Thursday, March 5, 2009

Twitter and Politicians

Truthfully, I never heard of Twitter until it was brought up in lecture, and I was surprised that a site that provided small updates that answer” What are you doing?” was becoming so popular. It wasn’t until recently that I came across a couple of articles which stated that politicians were starting to Twitter for various reasons.

In Politicians using Twitter in growing numbers, Twitter was mentioned as a networking tool that is growing exponentially in popularity. In fact, even McCain, who had previously been mocked for being computer-illiterate, now creates multiple Twitter messages a day (politicians and congressmen boast thousands of followers). This caught my eye because as an economics major, it was especially interesting how the rest of the nation could follow issues such as the bank bailout and the stimulus debate through following Twitter updates that members of Congress post on a Web site or on their cell phones.

In addition, this would help politicians connect directly with the constituents. It’s fascinating how short, instantly transmitted messages that don’t even exceed 140 characters can appeal to the public so much. But as stated in the article, I agree that people are attracted to Twitter posts because they provide “a real glimpse of (my) life and job”.


Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Facebook Groups.. for your FAMILY o.o

When i was on facebook earlier i got an ad on my ad bar that said something about making groups for your family, and so i clicked on it and got this: http://www.facebook.com/family/create_group.php

Now, my research for the paper is on fbook groups and identity (coincidence? right?) so i found it interesting. I mean, on other social networking site we've found family groups internetting together: On YouTube people post vids of the baby's first words for grandma to see, on gaming communities families raid together, etc. But on Facebook we had yet to see this. Even if your parents or other relatives (who aren't really of your peer status) got a Facebook, the group intearction isn't really there.

What do you guys think:
Will this take off?
Will family albums become obsolete?
Will your mom have a new outlet to complain to the family about how you're not settiling down yet?

Ahh, facebook...

Virtual celebrity, Real criminal

Back in April of 2008 there was a case in Florida where 6 girls beat up a girl they had lured to one of the girls homes. The objective of this violent beating was to firstly: get back at her for comments she had made on their MySpace accounts and to post the video of them doing the deed on youtube. http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/88857

The thing that I can not figure out is how on earth these 6 girls and 2 boys thought that they would get away with assaulting someone, let alone assaulting someone and posting incontrovertible evidence of the deed online! Adding on to the ridiculousness of the entire affair is their thought that such violence would make them Youtube celebrities. Sadly enough there are countless such videos floating on the web in various sites like Youtube, googlevideo, and others which operate on similar assumptions. Is the fact that people are making these the worst part of the affair; or the fact that so many watch them?
Falkan
cnelson

Another Change on Facebook

I just logged on to facebook and a general notification announced that facebook is changing the look of the home page.

http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/homepage_tour.php
http://mashable.com/2009/03/04/facebook-homepage-real-time/
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/03/facebook-redesi.html
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/facebook-plans-changes-to-friend-updates/

LOL Cats!


Today in class, "text language" was brought up- specifically, the bible text version. This got me to think about computer languages. How could we have ever forgotten the phenomenon of the LOL Cats? LOL Cats have given cute little kitties everywhere an unique voice in the virtual world- and I think it is only appropriate that they are mentioned in this class.

For those not-in-the-know, A lolcat is an image combining a photograph, most frequently of a cat, with a funny and idiosyncratic caption in (often) broken English—a dialect which is known as “lolspeak,” ”kitteh,” or “kitty pidgin”. LOL Cats really took off- for some people- you can check some out here

A bit of trivia:
  • LOL Cat history goes as far back as the 1860s, when a photographer named Henry Pointer began publishing a carte-de-visite (small photos) series of cats. Later, in the early 20th century, Harry Whittier Frees published novelty postcards and children's books with images of animals dressed in human clothing.
  • The first recorded use of the term "lolcat" is from the anonymous imageboard 4chan sometime around 2005.
  • The word "lolcat" is attested as early as June 2006, and the domain name "lolcats.com" was registered on June 14, 2006.
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Thanks!
Gwen
48129661

Scams scams scams

We talked a bit about griefers and trolls and such, but what about all those virus-makers out there who aren't looking to interact directly with the community?

Here's a story about hackers invading Facebook!

-I always figured Facebook was better than Myspace for its ability to filter out fake porn accounts, but, alas, not even Facebook is safe.

Though, I have noticed that the internet's great for catching scam artists -
I was up late one night with the tv on and it was getting to be around primetime for infomercials. I didn't pay any attention to it, initially. There was Lipo-slim, Montel Williams was selling commerative Obama coins, Kevin Trudeau tried to sell me some get-rich quick scheme, etc. etc. Eventually I got to thinking - maybe I should look up the products these people are selling. Sure enough my research guided me through the seedy underworld of infomercial scam artistry.

And I'm just wondering - don't these infomercial people know the internet exists?


Stephen Colbert did a feature for the Obama scam coins that I'll share:


Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Racial Web Browsers

Blackbird is a web browser for African Americans.

In retaliation, some WordPress users brought about the White Bird web browser (really, it's just an Apple Safari download).