Final Essay

Web 2.0 has allowed for users of the Internet to explore new capabilities through social networking sites such as Facebook. For the past month I have closely observed this Web 2.0 medium which allows online communities of people with shared interests to interact with one another. Facebook allows people to keep in touch with friends and family members as well as share photos and other characteristics that will be discussed in this essay. Web 2.0 helped Facebook to be the most popular social networking site on the Internet today because of it’s extremely user friendly interface.

Communication and it’s content on the Internet is completely user oriented thanks to the new Web 2.0 technologies. New web sites allow users to do more than just retrieve and relay information but now offers control to what is put on and in some cases taken off pages. It is meant to intensify proficiency of online communications and secure information sharing on the web. Online communities can now be found in different forms such as social video sharing sites, wiki, blogs, and even social networking sites.

According to mashable.com, Facebook is a social networking site introduced to the web on February 4th, 2004. It is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. A man named Mark Zuckerberg who was born in White Plains New York originally created it. During Zuckerberg’s childhood he created computer programs that include games and communication tools. For example, he created a program to help the employees communicate in his father’s office. Synapse is also a program that he created, which was a music player AOL and Microsoft tried to recruit him and purchase his software. Instead, he chose to attend college at Harvard University. Zuckerberg did not stop programming their either. Coursematch, a program he designed in 2003, let students see classes that others were enrolled in. Later on that year he created a website called facemash.com, which was a website with pictures of students where people could rank them. This started out as a prank but ended him in front of the Harvard Administration Board because of breaking rules in the student handbook. He then created what we know as Facebook and limited the users to only Harvard University students so students could easily meet each other. As Facebook became bigger, Zuckerberg brought on Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCullon, and Chris Hughs to help the make the site bigger and more popular. It became a huge success so he expanded it to other Ivy League schools as well. Facebook then expanded the network and allowed every college to join, and now anyone with an Internet connection and a valid email address can easily join the site and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Barnes tells us that "teenagers now use organized social Web sites to meet others and explore identity formation." On the other hand there have been large amounts of people joining that are over the age of 30. In fact, Techcrunch.com states that the age group of 35 plus has grown 98 percent from 2006 to 2007.

The site is set up and organized by where you live, work, what school you attend, and what region you are connected to allowing you to interact with other people. According to Wikipedia.com, once on the site "Users can add other friends, send messages to each other, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves." Although Facebook is relatively new to the Internet, it has become extremely popular and attracts users all over the world.

In order to show just how huge Facebook has become since 2004 I have found these statistics directly from the Facebook statistics site. Since 2004, Facebook has attained over 120 million active users and is the fourth most trafficked website in the world. Facebook is also the most trafficked social media site in the world. There are over 55,000 regional, work related, collegiate, and high school networks on Facebook and more than half of the users are outside of college. It is the number one photo sharing application on the Web, there are more than 10 billion photos uploaded to the site and more than 30 million photos uploaded daily. It is internationally known with more than 35 translations available on the site, with over 65 in development Platform. There are over 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries and over 52,000 applications that are currently available on Facebook Platform with, 140 new applications added per day.

Facebook has simplified their navigation system as well to give users easier access to its functions and applications. Its core functions such as Profile, Friends, Networks, and Inbox are located by links at the very top left of the user’s page. Applications such as Photos, Notes, Groups, Events, and Posted items are simply displayed on the left side bar, along with any specific applications that user has added to their account.

Any user of the web whether using Facebook or not is concerned with their privacy. Facebook’s founder makes sure that they give the people tools to control the information they share and who they chose to share it with. Users have the ability to share and restrict information based on specific friends or friend lists. User’s fingertips easily control what kind of personal information they put on with minimal confusion. For example, I have my very own Facebook profile. In my profile, I can allow others to see specific information about me such as where I go to school, my home address, email address, cell phone number, and so on. There may be a slot for all this information to go into, but I can chose whether or not I want to supply that personal information to others.

Facebook recently introduced users to a function called the "Mini Feed". The mini feed allows users to progressively see exactly what their friends have been doing, for example how they have been feeling and even whom they have been keeping in contact with. The mini feed alerts users about friends that you would like to know more about and even some that you just do not care for. What many users may not know is that Facebook has a settings option. This option allows you to control what type of information is displayed about you, if you chose to have any at all. If you do not want people to see whom you have been talking to or when you upload new pictures, then you simply chose not to in the settings area. You can also chose to see specific people every time they update or you can chose to see nothing at all. The best part, it is all completely up to the user every time.

Every person who uses Facebook really has their own specific reasons why they do. Personally I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family whether they live next door or if they live thousands of miles away. It’s fun to look at pictures of everyone and see occasions that I may have missed out on. I love to log on and look at the new pictures from the night before that friends have tagged me in. Commenting on funny pictures or posting on my friends wall is my absolute favorite. Facebook also makes it easier to keep in touch with a few of my friends and family who are currently serving in the war overseas. Speaking on the phone is not always easy due to long distances, money, and also different time zones. Facebook allows us to communicate when it is convent for the both of us. Facebook also has a new chat option where we can communicate with live chat with friends that are currently logged on. These are just some of my personal reasons for using the site.

Others may have different reasons to use Facebook such as meeting your peers, according to Cnet news it is not just for college kids anymore. Members are typically older and more mature than on other sites, there is also a higher prevalence of white-collar users. Also to find business contacts, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, and your competitors. Facebook members are open to connecting. Facebook is fun because it is easy to begin a dialog with highly successful and famous people that are otherwise unreachable. From a business prospective it’s useful to build relationships. It allows users to engage in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs. By consistently showing up, posting relevant information, and being a leader, you can increase credibility as an expert in your area. According to International Herald Tribune you can also place targeted ads. With Facebook Social Ads, you can test out extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost or even no marketing cost. Aside from paid ads, Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity you will end up with more traffic, more subscribers, and more paying clients.

It is clear that Facebook is a great social network for people of all different ages. If you do not have an account yet, I would recommend that you sign up as soon as possible. On the other hand, if you do have a Facebook account, you should start using it to your advantage. People should start to expand their horizons to not just communicating with your old high school buddies or your college friends but start with people that are involved in your field of work interest. Many people get job offers just by using Facebook. Join groups that interest you as well as make friends with people that look good to know. It is important not to be shy because the purpose is to connect and interact with other members. With Facebook you actually have to market yourself to become popular. In most cases it is done with interaction, which I talked about above, but you can also do things like adding photos of yourself and other members. When you do this the other people that you tagged in the photo will get emailed, therefor increasing the number of people who see you on Facebook. Another good thing would be to keep your profile up to date. If you do not keep your profile up to date it will start dying down. By keeping it up to date it will gain more traffic and more people will get to know you.

Web 2.0 allows users to connect to many different types of communication media on the Internet, Facebook being only one out of hundreds that you could use. My research shows that Facebook is the hottest social networking site around and it is growing bigger by the day. With 120 million active users and is the fourth most-trafficked website in the world it is expected to reach over 200 million users and just about reach the number one trafficked site in the world by the end of 2008.

Uses of Facebook vary from person to person but in the end people use it to as a source of entertainment. Looking at pictures and videos of your friends or your night at the bar, making silly comments about things you might not remember from the night before. Keeping up to date news with your family or to connect with people within your desired work field to look for open job positions or even to keep on top of your current events in the office.

Facebook is a useful tool but the best is that it’s a Web 2.0 medium. It allows the users to be the voice, eyes and ears as to their own content on the net. The goal is to secure information sharing on the web and intensify proficiency of online communications. Tim O’Reilly (2005) does say that the Web 2.0 era lets the users add value. Therefore we control what direction Facebook and Web 2.0 will move in.

Resources


O’Reilly, Tim. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from
http://www.oreillynet.com/put/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.


Yadav, Sid. (2006) Facebook-The Complete Biography. Retrieved November 27, 2008 from Mashable All Thats New On The Web. http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/


Hrush( May 3, 2008) Why do people use Facebook? Retrieved November 30, 2008 from Cleartrip Blog. http://blog.cleartrip.com/journal/2008/5/3/why-do-people-use-facebook.html


Lewis, K., Kaufman, J., & Christakis, N. (2008). The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 79-100.

Final Essay Draft

Tim O’Reilly (2005) says, "Web 2.0 doesn’t have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles..." (O’Reilly, pg1). Basically meaning Web 2.0 has not one specific definition and is instead combined through many different web technologies. For the past month I have chosen and closely observed a Web 2.0 medium called Facebook. This medium is a social networking site that allows online communities of people that usually share interest to interact with one another.

All new Web 2.0 technologies allow communication and it’s content to be completely user oriented. These web sites now allow users to do more than just retrieve information but now letting them control what is put on and in some cases taken off. It is meant to intensify proficiency of online communications and secure information sharing on the web. Online communities can now be found in different forms such as, social video sharing sites, wiki, blogs, and even social networking sites.

Facebook is a social networking site introduced to the web on February 4th, 2004. It is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. A man named Mark Zuckerberg started the site and limited the users to only Harvard University students where he also attended college, although now anyone with an Internet connection can easily join the site and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Only a valid email address is needed to sign up along with a bit of demographic information.

The site is set up and organized by where you live, work, what school you attend, and what region you are connected to allowing you to interact with other people. According to Wikipedia.com once on the site, "Users can add other friends, send messages to each other, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves." Although Facebook is relatively new to the Internet, it has become extremely popular and attracts users all over the world.

In order to show just how huge Facebook has become since 2004 I have found these statistics directly from the Facebook statistics site. Since 2004 Facebook has over 120 million active users and is the fourth most trafficked website in the world. Facebook is also the most trafficked social media site in the world (comScore). There are over 55,000 regional, work related, collegiate, and high school networks on Facebook and more than half of the users are outside of college. It is the number one photo sharing application on the Web (comScore). There are more than 10 billion photos uploaded to the site and more than 30 million photos uploaded daily. It is internationally known with more than 35 translations available on the site, with over 65 in development Platform. There are over 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries and over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform with, 140 new applications added per day.

Facebook has simplified their navigation system to give users easier access to its functions and applications. Its core functions such as Profile, Friends, Networks, and Inbox are located by links at the very top left of the user’s page. Applications such as Photos, Notes, Groups, Events, and Posted items are simply displayed on the left side bar, along with any specific applications that user has added to their account.

Any user of the web whether using Facebook or not is concerned with their privacy. Facebook’s founder makes sure that they give the people tools to control the information they share and who they chose to share it with. Facebook says they are TrustE certified and users also have the ability to share and restrict information based on specific friends or friend lists. It is at the user’s hands to control what kind of personal information they put on. For example, I have my very own Facebook profile. In my profile I could allow others to see specific information about me such as where I go to school, my home address, email address, cell phone number, and even more. There may be a slot for all this information to go into, but I can chose whether or not I want to supply that personal information to others. Facebook recently introduced users a function called the "Mini Feed". The mini feed allows users to see exactly what their friends have been doing, for example how they have been feeling and even who they have been keeping in contact with. The mini feed alerts you about friends that you would like to know more about and even some that you just do not care for. What many users do not know is that Facebook have a settings option. In this option you can control what type of information is displayed about you if you chose to have any at all. If you do not want people to see who you have been talking to or when you upload new pictures, then you simply chose not to in the settings area. You can also chose to see specific people every time they update or you can chose to see nothing at all. The best part, it is all completely up to the user every time.

Every person who uses Facebook really has their own specific reasons why they do. I personally use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family whether they live next door or if they live thousands of miles away. It is fun to look at pictures of everyone and see occasions that I may have missed out on. I love to go on and look at the new pictures from the night before. Facebook also makes it easier to keep in touch with a few of my friends and family who are currently serving in the war overseas. Speaking on the phone is not always easy due to the distance, money, and also different time zones. Facebook allows us to communicate when it is convent for the both of us. These are just some of my personal reasons for using the site.

Others may have different reasons to use Facebook such as meeting your peers, according to Cnet news it is not just for college kids anymore. Members are typically older and mature than on other sites, and there are more white-collar users. Also to find business contacts, not only are your friends on Facebook, so are your prospects, your customers, and your competitors. Facebook members are open to connecting. You can easily begin a dialog with highly successful and famous people that are otherwise unreachable. In a business retrospect it is useful to build relationships. It allows users to engage in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs. By consistently showing up, posting relevant information, and being a leader, you can increase credibility as an expert in your area. According to International Herald Tribune you can also place targeted ads. With Facebook Social Ads, you can test out extremely targeted advertising for minimal cost. No cost of marketing. Aside from paid ads, Facebook is totally free to use and with regular activity you will end up with more traffic, more subscribers, and more paying clients.

It is clear that Facebook is a great social network for people of all different ages. If you do not have an account yet, I would recommend that you sign up as soon as possible. On the other hand, if you do have a Facebook account, you should start using it to your advantage. The ComAbstracts suggest that you start interacting not just with your high school buddies or your college friends and start with people that are within your field of work interest. Many people do get job offers just by using Facebook. Join groups that interest you as well as make friends with people that look good to know. It is important not to be shy because the purpose is to connect and interact with other members. With Facebook you actually have to market yourself to become popular. In most cases it is done with interaction, which I talked about above, but you can also do things like adding photos of yourself and other members. When you do this the other people that you tagged in the photo will get emailed, therefor increasing the number of people who see you on Facebook. EBSCO says some of the other things to consider are creating a group on Facebook as well as creating your own application, which could be distributed to all your friends. Another good thing would be to keep your profile up to date. If you do not keep your profile up to date it will start dying down. By keeping it up to date it will gain more traffic and more people will get to know you.

Web 2.0 allows users to connect to many different types of communication media on the Internet. Facebook being only one out of hundreds that you could use. My research shows that Facebook is the hottest social networking site around and it is growing bigger by the day. With 120 million active users and is the fourth most-trafficked website in the world it is expected to reach over 200 million users and just about reach the number one trafficked site in the world by the end of 2008.

Uses of Facebook vary from person to person but in the end people use it to as a source of entertainment. Looking at pictures and videos of your friends or your night at the bar, making silly comments about things you might not remember from the night before. Keeping up to date news with your family or to connect with people within your desired work field to look for open job positions or even to keep on top of your current events in the office.

Facebook is great but the best is that it is a Web 2.0 medium. It allows the users to be the voice and control the content that is on the net. The goal is to secure information sharing on the web and intensify proficiency of online communications. Tim O’Reilly (2005) does say that the Web 2.0 era lets the users add value. Therefore we control what direction Facebook and Web 2.0 will move in.

Resources

O’Reilly, Tim. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://www.oreillynet.com/put/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.

Final essay notes

For the past month I have been researching a Web 2.0 medium called Facebook. It is a very popular social networking site which has many different aspects that I will further discuss in my final paper. It is great for people of all ages and the big thing is that the users have complete control of their information that is put on. The user controls what direction it will move in. It is completely in the users hands.

Blogging America Essay

Communication technologies are on the rise thanks to the Internet and blogging, a new technology used to communicate that is rapidly becoming more popular by the second. Blogs are a completely separate "Online Community" just as Aaron Barlow refers to in his book Blogging America. According to the website Technorati, there are over 75 million blogs but is still rapidly increasing. People use blogs to create personal journals where they rant and rave freely while hearing what others have to say. They can also be used for a source of the newest information, to talk politics or any other interest you might have or even just to connect with others for a sense of security or entertainment.

For the past week or so I have been tracking a popular blog for my Communications 430z class. The blog I chose is called Autoblog, which is a blog all about autos. Autoblog allows users to see the newest releases on all different kinds of vehicles. Everyday there is about ten articles posted on different types of autos. Each article allows users to read about the topic of interest, look at pictures or videos, and post comments of anything they want to say. Now this particular blog is the least bit of an online journal or a place for private emotions to be displayed, but still a place for communication at the very least. Before this class I never used a blog in my life and now I am on them everyday. I am still hesitant to get into the very personal blogs so far but am very much into this one for now.

As soon as I became an active participant on the Autoblog I realized that it really was a real different "Online Community". At first when I looked at the blog several times a day I would never post a comment and just scan through the comments that people left. After a day or two of just reading others comments I decided to sign up with my school email address and make up a simple user name of "Scott". I made my first post as a blogger and observed the reactions people had. I continued to communicate as my observations went on throughout the week. My observations show that many people post short opinions such as "Very nice car" or "I don’t like it", but others chat back and forth about specifics and minor details that others do not even see. I found that many of these people knew each other and became friends just from their online user names. They have never met in person and probably never will. But it was still a close community between them and they would back each other up no matter what. For example, one day a user with only one previous post started up some negative drama (to be funny) but all the regular users shut him down immediately whether they liked each other or not. It was just like a family. Barlow (2008) talks about bloggers being lonely people living in their mother’s basements but it was at this point I saw that this blog proves otherwise. I will admit that some people probably have way too much time on their hands but most of these people are in fact a tight community who really enjoy what they do.

I now see that the purpose of these blogs is to bring people who have the same interest together. They come together to interact together creating tight relationships between bloggers all around. There will always be people who try and break relationships by writing ignorant and pathetic things that are meant to destroy but a true community overcomes that and moves on quickly. In some circumstances it could be potentially catastrophic. If these certain people who wish to break up relationships are not eliminated it may cause regular users to leave and stop communicating on the blog all together.

Barlow and the Autoblog have made me realize what blogging is all about. People want to become close and bond together by sharing interest. People even want to expand their interest and find other topics they relate to. They want to be able to connect to their community and share with each other, which to me is what blogging is all about. Each person has their own purpose to communicate blogs whether we disagree or not but in the end the whole point is to create a sense of community in their daily lives. They do so by joining the blogosphere and connect with each other by helping and enjoying blogging all over.

References

Barlow, A (2008). Blogging @merica: The new public sphere. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

November 12 Reaction

For my Com 430z class we were assigned to do a reading by Lori Kendall called "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back". This article focus’s on a Web 2.0 technology that I have not talked about yet called LiveJournal.

The article was written based on research that the author had conducted. Kendall (2007) researched specific strategies that people of the LiveJournal use including identity methods and even information management techniques. Kendall starts out this article by telling us the "Methodology" used while conducting the research on LiveJournal. Two years of observations were made. Observations such as viewing samples of journals, conducting interviews, and even had a journal of her own. She goes in the article to talk about what she calls "Private journal vs. public performance"(p. 2). In this section she talks about things such as the blog as a diary and privacy concerns. She also talks about the nature of the blogs. By nature of the blogs I mean whether or not it is public or private.

She continues on into the article talking about "Efficiency vs. Audience Management" and "Control vs. Connection" (p.5, 9). "Autonomy vs. the Desire for Comments" is the last subject she talks about in her article (p.11). In the section she talks about how the users see their comments as an uncontrollable performance. A user’s comment can be deleted at anytime if the author of the blog does not like it. She also talks about how her participants have deleted comments because it may have been too personal for anyone other then them and the author. Kendall slightly touches on the waste of space or waste of a post. For example when someone just simply agrees it is a waste of space because it holds little information.

I think that this article is interesting in how the author considers different levels of interactions of the blogs a performance. It seems to me that Kendall is trying to show that people that use this site want to have a connection or bond with others and LiveJournal gives them the chance to do so. People like to hear feedback on what they say and want to hear opinions or what they write. If they did not, they would not be on the site.

Kendall, Lori. (2007). "Shout into the wind, and it shouts back." Identity and interactional tensions on LiveJournal. First Monday, 12. Retrieved on August 21, 2008 from http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_9/kenda11/index.html

Auto Blog Reaction # 5

Well today is the final day that I am required to observe the Autoblog. Although I promise i will continue to browse and participate in the blog on a regular basis. This class has got me hooked onto this blog and I am actually excited to see what other kinds of blogs that I have interest in. Nothing really too special happened on the blog today. It is really just people agreeing or disagreeing and very few people asking questions or arguing back and forth. It is not like a chat room are anything so I'm guessing some people never check what is written back to them. Comments are still very short and to the point. The articles are interesting but there is no more excitement besides that! I like to see a good debate once in a while.

Auto Blog Reaction # 4

Well Monday comes around and there is a lot of chatter on the blog. This blog produces like 10 or more new articles everyday. Keeping everyone up to date regarding the auto world. I think that it is really hard for people to focus on one subject because there is just so much to read about. I tried stirring up some mischief but not to many responses so far (we will have to see what happens in the next few days). One thing about this blog is that it links to other blogs of different topics of interest. I did some looking around and found a few other interesting articles about sports and politics but I want to focus on the Auto's section for now. I did an enormous amount of searching on the Autoblog today. I looked at many older articles and read some comments on them. I say older but really nothing too much more than a few weeks. I am interested to see what my new few days of observations bring to me.

Auto Blog Reaction # 3

Searching the blogs some more I realized that I have made a mistake. There are acctually tons of comments on each article and even answers and replys to the ones that I have made. I am not even really sure how I made this mistake but I am happy I discovered it shortly after I posted about it. The comments that I do see are usually short and nothing too drastic in lenght. Mostly talking about the looks and like of the car. I have not seen too much confrontation yet either. I think I will have to try and manipulate some into it to make it a little more fun for my paper. Still a key problem is going to be identity. It is a main issue because no one knows who you are. I made my username Scott and all i needed was an email adress to sign up. Your email adress is never seen by anyone that I know of. This being said, making any user name you want leads me to to a false sence of security. I do not know who these people are and do not know if I can trust what they say with out further research.

Auto Blog Reaction # 2

This weekend there has been so many post on the blog. One thing I realized is that they make so many post it is really hard for people to focus on one thing at a time. There are many articles that go without comments on this blog. I try to make post asking questions or even just making a simple statements. My findings are disappointing to say the least. Many of my comments go unanswered and overlooked. Hopefully that will change sometime soon. I plan on making more specific comments and am going to focus more on the bigger articles that are posted.

Auto Blog Reaction # 1

Autoblog.com is the blog that I decided to research for our com430z class. I found this blog though www.technorati.com, a website introduced to us by the professor. I chose this blog because I am very interested in cars and motorcycles (really anything with an engine and wheels). This blog is actually awesome and I can not believe that I have never seen it before. This site is going right onto my favorites. Autoblog shows all the updated news on new cars, concept cars, car shows, and so much more. They even have a place to find cars for sale around your location. One thing I did notice is that most of the comments on the articles are really just opinions if they like the car and things like that. One thing I would like to do when I post is to ask a question and see if someone answers me. I do have a feeling that identity is going to be a key issue for me while researching the blog. But I am very excited to explore this website for at least the next seven days but most likely more.

Reaction to Chapter 2 Blogging America

For Com 430z I have read chapter two of Aaron Barlow’s book called Blogging America. Barlow talks about many aspects of blogs in this chapter of his book. He starts out by telling the audience if we keep blogging at this rate, there will be a whopping five hundred million blogs by the year 2010. Barlow also points out in the start of this chapter the even with the 75 million blogs already on the web, there are still people who do not know anything about them.

Blogs are also seen by many people as not being creditable. Anyone anywhere can be the author of their own blog saying anything they want. There is no one to stop them, edit their work, or censor what the user’s say. To me I see blogs being more like journals and should not be used regularly for sources of information but more or sources of entertainment. Barlow tells us that the blogs may be created to get peoples opinions about a certain thing or even just to relieve a little stress. They may be used for educational purposes such as our Com 430z class or they could be started for a business.

Personally the only blog that I use is the one for this class. Reading this chapter made me realize that blogging is actually pretty popular and not just something that people with no time do. I can really look into anything I want and even have one so only my friends and I can use. Truthfully I have not spent much time looking at people’s blogs and reading what they write. I am sure that one day I will be introduced to it and will become a blog-aholic. My motorcycle forums are addicting as it is so I can only imagine me blogging about any given topic.

Barlow, Aaron. Blogging America. (2008). The Blogs in Society (Chapter 2).

Essay # 3

Searching the World Wide Web is not always as simple as it may seem. The actuall search and finding the right "keyword" may be the easy part, although the hard part is to find reliable sources with accurate and creditable information. Web 2.0 provides many different search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Ask, all of which allows users to find virtually whatever they need. For Com 430z the ultimate task is to create a Wiki on a Web 2.0 medium such as the one I have chosen called Facebook. This essay will consist of my evaluation of information that I have found about Facebook as well as my assessment on the search engines and reliability of the sources used.


Searching smart as users is extremely important and we must not believe everything we see on the Web. We need to search for reliable and accurate sources to provide us with information on the topic that we are researching. My search engine of choice would be Google. It is set as my homepage and is the first thing that pops up when I open up my Internet Explorer. That being said, Google was the first out of three search engines I used to find information on Facebook. I wanted to start out simple so I started out searching with a keyword of "Facebook" to see what I would get back. The first two results were links leading me directly to the site itself and the third one lead me to Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes Facebook as a social networking site and tells me the history, features, and a ton more about the site. Wikipedia is a great way to find information on the Web quickly and most of the time accurately. Although it is discussed as a not so reliable source because virtually anyone can edit and twist around the information.


After searching for a bit I found that the keyword "Facebook" was much too broad and needed to make a more specific one. So I did just that and changed the keyword to "History of Facebook". The hit returned was from a website called Mashable. Information on Mashable seemed to be reliable and accurate and actually much of it related very well to the Wikipedia site. The Mashable site actually has a place where users could make posts and agree or disagree about the article. Personally I would not call this a reliable source being it came from an author who is not known and did not provide proof of where the information came from. For someone’s everyday use this article would be fine, but for someone who needs a scholarly and reliable source this would not fit the category. Google had returned many different sites on the "History of Facebook" but at this point I was looking for a complete reliable source. At the bottom of the Google search I found an article from the International Herald Tribune.This site talked about many aspects of Facebook and many things involving around Facebook which was I was looking for. This site is a known creditable source of information and reliable enough for me to mention it in this paper.


After messing around with Google for quite some time I decided it was time to move on. I decided to continue with Ask.com. I started my searches with the same keyword "History of Facebook". Many of the articles that came up were actually ones that I have seen before and lighted up purple which means that it had been clicked on already. Although I did find on the first page of hits, a site that I had not yet been to. It lead me to Chronicle.com. There was not much on this site at all except for a brief article linking us to the Mashable site that I have previously talked about. It is really at this point that I am realizing that Google and Ask are providing the same information that I have been finding. Really to me the history of Facebook is not something that is extremely important to me and have not found an incredible amount of information about it. This being said I have not found an extreme amount of reliable information on it so I decided to take advantage of being a student at the University of Albany and use an online resource offered by the library.


EBSCO has a ton of scholarly articles so I decided to search "History of Facebook" and see what I got in return. It led me to a reliable article that spoke about the aspects and history of Facebook. All of the information that the author of this article got was from reliable sources and this would be a great article to find what you need on the subject of matter. Another database on the library website is called ComAbstracts here I found a few topics about Facebook but nothing that really related to what I was looking for. It is extremely hard to really find exactly what you want when searching for specific things.


After searching on the library databases I pretty much came up empty. I decided to go back to searching on search engines to see what I can find on the "History of Facebook". In my return I decided to use Yahoo to research more information to contribute to the Wiki project. Yahoo is basically the same concept as Google and Ask. I decided to stick with the same keyword although I had a feeling I would be having the same results come back to me. I was right, the keyword kept giving me the same results that Google and Ask. I did find one thing that stood out to me because I had not seen it in the other searches I have done. The search came back and lead me to About.com where I found again the same information I have been founding. It was at this point where I thought to myself, "if I keep finding the same exact information on these sites, then it must be reliable and correct information that I am reading."


I have come to the conclusion that the keyword" History of Facebook" lead me to some accurate and reliable sources of information. They provided me with the information necessary to create my own Wiki when it comes time for the final project. Although I found what I was looking for I was not completely satisfied, so I decided to look around a bit more and use different keywords. The keywords I used were " What is Facebook, Who is Facebook, All about Facebook, and Background information on Facebook. " I found that I received back most of the same information that I have been finding except for the keywords "Background information on Facebook". It actually was almost too many keywords because the type of information I was receiving was really all kinds of different things. I learned from this paper that not everything on the Web is a reliable source to use. The searcher must really choose wisely on the information they choose to use in their academic papers.

For my com 430z class I read an article by Michael Zimmer called "The externalities of search 2.0; The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0."


Zimmer starts this article out by talking about the creating "perfect search engine" that supplies users accurate information and at a high rate of speed. These search engines would remember your old searches so it can make future searches better. Instead of searching for keywords we would be able to type in full sentences and receive a relevant answer. He mentions that in order to have a "perfect search engine" you must have "perfect reach" and "perfect recall". These would give access to all information available on the World Wide Web and would deliver the personalized results depending on who the person searching is.


He continues in his article with the prevalence of personal information that can be accessed on the Web 2.0. Explaining that users (especially younger ones) are very lose with giving out personal information. Zimmer is also concerned with the amount of privacy that we have. At one point in his article he talks about Lack of "Privacy via Obscurity" speaking about the fact that we can look up people using google which can also be used for finding out background information on people that may even be used in pre employment hiring decisions.


By the end of the article he talks about the possible effects that searching could have. He talks about things such as the "Disciplinary power, Panoptic Sorting, and Invisibility and Allure of Search 2.0."


Great things are offered by search 2.0 but there are always people looking to take advantage of mistakes that other people may make. Identity theft is a huge issue with credit cards and things of that nature. As technology progresses it is moving to the web. I have always been one to watch what I say and be sure not to release too much personal information. At first I was even scared to give my credit card number to Ebay until I learned about secure sites and things of that nature. Many people do not realize that even giving out their last name on the web could place them in serious problems. I really think that Zimmer is trying to point out issues such as privacy so we will be more careful with our personal information.




References
Zimmer, Michael. (2008). The externalities of search 2.0; The emerging privacy threats when the drive for the perfect search engine meets Web 2.0. First Monday, 13. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2136/1944

Essay # 2

"Usenet, a world wide distributed Internet discussion system"(Wikipedia.org, 2008) has become a tremendous part of communicators daily lifestyles. It allows people to communicate through the Internet using forums, blogs, message boards, and even others to speak about common interest. Unfortunately, users have to deal with many problems such as the false sense of identity, spammers and even free riders. For the past week I have been observing two motorcycle forums and will discuss my observations in the following essay.


The Usenet was introduced to us in 1979, allowing users to read and post public messages to each other regarding specific topics. Once being able to count on a single hand the amount of bulletin boards created by Usenet when it first came around. There are now countless amounts of bulletin boards on the Internet as a result. It is great! People can discuss common topics with each other from all around the world, getting all different kinds of opinions and ideas. Although and unfortunately along with the good comes bad and the Usenet shows some of both (Mostly good). An article written by Kollock and Smith (1996) primarily on the Usenet shows us problems we may run into. Just as Professor Stromer-Galley stated on our class blog spot (http://com430z.blogspot.com/) "Their essay focused on Usenet and the problem of cooperation in online environments where there are few rules and little by way of sanctioning to stop unwanted behavior"(Stromer-Galley, 2008).


For the past seven days I have been observing two motorcycle forums, just looking at the interactions between the people who posted and in some events the people who did not. The forums are for Kawasaki motorcycles but specifically for the Ninja 650r. I am currently an active member in the forums and check as well as make post on them daily. These forums are used to ask questions and in reply people will answer questions to the best of their ability. In addition, people sell and buy parts, accessories, and even bikes. We post pictures of our bikes, ourselves, and we also have a section for off topic postings where we can post anything we want about anything we want. So personally for me Usenet and these forums have become part of my daily life, checking them three sometimes four times a day.
On the second day of my observations I came to my first personal roadblock, the Free-Rider problem. "Free Riders are those who consume more than their fair share of a resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its production" (Wikipedia.org, 2008). More or less this means that there are either people that contribute unrelated information, opinions, and flat out nonsense. Or they sit back letting everyone else contribute and end up benefiting from their work and efforts. I read about this in an article by Kollock and Smith where they explain in their article Managing the virtual commons that "Boundary and bandwidth restrictions would have a direct effect on each user of the group, by the Free Riders of the group" (Kollock and Smith, 2008, Pg. 116).


I saw on the forums that people were posting in wrong sections of the forums and even posting a question and not replying to the responses received from others. For example, on the forums is a section for "Off Topic Postings" in this section you can make threads and discuss what ever you would like. Even though this is available for people to post in I was still seeing political nonsense all over the other sections such as "Maintenance" and "For Sale". In fact, we had one person join the forums just to create spam. According to the online Wikipedia "Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages"(Wikipedia.org, 2008). This person signed up for the purpose promoting political propaganda. They posted numerous times in several different sections; made up pictures and quotes all over the place. Fortunately, a moderator caught them banned their IP address and deleted all of their post. Precautions have now been made on the forums to stop these spammers who are taking us away from the real purpose of being on these forums. I truly believe, that if we ignore these spammers and free riders, and do not act bothered by them, that they will slowly start to disappear (At least off our forums).


Brining me to my next major issue, which is Identity. Most of these forums are really an identity free environment. By identity free I mean no one knows who you really are (Age, gender, and so on.). People who join, create a nickname a password and that is it, they are in. In most cases their faces are never seen and their true identity is never revealed. Now this may not always be such a bad thing, but in the case of spammers and free riders it is. For example in our class, we all entered a private Internet Relay Chat (IRC). When joining the IRC each student was given a random nickname, so no one knew who was who. The class had a specific topic to stay on top of, but since their true identity’s were never revealed and could in reality not get in trouble, students immediately spammed the IRC. Talking about penises, drinking, and a ton more of what I thought was actually funny stuff. My point being is that none of them would have ever acted in this way if their nicknames were their first and last names. So as you can see these problems all really link together.


Now on my forums we do not get many spammers. But in the case of identity problems I see a whole new one. Mine being that suppose I was to ask a question about an engine problem I might be having. I post the question and get a response from a user. How do I know that this user is a credible source of information? In other words, how do I know that this person is not telling me the exact opposite of what I should do? They might in fact be telling me something that might make the problem even worse. So not only is Identity an issue for spammers it is also an issue for credibility.


Personally for the forums I have been observing, the problems with free riding, spamming, and Identity have not really been a huge factor. I have only been watching for a short period and have not seen too many bad encounters, but that might not be the case for others. In the end I believe that if we ignore the spammers and free riders they will eventually go away. They might even go away faster if we could solve the issue of identity. People would not commit crimes if they knew they would get caught. Same concept applies to spamming, people would not spam if they knew they would be identified.





References

Usenet. (2008, September 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:10, September 24, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usenet&oldid=238615653


Kollock, P. & Smith, M. (1996). Managing the virtual commons: Cooperation and conflict in computer communities. In S. C. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social and cross-cultural perspectives (pp.109-129). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.


http://com430z.blogspot.com/

Free rider problem. (2008, August 27). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:09, September 24, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_rider_problem&oldid=234653145


Spam (electronic). (2008, September 22). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:51, September 24, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spam_(electronic)&oldid=240253542




Forums Observed


http://www.riderforums.com/


http://www.ninja650.com/phpbb/index.php

September 24th Reaction

For my Com 430z class we were assigned to read an article called "What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software" that was written by Tim O’Reilly. As O’Reilly states "This article is an attempt to clarify just what we mean by "Web 2.0". In the article they go over several different ways that web has changed and advanced from "Web 1.0". He talks about "The Web As Platform" specifically about Netscape being the old and Google being the new. Describing the differences between the two, giving reasons how and why Google has taken over.


In the article O’Reilly also talks about "Harnessing Collective Intelligence". In this section he talks specifically about blogging and how it has become popular. He describes a blog as "just a personal home page in diary format." From here he talks about many other topics including "Data Is The Next Intel Inside, End Of The Software Release Cycle, Lightweight Programming Models, Software Above The Level Of A Single Device, And Rich User Experiences". By the end of the article O’Reilly speaks about seven characteristics that companies with "Web 2.0" should have. He points out that these may not be all of them but these are the "core competencies of Web 2.0 companies."


I think that the "Web 2.0" and the new features are a great thing, Its great that we can blog and communicate with people. The bad thing is that there is always that person who has to ruin things for everyone. I am talking about the spammers on the web. People who are up to no good and to me are really just a pain in the rear end. Really leading to the identity problem. The spam because no one knows who they are. If there identity was known I highly doubt they would spam much.






O'Reilly, Tim. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved August 21, 2008 from http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html.

September 23rd Journal

Today there is much more action on the forums. There were pages and pages of post and new threads that I went through and it is still early in the afternoon. One was a post on how to fix a particular item on a motorcycle called the "Clutch". This whole time I am reading the directions on how to fix it and thinking to myself who is this person telling me how to do this. In this situation I really did not need the directions because I was not having the problem. But if it were me having the problem, how do I know if I can trust this person? Maybe this person is really telling me something that is extremely wrong and could blow my whole bike up. How do I know I can trust what he is saying?

September 22nd Journal

Surprisingly today there has not been much activity at all on the forums. A little upsetting to me actually because it has become a source of entertainment for me. In my past journal post I have been talking about the issue of the Free Rider problem.




Now I would like to bring up the issue of identity. Basically the point being is that you do not know who you are talking to on the other end of the computer. Most of the time we see some sort or nickname so there is some source of identity. But names can be misleading. For example, speed demon376 (Just a random name I made up) may be very miss leading. I do not know this persons gender or age or anything else about them. One might ask must we really know if they are male or female and even how old they are? Personally I feel I do not need to know. But to others it might. Especially when it comes to the topic of experience and riding motorcycles.

September 21st Journal

To start off today I would like to speak about another feature I never knew the Riderforums.com had. These journals have really made me see some very cool features the forums has. It is an option where you can view EVERY post you have ever made. I just thought this was cool and a very easy way to reference or look back on things if it is really necessary. Currently there are 42,035 threads, 447,310 post, and 28,162 members of the forum. I would assume that not all of these members are currently active because there would be many more post. I personally since I joined on 07-15-08 have made 46 post and started 7 threads. To me this really is not a lot since I log onto the forums a few times a day. Sometimes though I just like to sit back and read what other people have to say and not participate as much. So again, am I free riding? Good question!

As of right now the really big thread on both forums that I am overlooking is about the 2009 models. People are simply posting their opinions about the bike and its features. There is a mixed amount of emotions but mostly positive. People are actually wondering if the parts from the new one will fit the old ones so they can customize them even more. This thread which is only a month old has almost two thousand views and a couple hundred post.

Well I believe that is good for now until my next post tommorow!

September 17th Journal

Today I have looked over the forums a few times. I personally look over these forums; seeing questions that people may have. I ask myself, if these people are asking questions and I do not not answer their question, am I Free Ridding? If I find something they might be talking about useful and take something away from their discussion, without personally being involved in it then someone might consider this free ridding.

I was looking around the forums for things I might not have seen before. I stumbled around a thread called "Posting Policys". It says "This is a moderated forum, members have no right to post anything." (Jarelj,The Commander, 05-16-06)

Here is what the thread states:

http://www.riderforums.com/announcement.php?f=87

"The posting policies on RiderForums.com are very simple. This is a moderated forum, members have no "right" to post anything. The text below is the site policy that is required to be accepted during user registration. If you registered prior to this text being on the registration page, please consider this your notice of the site policies. All members are required to adhere to this policy as a condition of membership. If you disagree with the policies and would like your account removed, please notify the Administrator. "By clicking the Agree button, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-orientated, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violate of any laws. The owners and Moderators of RiderForums.com Community have the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason." The "For Sale/Trade" forum is intended as a resource for members to buy and sell personal merchandise from/to each other. Each item for sale must have a price specified for the item - NO auctioning terms are allowed. Commercial merchandise is strictly forbidden. Conditions which will result in merchandise being considered Commercial include, but are not limited to:1) Items are "brokered" on the board and sold on behalf of a third party business or individual2) Items are offered in a "taking orders" fashion and/or where duplicate items are offered3) Items are being offered by any entity other than an individual member of this board4) Items are offered in an auction fashion (Links to eBay auctions are acceptable, as long as the item is an individual personal item being sold through a personal eBay account (non-commercial))5) Items are not directly related to motorcycles. All Commercial items must be offered through our affiliated product site, www.MotoSpecialties.com, or by an Authorized Vendor in the RiderForums.com Shops.** NO SALES OF ANY KIND are allowed to be solicited or consummated using the site's Personal Messaging system. Sending an offer to any member via PM will result in your immediate removal from the site ** The Administrator reserves the right to ban the sale of any item for any reason, and to remove any existing posts if it is deemed that the post is in violation of the site policies. If this happens, the Administrator will notify the poster of the deletion.If you have any questions about what you are about to post, or about the site policies, please contact the Administrator and clear up any confusion prior to posting so there are no misunderstandings." (Jarelj,The Commander, 05-16-06)

Another thing that I came across was a pre registration to keep spammers away. They state as follows

"Since we are trying to keep the spammers away. Once you register, you will receive a welcome e-mail. At that point, e-mail me or Kim . She's a busy girl, and it might take a while. I check for them several times a day. I'm having some problems with my e-mail account through my website. It's saying my mailbox is full, it's not, so disregard that. Just send one, and let us know your screen name, that's all we need, not your password." (BRP, Wed Mar 19, 2008 6:35 am)

The point is that this site has administrators who try and keep order among the community and keeping everything flowing.

September 16th Journal 1

For my essay number 2 I am observing 2 message forums for motorcycles. One of the forums is called Riderforums.com and the other is Ninja650.com. These forums are for Kawasaki motorcycles mainly specifically for the Ninja 650r. I am currently an active member in the forums and check as well as make post on them daily. These forums are used to ask questions that one may have about their motorcycle including problems they might be having. In reply people will answer questions as best as they can. They are also used for meeting up with people around and going for group rides. On the forums people sell and buy parts, accessories and even bikes. We post pictures of our bikes, and we also have a section for off topic postings where we can post anything we want about anything we want. These forums have become part of my daily life; checking them 3 sometimes 4 times a day.

September 17th Reaction

For September 17th 2008 the COM430Z class was required to read an article by Jason Whitaker called The Internet: The basics (Chapter 3).

Whitaker starts this chapter off by talking about "Text and hypertext". Stating "…without a standard protocol for transmitting documents using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), the Web would not exist, and without a standard format for creating pages, including the ability to link between them (hyperlinks), web pages would lose a great deal of their usability."(Whitaker, 58). Continuing on in the chapter he jumps into the world of Digital Imaging; explaining how we brought images to the Web and slightly how it works.

Whitaker goes on to tell us that "…broadcasting in the form of digital music and video is only just beginning to take off across the Internet."(Whitaker, 67). Again giving us background information of how we came about the Audio and Video world of the Web and how it works. Further into the chapter Whitaker talks about Web Production, HTML (HyperText Markup Language), Web Design, Elements of a Web Page, and even talking about Colors. He even gives us examples of what layouts would look like in HTML format (Whitaker, 76).

At one point in the chapter Whitaker says "We are now beginning to treat the image with the same suspicion once reserved for the printed word: just as we do not believe the words we read in the papers, so we no longer trust everything we see." (Whitaker, 62). This is an excellent observation that he made. I search the Internet for all types of things including pictures and even videos. Although not everything you see is real. Just as if you were talking to someone you can not trust everything you hear. These days people are using "Photoshop"(A graphics editing program) and other programs like it to edit images. My point being is that even though you might see a picture of something on the Internet, does not mean it is real. I honestly think that Whitaker did not talk about this enough.

September 10th Reaction

For September 10th 2008 the COM430Z class was required to read an article by Peter Kollock and March Smith called "Managing the Virtual Commons: Cooperation and Conflict in Computer Communities".

Kollock and Smith tell us that they apply the logic of social dilemmas to a portion of cyberspace which they call the Usenet which was developed in 1981. Describing the Usenet as a "collection of several thousand discussion groups that is distributed and maintained in a decentralized fashion." Basically a large communication system that is looked over by computers. Starting out in the chapter telling us about Usenet and the major social problems the members take on. Then exploring how the problems might be solved by studying cases of Ostrom (1990) who researched many types of communities to see what contributed to its success and even if be their failure.

Their main focus in the chapter was the free-rider problem and the ability of a group to overcome it. The free-rider problem is basically referring to a situation where some individuals in a population either consume more than their fair share of a common resource, or pay less than their fair share of the cost of a common resource. Or in other words one who benefits from a collective activity without participating in it. Kollock and Smith talk about two opposing arguments the first being that researchers say "coercion by a strong external authority is necessary in order to insure cooperation" and the second "that an external authority may not be necessary and may even make the situation worse."

Cooperation is not always the thing to do and even find. There will always be that one person who does not want to cooperate. In this case, of the free-rider problem, there will always be those people who do not participate at all. I ask myself, why? Honestly I do not know. Maybe it is because they would rather kick back and observe what is going on, keeping their opinion, thoughts and ideas to themselves. Is this such a bad thing though, if we have enough people participation and cooperating, then maybe it is not so bad if some do not. The real problem would be if not enough people are cooperating because then we have nothing and like Kollock and Smith implied, we all suffer. I believe it is natural for most human beings, to take the easy way out, always looking for the fastest easiest ways to do things. Letting others do the work for them thinking that they are sparing themselves but in the end these people and ones whom are free-riding will only hurt themselves.

Essay #1

Currently in the 21st century, one would think they could answer what seems to be a simple question such as, "What is the Internet?" Initially my reaction would be "Are you kidding me?" Although now thinking about it, I ask myself the question, suddenly realizing it is not so easy to answer. According to the online Wikipedia, the "Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that interchange data by packet switching using the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies."

Often confused with the Internet is known as the World Wide Web, the two are used frequently without realizing they are different. The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing. The Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides connectivity from computer to computer. According to the online Wikipedia, the Web is one of the services communicated from the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfers and sharing linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

Explaining that the Internet interchanges data by packet switching using the standardized Internet Protocol Suite, may be some what confusing. So packet switching simply put is referring to protocols in which messages are broken up into small packets before they are sent. Each packet is transmitted individually across the net and the packets may even follow different routes to the destination. Therefor, each packet has header information in which enable to route the packet to its destination. At the destination the packets are reassembled into the original message. To prevent unpredictably long delays and ensure that the network has a reliably fast transit time, a maximum length is allowed for each packet. It is for this reason that a message submitted to the transport layer might first have to be divided by the transport protocol entity into a number of smaller packet units before transmission. In the end they will be reassembled into a single message at the destination. This also usually prevents the message from being blocked in anyway because there are an unlimited amount of routes it can take. Today the switches are getting faster and faster, with optical switches providing large advances in speed with practically zero switching time. Packets are moving from one network to another at almost the speed of light.

What is known as the standardized Internet Protocol Suite is what makes packet switching possible. It defines a set of rules to enable computers to communicate over a network. The transmission control protocol (TCP) and the Internet protocol (IP).were the first two protocols in the suite to be developed. TCP/IP provides end-to-end connectivity specifying how data should be formatted, addressed, shipped, routed and delivered to the right destination. The specification defines protocols for different types of communication between computers and provides a framework for more detailed standards. Basically with out the standardized protocol the networks would not all speak the same language, thus making it near impossible to understand each other and transmit with each other.

According to the Wikipedia, Internet Protocol Suite, like many protocol suites, may be viewed as a set of layers. Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data, and provides a well-defined service to the upper layer protocols based on using services from some lower layers. Upper layers are logically closer to the user and deal with more abstract data, relying on lower layer protocols to translate data into forms that can eventually be physically transmitted.

With these and many other features of the Internet the world would be a totally different place. The World Wide Web is a huge set of inter-linked documents, images and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. Personally, the Internet is one of my main ways of communication. I use it all the time to email my friends, family and professors. I communicate with people I do not even know through forums and blogs, discussing things we have in common or asking and answering questions about anything. It is great for lazy people who would rather shop, sell and advertise online for anything imaginable, including online grocery shopping which my mother loves to do. It is great for sharing pictures and videos, even live video conferencing with someone very close to you who might be half way around the world.

The Web is like a huge encyclopedia of information, in some ways it's even better. The volume of information you'll find on the Web is amazing. For every topic that you've ever wondered about, there's bound to be someone who's written a Web page about it. The Web offers many different perspectives on a single topic. One of the great things about the Web is that it puts information into your hands that you might otherwise have to pay for or find out by less convenient means. It can simply be used for fun, playing interactive games and even multi-players with other people online. Anything you could ever imagine can be done as a result of the Internet.

Bibliogrophy

Internet. (2008, September 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:06, September 4, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Internet&oldid=235792055

September 3rd Reaction

This article is completely right when it says, "It is an understatement to say that the Internet is changing. Trends come and go faster than we can count". Countless changes have occurred from the start of the Internet. What I find funny about this article is how it says by the end of the article, we should appreciate three of the problems of distant communication that the Internet is trying to solve. The three problems noted are reliability, speed and distribution. Reliability and distribution are absolutely a factor, but speed is a touchy subject. When will the Internet ever be fast enough for us humans. For example, personally when I was a kid it took ten minutes maybe more to connect through dial up and now I am connected constantly. This allows me to start it all with a double click on my desktop and poof I am online and ready to browse. Do not get me wrong, I have no problem with the Internet being faster and faster, I just find it funny that this is a problem that we should be aware of.
Interestingly this article only talks about the good of the Internet, how it is great. For example, at one point it mentions how it even knows you better than you know your self by telling you other items you might like. Even talks about some technical things such as packet switching, how in reality you can not block the system because its designed to work around it. My point is why does it not talk about the bad things and the real problems of the Internet. How about all the spam and virus’s out there (some capable of wiping out your entire hard drive), also hackers and even little things like annoying pop up adds. Or even worse, whose hands the Internet is in. For example, anything kind of information could be found on the Internet that could end up in the wrong hands such as maybe how to make a bomb. Type that into Google and see how many sites you get back giving you step by step instructions and even sites with videos too. To me these types of things and much more are the real problems. Instead of worrying how fast we can download a song or picture, worry about whose hands this is ending up in and how things like that can be avoided tracked. It is just silly of us to worry about how fast we can get from one site to another rather then protecting ourselves and maybe even our country.