Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Case for Piracy/Pirate Intervention

Despite the fight against piracy, many people still indulge in the very disheartening acts. This  has  been  seen  as a  benefit  for many  users  but a  disadvantage  for  creators. It has been determined by the government that downloading content that should be paid for, although, it's not illegal but those who upload the content are  to  be  blamed  because  they  are  indulging  it  piracy, putting up  what  other  people  have  worked  for.
   However, Matt Mason, author  of  "The pirate of  Dilemma" refers a pirate as a  person  who copies other  people's contents and puts  it  up  on  the  web for  the  public  consumption, they are  the  smartest  thinker. pirates  are  not  only submitting  contents online for the benefit of those who can not afford to purchase a Cd, they are also pirating medications, electronics e.t.c. That's why people no longer worry if they can't get the original version of the product, simply because they know they can always go for the pirated copy.
   Matt mason believes piracy is not a bad idea because, it's an advantage on the part of those who can not afford a Cd. It  is  clear  that  piracy  has  made  thorns of  unlimited  content  a possibility  which  has  helped  the  society. 

Competing Myths of the Web 2.0 Brand

The marketing ideology  and myths  of  web by Trebor Scholz  are divided into eight  parts.  The  first  part  which  is  the  shifting  of  web  2.0. H e talked about  how  web  2.0  came  into existence.  Tim Reilly distinguished  between the  web  1.0  and  2.0  by  associating  it  with  the "new participatory  architectures  of  the  web.
  The second  part  which  is  the  new newness of  technologies,  he  also talks  about  how  the  web  has  been  in  existence  but  knowing  that  newness  sells the technological  world  hence  the  introduction  of  the  web  2.0.  The  third  part  which  is  the  wikis  and  user-submitted  content,  talks  about  how Ward Cunningham  developed wiki-wiki web.  This  has  in  turn  increased  the  social  life  online  and  the  user  interface  is  more  user  friendly.  The  rest  of  the  article  talks  more  about  the  social  networking  sites, RSS, CSS and blogging. RSS helps  you to  subscribe  to  web  pages and  receive  updates, CSS which  is  the cascading  style  sheets  were  developed  as  a  means  for  creating  a  consistent  approach  to  providing  information  for  web  documents.
  However, the  article  goes  on  to  talk  about  pod-casting  and  folksonomies. Folksonomies  is  a  method  of  collaboratively  creating  and  managing  keywords  to  anotate  and  categorize  content. The  penultimate  and  final  part  of  the  article  is  the  web  2.0  ideology,  the  power  of  naming,  and  the  imagination  of  the  future  of  the  web. These  goes  to  talk  about  and  the  future  of  the  technological  market. 

The Death of the Web or Open Source Future?

The web is dead. The websites are alive. Torrents, Podcasts, Facebook, etcetera are alive. Will you search THE website or A website? The subtle difference is the intention; Getting means having an objective. Exploring (Searching) means freedom. Getting can be controlled, can be induced, can be conditioned to yourself. The extasis of finding without really looking for it; Searching what you don’t know yet, the fulfilling pleasure of sailing the Web is long lost. StumbleUpon.com is profiting from this death.

The transferred bits, has nothing to do with the Web, except for the technological sense; The web is the free space, existing inside the internet protocols. Everyone can be part of the Web. Everyone can open notepad, code as he will, and open up the services in his own computer, but there’s no Web (There IS the Web, but it’s dead. ¿You got the point?).
That web site exist, and its part of the web, but the web is dead in the sense that nobody is IN the web anymore. There’s no sailer in the ocean of the Web, but surfers in the seas of blogs, social networks; the sea of the gadget. Your notepad site exists in a death ocean. The new boats, the new spaces are those hard-coded, hard-limited not in a technological sense; Facebook, Twitter, Ipad, RSS’s, Etcetera. “You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web”. New spaces are grown; Social media networks, Music networks, Facebook, Blogs, Apps, Gadgets, but the web as some knew it, is dead. It doesn’t implies the new spaces are worse.

“It makes no sense to put the Web in the fight against particular apps.” ¿Who’s putting the Web in the fight against particular apps? Let that fight for the capitalists; Without them and their struggles, there would be no change nor progress in a technological sense “And contrary to the post in which it says that Apple and Google are killing it. In reality, they are building it.”


Apple and Google are building OVER it, thus killing it. The Web will always exist, buried under Apple’s and Google’s backyard. I understand your point, but the whole point of the article isn’t contradicted by your argument. It’s not about the internet, it’s not about the control of the technology, but with the Web itself.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Changing Notions of Labour: From Participation to Exploitation

LOSER GENERATED CONTENT: From Participation to Exploitation

Given  that  everything  that has an  advantage  almost always has a corresponding disadvantage, this  article written  by  Søren  Mørk  Petersen  focused  on  examining  the  pros  and   cons  of  the internet. A random photo which was taken by a camera phone was used as an example to illustrate this and it indeed was amazing, just how much  significance a single photo could have. People’s  creative  potential  is  triggered  by  technological platforms, and this enables them  to  take part in the designing of software and share their own content.

  • Web  2.0 is  a  software  with  web  applications  that  allows  participatory  information sharing,  user  design and collaboration using the world-wide web. This site allows interaction between users in a social media dialogue unlike other websites where users are limited to passive viewing of contents that was created for them. Examples of the Web 2.0 sites are social networking sites, blogs, Usenet (user-generated content).



  • These sites have great advantages in the sense that  lots  of  informations can be gained and shared between parties. This advantage could also be a disadvantage because it could lead to the use  of  other  people's  ideas  without  giving  them credit; since there is the absence of infringement  and  copyright  rules  on  most of  these  open  websites.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Search 2.0: Privacy Undone, Surveillance Reconsidered

The peep culture depicts what's going on in our society now most especially Facebook and twitter. Many people want to be noticed, people crave for attention. Surveillance is associated with spying and privacy innovations.
  However, by providing information, photos, videos, etc., many users (on social networking sites especially) reveal an exhibitionist attitude. Many users take pleasure in having their profiles looked at. Why else would so many people continue to update their profiles, if not for the purpose of keeping others interested? Take, for example, the update of one's profile picture on Facebook. For some users, this update is a constant ordeal. I find that the main reason people change their profile picture so often is to get attention. Once other people have stopped commenting or "liking" the picture, it must be time for a change, so as to get attention on their wall for the new photo (really weired).Social networking is a great way of getting connected with family and friends but still face the privacy issue.

EXHIBITIONISM
 This refers to the love of people being looked at by others on the web. On social networking sites (most especially facebook), people post photos together with so much informations with the purpose of being seen by others. I believe this sets of individuals loves being looked at by others, sometimes i say to myself that "There is more to life than facebook". Many people want to be part of  social community.
In other words, if people do not post too much of their informations online for the whole world to see, there would be nothing to spy on.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

WEB 2.O

The online Webopedia describes Web 2.0 has the term used to describe the current generation of the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 primarily focuses on the ability for users from all over the world to collaboratively and interactively share information online. Web 2.0 moves the online community away from the utilization of static, basic HTML pages and encourages the use of modern community driven web applications such as blogs, forums and wikis to provide users with the information they wish to consume or create. Simply put, Web 2.0 is the introduction of an interactive and dynamic element into the once stagnant HTML only web pages with a strong reliance on human collaboration for the creation of Social Media to be consumed by other humans. 
Web 2.0 allows the user to provide user created or enhanced content for others people to use. Popular encyclopedia website Wikipedia is a prime example of this; once an article is created, anyone from around the world with knowledge of the topics discussed within the article is free to edit the article. Popular Social Networking website Twitter is another example of Web 2.0’s community driven information process. Various users can share or “tweet” all forms of information with each other that can potentially be helpful to other users online. Web 2.0 has created a new form of communication, making those who utilize information not only consumers, but potential creators as well. 
Although Web 2.0 is often seen as a buzzword, there is clear indication that the way we use the internet has evolved over time. Users now have more freedom to create and collaborate on websites to bring about more diverse and useful content.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Technological Determinism, Social Construction/Shaping of Technology

                          Internet,a global network connecting millions of computers. The internet has it's advantages and disadvantages. Some people believe the internet is the most dangerous weapon ever created because it is a place where all identities can be stolen, homes are invaded, a place for mankind to exercise it's darkest desires,an open market where you can purchase anything you want. The internet is taking us to a place where everything we do is watched,monitored and processed without our consent.
                           Whereas, there are people who believe that the internet is a good thing, the most education tool the world has ever known, the only place freedom of speech exists. Shortly after the internet became popular in the states, two movies films were released (you've got mail or The net) which serve as cultural referent for understanding online romance and theft (pg23). According to (Sturken & Thomas,2004) there was an urban legend about "sympathetic needles" which allowed people to communicate across distance in the sixteenth century.
                                We all use the internet for different purposes such as : business and a wide range of people use it for social networking sites ( facebook,twitter,myspace e.t.c). we all love the internet even though it's the most dangerous weapon ever created.