It’s no surprise that all kitchen appliances now have the capability to be a part of the Internet of Things. Mitew notes that this gives objects “a unique identity”. These sort of “networked objects” each have their own set of capabilities. Although a smart coffee machine might set you back a few hundred dollars, it can address each of these capabilities.
When set up the machine will have a unique network address, allowing it to be connected to other devices such as a smartphone.
It uses sensors to track coffee bean amounts, water levels and milk temperature.
Information about your coffee can be stored, such as the style and levels so you store the precise measurements.
The coffee machine may automatically begin warming up at a certain time in the morning which is initiated by the cloud’s algorithm.
Then you are able to remotely begin brewing a coffee whilst getting ready.
All of this is done through the interface of a smartphone app for your smart coffee machine.
In order to narrow in the niche of Australian True-Crime podcasts I first need to identify what/who is involved and what will be excluded. By creating this “network map” I have been able to select the many cogs that work together to form an operating machine.
In order to narrow down this niche I have decided to focus on Australian made podcasts that focus on one crime story. This excludes the many popular podcast shows such as “Casefile” or “Australian True Crime” which presents new stories every episode. I believe this will help me to better research the podcasts on an individual level, as there would be more sources for audience feedback or tip off on a particular case. Podcasts that focus on one case also involves more collaboration from those involved such as friends, family, victims or suspects. This creates an interesting dynamic as you are able to hear from the people involved first hand, and analyse how they interact with the host/reporter and how they are presented on the podcast.
Something interesting that I discovered when creating this map is the involvement of networks on true-crime podcasts. A considerable number of the top performing Australian True-Crime podcasts have large networks that have created them. This includes media outlets such as the Australian, the Age, Herald Sun or corporations such as ABC. The ability to access resources and established reporters could be a big influence on creating successful podcasts, as the networks are able to use podcasts as a new medium to present their reports.
Another aspect of the network map is the different sites audiences can use to interact with podcasts. Identifying podcast platforms is helpful to establish the listening habits of audiences, whether that be when they listen, how they listen, what they are doing and the length of time they listen for. Then discussion sites allow for the audience to debate and present theories, whether they create their own blog post or participate in dedicated subreddits. The particular genre of true-crime often encourages the audience to reach out inorder to provide more evidence that may help solve the case, this also creates another layer of interaction. The majority of Australian true-crime podcasts will create personal emails attached to the network that audiences can contact, but others use more secure sites such as Whispli that works as a communication platform for whistle blowing.
When identifying some of the top and my personal favourite Australian true-crime podcasts I took note of the fact that a new podcast is just about to launch that has already hit number one on Australia’s true-crime podcast charts just for its trailer. The Australian’s “The Night Driver” is hosted and investigated by Hedley Thomas who is well known for the very popular Australian true-crime podcast “The Teacher’s Pet”. The impact “The Teacher’s Pet” had on the genre of Australian true-crime and also the breakthrough evidence that was created from the public interest is very notable. Therefore the release of The Night Driver could be interesting to research as the information and impact would occur across the time of my study. This release could allow me to analyse the network of a new Australian true-crime podcast and the impacts it has on the case itself and the audience. Elements such as social media content, speakers, social discourse and metadata are identified by Markus Lundström & Tomas Poletti Lundström in Podcast Ethnography, which could help me to identify the many research aspects that can be explored in a new popular podcast.
Understanding how information is decoupled from matter is already a difficult topic to grasp, let alone when you are a German mother from the 1870s attempting to send your son on the front line a telegram of soup.
To understand centralised, decentralised and distributed network systems, you can still use the example of sending soup.
Centralised systems have a single-centre which could be a human operator. So when sending soup a human operator would need to process it, which means other users could access the soup and also the German mother’s information could be stored.
Decentralised systems have multiple hubs, so if the telegraph operator couldn’t come to work there would still be back up operators to send soup.
A distributed system has no centre so the German mother could send the soup knowing that no one would come in contact with the soup or store information about her or her son.
Bees and Bells 