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!