3
May
2011
When Ito is referring to networked publics, she means that today’s society is more involved with communicating and dispersing information due to the Internet’s scope and transportability. Most people have access to Internet whether it is on their laptops, cell phones, tablets, etc. As a result, you’re friends, neighbors, and relatives from all over the world are reachable within a matter of seconds. Nowadays, we do not require information from central media stations, rather, the networked publics has given us the power to be both consumers and dispensers of information. For instance, in the past people used to watch the news on television, and only watch what the camera crew is capturing. Today, instead of just being a viewer (or consumer) of the news, people can actually submit footage they captured on their Smartphones into mass media stations, or post it via YouTube to share with the rest of the world.
The aspect I choose to discuss from Ito’s chapter is “accessibility”. Technology today has allowed the average citizen in many parts of the world to contribute and participate in Ito’s networked publics. For my paper, I am looking into Apple’s dominant market share with respect to the online music industry. Over the course of the past few years, Apple’s iTunes store has lead the way by an enormous gap in terms of online sales. Some speculate that part of the reason for this market dominance is due to the fact that Apple bundles the success of its iTechnologies with iTunes. Highly demanded products like the iPod, iPad, and iPhone are only compatible with Apple’s iTunes, so the idea is that the only way people can use these popular products is if they use iTunes for music (which is considered to be unfair bundling by some). Furthermore, Itunes is an online store where songs can be purchased and downloaded instantly on to any of their iTechnologies, as long as people are connected to Wifi. Ito mentions that the introduction of the mobile phone in our everyday lives “is probably the most emblematic shift in relation of network accessibility”. I agree with this, especially given the prevalence of Smartphones nowadays, but this does not only apply to Smartphones—it applies to all of Apple’s technologies since almost all of them can connect to the Internet. Furthermore, because they are connected to the Internet, it makes it that much easier to for people to readily access the iTunes store, where they can purchase/listen to songs instantly, but you have to have the Apple technologies in order to enjoy such a luxury. Apple has embraced this notion of accessibility and has constructed their devices in such a way that is conducive to allowing consumers to get the songs they want at any moment in time.
Posted under Uncategorized
27
April
2011
Peer to peer file sharing, hacking, and Wikipedia definitely comprise the definition of Wikileaks, however, in my opinion, Wikileaks is most analogous to an online journalism. In journalism, journalists are devoted to uncovering the latest in current events, whether it is on a local or global scale, and the same could be said for the whistleblowers who contribute their efforts to Wikileaks. First and foremost, Julian Assange and his team of information activists seek disclose the depraved acts in government, politics, war, and major business entities all over the world. Their website is a way of reporting these immoral acts by those in power, just like a journalist would in a newspaper or online article. Furthermore, the site provides its viewers with a description of the news, a story, and because of the hacking capabilities of its activists, copies of highly confidential information. Journalists work to provide their readers with the same thing, but they do not offer actual copies of the controversial evidence to the extent like Wikileaks can—that is, unless they have a large group of hackers working for them. Journalists devote their time to tell a story of a sporting event, worldly issues, or a theft that happened a day ago. Like regular journalists, Wikileaks works inform the public of a story, but these stories are aimed at pointing out those engaging in immoral activity all over the world.
How is Wikileaks able to tell such stories? By getting its hands on highly confidential documents through the brainpower of its information activists, or their hackers. Not all of the information is obtained via hacking though. After hearing about the initiative of the Wikileaks organization, those involved in organizations where immoral activity is present might feel compelled to leak documents to the site. A young US Army Intelligence Analyst by the name of Bradley Manning was one of them. The main idea of Wikileaks is not hacking, it is to spread the immoral acts of those in power to the public. Hacking just happens to be one of the means to spreading the information, kind of like the way journalists receive tips to get the information they need to tell their story.
Just like hacking, Wikileaks uses sharing as another way to tell to meet their main objective, which is to uncover the immoral acts of governments, politicians, wars, businesses, etc. to the public. Hence, peer-to-peer file sharing is a means to the end for Wikileaks, but not what ultimately defines it.
Finally, Wikileaks is similar to Wikipedia in a sense that one can search for articles relating to the topic of interest, but the premises of the two websites is are completely different. Wikipedia does not provide an encyclopedia to confidential documents about immoral acts like Wikileaks does. The site may tell of the stories you can find within Wikileaks, but it does readily provide copies of actual top-secret documents like Wikileaks does. For instance, I was able to access the contentious Sarah Palin emails on Wikileaks but Wikipedia does not provide them. This is probably because Wikipedia does not have the same objective as Wikileaks, which is why I would not define them in the same way.
Posted under Uncategorized
19
April
2011
Sharpe, N & Arewa, O. “Is Apple Playing Fair? Navigating the iPod DRM Fairplay Controversy.” Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property.(2007). Vol. 5, NO. 2.
This article analyzes Apple’s iTunes Store and iPod technologies, and how Apple became such a dominant player in the online music market. In particular, the authors’ argue that while innovation, intellectual property laws, and network effects may in part explain Apple’s market dominance, the people who actually use the product should be taken into consideration in legal assessments of Apple’s tendency to bundle their iTunes store with only Apple technologies like the iPod. In the case of this article, the author argues that Apple has deliberately created their iPod devices to only play music that out of the iTunes library format. By creating devices compatible with only Apple-created technology, Apple is practicing Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM limits the interoperability, which is a property referring to the ability of multiple products, organizations, etc to work together (or inter-operate). For instance, having a Toshiba television play a Sony DVD player would be considered an interoperable property. Furthermore, this article looks into the litigation Apple has faced with regards to limiting interoperability since their business behaviors have been considered by some to be anti-competitive, and thus breaking anti-trust laws. The author stresses that, where new technologies once increased the choices available to consumers, he acknowledges that some companies like Apple create gadgets like the iPod and iTunes that may now unreasonably restrain consumer choices.
The issue I want to explore in more depth is the idea that Apple is in fact trying to monopolize the online music industry through their iDevices like the iPod and iTunes. This article is very relevant because it addresses how both devices have been bundled together in a strategic way that combines Apple’s iPod’s popularity with music sales. It argues that Apple is using the iPod to its advantage to further it’s iTunes popularity since iPod’s only work with iTunes, and that by doing this they are breaking antitrust laws that are supposed to protect consumer welfare. Since I am arguing that Apple is trying to monopolize the music industry, the litigation accusations that Apple is facing provides good evidence to support my claim.
Posted under Uncategorized
13
April
2011
For this week’s blog post, I decided to observe the seating area in Manndibles Café that extends to the lobby area of Mann Library. From my own experience, this place encounters a lot of traffic around lunch hour, so I did some observing around that time.
After reading Varnelis’ chapter regarding place, it’s easy to see just how ubiquitous society can be given the rise of our mobile devices. Mobile devices have empowered their users to really be in one or two places at once. For instance, within the first few minutes of my observation, I noticed a student talking on her Blackberry to someone who could be anywhere on campus to anywhere in the world, while she was online shopping at a store that you definitely wouldn’t find in the local Ithaca store directory. As I continued to scope my surroundings, I noticed that students were eating, talking with friends, on their laptops, or tablet device, or watching the news. Come to think of it, most were doing all the above at the same time.
The most interesting observation I found was that majority the people I watched had their cell phones out on the table, even though they weren’t using them. People even had them out when they were in a group. As I continued to watch, people would check their mobile device every now and then to see if they had a message waiting (from someone in another place) while continuing an actual conversation they were involved in while at Manndibles. In particular, one guy was talking to his friend while simultaneously “bbm-ing” another who could be on the second floor of Mann Library or as far as the other side of the planet. This observation exemplifies what Varnelis means by ubiquity in the age of the digital network and how it has given people the ability to be in more than one place at once. Because of his BlackBerry device, this guy was able to carry on 2 conversations in two places, all at once—Manndibles and wherever his BBM contact happened to be. However, I don’t think that we’ve fully adapted to the ubiquitous power technology has given us. The more I watched, the more I noticed that this guy couldn’t pay his full attention to the conversation he was having at Manndibles. He’d say, “What?” and, “Huh?” every now and then to the guy sitting with him at Manndibles.
Where is this space most heavily mediated by information technology? I noticed that around tables and around other people. Varnelis mentions that even though people do not necessarily talk to one another directly, they can still be connected to others. In the case of the guy I observed, even when he wasn’t talking to his friends that were actually at Manndibles, he was communicating with other friends in another place. There was a disconnect from the Manndible place whenever he was texting (hence the “Whats?” and “Huhs?”), and there was a disconnect from the texting any time he put his phone down.
In Varnelis’ conclusion of the “place” chapter, he mentions, “being too connected may become more of a problem for us than loneliness.” To a certain extent, I agree with this notion. Once again, referring back to what I observed, the guy clearly couldn’t carry on two conversations at once because his attention was competing between his phone and the people actually speaking to him. Thus, new media technologies can distract/interfere with our non-virtual ways of discourse that have been around forever.
Posted under Uncategorized
30
March
2011
The six articles I found are listed below:
WikiLeaks:
1) Brad McCarty, “The Greater Problem of Wikileaks: When innocent sites become victims”, 04/12/2010, http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/04/the-greater-problem-of-wikileaks-when-innocent-sites-become-the-victims/
2) Blog post by alias “Music Man”, “Am I the only one who thinks Wikileaks is good?”, 03/28/2011, http://www.positivelifezone.com/?p=2931
3) Alexandra Brunel, Wikileaks and You: What the Wikileaks controversy means for the Web, 2011, http://ezinearticles.com/?Wikileaks-and-You:-What-The-Wikileaks-Controversy-Means-for-The-Web&id=5525279
Apple:
1) Dan Tonkery, “iPad and its Possible Impact on Publishers and Libraries”, 10/2010, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4328/is_201010/ai_n56227108/
2) Jaymi Heimbuch, “What does Apple’s iPad Tablet Really mean for our Society?”, 01/25/2010, http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/what-does-apples-tablet-really-mean-for-our-society.php
3) Wade Roush, “The Apple Paradox: How a company that’s so closed can foster so much open innovation”, 01/25/2010, http://www.xconomy.com/national/2010/01/25/the-apple-paradox-how-a-company-thats-so-closed-can-foster-so-much-open-innovation/?single_page=true
An interesting societal question regarding Apple is impact of its carbon footprint on our planet. 10.2 million tons of greenhouse gas emission arising from manufacturing, transportation, product use, facilities and recycling occur during the life cycle of the Apple. Recently retired products from Apple include the use of toxic substances like brominates, flame retardants, and polyvinyl chlorides, which are toxic materials when burned. Chinese Environmental groups have reported that Apple has extremely poor health and safety standards as well as a lack of environmental responsibility at the factories of some of its suppliers. Apple has a record of making devices that aren’t intended for easy fix ability or upgradability. In recent years however, Apple has set new standards in the consumer electronics industry and does much more than is required by law and regulation.
After reading articles about Wiki Leaks, I have found an interesting societal question concerning “freedom of speech”. Wiki Leaks appeared on the Internet about four years ago, and began to raise questions about what is right and what is responsible. The idea of hackers also questions the national security of a country. Unauthorized document exposure and graphic video of war in Baghdad brought about world rage. Technology experts made original sources untraceable while posting top secret, sensitive information on the web. Through liberation of all the senses, Wiki Leaks beliefs include seeking justice and do not care about national security. On the down side, secret material has been released making the US government look bad n global War and Terror. Founder Julian Assange feels that “free software” should be available to all. No one person should control the Internet in this day and age of globalization. Site owners are becoming more aware of what is being hosted on their servers. Wiki Leaks
has changed the world information stage and taken “freedom of speech” to a whole new level to include personal self-awareness and responsibility.
Posted under Uncategorized
8
March
2011
To be completely honest, I think it’s unacceptable to be ignorant of the fact that media platforms can use and share content you generate, and in most cases, they can profit from your content. The beauty (and ugliness) of the Internet is that it has worldwide access, so whatever you content you set online, it will most likely reach the eyes of people you’ve never even seen. Some of these eyes happen to be that of corporate entities trying to further their marketing programs. If your user content happens to be conducive to furthering their product’s success, chances are they will exploit your content in some way. For example, Facebook is a major online entity that catches the eyes of millions of college students. So, a smart business that offers services or products specific to college students is one in which would benefit from marketing themselves on Facebook, and there are many that do. As soon as I open up my Facebook Newsfeed, I see a TakeNote advertisement placed on the side bar—one of several ads I see on a daily basis that are very pertinent to me.
As an online user, do I feel exploited for the content I generate? My answer: not at all. But with that being said, I’m careful with what content I choose to put on the web, and I’m aware that every time I search something online, research companies probably keep tabs. But here’s my question, how is what companies are doing online any different from market research that is conducted out in shopping malls or places of commerce? In consumer behavior analysis, there are numerous studies which document consumer’s shopping habits, tastes, and preferences. How is this any different from companies collecting data based on your searches and websites you visit? To me, it’s the same marketing strategy, only a different playing field—the web. If anything, businesses are smart to do their research online since they’d save lots of money having computers collect data as opposed to market researchers out in the field.
In the dialogue between Scholz and Deuze, I’d say I have to side with Deuze. Given the Internet’s workings, you as a user need to be aware of what can come of the content you generate. If people really felt like they were being exploited, I would agree with Deuze as he argues that if business were to cruelly exploit people’s content, “such business strategies simply do not hold, and ultimately contribute to a brand’s downfall and loss of credibility.”
Posted under Uncategorized
2
March
2011
A few months ago, I remember peering through my Facebook newsfeed and stumbled upon a Youtube video posted on a friend’s wall. The video featured a young boy with an evident health condition lip singing in front of a webcam to Katy Perry’s song, “Teenage Dream” (click on the link to see the boy’s video). As I watched the boy’s rendition of the song, I had to admit, it was quite comical. First of all, the kid’s appearance can be compared to that of an elf—one of Santa’s elves. Furthermore, aside from his appearance, his facial gestures, dancing” to the beat (picture a pair of blue eyes magnified behind glasses that flow with the beat of the song, a very intense, yet amateur level) and lip singing abilities are clearly less than professional, and contribute to the video’s overall humor. However, his performance doesn’t end there. In addition to Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream, he has performed songs such as Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World”, Train’s “Hey Soul Sister”, and numerous other mainstream/hit songs. All of these videos are pretty funny, so it’s no surprise that it wasn’t long before his videos began to reach view counts in the millions.
Given the nature of Youtubers’ viewing habits, humorous videos tend to become rather popular. I mean, I know after I watched the video and found it quite humorous, I told a few of my friends to watch, who in fact told some of their friends as well. I’m sure this happened to the millions of other who watched the videos, and as you can see, this video was able to become popular due to what Rusell, Ito, Richmond, and Tuters (in chapter 2 of Networked Publics) refer to as “viral marketing”. Because of viral marketing, where the consumers ultimately decide what content (in this case, videos on Youtube) become popular, the boy in the video—Keenan Cahill—became another Youtube sensation.
There are two types of viewers that can explain Keenan’s fame: those poke fun at and insult his work/appearance (which is probably the majority of his viewers), and those who see him as an inspiration. Unbeknownst to the latter, Keenan battles with a rare and incurable genetic disorder called MPS VI, which affects 1/500,000 individuals. Every Thursday, Keenan makes a trip to Chicago Children’s Memorial Hospital where he undergoes a 4-hour long enzyme infusion. To top it off, the drug used for the enzyme infusion is one of the most expensive in the world—$350,000. In addition to the infusion procedure, he has undergone numerous operations to help alleviate his genetic disorder, as the disease has severely stunted his growth and development.
Here is a news article that covers Keenan’s story: Keenan\’s Story
Given Keenan’s appearance and performances, it’s easy to see how people criticize him. I’ve seen some of the comments posted below his videos, and let me tell you, he’s encountered his fair share of nasty comments that not only degrades his performing abilities, but also his appearance. However, on the other hand, after hearing Keenan’s story, it’s easy to regard him an inspiration. Despite his appearance, the rude comments, and every day physical challenges he deals with on a daily basis due to his condition, Keenan persists with his videos and loves every minute of it. He’s actually a teenager, and to be the complete opposite of self-conscious during this stage in his life is truly inspiring.
Eventually, his confidence went viral and reached the eyes of singer Katy Perry, who said his video was her “Teenage Dream”. She wasn’t the only celeb to acknowledge Keenan. He performed video gigs with artists such as 50 cent and David Guetta, and reality TV star Pauly D from Jersey Shore. He also appeared on Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Lately show.
Keenan’s story is a prime example of how digital culture has given a voice to those who might have a tough time being heard. Since our society is so ardent on looks and status, it would be highly unlikely that someone like Keenan would ever get a chance to express himself on television the way he does on Youtube. The connectivity of our digital culture has allowed society to put themselves on a world stage, where viewers—not record labels or talent agencies—get to decide what’s popular. Youtube is the epitome of an online world stage, where anyone can access its content as long as they are connected to the Internet. Moreover, Youtube is an entity that thrives off peer recommendations. Consequentially, these references gave Keenan’s performance the boost it needed to reach the eyes of millions, which evidently, is the whole idea of viral marketing. I mean, sans the Internet, you probably wouldn’t see Keenan become the Youtube sensation he is today.
Posted under Uncategorized
23
February
2011
With the invention of Google during my lifetime, I can honestly say the number of times I’ve looked for information the old fashion way (in a library) can be counted on one hand. Google is my “go-to” when I want the answer to my particular question—if I want to know the fourteen-day weather forecast, the capital of Austria, or Lady Gaga’s latest fashion mishap, I refer to none other than Google. To be honest, I feel like society is no different. Obviously, people’s search choices differ from one another, but I think it’s safe to say that most of us use this search engine to the point where “Google” is recognized as both a noun and an adjective, and is synonymous with the word “search”. For instance, looking for a sweet deal on a last-minute spring break vacation package? Why not “Google” it?
If I were to conduct such a search, a horde of vacation package links would pop, trying to offer me the best deal. As an ignorant, blissful, and faithful user of Google, I would choose my desired destination, without putting much thought into why these specific links revealed themselves. I mean, I knew Google was a major search engine, but I’ve really never put much thought into the implications that such a powerful information intermediary may have on the web and society until I read Vaidhyanathan’s chapter.
Google’s ability to control what content reaches us in our searches is probably the most problematic concern I have because it’s search engine is used by so many people. When you think about it, that’s a LOT of power. In it’s own right, Google is somewhat of an online dictatorship—it presents us with whatever it desires. And that desire is driven by the advertising money offered by companies wanting to reach the hundreds of millions of people who frequently Google. Personally, I’m concerned with Google’s ability to raise its minimum bid levels at-will. Because of this, smaller firms who have relied on web-based advertising may find it difficult to compete with larger firms who can fork over the big advertising bucks. Some of these smaller firms include Google’s competitors, and how are they to compete with a firm within their industry that controls how people search their own product? That, in addition to the vast resources Google has (Vaidhyanathan mentioned Google’s cross-subsidization to fund it’s other business ventures), will crush the dreams of any hopeful search engine business. With those odds, what up-and-coming firm would have the audacity to take on such a formidable opponent?
In addition to its monopolistic control over what we faithful users search, I have a problem in particular with the way Google is able to record data based on our searches. Personally, I have a problem with having some faceless, web-based entity that has the records my every search—there’s just something about that which raises a few privacy issues with me.
However, my concerns would be an issue to society only if Google decides to abuse its powers. In my opinion, I don’t think Google has done anything to the detriment of our society—if anything, they’ve bettered our lives by keeping supplying us with the information we want at the very edge of our fingertips.
Posted under Uncategorized
16
February
2011
In today’s fast-paced, technologically savvy society, Smartphones have become something that people cannot live without—hence, the origin of the term “Crackberry”. So, in lieu of the fact that more than half Cornell’s student body owns a Blackberry (as well as myself), I decided to investigate the creators of BlackBerry. Turns out, the party guilty of our addiction is none other than Research In Motion Ltd.
RIM is a Canadian telecommunications and wireless technology company, best known for its creation of BlackBerry Smartphones. Revenue is generated through the sales of their BlackBerry wireless platform devices, the RIM Wireless Handheld product line, software development tools, radio-modems and software/hardware licensing agreements. According to RIM’s Financial Tables, the company has generated over approximately 15 billion dollars in revenue within the last year. Currently, RIM dominates the Smartphone market share with at 43%, with Apple trailing behind at 25.1% (based off of Jan-10 reports from comScore.com). Google and Microsoft are other competitors in the Smartphone industry as well, but they hold much smaller portions of the market share.
Research in Motion was founded by yet another, “Bill Gates-like-university-drop out.” Mike Lazaridis, an engineering student at the University of Waterloo decided to leave the school in 1984 to start up RIM with Douglas Fregin, another engineering student who attended the University of Windsor. Before RIM created introduced its line of BlackBerry Smartphones, RIM worked with RAM Mobile Data and Ericsson to turn the Ericsson-developed Mobitex wireless data network into a two-way paging and wireless e-mail network. In 1996, the company introduced its first mobile device called the “Inter@ctive Pager”. In 1997, RIM became publicly traded stock on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE: RIM). Just two years later, it became listed in the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: RIMM). The first BlackBerry phone was introduced in 1999, and in 2000 InfoWorld named the phone “Product of the Year”. Today, Research in Motion’s Board of directors consists of President and CEO Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO Jim Basillie, John Wetmore (RIM Ltd.), Barbara Stymiest (Royal Bank of Canada), John Richardson (RIM Ltd.), Roger Martin (Zerofootprint Software Inc.), David Kerr (Sun Life Financial), and Antonio Vana-Baptista (Telefonica Moviles, S.A.). Their headquarters is located in Waterloo, Ontario, which happens to only be a 45-minute drive from my house.
In Two Economies: Commercial and Sharing, Lawrence Lessig alludes to his notion the “Three Keys” that led to the success of internet/digital companies such as Google and Amazon. In particular, one “key” he discusses is how these companies joined forces with outside firms and allowed them to innovate upon their existing product/service—or what Lessig refers to as LEGO-ized Innovation. Research In Motion’s BlackBerry phones are the handheld-device epitome of companies buying into this notion of LEGO-ized Innovation. RIM has dozens of partnerships, but one major partner in particular is Microsoft. In 2005, the company joined up with Microsoft, announcing a product partnership and combined marketing agreement concentrated on expanding venture instant messaging and presence to BlackBerry subscribers. By working together, the minds at Microsoft were able to enhance the BlackBerry devices’ messaging capabilities to what we Crackberry users know as BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM’ing. Personally, I use BBM as way of communicating with people almost every hour of every day. I love BBM, my brother loves BBM, my friends love BBM, and even my parents (who I still consider to be technically-challenged) love the BBM feature—heck, every BlackBerry user loves it. I mean, I don’t know a single person who doesn’t!
Also, the collaboration of Microsoft and RIM has led to the creation of Microsoft Windows Live services on BlackBerry Smartphones. The outcome of this alliance permits BlackBerry users to benefit from easy mobile access to Windows Live Messenger and an enhanced level of integration between Windows Live Hotmail and the BlackBerry platform. With that said, having the ability (on your BlackBerry) to instantly chat with contacts, check your Windows Live Hotmail, or create an Excel spreadsheet is the direct result of the RIM and Microsoft partnership (and these are only some of the Blackberry features created by this partnership!). These features are part of the reason as to why these phones are so desirable. I mean, if a BlackBerry didn’t have BBM or the capability to check my Hotmail, I probably would’ve reconsidered my purchase of the Tour, and I think there are more people out there who would do the same. So as you can see, Lessig’s idea of LEGO-ized innovation leading to success is quite evident here. By joining forces, BlackBerry has become a better product, and RIM definitely became more successful because of its partnership with Microsoft (and other companies).
In addition to their partnerships, in 2009, RIM declared that they would be obtaining Dash Navigation as well as Torch Mobile. I would consider the acquisition of Torch Mobile to be a smart investment on RIM’s part, as it allowed them to incorporate a Webkit-based browser in their Blackberry devices. This innovation enhanced RIM’s BlackBerry products, and made the product even more competitive within the Smartphone industry.
RIM’s partnerships and acquisitions have provided the BlackBerry hundreds, if not thousands of new software and functions, which affects both BlackBerry users and non-sers alike. The result of the BlackBerry and its characteristics have allowed society to not only communicate and send information instantly to one another, but it has allowed us to do so in the palm of our hand. The device has taken what we can do on a computer, and in some cases, even more. With all these features of the phone, it’s hard not to love it. Consequentially, BlackBerrys have revolutionized the way society does business. I mean even if you don’t a BlackBerry, chances are a client or partner has contacted you some way or another through the many uses of a BlackBerry.
The BlackBerry commercial Everything You Love-BlackBerry expresses the BB users’ love for the device and how the Blackberry has not only changed the way they communicate, but also the way they conduct a business. It emphasizes the favorite features of BlackBerry that are responsible for RIM’s success.
Posted under Uncategorized
8
February
2011
The day I decided to give up my facebook v-card was about 5 years ago. At that time I was a high school junior, and the social networking site wasn’t nearly as popular as it is today. After much buzz about this new “Facebook”, I finally decided to create an account. I was impressed with the simplistic setup and navigation of Facebook. My profile reading to go after one profile picture selection and some bio facts later. Once my profile was ready to go, I searched up some friends with Facebook accounts and added them. After that, I had a few pictures saved on my computer, so I decided to create a small album . Within a few hours I began to expand my list of friends. I was adding people I knew just as fast as I was receiving friend requests. I became friends with people at school, people in the hockey world, and people I hadn’t seen in years. Having more friends enabled me to check out other people’s pictures, and see what was new and interesting in their lives. I really enjoyed looking through people’s pictures, as it gave me the chance to see what was going on in their lives–without actually asking them. Furthermore, their pictures (and videos) tell a story, and allow you to relive their experiences–even though you weren’t there.
Through viewing people’s photos/videos, Facebook gave me the feeling of being omnipresent–something I never experienced before. For instance, I remember being unable to attend a school formal because I was away at a hockey tournament. The Sunday I returned home, I looked at the formal pictures/videos posted on Facebook. I was able to view the dresses, the couple, the dancing, etc. Even though I was at hockey, I still felt like I attended the formal. The album captured moments in time at the formal, and like everyone knows, pictures really are worth a thousand words… Some pictures even had more words as Facebook gives you the ability to comment on photos. Between the album’s photos and comments (as well as the videos), I was able to catch up on all the gossip without actually gossiping. Personally, I liked the photos and comments better than the gossip.
However, the first time I used Facebook, not everything ran smoothly. Since I was a Facebook Noob, my privacy settings weren’t too secure, so needless to say I had a few random “pokes” from your Type A “creepers”. In addition to that, I had hundreds of annoying notifications sent to my email for every time someone wrote on my wall, I friended someone, etc. However, with the help of some Facebook-saavy friends, I was able to figure out how to fix these problems in no time.
Today, I consider myself among those people who are Facebook-saavy. I’ve been using it for a while now, and I absolutely love it. Because of Facebook, I rarely ever use MSN Messenger anymore. Facebook does what MSN does, but more. I can keep in touch with friends, share/view photos, play Family Feud when I’m bored, receive my daily dose of gossip by simply checking my “News Feed”, etc, etc, etc. So as you can see, my first time on Facebook was definitely a rewarding experience, which is why I’m still a faithful Facebook-er to this very date.
Posted under Uncategorized
When Ito is referring to networked publics, she means that today’s society is more involved with communicating and dispersing information due to the Internet’s scope and transportability. Most people have access to Internet whether it is on their laptops, cell phones, tablets, etc. As a result, you’re friends, neighbors, and relatives from all over the world are reachable within a matter of seconds. Nowadays, we do not require information from central media stations, rather, the networked publics has given us the power to be both consumers and dispensers of information. For instance, in the past people used to watch the news on television, and only watch what the camera crew is capturing. Today, instead of just being a viewer (or consumer) of the news, people can actually submit footage they captured on their Smartphones into mass media stations, or post it via YouTube to share with the rest of the world.
from 1 votes
