Digilante/TiVo

 

The article “Digilante justice” discusses a unique way for people to publicize indecent behavior of everyday life. Some of the sites that allow you to vent are very useful in my opinion. These websites are an ultimate way to vent and discuss the indecent behavior of our fellow citizens as we can all agree that each and every one of us has experienced frustrations associated with various acts of indecent behavior in our society. Digilantes represent the group within our society who are technically inclined and take the time to identify the things are done wrong within our society on everyday basis.

The idea that there is a population within our society that watches out for you is great, but that also means that you have to responsibility for your own actions, since someone could also be watching you too. I believe that the sites that exist out there are useful and probably do encourage a better judgment on behalf of us, citizens of this country.

 

The article “The age of Egocasting” by Christine Rosen talks about Tivo use and the fact that many such inventions only provide a way to narrow our minds and worldview, as we only watch what we choose to watch, without provided opportunity to stumble upon something accidently while flipping channels that could ultimately widen our point of view by providing us with exposure to something other than what we are used to.

I think this is an important observation and an issue, since it’s a valid concern within our often times already narrow minded society, where we get to choose everything, only exposing ourselves to things as well as people that we like or that are like us.

I personally don’t own any such device and find it useful to search thru channels and watch random stuff that I probably wouldn’t have I actually owned something like Tivo, this is how I find my new favorite shows or find out something new is by browsing randomly, not pre-selecting. But one thing is worth mentioning is that in our time challenged society is it a realistic expectation with all of the devices available on the market? People live within a society where there is a definite time deficit, so isn’t it naturally the inevitable that as a result of that, our leisurely activities will reflect a growing narrowing of our views due to the time constraint?

 

Questions:

 

1. How have various “digilante” websites impacted your life?

 

1. Do you think that the existence of these sites offers more positives or negatives? And why?

 

1. What do you think is the future of this service to our community?

OLPC – first step towards eliminating the digital divide.

The One Laptop Per Child Association is a U.S. non-profit organization geared to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. The mission of this organization is to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a low cost and low power connected laptop, including content and software that will promote self learning for those less fortunate.  I feel that regardless of the controversy surrounding this organization, this program remains to be one of the current attempts to eliminate or at least diminish digital divide by providing more access and education to the future generations around the world and therefore is extremely beneficial.

 

The distribution model of OLPC consists of the idea of laptops being sold to governments and later distributed through the ministries of education. The estimated cost of the laptops was expected to be approximately $135 per laptop, although by the time the manufacturing was finished they were available for about $199 each. The laptops would be low powered computers that use flash memory instead of hard drive and the wireless networking would have a much greater range than typical consumer laptops. These laptops would be given to students and will ultimately remain the property of the child as well as be available in all of the languages of the participating countries.

Some of these participating countries include Ethiopia, Ghana, Rwanda, Mexico, Haiti, Peru, Afghanistan, Cambodia and etc.

 

The importance of this organization is great, as the goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new opportunities, to experiment and educate themselves. This project is of great importance as it is one of the current attempts to work towards eliminating or at least diminishing the digital divide by providing education as well as access to the future generations.

There is however, an ongoing controversy regarding the mission of OLPC as the large scale purchasers would be offered the choice of adding an extra cost, to which OLPC has responded saying that the mission remains  to provide learning for children and that the means and ends as often happens, got confused. OLPC claim that they are promoting several models, including some for testing purposes.

Intel Corp. has officially dropped out of a nonprofit project, as the two sides have been feuding over Intel’s aggressive marketing of a low-cost laptop of its own design in many of the same countries that OLPC had been targeting.

 

In my opinion the OLPC organization as well as its mission is very important. Regardless of the controversy surrounding it, it’s one of the current attempts to provide more laptops to more children therefore providing more education, access as well as an attempt to diminish the digital divide that is so prevalent across the globe. However I can’t go without mentioning the fact that off course we live in a capitalist country and unfortunately that means that if there is a slightest opportunity to make money, that opportunity will be exploited and often times drained dry. I would also have to add that as with any organization especially when it comes to non-profit, often times, the means are truly overestimated. While it’s obvious that the freedom of increasing the price of these laptops goes against the mission all together, the idea itself is powerful and undeniably important and should be without a doubt further promoted.

 

 

Citations:

 

The rise of the low-cost laptop. (2008, June 7). Economist, Retrieved March 6, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.

 

Hamm, S., Smith, G., & Lakshman, N. (2008, June 16). SOCIAL CAUSE MEETS BUSINESS REALITY. BusinessWeek, Retrieved March 6, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.

Discussion Reflection

Finally, I am done. Being a discussion leader wasn’t as easy as I originally though would be. After seeing all of the presentations before me, it was kind of nerve wrecking as the bar was set very high.

For my discussion  on the digital divide I looked up the article written by Amanda Lenhart called “The ever-shifting Internet population” which provides a new look at the Internet access and the idea of digital divide.

This article uses the report provided by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that provides research that is based primarily on a national telephone survey conducted amoung 3,553 Americans between March 1-31 and May 2-19, 2002.

The survey provides insights thru interviews with non-users and new Internet users and helps clarify and contrast the social demographic as well as other factors of non users vs. users of the Internet.

The members of the groups to whom I presented were very nice, they brought up a lot of interesting issues and personal reflection to my presentation. The opinions varied, but all were very enlightening, as it offered a perspective and view that I may have not considered have I not done the presentation.

Overall, my experience as a discussion leader with a small group of people was really great, as it was much less terrifying than presenting in front of the whole class.

Group Project Reflection #3

In the third and final reflection of the group project where I compare all of the previously reviwed four news sites to the last two which include CNN and The Huffington Post and their use of new media technology. I found that most of the sites were pretty good at the most basic use of new media technology. Most of the six sites were able to adapt and get used to the demand of the use just as well as any other. The basis for my judgement is simply the fact that navigating thru various pages, my experience was ultimately very similar in all six cases, the differences only being in my ability to find links, in which case, the obstacles lie in the amount of adverstisement or the design of a certain page making it rather difficult in some cases. Ultimately, that would be my recommendation, is making the site easier to navigate via better design or simpler navigation tools. Overall, if I had to pick the best site out of the six, I would have to say that it would have to be CNN. It had less busy of a site in my opinion, although it may be a little biased. Not only did CNN provide easy to find live videos, but also podcasts as well as CNN radio. This was in my experience very different from previous websites that I have visited and compared.

Group Project Reflection #2

When comparing the two newspapers for the second part of my group project, I was assigned Orlando Sentinel and The Plain Dealer-Clevelend.
When comparing the two, the first thing that I had noticed was that Orlando Sentinel homepage took forever to load and it was much slower than The Plain Dealer, it was very frustrating, as I was doing this comparison on a library timed computer and the amount of time that it took for the page to load was absolutely ridiculous.
The Plain Dealer link first takes you two the page where you have to choose weather you want to get your news from “Clevelend.com” vs. “The Plain Dealer.com”. As you choose the one you want it automatically redirects you to that specific homepage.
The Plain Dealer page itself had various links available for the visitors, such as, subsriber category links, newsroom and advertising category links. The Plain Dealer homepage also interestingly offered the option of looking at various photos as well as the option of uploading ads, this was very different from the other newspapers in my experience.
In my personal experience The Plain Dealer was much easier to navigate overall than the Orlando Sentinel as well as providing additional services not encountered by me on any other site.

Digital Divide

For the discussion that I will be leading today on the digital divide  I looked up the article written by Amanda Lenhart called “The ever-shifting Internet population” which provides a new look at the Internet access and the idea of digital divide.

This article uses the report provided by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that provides research that is based primarily on a national telephone survey conducted amoung 3,553 Americans between March 1-31 and May 2-19, 2002.

The survey provides insights thru interviews with non-users and new Internet users and helps clarify and contrast the social demographic as well as other factors of non users vs. users of the Internet.

 

 

Youtube video links on digital divide:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcboST0evqE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6AQv2l6UsM&feature=related

 

Citation:

Lenhart, A. (2003). “The Ever-Shifting Internet Population, A New Look at Internet and the Digital Divide”. Pew Internet & American Life Project. Retrieved February 28, 2009, from Academic Search Complete.

Extending Wireless Connection to the World!

Today’s article “Wireless Revolution and Universal Access” discusses how the technology that was used in 2003 gives access to most remote areas on earth and how that has evolved since. It makes a great argument for bringing wireless access to the most remote areas of developing world. The data provided also shows that the cost of extending wireless connection to developing areas of the world isn’t that costly. This in turn would bring wireless connection including the efficiency that it provides to the remote areas of the world and it’s other apparent benefits of people being connected around the world. With the evolution of Internet these days, wireless connection should be available to everyone in the world without exception in my opinion. Considering the benefits of being connected and the low costs involved in order to establish that should make this task a priority on everyone’s list. Our only option is to do provide wireless access to everyone in the world, in order to avoid the so called “digital divide”. Extending wireless connection to remote parts of the world would definitely provide great benefits to the communities of the world. I agree that it may take some definite effort and costs, but regardless of the fact, the benefits far outweigh the negatives, if there are any at all? People of the world regardless of their residence should have the access to wireless connection and all of the benefits of being “CONNECTED” as well as training required in order to be able to make most use of being part of cyberspace and public sphere of the internet.

 Questions:

What are the benefits of extending wireless connection to the remote parts of the developing world?

What difficulties do you see us facing in extending wireless connection to the remote parts of the developing world?

Should mandatory training be provided to people free of cost when extending wireless connection to the remote parts of the world?

Digital Branding

The article “Digital Branding” by Akosua Albritton discusses brand strategy and its importance in the business world. The article discusses importance of advertising when it comes to products, as well as the role that the internet and commercials play in the world of advertisement

Author also discusses the importance of involvement of social media when it comes to business, such as the use of blogs, email and various search engines. I think that just like with any medium the importance of the business world keeping up with the constant progress and evolution of our society is great. In order to advertise and create an appeal for products and continue to be able to do that successfully the business world absolutely has to adjust to different aspects of growing use of technology by ways of adapting. This article on digital branding describes exactly that, the importance of business world adjusting and adapting to the new society, where people rely so greatly on the digital media.

The article by Phil Muncaster “How to Strengthen Customer Bonds” also reinforces the idea of businesses needing to strengthen their marketing by adjusting to the new world where our society relies so heavily on digital media. The author talks about how the importance of online marketing has increased significantly as well as how companies are finding the its important to find their customers not just how to appeal to them, by taking into account social networking. The article describes how businesses now are finding the importance and need of learning the new online tools in order to successfully reach their customers as well as strengthen bonds with their customers not to mention retain their clientele.

Both of these articles reflect the reality of the need to adapt to today’s progressive society where people do most of their shopping online for convenience purposes. We live in a busy world full of pools of ever growing options for the consumer with less and less time available to us. As the pool of options grows, so does the competitiveness of the market. In order to appeal to new customers and retain old ones in the business world, the businesses have to struggle just as much as us to adjust to the fast pace of our society. The problem seems to be that these business in order to stay successful have to stay a step ahead which is becoming harder and harder to do as the pool of options grows more vast.

Group Project Reflection #1

For my part of the group project I was assigned to review and analyze Houston Chronicle and The Courier-Journal.Both sites seemed to live up to today’s standard of communication and how they seem to share their information. Both sites seem to enable their users to share the information and stories as well as bookmark using tools such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Yahoo and etc.

Both sites also have the mainstream layout of advertisements and easy to locate headlines at the top of the page as most of them do.

What I found interesting with the Kentucky Courier Journal was how many different tabs of all different types were available. I don’t think I have ever seen that many that are that specific. This made searching for any topic much easier which I’m sure the users find extremely convenient.

With Houston Chronicle I found that they were using a list of tools a little different than the Courier-Journal when allowing users to share information, although some of them were still the same nonetheless fewer.

What I also noticed was that the Courier-Journal’s website seemed far much busier with advertisements than Houston Chronicle, yet it still seemed to be easier to navigate due to their very specific variety of tabs.

Overall, I found more similarities rather than differences with both of these newspaper sites, especially in the ways that they share information.

Politics Online!

 

Kathy Gill’s article “The Race of Websites 2004” was very interesting to read as it talks about the differences between the Bush and Kerry Administration websites for their campaigns in 2004.

The article describes the structure of the candidate’s websites, as well as organization, links, loading time and text formatting.

It is clear in the article that Kerry’s website is more user friendly than that of Bush.

Bush’s website seemed to focus on being interactive, which in the end only created clutter and more confusion for anyone visiting the site.

What I took away from this article are the most important aspects of making a user friendly website. As the article clearly pointed out the flaws in each one of the candidates websites, it was very obvious to see that the most important thing that was omitted in both was the “user-friendly” aspect of the sites.

It was also made clear from the article that older voter population would need a better and easier to use site because of their age and possible health conditions that should be taken into account. Where as younger voters would need a site that could download faster and keep their attention. I know me personally, if the site takes too long to download, I don’t waste my time waiting and just leave.

In the article on “Organization Man: Joe Trippi Reinvents Campaigning” Noem Scheiber discusses the usual low turnout for Democratic primaries that has recently increased due to the use of Internet and more access to information. What was accomplished by Dean’s campaign due to Internet was truly unbelievable.  Howard Dean’s website created somewhat of a community, a social network, where active participation was promoted among citizens. Thru his interactive website people were able to express their opinions about politics and it also proved beneficial to Dean’s fund raising.

It is clear that politicians in their campaigns have caught up to the importance of the Internet and how it helps disseminate useful information when it comes to campaigning.

The future struggle for candidates and their campaigns will be to make Internet as useful as possible by adjusting every possible thing to make their websites more “user- friendly” and convenient for their audience in order to capture as many individuals attention as possible.

 

Questions:

 

1. What do you think is the future of online politics?

 

2. How big of a role do you think the Internet played in the most recent presidential election?

 

3. How well do you think the websites reflect a presidential candidate and their stand on certain issues?