Spammers Beware
Well not exactly, but at least we don’t have Cyber Stalkers
The Semester In Short
In terms of concluding the semester in one last blog post…
Likes:
I liked the format of the blog. I feel that it is a great way to organize the class in one place. In the past with my online classes trying to keep up with using blackboard’s forums was both slow, and hard to find specific posts. I think that WordPress is a useful tool for our class blog.
I think that the readings were both interesting but relateable as well. I liked the fact that we could easily relate the topics to recent news topics and trends.
I like how the modules were spanned over 2 weeks, rather than crammed into one. I feel it gave us more freedom for posting on our own time.
Dislikes/ Things to do differently
I wish that when you assigned the tasks for the module, you did them on a more consistent schedule such as always having the posts done by the first Friday of the module. This would help with keeping track of how on target we are with the posts.
I wanted to interact more with our class, and have more incentive for reading and commenting on our peer’s blogs. I think that this would not only help us bounce ideas off each-other, but promote sharing of ideas and taking the class to a whole new level.
I think some of the readings were very long, and it was hard to get the main points from them. When I began the reading it was great, but by the end of the publication I could not incorporate all of the important ideas I got from them into my blogs. Maybe this was my own fault however if you could point out some specific things from some of the longer readings either before or after we read them it would be extremely helpful. Especially since we lose the in class discussion on the readings when we are not in a traditional classroom.
Thanks for a great semester!
Future, Grim or Good?
History Repeats Itself
They always say that history repeats itself. That may not be the case in the future. We may not repeat history, but we sure will be able to recall it. In Gemmell and Bell’s “My Life Bits” they feel the future will be much in the past as well. They have predicted that everyone will have a personal digital store, a place for all personal and professional information. The organization of this would be key, they predict it will be in “islands,” such like the folders in computers we are familiar with.
We are in the information age, as well as in the private is public with platforms such as blogs, personal video posts, and podcasts. Everyone is in the sharing mood, where they have turned their private lives into public forums, where people can comment and debate them.
One of my favorite so called life blogger is Julia Allison, author of And Another Thing, who has been publicly scrutinized for blogging her life and broadcasting it. My Life Bits goes way beyond blogging. It would automatically save everything, a computer can be as remote and as portable as you so choose. Sure it is a great concept, but why would you want to do that?
And The Purpose Is. . .
Having the ability to recall anything, anywhere you went, any experience that you had, create a non linear time-line of your life sounds great. Why would you want to do this? People take digital pictures, but even then they never look at them again. Sure you have fun tagging them on facebook, or putting them into a digital photo frame, but majority of them never even get labeled.
One of the main points that they emphasize is that recall would be an important success factor in My Life Bits. If you don’t know it exists, why would you search for it? Half of the fun of looking at photos is the memories you have. But do you really want to have them all? I think that the mind is a very smart thing. (haha) it purposely blocks things out to protect you. Think; children who were abused, women who were assaulted. There are some things that I would rather not remember, but others that I wouldn’t mind playing over and over.
If you are stuck on the past, how are you supposed to move on? One of my favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does the exact opposite. You can pay to have your memory erased. “A couple undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories when their relationship turns sour, but it is only through the process of loss that they discover what they had to begin with.”
The reason why I bring that up is that I feel the same consequences would happen if we had the ability to recall everything. Great concept, but don’t mess with the human mind.
Exactly What Did You Mean By Secure?
I can not believe that this was said in My Life Bits, “having a surrogate memory creates a freeing, uplifting and secure feeling, similar to having an assistant with a perfect memory.” I am not sure what is so secure about having everything you have ever known, or more experienced, in one place. Do you really know this information, or does your computer memory know it. The only secure feeling I get is that if someone is going to steal my identity, they can have it all. Pre-packaged, sorted, and good to go.
Computer Takeover
It is the year 2029, there is no longer the separation from computer and human. They have officially merged, so are we human or are we computers? If computers start doing the thinking for us, are we really experiencing things? Think back to the games module, and how games are not just for kids, the nintendo is for adults to stretch their minds and their memories. The fact is, is that if you don’t exercise it, like every other muscle, over time, you lose it. If computers are doing the thinking, remembering, and the recalling, what are our minds doing?
The speed of technology has been exponential. I have to agree with Kurzwell when he says that it is increasingly getting better, faster and stronger. The better the technology gets, the more streamlined the process is, and the easier it is to create new technology. The possibilities are infinite, but the necessity is not. Sure some ideas are good, but if they don’t serve a purpose, how good is it? That is the bottom line.
Lifelogging
So, how was your weekend? The question I get every Monday morning when I get into work. Almost always anyone who asks gets the candid, good thanks, how was yours? Gordon Bellmay have a different answer if he were asked how his weekend was. He may ask in return exactly what weekend were you referring to? He calls himself a lifelogger,” digitally storing every letter and photo, every phone call, email and video, every conversation, keystroke and scrap of paper, the entire minutiae of his daily routine, onto a hard drive. ” Sure it may be great to recall everything, but once again, why in the world would you want to, and how exactly do you organize it, that questions still remains ”all the information is there - but he hasn’t quite figured out how to organize it and sort it perfectly.” I have to wonder, once again, is it you or the computer who is doing the thinking.
If we are too busy recording and organizing, what time are we going to have to recall the information, and who would be interested in learning about it. I feel that this will make the disconnect between people even worse than it is now.
Talk to the Phone
Texting is most indefinitely the in thing to do. Kids across the world are using texting for privacy against their parents, gaming, and networking. “Getting a Mobile phone grants teenagers a degree of privacy and right of assembly previously unavailable .” (Shibuya Epiphany) Some see this trend as avoiding face to face interaction, where teens are losing out on important people skills and life skills by hiding behind their phones and their computers.
Now that these mobile networks are evolving and morphing into niches. People are finding commonalities among their peers and connecting on a whole new level. The story of the Finn’s intrigued me, now they are in their 20’s and have grown up with mobile phones constantly at hand. They are building a “shared urban living space.” The purpose is to provide a physical location for a virtual world, a mobile social network, and a co-op. “Doing together and being together is enabled through social setting.” They challenged themselves to design a space where virtual communities and mobile tribes can actually get together outside the wireless word, bringing them together rather than pushing them apart.
My Take On It All
The way I see it, marketers are going to have a field day. With everyone logging everything they are doing, sometimes broadcasting to the world about their interests and hobbies, companies are going to see this as a huge opportunity. Already present on the Internet, behavior profiling and tracking will be much more personalized and much easier for people to be specifically targeted. As of now, companies can track what you do online, imagine taking this across platforms, your digital footprint will be more like a digital path; showing where you have been, and companies will predict where you are going to go.
People want personalization, I have a feeling they are going to get it, and yearn for mass marketing. I feel that they are going to want the freedom to choose, rather than be presented to every-time they turn the corner, or better yet, receive a message. I think social networks are soon going to dissolve, and people are going to want to get back to living. I think that the consequences of tracking and logging life is going to take a turn for the worst and send a shock-wave through the US. Exactly what it will be, I am unsure, but I am a firm believer that it will happen. Soon.
Be carefull what you post
Two Connecticut teenagers learned about the consequences of sharing video online. According to this wtnh article they boys posted a video on YouTube showing them trespassing and vandalizing a landmark.
Not only were they trespassing, but the castle, that has been in place since 1985 is in such poor condition that they could have gotten seriously injured.
“The video itself shows the fact that all of a sudden part of the floor fell in while they were video taping,” park officials Jerry Daly said. “Now that was doing nothing. I don’t know if you walked 10 more feet, then you’re going to end up in the basement.”
The article explained that they are trying to restore the building, but it may be some time down the road. Personally I think it is a case of curiosity killing the cat.
Artsy or Racy?
Annie Leibovitz, an incredible artist and photographer, known for her portraits, especially that of Yoko Ono and John Lennon for the cover of Rolling Stone. A native of Waterbury, Connecticut, she has recently made headlines for a photograph of Miley Cirus for Vanity Fair.
Miley posed in what she thought would be a tasteful photo shoot, with the photograph being chosen of her, in a sheet, with her back exposed. Vanity Fair’s Articleon Miley, with the photo left her with a feeling of regret. At just 15 years old, she felt that she hurt her fans by doing this photo shoot.
She told Yahoo! “I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Cyrus said Sunday in a statement through her publicist. “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.
From a public standpoint, my first thought was that she should not have been posing without clothing at the age of 15, but after looking at the behind the scene’s photos, I was mistaken. From a photographer’s standpoint, I think that what she did was an expression of herself in a very tasteful way, especially after reading this, “”I’m sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted,” Leibovitz said in a statement released by Vanity Fair. “Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful.”
Welcome To The Google-opoly
Google believes regulators would not bar a potential business deal with Yahoo Inc because it would be “non-exclusive” and falls short of an outright merger, a person familiar with Google’s thinking said on Friday. (Yahoo)
“News of the potential partnership between Google and Yahoo, both media conglomerates, is reported by none other than Yahoo itself. “The U.S. Justice Department is questioning the companies about potential competitive issues raised by a partnership, sources said this week, as Yahoo completed a two-week test of Google’s system for selling ads alongside Yahoo’s own Web search results.”
This is a little bit ironic don’t you think? How can one report unbiased about their own company? It is not a press release, it is in the form of news. When it comes to informing the public, you need to have some sources that are unbiased, and you need to have sources that have different views on issues. If all of the main search engines are owned by one company, how is performing a search going to give you unbiased results? How are the 2 biggest search engines going to differ, and more importantly, how is the consumer going to benefit from the partnership?
The way I see it, there is going to be too much control over what search results are coming back, and what ads people are seeing. I do not like where this is headed. It is sounding a little like how Google owns one of the top companies for search engine optimization.
For its part, Microsoft has said a Yahoo-Google partnership would make the market for Web search far less competitive.
When Yahoo said two weeks ago that it had begun testing Google’s AdSense system, it drew outcry from critics who see Google’s domination of the market as a barrier to a deal.
How much is too much? Where do we draw the line? Should there be government regulation? Should the media be allowed to control too much? Does the public have a right to know and have a say in what is going on in the internet world?
I read Children’s Books
By Children’s books I mean Harry Potter. Which every book is sitting directly across the room from me right now. I enjoy the stories, I have also watched the movies, which were not too shabby.
The author, J.K. Rowling has made a name for herself as well as almost all of her savings from the books, endorsements, and characters. She owns the content, and in my opinion the characters as well. She thought of the names, personalities, and in my opinion, all rights to them as well.
She is now taking the author of an online encyclopedia to court, “one of her biggest fans, a former librarian from Michigan named Steven Vander Ark.” (CNN) In the online age, piracy is happening more often than anyone would like to admit. With a couple clicks and key strokes, pages can be lifted, copied, and posted in a matter of seconds. “The encyclopedia is an offshoot of Vander Ark’s long-popular fan Web site, which details the world of Harry Potter, replete with magic spells, potions and quidditch rules. Even Rowling has admitted that she was a fan of the site.”
Where is the line drawn of who owns what. Yes the content written was his, but it was all taken from the books. In the modern day profit frenzy world, the trend is to squeeze an idea for every penny it is worth; hence the writer’s strike and the music business trying to profit from online sales. Everyone is trying to get ahead of the curve to stay ahead of the competition.
The site was so extensive Rowland said herself, ”
“This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A Web site for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home,” she said in a quote picked up by news organizations around the world.”
According to her, being online is ok, but once it is “legitimized” in print, it crosses the lines. In my mind, it comes down to profit. Rowland is afraid to lose the profits from her characters and ideas, which I feel she has every right to.
I am awaiting patiently the outcome of the lawsuit!
You Can Run… But You Can’t Hide
Maybe if you are a mountain man, living free of all electronics and communications devices you can run, and hide, and not be found. However if you are like any typical American, with a cell phone, a computer, or even a printer, you can be tracked by the government.
These statements made in CNN’s “Big Brother, Big Business” made light of the situation. It made me think of all the the purchases I have made online, bids on ebay, comments on news articles and blogs; and how I could easily be profiled, and some government agent could pretty much figure out my life, from what I look like, to where I shop, to my opinions on politics and the government. As Deep Blue Sea posted in her “Land of the Free” ‘I find myself thinking that some of the surveillance that is being conducted for certain individuals is necessary. Such things as a finger print database for criminals actually protects the rest of the public but what about those who become victims due to someone else getting the private records of their life? It is yet again a matter of ethics vs. policy. We can make the policy to try to protect from those who do harm but it is not ethical to put every-one’s life under a microscope.’ I would have to agree, like I stated in my previous post, some people should be monitored, because it is for the greater good (safety) of the public. I do not think everyone should be monitored.
After some careful thought however, better safe than sorry. If you are not doing anything illegal, then you should not have anything to worry about. If all of our information is confidential in the government, then I do not care. If my information is later used against me, or brought into the public light, than we may have an issue. As far as I am concerned, if the government has to choose to monitor everyone, or no one, or just convicted felons, than I choose everyone. There are too many preventable crimes happening today. If we can save a life, or a young child from being scarred for life, than by all means…. why not? Because someone will know what you bought last week?
Surfing Through Your 9-5
According to CNN’s article, Web Surfing as ‘Addictive as Coffee’ 93% of workers go online during the work day for personal reasons. “52 percent said they would rather give up their morning caffeine hit than lose their Internet connection.”
I put myself in the 52%, mainly because my work revolves around the internet, marketing and advertising. I am constantly researching the competition, looking for leads, or catching up on the latest trends to stay ahead of the curve.
“As the line between professional and personal usage of the Internet becomes more of a gray area, many employees have started to rely on it to complete their job duties as well as perform personal tasks during the work day… The most popular Web sites accessed were news sites (81 percent), personal email (61 percent), online banking (58 percent), travel (56 percent) and shopping (52 percent).”
According to the article more men are surfing than women. The obvious sites they are going to… Sports followed by investment banking sites.
Good news for me, being able to use this to attract marketers to use online advertising, bad news for employers who want efficient employees.
Should all personal web surfing be banned until lunch hour? This article touches on that; “Some people argue that surfing the Internet is equivalent to chatting at the water cooler or while in the hallway, but most employers feel differently, feeling that it decreases their production. To help prevent this, up to 80% of all employers are monitoring work computers. This means they have the potential to view all emails you send and receive, as well as know all the sites you surf and at what times you were surfing.” But is just monitoring it enough? If there is no action, then workers will continue to do as they please.
Baseball season is coming up. Employers better be on the lookout; “During baseball season alone, baseball fans who surf the Internet during work hours can cost companies a total of $10 billion in lost productivity. This is not just an American phenomenon ? a study by a software company in Australia showed that the Australian economy loses approximately $644 million a year in lost productivity due to Internet surfing.”
According to the Rocky Mountain News“Companies afraid of downloaded viruses, liability issues and low productivity are increasingly monitoring and, in many cases, blocking their employees’ Internet activities. “These days, employers are watching every keystroke and every screen displayed,” said John Soma, executive director of the Privacy Foundation at the University of Denver. Some would say they have good reason to, considering the statistics provided by one Harris Interactive survey:
$127,400 is the average financial loss per company due to Internet security breaches.
The larger the company, the larger the impact.
$15,000 is the average loss for small companies.
$41,000 is the average loss for medium companies.
$195,100 is the average loss for large companies.”
It is a valid argument. You should work while you are at work, and surf on your own time.
Your Online Identity
What Your Online Activity Says About You
Everything that you do online is being watched, recorded, and sold at a high price. You are being “tracked” like a dog sniffing your trail online. From what you search, to what you click on, to how you navigate through a site is recorded. It is being used to better target you as a consumer. Some people do not agree with this, others find it helpful. It is an ethical debate, like any other ethical situation, there is no fine line between right and wrong.
There are many ways to look at the ethics of online web tracking. Regardless of the way you look at it, there is always a consequence. Ethical theories are there to “try to achieve human dignity, peace, happiness & wellbeing, but to whose standards?” (Baase)
Take this example, your daily cup of coffee. Lately given the outlook on the economy, the prices have been rising. If you choose to buy fair trade coffee, the price is even higher. You need the caffeine to perform your best at work; you have been working overtime to help pay your personal expenses (which have also been rising). Do you buy the more expensive fair trade coffee, or do you buy the cheaper coffee, where the beans are picked by underage, overworked kids? Both situations have an ethical argument, do you save yourself money which you need for bills, or do you support exploitation?
Is Tracking Public Information ?
This carries over to computers and online. Should all online activity be monitored? CNN’s “Big Brother, Big Business” claims that everyone is being monitored, not just by the internet, but by cell phones and other electronic devices as well. Some are monitored for their habits, while others are monitored for the safety of others. Is either one ethical? Is either one warranted? Is there a difference? One person is being monitored for her shopping habits and Google wants to target the ads she sees, to maximize the return to the advertisers. Another is being monitored because they are a registered sex offender and the government wants to make sure they are not chatting with children online.
Although both are being monitored online, the purposes are completely different. They are however the same concept. I do not feel that either one is a privacy issue. Yes I think it is a big deal to have everything you do online be tracked, but I think that it is the future of the Internet. I think it is the future of our lives. Think about it, many things in your life are already tracked. Every time you swipe your debit or credit card, the company is collecting data on you. Shopping centers and grocery stores as well as manufacturers pay big bucks for that information. It says something about you. If you buy diet coke and you also buy soy chips, the companies form an idea in their head that you may be a healthy person. They may choose to send you information about the latest diet fad or exercise machine based on the assumption that you are careful about what you eat. The Internet is the same thing.
I personally like when things are relevant to me, I like when I go to Amazon and it makes recommendations for me. I find it a great help when I do not have a salesperson to ask questions about what they recommend. “What we once asked people for information, we now ask machines.” (Mark Poster, from Halavais) Go ahead Google, track me. I want to have shoe ads come up during a search rather than an ad for Huggies Diapers. The simple point, I don’t care about diapers, I do not have a kid, and I do not plan on it anytime soon. If I am going to have to look at ads, they may as well be of interest to me.
HOW
How is the question of the year. How in the world did everything come about on the Internet? How did I get these search results? How do I get the results I want? A lot of this is out of both your hands, as well as anyone else’s. Google is good at finding relevant information, but how relevant is it? There are clear “winners” and “Losers” in the situation. If someone has a site, that is exactly what you are looking for, but your search keywords were not exact, and Google did not pick up on the relevance. As the conductor, you lose control over the search, the search engine has control once you click search. (Halavais) Is this an advantage or a disadvantage? Do we narrow our results by searching as compared to browsing? Are we too specific and do we rely too much on search?
Google the Category Killer
There are times when I do a search and Google does not come up with anything close to what I had wanted. This may not happen often, but it happens enough that I wonder whether or not I am at fault for searching the wrong words, or is the search system killing the category. Say I want to buy new shoes, I search women’s shoes. Naturally I go to Google, type it in, and click the first couple results. If I am not happy I end my search and go to something else. The poor 4th, 5th, and 6th result do not get any clicks. They may be the perfect site I am looking for, but since they did not come up high enough, they did not get my time of day.
How often does this happen? It is killing the democracy of competition. The sites are just not worthy enough of the first result, even when I am searching for their exact business name, and location. How are they supposed to compete in the high tech world of the Internet, as a small company without the funds to optimize their site. They are in the most need for business, yet they cannot get a leg up in the industry because they did not grow up on the Internet like so many people in my generation. The Internet is the present and the future, and relevance is key!
”The average searcher is probably finding less information and less accurate information than they should be.” (Halavais) Yet they are still at the center of our online world. They are on almost every site, we look to the search engine when our initial browsing fails us. “Anything not searched for won’t be found… it is the latest blind alley.” (Halavais)
Are you blogging if no one is reading it? Or are you just writing your personal journal online? I would say the latter of the two. If no one is reading it, then you are just writing for your own self satisfaction.
You Just Don’t Get it Do You?
“I do marketing online, I have a website.” Who are you kidding? Yeah you have the website, but is anyone going there? I want to hit my prospects over the head every-time I hear this. It is the same as having a store, if no one knows the address, then no one can find you. If you are not telling people about your store, then no one is going to go, and you are going to go out of business. The same as your website, if you are not directing people there, through search optimization, branding, and online marketing, then no one will know it exists.
This is where I feel that tracking helps out the little guys. They may get some more exposure when they are relevant to what people want, or may be related, and it will help drive people to their site.
So track on. I don’t care. How much damage is it going to do if someone knows I shop for shoes, clothes, and like to read the news online. After-all, newspaper is a dying media…. I have to get it somewhere!