Fbook, Teens, and Tweens

In my Resources for Young Adults class, we've talked about cyberbullying and social network use by young adults (together, and as two separate topics).  The issue of lying about age to open a Facebook account is interesting, especially when parents condone that behavior.  This article talks about how many children under the age of 13 are using Facebook.  Duh.  It does discuss several ways to deal with this.  One option is to open Facebook to younger users and increase safety measures.  Critics say that this will increase cyberbullying.  Another opinion is that parents should exert more responsibility for encouraging children to not open social media accounts. 

I'm not sure what the answer is, but blaming parents seems silly.  In a more heated discussion in my class, several classmates implied that when parents allow their children to lie about their age online, the next step is underage drinking and lying about age in that context.  That view seems extreme, especially when parents discuss the context with their children.

Net Neutrality According to Sir Tim

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, aka "inventor of the web" (according to this article) advocates net neutrality as self-enforced by the internet industry.  If this doesn't happen (because why would it?), Sir Tim believes that governments should enforce the whole net neutrality thing by creating laws to ensure that all traffic on the internet continues to be treated equally. 

There are some sticky issues about involving the government in regulating internet traffic.  It could potentially act as a kind of slippery slope type situation where the government then begins to interfere with other kinds of internet use. 

Another interesting point made by Sir Tim is that internet access is "now becoming a human right."  This statement seems shortsighted and slightly ignorant of the fact that computer and internet access is often a privilege of Western, developed countries.  What about the millions of people who have never even used a computer?  Huh, Sir Tim? 

Chrome

While Redditing, I came across this article several clicks in.  It discusses why Google, after its reorganization, is allocating so much money to the development of Chrome.  Chrome, as a free product, doesn't increase revenue for Google.  The chances of it seriously undercutting Internet Explorer anytime soon are minimal.  However, according to Matt Rusoff (author), by improving Chrome, Google stays abreast of what's happening the the browser world.  As Chrome increases in popularity, Google has more say in browser standards as well.  When IE absolutely dominated the browser market, web developers catered to IE.  As Firefox and Chrome both become more popular, web developers turn their attention to these as well.  No longer will IE dominate! 

I have been using Firefox for a long time, and I'm just not sure about Chrome yet.  However, I like that Google is making Chrome a priority, for the sake of our children's browsing.

Armchair Activism.. Another Use for Fb!

This article talks about armchair activism, or activism by updating social media profiles to spread awareness about a particular issue.  According to Haley Robinson, the author, people believe that by tweeting or posting cryptic messages in their Facebook status, or changing a profile picture to something related to a cause, they are raising awareness about their particular issue.  Robinson believes that this is lazy activism that rarely results in greater awareness, discussions, or behavior changes that support a cause.  Instead, they raise awareness at a "minimal level".  Instead, to effectively advocate for a cause, Robinson recommends going out and doing something.  This can be donating money, or raising money. 

I found this to be another example of how passive and distanced people can be with social media.  In a way, it is hiding behind these web 2.0 technologies in order to not actually do something.  By sending your friend a message via Facebook, you don't have to actually talk to that friend.  By showing your support via Facebook, you don't have to do anything proactive that actually supports the organization.  On the other hand, lots of interesting social movement things have been happening thanks to these technologies.

More Google Alternatives

Awhile ago I posted about Blekko as an interesting alternative to Google.  Ok, cool.  But wait!  I found this article that lists several other alternatives to Google as well, in addition to Blekko.  Even cooler.  Obviously, Google is the easiest option for a quick search.  It's also probably the best option for most people who aren't willing to spend time figuring out how to use these other search engines.  Google is also best for people who think that Google is the Internet.

Anyway, Kevin Purdy (author) suggests several other search engines for specific search needs.  He recommends DuckDuckGo for absolutely anonymous searches, as well as programming searches and for searching sites.  Purdy recommends Blekko for very specific searches, or for avoiding many of the ad-filled sites that may come up through Google.  Then there is Wolfram Alpha for... lots of stuff.  Wolfram Alpha can retrieve computations like percentages and statistics by finding data sets and computing answers from them.  Again, another one that you'll have to experiment with before it's your go-to search engine.

Look out, Google?  Nah, it's still dominating the world.

A New "Save" Icon

About a month ago, as I was instructing the beginner computer class at the library where I intern, one of the (older) students asked why the "save" icon looked like it did.  I had not thought about that until he pointed it out: we use a now almost-obsolete image to represent one of the more important functions in many software programs.  Then I came across this article about the very same topic!  David Friedman discusses why we should use a different icon to symbolize saving a document/file/whatever.  He proposes that we use a home base as the icon to symbolize that the document/file/whatever is safe.  It would then become increasingly dirty as the document/file/whatever went longer without being saved.

As many commentators on this article suggest, baseball is only really popular here in the US, so the symbol would largely be lost on most of the world (like the floppy symbol may be lost on young'uns or anyone just starting to use computers).  Personally, I think the floppy is cute, and there are tons of symbols that aren't directly relevant to their use.  I do like the idea of the symbol, whatever it may be, changing as it becomes less safe.

Amazon in the Clouds

In addition to everything else, Amazon is launching an online cloud storage service, according to Rachel Metz in the article Amazon Launches Online Media Storage Service.  This service will take two forms: storage for files (video, music, photos) that users upload and store on Amazon's servers.  The second form is for music that users have uploaded to their computers or Android smartphones.  This article also states that both Google and Apple are working on similar projects.

Currently, Amazon is offering 5 gigabytes of storage to current account holders--something like a teaser to hook customers and get them to buy more storage.  Customers can purchase 20 gigabytes for a $20 annual fee.  This is cheaper (initially) than an external hard drive and more convenient.  However, I do worry about the information being held by a company, so I'm interested in the privacy aspect.  I'm also interested in how the information can be removed from the storage space once people decide to stop using the service.

Pretty cool, though.

Telecom Companies.. the Next Big Brother?

Malte Spitz, a German Green Party politician, went to court to obtain the information that the cell phone kept about him.  In It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know from nytimes.com, Noah Cohen discusses what Spitz discovered, as well as potential implications of this data-gathering.  According to the Deutsche Telekom documents, Spitz's location had been recorded 35,000 times in the six months that the records are kept.  After a legal battle, the company would not give Spitz additional information about the records kept about his account.


In the US, telecom companies are not required to publish what kinds of information they are collecting.  Additionally, most people don't know that the companies are even collecting information based on their locations.  One argument is that tracking people through their cell phones is valuable to law enforcement.  This makes me wonder how long it will be until marketers get their hands on this information.

Parts may be Greater than Whole Nowadays

People are receiving their information in parts and pieces nowadays.  The growing trend is away whole works in favor of quick information in bits and pieces.  Yes, perhaps quantity over quality.  In this article from NPR, We Are Just Not Digging the Whole Anymore by Linton Weeks, many experts weigh in on this phenomenon.  Some people say that "cognitive overload; information paralysis; techno stress; and data asphyxiation" (some of the terms dealing with the overabundance of information) cost us our attention spans.  For example, if people receive most of their information from Twitter, they may have trouble sitting down and reading a whole book. 

Adam Thierer, though, believes that this is not making us stupid or decreasing our love of books.  Instead, it's the price we pay for an overabundance of information: not as much time to spend reading, viewing, and consuming informational wholes.  Others believe the pendulum will swing back and people will long for the whole.  We'll see.

Teens, Cell Phones, Addiction, and Withdrawal

This article, Teen experience withdrawal without their cell phones by Brandon Bryce, talks about how as people use their cell phones more, they become more dependent on them.  A recent study found that, using a biofeedback monitor, teens showed some signs of withdrawal when they did not have their cell phones.  Michelle Hackman, the researcher, explained that cell phones are "inherently stimulating" so that when people no longer have their phones, they are understimulated and may not know what to do with themselves.

This study has some interesting implications and begs for more research on the topic.  The findings make sense to me, at least the dependency issue, but it is a bit alarming.  As we become more technologically "savvy" as a society, what will this mean for our ability to function without these gadgets?  The more we use these things, the shorter our attention spans become.  What will this mean for the monograph?!

Open in the Netherlands

Another gem from Reddit, this article, called "Moving to open source would save government one to four billion" by Gijs Hillenius from the Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations, discusses a report by the Dutch government that found that open source software could save the Dutch government billions of Euros.  That's a lot of money, especially for a smaller country.


This report came from a civil administrator in the ministry of the Interior.  However, later, the ministry removed links from the report after it was demanded by members of parliament.  It all sounds a little sketchy; maybe this has something to do with how the report blamed proprietary software companies with their unfair prices and vendor lock-in.  Ah, politics.  Governments are supposed to play nice with these companies, right?


While this report was removed and negated by the government, its findings are powerful.  As we're learning in class from firsthand experience (and experimentation), open source software often works as well as proprietary software.  But guess what?  It's free and more customizable.  Go, Netherlands!  One of the socialist MPs (Rik Janssen) has been pushing for open source.  I don't know much about how other governments approach this issue but this could be an interesting case study.

A More Customizable Google Search

When I saw the link to this article on Reddit, called Hide sites to find more of what you want by Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang from the Official Google Blog, I thought it was about Google blocking sites from appearing in searches because Redditors title their threads inconsistently from the actual title of the article.  So, I was a little outraged.  Alas, this article is about how Google is adding the capability of blocking sites from appearing in search results.  This is useful if a certain site(s) continually appear in the search result list but is unhelpful or irrelevant to the user.  Or you know the times when the top eight results are from the same website and equally irrelevant to your purposes?  No longer!  You can block that site faster than you have to click onto the second page of search results.  Genius!

These blocked sites lists are tied to a user's Google account if the user is signed in.  Users can manage the blocked sites list easily.  Google says that it will use information about which sites are frequently blocked to evaluate its search results.

Shame on you, Mr. Zuckerberg

Once again, with the F-b.  I just can't help it: I am drawn to all the weird shit surrounding Facebook and that greedy Mr. Zuckerberg.  According to this article by Brett Michael Dykes, Facebook is rolling out plans to sell user information to third parties.  That's scary because people put some personal information up there.  Anyone with an email address, phone number, or home address, please remove it from Facebook!  As far as I can tell, there is no opt-out in the privacy settings (as if you could find the privacy settings) so the only way to prevent this is to delete your Fb account or remove any personal information from it.  Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Tex) expressed concern over Facebook's decision; the company replied that they will leave it up to the users to decide what information to provide.

Yikes.  Anyone who hears about this should remove personal information from their pages, yes.  But what about those others who don't hear about this?  This is an invasion of privacy (not surprising given the company) and shame on that greedy Mr. Zuckerberg.  Can't he just stop?  Or work toward making the Fb better?  Jerk.

And the Survey Says...

I found this article through Reddit, titled 70% of the Public Find Piracy Socially Acceptable, about a study in Denmark that found that, as the title says, 70% of the public found piracy to be socially acceptable. Additionally, this number has not changed over the past ten years.  And this is important because it appears that all of this anti-piracy rhetoric by the entertainment industry hasn't changed peoples' minds.

Okay, one could argue that because this is not based on Americans, this study is not legitimate when talking about copyright laws here in this country.  I disagree.  I believe that this echoes an international attitude toward anti-piracy laws: that they are unfair, restrictive and irrelevant.

Another important attitude to consider is that while the survey participants found piracy for personal use to be socially acceptable, 75% believed that piracy for personal gain was socially unacceptable.  See, people have morals about this!  They just do not coincide with the major players in the entertainment industries.  I think (hope/wish) that the era of overly strict anti-piracy/copyright and intellectual property laws is coming to an end!  It's a losing battle for the entertainment industries.

PS: check out the comments, they're almost as interesting as the article!

Hack alert!

Eric Butler created Firesheep, a free downloadable program that allows users to easily hack others' computers on the same unsecured wi-fi network, to demonstrate the vulnerability of the current website security employed by most websites.  This article from the New York Times, New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users by Kate Murphy, exposes how insecure some websites are that handle sensitive data.  Firesheep uses cookies to impersonate the victim on the website, which can also give the malicious Firesheep user access to the victim's account information.

This article has a couple of interesting points.  The most interesting is that this program, which is easy to access and download, was created as an impetus to change the current approac to security employed by many websites.  Another important point, that everyone should know, is that one really shouldn't conduct sensitive business on unsecured networks.  Additionally, this makes me a little afraid and disappointed that web companies don't do anything about this.

Twitterpated

Pressed for time as I always am these days, I read Twitter's Biz Stone On Starting A Revolution from NPR instead of listening to the interview with Biz Stone (is that his real name?).  Anyway, Biz is the creator of Twitter, which is a social media technology that I do not use and am not too familiar with because the general impression I get is that it's for people who like to continuously update their friends on every little thing they do each day (in 140 characters or less).  I also see it as part of why people's attention spans are decreasing rapidly.


My judgments aside, Twitter played an interesting role in the Egyptian revolution (is that what we're calling it?) that deserves to be recognized as an innovative use of this new(ish) technology.  In addition to using Twitter to organize, Egyptians used Twitter to broadcast what was happening in their country after the Internet was shut down.  Collaboration between Google and Twitter made it so people could call local numbers, speak into the phone, and this message would be made into tweets.  That's pretty neat.


In the article, Biz does talk about how these technologies are bringing the world together into a global community.  He believes that by reading a tweet from someone across the globe, we can feel greater empathy for our fellow humans.  I'm not sure about this.  On the one hand, it's another way to reach people and create ties across the world; on the other hand, it has the potential to weaken interpersonal relationships with your immediate world.

Man versus Machine

I just learned about this ridiculousness last night in class when someone made a comment about Watson and everyone seemed to know what that meant.  For those who don't know (for those stuck in some graduate school bubble/choose not to watch tv), Watson is a super computer that has been beating the two best Jeopardy stars ever (here's an article about it).  Yes, people care about this.  And they should, but not because it's on some game show.  Rather, because this computer is able to use ambiguous clues to deduce answers faster than humans.

Imagine Google doing that.  According to this article (Which search engine would win at Jeopardy?), that ranks search engines on how well they would do on Jeopardy, Google would have the correct answer 66% of the time, with some other search engines close behind.  Watson was significantly more accurate than that.  Imagine the implications for future search engines.  I'd like to know how Watson does what it does--does it function as a search engine like the others?  People seem to think that this is it for AI--the robots are next!  People are weird.

Will Facebook be as friendless as Zuckerberg in The Social Network?

So, clearly, I am obsessed with Facebook.  Not obsessed like I have withdrawal symptoms if I don't post my status every hour, but obsessed in that I love reading about the way Facebook is (or is not) disrupting business as usual on the Internet.  This article, Facebook's Growing Web of Frenemies by Geoffrey A. Fowler from the Wall Street Journal, talks about Facebook's relationships with other IT companies.  Some companies must decide whether to continue to compete with Facebook or join forces.  Facebook is taking ad revenue away from some companies, even companies using traditional forms of advertising.  It's that powerful.  For example, Yahoo has integrated Facebook features into its sites instead of directly competing with the company.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Facebook is trying to do more.  I did mock its preliminary ideas about email and messaging services, yes.  But it's going bigger!  Facebook is creating a platform, which will put it in direct competition with other major IT companies.  I don't know how this will all pan out, but should we be afraid of the Fb taking over the world?

Can Facebook Improve Retention Rates?

I'm skeptical about social networking.  I'm skeptical about how well it actually works for creating a network of friends beyond just acquaintances.  I wonder how much it helps people connect around common interests, or how much it gets people to move outside themselves.  I wonder about its possibilities for creating stronger bonds between people.

But never fear!  According to an article by Larry Abramson from NPR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is investing money in Inigral, a company that creates Facebook sites for schools in order to create a greater sense of community for students.  This is an effort by the Foundation to decrease dropout rates, which can be as high as half of the freshman class by the end of the year.  Apparently, retention rates have been decreasing significantly, so colleges are looking for different ways to keep these students enrolled.  These sites attempt to create a network of peer support for students--available immediately upon starting school.  The sites will be only for college students at that particular school.

As mentioned in the article, it will be difficult to judge how successful these school-specific Facebook pages are for creating a peer support system and reducing dropout rates.  While I remain skeptical, I do like the different ways people are using social networking technologies, especially for endeavors greater than wishing the friend you haven't seen for 10 years a happy birthday.

Ebooks, what are you doing?!

Steven Johnson brings words of doom and gloom for the book, the physical book, as we know it.  In this article, Johnson discusses how ebooks are and will change the way people read and write.  As a future librarian, I find this topic fascinating because it will change the way I approach my job.  And potentially the way I relate to books on a personal level.

Johnson talks about how "print books have remained a kind of game preserve for the endangered species of linear, deep-focus reading" in a world full of electronic distractions like hyperlinks, smart phones, iPads, email, and our decreasing attention spans.  However, with the rise of the ebook, book reading may conform to these distractions and become yet another quick activity that happens between checking email, sending a text, and updating a Facebook status.

Additionally, Johnson writes that "Reading books will go from being a fundamentally private activity -- a direct exchange between author and reader -- to a community event, with every isolated paragraph the launching pad for a conversation with strangers around the world."  This is made possible through the same channels that provide distraction: hyperlinks, social networks, social tagging.  I have to say, though, that while this idea of a global community around a certain text seems a little idealistic, it's pretty cool.  This aspect makes me optimistic about inspiring more people to read, to expand their literary tastes, and think critically about literature.  I also wonder if it's easier to become distracted this way too: you find a passage that you don't understand, so you look to see what other people have said about it.  Then you look to see what other books are cited, then you look at other comments, then other citations, and five minutes later, you're very far away from what you were reading.

Ebooks may also change the way people write.  If books are purchased by chapter, this type of micropayment system will ensure that books are written with chapters to be read individually.  This can work in some contexts but, as Artistotle said, the whole is different from the sum of its parts.

I'm not sure how much of this will come to pass.  It's interesting, and some parts of it sound beneficial to the way people relate to text.  I don't see this happening anytime soon because the people in my generation are quite tied to books.  With younger generations who grow up with ebooks, who knows?

But that's fine, I'll still have a job.

Social Media and Politics

Social media is... interesting.  It's strange.  It allows people to feel closer to each other simply by reading some post or receiving a thumbs up.  It allows people to find that cute someone at school to determine if she has a boyfriend already--unless she has wisely made her profile private.  It's part of a new wave of advertisement.  And political campaign.  And Obama, who used social media so well during his campaign (or, rather, his campaign folks did), is falling behind, according to NPR.  Yes, even after using YouTube as part of his State of the Union address, the Republicans have caught up in their use of social media.

Clearly, there are several contributing factors.  Social media is not a secret anymore in 2011, so it's not surprising that other groups would use it after Obama's successful 2008 campaign.  Also, Facebook and Twitter were relatively new in 2008.  Now, they're commonplace.

According to Patrick Ruffini, a media consultant to the Republicans, "The Internet is a medium for challengers."  So it makes sense how Republicans are gaining ground online as they challenge the current political order, with many similarities to the 2008 Obama campaign.  Ruffini also points out that campaigns are generally black/white or good/bad so it's easier to rally people around winning against the opponent.  It's more difficult to rally support around compromise and filibusters.

A third factor is that, according to a social media consultant who worked with the Obama campaign, no one in Democratic party understands how to use social media.  It's possible that they're focusing on what worked three years ago (like a decade ago in technology years) when these technologies were fresh and new.  Now, it's necessary to switch tactics, try out new strategies, and use social media to garner support for the current political situation.  There has to be someone in the Whitehouse who can come up with some innovative ideas.

Overall, I found it interesting and amusing that the two major political parties are waging war on the social media front.  But, I suppose, it's the way of the future.  I wonder what the median age for the social media team is for each party.  I bet it's around 50 (although I have no idea, that just seems to be the age of the rich white men who run this country), so maybe they should hire some young'uns who have grown up with this stuff.

Zotero and Jing

Our third assignment for this class is to create a "How-to" tutorial for installing and configuring Zotero, an open-source bibliographic reference tool.  We are to use Jing to create a narrated video demonstrating the process.  They're both pretty neat, easy-to-use, and free!  Check my video out.  It was the best of four attempts.  Sorry that it's a weird size.

Expiration Dates for Facebook pics!

Everyone has pictures on the Internet that are unflattering.  Embarrassing.  You know.  You have too many accounts from too many photo-sharing websites to remember.  You can't even remember your account names or passwords for some of them!  This means that there are pictures of you, out there, forever, says Michael Backes, a professor at Saarland University, according to BBC News (link to article here).  Backes led the development of X-Pire, software that "gives images an expiration date by tagging them with an encrypted key."  Once they reach the expiration date, images can no longer be viewed or copied.  And you no longer have to worry about those embarrassing pictures!  In order to view pictures that are encrypted, users will have to have the X-pire browser add-on, currently only for Firefox.  X-pire is subscription based.

The best solution to embarrassing/unflattering/horrifying images online is to not put them online.  But, since that requires some forethought, X-pire does offer an interesting solution to this problem.  Some people don't understand the implications (come on, we were all 20-year-old college students once!) of putting personal information freely available on the Internet.  Although, when we were posting those pictures as 20-year-old college students, we probably wouldn't think to put an expiration date on them even it could be easily done by a software program.

Now, if only this could work for YouTube videos...

Alone Together: Me, my Android, and I

Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, has studied our reciprocal relationship with technology--how we change technology and how it changes us.  This article is about her new book, "Alone Together," which explores our relationship with technologies like smart phones and social networking.  Turkle presents the idea that these technologies have the potential to be very beneficial to the way businesses are run or the way we keep in contact with other people.  The problem is when they take the place of real interactions.  We're alone but we're connected to many people through Facebook--so that means we're having meaningful exchanges and bonding with these people, right?  Turkle also mentions that many people seek validation and approval through how many people have commented or "thumbed-up" their Facebook status, or how many text messages they get daily.  Because of this need to constantly connected, "we're losing a capacity for autonomy both intellectual and emotional."  This is a pretty scary thing, considering that we need a sense of autonomy to be fully functioning, emotionally intelligent adults.

I'm excited to read Turkle's book--when I have time after I graduate--because it's refreshing to hear a critique of the current technologies that allow constant communication and contact by someone who values these technologies in the right context.  It seems that many opinions about these emerging technologies present an all-or-nothing perspective that leaves no room for balanced, moderate use of these (potentially) helpful technologies.  I use my smart phone to stay organized.  So what?

Tricksssy Passwordssss

Unless you're my dad, you probably use only one or two passwords to log into your various online accounts.  I know I do.  I know it's stupid, too, but I never thought about it much until I came across this article by Ian Clarke about a better way to pick passwords that ensures that you can both remember your password for each site and have a separate password everywhere.  This blog post also explains a little about why it's a bad idea to use the same password in multiple locations--especially using your email address and password as logins on other sites.  Basically, that site can use that information to get into your email account and spam, spam, spam.  Additionally, even if that site is reputable, it can be hacked and your privacy could be violated in that way.  Again, both of these potential situations are not too likely (I think?) but spam sucks!  (I didn't ever think about either of these things, either.) 

So, another approach suggested by Clarke is using many different passwords to fool potential hackers/spammers/privacy violators.  But there is the danger of forgetting which password goes where, or having to alter a password to fit certain site requirements.  He offers another solution: create a formula involving some letters of the domain name, a number, and a set of letters (common to all passwords).  For example, you could use the first four letters, reversed, but capitalizing the fourth letter, followed by "59" and "Xyz".  So my password for Blogger would be Glob59Xyz and my password for Gmail would be Iamg59Xyz.  As Clarke points out, there is the potential to reverse engineer the passwords once you know one, but that takes time and effort.  And it's better than using the same password everywhere.

I might give it a try.  I might not...  I'm lazy when it comes to online security (sorry, Dad).  If nothing else, this article made me realize how connected my online accounts could potentially be.

The Death of Email? Hardly.

Check out this article about the death of email.  The death of email by Facebook's "Project Titan," which supposedly combines "email, SMS, chat and Facebook email," according to GfK.  Apparently, this combination of services could be the next Google.  But GfK NOP, after conducting an online survey, says otherwise.  The survey found that those users most likely to be wooed away were using Hotmail and Yahoo for their email accounts.  About a third of current Facebook users would consider using the service.  Interestingly, Google users were more likely to consider using a Facebook messaging service alongside their current Gmail account.

I found the survey results to be most interesting in highlighting the different approaches people toward messaging services.  Having used Facebook to send messages, I am not impressed by its design.  Therefore, I have trouble imagining that Facebook would excel at any of the above services, let alone all of them simultaneously.  In this sense, it's not surprising that Yahoo and Hotmail users would switch to Facebook's services because Yahoo and Hotmail don't offer great email service (I know from experience).  As a Gmail user, I have found that the integration of email, documents, calendar, etc. has made organization easier.  The Gmail feature where a conversation thread is kept together is also very useful, helpful, and efficient.  Clearly, Gmail users will not abandon these services for the ones provided by Facebook.  This is my opinion, but Google account users are often more technologically literate and savvy, so it's not surprising that Google users would use the Facebook services alongside Google services.

Another good point presented by GfK: will businesses want email addresses that have @facebook on them?  How professional would an @facebook email look when applying for a job?  Hah!

Alternatives to Google

My boyfriend Jamie recently sent me a link to this article entitled "Why We Desperately Need a New (and Better) Google".  Obviously, Google is my search engine of choice because it works significantly better than other popular alternatives.  In my organizing and retrieving information class last semester, we talked a lot about Google and how its patented PageRank algorithm works (to a very basic degree).  We talked about how Google uses citations, references, and hyperlinks to rank pages and how this bypassed many of the tricks that website creators used to make their pages rank high in a search engine.

Okay, great.  But what happens when sites begin to purchase high rankings?  Objectivity and unbiased information go out the window and you get some yahooesque search engine.  That may be an exaggeration, but many times Google searches now offer sponsored links in addition to other listings.  Hmmm...  I have to say, it hasn't directly affected my searches but it's a slippery slope.  Now this, then what?  I do trust Google (I use gmail and I'm not overly concerned with the fact that Google knows a lot about me) but I have to say that I am waiting for Google to use its inordinately large amount of power for evil.

Which is why it's important to have alternatives.  This article mentions blekko, a search engine that allows you to sort your search results using slashtags (like /date to search by date or /blog to search only blogs).  It's pretty neat.  While it's still in beta, it does offer an interesting alternative, with a sleek and simple interface (lifted a little from Google, perhaps?).  It's just a matter of time before something as innovative as Google PageRank comes out.  Could this be it?

Library 2.0! Okay, but what about the Digital Divide?

I recently watched this video for class, called "Building Academic Library 2.0". It's the keynote speech given by Meredith Farkas at a conference at UC Berkeley.  While it mainly focused on Library 2.0 in academic libraries, I found it interesting and relevant in the context of public libraries.  While "Library 2.0" is a difficult term to define, I think of it as a shift toward a more user-centric approach to libraries and the services they offer.  This can be in the form of greater personalization of OPACs by the user.  Another example is allowing individual library users to create content and share it with a community of other library users, like reviewing books or tagging within the OPAC.

Another example of Library 2.0, slightly more radical in my opinion, is the idea of transparent user feedback.  This is something that Farkas talked about as an important component of Library 2.0.  This feedback can be through physical suggestion boxes in the library or online (and more visible) on the library's blog or Facebook page.  This creates a dialogue between users/patrons and the library that is visible and open to everyone (everyone who has the equipment and technological understanding to view or participate, that is).  From my own experiences, I find that this type of dialogue is missing from many library settings.  This is one way that libraries can better serve their patrons: by listening to their patrons about what works, what doesn't, and what could be done.

However, while Farkas didn't spend much time talking about non-technological aspects of Library 2.0, she did mention that not everything done to reach out to users must be technological.  She mentioned extending library hours to accommodate those users who can't use the library during regular hours.  Beyond this, though, I find Library 2.0 suggestions to be fairly useless to those users who are technologically illiterate.  And, unfortunately, many of the people who benefit from new Library 2.0 technologies are the users who already use the library and its services.  They are the people who have alternate resources that they can rely on.  So, I'm still not sure how to approach this predicament.  Libraries need to change, innovate, evolve as information, access, and use change.  But those users (or nonusers) who are already lagging behind in the Digital Divide will continue to fall behind.  How to reconcile this?

Welcome!

This blog is for my LIS 2600 Introduction to Information Technology class.  Is there any significance to the course number?  Probably.

I will be blogging twice weekly about information technology stuff that I find interesting, enlightening, troublesome, problematic, etc.  Anyway, enjoy!