Obsolete Media - Session 2

Obsolete to me is something that is no longer produced or frequently used, making it  ‘old fashioned’, ‘vintage’ or ‘out of date’. With the world constantly changing and new products being released everyday, several media become obsolete everyday. The two obsolete media that I am going to reflect on are: film cameras and MySpace.

Film cameras:

I think that film cameras are an obsolete type of media because although you can still purchase them, they are no longer the most common type of camera, digital cameras are. As film cameras were the first type of cameras they are seen as ‘old fashioned’ and ‘out of date’. Although taking pictures with film cameras can give a photo a nice effect there are many reasons that the digital camera quickly became much more popular. First of all digital cameras are much more simple than film cameras as they use a SD card instead of film. This means that to look at the photographs you have taken you no longer need to go through the struggle of developing your photos from the film in a dark room, instead you insert the SD card into a computer and you can look at your photographs straight away. This makes it easier to share your photographs, edit your photographs and store your photographs. Going from film to digital also means you can take thousands of photographs vs 50 photographs as SD cards have compact memory space whereas film takes up much more space. This aspect also lets digital cameras be more compact. We have gone from cameras being so large you had to transport them in a suitcase to cameras being so small they can be attached to the end of a pen. I think that the advancement with cameras can only be viewed positively as it has opened up the world to people. Photographers are able to capture what they see with their eyes in high definition and share it with everyone around the world. 

MySpace:

Although MySpace technically still does exist and there are a few people who are active members, I consider it to be an obsolete medium as it is no longer used by the masses and there is now a different medium that people use instead of it. MySpace was very popular in the 2000s as it was the first time people were able to share things about themselves online. People could customise their pages to make them look however they wanted, people could upload songs that they liked, pictures they had taken, write on each others profiles, and share links they find interesting. When it was popular nearly everyone had a MySpace page and as soon as you made a new friend you would follow (?) them on MySpace. Today Facebook is what the masses use. In fact Facebook has become more popular than MySpace ever was. It is estimated that if Facebook were a country and its users made up the population, it would be the country with the 3^rd largest population in the world. Facebook and MySpace serve the same purpose and have many similar features, yet why did MySpace die out and Facebook take over? In my opinion Facebook became more popular because it is easier to use. You cant customise your page on Facebook, however this could be seen as a good thing as it was very difficult to make yourself a good MySpace page. Secondly Facebook bought more to the table, for example it has links to games, connections to other applications, you can follow celebrities, and you are able chat to people using messenger. Once Facebook's popularity began to increase it was obvious that MySpace did not have a chance at keeping up, and in the span of about a year Facebook was what everyone had, and MySpace was deemed ‘un cool’ and ‘old school’.