So what's next?

With the explosion of social networking websites and platforms, everyone is trying to leech on its popularity and get a share of the pie. We have seen social media integrating with search engines to improve results to users’ queries. You could say that the internet is growing into a more intimate place where people have closer relationships with one another and businesses, operations, including even the government desire to have a direct link to every individual.
With this, businesses have to be more aware of their presence on the internet. We do notice a trend whereby companies have come up with their very own Facebook accounts. Although this allows the build-up of that more intimate bond to be created (between consumers and businesses), there are also some potential pitfalls to this approach. One example would be that despite us wanting to be more closely bonded with the other party, there are some rules and manners of conduct which we must not forget. In a recent controversy between a chain restaurant- Fish and Co. And their customers, the company posted blatant complaints about their customers on Facebook, enraging many with their rude and incompetent methods of handling such situations. Businesses must note that they are being watched and should still uphold themselves in the appropriate manner expected of them. The company could have created some regulations with their own staff regarding what should or should not be posted on their Facebook profiles.

From the video we were shown in class, I think the tech industry will integrate the Internet into every device. My rice-cooker has an alarm clock in it. So why not a chopping board with internet access? You could probably watch Youtube videos which making a salad.



More widespread Internet delivery will mean reaching a wider audience – even the non internet savy and that will bring consumerism to greater heights and our information age to a whole new level. Perhaps these everyday devices married with technology don’t have to serve all of the web’s content, they could be niche items, showing you the latest recipies or kitchen appliances being sold, unit conversions etc. It would be less daunting and far more appealing to the target demographic of the product – even to those who don’t consider themselves to be Internet savvy.
With that, I will leave you with this video that left me pretty amazed.
Imagine the future~ :) bye!

citizen journalism

One of the main concepts behind citizen journalism is that mainstream media reporters and producers are not the exclusive centers of knowledge on a subject. Sometimes the audience collectively know more than the reporter alone. There would be some issues important to the public, which they have witnessed or noticed but have eluded reporters. Websites such as STOMP and newpaper often encourage public contributions and participation.

STOMP is a branch out from the Singapore Straits Times and is Asia's leading citizen journalism website. It attributes its success to its ability to connect, engage and interact with Singaporeans in a style and approach that is different from conventional news websites. Its strong growth reflects not only its popularity but its resonance with Singaporeans. STOMP won the WAN-IFRA 2008 award for Best in Online Media, although it was up against more established news websites like Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, South China Morning Post, Taiwan's Apple Daily and the Philippine Inquirer, and I guess that proves its better ability to connect with readers.

Now, many Big commercial mass media outlets are recognizing this and are trying to harness the knowledge of their audience either through comments at the end of stories they post online or by creating citizen journalist databases of contributors or sources for stories. The development of blogs have also opened opportunities for ordinary people to participate in reporting and disseminating news, and in addition offer their views on the subject. Perhaps the reason why this appeals so much to the public is because people want less formal and filtered information which is often shown on newspapers and television. I personally like both ideas. Although blogs and citizen journalists do provide more witty and creative, in-your-face opinions on some matters, but sometimes, I do find the issues reported are somewhat gossipy and full of unimportant and sometimes minute details. Which leads to the question, is citizen journalism really improving reporting and information dissemination or devaluing it into gutter journalism instead?

The internet and politics

The internet played a massive and critical role in the 2008 US presidential election campaigns. Some 74% of internet users; representing 55% of the entire adult population, went online in 2008 to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the elections as revealed by a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey.

In addition, the medium drove young internet savy voters; who were usually disinterested in such issues, to engage heavily in the political debate on social networking sites. 83% of those aged 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of young profile owners took part in some form of political activity on these sites in 2008. This I would say is a large leap for politics, not only is the public able to remain more informed, they are able to express their opinions and engage in political issues more in depth than before.

With the internet, the public was able to follow extensively on the progression of the political elections and view rally speeches and other promotional material online, thus this medium also demands authenticity. Television could be tainted with the opinions of others and perceptions of news corporations, but being able to watch speeches in full online for example, allows the public to judge and determine everything for themselves . Such authenticity is something politicians haven’t been used to, but I think that this will revolutionize political campaigning and create a more participatory and genuine environment for the people to know and understand the workings.

President Obama used the Internet to organize his supporters in a way that would have an army of volunteers and paid organizers on the ground, in the past.

He won the presidency because he understood the necessity to engage people and use all radical tools to reach everyone. He took advantage of Youtube for free advertising. Not only was the method more cost effective; as the official stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours and to buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million, it is also more effective than television advertisements. Viewers could chose to watch them or receive them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.

Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post says: “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,”

Cybercrime

Cybercrime is on the rise and today's attacks are often silent, hard to detect and highly targeted. Adam Palmer, a lawyer at Norton says that cyber-crime may have even outgrown the drugs trade, a stunning and disturbing revelation.

It is estimated that an identity is stolen every three seconds online. An identity like Kashima Brown.Out of the blue, he just got locked out of his email account and apparently emailed his friends asking for money. That was probably due to answering a bogus email a year ago.


This is how a Spam bot works and how fast it can bombard your inbox with junk mail. You’ll be amazed.




Brown did not have any kind of internet security software installed, and is currently still having problems with others misusing his identity. He claims that recently, he went to open a new account with Wells Fargo, but he was told he already had an account.

Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/Organised-cyber-crime-on-the-rise/tabid/412/articleID/149355/Default.aspx

It is a story Symantec, the makers of security software 'Norton', say is far too common.
Cybercrime is so rampant that the FBI even has a unit dedicated to it. With the explosion of social networking sites such as Facebook, we would assume that criminals have even more options and opportunities to mine for personal information, and trick users, thus users should still be aware of the perils of the internet although it appears that within the networking site they are safe. I often find weird random people adding me on Facebook as well as MSN Messenger, but I am always careful to reject them unless they really do appear to be my friends or I have been informed about it.

However, now organized cyber criminal gangs have their sights set on bigger prey. As the internet becomes a part of society's central nervous system, attacks could threaten whole economies, and there is a paramount need for governments to address this pressing issue.



President Obama announced in 2009 that he would strengthen America's defenses against attacks on the nation's increasingly important computer networks and also proposed to put a cybersecurity chief in the White House. Right now countries and government sectors are too vulnerable to such attacks and there is a need to cultivate more professionals to support this agenda.

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Here is a video on how to guard yourself against malicious intrusions and a brief definition of malicious programs that can cause damage to your computer







Viruses
A program or code that replicates;and infects other sectors of your computer by inserting itself or attaching itself to that medium. Most viruses only replicate, though others do a large amount of damage as well. Note that the virus may exist on your computer but it actually cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program, it cannot be spread without your action done to allow it, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going.


Worms
Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, has the capability to travel without any human action. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system and travels unaided. It has the destructive capability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out many copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book and infecting all your friends computers.


Trojans
The Trojan Horse is as tricky as the legend it was named after, they appear to be legitimate software or files from a legitimate source, but are actually destructive in nature. When a Trojan is activated on your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojans are designed to be more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files and destroying information on your system. Trojans are also known to create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.

Using Windows Media Player

Okay. Basically, I made this video in the beginning of the year for my then boyfriend. I’m not sure if it is really appropriate to post this on my com125 blog, but it is one of my greatest achievements! ( BUT I hope our dear Prof, you’re the only one who sees this as it contains some personal stuff >.< )
Windows movie maker is extremely easy to use, however it has a high tendency to lag if you do a video that is extremely lengthy, like mine. I found myself restarting the program or computer NUMEROUS times and it got extremely frustrating (but i persevered :) ) Instead of typing all words or script into a blank slide, I chose to photoshop all my messages into the pictures so it looks much more presentable. Moreover, the types of font offered in the program were too limited, while photoshop offered much more fanciful fonts, thus I chose to do it that way. I added in two songs back to back by inserting it in the time line here as shown by the screen shot.


Afterwhich, I played the video once and made further changes by inserting more pictures in between slides. I would recommend you to magnify your view as you do this so you can get your slides in the correct order. (tools as highlighted in the screenshot below)



After that you can add in animation if you desire and then convert it into other formats playable on various media players as well as post it on Youtube. Enjoy. (Beware: As I mentioned, it is an extremely long video)

Is E-learning really effective?

The turn into the technological age has seen even education adapting more dynamic and radical changes.

E-learning has allowed for easy accessibility to education and academic resources for students all over the world; and we can now “sit through” classes taught from across countries. This globalization of education enables us to be exposed to different forms of teaching and quality sources which would not have been available to us if we had not physically travelled to the particular location. In addition, the usage of certain digital technology enhances our learning experience.

Nowadays, more than one out of four college and university students take at least one course online. At the University of Buffalo SIM, I have taken numerous online modules in finance, management and economics and so far the experience has been positive. Lectures carried out in the UB campus in Buffalo can be downloaded and watched, thus students who might have missed out certain points can watch those lectures again. Eg: We can also stop a lecture in between and open a new window to search for some terms which we might have not have understood during the lecture; a behaviour which would have been unacceptable in a classroom condition(though you can argue that we can stop the lecturer in midsentence and querify with him/her).

Some might claim that E-learning is a completely different experience from being in the classroom face-to-face and some students might not be able to adapt to the new conditions. Evidence supports that students with certain learning styles (e.g., visual) or behavioral types (e.g., independent) do learn better in the Web environment and thus others are disadvantaged. However, most lecturers do recognize this and find means to make up for those students, through designing their e-learning content and the web environment such that it is conducive for all. Lecturers often create forums for students to participate in discussions and ask questions should they be in doubt, and that is one of the ways they make up for the reduced communication due to physical constraints. Moreover, institutions train their lecturers such that they are equipped with the necessary skills to make online courses effective and comprehensible to all students. It has been found that only 19 percent of institutions with online offerings report that they have no training or mentoring programs for their teaching faculty.

One other benefit found from implementing E-learning is that students who work online are found to improve their writing skills. Wegerif's (1998) study found that the ALN model improved writing skills by having students write more and more often, as well as by increasing the public visibility of student writing. (It is there for others - especially their peers - to see and, presumably, critique.)

Source: http://www.sloanconsortium.org

The video below is a debate regarding the effectiveness of E-learning.

I personally believe that E-learning is a beneficial and novel idea that is here to stay and we should strive to adjust and adapt ourselves to it as many aspects of our lives become more integrated with technology.I will leave you with Katie Salen and Henry Jenkins, who will tell you more about the potential of E-learning and why we should embrace it instead of frown upon it.