Where have you been?

Looking for a good place to eat? Trying to find where your friends are going out for the night? Traveling in a new city and curious about what's around? Just pop out your smartphone, pull up Foursquare, and all of your answers are right there!

I was quick to adopt the use of Foursquare, and have been addicted ever since. I don't know what is so fulfilling about getting imaginary points for simply going about your daily business, but something about it just makes you feel good. Not to mention the potential for gaining mayorships and discounts at local shops.  

Another 'perk' Foursquare gives you is the ability to earn badges. Oh the badges, there's badges for just about everything. If you check into 10+ movie theaters you get a 'zoetrope' badge. If you check into 3 places with photobooth you get a photogenic badge. It's nice getting rewarding for things you're doing every day even though the rewards don't really transfer into real life. 

Foursquare is primarily for smart phone users, however there are ways to get around this by using the mobile site on your computer to check into your location. 

Foursquare users have also taken it upon themselves to create 4square meet-ups. Users will decide a location for everyone to meet at and then everyone goes and checks in together. It's a way for people in a city to get out and meet other locals! Plus if enough people show up to the event, you can earn a swarm badge.

For examples of meet ups in Indy and who's the reigning champs of points for the week check out FourSquare Indy's website!

Why do you need a Second Life?

This week in class we have been learning about Second Life. Second Life is an online virtual reality game where players create avatars and live a literal "Second Life." For the most part it is the same as real life, with a few minor exceptions such as you can fly. Second Life, to me, seems like a waste of time. I already more or less have a "second life" just by having all of my social networks that I have to constantly keep up with.

However, some people have taken Second Life to the next level by making a living off of it and almost made it their first life. Take Anshe Chung for example. She managed to take Second Life and invest her time and money into being a realtor to other avatars on Second Life and she is now a millionaire. In Second Life, you buy money using real US dollars and then can also make money by selling things. Anshe has built an entire world around her real estate and her Second Life homes go for big money, making her in turn a millionaire.

The fact that this is possible absolutely blows my mind. I do not see what these people are doing with their money, why they are spending it on a fake self online as opposed to investing it in their real lives. However, if they enjoy doing it more power to them. The world will always baffle me.

Just a quick blog to try to win a contest!

The beauty of the internet.
I have just got to win this contest, the cutest clothes and accessories in the world.

http://www.milkteef.com/2010/11/spoiled-rotten-giveaway.html

Do You Digg?

The World Wide Web keeps growing every day and keeps allowing us to make it more personal for ourselves. With each new creation there are ways to incorporate yourself more into the web and take part in the Internet.

Social Bookmarking sites, such as Digg and Reddit are a perfect example of this personalization of the Internet. Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to "bookmark" or save links that they are interested in. From there, they can share their bookmarks with other users. Some social bookmarking sites have a ranking system where people can vote the story up or down on the social bookmarking sites page, and then the stories with the highest ranks are the ones featured on the front page. This is where the sites above come in.

Digg is considered to be "the largest focus group." The top stories that are featured are (supposed to be) chosen by the rank of how many "Diggs" they get.  Digg's website explains, "Everything on Digg — from news to videos to images — is submitted by our community (that would be you). Once something is submitted, other people see it and Digg what they like best. If your submission rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of our visitors to see. "

If you look at it that way, essentially us, the users are deciding what we deem newsworthy. This definitely has it's perks. A complaint throughout the ages has been that the news community never really has the readers in mind and only reports on what they want to. This system is controlled by the readers, who vote for  what they deem newsworthy and hopefully get that featured for all to see.

Now just because something doesn't end up on the front page doesn't mean no one reads it, there is always  to each his own. You can also personalize  your Digg to categorize posts and make it easier to browse the news.

Digg and other social bookmarking sites, such as StumbleUpon which literally brings you to a random website at a click of a button based on basic preference information you gave when you signed up, contribute heavily to the info snacking age we seem to be a part of.

Will Digg and such sites completely trump the news for people's sources of information? Probably not for a while, if even ever, but it does give the consumer a fresh new way to consume and create their news.

The Internet Celebrity

This week we read about "Dating on the net" among various other things. It was discussed how people often make fake personas to seem more appealing to other users on the internet and that got me thinking about the new era "celebrity."

So many people you see in the magazine and obviously the internet can be deemed "internet celebrities." They somehow caught the publics attention enough (or shoved themselves in the public's face enough) to catch on like wildfire and make a career out of it.

That being said, I decided to google "How to become and internet celebrity" and found a couple websites. They are a bit sarcastic and joking in some areas, but still pretty accurate none the less.

Instructions for being an internet celebrity 1

Instructions for being an internet celebrity 2

Instructions for being an internet celebrity 3

It is kind of unreal how some of these people skyrocket to fame. Take Tila Tequila the claimed "most popular artists on myspace." With a myriad of bikini clad pictures and music she became everyone's "friend" and now she has a record deal, multiple tv deals and who knows what else. Some people even become internet stars accidentily. Through the easy accessibility of the internet and websites such as Digg people's stories and viral videos can spread twice as fast and be brought to the public's attention, making whoever or whatever is the subject of the video a star.

Before internet fame

After

That being said, be careful what you post on the internet (or not), or you just might end up being the next internet sensation.

The Ocean of Information

This week in class we will be discussing Wikipedia and it's pros and cons. To help us prepare for this discussion we read various articles including A Stand Against Wikipedia by Scott Jaschik. The article discusses how Wikipedia has been infiltrating the school systems more and more and some schools are beginning to ban the use of it. Jaschik talks with several professors about the issue. Most note that Wikipedia does have some value but people are using it incorrectly.

The world of Wikipedia is such a catch 22 due to the fact that there is a plethora of correct information, some even more correct than the printed encyclopedias due to the immediacy that Wikipedia has, but there is also so much room for error in Wikipedia's system.

Here at Butler, all of my professors have told me that it is unacceptable to cite Wikipedia and would result in a lowered grade on a paper. I find this to be a reasonable rule, however that does not mean that I have never used a Wikipedia page for research. I think what people need to realize while researching is that Wikipedia is a good place to start but then take time to cross check your facts. Also, a lot of the time information on Wikipedia has a citation and there are links at the bottom to take you to the original source of the information.

Therefore my stand on Wikipedia is to not write it out of your research and learning overall, but just remember what you are reading and research further than just a single Wikipedia site. Anyone could be writing the article you are reading...

Gender Differences In the Blogosphere

We had to read an article THE GENDERED BLOGOSPHERE: EXAMINING INEQUALITY USING NETWORK AND FEMINIST THEORY which discussed what propotion of political bloggers were women. They took samples over a one year course and found out that a mere 10% of political bloggers were women. The reasons that they gave for this were 1. Women simply don't blog about politics, 2. Women's blogs lack quality and 3. The most popular blogs do not link to women's blogs.

It is pretty obvious that politics has been a "men's world" for as long as we've known it, so it's not very surprising to see a lack of women political bloggers. I personally do not have much of an interest in politics so this doesn't really shock or effect me much.

The second reasoning they give, that women's blogs lack quality, seems a bit absurd. However, I would agree that if women are blogging they tend to add their own opinions and feelings into the blog more often than men do. This may be an off putting thing in a blog if someone is trying to find hard facts about a political issue. The reader would not want to have to wade through 3 paragraphs of the writers personal opinion.

Lastly, the linking hierarchy that has been created by men. As previously discussed, we know that "info snacking" is the new way to surf the web. Therefore, if the most popular blogs are linking to other blogs, those blogs will then get tons of traffic sent to their site. Now if men are only linking to other men, it pushes the women's blogs even further down into the abyss that is the internet. Women can help change this by only linking to other women, however that could greatly affect the quality of their blog.

In the end, perhaps with the times changing and the prospective of more women in politics grows so will the appearance of women political bloggers.