Category Archives: creation/consumption

Technology and Social Enclusion

Mark Warschaur

 

5 Human Resources: Literacy and Education

 

This chapter outlines the pros and cons of mass education across the internet.  It describes positively the ease of access and furthering of our society.  It describes negatively the lack of traditional instruction.  Sine the student can only learn exactly what one defines in an internet based course, one needs to be precise with exactly which information they do and which information they don’t share with the student.  They want them to understand enough not to need to ask questions, but not too much where they are overwhelmed and need to ask questions.  While questions can be answered in an online course, the student cannot access direct conversations the same way as a traditional learning environment.

Are Self-Publishing Authors Killing the Publishing Industry?

Melissa Foster

This article describes the lack of proper judgement by authors utilizing self-publishing.  Foster rants that while they can sell their books for cheap, most of them are not making any sort of living by self-publishing.  The few author’s who have had success self-publishing are either pre-established by being traditionally published (and thus already having a following) or are the exception to the rule.  Rarely are self-published authors successful.  They are also ruining the market with books that are cheap and often offered free or as bonuses.

Apps That Change The World

Elizabeth Woyke

In this article, Woyke uses an app that spreads word and allows users to take immediate action for important causes.  Woyke goes on to describe that apps are being used more and more by organizations are using personalized apps to reach target audiences quicker and more efficiently.  The cost, says Woyke, will eventually become well worth the need for an app.  Woyke states that as companies need and use them more and more they will start to not worry as much about the cost. Woyke specifically speaks on mobile apps, but the same could be said for computer applications and more.

The YouTube Effect Continues to Grow

by Haydn Shaughnessy

This article interestingly presents statistics to prove that advertising on sites like YouTube is actually effective.  It claims that 57% of people will purchase something after they have seen an ad on a site like YouTube.  Video watching is very popular among young people, especially students.  This article dissects how the younger demographic is being targeted effectively through ads on video sites.

How to Find a Job on Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Other Social Networks

Title: How to Find a Job on Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Other Social Networks

Author: Schepp, Brad, Schepp, DebraDate: 2010

Chapter 2 - Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plaxo and Beyond

 

This article reinforced and opened my eyes to how social media is used by hiring companies.  I figured that they looked at pages, but maybe not that often.  Seeing a statistic/number associated with the odds of a hiring company checking out potential employees’ social media pages makes it real.  With that knowledge in hand, arming oneself by strategically using a social media problem seems elementary.  In continuing the chapter, the reader learns how to build their profile to not just avoid red flags, but actually provoke the interest of a future employer

The Digital Condition

In his book, Rob Wilkie argues that because we are so connected and information is able to be shared so quickly, that the digital age is basically doing away with capitalism and class structure. He calls upon many people who support him, such as Mark Poster who says, “there is no need for a capitalist market in the are of digital cultural objects, and these objects need not become commodities….. indeed, digital cultural objects resist market mechanisms.” Another person he quotes is Ulrich Beck who states that, “the notion of a class society remains useful only as an image of the past.” A system of scarcity and consumption can not survive in a world of open sharing and limitless creation.

Humanizing the Digital Age

Humanizing the Digital Age is about the divide between G8 countries and third world countries. It talks about how the amount of internet users in G8 countries is equal to the amount of internet users in the rest of the world, but how it’s changing fast. It mentions how Africa is (as of 2007) averaging 60% of the new telephone lines installed globally each year, and how 75% of telephone users in Africa are mobile users. The world is divided in opportunity, but that gap is closing in leaps and bounds.

Social Media and Emerging Economies

In this book, you take a look at where social media and web 2.0 started, and how its affected users since its creation. It mentions how on sites such as Amazon, consumers will often look at consumer reviews and buy an item based off of those, trusting the word of complete strangers as opposed to trusting the advertiser. Looking to the future it brings up how we’re transitioning from an information society, to a network society, becoming more connected and informed.

Mapping the Internet

 

Image credit to Nicolas Rapp for Fortune Magazine

This article by Andrew Blum provides a terse but relatively complete description of how “the internet” makes it from your friendly neighborhood ISP to that little box on your desk– or pad, if you’re into the whole tablet thing. He tells us about the infrastructure of the global fiber-optic cable network that oh-so-speedily transmits all of your favorite cat videos (if you’re still confused on how that works, I recommend this video from the discovery channel). He talks about the “middle-mile” and “last-mile” problems that plagued internet providers in the 90′s and 00′s– which is essentially when ISP’s asked themselves “How are we going to quickly and cost-effectively convert digital information to analog information to digital information while also moving it from Point A to Point B?”

One thing that I frequently find myself forgetting is that “free Wi-Fi” isn’t actually free. Blum explains that the cost for this magical, invisible thing we call “the internet” varies with direct proportion to the distance of Point B from Point A, i.e. the farther you are from an internet exchange point, the more you have to pay to instagram your blueberry overnight oats complete with recipe.

You’re probably thinking “Well yeah, that’s pretty obvious and totally logically sound, so why is it important and/or relevant?”

Good question, Friend! The implications of this distance to cost proportion mean that companies who can afford to purchase spaces that are physically closer to internet hubs immediately have an advantage over their competitors, who have to wait longer to receive their information. Not to mention that fast internet equals less waiting for your page to load equals more time to actually get things done, and we all know that time equals money. Q.E.D., fast internet equals money. In the grand scheme of things, this means that the speed of the internet literally has some power to dictate which companies will be successful. Spooky thought, right?

That’s not all, either! As Blum states in his article, “‘Internet exchange points’ [...] for the most part, follow geography and population,” meaning that where there are people there is internet, and vice versa. This means that “boom towns” tend to crop up around new internet hubs, giving the nigh-omnipotent internet the power to physically shape our world around itself. Forget ghosts and goblins, I’m being the internet for Halloween. 

Internet Course 2014-02-22 11:16:39

Digital text is different then normal text and allows for more creation. Hyperlinks allow for consumers to connect to almost anywhere. Most earlier websites were written using HTML, which designs the structures of a web document. There are some many options available for creation with this to form structures of a web document. This gives the ability of a consumers to form their own creations and ideas with out having a specific platform to stand by. The web has allowed people to express their selves without having to hold back on things because it provides an friendly anonymous environment. Tags allow for more organization and also allows for there to be a specific location to find certain information stored under a certain tag. Over all the web has offered room for advancement in many ways but it all breaks down to creativity that provides this advancement to become attainable.