task 3: moral panics and concerns with online technology

Increasingly in the past 5 years or so, there has been a rapid change in the way we use the internet. It has become more open and interactive, with access to nearly anything we want at the touch of a button. The younger generation have become 'media-savvy', and often people who should by rights moderate what they can view i.e, parents and teachers, are oblivious to what young people have access to and are often powerless to stop it despite their best efforts. A lax in internet browsing security has led to a generation who have developed views that could be unhealthy in the mind of others. Young people can freely access pornography, misleading information about drugs and weapons, and excessive violence which could numb them to the dangers of the world. Young people can be engaged in an uncensored and potentially environment form the comfort of their own bedroom due to communities such as myspace, and MMORPG games such as second life. This in particular has the potential to access a whole adult underworld, the 'red light district' and everything that this brings.

Jan 2008 work

I did this a while ago but did not publish by mistake

Task - 1


The podcast was informative in that it provided me with a number of exciting new words, which I will now summarise;

Digitality-
The way in which software and programs are now formatted,using a serious of on/off electrical pulses and binary style code,with a make up of '0's and '1's. it is used in programming electrical appliances and computer formatting.
Interactivity-
The way in which information is now compressed into smaller and fuller amounts of information so it can be transported and transfered more easily. Used in such electrical functions as television,cable television and sky,as well as ISDN modems for internet,with smaller compressed chunks it allows for information in a smaller bandwidth,more information in one feed.
Hypertextuality-
This is the idea of having information and programs formatted in the linear form. the information isn't on one continuous long loop,its small snippets of information that can be seen and perceived in any order,such as chapters on a dvd,you can choose as and when where as on a standard VHS you hav to watch as a whole. this also applies for web linking,skipping chunks of information to access new ideas.
Dispersal-
How the market is larger by using technology for both communication and purchasing/selling of goods.
Virtuality-
This is the concept of how new technologies allow whole new worlds and groups of people to expand ideas using new sources of media.
Convergents-
This is the idea of how new media technologies are merging and converging there ideas. for example how phones are now able to access the internet,work as mp3 players and although have a camera.DVD players now have there own hard drives. the sizes that gadgets can now store and hold is becoming larger.
Audience-
this is who and how the new media technologies are being bought and advertised. It is said that you can reach world wide using the internet and share with all,but people form 3rd world countries wont have a computer or the internet so its not truly worldwide. Who actually has access,its not everybody,the media makes out everyone has it.
Regulation and Control-
is there control over the new technologies such as copyright such as downloading illegal music and using proxy sites to avoid computer restrictions. by copying and sharing music the price of cds are allot cheaper to compete with the market.
Ownership-
Does this make a difference is Microsoft or sony own the media technology,such as apple dominating the mp3 market. with the 3 new consoles on the market from 3 mainstream companies it means competition arises.

Task - 2

1. Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?

• Chris De Wolfe - CEO & co-founder of MySpace

• He expects “aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable”

• He also says that social networking is becoming “infinitely more personal, more portable, and more collaborative”

• “half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users”

• Lowering the barrier to entry for a new generation of developers will lead to a more collaborative and dynamic web and directly affect the tools and feature sets available on socially-based sites

• Applications and features will become more fluid

• The future of the social web will “harness the savvy of the masses” to produce more relevant and meaningful social experiences

2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?

• Chad Hurley - CEO & co-founder of YouTube

• “Our goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call”

• In five years, video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication

• users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place

3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?

“online advertising will depend more than ever on the one element which has always been at the heart of impactful advertising, both analogue and digital: creativity”
People are no longer willing to put up with interruptions for a commercial break during their entertainment experience,
Linear media (Prescribed time) is fast giving way to liquid media (multitasking time), where you can move seamlessly in and out of different settings

4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?

Norvig suggests that in the same way electricity has evolved from a light bulb to becoming a staple of our modern lives, that online information searching will also evolve to the point that our computers will “proactively” provide us with additional information to what we need.

5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'?
“Penetration to rural communities will continue to be limited due to the lack of infrastructure, and the cost of a personal computer is typically more than what the average person in a village can afford” – the developing countries are still a distance away from wide spread access to technology; hinders development

web 2.0

Web 2.0 is the term used to describe the new usage of the internet as opposed to web 1.0. As technology has changed, so has social usuage and rapid, rapid expansion has led to a whole new way we use the internet. Web 2.0 is typically more user-interactive, due to people having much more powerful and usable PCs. Videos, social networking, interactive java/flash games and apps, and online games such as MMORPGs (e.g world of warcraft, Counterstrike and Second Life).
The definition, according to According to Tim O'Reilly: (wikipedia.org) is

"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."

Interactivity has become a much bigger part of the way we use the internet; we now comment on youtube vidoes and chatting to people on formus about pretty much anything without a second thought.

A problem with this rapid expansion is that there is no limit to the things we can do within reason and this could lead to adverse consequences as people with 'contreversial' ideas can now freely distribute theie thoughts to the world i.e a much larger proportion of people from an almost annonymous position.

As computers get ever powerful and capable, i think we may at some stage enter a new era of internet usage: web 3.0 (or 2.1 whatever) and this may hold other potentially useful or advese consequences for the world.