on since 1999 when Napster launched and is a long way from being over since people have no problem trying to download movies and music for free.

Privacy & Confidentiality

One of the problems that arises when we think of the digital world are laws. How do they protect the people or the products in this virtual world where people can post anything up so easily and who can be held responsible for it. When the first Kodak camera came out in 1888 their was a ruling on whether you needed to get peoples permission every time you took a picture of them. The ruling was no you do not need their permission. Now with the popularity of new media people like Lawrence Lessig are battling to protect technology advances and to allow the usage of media on the web more freely. 

When you post something on the internet, more specifically on a website such as YouTube you are hoping to get many views. But is it wrong to do a cover song from another company, or should you only be allowed to use original material. If it is alright to make a home video of you doing a cover song, but when you post it on the internet do they have the right to make you take it down. If you aren't making any profit from the song just simply showing off your talent and creativity should it be illegal to limit and restrict people. Companies want to protect their assets, and in a way they must make sure that if they music or any other products that can be used online are being used in a manner that they don't approve of that they can have the control to take it down from the web. But how do we decided when you are limiting peoples creativity and when a company can limit the use of their product on the web.