'Why Things Matter: Amainfesto for networked objects’

Initially when I was reading this article, I did not really understand what was the author talking about until towards the ending of the ending of the article is when I could actually understand what if the whole article about what the author was trying to say and what is “Blogject.”

The Blogjeck evolution which most likely is what would happen in the future; “once plugged into the internet, will become agents that circulate food for thought, that “speak on” matters from an altogether different point of view, that lend a Thingy-y perspective on macro and marco social, culture, political and personal matters.”

The above statement says it all what one should know, with the help of the internet, things are becoming more like human beings, able to do things and even communicate back (respond) to us. No doubt it would be a great achievement in the Internet industry as a form of expending their service and also being able to deliver to what we potentially look for in the future of our expectations.

However, is this really a good evolution to mankind? From my point of view, we will become less of what we really are; human beings.

Apart from that, if everything uses the internet in the future, there is a high possibility that the internet ecosystem will crash sooner or later due to the amount of people using internet and also from every different function of our everyday life.

‘Google’s Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web’

I personally found this case study an interesting read, the article starts off by explaining what Android and Google could and could not do. Eventually leading the readers to July 2005 when Google bought Android. Android concentrated on their software and Applications with the help of Google.

Upon buying Android, Google took this advantage to expend their software and build more cool programs to mobile internet that would be able to draw huge numbers of users. Google’s strategy was to ‘Just get something out there so we can put our services on top.’

With the amount of applications and programs Android has, it is no longer a mobile phone but a computer, perhaps a smaller and more mobile computer with the same functions. Android’s philosophy is ‘being a free, open source of mobile platform’. While reading this case study, I realized that Android stuck closely to their philosophy which is probably one of the reasons they became so successful.

The difference between Apple and Android

Apple

·         Closed device

·         Complete control over content and user

·         Walled garden of apps

Android

·         Open and free platform

·         Open garden of apps

·         No control over platform, content, user

·         300,000 activations per day

Personally, I feel that Google made a brilliant choice to buy Android and use it as a product to expend their service to existing Google users. So now even when users are not on their desktop/laptop they still can access Google through their mobile phones.

The main thing I learned in this subject, Global Network is that right now the Internet rules the world or varies reasons. With that said, with Google’s and Android’s masterpiece they have took up a totally different concept from Apple and is able to do so well.

Apple and Google are both well established companies with both having different brilliant ideas on how to rule the world with their product. However, from my point of view, I would say given a chance to choose. I would definitely choose Android as compared to Apple. Reason being I have more authority over my own phone being able to do what I want with it. Also I think that Apple I more of a “cool” phone for a more attention seeking users proud of carrying an Apple cause of its brand and “coolness.”

This article indirectly thought me that it is important to know your strength and use it as your advantage!

'Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go’

Facebook and twitter is regarded as a social network; people to communicate, connect and reconnect with people you don’t really know, share opinions. However, due to the recent crisis in the Middle East and North Africa Facebook and twitter became the major key/tool in organizing revolution parties.

Where the masses had no freedom of speech and were oppress by bad leadership. Has helped people to voice out their feelings and views even though most of them were never revolutionaries.

In previous years, technology has been used to organize revolution, for example the telegram used in 1917, Bolshevik revolution also the role of the tape-recorded in 1979 the Iranian revolution and fax machine is 1989 revolution, etc. Technology has always been key ever since it was created.

As opposed to back in the days when, people rise up against their kings and if they are defeated they then to hire assassins which was mostly used as a form of revolution. For example, Adam Hitler who had a lot of attempted assassinations in his life.

Because of how vast the internet is, tools like Twitter and Facebook were the major tools used to enlighten the world on the oppression that was going on in these countries and they were able to get more support from different people. That is to say, the internet can be an effective tool for political change. For example, in September 2010; Google was able to pick up the blogs and views from all this regions to the freedom of expression conference the company converted in Budapast, to make it accessible to everyone in the world, to listen to their crist and plead.

From reading this article and carefully observing the past and current form of revolution, I strongly agree with what the author says in the article. The internet can be used for a lot of media publicity and political issues; for example revolution, elections and so on. Without the internet everything would have been slow and halted. Preventing the world knowing what was actually going on.

The internet is a very fast and powerful tool whereby when an article is being blogged about; a split of seconds is being viewed by many which gave the revolunaries more strength and powers to take down their oppressors

‘No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency’

Due to internet meanwhile being explored, people are always anxious to get stories of latest happenings from people and that’s probably why people are stuck on the internet; to get updated.

A specific tall, young Australian man with white hair decided to open up a side called WikiLeaks, which gave the public more insight on stories that are secrets to most counties including US top secrets.

(Julian Assange also apperead in the cover mage of TIME magazines 100 most influencial people)

One of the most victims of this website is the story in Iraq which made wikiLeaks so popular. This story took place in 2007 where brutal killings of innocent civilient people were killed by American soldiers.

This video shows …………

The story became the topic of discussion, as the world got the real story behind the whole incident with video evidence and that became WikiLeak’s breakthrough. They were able to get the attention of the masses from all over and there they begin to expose more stories about countries who were involved in money lauders and gene-side.

-          The country that was mostly hurt was America

-          They hacked in the American embersy in different places and get vital secrets. Graph

-          The countries that were mostly discussed

Week 8: How twitter has changed the way we live.

The title of this article already describes what this article is about. The author first describes how it is a terrible first impression in his opinion due to the tools or features provided by twitter. Followed by the next point the author points out, which is “ambient awareness” which are users twitting about mundane things online to their extended followers which gives followers a sense of satisfaction feeling they are somewhat closer to that person as they know what that person does daily or feels daily.

The author then mentions that, the most fascinating is “not what Twitter does to us, but what we do to Twitter.” Although I strongly agree in certain context of what people do to the media instead of what the media does to people. However here, I disagree. In my personal opinion, Twitter is designed in a manner that limits you in a couple of sentences at most due to the fear of attention span. With these restrictions, there is not much as to what the users can do with Twitter, am I right?

An in this new culture of attention getting users, of cause this medium will be used as another way to gain more attention from blog’s, Friedster, Facebook and so on. However must say that, Facebook is slowly becoming like Twitter whereby users constantly update their status with limited sentences.

In my opinion, Twitter is a good invention next to Facebook, the reason I say this is because the creators of these sites have been able to understand their target audience so well to the point they predicted how we would react, what we would use it for and how. 

(The statistic shows the increase of users from 2007 to 2009 in Twitter)

From Facebook, we have come to notice that our culture today are becoming more of an attention seeker or perhaps suffering from narcissistic behavior. The creator of Twitter was obviously well aware of this and created something which would be another platform to “feed” to our satisfaction.

Creators. In free culture: How big media users Technology and the law to lock Down culture strangle creativity

This article mainly talks about creativity and copyright, being creative with something but at the sometime not stealing other people’s ideas/ concepts without giving credit to the creator/inventor (copyright).

Copyright acts restricting the stretch of imagination and creation as it limits people to what they can do with its laws. Is this a good or bad thing? Different people would have different opinions on this. For me, everything invented today somehow came from links of different ideas from different people put together to form the masterpiece. With that said, it is still essential to give credit to the original creators before one uses that same idea and expends it.

                     

The article touches on how Mickey Mouse expended using different ideas from different people and putting it together to build his own version of masterpiece. First, Disney took the idea of introducing synchronized sound by The Jazz Singer.

Next, Disney expended its creativity by bringing in animation; using synchronized cartoons with the inspiration of Bustler Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr which is none other than synchronized comic! Here one would be able to clearly see the expend of Disney from cartoons to comic but somehow still using the same main idea which is Mickey Mouse using different media with different tools.

Similarly to the above example, today we have many different social media such as Friendster, Facebook and even Twitter using the same concept but made from different companies with slightly different features to distinguish them-selves. But if you look closely, the main idea is still the same; to connect and reconnect with people.

My take on this is, it is only natural for us to use different ideas from different people and put it together with our own idea to create something better. Just like Facebook versus Twitter. However, with all said and done, the right thing to do is obviously to give credit to the original creator.

The Long Tail

This article clearly shows or proves to me that, advertising and marketing determines what the public show demand as wants or needs. If not in all aspects, at least for movies, songs, books and so on. This is said because, the main concern in the end of the day, the industry is to gain profit which is MONEY not profit in terms of what society might actually really like apart from the mainstream. 

This article clearly explains that the mainstream is just a tactic done by marketers to like something which they predict or ASSUME that majority of people would love/like based on the industry wants us to like. There is a section in the article whereby it mentions that poor taste songs are strongly marketed and due to that loved by the public as compared to an actual good song is not marketed in the industry because the fear that the public might not like it.

     


  




Lady Gaga                                                                                                   Feist

(Example of Lady Gaga who sings mainstream songs compared to Feist who sings indie pop)

Apart from assumptions, the industry also focuses on hits rather than sales; so-called hits that are determined by the industry itself. This shows that products which may not be in the mainstream does not even have a chance to sell and become a hit! As only “hits deserve to exist,” similar to how only technology is the only source ignored by the market, which evaluates tracks on their own merit; variety apart from the mainstream.

I personally feel this is true, as during my parents time, songs actually had meaning; good lyrics and beats whereby the song actually made sense. However today, singers like Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, and many more who can’t sing and don’t even know the basic things about music are the most successful and known singer around the WORLD. What does this tell you? Are the standards in the industry dropping? Or are they just greedy for profit?

With the availability of long tail, the technology definitely provides a vast variety to the public that book stores, music stores or the movie theater can’t. In the net, clearly demonstrates the demand and supply at any point of time.

 As technology has its benefits of providing everything to everyone at any point of time and probably even at a cheaper cost, but people will slowly lose the real meaning of appreciating or cherishing something mentioned in this article. What concerns me are, assuming today people or fans has lost the real meaning or feeling of having something they like in a physical and original form.

                  

(Metallica album versus downloading songs online)

What would happen in the near future due to technology and people in the industry only greedy for cash as profit? The disadvantages are slowly starting to show and it’s only a matter of time before it catches up and overtakes!