Life and Times of Dennis Crowley

This heartfelt article shows parents that just because your child may prefer video games to homework and athletics it does not mean that they won't have a lasting impact on this ever expanding world. Dennis Crowley is now known for being a Co-Creator and the CEO of Foursquare, but he may be the only CEO that truly believes that life should be a game and not taken so seriously. 

Foursquare is an App available on the iPhone, Android, WebOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile Phones. The purpose of the app is to "Check-In" where you are throughout the day. If you are a user that checks into one place the most then you are awarded "Mayor" of that establishment. Certain restaurants, stores, cafes, and bars award specials for their "Mayors." When you check into a place you can also leave a tip for other users about this place. The app works the best on smart phones because the app can gain access to the location of your phone and show you the places near you in which you can check in.

As you visit new places, stay out late, or visit the same types of places a lot (like art galleries) you receive different badges. Crowley sees these badges as motivation to go out and explore the real word and a way to have fun with your sometimes monotonous daily life. The app's intention is to get people out and about and doing new things. Crowley had ups and downs throughout his adult career before creating the booming success that is Foursquare. Parents should think before forbidding their children to play video game because, for Dennis Crowley, that was where he got all of his inspiration for Foursquare.  

Second Life is Truly a Second Life

In the novel "New New Media" Paul Levinson spends an entire chapter talking about the phenomenon that is Second Life. Second life is a virtual world where you can create an avatar and live out another life on the net. You use a name different then your own, in most cases, and you can go about life in this virtual world just as you would the real world.

You can do pretty much everything you do in real life on Second Life. Avatars get their hair styled, buy clothes, buy land, dance, and do business.  Paul Levinson's avatar created "Soft Edge Bookstore" a virtual bookstore on Bookstore Island in Second Life. His rent was paid in Linden dollars. The shelves were stacked with all 15 of his books. At the bookstore they were able to read more about his books, and found out how to buy them on amazon. If you bought the books he could tell you where to ship it for an autograph, just like a real bookstore! At the store, his avatar sat on the front porch in his rocking chair.


Linden dollars are the currency that the avatars use on Second Life. Linden dollars are named after Linden Labs who created and continues to develop and administer Second Life. Linden dollars are used to purchase anything from land to a good-looking butt. You can earn them by either purchasing them through PayPal or you can earn them from other residents in Second Life. In December 2008, $5 U.S. dollars purchased about 1,310 L or Linden dollars. Linden dollars works like any worldwide currency.

Second Life is a fascinated social network where you can be a new person and do whatever you want. It is only one tenth as populated as Facebook, but it is definitely going up in popularity. So join Second Life, and have another life separate from your own.  In this article they talk about how second life has significantly improves the quality of life for its disabled users.

In my experience on second life i found it fairly confusing. I talked via chat and not microphone and enjoyed flying around, but found it hard to navigate. I did not like talking to people because I found it creepy to talk to people I didn't even know. I don't intend to further my use of Second Life because I do not believe t was for me, but I could see how people could get addicted to it.

MySpace Music

In this blog i would like to discuss the phenomenon that is music on MySpace. In the old days you would have to go to open mic nights and bend over backwards to get your music into the ears of record labels.  Luckily, now with MySpace scouts often search the site for the next big band, allowing there to be another way to make it big. I will now discuss what Paul Levinson found when researching MySpace music in his novel "New New Media."

"Music pages" on MySpace were created in 2005. The purpose of the page is specifically for bands and music artists. The band uploads MP3s of their music and invite people on and off MySpace to come and listen for free. Once you build up an extensive number of friends you can let a record label know how much excitement your band is generating on your MySpace music page. In 2006, MySpace took it a step further by partnering with "SNOCAP"and began offering free samples of music, with a purchase option of the full recording at the price you pick.

Artists like Ebony Moore, James Harris, Truth on Earth, Kate Nash, and popular rapper Sean Kingston were all discovered on MySpace. Sean Kingston was born in Miami, Florida and raised in Kingston Jamaica. He used mMySpace to ignite his career by "hitten up" Jonathan J.R. Rottem, a record producer with a My Space account, with messages from his own MySpace account. He was persistent through MySpace till he got the result he wanted, which was No. 1 songs in the U.S., Canada, and Australia since July 7, 2007. MySpace is a for of new new media that has changed the way music is discovered today. This article discusses the art of finding a band on MySpace and how it is definitely possible to get discovered through MySpace.

Do you dig Digg?

For my entry on Digg i wish to discuss the Digg chapter in Paul Levinson's book "New New Media."The first topic about Digg that Levinson discusses is how a submission becomes "popular." Levinson says that in order to make a Digg article popular it has to receive "an undisclosed number of Diggs, and no minimum number of Buries (Digg keeps this Digg/Bury algorithm secret), the submission becomes 'Popular,' or is put on the front page of Digg," (Levinson, 100). It is important to know that a Digg is what you click when you like they story, and a bury is what you click when you dislike it.

A controversy within Digg is that, like Wikipedia, Digg and Buries are often amassed via deliberate campaigns of readers, instead of being an assessment by an individual reader. From 2007-2009 Digg had a "Shout" option that would allow you to Shout to as many as 200 friends to encourage Diggs or Buries. This option was eliminated in 2009 because the Digg administration was worried about deliberate campaigns on and off the system to Digg or Bury stories. Operations purported to Digg X number of Diggs for a given story for $1 or more per Digg.

Another topic that Levinson discusses is the difference between real like friends and online "Friends." He states that in order to be friends with someone offline it requires you to know a lot about the person, but online that is definitely not the case. However, he does state that they do have a similarity and that is that they both have a similarity or a community of interests. On Digg online Friends often have a similar taste in the stories that they like. Anyone can become a fan of someone else on Digg and this generally means that you like the stories that this person likes or for whatever reason are interested in what they have to say.

This blog overviewed three aspects of Digg, and through this blog i hope that you had a deeper understanding of whether or not you dig Digg. In this article they discuss and analyze the top 100 Digg articles of all time.
  

Wikipedia, Is It Reliable?

I would like to spend this blog discussing the views that Scott Jaschik has on Wikipedia in his essay "A Stand Against Wikipedia." In this article he discusses weather Wikipedia is a valuable source for college students.

He states that as the online encyclopedia has become more popular, more and more college professors are getting concerned with its accuracy. Middlebury College plans to take their concern to the next level by forbidding students to cite it as a source in essays and other academic work.

The department plans to explain to their students that while the source is convenient, it is not always trustworthy and reliable. They do, however, recognize that it is a good place to go to lead you to good sources, but is not a good source itself.

Middlebury College came to this conclusion after seeing students cite incorrect information on essays and tests from Wikipedia. Although they are enforcing a policy not to cite Wikipedia, they are not outright banning the use of it because you can get good information on the website.                                              

Wikipedia officials even agree that "There is no guarantee an article is 100% correct," (Jaschik, 45). This is in a large part because anybody can write their own or edit someone else's article.

Middlebury College believes that Wikipedia is an inappropriate source for two reasons. One. the accuracy is not guaranteed and there is an issue with whether it is a reliable source. Two, encyclopedias themselves are not appropriate sources for college students because at this level of learning a student is expected to cite primary sources or strong secondary sources.

What you should take out of this blog is the recognition that although Wikipedia is convenient, it is not a reliable source. In this article they discuss what goes in to making Wikipedia articles, and how the types of people who contribute greatly reflect the quality of the article.

Inequality in Blogging

According to Dustin Harp and Mark Tremayne in their essay "The Gendered Blogosphere: Examining Inequality Using Network and Feminist Theory" men dominate the blog scene online. They say that the blogs receiving the most links are disproportionately male. When a blog has more links it gets more attention on higher levels, such as more attention from mainstream media and political elites. However, the percentages of male to female blog authors are not far apart (57% men 43% female). The argument that far less women are online is also not true because 61% of women and 66% of men use the internet, fairly close.

They suggest that the blogosphere is not unlike the social interactions that have shaped cultures elsewhere. It is also important to point out that negative social and political aspects of the real world will continue in the virtual world as well. This is because the internet will become a place for the powerful to flourish and the powerless to have little voice.

It is true that the internet offers an arena for feminists to express their beliefs, but we must also be aware of its limitations. The internet has limitations because women are still seen as part of a private life of home, private relations, and having a family while men are seen as having a responsibility to the public through government and commercial establishments. Limitations are also seen by studies that show that women are less likely to express political opinions and have a less authoritative style in their conversations.

On the contrary, sites like http://feministblogs.org give women the opportunity to blog openly in a "malestream" media. Through the observations I have made I would like you to be aware of the inequality on the web, instead of viewing it as totally free speech.

How Paul Levinson Categorizes New New Media

For this blog post I plan to discuss how Paul Levinson author of "New New Media" defines and categorizes new new media. Levinson says that "'New New Media' is about the advent and impact of media newer than 'new' media- as different from the classic new media of email and websites as those new media are different from old media such as newspapers and television" (Levinson 1). His current roster of new media includes blogging, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life and Podcasts.

One of the ways he discusses new new media in the first chapter is to categorize it. I believe this is helpful to know because how could Wikipedia and Facebook be described under the same category of new new media when they are so different.

The first Category is "Print, Audio, Audio-Visual, Photographic". This category applies to YouTube because Audio-Visual media in the form of videos characterize it. This also, in a completely different light, applies to Second Life because you are moving virtual avatars through which users can speak. This category also obviously applies to podcasting (audio), video casting (audio-visual), and Flickr/ Photobucket (Photography).

The next Category is "News" which strictly describes "the purpose, not the media form, of the new new medium" (Levinson 5). Wikipedia and Digg would fall under this category because their chief purpose is to inform. YouTube can also be under this category because it contains many news worthy videos. Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter also contain news.

Another Category he uses is "Social Media" which describes all new new media because all new new media is inherently social. Levinson gives social examples of commenting on blogs or videos, but the main forms of social new new media are, of course, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

Levinson also has "General vs. Specific" as a category which describes blogging, podcasting, vidcasting, and social media as general new new media applications, and YouTube, Wikipedia, and Digg as specific.  A general application can and do exist on live online sites devoted to many applications such as podcasting, blogging, social media, and other new new media opportunities. While specific systems are primarily devoted to just one application ex: YouTube (videos).

"Politics and Entertainment" have a category because given the democratization of New New Media production, you can find almost anything on any topic on a blog or a social network. This category gives the example of how Barack Obama used many new new media forums to aid him with his campaign, which caused him, among other things, to receive popularity from college voters.

"New New Media and Government Control" also have a category because it tells us how new new media has also run in to problems with government control just as new media and old media have. In this article Iran's government shut down Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and cell phones in an attempt to lessen the riots after the election.

The next category is "Microblogging and Blogging". This category describes the difference between short twitter posts and Facebook and MySpace status updates with the normal length blogs found on sites like Blogger. The short posts make for a more personal communication because with new new media today the shorter the better.

The final category I will discuss today is "Hardware vs. Software -iPhone, BlackBerry, Laptop". Levinson has this as a category because he wants to stress the importance of how we consider the hardware that brings new new media to us.  Are we searching Wikipedia on a lap top or tweeting on our iPhone? With mobile media you can tweet or update your status at a moments notice.

As I end this blog I wish to apologize for it's excessive length for new new media, as stressed in the "blogging/ microblogging" category is meant to be more brief. However, I found that it was important to look at the categories of new new media so we can better understand what is actually considered new new media.

Growing Up Online

In my last post I addressed the issue of whether Facebook is good, and to help supplement my argument I'm going to spend this blog talking about the video "Growing Up Online". This video talked about the dangers of social networking when it comes to predators, privacy, cyber bullying, and creating an online personality different from your own. In the video they interviewed teens and parents about their views on how dangerous social networks are.

When it comes to social networking parents have been taught to be most concerned about online predators. With how much information kids expose on the internet it is a worthwhile concern. However, in the movie they state that really the only time that teens have problems with a predator are when they go out of their way to meet up. You should instead consider your teen to be a participant and not only a victim. It is always best to keep your information about where you live private, and do not post it on the internet.

A large section of the film was donated to the harsh realities of cyber-bullying. In the movie, they say that cyber-bullying is so popular and extra harsh because people say things that they wouldn't be able to say to someone's face. Girls at Chatham High School in New Jersey were having online battles over posts that escalated into a full fledged fight in school. In one case,a kid was being cyber bullied so badly that he committed suicide. What's even more chilling is that it was from the internet that he researched ways to do it, and got encouragement from an online "friend".  

Another common social networking practice is to create an online personality or character. Usually teens do this because they are unsatisfied with their "real life" socially and so they create a different person online. In the movie, Autumn Edows was a character created by a teenage girl who was bullied in high school. She created this new person because she was popular online and got a lot of attention. As it turns out, her school found out about her profile and deemed it inappropriate and even pornographic. Even if you decide to create a new personality you can still get caught and you still need to be careful about what your posting on the internet.

So, Is Facebook good?

As I discussed in my previous blog (Analyzing New Media) there is an ongoing question about whether or not Social Networks have a positive or negative influence on the general public. This argument can go either way so I wish to use this blog to explore both sides of this issue.

The great thing about Social Networks and blogs are that they give the common everyday person a voice in this ever expanding world. It gives people a way to publish their ideas and influence the world, or whoever is listening. Due to the fact that their are 12,900 different social networks and 25-40 million active blogs in the world  it is very evident that new media is HUGE. This consequently means that mainstream media is downsizing.

Looking at the negative side of social networking is the question of whether it in fact has value. First, you cannot really trust anything you read on a social network or blog because there is no way of seeing if the person is or isn't a credible source. Most posts on the Internet are bias or opinionated in one form or another.

It is also believed that Facebook is a waste of time and does not really offer the world anything beneficial. Teenagers spend hours upon hours sucked into Facebook and all of the social norms it has created. It is also really dangerous what teenagers decide to put on Facebook for the whole world to see. In this video clip Barack Obama cautions students on how social networks can be dangerous, and how all students should be cautious about what they put on Facebook when looking for a job.

Analyzing New Media

With the new media age of social networking sites, blogs, and the internet it has become very evident that media as we used to know it is drastically changing. It used to be that the encoder (a newspaper or TV news network) would be the primary source of information for the public. This source was held accountable for what they said to their audience so therefore they were a trustworthy and reliable resource.

The people who work in newsrooms are professionals who have real experience and an education in their field, so therefore they are sure to get there facts correct and portray them in the right way. In this age the encoder had a very large audience and the public were generally well informed.

The issue today is that with all of the social networks and blogs on the internet virtually anyone has the power to broadcast what they believe, regardless if it is based on fact. Today we are the encoder and we are able to publish what we say through blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Unfortunately, this is dangerous because now an amateur who could be biased, wrong, or just unprofessional has the power to broadcast whatever they want to the worldwide audience. In this article they discuss the similar issue about how journalism can possibly survive the internet age while still having lasting quality.