There is a missing online space...

Hello world, I am Ellis Weng, a sophomore Computer Science, Information Science, Economics triple major (or trying to be) in the college of Arts and Sciences. Computer Science because Cornell has the finest CS program out of all Ivy League schools; Info Science because I realized that I fulfilled 8 of the core requirements before I even knew the major existed, plus information science is a very broad major that deals with many different fields of study (psychology, economics, computer science, statistics, and various other majors) and incorporates them in a very interesting unifying manner; and Economics because I only need to take 3 additional classes after all my CS and IS requirements, so might as well get it... I am interested in the internet and all its wondrous applications and music. Music is my life and should be its own “online space.”

Like many of you, I am interested in many different internet-phenomenons: addiction with metaworlds and social networks, deception of online communication and dating, differences of real-life interaction and asynchronous/synchronous discussions, etc. It is heartbreaking to decide to address only one of these and categorize it into its online space, but I decided to talk about…music. Yes, music in itself is an internet phenomenon and should be considered an online space. Think about it, music is a large part of the internet. The top interest of any Facebook network is guaranteed to be music. There are numerous sites dedicated to listening, exploring, and discussing music: Pandora, Last.fm, Billboard, iLike, iMeem… (I can probably name another 50 sites). This is on top of all the blogs and forums dedicated to specific genres, bands, and albums. Some of you might disagree…maybe music IS just a hobby and the internet has plenty of sites dedicated to different hobbies, but none of these hobbies fall under a separate online space. While this is true, ever since the internet began, file sharing has become possible and violently abused. Piracy is one of the top uses of the internet. See… evidence Interestingly enough, none of these major uses of the internet fall under any of the online spaces. Porn, videos, piracy, or any form of entertainment are not included or even hinted at in any of the online spaces. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe that there are 4 different spaces to categorize online communication: email, asynchronous discussion forums, synchronous chats, and interactive video/voice; 2 different spaces to categorize virtual worlds: MUD and metaworlds—but not even one online space that covers a huge part of internet usage: entertainment. It is impossible to find a person who has not listened to a single song, watched porn, saw a short video clip, downloaded a file, or read a comic strip on the internet. Go ahead, I dare you to find one person who engaged in the activities from all the 7 online spaces, but has not used the internet for entertainment. I can understand why social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, were not included as one of the seven online spaces—because these were not a large part of the internet in back then, but I am pretty sure music and entertainment were invented prior to the 90s.