Macro Assignment 1

As I sit and watch my suitemates Google the answers to their astronomy homework, I think about how people blindly trust what they find on the Internet. I recall of countless times that I wanted to fill a sentence with facts or dates, or did not feel like reading for a class, and relied on the Internet for help. Almost every time I do this, I just assume that the information is correct. t is hard for me to imagine people wasting their time creating or updating pages with made-up facts or wrong information. In my opinion, unless a person knows what they are talking about, what good could possibly come from posting false facts? Why not skip over that information that you only have vague ideas about, and only update Wikipedia pages for things that you are sure about? While I might be able to understand why someone with an agenda to push would update certain pages, it is hard for me to contemplate why millions of people would feel that the best way to spend their time is to make information that they are not so sure about, public. Shuen characterizes the concept of anyone being able to post any information as “mass collaboration”, which is synonymous with the term “peering” in her book Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide. Tapscott and Williams do not use a label for it, but they discuss the concept in Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. The authors of both books raise some problems with peering and Wikipedia, but argue that the positives out-weight the negatives. While I would not disagree, I believe that there is room for growth.

As societies progress, things move from new to necessary to outdated very quickly. This is because new and more useful things constantly replace current ideas. Early on, Shuen exemplifies this phenomenon: “The upheaval occurring right now in media and entertainment provides an early example of how mass collaboration is turning the economy upside down (Shuen 11).” The upheaval that she refers to is a part of the economic recession that is currently pledging our country. This affects both advertisers and consumers, because people choose Internet sources over magazine-like alternative, thus harming advertisers whose ads are overlooked. This might is a good thing for many people who now can spend less time on things like their favorite television show, and less money on magazine-like websites, thousands of people are being fired because of it, and are left jobless. This may be more efficient to be able to turn to a user generated entertainment website, like those that gain all of their celebrity information from user tips, these jobs of the people who used to do this professionally are not being replaced. While people like to blame our economy on the government, I feel that the Internet is the cause of these economic problems, not our commonly-blamed government. This does not mean that I am still spending the four dollars on a magazine instead of finding the information for free online, and that is probably not the most proactive way to help people keep their jobs.

Tapscott and Williams have acknowledged that the Internet is taking over, and provide a guide on how you can use this to your business advantage. This is somewhat different than Shuen, who provides business advice without taking into account the Internet’s impact on our changing approach to business. While some people might be losing business because of the Internet, Wikinomics tries to show people how, “online web social networks make it easy for a relatively small number of users … to trigger network effects (William and Tapscott 82).” Many advertisers have already begun to take advantage of social networking sites. The idea of network effects applies to basically any business that requires the customers from the general public to run. This idea is related to peering because before buying a product or participating in a program, people can join Facebook groups about them, or research peer reviews with a few clicks to gain information. When I backpacked through Europe two years ago, I did not just go to the hostel nearest to the airport. I spent time on my computer researching each city's hostels, and then I looked up other travelers' reviews before I decided where to stay. This was very different from when my mother backpacked through Europe almost forty years ago, relying only on a professional guidebook.

Peer reviews, which are available for almost everything. From hotels to professors, seem helpful only when researching products. Such reviews are far from flawless. Usually there are two types of people who will go out of their way to post a review: those who loved it, and those who hated it. Even if it is made very simple to review something, most people who have neutral feelings toward something beyond that it did it’s job, will not waste their time posting a review about. What good is it, if you go to ratemyprofessor.com, and find that while two people wrote positive reviews, if the only other two reviewers said that they cried over the torture this professor put them through? Who are you to believe? If there is no in-between, that what constitutes as a constructive review?

This problem with peer reviews is very similar to the problems with Wikipedia, where anyone can edit a page without having to prove that they have any expertise on the topic. Shuen briefly mentions “the incident [of Internet character assassination which] exposed the most obvious weakness of the Wikipedia model: Anybody can claim to be an expert on any subject (Shuen 74)”, while Wikinomics glosses over this, as well as many other negatives of the Internet. Tapscott and Williams claim that “Collaborations can produce more robust, user-defined, fault-tolerant products in less time and for less money than the conventional closed approach (Tapscott and Williams 117)”, Shuen acknowledges this Wikipedia loophole, while stating “Profiting from peer production communities … [is] a new skill that requires companies to recognize and seize opportunities to build new products and service on top of vibrant open ecosystems -- ecosystems where new value is always being created for a variety of ends and motivations (Shuen 93).”

I like that there are things like peer reviews and mass collaboration are readily available, but I think a third party, to regulate productivity is needed. It might mean charging a small fee for currently free services, but editors would ensure accurate information. Or maybe people who are experts on certain subjects could be approached about keeping certain pages in-check, thus creating jobs in our economic crisis. Overall, I feel that Shuen, Tapscott and Williams are all overly positive about the Internet so far. I do not know what I would do without it anymore, but at the same time, it is still very new in terms of consumer products and each added convenience should be taken with same stipulation.

"What Happens to Facebook accounts after death?" from OK Gazette

I was on stumbleupon yesterday, and I found this article about ... exactly what the title suggests, what happens to facebook accounts after death. I thought the article was interesting, because I actually have a facebook friend who died in a car accident last year, and he often shows up on my home page. While I find it a little creepy whenever I see that he was tagged in an album, or someone wrote on his wall, I thought it was a little harsh to unfriend him. Over time, I have just gotten used to these occasional reminders of his untimely death. Being only 19, I know very few people my age who have passed away, but if I continue to use facebook as I get older, this number will inevitably grow.

Anyway, back to the article. I have never heard of the Oklahoma Gazette, so I am therefore making the assumption that it is not very widely read outside of Oklahoma. While I am sure that this article could have been written from several different points of view, this author took the legal standpoint - while there are laws for what happens to almost all other types of property when you die, most states have not yet reached any sort of conclusions about what to do with someone's emails, facebook, twitter, or anything else considered an "online asset". Heather Spencer (the author), interviewed a lawyer who said that "social media accounts essentially have no value except the need to keep privacy", and then went on to say that she has actually had a few cases where family members have had to access online accounts and were prohibited from doing so.

Though it is not particularly easy to access someone who works at one of these websites, it is actually possible to memorialize a person's account. This involves removing more "sensitive information like status updates and restricts profile access to confirm friends only" , while still allowing people to write on the persons wall, look at pictures, etc. It is also possible to close the account if close family members feel the need to do so. Facebook has also recently added some new principles that have to do with topic in particular, though they also add that the easiest way to express what you wish to happen to your social networking site is actually to add it to your will, just as your would any other property, intellectual or otherwise.

Spencer also included excerpts from an interview with a patent and copyright lawer, who is now considering working with a company called "Legacy Locker", which he describes as "the equivalent to an online safety deposit box". To expand, it is a service that stores user names etc, as well as a practical way for a family member to access everything if need be.

I guess I do not think about death often enough to consider this necessary for myself, though I guess that is kind of silly. On the other hand, I do not really know what harm having social networking accounts that belong to dead people could possibly do. Its not like they are taking up space that alive people are not getting.

The original article can be found here: http://www.okgazette.com/p/12776/a/3900/Default.aspx?ReturnUrl=LwBEAGUAZgBhAHUAbAB0AC4AYQBzAHAAeAAslashAHAAPQAxADIANwAyADkA