#23

Perhaps my favorite article in this class was the one about the blogger creating a story in which real people followed. The blogger created a character, and led others to believe that this character was real. I found that one to be the most interesting because it really makes you question what is real and what is not on the internet. In my Public relations class, an ethical issue came up around the time we read this article. The issue was concerning an intern for a TV studio posing as a mother online, posting comments in parenting forums about a new TV show her son loves. (The intern does not have children). Our class obviously wrote this case of bad PR off as unethical, but we forget that the same thing happens everyday. Many people are creating fake identities online, and it’s really becoming an issue for many. The entire internet has become anonymous, and that, to me, is scary.

#22

The reading that I have found most interesting in this class are the older (pre 2000) articles that deal with the subjects of technology and social media. It is incredible to read those predictions from years ago, and see how accurate or inaccurate they are. The idea of being able to predict something that like technology, which is so consistently and rapidly changing so far in advance incredible. Many times in this class I have tried to offer a prediction about where a certain technology is headed, and it is very difficult. Something predictions were so accurate they were shocking. The one that comes to mind when I write this is the article we read discussing new computer systems developed in the Bay Area. There was a picture featured of what a tablet computer might look like, and it beared some resemblance to today’s ipad. Was it just coincidence or were the designers really onto something? We might never know.

#21

Oh would Andy Kaufman be proud….

For those of you who do not know who Andy Kaufman is, he was a performance artist who used to blur the line between reality and fiction, and many have even ruled his death as a hoax. His story is what came to mind when reading this article. Debbie Swanson had essentially created a character, separate from herself, that she presented as an actual being. Ethical? No way! But intesresting? Very much so.

A community had formed around the fictional being of Kaycee Swanson, and many of the community was upset, even outraged when this turned out to be a hoax. I found this artice to be incredible interesting, because it discusses the communication theory that applies to this scenario, something that seemed to be lacking when the death was announced as a hoax. The article uses interesting concepts to describe the incident that might not have even gone through Debbie’s mind when conducting this entire “Show”.

What's real? What's not? That's what I do in my act, test how other people deal with reality.
Andy Kaufman

#20

For me, this was the biggest piece of tech news this week. Late last week, Sony’s Playstation network was hacked into. The Playstation Network is a server linking together most playstation 3’s, allowing users to interact within games. It also allowed users to purchase additional content for games. As a result of this hack, the “thief” had access to the names, addresses ,email addresses, phone numbers, etc of many who use the network. This article claims (as did Sony’s email to me Thursday morning), that although there was a breach of security, the actual credit card numbers registered to users accounts were encrypted, and therefore not touched. As someone who actively uses PSN (and has their credit card info in their account), I was shocked that this could happen. As consumers, we build up trust with big companies (Sony, Apple), and when something like this happens, it lets us take a step back to rethink how much info we give to web sites.

#19

I found the issue of blogging to be very relevant. Social media usually (ideally) remains private, but what about blogs that are in a way meant to be open to the public?
Blogging started to get really big around the time I started high school. I knew about blogging before that, but never really saw my peers engage in it until that year. It was when xanga was big, and many were blogging about various issues. Any interesting part about my experience is that I went to an all boys high school, so at lunch many of my peers would check on their female friend’s blogs to see what they were up to, as well as blog about their lives. I saw relationships develop over time almost exclusively through blog posts .This was when I started to think about internet communication not as a supplement to in person communication, but perhaps a substitute for it. I wondered if this was the future of online communication,

#18

I found this article very interesting. I have never been a big fan of books. This is not because of do not like reading. I absolutely love reading, more so than movies, television, or even video games. The thing that has always bugged me about reading (and this is going to sound SUPER picky), is the binding and the way a book is held. I have always found it very uncomfortable, and I absolutely love my kindle because it is, to me, an easier way to read written work.
A major advantage of e-books that I believe many people overlook is the fact that distribution is much easier. With a physical book (even a small paperback), a publishing company is required because it is nearly impossible for an individual to take care of all printing/distribution on their own. With e-books, all that is required to take something from a word document to something that is accessible to everyone on Amazon is an editor who can publish and format the book correctly. This makes it much easier for emerging authors to get their material out there.

#17

  This article was very important to me. In this last decade, especially the last three years, our lives have become increasingly more tecnologically relient. We can now make almost any purchase online, and in fact many stores are facing serious problems because they are unable to keep up with giant distributors like Amazon.com. 

   In the tradition of the days that many of us used to spend at record stores, record store day was established in an attempt to bring buyers back into record stores for the nosaligia of it all, and to give kids a chance to experience spmething other than downloading singles from Itunes. For this to happen, many artists release limited edition packaging/cds/vinyl. There are usually - limited number (ex 50,000) so they are usually gone the morning. They rarely make their way online, and when they have a big markup on the price.  Many bands participate, and this is one way the music industry has been able to "de-wire" a group of people.  

Note: Record store day is this weekend!