Flickr Mobile

It seems as each year goes on, sometimes even as months go on, we can do something new with our phones or another website adds another function making their website more accessible through our phones. Last Thursday, Flickr debuted a brand new mobile site for their users called m.flickr.com. With this new mobile website users will now be able to view Flickr videos from their phones, comment and favorite photos, and it is now easier to add, find, and manage your contacts. Flickr decided to revamp this new website because they have seen a rise in users using mobile phones to upload and browse pictures. Flickr has claimed to see a fifty percent increase mobile users for their website. ComScore, a data measurement firm, indicates that mobile photo messaging has jumped up 60 percent this last year. The odd part is that these numbers are not due to teenagers but due to adults ranging from 45-54.

Recently in class, we did a little activity where we thought of different ways businesses and people could stay in touch using the internet and different social sites. One way a family could use this new feature is they could upload pictures of a family reunion or event to Flickr while the event went on. Those that could not make it could see the pictures come up on Flickr as the party went on and get some sense of timing when these events took place. Businesses could also upload pictures or videos of a conference or seminar right away rather than having to get to a computer to do so.

Looking reflectively with all this new technology aimed at phones it’s a wonder that computer sales have not decline. I am sure soon enough phones will have the ability to virtually do everything a computer does including having a lot of memory in order to save pictures and what not.

Youtube success stories

In class Friday, we watched a Youtube video of a grad student who put who posted simplified version of his grad school paper thesis about head tracking. Because of this video he received many job offers from big time corporations who were all interested in what his video talked about. Youtube offers the ability for normal people to “express” themselves using their creative minds and a camcorder. Because of his (Johnny Chung) head tracking video he may have receive a job that he loves and be set for life. So how many other people have received success from their Youtube videos?

One company that I found that received a lot of success from using Youtube was Blendtec; a company who sold blenders. The story, according to the Wall Street Journal, is that the first director of marketing for Blendtec discovered that the CEO would test the blenders with challenging and odd materials to see if they would blend. The director of marketing decided to make a video series about it and post it on Youtube. All in all this little marketing campaign cost fifty dollars to create. Soon many youtubers were tuning in to watch each new episode to see if Blendtec blenders could blend anything including glow sticks, the iphone, magnets, hockey pucks, marbles etc. With the popularity of the videos came national media attention regarding Blendtec’s new advertising campaign. And with this national attention and online attention came increase in sales — 43% increase.

Many individuals have received success from using Youtube. One such individual would be a 18 year old Massachusetts’ kid named Bo Burnham. While surfing Youtube in high school I came across one of his videos and, to simply put it, it was hilarious. He is a singing comedian who can be compared to the likes of Stephen Lynch. Over the next year, I would constantly introduce people to his videos and talk about how he should be signed. A few months ago he posted a new video and in the first ten seconds he talks about how we should go buy his new EP on itunes. Because of Youtube he now has an available EP on itunes which is outselling Dane Cook, a record deal with Comedy Central, has appeared on Last Call with Carson Daily, and is performing for people.

Looking back its truly amazing how CMC works and can lead to exponential attention for an individual or company. People would watch these videos then tell their friends about them or send a link to them. Because of this communication and the potential for so many people to see or hear about these videos people have become famous for something that they put together in their bed room.

Tight Knit Virtual Community of Italian Neo-Nazis

Facebook has always been seen as the ultimate source for social networks. Groups can be made discussing a wide variety of topics from sports, to politics, to random inside jokes among friends. Lately, it seems that Facebook can be used for hateful groups as well. In an article entitled, Facebook Pulls Italian Neo-Nazi Pages After Outcry, it discusses seven different group pages, established in Italy, with names advocating violence towards gypsies that were shut down after a very big up cry by many different sources. Shimon Samuels of the Jewish human rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center believes that Facebook should create technology to filter out “hate speech.” He said, “It's not a new thing -- it's happened before, it's even happened before on Facebook. We are not surprised this group of really marginal Italian neo-Nazis have taken advantage of it.” Facebook says that they do not prescreen content but they do have a time looking for user violations of racism or other objectionable material.

Many times in class we have discussed social networks and communities. But never in our discussions, not once, was a “bad” social community brought up. Every time we talk about a community, it is always seen as normal people trying to connect to someone else or trying to feel a part of a group. I just found it interesting that there are social communities that people would find objectionable. And yes, these Italian neo-Nazis do fit the description of a viable social community. The members all had a common idea passes among them. Seeing as I never went to the groups homepage I cannot confirm this but there may have been a significant amount of interaction between the members. Probably most of them felt part of a group trying to achieve a specific goal. It is just interesting to think that virtual social communities can be a good thing or they may be a bad thing. The internet is a very open thing that people can virtually create anything on. Who are we to say that there cannot be a nice, social community of neo-Nazis discussing their views? (And yes, there is sarcasm in that statement)

Salvation Army Is Trying Something New

The Christmas season has always been a time of giving; to friends, relatives, and even charitable organizations. This upcoming Christmas season there will now be a new way to give to the Salvation Army via text messages. The article discussing this is entitled “Salvation Army tries text messages to raise funds”. This year the Salvation Army will be pulling out not only their traditional red kettles but, also, a program for people to donate using text messaging. So far this will be taking place in the areas surrounding Atlanta, Georgia but the hope of the Salvation Army is to have this national by the 2009 holiday season. Along the roads billboards will be posted with a phone number and information on how to give to the Salvation Army using texting. All you do is text TMS to a particular number and five dollars is added on to your next cell phone bill. The commander of the Metro Atlanta Area Salvation Army, James Seiler, hopes that “the novel new way of giving will appeal to cell phone addicts and be convenient for those who don't keep much change on hand.” Hopefully, this new form of charitable donations will increase the charitable gifts given to the salvation army which have been on a decline in the past year.

Looking back on this article, I believe the key word was given by the commander of the Atlanta Salvation Army when he said “cell phone addicts”. I just find it amusing how other people are starting to realize how addicted people are to technology while many of the people who are addicted do not realize it or believe it is a perfectly natural behavior. With more and more people noticing this addiction to technology more and more companies are going to begin to take advantage of this. At least this year it will be a charitable organization attempting to raise more funds in order to help out more people. Hopefully, it can stay that way but, of course, we all know that it will not.

Satirical look at online worlds

A couple of days ago an episode of South Park came on entitled “Make Love, Not Warcraft”. In this episode the creators of South Park give a satirical outlook on the game World of Warcraft. During this episode the boys of South Park are playing World of Warcraft and each time they log on a griefer, a player who plays a game to simply harass other players, kills their characters. He is able to do this because he has continuously played the game since its release and has reached a level previously thought not to be attainable. With this level of power he can basically do whatever he wants in the game. To make a thirty minute long episode short, the boys of South Park, Cartmen, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny, decide to rid the game of this character by “having no life” and continuously playing the game for 21 hours a day for three weeks. They increase their experience points until they reach a level of power that is capable of destroying this character.

This episode gives a satirical approach to the addictive qualities of World of Warcraft and other online social groups and games. Personally, I would find World of Warcraft a lot easier to get addicted to than Second Life. At least in World of Warcraft there is a game to play and set goals for players. I, honestly, did not see the appeal of Second Life while we had our class Halloween party on Friday. There was really nothing fun to do there besides meet new people, but you can do that online without having to pay a subscribers fee (for those that do in order to unlock new aspects of Second Life). It may be that I have to involve myself more in the virtual world of Second Life to see the appeal but at the surface level I did not see the attraction.

Looking reflectively, there has to be some appeal, unbeknown to me, about Second Life seeing how a lot of users are constantly active in the virtual world. Maybe it starts out just like an online dating service; with curiosity. And as they dig more and more in to it, they find more and more they like giving them reasons to stay in this virtual world longer and longer. Whatever the reason is that people get addicted to virtual worlds, such as World of Warcraft or Second Life, people need to realize when their virtual world is starting to become the only world that they spend time in.

"Third Life"

In many cases of CMC, we see people striving from a virtual conversation to face-to-face conversations. People feel that they have learned as much as they can from the person by using CMC and want to meet the person they have been interacting with, so much online, in person. Usually this applies to two people conversing either as friends or something more. But now, it seems to be the case that, entire virtual communities are convening in order to meet people and learn more about the virtual community they are involved in. Second life has conventions across the nation where real people involved in the game get together to discuss the new technologies of Second Life among other topics.

In this article, Second Life Avatars Hold Real-World Convention, it talks about a convention that occurred in Chicago where 800 people attended. At this convention work shops were set up along with seminars all concerning the inner workings of the game Second Life. People were considering it a “third life” meaning that “real people, who have virtual alter egos in Second Life, get together in a real-life convention to celebrate their alternate existences”.

We have seen this trend of virtual communities going out into the real world before. In Rheingold’s book, The Virtual Community, which we have been reading select chapters out of; we see, in his first chapter, that the virtual community he was involved would annually meet and have picnics together. This is also becoming the apparent trend for other online communities. Not only Second Life, which I found the appropriate one to discuss since it has been the discussion of class, but many other virtual communities meet in person. Right beside the Second Life convention in Chicago was an ESPN fantasy league convention. With this trend of virtual communities expanding in to the real world my question is; does this make them a more tightly knit community? In my opinion this significantly strengths the virtual community since they are now meeting in different venues of communication and seeing both people’s online and actual personality. But your opinion may be different.

CMT; Helper of the Blue Collar Worker

As it is fall break this week, I had the pleasure of, once again, conversing with my family for more than five minutes at a time. My father and I were able to talk for a couple minutes before he was rushing out the door to his job. In this time he was able to convey to me how CMT has helped him. He has written a book and, for awhile, has been looking for a publisher, illustrator, etc. With the recent boost in technology, he has been able to find all of these using CMT.

CMT is now helping out the common, average-working man achieve their dreams that they thought may never come true. My dad has always wanted this book published and CMT has helped him. He has been sending emails to this guy back and forth for awhile. This man has agreed to create the cover of the book along with creating a website for my dad; all for a reasonable fee, of course. Before CMT was available my dad would have been going through phonebooks, calling people up, traveling all over in an attempt to have his dream come true. Now people can just send out an email. If they say “no”, well, move on to the next person. It makes life a little be easier. On the internet you can virtually find any type of person that you may need for the particular project that you are doing.

CMT truly has helped advanced the dreams of the blue-collar worker. Using CMT technology people can attempt to find a publisher for a book they have written as my dad did, attend online courses in order to get a degree to make their life better as we semi-experienced last week, or just get their resume on a website such as monster.com in an attempt to get a better job. Oh, and just as an afterthought, my dad is planning on having a message board on his website to discuss the book or ask him questions. I just found it interesting how something created by CMT communication can lead, and often does, to more intricate CMT communication.

Pros and cons of online classes

This week the entire class was done online allowing for an interesting experience. In some ways I found the online class much easier than regular class and, during other times, I found certain aspects of it more difficult. So for this blog I decided to go look up the pros and cons of online learning. I found many benefits for online learning along with many cons.

In an article entitled, “Why Do Students Like Online Learning?” fifteen benefits were given for online learning. Now I will not go into all of them; only the ones that I experienced during this past week of classes. The first benefit was “students can ‘attend’ a course at anytime, anywhere.” Usually I would take a nap after my 8:10 class and wake up for this class at 10:20. With the course being online I could sleep until whenever and then “attend” class once I was awake. The seventh reason was “participating online is much less intimidating than ‘in the classroom.’” I found that the anonymity presented by an online course allowed me to say what I wanted without the fear of seeing “looks” from other classmates. This is only a few of the benefits that I received from having the course online this week.

Now moving on to the cons of having a course online; in an article entitled, “The Pros and Cons of Online College”, a few cons were mentioned about taking courses online. One mentioned, that I found very true this past week, was “self-discipline is a must.” It was extremely easy this past week to go to the discussion, briefly look at it, and then sign out telling myself I would do it later. I had to self-discipline myself to do the assignments given. It was much harder to do this without a teacher reminding me to do it. Another one I found true this past week was “no immediate feedback”. In a classroom you can just raise your hand and the teacher will call on you and hopefully be able to answer your question right away. While in an online course you would have to email your teacher and wait until he or she had time to answer you back. There were a couple other cons that were also important but the two just mentioned were the only ones I found prevalent to the past week.

So looking reflectively an online course, like any other thing, has pros and cons to it. It really just depends on your style of learning and what kind of person you are whether or not you should enroll in an online class. Even so this past week of experimentation with an online class, in my opinion, was a valuable learning experience.

The internet's influence

As I sat down to write my blog for the week, I began to wonder if this page had any sort of influence at all. Of course the answer is "no" seeing how it has only been viewed 6 or 7 times. I then began to think if there were any pages written by average people that did have some sort of significance or pushed that person further in life. And yes, there are some. These people having these pages show what power the internet has over our lives.

Last year my roommate introduced me to the webpage of George Ouzounian, better known as his pen-name of Maddox. His website, the best page in the universe, has had over 220 million visits since its creation in 1997. So, besides the views of his website, I'm sure you are asking what other influence has he had? Well he has received nearly 600 hate mail emails; has 2 internet fan websites; had an organization called Mothers Against Maddox formed to protest him; became so popular from this website he was able to write a book, The Alphabet of Manliness, and have it on the New York Times best seller list. And, along with all that was mentioned, he is able to, in his words, "stay above the water" by selling his t-shirts on his website.

So how does this man do it? The simple answer to that is; the power of the internet. This man, whom so many people love and hate, is able to make a living because of the influence of the internet. This concept is extremely mind boggling to me. Without the internet’s influence over us, Maddox, would never have had a New York Times best seller and never would be even close to as popular as he is now. Just the way the internet is run through CMC was the way he got popular. Someone would send the link to a friend on AIM; or the link to his website would be posted on someone of influence's blog; or another website would be created about him. This cyber word of mouth spreads so much more quickly than face-to-face word of mouth and because of this quickness in spreading news on the internet, Maddox became popular.

Looking reflectively the power of the internet just blows my mind. How someone, who so many people would consider a [insert profane name here], can become so popular from CMC on the internet show's how much of an influence the internet has over us. And like the directors of that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that we watched in class were trying to tell us, we should be aware of the internet's power and act accordingly.

Halo and CMC

Have you ever noticed that while you are on the internet you have more courage to say certain things than you would in person? Whether it is a personal feeling of admiration or words of anger, it seems that people have the uncanny ability to say more personalized feelings when they can not see the other person's reaction. I noticed this yesterday while a friend and I were playing Halo 3 online. If you have the microphone headset accessory, you are able to talk to the other people that are playing with you. This is usually limited to a "hey, what's up?" or very extreme, profanity-laced "trash" talking. I was playing with a friend named Dan Ross. For those of you who do not know him, he would be one of those kids that you would bet to lose in a fight. But while playing this game, even with his skinny demeanor, he has the uncanny ability to insult people into quiet submission even if he can not back it up with skill. And everything that he says would never be repeated if he saw the other person in a public or private area. This is exactly what it is like for cyber bullies. They say more hurtful things on the internet then they do in person. And no, I am not calling Dan a cyber bully. The whole concept of people being able to talk to each other while playing a game where the object is to kill the other person is, of course, going to inspire angry, violent talk towards the opponent. And do not get me wrong, I also have the ability to insult people until they cannot stand to hear the sound of my criticizing voice and will then push the mute button to stop the barrage of words aimed at them. (I only do this to kids my age that start it.)
None of the insults that Dan or I say would ever be repeated in public. So what gives us this courage? Well in my opinion it is the anonymous factor of the internet. We will never see the people we are playing against and we feel that there will be no consequence for our actions. Cyber bullies must feel the same way. Because they feel they are anonymous, they get more courage to say more hurtful words. Also, since it seems that there will be no consequence for their actions, they are willing to do and say things that they would not say or do in person for fear of getting in trouble. Kids that are victims of cyber bullies need to learn to ignore what the bully says. Just hit the exit out button while they are trying to message you on AIM or just simply block them.
So who knew that Halo could relate to CMC? I, for one, did not. The anonymous factor of the microphone feature and the internet gives players of Halo and cyber bullies the courage to say what they want to people. The slight difference between Halo and cyber bullies is that usually your opponent is trash talking you right back and it is all in good fun. But, in all seriousness, if some kid is cyber bullying you on the internet just ignore them. Bullies lose all their will to bully people once they realize it is not bothering that person. This can also be seen on Halo. When someone stops trying to come back with insults, the argument just sort of dies. The person who is doing the trash-talking realizes that it is no longer bothering his opponent and just finishes the rest of the game quietly until someone starts the argument back up.

The second one

When somebody mentions great debates, I’m sure many things pop into a persons head. There’s the obvious ones such as creationism vs. evolution or pro-abortion vs. pro-choice or , for all those that really enjoy starting trouble, the battle of the sexes. These things have been discussed since either side was created. So what new debates are there? With the increase in social networking sites on the internet the cyber relationship vs. the in-person relationship debate has began. Both sides have advocates that proudly preach their side of the argument and both sides have very good points. So why do I bring all this up? Well to state my opinion of course. Which I’m sure all of you care about, why else would you be browsing my blog? (Besides the fact that part of this assignment is commenting on two of your classmate’s writings.)

I personally enjoy the in-person relationship over the cyber relationship. And I believe that the in-person one surpasses the cyber relationship for one reason. That reason is that in some point during a frequent cyber relationship both parties will want to meet in person. By doing this both parties are acknowledging that the cold aspect of cyber friendship is no longer good enough and that they need a personal touch for this relationship to go any further. This face-to-face meeting occurs at stage 7 of cyber relationships. What happens from there really depends whether or not the person can overcome their fantasy expectation of the other.

Even with most cyber relationships having to end in a face-to-face meeting, it still has a lot of good that comes from it. I find it easier to say more personal things over the internet rather than in person. That way I can rehearse what I want to say, revise it to make it better, and also, I don’t have to see the other persons face when they read it. Also using txt or aim gives me a way to keep in touch with my friends or to just tell them something real quick without having to have the obligatory conversation with them on the phone.

But reflectively looking on what I wrote and on the article we read for class, it really doesn’t matter which one is better. Both sides are here to stay and both have their benefits. Sometimes we want to see the person were talking to and other times you may just want to see the text popping up with that annoying AIM alert that comes with it. Whether or not there truly is a better one is really your opinion.

Buffy and CMC

Being the typical college kid and having “one of those days”, I really had no desire to make an effort in any of my upcoming classes and for once this desire was actually met. Today we watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer which I have never previously viewed until today. Even though there was the typical cheesiness that goes along with the thought of a young girl slaying demons or vampires on a weekly basis another thought came up. And that thought was; what power does the internet have over us?

In this episode, the demon talks to people, earns their trust and manipulates them all using the internet. Willow completely trusted this Malcolm kid whom she had never met or even seen a picture of the kid. I believe that the directors are making references to online predators and stalkers here. In this episode, Willow meets, talks, and falls in love with this guy all using CMC, and he turns out to be a Demon trying to take over the world. In real life young men and women talk to strangers everyday either through message boards or public chatrooms. These young people feel like they have a connection to the person while chatting even though the person they are talking to has no other desire but to hurt them. The power the Demon had to manipulate people using CMC may have been a warning to young teens to watch who they talk to and trust while on the internet.

Another point that I believe the directors are trying to make is that people can become obsessive with the internet or the content that is on it. Some people are constantly on the internet either checking social networks, playing games or just surfing. Even though I know that social networks and many other features of the internet and computers really weren’t around during this episode, the Fritz (?) character still had an obsessive nature about computers. “The only reality is virtual and if you’re not jacked in you’re not alive’— this sounds semi-addicted/obsessive to me. Many people truly believe in that quote though. Some people become so obsessed with their characters in role playing games (ie: World of War Craft) that they have been known to neglect their own health. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Two-Fanatic-World-of-Warctaft-Gamers-Have-Died-Becouse-Of-WoW-11821.shtml The directors may have been telling us that we have to learn what power the internet has over us and that every now and then we need to take a break from the computer screen and go be social.