CNET

                                           Ryan Lucas

                                                                                                             CTEC101

                                                                                                                  Julio Appling

Hello everyone,

            For this weeks blog post I found an article written by a freelance reporter for cnet. Dara Kerr wrote her article on twitter's drive to increase the speed, and overall flexibility of their page. Twitter has claimed that they have significantly increased load time, and overall functionality of their site. According to Dan Webb this was accomplished by " taking back control of our front-end performance by moving the rendering to the server," Webb went on to state that "This has allowed us to drop our initial page load times to 1/5th of what they were previously and reduce differences in performance across browsers."  

            I found this article to be rather fascinating, as it shows how even social media giants are trying to keep pace with an ever changing technolgically driven World. It is almost as if all technology based corporations are striving to be the first of their kind to reach heights that no one before has achieved, and I for one believe that most, if not all of the advancements in Society come about by way of possible financial gain. This is all just a thought, or  maybe I'm just subscribing to a technology based conspiracy, or perhaps I'm reading into the article too much.

            The way that  I related this article to my experiences with social media outlets and other technology based companies was by loading my facebook page, or my e-mail, and always getting notices that there is something new, and faster which I must either subscribe to, or download in order for my experience to be immensely enjoyable. Nothing, absolutely nothing makes me angrier than logging into my e-mail, and having to contend with numerous pop-ups that won't let me immediately view my inbox.

            With twitter's faster, less restrictive site comes pain for the individual whom just wanted to log into their account. Once this individual has logged into their account they may, or may not need to download a newer version of JavaScript in order to stay up to date with the social media giant. This is the only way that subscribers will  enjoy all of the sites advancements. I wish sometimes that affluent individuals in Society would speak up to large corporations and say that we don't always need the latest and greatest technological advancement, but that we do need a break from the bombardment of  technological based advancements.      

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57443307-93/twitter-tweaks-service-to-be-faster-snappier/

 

Regards,

                 Ryan Lucas

Getting Started, Twitter

                                                                           Ryan Lucas

                                                                                                             CTEC101

                                                                                                                  Julio Appling

Twitter

           

            The blogger that I decided to compose my final project on is twitter. When I first registered for a twitter account I found that there was an enormous amount of helpful interactive guides which have detailed explanations of how to get started with the blogger. When I first registered I was asked several questions regarding information about me, and I was also offered a database from which I could choose others that I wanted to follow on twitter. The individual has several different ways to follow other individuals, the latest news, and celebrities.

            I was given the opportunity to select and array of my personal interests, and the interests that I choose would come up with a drop down menu of all of the people associated with that interest. For instance I enjoy basketball, so if I type in NBA the menu would come up with all of the different teams, and players surrounding the sport. From there the choices are narrowed down until one finds exactly who, or what they are looking for.

            Another key feature that was nice to have was the way that twitter allows the individual various ways to customize their blog page in order to make it unique. In settings one can choose from a predesignated theme for their page, or create a page from scratch by uploading an image. Twitter also allows the user to add links to their page. In the profile page one can add a pic to identify themselves, where in the World they are from , a link to a home page, and twitter also allows the user to compose a short biography, so that subscribers have an idea of who the person is, and what they are about.

            Once I was registered, I decided to explore the blogger, I clicked on the discover tab and a drop down menu appeared that had stories, activity, who to follow, find friends, and browse categories. I decided to try to figure out whom I should follow, and to my surprise I was offered a plethora of people whom I could choose to follow. I recall seeing profiles for documentary film makers, celebrity profiles, and various other individuals whom I had no real desire to follow. My favorite thing about twitter thus far has to be up to the date vital information surrounding world news, and other important events.

            Maybe, just maybe this skeptic was wrong in regards to blogging communities. I have come to find that there are many uses, and benefits for subscribing to a blogging community. I can communicate with family in other states, and countries, network with others, and follow all of the latest news, and events going on around the world. The other feature that I found to be very advantageous was the fact that I could link my twitter account to my face book account, and receive tweets on my face book page. My biggest argument towards why not to use social media networks at this point in time has to be that I have far to many user names, and passwords for various accounts that I have to remember.  

     https://twitter.com/#!/

 

Close Observation!

Blog Post #2 by Ryan Lucas - Thursday, May 24, 2012, 08:10 PM

Anyone on this site Hello everyone This is my second blog post, and as it appears I had some issues figuring out exactly what our teacher was looking for regarding these posts. Now that I have everything figured out I decided to dedicate this weeks post to paying close attention to how others interact via twitter. I decided that I wanted to pay close attention to the substance of others blogs. I wanted to take a close look at whether individuals whom use twitter are discussing real world issues,or if various bloggers are just writing about new trends in fashion. What I observed was that the various blogs that I follow on twitter were writing about relationship problems, or other various issues that they are dealing with in life. I do however subscribe to various news blogs, and that for me has proved to be very useful. On the New York Times blog that I subscribe to I receive up to the date news that I could not review via traditional media outlets. I also noticed that most, if not all of the individuals that I follow on twitter use acronyms when posting. For me it has proved to be very difficult to figure out what those that I follow are writing about, as I haven't mastered decrypting social media slang yet. I also found that twitter for most has become a way of expressing various views without being judged. At first I felt that registering for a blog would be a complete waste of time, not only for me, but also for all of my classmates. But I have come to find that social media sites such as twitter contain meaningful conversations, it's just that subscribers have to really dig to find meaningful blog's. Another observation that I ran into quit often was elected officials whom use twitter as a way to build support. One incident of this occurred when I decided to follow Barrack Obama's blog. Here is a a little glimpse of three of Obama's blog posting's. RT @OFA_IA: "Hello Iowa!" - @barackobama taking the stage at #obamadsm RT @OFA_IA: And people keep on coming in! Iowa sure is #FiredUp for #obamadsm. http://instagr.am/p/LBwxd9HMIf/ Rain couldn't stop these supporters from seeing @barackobama! #obamadsm Notice how with presidential elections coming up in one hundred and sixty-five days candidates are really starting to "press the flesh," and try to win some votes. Regards, Ryan Lucas

Exploroo

Exploroo


I typed social networking sites into a Google search
One of the first 3 hits was a list of active social networking sites
I wonder if you can guess who generated the list?
Did you guess Wikipedia?
You were right! 10points for you!
They have a very complete list of active sites
The detail is fabulous
Ok enough about the Wikipedia list


Exploroo is a great site
I like this site
Its designed to connect people who have interest in travel
On their home page you will find this statement
I couldn't say it better:
Travel and explore, meet friends and share experiences with a one-stop social networking community,
connecting users to post blogs, articles, videos, and events, book hotels or tours, get travel advice or
simply submit your favourite travel photos. Discuss with travelers or travel agents your wants and
 needs and discover different countries to visit around the globe!

There are bloggs, and fourms
You can upload travel pics and videos
One of the cool things about Exploroo are the events available to members
There are a wide variety of events to choose from
There is something for every kind of lifestyle 
Have a look at this event below
 http://www.exploroo.com/

Adventure Sports In India

Time: 01 Jul 2011 09:00 am to 01 Aug 2011 06:00 pm
Venue: Jodhpur, Neemrana & Kikar Lodge., delhi, India
Added on Apr 30, 2012 and last updated on Apr 30, 2012
Category Sports & Outdoors Posted by Brown Smith Comments (0)

Flying Fox operates an awesome adventure travel in India. ...

 

 

Here is a link to the site

Happy Exploring on Exploroo,
Vikki

Hacktivists on IRC! - Chris Lauer

Article: The Hindu - Anonymous expects centre to withdraw internet curbs

 

Background Info: Anonymous is a group of unknown individuals that are all connected through the use of forums, sites, and various other networks. They are fighting against internet censorship by various governments, the main one being the Indian government, where majority of the users are located. They have received a lot of media attention after their largest internet attack happened in retaliation for the Department of Justice shutting down megaupload.com.  

In an article published in The Hindu on May 30, 2012 an interview was conducted among members of Anonymous via IRC. Here they answered questions about their group. One question grabbed my attention right off the bat.

 “Question: How many members are there in Anonymous?”

Their response was very well thought out … they had replied with something along the lines that if they tracked the number of members they currently have that they wouldn’t really be anonymous anymore as they are being tracked.

Overall this type of use of IRC has brought me to discover new unforeseeable futures. It has shown me that IRC is not just meant for talking with friends and family, or even a business partner, but that IRC can be used as a media center as well. As the article I have mentioned in the begging you can even Interview multiple people from different regions all at the same time without having to have two phone lines open or email someone every 3 hours. Using IRC it has become much easier to gather info as The Hindu has done with the interview above.

One nice feature with IRC is that it can even be used to relay information to multiple people almost instantaneously.  An example of this is when Anonymous decided to rally in India on the 9^th of June against censorship, but they have also coordinated various other places to rally for those abroad. While they may have a back record for bringing down some of the US authorities websites they do conduct peaceful rallies such as the on mentioned above on June 9^th.

I can see IRC helping me in the future.  If enough people in my region or even if they are not in my region, I can still make people aware of topics that I think are important just how Anonymous has done with Censorship.

Not only can IRC help me but it can also help groups of people to get information from people faster than calling everyone one-by-one

In A World Where

While I scanned the websites you gave us to find a news article, I came across one news article on npr.org that really caught my attention. It caught my attention because what happened in the article seems to be happening a lot lately.

The article I chose was about a 13 year old boy named Jake Fousheee who miraculously hit and kicked puberty in the ass, all in one day. He said that “I woke up the next day and my voice went from way up here… to how it is now”. You all may be wondering what is so special about a kid who hit puberty early. Well at 13 his voice sounds like Don LaFontaine’s voice, who some of you may have heard before, but don’t know who he is. Well Lafontaine is the voice at the beginning of all the movie trailers that does the saying “in a world where”.

Jake noticed his talent very early and asked his friends to help him come up with some lines for movies and he would then go write the scripts out and practice them. Well, he did a very good impersonation of the voice of the apocalypse trailer and posted the video on YouTube. In the video, he said he wanted to become a voice actor just like Don Lafontaine, little did he know his video would go viral and it would pay off for him. He began to get media coverage from Good Morning America and Ellen DeGeneres. Ellen later had him on her show called the Ellen DeGeneres show and all of a sudden Jake’s dream came true, Ellen contacted Abrams Artists Agency and told them about Jake, and well, they said they would like to officially sign him, as a voice actor.

I found this article interesting because this seems to be the way talent is being discovered anymore. Many people post videos on YouTube of themselves singing, dancing, doing acting scripts, or just talents they have, all hoping for what Jake just got. Getting noticed for this kind of stuff has become easier because of America having so much opportunities like America’s got Talent, So you Think you Can Dance, or even American Idol, where regular people like you or me can go to show off our talents and abilities to the world and get recognized.

This doesn’t relate to any personal experience of mine since I’ve never posted a video on YouTube, but in the future it might, who knows I might have a talent or skill someone is looking for and get lucky like Jake did. This article got me thinking though of how later on in the years it will probably be hard for people to get into the entertainment business. The Army is a perfect example of this, they will take everyone who can pass the mental and physical aspects, but as soon as they get to many soldiers they are going to get rid of the weaker ones and getting into the Army has already become harder and people are already getting discharged. So in the end, I think getting overnight fame will deplete or become way harder because so many have already done it, and we will just have too many singers, dancers, and actors, then we know what to do with.

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/26/153707815/in-a-world-where-one-teens-voice-is-an-internet-hit

Who wants to be part of the craze?

The news story I found talks about how Foursquare wants to be popular like other social networks, but not fall short when it comes to being profitable like the others.

How does the CEO, Dennis Crowley, plan to make this social site a place to frequent and stay profitable? He plans to incorporate coupons to entice users, individualize search tabs/engines based on people’s habits, along with a redesign of the original Foursquare app.

Although there are individuals that can’t stand all the Foursquare check-ins, Crowley shrugs of the haters and hopes that with offering these promotions for users that check-in starting in July, the social site will generate more revenue, be able to compete with its competition (Groupon, Facebook, and Yelp), and gain more users by “warming up” to the notion of location sharing (WSJ).

The CEO states that meeting with merchants that are frequented most often and also those that used to see many check-ins at their establishment and have seen a decline seems to be going well. They discuss what has been working for them, what hasn’t, and what maybe they haven’t thought of to get new and old customers to come back. Right now there are many strategizing meet and great sessions going on to figure out what works to maintain customers and pump up this social network to be able to compete with the rest of the big dogs.

As Crowley points out, not only is Foursquare looking to grow its user base, but also sees that in order to do that and stay current/popular, it must also expand its business and what it can offer the consumer. Which he feels is a win, win for everyone involved.

I thought this article was interesting because I am on the fence about Foursquare. It is fun to check-in and see what people are doing, but I can see that plus people’s personal lives unfold all in one on Facebook. I forget easily about Foursquare and tend to not check-in or use it. Knowing that there may be other reasons for me to use this social site such as directing me to my favorite spots when I am out of town or saving money with special promotions, it will make me want to use it more. Instead of feeling like it is just a game and a check-in on my friends, it will help a single mom/college student, like myself, to save money and time! Both something I cherish….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303630404577392393241695440.html

#FollowFriday on NPR.org

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/05/25/153691075/-followfriday-a-tiny-shred-of-political-authenticity 

I found the article “#FollowFriday: A Tiny Shred Of Political Authenticity” by Andrea Seabrook on the National Public Radio website. NPR does a weekly article about Twitter they call #FollowFriday and this story was from last Friday, May 25. The rather short story is about politicians actually posting tweets on their Twitter accounts, not just letting an intern do it for them.

Seabrook states that because she is so frustrated by this she would like to list a few political figures that do in fact tweet themselves on their Twitter accounts. The list includes Rep. Steve Isreal, Rep. Thad McCotter, Rep. Sean Duffy, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Rep. Rush Holt. Seabrook also states that Twitter is not the place for political figures to pretend to tweet.

I think this relates to my final project because most of those I follow on Twitter are politicians, actors, comedians or other famous people because I don’t have a lot of friends that participate on Twitter. I, being the completely trusting and unsuspecting person I am, thought that most people, famous or otherwise, would like to make their own tweets not force it upon others. Apparently I am too trusting.

This article helped to show me that I must be subjective when studying what famous people tweet. I figured some people allowed others to tweet for them but did not realize that it was such a great number or a big enough problem for NPR journalists to write about.

This also relates to my final because Seabrook mentioned that this behavior is not what Twitter is about. I have been having a hard time understanding what the rules of etiquette are on Twitter. Most people post anything they can think about on Facebook but I don’t think it is necessarily okay to do so on Twitter. Twitter feels like it has a stricter set of rules for socially acceptable tweets and it became rather apparent to me through this article.

This article also calls into account how genuine people are being. A large part of my project is in relating Twitter to Facebook because Facebook is what I understand while Twitter I do not. I have found from personal experience that people are rather lax about Facebook content. One does not get called out for posting a lie or having someone else post for them. On the other hand it appears that on Twitter one would be. This article has been a great aid in furthering my understanding about the dynamic relationship between Twitter users and their followers.

Social Communities Are Changing Online Interaction

With Second Life being out of touch with news media, I looked for an article which may fit with the Social Life social community.  The article I read came from Forbes entitled "How Social Communities Are Changing Online Interaction."  It discussed the differences between social communities, and social networks.

In social networks, they are filled with security or privacy issues.  Instead of having to deal with these issues, online social communities do the opposite. They are set to enable strangers to connect, share, and even collaborate without needing to put personal information out there for others to put personal information out there for others to see.

Social communities don't ask you to share personal information about yourself, unless of course the community is of an interest to you.  For instance, I have a deep love for ceramics, and making pottery.  With my interests I may look for a social community that shares the same love for pottery that I have, and within this community I may decide to share more personal information about myself, but that choice is up to me not the community.

Having less information needed in the social communities opens up lines of communication more easily. Strangers are encouraged to interact with others, and have no reason to fear that bullying, abuse, or being stalked like one may need to be concerned with on a social network.

Social networks on the other hand require a lot more information.  Facebook for an example (only because I am familiar with it), when creating an account asks you for your email, birthdate, high school you attended, age, marital status, and even more information than I listed.  Unlike a social community it is much easier to find a certain person on a social network, along with that personal information the gave when creating their account.

Social communities have unlimited features available.  Businesses can use social communities (like Second Life) to created virtual items and sell those items for real money, or use the community to advertise for their business.

This article grabbed my attention, and interested me with it's examination between both social communities and social networks. Before our final project, and this assignment I had never really questioned the difference between the two. Honestly I thought they were the almost the same on privacy policies.

The article suggests, "maybe finding your inner entrepreneur." The idea of creating a social community for interests which I have also brought interest to me.  As mentioned earlier in the blog my interests are in ceramics, and the idea of creating a social community for people with the same interests as me inspired me greatly.  Creating a community for local potter's to gather and share techniques, ideas for different ways to fire the pieces of art, etc., is very inspiring at least to me.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2010/03/21/how-social-communities-are-changing-online-interaction/

Scanning Spotted Owls!

I found an article on fox47news.com by Stephanie Miller, written on May 24th, 2012, in which she was reviewing the MyFitnesspal app for her new iPhone 4S. She had recently switched from an Android, which also has a MyFitnesspal app available.

The writer compared MyFitnesspal to a web based site she previously used to track calories and exercise called The Daily Plate. She raved about MFP and the mobile accessibility.

And What Does This Have To Do With Spotted Owls - You Might Be Wondering ~

According to the author of this article, she not only likes the ease of counting calories on-the-go, but she also likes the bar code scanning capabilities because she can now scan the calorie content of her favorite coffee drink, which is called the Biggby Reduced Calorie Spotted Owl.

Mobile Fitness!

Personally, I have not felt compelled to download the Android app to my phone as I'm not quite as serious about counting calories as some other die hard MyFitnesspal types. I did come accross several outdated articles about the launch of the MFP app for Android, which apparently occurred in 2010. I also learned that MFP claimed to have more than 1 million members at the time of the Android application launch.

I'd be curious to know how much the membership has grown since the launch of the smartphone applications. I would suspect there are many more users of MyFitnesspal since going mobile because you can now monitor your daily calorie intake and activity on-the-go.

Blogs on MyFitnesspal:

I recently explored and read some of the Blogs on MyFitnesspal. I noticed that people are not afraid to "tell all" in the Blogs and apparently the rules aren't enforced for Blogs like they are in the community posts and chats. People went into great detail about their personal lives, including a story about binging and a rape. Another story was full of "bleeped out" profanity. I was shocked that people would publish such details about their lives for strangers to read and they included full color photos. A little discretion might be in order.

Spotted Owl To Go. . .



Tina Hastings

Pinterest Doppelgangers Develop

          

I found an article on the Web from the Boston Herald.

 

            Since the invention and phenomenon of Pinterest we are now seeing a vast amount of copy cats. Lots of websites now want to imitate Pinterest's web design utilizing the “flat wall of tiled images, which “de-emphasizes text and focuses on photos”.  Pinterest has started a trend, and it appears that the websites implementing this format are doing well with it. However, some sites are simply changing their format solely for the purpose of trying to be as cool as pinterest and weren’t really having web design problems. Some websites that have copycatted Pinterest are Boston-based Springpad, All Women Stalk, Gentlemint for men, Sworly.com, Thinng.com and Chill.com. Lady Gaga even has a beta for a new social network site; it’s intended to be called little monsters it’s only in testing as of right now. The article refers to this situation as "Pinspiration". 

I decided to take a look at each of the doppelgangers mentioned; I wasn’t impressed with All Women Stalk, or thinning.com. Lady Gaga's isn’t out yet so I couldn’t judge that one. However, I liked the Gentlemint website because it still had its own niche, it’s geared toward men. I loved the Sworly.com webpage they did apply Pinterest formatting concept, but there site is still much different than Pinterest. Sworly.com is a music site where you can “discover, listen, and share music. Chill.com is a bit of a mixture of Pinterest and Sworly as far as its layout goes. Chill is videos just like Sworly, but it’s not music it consists of various YouTube videos. All Women Stalk and Thinning to me were almost exact replicas of Pinterest at least a first, maybe second and third glance. 

Here is a screen shot of Sworly.com one of the sites the article considers a doppelganger of Pinterest. 

After reading this article, it’s clear that Pinterest is on to something with its concept, not only do many people follow pinterest but many businesses mimic pinterest as well. In the article a Mike Schneider states “Pinterest has made the Web a lot more beautiful,” and remarkably it has, I know I’d rather browse Pinterest and those like it than a web page with a bunch of text, how about you?  In fact since I started this blog I find myself on Pinterest entirely too much. I’d go as far as saying its addicting. If you haven’t joined Pinterest try it out, but I’d suggest waiting until schools out for the summer. 

 To view the article click this link: Pinterest Shapes Web Design Wave

See you next time,

Danielle Swanson