Under 2000-talet har medie- och musikklimatet varit i omstöpning. Förutsättningar för att dela, distribuera och upptäcka musik har förändrats i grunden. Soundcloud, en digital musikplattform som startade sin verksamhet hösten 2008, står på många sätt i centrum för denna utveckling. Det övergripande syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att utifrån ett antal ämnesområden kopplade till teknik och musik, sociala funktioner och relationer, ett förändrat musiklandskap samt Soundclouds samarbete med Audible Magic tematiskt analysera och problematisera den digitala musikplattformen Soundcloud med utgångspunkt i kvalitativa intervjuer med artister/producenter/DJ:s verkandes inom den elektroniska scenen. Mer specifikt behandlas användarnas förhållning till upplevelsen av musik genom den särskilda teknologi och grafiska inramning som Soundcloud tillhandahåller samt de sociala funktioner som implementerats. Vidare problematiseras synen på Soundcloud som ett community, förhållandet mellan global och lokal tillhörighet samt hur artister respektive lyssnare förhåller sig till ett nytt medie- och musikklimat. Slutligen belyser uppsatsen Soundclouds nyligen initierade partnerskap med Audible Magic – ett företag som specialiserat sig på automatiserad identifiering av medieinnehåll. I tidigare forskning behandlas den så kallade modscenen samt den forskning som bedrivits kring det komplexa förhållandet mellan musik, teknologi och sociala praktiker. Det teoretiska ramverket är baserat på Chris Andersons ”Long Tail”-teori, med betoning på demokratiseringen av distributionsmedel respektive produktionsverktyg samt nya filter för urval och sammankoppling mellan utbud och efterfrågan. Vidare berörs Gerd Leonhards samtidsforskning om det nya medie- och musikklimat som står inför dörren. Studien har belyst Soundclouds distinkta grafiska gränssnitt och sociala funktioner och dess inverkan, i både positiv och negative bemärkelse, för hur musik upplevs. Studien visar att Soundcloud kan ses ett steg framåt i processen att göra delning av musik i digital tidsålder mer social, en utveckling som emellertid bromsas av faktum av att banden mellan användarna i många fall är allt för svaga, vilket bland annat beror på Soundclouds allt för kraftfulla filtrering- och urvalsmekanismer. En konsekvens av detta är att Soundcloud i sig ofta inte ses som ett community, utan blott som ett verktyg eller en länk mellan lokala noder. Denna slutsats stärks av faktum att samtliga informanter framhöll lokal tillhörighet som grundläggande. Musikaliska samarbeten via en digital musikplattform som Soundcloud menar man aldrig kommer att kunna ersätta det kreativa utbyte som sker fysisk mellan människor. Partnerskapet med Audible Magic är ännu i ett tidigt stadium. Studien visar att samarbete kan få både negativa och positiva följder. Det negativa består i att DJ-mixar kan komma att försvinna från Soundcloud. Det positiva i att en ökad upphovsrättslig kontroll kan fungera som ett incitament för att göra artister mer originella i sitt arbete

In the best of worlds, all marketing is relevant. This study brings light to and creates understanding for how to capture the opportunities for target marketing, given by resent technical development and improvement. Customers often perceive marketing on the internet as annoying, embarrassing, repetitive and sometimes even noisy. Companies have problems to focus their marketing efforts towards the areas which give most value for the marketing investments. The conflict between companies pushing the marketing messages to their customers, who are trying to avoid them, a growing mistrust is feed. Well established businesses are challenged by new companies cutting in between the content providers and their customers. A new business model using the Long Tail phenomena is shaking the old media houses’ business position. Smartphones and netbooks are merging into mobile devices, which release a number of opportunities for target marketing. This study states that mobile devices are personalized and as a consequence, open for the possibility of target marketing towards individuals. However, there are identified obstacles to overcome. One challenge lies in the balance between marketing benefits and preventing violation of the customers’ personal integrity. From literature and case studies, light is brought to the state of practice of rules and regulations, old media houses Schibsted and Aftonbladet, search engine provider as Google and a marketing agency, Mobiento Mobile Marketing.  Trends and best practices stick out as more important in order for a company to become a successful target marketing actor. A “target marketing house concept” points out four significant areas for companies to benefit from the power of target marketing in mobile devices. Trough out of this study, protection of the personal integrity and personal data has been pointed out as a key factor for a mutual and trustful customer relationship. This is considered to be as a precondition, both for behaviour segmentation and for a joint rewarding customer dialogue.

Avui en dia, la música està esbiaixada cap al consum d'alguns artistes molt populars. Per exemple, el 2007 només l'1% de totes les cançons en format digital va representar el 80% de les vendes. De la mateixa manera, només 1.000 àlbums varen representar el 50% de totes les vendes, i el 80% de tots els àlbums venuts es varen comprar menys de 100 vegades. Es clar que hi ha una necessitat per tal d'ajudar a les persones a filtrar, descobrir, personalitzar i recomanar música, a partir de l'enorme quantitat de contingut musical disponible. Els algorismes de recomanació de música actuals intenten predir amb precisió el que els usuaris demanen escoltar. Tanmateix, molt sovint aquests algoritmes tendeixen a recomanar artistes famosos, o coneguts d'avantmà per l'usuari. Això fa que disminueixi l'eficàcia i utilitat de les recomanacions, ja que aquests algorismes es centren bàsicament en millorar la precisió de les recomanacions. És a dir, tracten de fer prediccions exactes sobre el que un usuari pugui escoltar o comprar, independentment de quant útils siguin les recomanacions generades. En aquesta tesi destaquem la importància que l'usuari valori les recomanacions rebudes. Per aquesta raó modelem la corba de popularitat dels artistes, per tal de poder recomanar música interessant i desconeguda per l'usuari. Les principals contribucions d'aquesta tesi són: (i) un nou enfocament basat en l'anàlisi de xarxes complexes i la popularitat dels productes, aplicada als sistemes de recomanació, (ii) una avaluació centrada en l'usuari, que mesura la importància i la desconeixença de les recomanacions, i (iii) dos prototips que implementen la idees derivades de la tasca teòrica. Els resultats obtinguts tenen una clara implicació per aquells sistemes de recomanació que ajuden a l'usuari a explorar i descobrir continguts que els pugui agradar. / Actualmente, el consumo de música está sesgada hacia algunos artistas muy populares. Por ejemplo, en el año 2007 sólo el 1% de todas las canciones en formato digital representaron el 80% de las ventas. De igual modo, únicamente 1.000 álbumes representaron el 50% de todas las ventas, y el 80% de todos los álbumes vendidos se compraron menos de 100 veces. Existe, pues, una necesidad de ayudar a los usuarios a filtrar, descubrir, personalizar y recomendar música a partir de la enorme cantidad de contenido musical existente. Los algoritmos de recomendación musical existentes intentan predecir con precisión lo que la gente quiere escuchar. Sin embargo, muy a menudo estos algoritmos tienden a recomendar o bien artistas famosos, o bien artistas ya conocidos de antemano por el usuario.Esto disminuye la eficacia y la utilidad de las recomendaciones, ya que estos algoritmos se centran en mejorar la precisión de las recomendaciones. Con lo cuál, tratan de predecir lo que un usuario pudiera escuchar o comprar, independientemente de lo útiles que sean las recomendaciones generadas. En este sentido, la tesis destaca la importancia de que el usuario valore las recomendaciones propuestas. Para ello, modelamos la curva de popularidad de los artistas con el fin de recomendar música interesante y, a la vez, desconocida para el usuario.Las principales contribuciones de esta tesis son: (i) un nuevo enfoque basado en el análisis de redes complejas y la popularidad de los productos, aplicada a los sistemas de recomendación,(ii) una evaluación centrada en el usuario que mide la calidad y la novedad de las recomendaciones, y (iii) dos prototipos que implementan las ideas derivadas de la labor teórica. Los resultados obtenidos tienen importantes implicaciones para los sistemas de recomendación que ayudan al usuario a explorar y descubrir contenidos que le puedan gustar. / Music consumption is biased towards a few popular artists. For instance, in 2007 only 1% of all digital tracks accounted for 80% of all sales. Similarly, 1,000 albums accounted for 50% of all album sales, and 80% of all albums sold were purchased less than 100 times. There is a need to assist people to filter, discover, personalise and recommend from the huge amount of music content available along the Long Tail.Current music recommendation algorithms try to accurately predict what people demand to listen to. However, quite often these algorithms tend to recommend popular -or well-known to the user- music, decreasing the effectiveness of the recommendations. These approaches focus on improving the accuracy of the recommendations. That is, try to make accurate predictions about what a user could listen to, or buy next, independently of how useful to the user could be the provided recommendations. In this Thesis we stress the importance of the user's perceived quality of the recommendations. We model the Long Tail curve of artist popularity to predict -potentially- interesting and unknown music, hidden in the tail of the popularity curve. Effective recommendation systems should promote novel and relevant material (non-obvious recommendations), taken primarily from the tail of a popularity distribution. The main contributions of this Thesis are: (i) a novel network-based approach for recommender systems, based on the analysis of the item (or user) similarity graph, and the popularity of the items, (ii) a user-centric evaluation that measures the user's relevance and novelty of the recommendations, and (iii) two prototype systems that implement the ideas derived from the theoretical work. Our findings have significant implications for recommender systems that assist users to explore the Long Tail, digging for content they might like.

Orientador: Maximiliano Martin Vicente / Banca: Daniel dos Santos / Banca: Murilo Cesar Soares / Resumo: Conforme o mercado de luxo foi crescendo, inúmeros desafios surgiram diante dele, sendo a Internet um dos principais. Apesar de representar uma excelente oportunidade na construção de uma marca, a Internet é uma mídia de acesso global, cuja ampla disseminação colocaria em risco conceitos substanciais de luxo, como sua tradição, raridade e exclusividade. Nesse sentido, desde a popularização da Internet, tornou-se muito recorrente a dúvida se a mídia seria uma oportunidade ou uma ameaça para os negócios de luxo. É por isso que essa pesquisa visa compreender as mudanças estabelecidas pela Web no universo premium, identificando e avaliando os conceitos, significados e valores envolvidos na comunicação de marcas de luxo na Internet. O objetivo é compreender se esta comunicação consegue manter os valores do luxo, como exclusividade e status, e ainda, agregar novos valores. Para isso, realizou-se uma minuciosa Análise de Conteúdo dos websites de três das mais importantes grifes globais - Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy e Dior - em parceria com as teorias da 'Sociedade de Hiperconsumo' de Lipovetsky, 'Cauda Longa' de Chris Anderson e 'Interação Mediada por Computador' de Alex Primo, cujos pensamentos, contemporâneos possibilitaram a interpretação dos dados coletados. Como o objetivo é também identificar as mudanças trazidas pela Web, a técnica encontrada foi uma análise comparativa do conteúdo dos sites com a comunicação tradicional, aqui representada por anúncios publicitários da revista Vogue América. Como resultado, a pesquisa observou que a Internet é uma excelente oportunidade para as marcas de luxo construírem relações mais próximas e personalizadas com seus consumidores e que o luxo é um setor capaz de se reinventar e assumir facetas diferentes ao longo do tempo, associando-se a determinadas posturas e práticas conforme as tendências sócio-culturais... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: As the luxury market has grown, many challenges have appeared, and the Internet is one of the biggest. Althrough it represent an excellent opportunity to build a brand, the Internet is a global media access, which wide dissemination could endanger substantial concepts of luxury, as its tradition, rarity and exclusivity. Therafore, since the popularization of the Web, has become common the doubt whether the online media would be an apportunity or a threat to the business of luxury. This research seeks to understand the changes established by the Internet on the luxury universe, identifying and evaluating the concepts, meanings and values envolved in the communication of the luxury brands on the Internet. The purpose is to understand whether this communication can keep the values of luxury, as exclusivity and status, and also add new values. Thereby, was perfomed a detailed content analysis of the Website of three global brands - Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy and Dior - in partnership with the theories of the "Hyper-consumption Society" by Lipovetsky, 'Long Tail' by Chris Anderson and 'Interaction Mediated by Computer' by Alex Primo, whose contemporary thoughts enabled an interpretation of collected data. Since the intend is to identify the changes brought by the Web, the appropriate technique was a comparative analysis of the content of sites with traditional communication, here represent by advertising in Vogue America magazine. As result, the research observes that the Internet in an excellent opportunity for luxury brands to build closer and personalized relations with its consumers and that luxury sector is able to reinvent itself and take on different facets over time, associating with certain attitudes and practices according to the socio-cultural tendencies. Always retains some characteristics of which the distinctive character is the most obvious... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

In the subject of search engine optimization, many methods exist and many aspects are important to keep in mind. This thesis studies the relation between keywords and website ranking in Google Search, and how one can create the biggest positive impact. Keywords with smaller search volume are called "long tail" keywords, and they bear the potential to expand visibility of the website to a larger crowd by increasing the rank of the website for the large fraction of keywords that might not be as common on their own, but together make up for a large amount of the total web searches. This thesis will analyze where on the web page these keywords should be placed, and a case study will be performed in which the goal is to increase the rank of a website with knowledge from previous tests in mind.

In this work, we study the time evolution of systems containing a large number of particles interacting via a $1/r$ binary interaction potential, such as Coulombian and self-gravitating systems. In particular, we study the effect on the dynamics of the Holtsmark-Chandrasekhar theory, which describes the static fluctuations of the total force field around the Vlasov mean-field. We derive these effects by developing a new perturbative theory using the fundamental representation of Statistical Mechanics :The BBGKY hierarchy. This leads to a modification of the Vlasov equation by an additional term involving a fractional Laplacian to the power $3/4$ in velocity space, and a fractional iterated time integral of order $1/2$. We show that one of the consequences of this new term for spatially homogeneous systems is the appearance in the velocity distribution of long tails in $v^{-5/2}$. By extension, similar behaviors can be expected for weakly inhomogeneous systems. These long tails correspond to a universal mechanism related to the divergence of the interaction potential in $1/r$. More specifically, they are induced by the long tails of the total force field distribution as described by the Holtsmark-Chandrasekhar theory. Such a result cannot be obtained from theories based on the weak-coupling between particles, which lead to the Vlasov term, and, the Landau collision operator at the next order. We verify numerically these results by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We study the evolution of the velocity distributions for times very short compared to the violent relaxation time. In this particular time regime, we find, as expected, power laws in $v^{alpha}$ for the velocity distribution tail. In particular, when the regularization parameter of the interaction potential tends to $0$, the exponent in the power law indeed tends from below toward the theoretically predicted value $alpha=-5/2$. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The thesis examines impact of online user reviews, expressed in 5-star rating system, on demand for PC and video games. Used weekly data are collected from www.amazon.co.uk for period 2000 - 2012. The thesis contributes to discussion which takes place between supporters of superstar theory and supporters of long tail theory. Panel structure of the dataset referred to application of fixed effects model for estimation of basic and extended model. Both estimates proved negative influence of assigned number of stars on sales rank. Basic model estimated influence of one unit change of stars on rank by 9 positions, extended model estimated this change to be 10 positions. Quantile estimate also proved negative influence of stars on sales rank. The influence is strongest for the lowest quantile of dependent variable (tau = 0,05) representing 5 % best-selling titles, where one unit change of stars causes change of 35 positions in opposite direction. With increasing quantiles this influence decreases to zero. It proves that within the market for PC and video games online user reviews contribute to superstar effect.

Bakgrund: Med digital utveckling ökar användandet av digitala kanaler för att köpa produkter. Utvecklingen sätter ökad press på handeln att utveckla sitt digitala erbjudande. Problemformulering: Förutsättningarna att driva handel skiljer sig åt online jämfört med offline, sett både ur perspektiv från återförsäljare och köpare. Begränsad yta i en fysisk butik i närområdet jämfört med stort centralt lager för e-handel ger olika förutsättningar för vilka produkter som kan erbjudas. Konsumenten med tillgång till näst intill oändligt antal affärer digitalt med enkel jämförelse av pris och produkter. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur försäljningskoncentrationen av produkter i dagligvaruhandeln i Sverige skiljer sig mellan e-handel och fysisk butik. Forskningsfrågor: Hur fördelas försäljningen av produkter online jämfört med fysisk butik?  Är försäljningen i fysisk butik mer koncentrerad till färre produkter jämfört med online handel? Teori: Både longtail-fenomenet och paretoprincipen existerar praktiskt och litterärt, men det beror på vilken typ av produkt, period och marknad det gäller om begreppen är sanna eller inte. Metod: Kvantitativ metod med primärdata från dagligvaruhandeln där 2 585 produkters försäljning online och offline analyserats med en kombination av RStudio och Microsoft Excel. Slutsatser: Försäljningen är mer koncentrerad till ett lägre antal produkter online jämfört med offline. Det finns dock variationer mellan produktkategorier. Nyckelord: Longtail, pareto, superstars, dagligvaror, e-handel, omni-channel, multi-channel, försäljningskoncentration. / Background: Digital development has increased the use of digital channels to buy products. This development puts increased pressure on the retail sector to enhance its digital offerings. Problem statement: The conditions for buying and selling products differ online compared to offline for both the buyer and seller. Limited space in a physical store in the local area compared to a large central warehouse for e-commerce. Consumers have access to nearly an infinite number of digital stores with easy comparisons of prices and products. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the sales concentration of products in the grocery retail sector in Sweden differs between e-commerce and physical stores. Research questions: How does the distribution of product sales differ online compared to physical stores? Is the sales concentration in physical stores more focused to fewer products compared to e-commerce? Theory: Both the longtail phenomenon and the Pareto principle exist practically and literarily, but their validity depends on the type of product, period, and market in question. Method: Quantitative method using primary data from the grocery retail sector, where the sales of 2 585 products online and offline have been analyzed using a combination of RStudio and Microsoft Excel. Conclusions: Sales are more concentrated to fewer products online compared to offline, there are however variations between product categories. Keywords: Long tail, Pareto, superstars, grocery, e-commerce, omni-channel, multi-channel, sales concentration.

<p>Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the “critical theory” of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic “cultural studies” approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic “cultural studies” field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the “completed” convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture. Using the contemporary british drama serial Doctor Who I examine the processes of meaning making among members of the television series fan culture on the popular video content page youtube.com as expressions of cultural convergence.</p><p>This study argues how the skills and talents developed in the interaction with popular culture and in a process of interaction between fans and participants (collective intelligence and participatory culture), will have an impact on the institutionalized knowledge “from above” and in a collective process will seep over to other fields of expertise. The study also argues, as a consequence of convergence culture, that in the contemporary state of online practices, social networking and in our interactions with digital media content, a mandatory “presence” has been created where we today are defined more through our online selves and these practices, than the ones that used to define us in our “physical” lives: “The medium is no longer just the message, we are living in a state where there is only messages”.</p>

Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the “critical theory” of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic “cultural studies” approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic “cultural studies” field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the “completed” convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture. Using the contemporary british drama serial Doctor Who I examine the processes of meaning making among members of the television series fan culture on the popular video content page youtube.com as expressions of cultural convergence. This study argues how the skills and talents developed in the interaction with popular culture and in a process of interaction between fans and participants (collective intelligence and participatory culture), will have an impact on the institutionalized knowledge “from above” and in a collective process will seep over to other fields of expertise. The study also argues, as a consequence of convergence culture, that in the contemporary state of online practices, social networking and in our interactions with digital media content, a mandatory “presence” has been created where we today are defined more through our online selves and these practices, than the ones that used to define us in our “physical” lives: “The medium is no longer just the message, we are living in a state where there is only messages”.