Contributing to the Controversies Surrounding Web Communication--wiki posts about web happenings and issues
From WRIT-2510 Spring 2007 Wiki
Post your thoughts and reactions to a web-related communication issue. This would be similar to a classic blog posting that includes a link to an article or webpage that details a particular event, news item, or controversy about the web or new media. You need to summarize the essay in a way that the author would not find offensive, and then discuss your own interpretation or thoughts on the controversy. You will also need to discuss the implications of the news event (i.e., the “so-what” factor which explains to your colleagues why they should care). You will need to include evidence (in the form of a properly cited quotation and/or url) to back-up your claim. This may involve a bit of research, but it should not be onerous. The point is to have you make an educated contribution to the conversation about the issue, and not simply spout off what you think without considering how others have also thought about it. Your quotation can come from another news source, a blogger, a scholarly article, or any other source that you feel will strengthen your argument.
You should add your responses to this "article" by clicking on the edit tab at the top of the page, and then using two equal signs (title of your entry, your name) two more equal signs to create a "subsection." You should title your response appropriately and also put your name in the title, so you receive credit for completing your assigment. Each new subsection will have its own "edit" tab. To respond to someone else's comment, you should click on it, hit the "edit" tab that will appear to the right of it, and then use three equal signs (add a title and your name) three equal signs to create what should simulate a threaded discussion. You should use double brackets and the title of the main article to create a "category" which should be put at the end of your response, this way all responses to the same prompt will be grouped together.
We'll see if this works. If you discover a method that works better, then we can reassess how we want to organize our conversation here, but let's give this a shot for now.
[edit] Sample Response 1b by Jan Fernheimer
Sample Response: Book Search: A Whole New World of Digital Research
In his Washington Post editorial "The Books Google Could Open" Richard Elkam argues that Google's push to make books searchable is a move that universities and libraries should support because it will make information (in the form of books and other research materials) more accessible. He claims the project "is a Herculean undertaking, digitizing both new and old works housed in some of the world's top libraries -- Stanford, Harvard, the University of Michigan, the University of California System, the New York Public Library and Oxford -- and rendering them searchable through Google's powerful Web site." Moreover, he eloquently argues that the project will benefit students and researchers at smaller universities and colleges in particular, because it will allow people to preview texts before they have to shell out the money to purchase them online. As a scholar and researcher who knows how hard it can be to locate rare and out-of-print texts, this new project sounds like a wonderful idea. It is something that could save people money by preventing them from purchasing books whose contents are different from the content categories used to describe them. It is not surprising to me, however, that publishers are protesting. What was interesting is Elkam’s prediction that this effort might actually increase book sales. Has anyone in class tried using this tool? I’d be curious to hear about your experiences, and you can even write about them as part of your on-going posts. See also Google's Book Search to find out more.
[edit] Response to Sample Response 1b by Jan Fernheimer's sidekick
If I was going to respond to someone else's reponse, I would click on the edit tab that goes with their response, and then write what I had to say, including the category at the bottom.
[edit] Wikipedia’s effects on the web by Cory Anderson
As you may know by now, that Wikipedia is not a very reliable source, because it is so easily editable. However Jaron Lanier, in a recent paper discusses some interesting points regarding the issue. Lanier states, “No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly” (Lanier). In his paper Digital Maoism, he discusses how people are putting to much faith in something they should not be. Does anyone use an encyclopedia as a main source of information? Obviously not, people only us it as a starting point for research, or becoming familiar with a subject that they are not. But that’s not the only problem, Wikipedia has a lot of pages that are taken directly from other websites, literally just copy and pasted. When anyone searches a topic on Google, most of the time the first pages brought up are Wikipedia pages, not the information that people would have gotten pre-Wikipedia. I think this kind of Wikipedia activity is slowly making our information on the web less valuable. Jaron Lanier points out, “When you see the context in which something was written and you know who the author was beyond just a name, you learn so much more than when you find the same text placed in the anonymous, faux-authoritative, anti-contextual brew of the Wikipedia”(Lanier). I think what Lanier is pointing out is very true, and information on the web is slowly loosing its identity because of web programs like Wikipedia. It is important when researching to have an idea of what the author is about, and where his information is posted. With Wikipedia that is not possible. If this continues, as it most likely will, how will it effect the information on the web, and even our writing for the web?
Lanier, Jaron. "Digital Maoism ." Edge. Ed. John Brockman. 30 May 2006. 14 Apr. 2007
<http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge183.html>.
[edit] Response to "Wikipedia’s effects on the web" by Keve Zoltani
Cory makes an interesting arguement and one which is not often heard regarding Wikipedia. Yes Wikipedia is an extraordinary tool, allowing primers on all imaginable topics, but it should not be used for professional work, as Cory says. When learning about a new topic, Wikipedia offers a good introduction into the idea, but links are always available at the bottom of each page to more detailed and insightful web pages where readers can learn more factual information. Wikipedia does need to created some standard to prevent "a lot of pages that are taken directly from other websites, literally just copy and pasted" because this makes trusting any material on the web difficult. Due to the fact that Wikipedia is open source and many people are editing it as we speak, it offers some sort of assurance to the users. Having a kind of standard saying "Only published material may be cited or used on Wikipedia and having a reference to that source may be a type of alternative. Wikipedia has put a useful tool on the internet, but like all tools they can be abused and used for the wrong purpose. Hopefully this will not happen to Wikipedia in the future.
[edit] Response to "Wikipedia's effects on the web" by Michael Princevalli
Ah, ye old Wikipedia. For all intents and standards, it seems very much like students are slowly relying more on Wikipedia to answer their questions and to help them research, instead of actually looking up answers themselves. I agree with Cory that people are beginning to revere Wikipedia as an all-knowing source that feeds you the answers you need. It goes well beyond any idea that wikipedia could be vandalized; the actuality of incorrect information on Wikipedia is very rare, as the general public is very quick to correct vandalism and errors they find. The actual problem lies in that many people are forgetting how to research entirely, instead relying on the Wikis and Google to do it for them. Ask a teenager when the last time they looked up things in a book, and they just might stare at you as if you were speaking another language.
This isn't to say Wikipedia doesn't have its uses. It serves best as an encyclopedia would: a summary of information about a large number of things, meant to give you a clearer understanding as to what you are looking up, and to point you towards the specifics you need to look up to get all of the information. And that is how it should be.
[edit] Remediation and Marketing of Bragging Rights by Kenny Johnson
In today's "next generation" of video games, players can connect with each other online through web communities and online services like XBox Live, Nintendo Wi-Fi, and the PlayStation Network to play multiplayer games, buy downloadable games and content, make friends, and most importantly, brag about their video game skills! Last generation gamers had to brag by word of mouth. If you could beat Super Mario Bros. you were the coolest kid on the block, but only if your friends believed you! Today, it's common for online gaming services to track player statistics, and announce "Achievements" to the world over the Internet. For example, check out my personal Sk8r Profile for Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (Nintendo DS). Because I play online using Nintendo Wi-Fi, the Tony Hawk site has statistics regarding my recent Head to Head Matches, and my Global Ranking. The XBox 360 and XBox Live I think have the most interesting form of bragging rights: a Gamer Score label, cumulative across all XBox 360 games. Achievement badges are literally awarded to players to recognize their skill, time played, and feature usage in an XBox 360 game. An achievement point value accumulates on the player's Gamer Score, and is visible to all other players on the Internet. To players, this is like bragging rights with credibility: achievements verified by the XBox 360's stat tracking service. From a business standpoint, though, players will actually buy XBox 360 games instead of games for other consoles, because they know their progress will add to their Gamer Score in the XBox 360 version. I admit, I find the feature really compelling, even though I know I am just getting pulled in by Microsoft's marketing of bragging rights. It's particularly interesting to read the comments in response to this article, announcing that the PlayStation 3 will not have a Gamer Score or Achievements to match the XBox 360's bragging service. Some admit that the Gamer Score is cheap, because its cumulative nature essentially rewards players who own or play the most XBox 360 games, but others admit that they still fall into the trap and play more XBox 360 games as a result. It's interesting to see both the effects of Internet accessibility on the growth of the gaming industry, and also the resulting remediation of bragging rights for the next generation of gamer!
[edit] Response to Kenny Johnson's Remediation and Marketing of Bragging Rights by Christopher Jaeger
One intriguing thing that sparked me as I read this, is how accomplishment rates are now shaping the industry and future of games in a variety of fashions. To use the same example as Kenny, with Super Mario Bros., the most you had when you completed the game was a high score and a pat on the back if you showed someone. With time, there came actual achievements you could get to show people how good you were, such as trophy systems in games like Super Smash Brothers Melee or Star Ocean 3. Though with places like GameFAQs, which list out the trophies for everyone to see, sometimes the luster of discovery is lost. However, though limitted within the XBox Live situation, the Gamerscore system allows people not only to broadcast their achievements to everyone who can connect, but also ranks people based on their achievements. More notable, though, is the development curve that is brought by the advent of net broadcasting to the world of achievements. People will tool their games for those seeking to attain odd goals, and in doing so sometimes may retool the system as a whole. Crackdown, a game recently released for the XBox 360, actually was a moving factor to raising the limit on allowed achievements from games. In the other side of the issue, the new networking allows a greater possibility in games than before. One of the most prominent examples is The iDOLM@STER, which was originally an arcade game exclusive to Japan, using networked high-score tables across machines over the country to monitor the top players. Now with the online connectivity of consoles, games such as these could be ported (and redone in excellently crisp graphics), not only allowing at-home play but even in other countries, provided you possess the proper hardware. Bragging rights, indeed. If the results continue to be excellent, then motivation for development being one-ups-man-ship is fine by me.
[edit] Free Advertising Via Myspace by Matthew Fyffe
Advertising is an important aspect for every business, website and musician. Whether one’s trying to get their name out, sell products or simply make contacts, advertising is one of the chief means in accomplishing these goals. Unfortunately, advertising can often be a significant expenditure and it is difficult to evaluate how much it is worth investing. With Myspace, a growing trend has developed in which companies can advertise for free.
For the uninitiated (i.e. those who’ve been living under a rock for the last few years), Myspace (Myspace.com) is a free social networking service that currently has over 40 million active users. Users of Myspace can add friends, write messages to specific friends, send bulletins to all of their friends and create a page which their friends can visit. While the site’s main audience is teenagers and young adults, the site attracts visitors of all ages.
This might not immediately jump out as a venue for advertising but it has a great deal of potential to be used as such. Companies, web sites and musicians can create pages for their product/services. These pages can be well-developed and customized to attract visitors and potentially lure visitors into returning and/or exploring the advertiser’s product further.
To make this advertising work, the promoters need a method to attract visitors. To get visitors to their page, promoters can add friends or purchase a service that can do this. For $40, services like Friend Automator (friendautomator.com), allow users to automatically add friends. While this sort of aimless adding may seem useless, the services allow friends to be added based upon words found in their profile, thereby creating potential for targeted advertising. For example, if a rock group wanted to try and get their name out, they could use the service and only add friends who have the words “Rock Music” in their profile.
If $40 is still too large an investment, there are free means to gain friends. Users can join groups relevant to their interests (i.e. having the rock group join a Rock Music group) and add friends manually from these groups. In addition, users can join friend chains in which they add friends via free services, that enable adding in a faster fashion. If the promoted service is popular enough, it may not require much effort to gain friends quickly. Well-known music artists can gain friends quickly by pure word of mouth and searches by users.
Once a user has gained a large friend base, promotion is easy. First, when these friends visit their page, the user can include links to their product, or service which visitors can click. Second, by posting bulletins, the user is able to spam his or her friends list with information about the latest updates pertaining to the product. Lastly, by visiting friends’ pages and posting comments (or using services like Friend Automator to do it automatically) the user can give personalized messages to friends.
This concept of using Myspace as free advertising is not such an alien practice as it has already been put into practice by the Marine Corps (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=114230169). The Marines page features videos of troops storming beaches and training in boot camps, as well as wall papers and a link to contact a recruiter. With over 20,000 friends, the Marines have been able to tap the well of American youth without ever picking up a phone or visiting a school. Further information about the Marines endeavors on Myspace can be found at http://www.wired.com/news/wireservice/0,71448-0.html.
The service has also become a promotional tool for hundreds of thousands of musicians. Besides the pages for garage bands and start-up acts, many well-known artists have pages. The popular singer Ne-Yo’s page has over 293,000 friends and has received over 9 million views since its creation. The singer Beyonce has over 800,000 friends and has received over 18 million page views. For a service that costs these artists nothing, this is a great amount of promotion.
Myspace is a tremendous social network and a service that offers a great opportunity for free advertising to those who can use it properly. By making an attractive page and targeting friends appropriately, the service can help move products and promote products to a wide variety of audiences.
Potential responses: Viral Marketing via YouTube, the ethics of Myspace advertising.
[edit] Response to Matthew Fyffe's Free Advertising Via Myspace by Kenny Johnson
Another clever feature I've noticed on MySpace is that users can customize their URL. The band, My Chemical Romance, for example has cleverly set its URL as myspace.com/mychemicalromance. The only limitation here is that the URL must be available - not used by someone else! This makes it very easy to advertise a profile even off the web - I've seen commercials on TV that advertise a short, and easy to remember MySpace URL as an official web site! What else is clever about MySpace? I want to highlight the fact that there's a draw in collecting hundreds, or even thousands of friends on MySpace. There's a friend tally, just asking to grow like a high score, or a sense of status. I might not limit myself to accepting friends I have met in real life, if I can then tell my real friends that I have 1000 friends on MySpace! This seems great, but coupled with the Bulletin feature, it can promote spam. This killed MySpace for me and I would bet a lot of other people too. The bulletin board, as Matthew mentioned, allows a user to send messages to every one of his or her friends at once. These messages get listed on a bulletin board listing on the recipient's MySpace home page. Now let's say I add a random person who requests to be my friend - and I didn't realize this person was the type to send bulletins with spam! Instead of getting informed about news from my real friends, or from bands I like, my bulletin board gets filled with useless spam messages. Maybe I shouldn't Add Friends who would spam me, but you have to remember that collecting friends is a big draw of MySpace - that spammer on my friend's list makes me look that much more popular, adding one body to my list of 1000 friends. Perhaps worse, friends can post messages on your personal profile's comment board. While I'd like to think comments on my profile are personal messages for or about me, it's not unusual to see bands or spammers use this space to promote themselves to anyone who happens to visit my profile and read my comments board. Spam definitely killed MySpace for me, and you can see that MySpace has certain features that lead to spamming behavior. I could propose some fixes, like upon adding friends, I check a box - can this person post comments on my profile? Will I accept their bulletin posts? Then I can collect friends, without accepting their spam. On the other hand, I don't think most users waste their time trying to suggest fixes for MySpace. They instead use better social networks (like Facebook) which address these problems by promoting a different kind of atmosphere with a different set of features.
[edit] Response to Matthew Fyffe's Free Advertising Via Myspace by Eric Wyler
Matt brings up some interesting points about the infiltration of advertising and commercialization into one of the largest (if not THE largest) social networks on the Internet. I see things like this occurring in many other areas as well. To talk about one of Matt's suggestions, YouTube has numerous promotional videos on it, presumably posted by companies wishing to sell their product. Searching "viral marketing youtube" on Google brings up a host of articles discussing the new venue that companies have utilized to distribute advertising. For those unfamiliar, "viral marketing" refers to the concept that once an ad is placed somewhere, it is spread not by the company but by the people who see it. People are most familiar with this when it refers to the Internet, where spreading an article or video is only an IM or e-mail away. It's interesting to note that "YouTube is now getting more traffic than MySpace, CNN.com, and Ebay"(Can Viral Video Clips Drive Targeted Traffic?). The idea of viral advertising is not a new idea, but the advent of the Internet has truly allowed it to flourish.
It's interesting when you compare and contrast MySpace and YouTube in terms of what they actually do to attract people. Matt talks about how MySpace is attractive due to it's true social networking base, with people able to communicate through comments, messages, and adding each other as friends. YouTube, on the other hand, really only has the raw content of the videos to attract people. You can leave comments on videos, but nobody is going to visit YouTube to just read the comments. MySpace does allow you to post videos on your profile, though, so there is certainly overlap between the two. It seems that MySpace would appeal more to advertising that could be made very user-centric, like music artists advertising albums or the United States military advertising to join, both of which Matt suggest. YouTube, on the other hand, seems most beneficial to videos that are very enjoyable to watch but don't have any emotional connection with the users through the actual videos themselves or their creators.
Regarding popularity, YouTube and MySpace are both effective tools for viral advertising, however, I feel that YouTube will ultimately win because there are fewer loops to jump through to reach the content. YouTube's content is readily available, devoid of the glittery graphics and annoying profile music of MySpace. Also, with YouTube you know you are getting videos while with MySpace it is unknown. It would probably be in the advertisers' best interests to use both services if appropriate, since each appeals to a different crowd of people.
[edit] The Future? The use of file sharing by companies by David Crolius
Many of us have used peer-to-peer file sharing programs like Limewire, Kazaa, and others to download music. This downloading although illegal is widespread. As a result of the illegal acts committed using peer-to-peer file sharing programs these programs have been criticized by many as facilitating the illegal downloads of music. In fact, a few students here at RPI have been sued by the RIAA for illegal downloads. Despite the criticism these programs have come under, some major corporations are testing out peer-to-peer programs for business purposes. General Motors is one major company experimenting with peer-to-peer programs as is Coca-Cola Co. They are using this technology to share videos of their marketing campaigns with their employees. Their decision to experiment with peer-to-peer software has allowed them to keep costs down, while at the same time reaching many of their employees. Prior to this firms would have had to expand their corporate networks, which can be a costly proposition. Even if they expanded their networks they might sill encounter problems with the capacity of their network. Despite allowing companies to share large files easily and cheaply, there is a potential downside to corporate use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs. The companies that operate these programs will need to be vigilant in their security efforts. The same program that would allow them to spread large files easily would also allow them to spread a destructive virus quickly. A virus could have the potential to cripple that company’s technological infrastructure. In my opinion, widespread use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs by companies will be a good thing. The companies who use these programs will be able to quickly and efficiently distribute files to various computers on their networks at a low cost. The low cost of these programs will let companies spend money on other useful business functions instead of solely on expanding their networks. I also believe that the illegal sharing of files will be reduced considerably in the corporate environment. Most people are more inclined to keep music files on their home computers instead of work. There may be a few who keep music or video files on their work computers, but the number will most likely be small. Overall the use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs will be beneficial to the companies that implement them.
Citation:
White, Bobby. "Peer-to-Peer Goes Corporate." The Wall Street Journal 13 Feb. 2007, sec. B: 3.
[edit] Response to: The Future? The use of file sharing by companies by Daniel Wong
I agree that the concept of using a peer-to-peer file sharing program in corporations is a good and practical thing to implement. However, wouldn't companies have the same exact problems associated with file sharing programs? As David mentioned, companies would have to exert and manage security as well as moderation within the file sharing community. In an especially big company, I think that there would be a rather large expenditure of money and resources on policing the employees of the company, ensuring that only work related files are shared. As in many cases such as the incident involving RPI students, the creation of the file sharing program was abused by its users resulting in a lawsuit. I think this would be a very big concern that these companies would need to consider before implementing such a system.
[edit] Response to: The Future? The Use of file sharing by companies by Cory Anderson
I think this is an interesting idea, and could potentially benefit a company greatly. I agree with Daniel, that complications with security may arise, but I think it would still be cheaper for companies to manage a program then it would be to fly all over to present certain projects to different people all around. Also with administrative security, it would be simple to only allow certain staff be able to upload files for download, whereas most employees would only need to download material not upload. I think is relates to a lot of online classes that are offered on the web. I think this type of file sharing’s uses are growing out to different areas which could help people do certain things more easily. My mom is a professor at SUNY Cortland, and she teaches one of her classes entirely on the web. She allows her students to download videos from the web and watch them at their homes. She commented that her students do very well, because they can choose when to do their work. Going back to your original idea, I think sharing files through organizations, is certainly in the field of development and being implemented in different ways. I think this is certainly a good thing and could potentially expand our creativity and work flow.
[edit] Response to: The Future? The Use of file sharing by companies by David Crolius
I didn't quite follow the directions on this original post, so I thought I would give it another shot.
Some large companies, like General Motors and Coca-Cola Co., are using peer-to-peer technology to distribute large files around the world efficiently. General Motors uses peer-to-peer technology to distribute videos to salesman worldwide. GM is followed in this endeavor by other companies, like Coke and some others. These companies are using peer-to-peer sharing to distribute large files, like videos or software updates. Their use of peer-to-peer technology has allowed them to become more efficient in their large file distribution. These companies have also been able to avoid costly network expansions. These major companies are using the same technology as services like Kazaa and Napster, which were targeted for prosecution because of illegal downloading of music. The use of peer-to-peer by major companies, as well as shifts in the market, could signal a shift from somewhat shady origins to readily accepted technology.
<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB117132220010106419.html>
I personally find this to be exciting because this use of this technology is legal. Companies, like GM and Coke, are paving the way for the possible widespread legal use of peer-to-peer technology. The potential cost savings could prove to be well worth their use of this technology.
[edit] Response to: The Future? The Use of file sharing by companies by Michael Princevalli
This is an idea which intrigues me to no great end. Perhaps it is a symptom of being in our generation; many of us know someone who has had legal action taken against them for file sharing, and almost all of us remember the lengthy Napster scandal (if a scandal it can be called). We all know that stealing files - be they songs or games or movies - is bad and hurts the profits of those who helped create them in the first place, but we also feel the actions taken to rectify these cause no end of problems even to the people who have never touched a peer-to-peer program in their life. The idea, however, of multi-billion dollar corporations accepting and embracing peer-to-peer connection is a shocking and strong step in the opposite direction that the RIAA had so desperately been trying to hammer into the lawbooks. The potential is easy to see: a time when songs can actually be safely shared between people and everyone is happy. Will it actually happen? I doubt it. Simply put, even economy is rarely strong enough to move that sort of politics. Will we be hearing a lot more about it? You can bet your pants on it.
[edit] Response to: The Future? The Use of file sharing by companies by Andrew La Padula
First of all, using peer to peer programs to download files is not illegal in an of itself. It is only the downloading of copyrighted materials that should not be obtained in this fashion that is illegal (i.e., you're suppose to pay for your own legal copy, not download it via the Internet). If companies need to send reports or promotional videos or other resources to each other or to other branches of the corporation, this is perfectly legal as long as the materials are not copyrighted or they own the copyrights themselves. That is why many peer-to-peer programs still exist. A program like Napster, on the other hand, heavily facilitated the pirating of music and other software which is why it was made illegal.
Even though standard peer-to-peer file sharing is legal, it doesn't make much sense in my mind for big companies to use such software. Project Management Systems (alternatively called Content Manage Systems) provide a wide range of functionality including, but certainly not limited to, the uploading and downloading of files via a file repository. The use of such CMSs is growing and with good reason, especially for file sharing. Files on a CMS or stored on a server - therefore, when downloading a file, the transfer speed is really dependent on the user's connection (servers that would be used have very fast connections and lots of bandwidth). In peer-to-peer programs, the transfer speed is dependent upon the file's host computer (usually another person's computer, very slow, 56K - Cable connection) and the downloader. Download speeds will vary widely and download times will usually take much longer. P2P programs are far less efficient when significant file sharing and transferring is needed. Just because some big name companies are using P2P programs right now does not mean they will continue to do so in the future. I personally do not foresee them being used much longer by any companies that are looking for efficient ways to handle their files and projects.
[edit] Communicating Controversy by Eric Wyler
We generally think of the internet as a decentralized, uncensored source for information, and from a raw design perspective such an image is correct. In reality, however, what we do and don’t see is ultimately controlled by search engines. The article at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_1/gerhart/ discusses this dilemma in regards to whether or not the methods that search engines use to rank pages can unintentionally suppress controversial views. Specifically, given a search for a broad topic, what is the likelihood that controversial subjects within that topic will be found? In performing the study, the top 50 results for Google, Teoma, and AllTheWeb along with the top 100 results from the multi-searchers Profusion and Copernic were analyzed. Five topics were searched, each with a single specific controversial subtopic of interest. Three of the topics were deemed to have their controversial sides significantly suppressed, while the other two were deemed not suppressed, however, the majority of the results for these last two did not mention the controversies. The study concludes by saying that while search engines are not necessarily built to only present the “sunny sides” of topics, they tend toward doing so. The final advice is that searchers must be more aware of search terms and must also seek a variety of sources.
This article conveys a problem that, unfortunately, I feel can never be escaped. There will always be “common knowledge” about a subject and then a small amount of loosely dispersed information that has indications against that common knowledge. Due to my interest in health and nutrition, I have experienced first-hand the suppression of controversial information. Once a different viewpoint is found it is relatively easy to find additional information, and the study verifies this by concluding that the “five specific controversies are well–represented on the Web, knowing the appropriate search terms.” The key aspect, though, is that you must be aware of the controversy, and to gain this awareness you must conquer the difficult task of finding information that you don’t even know exists. It’s like swimming through the ocean, attempting to find all of the creatures in it. How can you verify you’ve found all the creatures when you don’t know what all of the creatures are?
This study is a revealing examination of the World Wide Web as a source for information and supports the general belief that it is unwise to investigate a topic using a small number of sources. With the wide availability of information today, the biggest obstacle to overcome is no longer the accessibility of information, but simply the discovery of it.
[edit] Response to "Communicating Controversy by Eric Wyler" by Matthew Fyffe
Finding this idea of suppression to be interesting, I decided to run some searches on the issue myself. While looking up supression of topics by Google, I found many interesting articles detailing Google's deletion of anti-semitic sites from its listings. Though this is an interesting topic, I felt the more relevant one to this topic to be an article found here (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20060921/ai_n16752787). The article mentions that, while a useful site, Google should not be used as the tool to solve every problem.
One situation the article brings up is when searching for generic topics as was done in the article mentioned by Eric. For instance, the article states: "Google for 'plasma tv,' and you'll be slogging through hundreds of links to online stores, sprinkled with some buyers' guides. But Wikipedia will immediately explain the concept to you, topic by topic." The article suggests that when it comes to these broad terms, it is better to search a site like Wikipedia that is designed for digging into information into a topic.
Intrigued by the tests done by the site mentioned in Eric's post, I did the experiment myself on Wikipedia. I entered the five generic terms, "Distance Learning," "Albert Einstein," "Female Astronauts," "St. John's Wort," and "Belize" and read the Wikipedia articles that resulted to see how they stood up against the article's results. Here are my findings:
Distance Learning: No mention of the controversy or David Noble's book was made. However, when looking at this topic closer, this is not really a surprising result. When searching for the simple phrase "distance learning," it is unlikely that an Internet surfer is actually searching for a push towards mass-produced diplomas. This is brought up in the article provided by Eric when it says "Readers interested in this particular controversy are also more likely to be inside the academic enterprise, rather than consumers of DL products. The DL 'search engine personality' is to 'help you find the DL program right for you,' rather than 'provide pro and con arguments for going the DL route.'" The people who would want to stumble upon information about these "diplomacy mills" or should be presented with that material for that matter, will not be the ones typing such generic terms into the search engines. So while the Wikipedia results were similar to the results by the study, I don't feel they are significant.
Albert Einstein: Searching on Wikipedia for Albert Einstein brings you to the page about Albert Einstein. On this page, the following text can be found: "Einstein married Mileva Marić on January 6, 1903, and their relationship was, for a time, a personal and intellectual partnership. In a letter to her, Einstein wrote of Mileva as 'a creature who is my equal and who is as strong and independent as I am.'[17] There has been debate about whether Marić influenced Einstein's work; most historians do not think she made major contributions, however.[18][19][20]" This shows that not only does Wikipedia introduce the issue, but it also provides interested users with several additional sources where they can read up further on the matter. As such, Wikipedia succeeds at revealing this topic.
Female Astronauts: This topic proves to have interesting results on Wikipedia. Female Astronauts does not actually bring up a page from Wikipedia but instead, brings up a message stating that no article existed on the topic, and then provides a series of related articles. The same thing occurs when Women Astronauts is searched for. However, within both of these topics, one of the top suggested articles is in fact, an article on Mercury 13. Thus, while the search fails to jump right to a page on the topic, it does reference visitors to the controversy.
St. John's Wort: When searching Wikipedia for St. John's Wort, users are brought to a lengthy page covering the herb. Eric's article from firstmonday identifies the controversy as surrounding the herb's effectiveness. With respect to this category, Wikipedia provides an entire section on the drug's effectiveness, weighing in on both the evidence for its effectiveness and the results showing its ineffectiveness.
Belize: The last topic introduced in the article from firstmonday was the Belize-Guatemalan conflict. The result from Wikipedia for Belize states in one of its early paragraphs: "As of March 2007, the border dispute with Guatemala remains unresolved and quite contentious;[2][3] at various times the issue has required mediation by the United Kingdom, CARICOM heads of Government, the Organization of American States and, on one occasion, the United States." In addition to addressing the issue, the article also provides visitors to various books on the subject in its references section.
In conclusion, I believe the article by firstmonday is missing the important issue at hand. The concern should not be search engines suppresion of controversy because search engines don't try and find controversy. Instead, search engines serve a person's need to find information relevant to their search, and with regards to that matter, the search engines do the best that they can. When given such simplistic terms, a search engine can not judge whether a user should see information to the generic terms provided, or given more in-depth information. As such, it is the searcher's responsibility to know the tools available and choose the right one for the job. With respect to this issue, I believe findanswers provides the best suggestion when it says "When your problem starts with the words, 'I need to learn about' Wikipedia is usually the best place to start, keeping a grain of salt handy."
[edit] Proof of Credentials on Wikipedia by Daniel Wong
In an article in the New York Times by the Associated Press ("Wikipedia to Seek Proof of Credentials"), there was debate whether a contributor who claims to have certain credentials should identify themselves. An individual named Ryan Jordan claimed to be a professor of theology, when in fact he was actually a 24 year old college dropout. After some time and countless entries to Wikipedia, Jordan was made a high ranking official within the Wikipedia community. He was able to override other people's posts as well as block users from using the website. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales plans to institute a set of rules that allows contributors to still stay anonymous, however if they say that they have some professional expertise that they would have to provide proof. I think that this whole controversy is a little one-sided. It is not only the responsibility of the writer to put the most accurate information possible on a Wikipedia entry, but the reader's as well to discern what is right and what is wrong. This situation is comparable to searching on the World Wide Web and believing the first thing you read. This situation does not help the credibility of Wikipedia, but there are many things on the Internet that you need to scrutinize before trusting.
[edit] Response of Proof of Credentials on Wikipedia by Daniel Jones
Cases like these where people falsify information is to be expected when there is an open source project. The world is filled with dishonest people. Allowing anyone to create or edit a page of information is bound to net liars or jokers. This is why I agree with Jimmy Wales that a set of rules need to be established to make sure that the people claiming to be professionals are truly indeed professionals. It is only right for this to happen just to preserve the sense of credibility of information. I see what Daniel is saying about the reader needing to be able to discern what information is right or wrong, but this is very difficult when dealing with the online realm. If one sees information backing up the wrong information it is hard to know if it is right or not. This is where standards would help the reader discern what is wrong or right.
[edit] Response of Proof Credentials on Wikipedia by Cory Anderson
Obviously there are vandals on the web, so Wikipedia is bound to be vandalized. However what Daniel says is interesting, but determining right from wrong, can very challenging especially when things regard politics or something not back or white. Also what Daniel Jones, says is an excellent point, because something that is open source is bound to be vandalized. That’s why Wikipedia is no longer a true wiki. It died over a year ago. Many of the main pages of Wikipedia can no longer even be edited. They are set in stone, only to be edited by the staff of Wikipedia. Articles that get edited, are quickly scanned by the staff of Wikipedia, and may be changed to their original form. Jaron Lanier shows an example of this, in his article called, “Digital Maoism,” when he explains how his original wiki page written about him explains him as a film maker, when in fact he only made one film in his life, but now when he tries to change the page about him on Wikipedia, in a few hours it is changed back to its original content. Both Daniels bring up some interesting points here, but many people don’t seem to realize that Wikipedia is no longer a true wiki.
[edit] Response to Proof of Credentials on Wikipedia by E. Filipov
As we all know Wikipedia is often vandalized and damaged by some of its users, however it “is an online community devoted … to a higher good.”[1]I have to start my analysis by assuming that most people have good intentions and that most of the unrest on Wikipedia occurs because of human disagreement (an example is the article for abortion), or from those few who are out there to simply vandalize. In the case of human disagreement a higher authority is needed to sort the information, because it would otherwise become more of a blog than an organized article. In the other case without a ruling power Wikipedia would resemble the article we read earlier this semester, and would in turn be useless to most of us. So with this in mind I strongly agree that Wikipedia needs a stronger government for its authorized editors, yet it still needs to maintain the freedom of speech which it encourages and thus needs to keep the rules loose. Jordan Ryan had mostly good intentions and although I disprove his behavior, I believe that he had the right attitude for improving wikipedia’s. I believe that for a company depended only on donations Wikipedia is fulfilling its purpose and is creating a broad and rather accurate database of information. The fact that Wikipedia in not a true wiki shouldn’t worry us too much, because contributing is still very easy trough the talk feature. Furthermore the inaccuracy of information seems to be treated very well and the site is moving in the right direction. Finally though Wikipedia needs to be viewed with caution, and it is in need of a stricter government; the site is fulfilling its purpose and only time will allow it to improve.
[edit] A Heightened State of Security... On Digital Media by Brian McEvoy
Ever since Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker launched the original Napster in 1999 music sharing and P2P has been a topic of hot debate. The sharing of music or any copyrighted material has since been declared illegal. In an effort to completely eradicate what we now consider piracy, DRM or Digital Right Management was created. Though, DRM in concept has many merits the current iterations of DRM are not only obtrusive they are considered by some to be a breach of rights. Such is the premise of Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights by Charlie Demerjian of the Inquirer.
The Article located at http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34523 focuses on Microsoft’s newest version of Windows Media Player, WM-11 and its stronger reliance on DRM. In WM-10, the previous version, users were able to back-up their licenses (the files granting permission to the media file) and transport them to another system. In WM-11 transferring is no longer possible. To move media files the user has to get permission from the vendor (where the files where downloaded from) and is subject to the vendor’s “Term’s of Service”. Basically, the distributor could deny the user the ability to transfer the licenses and the user would be out of luck.
Aside from music the article goes on to describe a similar scenario for TiVo. For anyone who doesn’t know, TiVo is a television peripheral that allows the digital recording of TV shows. WM-11 now revokes the user’s rights to access the show after three days. “Going away for a week? Tough, your rights are inconvenient to their profits, so they have to go” (Demerjian).
I find some of Demerjian’s arguments a little extreme but I think they all have some merit. I updated to WM-11 a while back and haven’t had much problem but, then again, I have no real need to transfer my media files. The corporations need to protect their investments somehow but their newer strategies are becoming more and more abrasive. My true problem with this system is that the user is completely at the distributor’s whim. Should the distributor “go out of business” the user is left with a heap of WMA or WMV files and no way to play their investment. "Wow, new terminology, old idea, you are a wallet with legs waiting to be raped. The store might limit the number of times that you can restore your rights or limit the number of computers on which can use the songs or videos that you obtain from them." though the tone is highly colloquial Demerjian's point has merit. These strategies could be permissible for rent type plans such as Ruckus but for individually purchased tracks I find the situation to be unacceptable. I also find it interesting that such measures are taken for digital distribution despite that CDs are far more popular and can be ripped into unprotected formats.
Even though, the present state of affairs aren’t great for the consumer I think the future will yield some better business models. I see digital water marking as the next step. Devised by Akuma Monitor, a German company http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=24845 these water marks would render DRM obsolete. Users would be able to use their files unencumbered and yet potential sharers would be deterred because the files could be traced back. Based on Microsoft Media Player shreds your rights and my own experience I wouldn’t recommend buying music or video digitally just yet.
[edit] Response to "A Heightened State of Security... On Digital Media by Brian McEvoy" by Robert Augelli
I feel that this idea of copyright protection has gotten out of hand. Sure, there needs to be ways to help prevent people from stealing other people’s ideas, but instantly pinning people as thieves only helps destroy the trust in the media industry. The idea of needing permission to maneuver files from your own system to another system of your own is simply absurd.
Suddenly everything has become much more important now that these tasks have become more convenient. Years ago, the idea of recording a song from the radio was free game. Now however, a very similar act of recording a song to your PC via an Internet radio feed can very well be deemed illegal. It seems that today, companies and associations are slowly and slowly enforcing their own policies down their consumers’ throats due to this convenience factor.
Reading the article that Brian posted reminds me of the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In a sense, what is happening now is a slow process of acceptance, much like the characters in Bradbury’s novel. New versions of computer programs bring more and more strict rules that are being forced upon the consumer. WMP11 as an example is much more strict that the previous version WMP10. Brian makes a very good point stating, “Should the distributor “go out of business” the user is left with a heap of WMA or WMV files and no way to play their investment.” Should the files that the consumer has legitimately purchased ultimately become useless since the company fails to survive? It does not make sense that the customer must be the victim in these situations. The media companies are merely finding ways to more adequately protect themselves at the expense of the customer.
These newer and newer versions of Digital Rights Management are slowly and slowly gnawing at the minds of Americans. Eventually, people will become used to such manipulation and the ability to question the validity of these rules will be lost (ala Fahrenheit 451).
[edit] Response to "A Heightened State of Security... On Digital Media by Brian McEvoy" by Matthew Fyffe
Brian introduces a good point in his discussion of Digital Rights Management (DRMs). Simply stated, the restrictions put on digital distributions are out of hand and often unfair to people purchasing the products. Windows Media Player 11 is just one example of the ways in which people are being limited in their use of their own personal files. Another area in which DRMs have proven to be a problem is within the music players market.
Many different companies offer music players including Apple iPods, Microsoft’s Zune and Sony’s music players to name a few. Each of these companies has their own music stores from which users can buy and download songs. However, each of these stores only sells songs that are compatible with their players. Why? DRMs.
Steve Jobs, the driving force behind Apple and their own music distribution, iTunes, spoke on this very issue (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/). The iTunes store has sold over 2 billion songs, a sizeable chunk in the online marketplace. Unfortunately, these songs only work with Apple’s iPods. So if a person with an iPod decides that he or she would rather own a Zune, he or she is forced to lose all of the music that had been purchased from iTunes. This music was purchased legally and it is unfair to users to be told how they can and can not use products they’ve purchased.
Jobs describes the reasons that each company has their own DRMs, identifying it as an agreement with the major music companies in order to allow distribution of their songs. While it is possible for these companies to share their DRM methods amongst themselves, enabling a universal DRM that makes all music players compatible, this opens up security risks as each company must communicate protection methods and risk leaks of their secrets.
Jobs identifies the best solution to the problem as the end of DRMs. Record companies force digital distribution sites to use DRMs, when they themselves sell cds with no protection whatsoever. It seems hypocritical to force Apple to place DRMs on their 2 billion sold songs when music companies sell 20 billion songs every year with no sort of DRM whatsoever. The piracy isn’t coming from iTunes but instead, from the industry itself.
I feel that Jobs is onto something with his comments but unfortunately the implementation of his ideas will not happen for many years. The trouble with removing DRMs is that it sounds too much like promoting piracy. Because of this, the fact that it is not preventing piracy by using DRMs will have no impact on the industry’s decision.
In addition, the music industry is trapped in the stone age when it comes to the Internet. They seem to view the Internet as a dark portal promoting theft and other illegal activities, refusing to embrace it for the potential that it has to offer. This strikes back to the readings from Lessig in which the music industry seems more apt to crack down on the Internet than to embrace its potential.
Until the entertainment industry can see the Internet for its potential and accept the inevitability of piracy, I feel that the users of mp3 players will be crippled with DMRs and other technologies that limit the full enjoyment of digitally distributed music.
[edit] Myspace vs Hi5 For Social Networking by Graham Gordon
Myspace.com is one of the two premier online networking websites for college students in our area. The other website used for social networking http://thefacebook.com. These two websites compete, however they are clearly different. My interest comes in comparing a website to myspace that has a similar format, and appears to be trying to compete on the same basis as myspace. The features of myspace that are most appealing are its ease of use, large membership and easy customization. A website that seems to be trying to appeal to the same crowd is http://www.hi5.com. This website also boasts its ability to be customized, membership numbers and seems easy to use on first look. Myspace’s picture uploading is very simple and easy to use. However, it is somewhat difficult to add a large amount of pictures because you have to do it one at a time. Hi5 doesn’t take care of this with a very similar interface to add pictures. The customization features are very similar as well, with the same html code working on myspace and hi5. I think hi5 is a step behind here due to the third characteristic which is the larger membership base of myspace. Myspace’s membership base creates new html code that is tailored for myspace, while the code can be used for hi5 it will often need tweaking to become fully appropriate. Regionally, hi5 may be more popular; but myspace is the overall better website. There are others that agree with this sentiment, such as those at http://www.thenewbreed.tv/index.php?option=com_ezine&task=read&page=1&category=featured&article=881&Itemid=75.--Gordog 01:09, 13 March 2007 (Eastern Daylight Time)
[edit] Is E -bay dangerous? by E. Filipov
The online bidding centre E-bay has become a controversial topic of discussion in today’s media. The site holds limitless opportunities and advantages; however it is also a portal for scams, frauds and theft. This article discusses common E-bay frauds and discusses several ways of protection.
Since most internet based communication is text based, people can never be a completely sure about who they are talking with. And this proves to be an extremely dangerous with online bidding where thousands of dollars are at stake. As a buyer, one is afraid that first of all they will not receive their purchased item loosing all their money, or that they will receive a different product from the one described online. The seller on the other hand fears fraudulent payment; and with an E-bay based business this could mean losses equating to thousands of dollars. To counteract these illegal deeds E-bay has set a list of rules and policies, and has also established a feedback system to identify and warn users. This response idea is in a way similar to Identity 2.0, because it can be used to establish a stronger ethos and reassure both sides of safety. I believe that by setting up these new regulations E-bay has improved from its start, but it is still not the place for worry free commerce. Personally I believe that increased information about users is the only way to truly improve safety, however I think E-bay is responsible to draw the line and improve the system from within.
[edit] Response by Cory Anderson to "Is E -bay dangerous?
I think E. Filipov brings up a good point about eBay and its sellers. You do have to be cautious, especially if you’re paying through paypal, or a credit card, where there could be a potential loss of lots of money. However I think eBay is a fairly safe place to buy from. The reason I say this is because every seller has a certain amount of feedback. Since I am a very experienced eBay buyer (power buyer) I always check the feedback of the sellers I am considering buying from. This system is very effective, because all good honest sellers have good feedback in general. In addition to viewing their feedback, you can also read all the reviews of their past customers as even read any information that the seller decided to include about themselves. This allows you to become familiar with the type of seller they are fairly quickly and effectively. Plus there is always eBay’s built in security and policies which will help defend your side from internet fraud and the likes. In conclusion, eBay is a great source for any product, and a safe place to purchase items as long as you make sure to check the seller’s reviews and feedback.
[edit] Understand Copyright Rules? Not so much. by Keve Zoltani
We have often discussed in class the idea of copyright infringment and what intellectual property really means. Though it would seem the majority of college students in America do not actually understand what the law says, according to http://jvc.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=126171. The study polled 51 graduate and undergraduate students while having 15 more detailed interviews. The study found that "The majority of students (87%) who upload copyrighted material to user-generated video sites likeYouTube, Facebook or MySpace don't get permission from copyright owners, even though most (74%) believe it is fair to pay people for their use." This brings up an interesting point of why we dont actually buy or pay the makers of videos and media what they ask for, yet we willingly take and use the media. Overall awareness and understand of this topic is not very high, with some students thinking "all rights reserved on a copyrighted clip protected him." Some companies such as NBC have began putting episodes online for viewers to watch, attempting to limit the amount of piracy and it has worked to a certain extent.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has recognized this need for change and has instituted stricter punishments to offenders. In the article http://www.kommersant.com/p757709/copyright_sentence_tough/ , Putin is giving piracy offenders up to 6 years in prison and considering piracy a major crime. Even Google has run into trouble with foreign news sites, not paying them for their content and changing their headlines on Google news. We must all become more aware of the copyright laws before we begin to break them and face the harsher punishments.
[edit] Brian McEvoy's Response to "Understand Copyright Rules? Not so much."
I think the basis of Keve’s article may be one of the great controversies of our generation. What may’ve started with Napster (when I began to pay attention) has now spiraled into full-on warfare. On one side, the content owners (large corporations often times) and on the other, the consumer. Despite how corporations like the RIAA and MPAA try to portray these “pirates” the intentions of the copyright infringers are often benign.
Keve’s post seems to involve uploading media to Web apps like Youtube and not to P2P applications. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that most everyone knows you shouldn’t share media files over p2p (form a legal sense, morally its debatable) but I think the Web 2.0 apps create a gray area. Usually, over apps like Youtube and Myspace you can’t download the media and they’re not designed to do so, herein lays the problem. I believe that the media sharing populace (college students in this article), for right or wrong, differentiate between sharing for the intent to share the files (p2p) and sharing for entertainment purposes (Web 2.0).
Though, I’m no legal expert I’ve followed the copyright controversy for enough time to know it’s technically illegal to share on Youtube. Not to say all Youtubers will be sued as that would probably be too financially taxing for the content owner but I suppose the risk exists. The legalities are where I have a problem. I think the law should allow for user made media. The files can’t be copied, at least not without loss of quality, and the actual media is often of low quality to begin with. I liken this scenario to Disney, as stated by Lessig’s article. Disney took old stories and reworked them into more modern movies. Youtube isn’t much different, difference being the creators of the user videos don’t get paid.
[edit] Cory Anderson's Respnse to "Undertand Copyright Rules? Not so much."
Copyright is certainly a huge issue these days, especially regarding the web, because it is so easy to steal images, videos, music, and other files. I think that it would extremely difficult for any type of punishment to be established for people posting illegal videos on Youtube. Too many people do it too often. However Youtube does try to prevent the posting of illegal videos, deleting as many as they can find, however, many end up slipping through. Youtube is not the only place that students need to be careful of copyright. If you are linking say your website to another website, make sure you have permission from the other sites owner. The reason for this is because many companies have been sued lately for something called deep linking. What this means is, one site linked to another site, without their permission, to a page within their site. So the site that was being linked to can sue, because people are being brought to their site without seeing their home page or other pages, which is where the most advertisements are. There have been several court cases regarding this issue in the past few years. This is something you need to be careful about, even something as personal as Myspace, make sure you link to their home page, and avoid deep linking. True it is unlikely you will be sued, but it’s better to change it and not risk getting sued. Also regarding copyrights, in the past few years, there are sites that are promoting copy right free material. Archive.org is one of them, with thousands of videos, pictures, cartoons, music, and others, all available to download use and change. It’s similar to the creative commons license that had been emerging over the past few years. This material is great for editing videos, or adding pictures to your websites, because you don’t have to worry about copyright. Because on the web it is very easy to steal pictures and other material, I recommend that everyone copyright their own work. It is free and legal to put the copyright symbol at the bottom of your work, as long as it is yours and original content. If you want to register your work with the government, it only cost’s around $50 and you just have to fill out a form. It is worth it to do this, because if you ever run into any copyright problems, your work will be registered, and you will have the rights to your work.
[edit] "Judge: Web-surfer can't be fired." by Jeff Connolly
In today’s business world, web communication is becoming more of an effective tool in introducing new ideas and prototypes to people internationally and internally within the company. This is seen through e-mail, instant messaging and performing research on the internet.
While there are many pros about the internet and internet use in the workplace, there are also some cons. The article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12462332/) “Judge: Web-surfing worker can’t be fired” from the Associated Press, talked about a ruling in a recent lawsuit over the firing of a state employee by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The argument’s main purpose had to deal with the employee using his work computer for non-work related activities while on the clock.
I believe that the internet has become more of a common part of our everyday lives. It fits in with the telephone or reading the daily newspaper. In most instances I believe that it is more commonly used then those two other forms of media. I agreed with Judge John Spooner when in his ruling he said,” It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work.”(Judge) Judge Spooner continued on this and also said,” For this reason, city agencies permit workers to use a telephone for personal calls, so long as this does not interfere with their overall work performance. Many agencies apply the same standard to the use of the Internet for personal purposes.”(Judge) This statement makes sense in the fact that if you are allowed to use a business phone for personal calls then the same should apply to all forms of media within the work environment.
Some alternative solutions to help further prevent instances like this from happening would have to be handled more from the business then the employee. The companies should make sure they have clear posted guidelines for not only internet use but phone and reading the newspaper use as well. New software applications are also available for companies to use to block there employees from going to certain internet sites. I believe this will help eliminate some of the confusion that comes along with having internet access in the work place.
“Judge: Web-surfing worker can’t be fired.” The Associated Press. 24 April 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12462332/
[edit] Judge : Web-surfer Can't Be Fired Response by Matthew Fyffe
The judge's response to Mayor Bloomberg's actions is interesting in that it shows a movement towards the acceptance of the Internet as a remediation of many different communication devices. To liken Internet surfing to making personal calls on the telephone or reading the newspaper hints at the computer's applicability as both a telephone and a newspaper. I agree with Jeff's interpretation of the Internet becoming a pervasive part of society. However, one area I believe that needs to be explored, is the notion of the Internet as a time-waster or performance-hit for people at work. To evaluate the computer's potentially damaging effect on workers performance, I want to look at it both from my own experiences, and from those reported on in studies by professional organizations.
As a student at RPI, its a rare occasion that I am out without my laptop. Even when doing stuff that has nothing to do with my laptop, such as reading a textbook or writing down answers to problems, my laptop is at the ready position. Unfortunately, because of its constant presence, I often find myself looking away from my work to check my email or do a quick refresh of my favorite news sites. These "quick glances" often turn into lengthy sessions at my laptop as I find something of interest and become engulfed in reading more on it. Because of these breaks in which I surf the Internet, a reading that would typically take me an hour at most, turns into a two hour affair as I bounce back and forth from the computer to my reading.
While this sounds like a tremendous hit to my performance, there is far more to the situation than my constant bouncing between work and play. For one thing, when I return to my reading, I am far more alert as I've rejuvenated my interests by looking at other things for a short time. As such, while reading straight through for an hour may help me finish the reading more quickly, I would get far less out of it as my eyes would eventually glaze over from the constant barrage of information. This is where Mayor Bloomberg made his mistake. As GameTrain pointed out at http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6038534.html, it seems Bloomberg believes people are automatons that can punch in at 9, and work continuously until 5. However, people are NOT machines that can work without enjoyment, excitement, or distraction.
Studies have shown the fallacy in Bloomberg's beliefs and have actually identified that the occasional breaks for games (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3247595.stm), or for Internet surfing (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20031105/159246_F.shtml) are actually beneficial for employees. With respect to these games of Solitaire, the University of Utrecht conducted a study on an insurance company in which half of the employees were allowed to spend up to an hour of work a day playing games, while the other half was strictly prohibited from playing games. Over the month long study of the employees, it was seen that the gaming employees were more satisfied with their job and also showed significant increases in productivity when compared to the other employees.
As such, I don't think the suggestions Jeff mentioned are necessary. Rather than strictly regulate employees activities during the day at work, why not evaluate them by their performance?
[edit] Web Movement on the Horizon, the Rise of Web 3.0? by Brian McEvoy
Many of us may not realize it but Web 2.0 has changed the way we interact with the Internet and each other. New Web apps like Wikipedia and Youtube have become a cultural catalyst, spreading and evolving human communication and interaction. Web 2.0 did nothing short of revolutionize the Web and culture as we know it but John Markoff of the NY times sees that as merely the beginning. In the article “Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense” Markoff speaks of a movement to not only connect the sentient with the sentient but to connect the sentient with artificial intelligence.
In his article, Markoff alludes to the point that Web 2.0 was person to person or person to Web App whereas Web 3.0 will be the person’s transparent interaction with AI.
“ “I’m looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.” Under today’s system, such a query can lead to hours of sifting — through lists of flights, hotel, car rentals — and the options are often at odds with one another. Under Web 3.0, the same search would ideally call up a complete vacation package that was planned as meticulously as if it had been assembled by a human travel agent.”
As Markoff points out the goal is to have sophisticated artificial intelligence handle tasks that would otherwise take several man-hours. Web 2.0 may’ve been a cultural movement but Web 3.0 will be at least as business oriented as it is culturally.
The concept of Web 3.0 has surfaced and the framework has been set though, the birth may be a while still. Despite, the ever increasing intelligence of Web programs, the level of AI sophistication needed hasn’t been yet developed.
I find Markoff’s article to be thought provoking at the very least. I have no doubt if and when such applications are created the Web will undergo significant changes. At first I thought the scope of Web 3.0 would be relatively small (as compared to 2.0) because of its integration with business but after some thought I think 3.0 can be just as pivotal as the 2nd iteration. Imagine the implications of a music service similar to Youtube but rather than user generated videos its music straight from the artist or label. Maybe you’re thinking that sounds just like Web2.0, if that’s the case imagine a complex algorithm behind the site that tallies the hits of each song listened to. All of a sudden the record label’s role in deciding what music might be popular has disappeared. The answers are in the information taken in by the algorithm. What does mean for the music listening community? As I see it, musical Darwinism. Only the best music survives. Imagine an application where the recommended artists are actually worth listening to.
The idea of Web 3.0 is still highly conceptual and is truly only limited by the human imagination. I think Markoff had some ideas on what 3.0 could be but I have a feeling that we won’t realize Web 3.0 until it’s already begun.
Markov, John Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/business/12web.html?ex=1320987600&en=254d697964cedc62&ei=5088
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[edit] Cellphone Videos Transforming the News by Andrew La Padula
Today, an estimated 70% of Americans (~210 million) have cellphones. About 55.5 million of those have cellphones with video capture capability. Some of the most recent and hyped-up news stories have been made available to the public only through means of these tiny, hand held devices. Saddam Hussein's execution and Michael Richards' comedy act were changed from simple he-said she-said arguments into full-blown controversies with video proof. Scenes from the Virginia Tech massacre brought people right into the middle of the painful tragedy. All three events were recorded by people with cellphones and uploaded to the World Wide Web for nearly everyone to watch. With so many people carrying cellphones and having an eagerness to use them, will firsthand eyewitness news replace our traditional news programs and websites?
This article asks the same question and calls upon Jeff Rutenbeck, dean of Communication and Creative Media at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt. to give his thoughts on video cellphones and the recent events at Virginia Tech. "I think that's a powerful, powerful thing," Dr. Rutenbeck says, "that impulse to record that we were there, that for some fateful reason, I am a witness to this.
"That's one thing that's different about this kind of video versus a professional photojournalist. You hear photographers talk about the 'invisible shield of the camera.' There's no sense of disassociation from what's going on in the video some student is taking with his cellphone while shots are ringing out." Cellphone videos often do give the impression that the viewer is there in the action - these types of videos feel more personal. Traditional news reports appear more formal and are designed to be informative which often disassociates the viewer from the scene and event.
It is this lack of disassociation in cellphone videos which Dr. Rutenbeck believes will in turn solidify traditional news sources. "I think an event like this may strengthen the hold of traditional media," he says. "This kind of unfiltered craziness is why YouTube is probably never going to replace CNN." Cellphone videos may actually be too emotional for people to handle. Additionally, a lot of other things which are far from important news-worthy events are recorded by people with their cellphones to be shared on the Web. As the author of the article writes, "..the twisted jokes, sick parodies and other spasms of tastelessness... the music video from some band of witless white rappers who decided to cash in on some heavy rotation viewing by linking to the Virginia Tech shootings. All this serves as a persuasive reminder that not all light is illuminating and that the filters of traditional media can be very useful."
Perhaps if there were a more controlled way to present important cellphone videos to the public they could possibly replace standard news reports. For now, traditional news programs and websites are firmly in place and probably won't be going anywhere for a while - but technology is always improving and at a very fast rate, so the change could come sooner then one may think. On a final and somewhat related note, in addition to the change in technology over the past five to ten years, there also appears to be a change in people's behavior. In the Virginia Tech video, for example, one can see the student moving closer and closer to the action trying to get better footage. If not equipped with such a device, perhaps the instinct to run and escape danger would have been more prominent in the student's mind. As the author of the article notes, "That change in behavior adds another disturbing dimension to the question, 'What's next?'"
[edit] Response to Cellphone Videos Transforming the News by Graham Gordon
The difference between cellphone video and news video are very dangerous. Today's society allows us to bring ourselves much closer to knowing what happened in any given situation than ever before. Often times, we are able to use a website such as http://www.youtube.com to find exactly what we wanted to find out about. Many times we are even able to find a video clip of any given situation.
It's very interesting to note that technology is almost changing our instinctual behavior. Before the creation of cell phone video recorders I doubt anybody would have followed the scene a mass murderer was making. The events at Virginia Tech showed us the bravery of today's citizens. The cell phone video recorded in virginia was a chilling experience. However, I feel technology is making life more dangerous than it has to be at times. We choose not to consider our safety ; to risk our lives as ad hoc news reporters and this is ultimately a dangerous choice.
[edit] The White House's Impending email security disaster by Chris Dromms
For my article I will actually reference two websites. The first is the original article from US news at the following link: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/blogs/news_blog/070327/email_controversy_prompts_many.htm?s_cid=rss:site1 The second article is a commentary on the first article. The link to this article is below: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/28/112424/169 I actually found the second article first and then later discovered to link to the US news article within the text.
The first article is about how some White House aides have gone from using the government email adresses to private ones. Paul Bedard write, "...several aides said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence." In his writing Bedard makes it obvious the recent government investigations regarding email are probably a large part of why the aides have switched to using their own system.
The second website is a commentary by the webstie Daily Kos. Vyan starts the article by talking about how his boss got scammed from a spoofed email from paypal. He then relates this to the US News article by saying the following, "...allowing their communications to be stored on unsecured non-government servers is a major security threat simply waiting to be exploited. All someone needs to do is crack the password and they're in." Undoubtably there are hundreds of people and millions of dollar spent on trying to keep government information in the hands of only those people who should have access to it.
There are many main problems that Vyan brings up with this situation. The government uses all these resources to protect their data, but people have chosen not to use these security measures. With such a focus on security these days, this is and of itself is troubling to hear. Vyan also brings up anothe good point in that recently the president has been trying to shield government emails by using "executive privaledge." However, does executive privelage cover private email accounts used? THe likely answer to this is no. Considering this, these aids might actually be setting up a very bad situation for the president in the near future.
[edit] Net Neutrality by Kevin Kelly
What is Net Neutrality? Right now I can easily link you to many different definitions of net neutrality, or you could go to your favorite search engine(Google obviously) in order to mold your own definition. But, if the US Government doesn't act now, the right to access whatever you want, whenever you want it, will be severely compromised. This article defines net neutrality as: "Net neutrality is the principle that data packets on the Internet should be moved impartially, without regard to content, destination or source." This definition can be a little confusing to those that have never heard about the controversies regarding net neutrality. This YouTube video also defines net neutrality, but it is better for the uninformed website 'surfer' because it also lets you know about the controversy behind it.
There currently is an urgency at which the internet users are banning together. The main goal of the defenders of net neutrality is to get a bill passed throughout the government that defends the right to unrestricted flow of information for all users of the internet. This controversy can be simplified to the rich monopolies that are the main ISPs trying to restrict the free flow of information that the everyday user of the internet is entitled to. The ultimate goal of these ISPs is to make additional profit(on top of the large fees for just providing the internet service) by striking exclusive deals with certain internet companies, so that these sites are the only ones that 'web surfers' are allowed to access. This is a major violation of the founding principle of the internet(net neutrality). In order to sign the petition and voice your opinion to your congressmen, you can visit the pioneer defenders against the ISP at Save The Internet Dot Com.
[edit] Response to Kevin Kelly's Neutreality by E. Filipov
I think that Kevin brings up an extremely important argument. From my understanding, without net neutrality the internet will be completely changed as powerful corporations and business will control all our information. On a personal level I can see this as not only being extremely frustrating, but also unfair because it will hinder our ability to seek knowledge trough information. As Kevin mentions, we will not be able to find our preferred information and “mold” our own definition, instead we will be strictly guided by another person’s ideas. This brings back my idea of pop-ups as without net neutrality we will often be targeted by large corporations to surf their websites and buy their products.
Furthermore I think controlling information is such manners could also be extremely dangerous in corporate America where big, rich companies are often in charge. This would mean very skewed advertisement and a significant decrease in smaller businesses. Although the government has taken steps to prevent monopoly this could be a very powerful tool used by many companies. Personally I do not want to live in a place dominated by Pepsi, McDonalds, and ATT, thus strongly support Net Neutrality.
[edit] Internet "Storage" by Robert Augelli
We often take for granted the information we store on the Internet. At the very least, we certainly take for granted the information we are able to easily view day in and day out. What would happen however, if one day the information we have saved online instantly disappears? This is a problem many Google users faced recently when their personal webpages were suddenly reverted back to earlier versions, or even default versions. As stated in this article, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/042607-google-frantic-about-personalized-home.html, Google has mentioned that they may not be entirely able to get the sites back for their users. Obviously, this is a convenience matter. People may have been using these personalized pages to find out current hometown weather, locate movie show times, and read local news, but for the most part their lives we not drastically changed. This certainly begs the question though, what if this happened to something of more importance? When the personal pages went down, people were not happy. And these were just personalized web spaces! What would the response be if the Google G-Mail servers took a dive and Google could not save it?
Most people assume that companies do everything in their power to prevent such occurrences from happening, and most people assume that there is some sort of backup process taking place. But in general, most casual Internet users are not backing up information themselves. In turn, this is putting a lot of trust in a company that is offering a free service. Is this really a legitimate thing that customers are doing? In this day and age, there is a lot of discussion about how companies are not treating their customers properly and are taking advantage of them, but rarely is the converse considered. However, based on the response of the article above, it is almost assured that people would place almost all of the blame on the company; Google as an example. Many people use the Google G-Mail service as their main email service because it is web based. This allows them to be able to access it from anywhere they can establish an Internet connection. This is a fantastic thing, but people often do not think of the strain this could put on a company offering the free service.
The issue is not a simple one. People often feel entitled to certain things when big companies provide services without actually considering the full picture. It is time for consumers to take responsibility to back up their important information. This way, when something that happens very rarely, such as Google losing personal webpage preferences or even worse, an email service crashing, people will be prepared to handle the situation properly.
[edit] Response to Internet "Storage" by Terrence Isabella
Mr. Augelli makes a great point regarding the issue with Google’s Personalize Home Page. Google is offering a free service. It, of course, doesn’t do much for Google’s ethos to offer a service plagued with problems. But it is free. There are going to be endless problems with technology, so each individual should plan accordingly. For as long I can remember, people have always stressed that when working in Microsoft Word and any other writing space to back up your work. That way, when the worse case scenario arises, you’re covered. In the article the author quotes an individual from a Google discussion group as saying, “I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive Internet needs, “Now it's all gone.” Certainly, I can empathize with the person, but if there was a way for him or her to have backed up their work, it should have been done. Additionally, relying that heavily on a free service probably isn’t the best idea. As Mr. Augelli stated, individuals need to start taking responsibility for them self and plan ahead a little.
[edit] The Mask of the Internet by Chris Jaeger
V for Vendetta, as an example, tells of a man behind a mask who accomplishes great feats against the Parliament. Admittedly the fact that distinguishable Hugo Weaving was the man acting as V but by the mask this would not be known until the credits, this is part of this issue. But more strong is the powerful scene near the end, where thousands of people all march out against the Parliament, and perform various acts of vandalism, all because they have a mask. It shows the true strength of one thing many people grasp within the Internet: anonymity.
Anonymity is a powerful tool. The infamous site "4chan", which I somewhat recommend against visiting, bands together under a catchphrase "Anonymous does not forgive". Thousands of users who work under the forced anonymity the site runs under will unite for some of the most inane and baffling acts. There have been lives ruined by the people of 4chan, who work together to supply all manner of information worldwide, contact people with the information they scamper off the deep, dark depths of the internet that others don't want to be known. These people unite without even knowing who their compatriots are. As the people who leave this information for the members of 4chan to find are at fault for leaving this compromising information online, it isn't 4chan that is at fault here. There are many communities that are exactly like it.
Anonymity allows people to perform acts as they wish, to express their real existence without actually staining their real world reputation unless they decide to disclose their name. There exists a real, nearly physical gap between a person online and offline, known as the 'internets' versus the 'real world'. The ability to run about anonymous has been a strength and privilege to the online world that has seen both abuse and good will. For not all acts are as bad as 4chan. Usernames for forums, online chat handles, and many more methods of anonymity allow an online user to feel secure and safe that their name is not attached and people don't find out incriminating information.
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM is an example of many bills that are under way, however, that threaten the anonymity of the internet. To summarize, this bill proposes that in any online collaboration, such as a forum post, a user MUST put their real name. Otherwise, the service which they are posting via must enforce the collection of real names so that if ever a user's name is requested, such as by legal action, then it may be provided. This enforcement completely undermines the intention of having usernames beyond just a nickname. Namelessness shall cease and all people will be known. Some versions of the bill have failed to pass, but there are various movements still continuing against anonymity on the Internet.
As a person who has experienced the strength of anonymity, I find that it is a precious resource that is not something that should be taken away. It is perhaps not a right, but a privilege, yet I find it is a privilege that should be respected. If a person wishes to disclose their real information there is nothing which prevents them from doing so. Facebook and other sites are already methods that companies or other legal sources may investigate; that your real name in every single online interaction is existent is a massive violation of privacy. If the user wishes to disclose her name she can be allowed to, and it happens often. But if she doesn't, she shouldn't be compelled to label herself.
[edit] Brian McEvoy's response to "The Mask of the Internet"
Chris delivers a very interesting post. People post things to internet they may not otherwise write because they are protected by an alias. In my opinion, destroying online anonymity would stifle many of the connections created by Web 2.0. Web 2.0 created an Internet where users from all over the country and the world can communicate with each other. Removing the anonymity could severely limit the populace’s willingness to create those connections.
Web anonymity allows for the discussion of materials that may otherwise be considered taboo. Currently with many sites using pseudonyms or no registration at all, anything can be discussed. And such, there will be vulgar, obnoxious posts, it’s simply unavoidable. I would argue though, that less inhibited interactions are well worth the risk of seeing a few objectionable posts.
After reading the entire article, a bill up for legislation (http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/A1500/1327_I1.HTM) and the subject of Chris’s post, I have an understanding of the potential problems of web anonymity. However, I still disagree with the bill. Defamation of character, libel and slander seem to be the bill’s focus.
“Any person who is damaged by false or defamatory written messages that originate from an information content provider who posts such messages on a public forum website may file suit in Superior Court against an operator or provider that fails to establish, maintain and enforce the policy required pursuant to section 2 of P.L. , c. (C.) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), and may recover compensatory and punitive damages and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee, cost of investigation and litigation from such operator or provider.”
Though slander can be a serious issue I don’t think one’s character can be defamed much from a forum post. That’s reserved for corporate publications as I can’t see how anyone in their right mind could take a forum post simply at face value. Anyone who’s joined in a forum knows that there has bound to be misinformation, hearsay, flaming etc.
“[Y]our real name in every single online interaction i[n] existen[ce] is a massive violation of privacy.”
I most certainly agree with Chris’s sentiments. The ramifications to one’s privacy such a bill presents are almost frightening. Data traffickers and other third party companies can already gain sensitive information from web surfers. I’d hate to think the government would pass a bill to make such security breaches easier.
In closing, I think that the lessening of social reservations that go hand in hand with human interaction is absolutely worth the problems presented by online anonymity. I just fail to see how a forum post could be truly damaging.
[edit] Spam Sausage Spam Spam Bacon Spam Tomato and Spam by Michael Princevalli
You open your email inbox, searching for important information about clubs, work meetings, and the latest entertainment that may catch your eye. You skip over the first email, noting to yourself that as much as 50% less car insurance seems on paper, it's rarely that simple. The second email is likewise ignored, for neither you nor anyone you know needs a 15 minute college degree. The next three were quickly deleted; you stopped readng the subject after the word "enlarged." How did they even make it past the filter? No matter, onwards we go. 500 emails later, frustrated beyond belief, you realize you just deleted permanently your girlfriend sending you plans for the evening.
Unsolicitated electronic mail, or 'spam' as it is commonly referred to by the Internet crowd, is an incredibly common and irritating occurance. Over 40% of all email sent out falls firmly under the category of spam, over 12.4 billion emails each day1. And this just consists of the commonly accepted definiton for spam: "unsolicitated email sent in bulk."2 For an individual person, the classification of what is spam could be far greater. In the end, daily people are being forced to clean their inboxes of useless, albeit varied, advertisements that they don't want to see at all. Or, even worse, advertisements which are offensive to their moral tastes, religion, and beliefs.
Unfortunately, the actual options in preventing the infringement on the 'personal property' we consider our email addresses to be is a very difficult thing. Policing the Internet has, both in the past and the present, proven to be a very difficult and ineffective thing. There exist a number of email filters - with varying levels of success, but nothing is perfect, and eventually each user sees things in his inbox he or she wishes had never been seen. Government has attempted to take steps in combating misleading and insincere spam; 26 states have legislature dealing specifically with email fraud, and the <a href="http://www.ftc.gov/spam/">Federal Trade Commission</a> itself encourages reporting of false advertisements. Further, coalitions such as the <a href="http://www.cauce.org/">Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email</a> have sprung up here and there, with the purpose of keeping the public informed about news events and the dangers of less obvious scams.
What we really need is a method to fire a firm charge of electricity through the Internet and zap the person making these emails in the first place. That would be both satisfying and effective.
[edit] Sneer to Sneer by Terrence Isabella
MP3 file sharing has been a major issue for quite some time. Under U.S. copyright law, MP3 file sharing is illegal. Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are taking dramatic steps by prosecuting those guilty of copyright infringement. But there are those who feel the law needs to change along with technology—suing everyone guilty of file sharing is not the answer. In the article Is Music Piracy Stealing? by Charles W. Moore (http://www.applelinks.com/mooresviews/pirate.shtml), he argues that the copyright laws surrounding intellectual property need to change, and the music industry has forever lost the control they once had. Additionally, he poses the argument that music is more of a “discovery” than an “invention”. In support of his theory, he argues that in the field of genetic engineering, “…the identification of a gene’s function is not an ethical ground for claiming exclusive rights,” because the scientists in this field are only given credit for the invention not the life of the “entity”. So the point being made here by the author is that, “Music is an arrangement of notes and sometimes words as well, but the vast majority of it is highly derivative. The notion that sounds or combinations of sounds can be private property is a nebulous one at best that no one should accept uncritically at face value,” as he states. Although this idea may raise a few eyebrows, as it is quite logical and commanding of thought, it fails to give credit for the difficulty and creativity that goes into combining sounds to create songs. It’s a logical fallacy that disparages the art of music by suggesting that the use of musical notes to create catchy rhythms and riffs is an effortless endeavor. Consequently, it implies that anyone can make music with equivalent success. The ability of a musician to successfully capture and share their feelings with an audience through music is a skill. Musicians are deserving of due credit for the arrangement and originality of their work. To better accommodate advancements in technology, I agree that copyright right laws need to change. The changes that take place should not rob the artist of the respect that their life’s work deserves. Without the artist there would be no recording labels, so they (recording labels) should be considered last.
[edit] Respone to Myspace vs Hi5 For Social Networking by Chris Dromms
I think the debate between the two social networking sites is rather interesting. I did however not see any mention of facebook. The article probably didn't comment on it, but I think when comparing those two websites it might be useful to at least discuss a rather popular thir option. Overall my experiences with Myspace have been similar in that I don't find the website easy to use or find that it looks that great. It looks to be more customizable but this also takes more knowledge and time to setup. Personally I would rather just be able to fill in a field and have it display the information. I do think one other consideration is the community in which you are looking to join. I would venture to guess facebook is a much more popular thing around a college campus, but Myspace mightbe more useful for people not specific to one group.
[edit] Eulogies via Wikipedia by Marissa Hecker
Recently on the popular go to website for answers, www.wikipedia.org, the comedian Sinbad was falsely reported as dead. He was made aware of the erroneous posting first by a phone call from his daughter but then the call and emails came pouring in a few days later after the rumor was heavily circulated. As a comedian, 50 year old Sinbad, whose real name is David Adkins, took the rumor in good stride. He is quoted by a news source by stating, “It’s gonna be more commonplace as the Internet opens up more and more. It’s not that strange.” Although Sinbad is right in his assessment of the growing internet, creating a story about a pretend death is still strange, even for a source with such little ethos like Wikipedia. The site’s purpose is to serve as an online encyclopedia and present information that is updated; thanks to the revision ability Wikipedia gives users. Based on the response Sinbad received about his “death”, web communication is clearly effective through Wikipedia, even though the way we are communicating is being shown as a joke.
Kennedy, Kelli. "Wikipedia Falsely Reports Sinbad's Death ." ABC News. 1 May. 2007
<http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2956026&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312>.
[edit] Internet and The News by Graham Gordon
Newspaper’s today almost all have website counterparts making their most recent articles available. Some of these websites also have a space for comments right under the article. My local newspaper is one of those. These recent weeks have been a very tumultuous time in Mount Vernon, NY. There was a violent surge in crime that was particularly alarming considering the recent events at Virginia Tech. The events included gun violence among high school students as well as the assault of police officers. The discussions about fixing communities in Mount Vernon would generally be held amongst small groups of people who are rather familiar with each other. The newer technology has provided us with a different forum to explore the different issues facing today’s youth. For example, this article has a rather spiritd discussion about what’s wrong in society. Technology is making it easier to solve the problems in individual societies because the first step in a solving a problem, is acknowledging a problem. After the problem is realized, its important to have people of different mindsets dialogue to fix the problem. The use of the internet is making this much easier.
