WC Archive

The Generation C idea focuses upon the growing number of tools out there enabling individuals at home to create new media products and distribute them over the web. Movies, writing (via weblogs), music, photographic art -- it's now quite possible to get one's entertainment entirely from original productions from "amateur" artists. Trendwatching recognizes that the blurring of the lines between "producer" and "consumer" is entirely intentional:

The two main drivers fuelling this trend? (1) The creative urges each consumer undeniably possesses. We're all artists, but until now we neither had the guts nor the means to go all out. (2) The manufacturers of content-creating tools, who relentlessly push us to unleash that creativity, using -- of course -- their ever cheaper, ever more powerful gadgets and gizmos. Instead of asking consumers to watch, to listen, to play, to passively consume, the race is on to get them to create, to produce, and to participate.

Trendwatching then gives myriad examples of products and services intended to give people the opportunity to create content that can others can share and enjoy. To their credit, they don't just talk about GarageBand and Blogger (although both do show up); collaborative sites looking to provide contributor-made services, such as OhMyNews and igougo also feature prominently in the Trendwatching research.

Futurewire takes the Trendwatching information and adds its own ideas, looking at what this means for a culture of consumption:

With these trends firmly in place, middlemen are cut out, and it becomes economically feasible to pursue niche audiences. This in turn fuels a cycle of encouraging content creators whose visions and creations may not appeal to a mass audience, but who have something worthwhile to say nonetheless.

What Trendwatching misses (and Futurewire mentions, but doesn't pursue) is the rising ability to fabricate functional objects at home. Just as amateur musicians no longer require elaborate and expensive home recording studios to produce good-sounding music, amateur engineers are less-and-less needing to convert their garages into workshops. Already, services like eMachineShop and MFGquote (among many others) allow the production of physical, machined objects based solely on the output of design software. That software, in turn, is becoming easier for non-specialists to use. (Similar services are available for electronics.)

Having to send off email and wait for something to be shipped, something that probably then needs assembly, are big stumbling blocks to home engineering taking on the same visibility as home movie production. But regular readers already know what's coming next: fabricator technologies, allowing for desktop "printing" of physical goods. The ability to do this already exists, but such devices remain expensive; breakthroughs involving ink-jet print-head technologies look to bring the prices down considerably, and there are projects underway to make these devices accessible to everyone. A home "3D Printer" the size and price of a business laserprinter is probably not too far off. Further down the road, nano-factories, still a decade or more off, will be the ultimate version of home fabrication.

What I'm talking about, then, is a world where it's as easy to make interesting devices as it is now to make interesting music. A world where amateurs can swap ideas and designs around as easily as we now swap MP3s. A world where the disruption and changes engendered by digital technologies are no longer centered on the arts.

We've discussed what a fabrication world would look like in some depth, so I won't rehash it here. But when you read the "Generation C" research and similar arguments that the "DIY Culture" is here, remember that it's not just about movies, music, podcasting and blogging. Soon, the same claims and concerns will apply to our ability to construct our material world out of little more than novel ideas and good software.