Assignment 14: Kindles

For the last blog I have decided to write about Amazon Kindle. According to Wikipedia, the Kindle “is an e-book reader—an embedded system for reading electronic books… It uses an electronic paper display, reads the proprietary Kindle (AZW) format, and downloads content over Amazon Whispernet, which uses the Sprint EVDO network” (Wikipedia, 2008). The Kindle can hold up to 200 books or magazines or articles. No computer is needed to operate the Kindle which makes it fairly convenient. The Kindle is a good idea because if you want to read you don’t have to lung around books, newspapers, or magazines, the only catch is that it has to be on a wireless network. Also the text is bigger as well, and it is not exactly hand-held, but by looking at the picture above, it looks like the size of a thin paperback book. On Amazon.com under the Kindle page, a video is posted explaining the Kindle’s qualities. According to an article on cnn.com, the Kindle is currently sold out due to heavy demand and the article claims that the reason is got so popular is because of the marketing (Ponz, 2008).
“This is the future of book reading. It will be everywhere." Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and Liar's Poker.
“Blockbuster writers such as J.K. Rowling, author of the "Harry Potter" series, have said they'll never allow their books to appear on the market in electronic form” and other writers such as James Patterson have embraced the Kindle (Ponz, 2008). Another set back to the Kindle is that the price is $359 (Amazon.com, 2008). Also many people will still find it more enjoyable to actually hold the book or article in their hand to read as stated in the cnn.com article (Ponz, 2008).
The Kindle brings up controversy in that fact that it may make print go even further out of our lifestyles by bringing books into the matter and not just magazine or news articles. Going back in the semester to look at copyright, how many authors do you think are going to let people download their books onto their Kindles? I’m guessing not a lot unless they are going to be compensated for their work, and some may just be totally against the idea even if compensation was offered. Currently 10% of Amazon’s books/articles are available for the Kindle, which is around 200,000 (Ponz, 2008). How well can we supervise the internet and make sure people are not downloading these books/ articles illegally in a few months or years time? What type of copyright laws will be made to deal with this?
This whole thing seems very logical to me as to why it would be popular. People have gotten used to reading text messages on their phones and their blackberry’s and of course surfing the net on their i-phones so people attaching themselves to the Kindle doesn’t seem all that strange to me. People like having technology shape their lives. However for me, I like to hold a book in my hand to read and having to lug around textbooks to my classes is not a problem for me either. If the information is in a book or in the Amazon Kindle both are just as accessible to me. The only difference would be on how you want to access the information.

References:

Amazon Kindle. Video. Retrieved from: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle%20Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA.

Ponz, Jason. A year later, Amazon’s Kindle finds a niche. 3 Dec. 2008. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/03/kindle.electronic.reader/index.html.

Amazon Kindle. 2008. Retrieved December 3, 2008 from STS Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle.

Assignment 13: Government 2.0

To address the question in Slashdot, “how do you think government (either in the United States or elsewhere) can best utilize technology to engage the public and make government more transparent and accessible?” I find that this is a difficult question to answer. I do view the government as some inaccessible object but I know it will always affect us directly. Obama posting his weekly addresses on YouTube is a great idea to come in contact with more people and it makes governmental information more available for the people. Also the information presented has not been embellished by the media so people are able to form their own honest opinions on Obama’s issues and topics this way. I think it’s great that he wants to utilize the internet for his broadcasts because he is giving the impression that he cares and he is just one of us. I also think that it is a step in the right direction that he wants to utilize the other technological resources available. The internet is a huge resourceful tool and if the government would use it more I think it would engage the public to view our government as accessible and transparent. If the government would get more involved with the technology I think the people of this country would become more involved with the government because a connection could be formed between them.
A way to make the government more accessible and transparent would be have people comment on his addresses (it does not necessarily have to be in blog form it could be done in polls an so on). If the government would look over the comments being made, they could gage people’s opinions better. During the election, weekly polls and new information kept being updated and it was easy to find out what was happening with the government and become involved. If the government could continue to be as involved as they were during the election they could get more citizens involved. I think the government has temporarily forgotten that the opinions of the US citizens should be looked at and measured instead of just their own. I think that people get really frustrated with the government because their opinions and views simply get tossed aside most of the time. Take the bailout for instance (the first one). They took poll and most Americans were against the bailout; mainly because the companies will just continue what they are doing and come back for more…they wont fix anything…its almost as if they have to fail in order to rebuild a better company. The government went ahead with the bailout and what have the companies done so far? Ask for more money. Because people are frustrated with the government I think they may feel a bit defeated and therefore they don’t involve themselves because voices are not being heard. If the government used the internet as a form of communication that is a two way street instead of one, I think they would get farther ahead. Also if technology is getting used for the government higher standards and rules may be imposed on the technology companies so they will produce a better, long lasting product.
In any way I really hope this country has what it takes to fix things. The fact that Obama wants to get involved is a good sign and hopefully he can change some things for the better. I hope he utilizes technologies made available to him to help him along the way because I think the road is going to be really rocky. If the government becomes more involved with its citizens, it may smooth things over a little.

Assignment 12: Network Neutrality

There are many definitions of network neutrality, and it is almost hard to pinpoint what the true definition actually is. However, it is almost better to make up your own definition for it just as long as you understand the concept of it. I defined network neutrality as: A network that is free of restrictions and that allows the express of all forms of communication. I also found this video on Youtube very helpful in explaining network neutrality. The current debate on network neutrality is whether or not restrictions on internet networks should be enabled. There are two sides to every story. To enable restrictions on network neutrality would mean that information provided by the internet may be censored. An example would be like censoring pornography. Your internet provider would be in charge of all the restrictions. Another way your internet service provider may enable restrictions is to direct internet “traffic flow” and to block certain content like spam or viruses. On the flip side of things, the internet service providers may abuse the restrictions and according to the Jones article from Information Newsweek, “without some type of anti-discrimination law or standards, cable and telecommunications companies could control users' access by blocking content from competitors, favoring certain applications, charging higher rates to deliver information into people's homes and offices and failing to inform people of their capacity” (Jones, 2007).
Many interests are at steak here, the peoples for one, the government for another and the internet service providers. Many people feel that certain rights and privileges would be taken away if network neutrality were taken away. The government would have the responsibility of regulating it if restrictions were placed, and the internet service providers I believe would abuse the privileges if restrictions were placed and they were in charge. First of all the internet service providers are a business first and foremost and they are here to make money. If they are getting paid to direct internet flow to a certain search engine, it is in their best interest to take the money that say, Google is offering. This would greatly dissatisfy the internet users because they don’t want to be subjected to those kinds of restrictions; its unfair and it may make less people use the internet or make others switch their internet service providers. However the problem is that switching service providers is not a way to solve this. Also I believe that people would just find a way around the internet restrictions like they do now. If laws or standards are enabled and are influenced by the government this again limits people’s privileges on the internet. The government may want to collect some sort or revenue along with the service providers.
I feel very torn about this debate because I think both arguments present good points. However if I had to choose one I would go with not emplacing restrictions on network neutrality. I agree with the article above, serious precautions would have to be made in order to place restrictions on the internet. I don’t feel that the companies would be responsible to emplace the restrictions themselves and I feel the same about the government as well and there is no saying that the government would strike a deal with the providers as well to taking in any more income if the providers require more money. Obviously I feel that many things should be censored on the internet like child pornography and so on but I think at this stage of the game the ball is already rolling and its hard to stop it once people have already experience something they like, which is network neutrality. Also I feel that gate keeping is not the way to go with the internet because it is not successful in the media why would it be successful with the internet?

References:

Jones, K.C. Net Neutrality Debate Remains Contentious. InformationNewsweek. 16 Mar.2007. Retrieved from: < http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=198001557 >.

Youtube. Save the internet! 8 Dec. 2006. Retrieved from: .

Assignment 11: Virtual Worlds

I am not familiar with virtual games online so it came as quite a shock to me what is exactly entailed in these games. It’s an interesting concept being able to play different characters like in World of Warcraft and you have different tasks/goals that must be accomplished and gold to earn or as in Second Life, create a life the way you really want it that can possess similar qualities to “real life.” Neither of these two things really interest me and finding out that people spend 8 hours a day doing these things sounds pretty ridiculous. I think that some people lose the relationships and connections that they once had if they play in these virtual worlds. In the assigned reading titled: The Unreal Estate Boom one man lost his wife and child to these virtual worlds. It makes me conclude that people have lost where the drawn line is from life to virtual and they are not able to decipher the two. I for one go by the expression, “If I can see it and touch it then its real,” and in these virtual worlds, nothing is felt or can be touched.
I think that there are huge issues with putting real money into virtual worlds. When one spends money you generally get a materialistic object back and that is not the case in these virtual worlds. Wikipedia defines Second Life as “Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service combined with general aspects of a metaverse. Residents can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, and create and trade items (virtual property) and services with one another”(Wikipedia, 2008). Second Life allows a person to freely be a person that they want to be and in that case it may be worth it to use real money because they have a problem interacting socially in real life. Then again, many people may need to feel that this virtual game needs to be connected to their real life because they want to believe that it is real (again I think they have lost the defining line between real life and virtual). World of Warcraft on the other had doesn’t encourage the exchange of virtual reality “property” and “goods” for real money. World of Warcraft is more along the lines of fantasy terms with tasks and levels that need to be passed and accomplished. According to Newsweek, what makes World of Warcraft so popular is its social dynamics; it is an alternate world with a “medieval Matrix” twist (Levy, 2008). This is more of a game to me rather than Second Life because I find that it can be less easier to loose the definition of real life to virtual.
Comparing the open system (Second Life) to the closed system (World of Warcraft) I find it odd that people want to spend money on this that they cant physically touch. I can see why World of Warcraft doesn’t condone the spending of real money on its goods because certain lawsuits can arise and I don’t think any rules or regulations on this sort of thing have been addressed. This is why I think real life and virtual needs to be kept separate because people have the ability to get to involved and if they try to apply virtual things in real life it probably won’t add up correctly the way they think it should.

References:

Second Life. 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2008 from STS Wiki: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life>.

Levy, Steven. World of Warcraft: Is it a Game?. 2008. Retrieved from MSNBC.com: < tab_id="_2_1&url="%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d">.

Assignment 10: Journalism

A topic that has recently had decent media coverage is the fatal hit and run on South Park avenue where a 19-year-old was killed. The print source of this article was called “Lawyer Pleads Guilty to fatal hit-and-run” from the Buffalo News (Gryta, Buffalo News). The article concentrated on the lawyer mainly, John P. Duffy, having no quotes from the victim’s friends or family. It showed as unbiased as possible what Duffy’s experience had been and what he had to say about the incident. The article was presented professionally and very factual with appropriate quotes from Duffy and his lawyer as well as the judge who has Duffy’s case. In the online news article that I found on the same incident; both were written on the same day as well, October 30, 2008, on msnbc.msn.com and the article was titled: “Fatal Hit and Run Victim Remembered”(2008, Borsa). This article took a depressing but fairly professional outlook on the incident. It focused more on the victim with a few facts about Duffy and a quote from his lawyer. As I read the article I felt so bad about what happened to this girl as it described how the incident took place and the article from the Buffalo News did not, it just claimed what Duffy thought he had hit. Both of these articles I noticed contained some bias but it was just enough to influence the reader to give them Duffy’s perspective vs. the victim’s perspective.
I found that reading both of these sources I was amazed on how bias things can be written now. I took a Journalism course and they kept pushing that everything you write has to be objective and not biased because you can get into serious trouble. Now everything you read seems to be biased in a way whether it is low key bias or not. I think it also depends on what source you receive information from. Its amazing that looking at how far we have gone with the internet and a lot of people have changed from print to online articles. In an article online titled “Web vs. Print: Online success at one Newspaper Raise More Questions Than They Answer” stated that from the Washington Post print source, they lost 3% of their prescribers, 4% of their ad revenue, and 14% of their recruitment revenue . Also the Washington Posts online subsidiary gained revenue of 28% and online visitors went up 11% (2007, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1699). I think that even now online sources have become much more prominent and according to the article “Online vs. Print Media” being online allows for more promotions and more options for people(2008, Pandy). What I took this to mean is that if a person wants to get a different perspective on the same news article it is much easier to do it online instead of with print. With print you have to go and buy another newspaper and they may not have the one you want. It may be quite difficult to find a Washington Post newspaper here in Buffalo.
Both print and online sources are very different and can offer the same things but structurally I don’t find them that different. I find that how much information that you want to know is the difference between them.

References:

Web vs. Print: Online success at one Newspaper Raise More Questions Than They Answer. 2007. 4 Apr. Received from: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1699.

Pandey, Sandeev. 2008. 29 Aug. Online vs. Print Media. Received from: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-business-articles/online-vs-print-media-540885.html.

Borsa, John. 2008. 30 Oct. Received from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27415446/.

Gryta, Matt. Lawyer pleads guilty in fatal hit-and-run. 2008. 30 Oct. The Buffalo News.

Assignment 9: Internet Politics

The title of the political blog I researched is Bloghillary and the URL is http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/. The blog was written by Kate Sokolov and her picture is presented with all of her posts. She uses no pseudonym and her occupation would be considered a citizen blogger. Kate Sokolov’s blog was created in June of 2008 in reaction to a letter sent by Hillary to all of her supporters. This blog has no technorati rank; there were no comments to the posts I viewed and no links.
Kate Sokolov is clearly a large supporter of Hillary, as to all her posts are a positive liking of Hillary. Unfortunately she is receiving no feedback from outside sources on her posts. The tone of this blog is rather upbeat and Kate Sokolov is completely behind the Democratic Party. She keeps up with her posts to almost every other day about Hillary’s whereabouts, what she is accomplishing, and what she wants to. Even though she supports Hillary and she is no longer on the ballet, most of the posts focus on Hillary in an indirect way through using Hillary’s advice and ideas to help the Democratic Party and Obama. Kate Sokolov also posts several videos and news stories on Hillary to help back up her positive posts. On Kate Sokolovo’s blog, there are links to click on if you want to help contribute to Hillary and join the team.
I think that on a whole blogs do affect local politics, they provide both positive and negative feedback and being able to comment on blogs provide even more insight for many political blogs. According to a study, “46% of Americans have used the internet to get political news and share their thoughts on the campaign…” (Smith & Rainie, 2008). People have a need to find out what they don’t know so they have a tendency to research a topic. The internet makes it easy and it provides a way for people to communicate. If a person reads a blog post they agree or disagree with and would like some feedback they could comment on the post. If a person were to comment on one of the posts from the Hillary site that I researched, because the writer is an involved Hillary supporter a person may be provided feedback that would be quite accurate rather than if it was a Hillary supporter that wasn’t involved in Hillary’s support groups.
However, the article The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States, they make an excellent point that allowing people access to information and being involved in platforms for discussion can help politically empower populations but could threaten regimes (Hachigan, 2002). I think the same could be said for local politics here in New York. Having people being able to blog and comment on politics empowers them to a degree and depending on the politicians actions in campaigning the feedback provided by blogs it could influence people’s opinions. I thinks its possible that if many people are influenced it may harm certain politicians campaigns with the information that are provided in blogs.

References:

Smith, Aaron & Rainie, Lee. Pew Internet. 2008. The 2008 Election. Retrieved from: http://www.pewinternet.org.

Hachigan, Nina. 2002. The Internet and Power in One-Party East Asian States. Retrieved from: https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d.

Assignment 8: Web Application Review

I recently explored Google’s Google Calendar, for the web application review assignment. The URL I is: https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=cl&passive=true&nui=1&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender&followup=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcalendar%2Frender.

As I was evaluating it, I had no idea that there was anything like this out there. What it is able to accomplish is really very interesting. The site functionality is “Organize your schedule and share events with friends.” Using the online application you can coordinate your events with friends and family, add events through e-mail, see your friends or family’s schedules next to your own, create invitations, and keep track of RSVP’s. It can also set up automatic event reminders, including mobile phone notifications, and instantly bring up anything on your calendar using the search tool.
The site itself is designed simply with lots of organizartion that provides Google Calendar pictures, bold lettering, and brief and clear descriptions. It’s set up like an instructional manuel; providing easy access and understandable phrases that an 8-year-old could understand. Color is also dispurted systematically throughout the website on each page. However, not so much color is used to take away from the descriptions, but just enough from keeping it called plain. The appearance of the Google Calendar is very fair. I will say that the pictures are a bit too small and blurry. You have to squint to try and decifer what is on the calendar and what the picture is trying to convey. The problem I forsee is that people respond well to pictures and not so much to writing no matter how simple and clear it is written. People like to use both the image and descriptions to formulate ideas in their mind and if one or the other is not clear the ideas won’t be clear and people may pass up the chance to use the Google Calendar. Also if they have set up an account with the Google Calendar and they are confused on how to match events up with the rest of their families, if they go to look back for instructions they may not be able to understand what they need to do using the pictures as help. But all in all, I think most people would be fine being able to use it.
The social aspects of the site is that you can be in contact with your family and friends through events and you can even match them up right next to your own to avoid scheduling conflicts. You can also create invitations and send them out to friends and family as well. In addition, if your mother has e-mailed you about a family reunion coming up you can go into your e-mail and add it to your Google Calender from your e-mail. Google Calenders can be searchable for other users as well. If a professor wants to use the application for class, the class could easily search for it and find it. As a precaution Google Calendar allows you to control who you want to share this information with so there is a privacy factor there.
I think this site can be useful and beneficial in a way that if you have trouble keeping up with family and friend events this would be a good way to keep track of things. I found the site pretty interesting because it wasn’t just a calender. It provided much more small applications and choices to choose from and you could control how you use it. You could see that it also made contact with others and events much easier to access and maintain. It accordingly provided feedback on all the choices you could add to your calandar which in turn I think made it very appealing to a user.

Assignment 7: Communities

Amanda Walker claims that “Every advance in communication changes the nature of reality and the way we experience it… The internet is yet another revolutionary method of communication. For the first time in the history of the world I can have an ongoing, fast-moving conversation with people regardless of their physical location, schedule, or other such contraints… The world is changing, and we are the ones doing it, whether we realize it or not” (Wellman & Gulia, 1997). The internet, having so much communication going on at once through different mediums available via the internet, has become so broad and involved that communities have developed. I am personally apart of the Facebook community. I have not had my Facebook account for long but I remember that when it was first introduced it took off in popularity. It used to be only allowed to college students but the rights to use it were recently relinquished to high school students so as a result, communication via Facebook has increased.
The different applications that Facebook has allowed are different ways to communicate at different levels. There are many levels of self disclosure and an individual has set different standards of self disclosure depending on different situations. I myself am a private person so my Facebook profile is rather plain but it has enough of my interests and hobbies listed to give a rough sketch of the type of person I am. I did this so that when others view it, it wouldn’t be completely boring. Being a part of the Facebook community, it almost has a set of standards to go with it. You should have a lot of friends, even if you don’t stay inconact with all of them, lots of interests and hobies, as well as status should be listed, as well as the groups that you belong to. Having filled out all of these things communicates a first impression to the reader. Another form of communication via Facebook is posting messages on “walls.” It’s almost like an IM but you won’t necessarily receive a response rigth away. You can also send your friends “gifts” as it were. They come in all forms of virtual things like an American flag to a zebra. You can also give your friends bumperstickers, post-its, or poke them. They even have a “rate your friends” or “top friends” application. Its showing who is most important. Not all of these things are recieveing verbal communication; in fact most of them can be considered non-verbal responses and not just to the people involved.
All of these things can affect your relationships and social ties with other people who are in the Facebook community. The virtual community’s article emphasizes that even though people can find many social resources on the internet, there is no evidence that points to whether or not the relationships are narrow or broad based even though it fosters many specialized relationships (Wellman and Guilia, 1997). I know that I have many friends on Facebook that I have ablsolutely no connection with anymore, but I don’t think I will ever delete them from my friends list because I did once know them and I will never know what may happen in the future to me socially.
“For many, the category of friend carries an aura of exclusivity and intimacy unlike the categories acquaintance or contact, which suggest familiarity but not closeness” (Boyd, 2006). Facebook field’s communication but it doesn’t provide closeness between people. If my boyfriend and I could only communicate only using Facebook there is a high possibility that we would drift apart. It does not provide constant communication at times and the applications used can give off many of the wrong impressions to people. A lot of it is based on assumption so that is why I think it is very hard to try and gauge relationships and social ties on Facebook.

References:

Boyd, Danah. 2006. Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social
network sites. Retrieved from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?
tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%
26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Wellman, Barry & Gulia Milena. 1997. Net Surfers Don’t Ride Alone: Virtual Communities As
Communities. Retrieved from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?
tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%
26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Assignment 6: Identity

As soon as I started to explore the world of AIM in High School, I thought it was the best thing ever to be able to talk to your friends and not rack up a huge phone bill while doing it. Also, the fact that it was a new form of communication made it that much more exciting. Being able to talk to people and not respond right away; being able to think about how you want to answer a question made it great to work with. I have had my screen name identity for many years now and I probably will keep it for a few more at least. Now I don’t tend to use it as much because I don’t feel the need to create a new online identity and I only keep mine for communication purposes, which is why I think most people create theirs too but after a while it tends to get more involved than just having a basis of communication. In today’s society there is not only one way to accomplish these online identities; we have MySpace, Facebook and so on. I recently created a Facebook account which I am very eerie of and keep it as private as possible. I may never fully understand why people feel the need to create a new online identity. All I know is that there can be several pros and cons to it.
MySpace and Facebook have become so popular that they are essentially internet societies/communities. They allow not only to talk to people, but provide news feeds that connects you to your friends and to the groups you belong to. They leave it up to you to put down whatever personal information you want to provide to others. I remember that with AIM it was never like that, you could leave away messages telling others what you were doing but there wasn’t an in depth profile created for others to view. In comparing the two, they both allow free communication and response on your own time. Both of them also establish online reputations. It’s hard to find other people on AIM with out asking where as on Facebook you can be easily found by doing a search and you don’t have to be in the same Facebook community to find them. These internet identities can be set up in a way that can be unfair. An example would be that if I am on AIM, I don’t have to act like my real self; I can pretend to be someone else. On Facebook you could easily embellish your personal information so it can be someone else and not the real you. It’s amazing that by simply reading what someone else wrote we are able to get the jest of the type of person he or she may be by noting the tone and words used. A reputation is established when others trust you and continue to contact you via AIM, Facebook, or so on.
However reputations can go wrong. Identity theft may be an issue as well as the creation of fake identities. By representing yourself virtually, you take that chance of identity theft. People may have a lot to benefit from stealing your online identity and precautions should be made in case that ever happens. I try to make my Facebook profile fairly uninteresting and I feel that if a person wants to really get to know me, they can’t do it through a Facebook profile. Creating fake Facebook profiles I think can be highly deceivable and dangerous. I had a friend that created a fake Facebook profile so she could keep tabs on her ex-boyfriend’s whereabouts and his latest conquest(s). That is a huge ethical violation in my book, and how would you think a person would feel if they were Facebook friends with a fake identity? What if someone found out? What does that do to you? The trust that you had established with that person is gone and you will definitely be more aware of yours and other online identities.
As much good will come with online identities as bad and it depends on the ethics of the individual. It’s up to individuals and their ethics of how they go about using these societies.

Assignment 5: Privacy

I define privacy as the freedom of individuals to relay or keep their personal information when they act according to different situations that they are faced with. I worry about my privacy all the time. I even get nervous when I go to purchase an item online; but I have to face the fact that if a person is trying to infringe on my privacy they are going to do it. It’s unnerving to hear things like Wegman’s selling your purchasing information to vendors and you almost have to assume that the vendor has your contact information as well. You can go on Google Earth type in an address and find your house or someone else’s house. Not to mention people who have phones that takes pictures. At this point in time is there any privacy left?
Some of the biggest challenges of personal privacy posed by the internet are that no one really cares or thinks that their privacy is being invaded. In an article by Bob Sullivan , he states “Someday a stranger will read your e-mail, rummage through your instant messages without your permission or scan the Web sites you’ve visited — maybe even find out that you read this story…Perhaps someone will casually glance through your credit card purchases or cell phone bills, or a political consultant might select you for special attention based on personal data purchased from a vendor. In fact, it’s likely some of these things have already happened to you” (Sullivan, 2006). Who is going to think that purchasing an item from Target.com would be detrimental to your privacy? No on thinks that a hacker will break the system and steal their credit card numbers and social security numbers; many think the likelihood is very slim. In an article by Annalee Newitz she said, “The company claimed it was trying to help researchers by providing "anonymized" search information, but experts and the public were shocked at how easy it was to figure out who had been searching on what. Apparently, AOL's anonymizing process didn't include removing names, addresses and Social Security numbers. Although the company has since apologized and taken the data down, there are at least half-a-dozen mirrors still out there for all to browse” (Newitz, 2006). Another challenge to internet privacy is cookies. Cookies are created on your computer so when you go on the internet, your computer can connect to the website faster. However, there are cookies that are used to “track” where you go and privacy can be violated this way. According to Wikipedia the original creators of cookies designed them to be a fast connection to a website but now a personally-identifiable tag can be placed on them for web profiling and cross scripting can occur to steal users cookies (Wikipedia, 2008).
After reading these articles, it’s hard to think that there is any privacy left out there. A scenario that woke me up thinking my privacy was in trouble was that recently I was going to purchase some picture frames online for my mother because I already had a target account. The problem was that I couldn’t remember my password. So I clicked “forgot password?” and I had to retype my credit card information in and my address and so on. They had kept all of that information stored into their database! I was shocked because I had never really thought about what happened to my information after I am through with purchasing items. It sits there for people to view. My mom ended up setting up her own account because I concluded that if someone is going to steal your information they would most likely steal from a person who has used multiple credit cards for purchasing online under the same name and they may be less likely to find out right away if someone had stolen their information. I don’t think the internet is half as safe as they say it is, and we definitely don’t have to privacy that we used to anymore.


Newitz, Annalee. “Privacy Debacle Hall of Fame.” Wired. 21 Oct. 2006. 26 Sep. 2008.
<http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2006/08/71622>.

Internet Privacy. 2008. Retrieved September 26, 2008 from STS Wiki:
https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%
2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%
3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Sullivan, Bob. “Privacy Lost: Does Anybody Care?” MSNBC.com. 17 Oct. 2006. 26 Sep. 2008.
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/>.

Assignment 4: Gift Economy

Receiving something and not having the obligation to return the favor immediately is something that many of us experience in everyday life, but the internet can make this transaction more complicated. Wikipedia defines a gift economy as a type of “social theory where goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo” (Wikipedia, 2008). To get more in-depth with this transaction, the Kollock article uses Carrier’s definition of a gift as “(1) the obligatory transfer, (2) of inalienable objects or services, (3) between related and mutually obligated transactors” (Kollock,1999). What they are saying here is that when the gift is actually exchanged there is no future set time when the repayment exists. A person will feel obligated to return the favor but it’s not set in stone. In the article Gift Economy by Gifford Pinchot, he states Lewis Hyde’s example of a gift economy: “The scientists with highest status are not those who possesses the most knowledge; they are the ones who have contributed the most to their fields. A scientist of great knowledge, but only minor contributions is almost pitied - his or her career is seen as a waste of talent” (Pinchot, 1997, p.49).
Kollock goes on to explain the difference between a gift and commodity. A commodity, he states is that no obligation is felt after the gift if received to return the favor (Kollock, 1999). Another distinction that Kollock notes is made by Bell. In a gift economy, the most important thing is improving the “technology of social relations” (Kollock, 1999). That just means that the goal is to broaden your personal social network. You do this to make friends and to come in contact with as many people as possible. Whereas Kollock also notes that Bell describes commodity economies goal as making improvements in the technology of production that are driven by price (Kollock, 1999). Now, take this and throw the internet into the combo. In a gift economy, if you ask a question on a message board and it’s answered, you feel obligated to return a favor, but seeing as though the message board is anonymous how will you accomplish this? You could answer one of their questions in the future if you remember. Unless there is only one person answering the questions and he or she is qualified in answer medical questions, then it is less likely for you to return the favor at all. If you take the internet and a commodity transaction, it’s easier and more efficient because there is no obligation. You take the information and move on.
Personally, I would prefer being involved in a gift economy over a commodity because I like connecting with others and expanding my social network. Facebook could be a good online gift economy example. It’s a form of communication in many ways. You can send “gifts” to someone or a bumper-sticker, you can post notes, or join groups that related to you. Even if someone posts something on your wall, depending on what it says, you feel obligated to respond back. It was my birthday recently and I felt obligated to respond back to everyone that wished me a happy birthday even if I hadn’t seen that person since high school or if I just hadn’t seen them recently. Subconsciously, I still wanted to keep those old connections open in case I see them in the future and then I am able to have a conversation with them because they will still be in my network. And if you keep the connections open it could lead you to make other connections. Through Facebook you can add a friend or find one in a network and that helps broaden your own network. I find that it helps a lot with group projects and classes.

References:

Gifford Pinchot. 1997. Gift Economy. http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/PinchotG.htm

Gift Economy. 2008. Retrieved September 19, 2008 from STS Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy

Kollock, Peter. 1999. The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in
Cyberspace. Communities in Cyberspace. Retrieved from https://ublearns.buffalo.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_61661_1%26url%3d

Assignment 3: Infringing On Our Property?

Are copyright laws really that effective? Copyright infringement is happening more and more often in today’s society. It hurts the U.S the most because the U.S provides around 80% of the world’s software and that puts a damper on the digital culture for content creators according to Wikipedia’s article on Copyright Infringement (Wikipedia, 2008). Is it possible for content creators and the public to accommodate each other on copyright? In order to achieve this, adaption will have to be made on both parts; the creator and the public.
Accommodating both the interests of the public and the content creators may provide to be very difficult due to the fact that they both want different ways on how content is accessed and used. In a perfect world we would all just get along but this is far from being a perfect world. Now we are faced with the controversy of physical and intellectual property being of the same nature. Lawrence Lessig views that physical and intellectual properties are not related and claims so with the Mickey Mouse copyright. No one is allowed to use the icon, as it is protected under the copyright law. Lessig (2004) claims it is art and not a “factory” and it is therefore, "historically ... absolutely wrong. They have never been the same. And they should never be the same, because, however counterintuitive this may seem, to make them the same would be to fundamentally weaken the opportunity for new creators to create. Creativity depends upon the owners of creativity having less than perfect control (“The Mouse Who”, p. 1).” Then there are others who view that a balance, which may be hard to find now, is needed and that we have to observe debates on media and their effect on the world (Manjoo, p. 1). Everyone is different and when they create intellectual property many feel that need to say or think, “It’s mine and you can’t have it!” but that doesn’t exactly stop people from taking your work and using it illegally. For example, look on YouTube; a bunch of movies are posted that a person can watch for free. There is no need to go to Blockbuster and rent a movie for five dollars when an individual can watch them for free online. Lawsuits must be an everyday occurrence against YouTube, and it’s not necessarily their fault. People tend to feed off of each other; when one person acquires a movie they are able to burn it. Then the person can post it on YouTube and YouTube viewers view the movie and then they decide to post their movies. It only takes one person to create a chain reaction and there is no telling how prepared the world will be when it happens.
At this point it looks like it’s almost impossible to structure copyright infringement in a way that both the creator and the public are in agreement on. From a cultural stand point this is just how people are and as a society a person has to accept the fact that people will infringe. It will be impossible to fix what has already happened in the world with infringement so as a result individuals will have to work with it. Laying some responsibility on creators to claim their intellectual property is not a bad idea and if another person wants to use the same property to make it better, then they should have contact with the creator and they should settle for a fee of some sort. This idea may not happen enough and that could be a minor solution. If we structure the types of intellectual properties into different categories that have different rights or policies, that may put a stop to some infringements. At this point, we as a society have gone so far that it will be hard to go back and start over again. We have to deal with what we have now and work from that.
I feel that we can never really stop it because it is just so out of hand. If we were to completely eliminate copyright on intellectual property there is bound to be some cases involving people’s rights. If we were to completely copyright all intellectual property, many ideas or creations that result from a basis of something that is already copyrighted will come to a halt and fail to exist. I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t get excited when I can get a computer program for free or I can watch a movie online. I think its great but then again I would never post something or take someone’s ideas without contacting the creator first. The last thing I want to do is violate their rights and ideas. There is a difference between intellectual property and physical property and it should be dealt with structurally for both, because both are suffering.


References:

Copyright Infringement. 2008. Retrieved September 11, 2008, from the STS Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture. In Farhad Manjoo (Ed.), The Mouse Who Would Be King (p 1-
2). Retrieved from http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/04/08/copyright_culture/
index.html

Manjoo, Farhad. 2008. The Mouse Who Would Be King. Retrieved from
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2004/04/08/copyright_culture/index.html

COM 125 Assignment 2: E-mail Era

How did e-mail become so revolutionary? E-mail is more than just a type of internet application; it’s a form of communication as well. In fact e-mail was invented in 1965, before the internet itself, and is known as a “crucial tool” leading up to its invention (Wikipedia, 2008). Wikipedia simply defines e-mail as “a store-and-forward method of writing, sending, receiving and saving messages over electronic communication systems” (Wikipedia, 2008). When thinking back, without e-mail where would we be as a culture? Life would be very different, and to many of us, it would be viewed as inconvenient. As a society I believe that we take our time that we have very seriously, and will create a mental time table that we follow to get things done efficiently every day. E-mail allows us to accomplish those tasks.

E-mail started out as a way for many users or a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate (Wikipedia, 2008). Think of this as a place to hold notes of any kind for others to read. We have to note that at this time people were not actually writing things and sending them to other people just yet. Ray Tomlinson created the standard address format, the @ sign, in 1971 (Wikipedia, 2008). After that a transmission was chosen so the e-mail could be passed a long. Such transmissions used at the time were ARPANET, BITNET and NSFNet as well as other hosts (Wikipedia, 2008). With e-mail being provided in a place of business, a person could discover that a lot less running around is done and people were able to work more efficiently if they didn’t have a list of errands to do. More could be accomplished in the time that was given to workers and this was also a new form of non-verbal communication between workers. In many instances it could have been more beneficial to non-verbally communicate with someone else rather than seeing the person face to face. An example would be a worker on the second floor of a building needed to contact another worker but didn’t have the time to phone or transport themselves because they were pressed for time. Well they could simply leave an e-mail for them, go to lunch or a meeting and come back and there could be a response there or maybe a phone call. Another example could be that the boss has a new list of employment benefits so he or she needs to contact every employee that works for them. So he or she could send out an e-mail to all employees and notify them of the change instead of mailing them the new information.
In our society today, we rely a lot more on e-mail than regular mail. E-mail allows us to think about what we want to write, rather than if you are taking to someone such as your boss, you have to think up a response right then and there. E-mail also prevents us from mailing actual letters. When you mail an actual letter you have to put it in an envelope and put a stamp on it with the address and then go out to the mailbox lift up the flag and it’s mailed whenever the mailman/woman comes to get it. With e-mail you type in the address and click send, and it’s sent instantly with no waiting around. Also with e-mail if mess up you don't have to start all over again thanks to the computer. A video on YouTube provides a comical outlook on e-mail in the 15th century. A conclusion that a person may come to after viewing the video would be that because of e-mail we found a new way to make more time available to us when we are being "hounded."

Time can be the essence of our life, and we go by it and use it everyday. E-mail that had once benefitted us in the workplace can benefit us in regular life too. Staying in contact with old friends can be just as important as a memo from your boss and they can be both accessed through the same way, e-mail. Yes e-mail can be defined as the sending and receiving of messages but to us as a society it is much more than that.

Introducing Myself

In order to complete my first assignment I am going to randomly add the blog link here. The blog provides insight and an outline on the different topics that I will be discussing in my blogs.
To get the boring stuff out of the way, I am a senior Communications Major at the University of Buffalo. I have my 2-year Communications degree from Erie Community College, went to Geneseo for a brief time and hated it, and I will probably graduate a semester late due to the Geneseo "mistake." Not that I hated everything, I did like the campus a lot but the college was unable to fulfill my educational needs.
I don't spend a lot of time online, but when I am online I try to visit my Facebook page (I like to fulfill my weekly quota of 10 minutes) which is very plain looking only because I haven't, and most likely won't, get around to decorating it and adding applications. One website that I like a lot and that I tend to visit is hulu. Hulu's website contains movies and TV shows as well as clips. If you haven't checked it out already, you should they have lots of movies and shows to choose from. There is not any downloading which is awesome.
I'm a big reader. My favorite book of all time has to be Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (no eye rolling please). One of my favorite authors is David Baldacci. He has written about governmental operations (note everything is all fiction), agents, assassinations, the rigging of the lottery, and so on. Right now I'm reading The Camel Club and I'm really enjoying it. It's about a group of people who want to find out the 'truth' of our countries actions. If I had to recommend one of his books it either has to be Split Second or The Winner.
Other than the fact that I like to read, I like to write as well and I hope that I will be able to get a book published eventually. It's one of my future aspirations. Another future aspiration I have is that I would like to learn how to water ski. I have gotten up before but once I'm up, I get nervous and then I fall. My family goes boating a lot and one of my favorite places to be is at a lake. I'm a fan or water but not of a lot seaweed so that seems to be the depending factor on whether or not I will swim, but I like being at lakes just the same. Oh, I almost forgot about snakes. I will not swim with snakes. Ever.
This is my first time blogging and I apologize if I bored you but what I hope to get out of this Intro to the Internet class is not only to get more familiar with the internet but to get more familiar with blogging as well. It might be something that I would like to do in the future and I hope that after you read this you know a little bit more about me and my interests.