Thursday, May 15, 2008

The end is near, well is here!

Well, this is it, my last official blog for the purposes of this assignment. I must admit I have become quite fond of blogger.com. I have found myself jumping on in my spare time to see who has commented on my posts and what they have said and to read other peoples entries. I can probably safely say I will be utilizing this service even after virtual cultures has finished. Another fantastic procrastination tool! I plan to use it as a place for relaxtion - somewhere to let my thoughts run free!!

So thankyou KCB201 for introducing me to the blogging experience as it really has been fun (apart from the fact that it has all been assessable until now.)

But for now,

Over and Out!

The Great Facebook Debate continues....

So I was reading MX magazine on the train on the way home from uni yesterday and found a very interesting article. The title 'Killer's Facebook Antics' immediately caught my attention. In light of the recent comments and issues about Facebook, I thought I'd post it for those who have not read it.


























Gangland murderer Carl Williams is behind bars, but on Facebook he is ‘partying’ with 971 friends, sipping cyber cocktails and taking virtual happy pills.
On Carl Williams Facebook page, which appears to be run by his wife, Roberta, the underworlds killer’s mood today described as ‘happy’.
Roberta told Melbourne Radio Station, 3AW today that the page was legitimate. With a growing list of well-wishers, it verges on a Carl Williams fan site.
It has a photo of a fresh faced and smiling Williams, with his daughter, Dhakota.
The profile states Williams cannot respond to messages, but they are appreciated. “Nasty Messages” however, would be deleted.
“Carl will (answer) once he reads and receives a print out,” it reads.
Victorian prisoners do not have access to the internet and it is clear ho much input Roberta has with the site.
Messages showered praise on the killer. One fan wrote: “Keep your chin up, you have SSSOOO much support out here.”
Williams has received 41 alcoholic drinks on the page and a dozen pills from friends including ‘extra potent’ Viagra.
Crime victims advocate Noel McNamara said today that the Facebook site made Williams out to be a hero and should be banned. “It’s pretty disgusting,” McNamara said.
Among Williams’ friends are fake Facebook profiles for Tony Mokbel and Wayne Carey.


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Round two of the Facebook fight!

I know many people have read Axel's blog on Facebook and his, well, disliking of the program. Several of my fellow bloggers have made comments on their own blogs about the topic, but I decided I'd actually comment on HIS ACTUAL BLOG. So I headed to Snurblog and found that a post had already been made - with the same view as myself. I posted my comment and left it at that. I returned to Snurblog a few days later and was excited (but did not expect) to find a reply - from Axel. His opinion had not changed, and it became very obvious that Axel really despises Facebook's functionality. So I thought I should write a more in depth response to try and see what others have to say.

In some respects I agree with what Axel is saying - I am sure there are much better social networking mediums out there, after all, technology does keep evolving and people have more ability to create these sites. I have never used Ning but after brief exploration it seems quite good.

But the fact remains, a Facebook user does have the ability to make distinctions between their friends. They can add them into 'networks' such as QUT, Queensland, Brisbane, etc. They do not have to add someone if they don't know them well. You actually have to sit down and work this out for yourself though - and I dont know if Axel has explored this.

"So, whether Facebook is 'well used', as Elyse puts it, has fairly little to do with whether it provides better social networking tools than its competitors" (From Snurblog).

I did not mean my comments to be taken in the way they have been - I just wanted to say it seems that because Facebook is so popular (let's face it, we know it is), most people are obvioulsy happy with the service it provides. And perhaps similarily to myself, others have not experienced other social networks so they do not realize there are in fact better social networks out there.

But I can see there is no point in continuing to rant, because frankly it's not going to change his opinion, and I don't believe we really should try to, because everyone is entitled to there own opinions. Snurb has obviously found social networks he believes to be better than Facebook.

I admit, maybe Facebook got it wrong - perhaps it should not be called friends. A better term could be acquaintance or collegue, or a mixture of the three, but really, what's in a name?

So I encourage you to take a look at Snurb's blog, and the comments and the replies that follow. Please post a comment to my blog to let me know what you think. (Also, have a look at Brendam's Blog on Facebook faux par for another opinion!) Hope to hear from you all!

What on earth is Zeitgeist?

I was on a fellow kcb201ers blog the other day and saw her blog on Zeitgeist and it intrigued me. I watched the clips she had posted and was fascinated. I'm not really going to say too much about it because I believe they are quite interesting and I think everyone should watch.

Basically so you have some idea, Zeitgeist is segmented into 3 parts:
  1. The Greatest Story Ever Told - on religion and "the Jesus myth"
  2. All The World's A Stage - on 9/11 and what "really" happened
  3. Don't Mind The Men Behind The Curtain - the conspiracy behind central banking
So, if you feel like some insight (and want to procrastinate from uni or work), go to 'Chorazy Thoughts' - Zeitgeist and The Future of Zeitgeist.

Plus you could take a look at these sights...

The Official Zeitgeist Website
Wikipedia - Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist on YouTube

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Web 2.0 and Web 3.0...

I was searching YouTube recently to see if I could find anything regarding web 2.0. Of course I was not disappointed. I found a video of Tim O'Reilly (who I made reference to in my web 1.0 vs web 2.0 blog) standing there and talking about his view on Web 2.0.



I also found another regarding web 3.0 (from Eric Schmidt). Again, i thought it was quite interesting.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Are we Google dependant?


This time of semester is the busyiest for most students - we have multiple assignments and the fear of end of semester exams. Being one of those students, I find it very hard to find the time to get everything done... and unfortunately that has been the case for my blog.

I logged on just the other day to start writing on the topic, open source software, and to my surprise, Axel's article had been taken down. So I googled it but could not find his article anywhere.

Google had failed me.

There are not many occasions when I would say this, but it got me thinking about how dependant I am on Google. Whenever I don't know something, I log onto my computer, type it into Google, and there's my answer. For example, if I don't know the meaning of a word, I'll 'google it.' Long gone are the days when we take out our dictionaries, flip to the letter and scan through all the words - we can do this online now which takes hardly anytime.

Yes, I have gone on a slight tangent and have not focussed at all on open source software, but this realisation has made me a little concerned. Is everyone like me? Are we all addicted to 'googling?' I think we are very close and with evolving technologies, it is probably safe to say that in the very near future we will be living in 'The Google Era.'


Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Produsage-based Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism has been a term constantly mentioned in the Creative Industries faculty. at QUT. In the Virtual Cultures subject, I have been introduced to open source software
and have learnt that both these terms (citizen journalism and open source software) are very similar and according to Bruns (2008, 69) directly related.

For some reason I have not completely been able to grasp the concept of citizen journalism; I’ve always have a vague idea, but I was never comfortable with its meaning. Of course I searched Wikipedia, and finally, I’m able to say I have an understanding of it. I also found a YouTube video, which also helped me to understand. So, for the purposes of this blog, I am going to focus on citizen journalism, however, open source software will be linked, as they are quite similar concepts.



Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism, is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," (Wikipedia 2008). The form of journalism that was "by the people" began to flourish (this was enabled by web 2.0 and the array of networking environments) and people began expressing themselves through weblogs, chat rooms, message boards, wikis and mobile computing (Wikipedia 2008).

Axel Bruns (2008, 71) identifies gatekeeping and gatewatching as important elements in controlling citizen journalism. “Gatekeeping selects the stories to be covered in the products of mainstream journalism from the totality of all news currently available in the world” (Bruns 2008, 71). Gatewatching on the other hand, relies on the user to determine what they find interesting and what they want to share with their peers (Bruns 2008, 74).

The concept of produsage is linked to citizen journalism. Bruns (2008, 74) notes that open news produsage reverses the conventional industrial production process.
“Industrial software production operates on a principle of ‘develop to marketable quality, then release,’ whereas open source often releases its projects in no more than embryonic versions, divides the production process into granular produsage tasks, and then engages in the open and communally organized development of software to what we continue to refer to as ‘commercial quality’ ” (Bruns 2008, 74).

So how does one become a citizen journalist? Bruns (2008, 74) suggests that similarly to open source software development, citizen journalists begin with an idea that interests them and that will interest their peers and starts developing. The wider community then evaluates and adds more information and views – thus showing produsage at work.

We are living in a world with multiple networked and online environments, all of which have different approaches. However, the citizen journalism movement has developed a “sophisticated array of processes, tools, and technologies” in order for it to take place across the many websites that make up the movement (Bruns 2008, 70).

As Axel Bruns (2008, 95) concludes, “Produsage-based citizen journalism is the first step towards restoring access to the public institution of journalism for a wide range of citizens-turned-produsers." Produsage-based citizen journalism has broken the commercial hold of industrial capitalism in the journalistic industry (Bruns 2008, 95).

Journalists must embrace produsage and realize that in order to succeed in an online environment, they must utilize their users as produsers as a way to explore other elements of the news.

Bruns, A. 2008. News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News in Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, 69-100. New York: Peter Lang. https://cmd.qut.edu.au/cmd/KCB201/KCB201_BK_163501.pdf (accessed April 30, 2008).

Wikipedia. 2008. Citizen Journalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalism (accessed April 30, 2008).

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Future is userled!

One important, and some would say exciting aspect of web2.0, is a term coined by Axel Bruns, a lecturer I have come across many times during my university education. I have been aware of this term and to be honest, find myself writing or talking about it all the time – even in day to day conversation.

Produsage – a mash up of a user and a producer. The term encapsulates the shift from the old ‘industrial’ forms of production to the collaborative, user led environment.

“The concept of produsage is intended as a means of connecting such developments in the cultural, social, commercial, intellectual, economic, and societal realms” (Bruns 2008, 5). Produsers are actually involved in the content production, but not in the traditional ways as there is a "collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement" (Bruns 2008, 1).

So how do you become a produser? Firstly, the production of ideas has to take place in a collaborative and social environment (funny how social networks fit into this). This kind of environment allows participants to not only be a USER, but to actually generate their own content and become a PRODUCER. Hence prod – user….. PRODUSER.

Bruns (2008, 3) points out that there are four fundamental characteristics of produsage that show the difference from industrial production. Firstly, it must be community based and happen in a collaborative environment e.g. online community (Bruns 2008, 3). The second characteristic is fluid roles, where produsers have roles within a project and a community (Bruns 2008, 3). Thirdly, is the idea of the unfinished artefact because produsage projects are continually developing and under construction (Bruns 2008, 3). Finally is the produsage value chain which shows that there is not just an individual producer, but multitudes of them (Bruns 2008, 3).

Bruns (2008, 2) also makes the point about Wikipedia not being a product, it is more the end result of collaboration and content production. He continues stating that Wikipedia is different from industrial forms of production that traditional encyclopaedia’s adhere to, and that the role of the distributor has indeed disappeared entirely – because users are becoming the produsers (Bruns 2008, 2).

To put this into perspective, imagine this.
You hear about this really great social network that’s online (there is an endless list – check out my blog on social networks to find them). Let’s continue with Wikipedia. You have a look around the site and search – you are being a user. But you then find something wrong with an entry and want to change it. You have the power to do this. You have the ability to produce the content – to become a PRODUSER.

But Wikipedia isn’t the only example. When you play games like The Sims and World of Warcraft or when you add a video to YouTube, you create your own worlds – this is produsage.

We are all produsers at some point. I am a produser at this very moment. I am not only being involved – being a user - of this social network (that being the blogging community) but I am producing my own content, writing my own thoughts. It’s actually a really good feeling.

So Axel Bruns was right on the mark – The Future IS User-Led.


Bruns, A. 2008. The Future is User-Led: The Path Towards Widespread Produsage. 1 -10. http://produsage.org/files/The%20Future%20Is%20User-Led%20(PerthDAC%202007).pdf (accessed April 29, 2008).

Friday, April 25, 2008

Newspaper vs Online - continued

The rapid growth of the internet has made it a major source of news and information (Cassidy 2005, 264). Interest in online services has had a major boom over recent years and online news has significantly grown in importance (Fitzgerald 1994, 36).

Many believe that the continual growth of the internet will eventually cause print newspapers to disappear. “In recent years, it has become increasingly popular to predict that by the time today's teenagers reach middle age, video images will have replaced the written word as the principal conveyer of messages, and that newspapers, along with most other forms of print media, will be on the verge of extinction” (Nash 1994, 5). Wow, the wonders of web 2.0!

It’s easy to argue that the print editions of newspapers are not relevant because of the ease of use and the speed of updates of online editions. But research shows that while 99 per cent of Australian homes own at least one television, 44 per cent of these homes do not have internet access (Adams, 2006). It also depends on a person’s lifestyle; some may prefer online editions, but many will be so familiar with print editions, that they will have incorporated them into their daily routine.

As the debate over whether daily newspapers are still relevant in an age of online and global media continues, for the moment I’m sure it is safe to say that newspapers are not going to disappear in the near future. Print newspapers are still a vital and necessary part of people’s daily lives, and even thought the internet is slowly taking ever, the following of loyal readers will not diminish. Newspapers are not going to die, but in a few years, it seems they will not hold the prominent place they currently do in the media sector as the online versions will continue to thrive. Therefore, it is evident that daily newspapers are extremely relevant and vital in the online media age that is before us.

Reference List

Adams, D. 2006. Queensland University of Technology, KCB104 Online Learning and Teaching Web site: http://oltfile.qut.edu.au/download.asp?rNum=3230505&pNum=409849&fac=CI&OLTWebSiteID=KCB104&dir=sec&CFID=5993860&CFTOKEN=30781123 (accessed April 23, 2008).

Cassidy, W. 2005. Variations on a theme: The Proffesional Role Conceptions of print and online newspaper journalists. Journalism and Mass Communication Quartely, 82 (2):264-281. (accessed April 23, 2008 from ProQuest Database).

Fitzgerald, M. 1994. Survey: Newspaper interest in on-line services is booming. Editor and Publisher, 127 (11):36. (accessed April 23, 2008 from ProQuest Database).

Nash, W. 1994. Newspapers: Gearing for the future with electronic publishing. Newspaper Financial Executive Journal, 47 (8):5. (accessed April 24, 2008 from ProQuest Database).

Schoenbach, K., E. de Waal. and E. Lauf. 2005. Research Note: Online and Print Newspapers: Their Impact on the Extent of the Perceived Public Agenda. European Journal of Communication, 20 (2): 245. (accessed April 24, 2008 from ProQuest database).

In an age of online and global media, are daily newspapers still relevant?

Just recently I was thinking about the shift of web 1.0 to web 2.0 and how so many aspects of day to day life are evolving and moving onto the internet. It then got me thinking – are tangible items, such as newspapers still relevant in such an internet savvy world? I started doing a bit of research and found some interesting information.

Over the last 30 or so years, daily newspaper readership has declined. From this, we can make the assumption that because people are becoming more technological, we see people turning away from newspapers and looking to the internet for their daily news. This has raised several questions as to the relevance of newspapers and whether online media should be the main source of news. I believe that newspapers are still a necessary and relevant source of news, even though the rapid growth of the internet is causing the decline in readers of newspapers. However, there are those who believe that the internet will take over from print newspapers in years to come.

Many say that the most useful part of the media (newspapers) is slowly disappearing due to the emergence of online news (Schoenbach et al 2005, 245). So with the future of newspapers up in the air, should we just embrace the web and forget about them altogether? Research has shown that only one per cent of Australians rely on media forms such as the internet for news (Adams, 2006). Of those who do, readers have the ability to control and can pick whatever part of the news they want to read about. A print newspaper on the other hand widens the range of what a person is reading and gives them access to many different topics, events and issues (Schoenbach et al 2005, 245). But the question still remains, are print newspapers still relevant?

Extensive research has been carried out to determine the relevance of newspapers in the world of online and global media. It was found that 75 per cent of Australia’s population do not rely on and rarely access the Internet to find out the latest news (Adams, 2006). With this being said, the online editions are always generally the same news as what is in the print edition of the newspaper anyway. So why do we really need both?

To be continued.....

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0!








Web 1.0 was hard work, web 2.0 is simply… better.

Web 1.0 was about reading, while web 2.0 is about writing. Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is now about communities. 1.0 was about HTML, 2.0 is about XML.

The list is endless:
Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
Web 1.0 was about portals, Web 2.0 is about RSS
Web 1.0 was about taxonomy, Web 2.0 is about tags
Web 1.0 was about wires, Web 2.0 is about wireless
Web 1.0 was about owning, Web 2.0 is about sharing
Web 1.0 was about IPOs, Web 2.0 is about trade sales
Web 1.0 was about Netscape, Web 2.0 is about Google
Web 1.0 was about web forms, Web 2.0 is about web applications
Web 1.0 was about screen scraping, Web 2.0 is about APIs
Web 1.0 was about dialup, Web 2.0 is about broadband
Web 1.0 was about hardware costs, Web 2.0 is about bandwidth costs
(Drumgoole 2008).

Axel Bruns (2008, 3) quotes Tim O’Reilly, stating that “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”.















(O'Reilly 2008).

Web 2.0 has revolutionized how consumers use the internet. It’s about two way communication; now consumers can interact with people through blogs, websites and comments – a luxury that web 1.0 did not possess (O'Reilly 2008). Web 1.0 was only really about consuming; it was just a delivery medium. Yes we do consume web 2.0, but we actually use it too. We interact with people through blogs and emails, we create our own spaces – we can anything. This links with the idea of the produser, but more about that in another blog.

Bryan Alexander (2006) notes that social software has been a major component of the emergence of Web 2.0. He continues stating that "Web 2.0 services respond more deeply to users than Web 1.0 services" (Alexander 2006).

It’s important to realize that web 2.0 is the product of technological advancements and creative destruction (a term economist’s use for the evolution of the economy). Web 2.0 has opened the door to so many possibilities. Without web 2.0, our favourite online social networks would never have been invented and we would not be able to spend so many hours a day procrastinating on them. Look at YouTube; a perfect example of how web 2.0 has allowed users to interact with the web and each other. And it’s not the only one; you’ve got MySpace, Facebook, Flikr and del.icio.us to name a few. These mediums have allowed consumers the ability to download AND upload their own content, a key difference between 1.0 and 2.0.

I’m sure we are all grateful that there was a change to web 2.0 because lets face, I don’t really know if I could have gotten through anything without it, especially university! So finally, the questions that now remains is,
What will web 3.0 bring?



References

Alexander, B. 2006. Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? http://www.middlebury.edu/nr/rdonlyres/2c9efffc-00b4-46e9-9ce5-32d63a0fe9b5/0/unbound_02_02_web2.pdf (Accessed April 24, 2008).

Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond. In Production to Produsage, 1-7.

http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_29175_1 (accessed April 24, 2008).

Drumgoole, J. 2008. Copacetic. http://joedrumgoole.com/blog/2006/05/29/web-20-vs-web-10/ (accessed April 32, 2008).

O'Reilly, T. 2008. What is web 2.0? http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html (accessed April 24, 2008).

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Are online social networks taking over the world?

You would have been living on the top of Mount Everest to not know about the latest phenomena taking over the world. For those who are safely down on the ground, they would know that its online social networks which are taking the world by storm. “The tremendous surge in web-based services and applications, known as ‘Web 2.0,’and their corresponding influence on how people create, exchange, and use information” (Dearstyne, 2007, p.25) has prompted the emergence of Online Social Networks, which allows groups of people to interact via online communication.

There is an ENDLESS list of virtual communities a user can be part of, including Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, World of Warcraft and Second Life to name a few.

Each of these forms of communication has emerged from Web 2.0 and each community and world is becoming part of people’s everyday lives. These communities all share the same passion and interest, as they create exciting and alternate social networks (Song and Walden, 2007, p.48).

These groups of people form larger communities from across the world as they share a common interest, idea, task or goal. The various communities and worlds allow them to interact in virtual societies across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and enable them to develop personal relationships.

The interest in these communities and worlds has flourished and spread like wild fire all over the World Wide Web. The development and popularity of social networks, has caused an upsurge of Web 2.0, suggesting that this phenomenon of online social networking is very relevant in today’s world of new media technologies. Interest has also been sparked in scholarly writing particularly regarding the safety of these worlds and communities to the virtual and physical self (Wolfendale, 2007, p.111). However, much has also been written about the use of social networks in education, particularly on how libraries and librarians are using many of the popular social networking sites for communication purposes, by blogging and adding discussion pages (Stephens, 2007, p.45).

Each virtual community and virtual world has varied levels of interaction and participation among their members and ranges from adding comments to blogs or message boards, to competing against other people in online video games such as Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Stephens (2007, p.45) says that “networking technologies afford users the chance to interact, share themselves, and create content.”

This is a larger list of online social networks (although there are more)!
- Facebook
- MySpace
- Flickr
- YouTube
- Blogger.com
- Del.ic.ious
- Wikipedia
- World of Warcraft
- Second Life
- EverQuest
- eBay
- Amazon
- Shutterbook
- Mixpo
- Friendster
- Photobucket
- Shutterfly
- Bebo


So, the question remains, have online social networks taken over the world? I believe they have, but there is certainly nothing wrong with that because the emergence of these online social networks is shaping the way we interact and communicate with each other.

References

Dearstyne, B.W. 2007. Blogs, Mashups, & Wikis: Oh, My! Information Management Journal, 41(4): 25-32.

Song, J., and E. Walden. 2007. How Consumer Perceptions of Network Size and Social Interactions Influence the Intention to Adopt Peer-to-Peer Technologies. International Journal of E-Business Research, 3(4): 49-67.

Stephens, M. 2007. Social Networking Services. Library Technology Reports, 43(5): 45-52.

Wolfendale, J. 2007. My avatar, my self: Virtual harm and attachment. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(2): 111-120.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The start of something new!

WOO HOO!! My very first blog ever!

So my KCB201 class has FINALLY started on blogging...not that i really wanna be concentrating on blogging right now considering that our first assignment (on del.icio.us) is due 2moro (friday 11th) It's a little bit scary but I'm hopeing it will all turn out good. AND I have my exam for business law and ethics due, which is even scarier... cuz I havent done much study at all.... major cramming to be done on Friday I think.....

All in all, I think the idea of blogging is pretty cool, I've never done it before but I think I may make use of it more once this subject is over... yet another procrastination technique (like facebook) that will most certainly keep me from doing my studies!!!

So i think that may be it for now, but i will most certainly be back for more.... considering we have a whole assessment worth 50% to do....

So for now....

So long, farewell aufwierdsehn... Goodbye!

cynicalmiss....elyse :)