Produsage - what does it mean?

As Axel Bruns mentioned in his lecture, Producing is a traditional concept of producing goods or services for economic renumeration or other capital gains (Bruns, 2008, Lecture 8). Production that is simply led by the means of creating the finished product from raw materials - the creation of something worth more than the sum of its parts generally. These producers, in a general sense, produce the products so that they can be utilised by another party, be it individuals, groups, or by other means.

Bruns (2008, lecture 8) refers to the ways in which the product, in a traditional sense, went from the producer, through an intermediary (usually a distributor or something of the likes), which then led to the product being bought and used by a consumer.

Usage looks at the means of consuming this finished product, be it the purchaser or receiver of the good or service that has been produced by the producer. Generally, as mentioned, the consumer will purchase the product from an intermediary.

In terms of the virtual realm, the digital environment, a product can be anything that has been created for a purpose - usually some form of media. Virtual products can consist of collaborative works, be it something such as Wikipedia or Del.icio.us (as mentioned in Bruns’ lecture), where people are able to tag, share, contribute opinions and information. Vitrual products can also consist of something completely individual, such as You Tube clips, DeviantArt pages. These individual pages seem to represent the individual, and to an extent they are, although by contributing to the catalogue within the site, it is simply another method of collaboration between individuals online.

Even Blogs or Instant Messaging programs are allowing people to collaborate and share information, such as WebMessenger, which not only allows people to speak with one another in an online arena, but also to share files, pictures, and other media through conversations.

Produsage is the combination of production and usage of the same products - sharing and collaborating ideas, opinions, media, art and many other forms of products (or artefacts as described by Bruns,) in a virtual environment that facilitates this collaborative sensation (2008, lecture 8).

We are moving into a technological framework that allows us all to be members of generation C (Trendwatching, 2008), where everyone can be content creators, shares, consumers.

Something that bothers many people is the concept of knowledge overload. What is going to happen when everything is shared and collaborated and every topic is completely saturated? Will we get to a point where because of prod usage, we will possibly be able to find out EVERYTHING on a certain topic? And how will this information be organised to assist us in finding the information that we truly require?



References

Bruns, A. (2008) KCB201 Lecture Week 8 Produsage. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology

Delicious (2008) Delicious. http://del.icio.us/ (accessed May 1, 2008)

Deviant Art (2008) Deviant Art. http://www.deviantart.com (accessed May 1, 2008)

Trendwatching.com (2008) Nouveau Niche Part 1. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/nouveau_niche.htm (accessed April 28 2008)

Trendwatching.com (2008) Generation C. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/GENERATION_C.htm (accessed May 1, 2008)

Wikipedia (2008) Wikipedia. http://www.wikipedia.org (accessed May 1, 2008)

You Tube (2008) You Tube. http://www.youtube.com (accessed May 1, 2008)