Week 11

Features of Location Based Services & Locative Mobile Social Networks;
-Automated information alerts when you travel near tagged locations.
-Targeted advertising/specials when you travel near certain stores based on your interests.
-Ability to locate your friends who are currently logged in through their status updates or in real time
-Ability to see information that our friends have left about the place e.g, reviews. tags. comments
-Ability to see profiles anyone logged into the social network in your physical area
-Ability to comment on the profiles of anyone logged into the social network in your physical area

Which of these features would be useful?
What are some of the privacy, surveillance and social exclusion issues that arise from these features?

The only feature on this list that would be actually be useful with minimal infringement on privacy would be the ability to view information/reviews/comments friends (or even public comments by strangers) people have left for places such as restaurants. It could be a digital graffiti scenario. While this may produce the problem of showing others where you physically spend time if users keep it to their friendship groups it should be a safe experience.

The rest of these options give out way to much of your information and allow people who are so inclined to track/stalk you.

How does the use of location-aware applications change out experience of the world?
-e.g. Facebook check ins or location tags, foursquare
– Is location-awareness a momentous development or merely a passing fad?

It is an unsafe development, there is very little a user gets out of it, meanwhile there is a lot to be gather from predators and companies wanting to market products to you. The idea of targeted marketing seems nice, the increased opportunities business have to advertise to you hardly seems worth it when compared to the amount of times I’ve met up with someone for an impromptu coffee because my social media application told me they were in the area.  I would rather not be marketed to at all.

Week 10

Does the “walled garden” of Apple’s App Store foster or stifle innovation?
– Which is more conducive to innovation, open source or proprietary code?
-From a consumer;s perspective do you prefer Android or iOS? Why?

I think the walled garden app store doesn’t foster innovation the same way open source does. The walled garden invites a professional standard which is great and on the same token limits the reach that developers can contribute, which in my opinion is more of a bad thing than good.
Open Source development of anything is great and only allows for great work and innovation. With the collective input of interested and dedicated individuals, work can be worked on an extremely fast and focused pace.

 

How are mobile phones being used differently in the developing world?
– Are mobile phones the technology that will bridge the digital divide?

Mobile phones, specifically smartphones are cheaper to get than a desktop computer and are becoming closer and closer to their desktop counterparts. So given that a person can almost get all the same applications and use the same websites as a desktop, pc’s are close to being unneeded in the modern world.

Can online activism become a major political force

-Activism or Slacktivism

-Are DDos attacks the online equivalent of sit-ins or strikes

-Why did Kony 2012 fail?

As we become more and more reliant on the internet Ddos attacks become more relevant. These days protests (like the 99%) rallies don’t seem to do anything but with ddos attacks at the very least you disrupt corrupt business momentarily. It’s almost like a safe riot, data is always backed up and can be restored. There’s just a disruption to business without cars getting turned over and windows being smashed.

While social media is a great tool for getting your cause heard it tends to result in nothing happening. This is because most causes fail to convert people from talking about the issue online to actually doing something about it. There never seems to be any direction. This is why kony 2012 failed, many people were talking about it and it showed how causes could utilize social media. There was nothing beyond “hey lets get this kony guy because hes horrible!”. Was I suppose to fly to Africa and take up arms? was I meant to donate, what were they going to do with the money I donated? I have no idea what the plan was. I feel it failed in the conversion from online to real world change. Sure there were plenty of slackivists but among them are enough actual activists ready to make a difference.

Are social media becoming political media ?

-What is the role of social media in politics

-Can twitter and facebook really become a sustained weapon in political struggle?

Social media is increasingly becoming a tool for politicians to get their message out.

With Australian media dominated by rupert murdoch, the prime minister at the time Kevin Rudd turned to social media and did a Ask Me Anything on the Reddit platform where he was able to answer in depth questions direct from the public.

Week 8 Questions

Can we expect to have privacy if we use social media?
-How do you manage your own privacy online? – Compile a list of privacy guidelines based on your own social media experiences.

It depends on the service that we are using and at least have privacy options, it should be made abundantly clear the levels of privacy we have when using a social media service (which I feel is still lacking).

Some guidelines include:

setting anything you can to private/friends only.

Only accepting friend requests from people that you know.

Every time you post something ask yourself “would I be happy saying this in front of a packed rod laver arena?”

To take privacy even further, use a throwaway email to sign up for services, and use a fake name or online handle. A VPN can also be used.

What are the implications of the recent instances of data leaks (.e.g. Snowde, Wikileaks)?
-Consider the stakeholders: governments, private sector, potential whistleblowers, media, wider, public, etc.

– Should those in power expect privacy in the age of Social Media

Those in power should not expect privacy in the age of social media, and people should expect those in power to expose themselves on a level similar to themselves. As it stands the levels of privacy between consumers and providers/producers is very one sided. Consumers need to realise that if they are expected to divulge their lives in the public sphere that the corporations should also give consumers that transparency and that any company that doesn’t is seen as shady.

Week 7

Is Google making us stupid?

-has it affected our ability to concentrate?
It has given users less inclination to scrutinize or read beyond a single source(in many cases an opinion based source) information they read online. Fairly recently has it become common knowledge that information is commonly unreliably and that users need to become somewhat the fact checkers themselves.
On the flip side, the abundance of information and need to view it quick has improved our ability to skim read, our time is our most valuable asset. It has perhaps made us less inclined to truly absorb information as the sum of the worlds knowledge is just a Google away.

Are we becoming digital narcissists with social media?
Indeed we are. We have an online identity, whether it’s a user who is shying away from active engagement in forums and in the comment section of videos or the person drawing as much attention to themselves as possible and accumulating as many online friends as possible and all the different personas in between, we present ourselves online in a very specific and conscientious way.

-how do you manage your online identity?

My method of managing my online identity involves putting as little information as possible about myself onto the internet. I tend to leave my online identity to stagnate, I have not actually posted anything to my Facebook account apart from a few photos from a particular holiday because I wanted them to be shared with the people I visited. All of the activity on my profile comes from things other people have tagged me in,I treat my life as a very personal thing and my Facebook reflects that. I am one of those users who only has profit file so I may communicate with certain people who I am not particularly close with. While I could be using it to promote my freelance graphic design work, I wouldn’t do so without creating a series of new profiles across fb twitter ect so that I would be able to control the branding of my work without it interfering with my personal life.

week 6

How has creativity changed in the era of social media? – Can examples of ‘remix’ be considered as creative as ‘original’ content? Why or why not? -Find an example of remix(YouTube clip, image, music, etc) to illustrate your point.

Creativity has changed with by becoming more of a conversation. Users are able to take bits and pieces from the plethora of media available and use it to do anything from show their love or to present a critique. this in turn has increased collaboration in creative efforts.

http://youtu.be/7J80KD4BG7M   – Freemans mind

Freemans mind is a machinima created from the Valve softwares game Half-Life. The creator has recorded footage of himself playing through the entire game, edited it together and provided a voice over for the main character who doesn’t actually talk in the game. This is a beloved game and the creator has given people a new take on the main character and the game.

Are the Creative Commons licenses a viable alternative to copyright in the digital era? – Would you use it for your own creations? – Is it economically sustainable for creators? Is amateur culture detrimental to creative professionals? – Consider what type of content you consume more of: User-generated or professional.

Creative commons begins to free up the restrictiveness of copyright. It is definitely something I would use for some of my creations.

Amateur culture forces professionals to excel and produce better work and it provides an alternative middle ground for the amatuer and the professional to produce quality work for a fraction of the costs. s well as the producers, the viewers have more variety and option when it comes to what they can view and the type of material they want to view.

Week 5 Questions

What is the difference between produsage and production?
Production comes from the era of industrialisation. Major companies and corporations could produce content for the masses and they for the most part could only passively consume it.

Produsage is a combination of the words Production and usage. Before the era of web 2.0 we could only passively consume information and now in the post web 2.0 era we can instead actively participate in the distribution of new and original content.

– What are some of the things that can be created by communities of produsers?
-Produsers can participate in niche markets of the web. Interests and information that major corporations and companies don’t share with the public can be shared amongst the web with the certainty that the target audience will seek it out and actively participate in helping it grow. Whether it’s by adding information, sharing or just viewing it and showing interest.

– Can Produsage eventually replace production in some areas?

Produsage has the power to eventually replace production. As quality of prodused content grows, the products of production will become less sought after and will diminish. However the need for a professional industry that provide professionals with an income and the status that produser generated content just doesn’t offer, the need for products will stay strong.

Find an example of a poorly made Wikipedia entry.

– Explain why you chose this example, evaluate its information sources.
– Compare the entry to that you think it a more reliable source on the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Birmann

The article on artist Peter Birmann is an example of a poorly written wikipedia entry. It contains very little information about the artist and offers no citations to any reliable sources. It would appear that someone began translating the article from a German entry but gave up halfway through and the article has been left abandoned since early March.

http://www.galerie-fach.de/index.php/en/birmann-p

This article provides greater detail in the history of the artist and is hosted on a gallery/art dealer website which would be

http://www.answers.com/topic/peter-birmann-1

Hi!

Tags

3004, First, Intro, Social Media

We’re Moe & Nathan. We’re studying a Bachelor of Interactive Media at VU. We’re in our final year. We’re hoping to proceed into the industry of web development, graphic and print design after we complete our degree.