Is Blog Space Threatening MySpace?

Remembering back maybe 5 years ago or so, I was one of the first dedicated users of MySpace and watched as it took off. I remember when only certain demographics were considered fit for MySpace and when the user interface was almost completely different than what it is today.

If anyone reading was there with me, then you remember only being able to upload up to 9 pictures to your page at a time, you remember when changing your layout was way cool and different, you remember when people first started removing their top 8, you remember when there was no status or mood field yet, no home page layouts, etc..

I think it's interesting that I see so much of the same potential in blogging networks, but even more!!

In browsing through random blogs, you see everything from sales pages, people documenting hobbies or projects, personal journal type blogs, family blogs, teen blogs, professional blogs, etc. These same types of sites can be found on sites like MySpace, only perhaps in a bit of a different light. That last fact is what I think gives the blogging community a leg up on the foundation they are working with vs what sites like MySpace started with.

Blogging is by far not looked down on by the 25 and up age groups, as MySpace was or maybe even still is. Blogging can be used by the young, but is still appropriate for older folks too. In general, blogging is a respectable idea for anyone who can spell and read.

Like the beginnings of MySpace, most blog accounts have a home page, accept comments, allow for pictures or video, and allow you to "decorate" with layout templates.

I am gonna be bold and predict that blogging may very well in the future follow a similar pattern of development as sites like MySpace. I foresee it being only a matter of time before "everyone has a blog" (which to some seems to already be the case), you can email or message people via their blog site, coding sites may add blog templates if they haven't already, a status bar or mood field may be almost certain, and a bulletin board between you and your followers would be amazing. And while we're at it, maybe we should all add a place for our top eight followers too, lol. I'm kidding on that last one.

My point is, blogging communities may have a shadow to cast on sites like MySpace, if they haven't already cast it. While MySpace may currently have what I believe to be a more "connected community" via a more developed user face, I also believe that blogging networks have the potential to gain on that aspect and then prevail also in other things such as a bigger user population and a greater range of acceptable uses, making blogging networks a for sure threat to sites like MySpace.

Briefly, I'll refer to my comment that, "sites like MySpace may be a more connected community," and clarify what I meant. I've only been blogging for a couple months now, but what I feel blogger accounts lack are ways of communication between the site publisher and the reader. There are very little default ways to contact a given blogger. In fact, there is only one, comments. There is no blogger messaging system or bulletin board. Such links would have to be added by the maker of the site and routed to their personal email.

In the future (and I mean future as in it's beginning to happen now and is growing), I see bloggersville being very successful, as a new and revolutionary way of publishing news, ads, journals, projects, etc. And sites like MySpace may suffer, as people move from smaller radius sites like MySpace to bigger broader communities like blogging networks. That is, if blogging networks proceed with user interface developments, adding new abilities and functions and greater ease of connectedness.

Guess we'll see.... meanwhile, I'll continue to use both :-)

Lee Siegel, "Against the Machine"

On Wednesday, a group of my classmates came together to give a presentation on the undoubtedly hard to swallow book, Against the Machine: Being
human in the age of the electric mob, by Lee Siegel. The group members were Kay, Devin and Samantha.

They began by painting a picture of the author as an established critic, professor and novelist. He comes across as being very harsh, heavily opinionated, and not a mainstream type of guy.
You might guess, after noting the title of the
book, he is full on against technology and the direction it is pushing us. He seems to think the rise of the Internet and all the advances in technology it has brought us are pushing us further and further away from popular culture and closure and closer towards popularity culture.

"Culture has changed from being 'passively' to 'actively' entertained."

Siegel talks about the use of the Internet to further ourselves, and says there is "too much self interest" evolving.

Siegel goes on to bash American Idol and it's contestants, comparing them to the players of the Internet, the "easy girl" and the "class clown" included, saying they just want to be big, they just want to be liked, and they'll do whatever we say to get that from us.

What it all boils down to is Siegel's elitist opinion that people should stick to what they're good at, rather than mix and intertwine. For example, corporate professionals should socialize with other corporate professionals and other groups a like. He sees people broadening their horizons as a bad thing and calls it "watering down our culture" instead.

It was personally hard for me to understand all of Siegels points and analogies, but I think there is little next to obvious about the common opinion of this critic/ author. However, it is worth noting that he has been applauded by some for speaking out of line about something valued by so many, and for some showing inertia when it comes to the fast paced changes the Internet caters to, he taps into a glimmer of hope for those who wish it'd all just rewind and go away.

I of course am out of my seat about it. Funny thing though, I kinda wanna read the book, LOL.

Reflecting: South Sound Technology Conference, 2008

A treat it was indeed, as I attended my first of many South Sound Technology Conferences (SST Conference) this past Friday. Like a little kid after Christmas day, I was excited and enthused all day and played with the new thoughts and information I'd gained in my head all evening, dreaming and planning...

To many, it might seem nerdy or naive to be so excited, but for others who share my passion for science and technology, you know my excitement is real, and my dreams, even realer.

The conference hit the ground running strong with Andrew Fry leading the pack.

The first panel featured information on "Fostering Innovation", and included presentations from Egils Milbers, John Dimmer and Lee Cheatham. I have to share, this presentation may have been my favorite of the day. Egils Milbers, Executive Director for the Economic Development Commission of Washington State was noted as being highly prestigious and even a bit of a celebrity and he certainly lived up to his expectations. With a wonderful power point presentation, he inspired and enlightened us as he spoke on what innovative means and how to go about being innovative, along with what is needed. A quote from one of his slides that I found profound in respect to our nations correct woes follows.

"Never allow a crisis to go to waste!"

-Rahm Emanuel

Also, John Dimmer of the Tacoma Angel Network was there to encourage entrepreneurs and let them know of the resources for capital available to them as start ups, the Tacoma Angel Network included. And Lee Cheatham of the Washington Technology Center was there to close and tie everything together. The three of them provided a fantastic start to the day and some valuable prospectives for which I felt very fortunate to get to hear.

The next presentation was one I had been waiting for and had even blogged about last month. Cloud Computing, the current buzz word whizzing around the technology industry, was presented by Aaron Kimbell, and then followed up by the "Dual Prospectives Panel". Together, they were able to make very clear to me exactly what cloud computing is and means and the pros and cons of its use, as well as who it's respectable audience is or should be. The panel included Mike Manzano of Topia Technologies who focused on Cloud Computing in Software and Dr. Ankur Teredesai of the Institute of Technology, UWT, who focused on Cloud Computing in the Education. I personally was thrilled and very satisfied with the discussion! In fact, rest assured that I will be doing a follow up blog of my October blog on this subject in the very near future.

The rest of the afternoon provided an introduction to a selection of the technology based businesses we have present in the South Sound, including Prepared Response represented by Mike Brown, Serra Media represented by Mark Briggs, Avue Technology represented by Dan Creamer, NewTech represented by Jennifer Leaf and Internet Identity represented by Rod Rasmussen. All of the companies had different dynamics, all spun upon the use of technology. And besides the pleasure of having some fresh clear insight into these co existing companies, as they met one another and discussed their point of views on different subjects, as a student, it was nice to get a preview of my possible future employers.

Overall, for me, the SST conference was amazing and truly beneficial. The ideas it spurred within me and the confidence it gave me in what this industry can do, only helped to secure that this is where I need to be and this industry is what I want to be a part of.

A special thank you goes to Andrew Fry and all of those who helped plan and put on this annual event. I look forward to celebrating the conferences 10 year anniversary at the conference next year! Should be an interesting one, especially given the current state of our nation.

A Presentation in the Works....

Well, like I said, it's that time of the quarter, LOL.

Indeed, projects and presentations are in the works everywhere and deadlines are fast approaching.

I am part of a group of 7 students working on a class presentation that we have been asked to summarize our portion of here in our blogs by our professor, Andrew Fry. I'm not going to give it all away, but I'm excited to share a bit of what I've personally got in the works.

My group is reading a book, World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing, written by author, Richard Hunter, VP of GartnerG2, a division of Gartner Inc., the worlds largest technology research firm. The book, in a very small nut shell, discusses the effects of the technology based revolution that began decades and decades ago and how it is creating a transparency not known before the power of technology came about. It investigates the pros and cons of this phenomena from Hunters valued prospective.

Our group of 7 has chosen to divide the contents of this book so that as much material is presented as possible without overwhelming any one persons work load. With 14 chapters, each group member simply chose 2 chapters to cover.

I am excited and enthusiastic about the two chapters I will be presenting to the class, chapter 6 which is titled Software Without Secrets and chapter 7 titled The Rise of the Mentat. Chapter 6 gives an in depth wealth of insight into Hunters few of the "Open Source Movement" and his take on how it affected business and the marketing and growth directions of software. Hunter was actually a sceptic of the movement initially, so it was interesting to learn of his opinions of how successful open source code actually was and is. Chapter 7 is interesting as well as it talks of, as it's title might hint, the rise of the Mentat, humans trained and genius enough to act as and perform duties of computers. Hunters prospective on this fascinating rare ability is of course in depth and articulate.

I don't want to say too much more, don't want to ruin it for the actual presentation, but I'm excited and nearly done putting things together. It'll be great to really get to finally put everything together some time in the next two weeks when my group and I make our presentations to our class.

Check out another outline from one of my group members, Oksana.

It's that time of the quarter!

Today was my long day, or at least that's what I've come to calling it. My Wednesdays.... they are long and eventful from start to finish. I spend nearly the entire day on the college campus as I attend two classes and a lab. Normally, I have come to enjoy these days, as crazy as it sounds. They are focused, productive and fun! But today, as I went through my day, I noticed a bit of a different tone on campus. Everyone, and I mean everyone, seemed annoyed, tired, busy, frustrated, on edge.. whatever, you get my gist. I actually felt it somewhat amazing to witness! Like some sort of phenomenon, from the professors to the counselors, to student leaders and of course, the students themselves, I came in contact with an insane number of grumpy and anxious people. They all seemed to speak the same piece of mind....

It's that time of the quarter!

Apparently the end of the quarter has snuck up on many of us. In fact, it was only two nights ago, I myself was loosing my mind in frustration, stressed about coming deadlines while trying to plan my next quarter at the same time. Needless to say, I was relieved to realize today that I'm seemingly not alone.

Geesh, I sound like a newbie to the college life, when I'm in fact not at all. But my point here was simply to point out a phenomena I witnessed today, as my instructor snapped, my counselor frowned, people were absent, present students were tense and I myself was a bit strained!

"It's that time of the quarter", is what I was told all day. And all I could say in return was, "Yup, thank goodness for the coming holiday breaks!"

Hang in there my fellow peers! Lets finish strong! :-)

A Virtual Vacation??

My class was asked the question, "If you had to travel to a virtual world, where would it be and why?", by our professor.

Boy, that's a difficult question for me.

I'd not yet ventured into the realm of virtual realities at all before having this interesting class discussion, however, while I've not yet formed solid opinions on virtual worlds, I do have to admit that I am growing increasingly interested in their appeal and abilities to stimulate people to the extent that they apparently do.

But let me not make this question harder than it is.

Today in class we finished our discussion of virtual worlds talking about super power like abilities in virtual worlds, along with invisibility, comfort, relationships, freedom, and so on. This got me thinking.... maybe this virtual world thing wouldn't be so bad??

I don't know, but I can say if I had to visit a virtual world, I would want it to be social, all play and no work (I would have whatever career I wanted but wouldn't actually do work), and I would what to travel the virtual world meeting knew people and seeing new virtual locations.

As far as which of the existing virtual worlds would I prefer at this time, I just don't know. I am most interested in the ones that I can either create/ design myself or serve a therapeutic purpose. That said, I'm not sure if it exists or not, but a virtual world that I would love would make me feel like I was actually there (maybe I could wear one of those head/ eye goggles for 3D vision) and would be a definite paradise.... a get away and a vacation! There would be a beach, a nice bar, a personal plane... that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I've got the right idea here. Are there virtual worlds where this is possible? I suppose I'm going to need to jump feet first into one of these communities and check it out. I just find it so hard to find purpose in building things, buying things or visiting things that only exist online for my avatar and don't actually effect my real physical life. On the other had, I understand there is a potential to actually earn revenue through commerce within virtual worlds and of course build relationships . Either way, it seems I've been way out of the loop on this subject!

Kevin Freitas, Inspiring a Community

I wanna first thank my professor, Andrew Fry, of the Institute of Technology, for being so indulged into the technology industry. Time and time again, he is able to pull from his vast network of relationships, industry related, and share them with us as guest speakers. This past Monday, our class was visited by the third guest speaker so far this quarter, Mr. Kevin Freitas, and while last, he was surely not least!

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the speakers brought to our class and taken very valuable information away from each. But I have to share, I was most inspired by Kevin. Kevin is an established and successful computer scientist. He works for a company, Site Crafting, where his role is half programmer and half team manager. Kevin is also known to be one of the first, if not the first, blogger in this area. Kevin's personal web site, KevinFreitas.net, has a blog archive that goes back some 10 years! It is literally a documentary of his life, pictures and stories, the works. It's really quite fascinating. But, while that is cool, Kevin also has created a site, FeedTacoma.com, for the community of Tacoma, "for the people" he actually said :-), for which I have to make note he makes no profit off of. In all honesty, I found that last note remarkably insane, but also remarkably respectable and inspiring all at once.

The site, FeedTacoma.com, serves as a one stop shop to brows all blogs tagged Tacoma. Two unique properties of the site are one, it's ability to equalize all voices, and two, it's ability to self maintain. Because the links to the blogs tagged Tacoma are all displayed in the same manner, regardless of who they are from, my personal blog (should I choose to tag it Tacoma) would be linked up just as someone at the New Tribunes would. This enables everyone to network and get there voice out there. The site is also self maintaining. It runs on algorithms and requires no one person to continually maintain or upkeep it. Instead, Kevin chooses to revamp or add to the site whenever he pleases. Some recent and up in coming changes are a shopping area where local shops or people can post pictures and descriptions of items for sale on the site and transactions can actually be completed. Also, Kevin is recruiting volunteer artists to be a part of template making for blogs that users can start, should they choose to open an account on FeedTacoma.com.

Now, as I mentioned, Kevin is making no profit from this site and that is by his own personal choice. Certainly, this site has a tremendous potential to generate income as it gets many hits per day and requires very very little work to maintain. While the rest of us might not be able to see ourselves passing up money like that, it is truly refreshing and inspiring to see someone so down to earth and generous as Kevin. He chooses to not be greedy, but instead to be content, to give, share and grow in relationships because of it. Through this site, not only is the community of Tacoma more connected to each other, but Kevin himself has made many friendships through it.

With Tacoma being my hometown and a city that I adore, I am grateful that Kevin has made FeedTacoma.com for our community. Thanks Kevin!

E-Finance, Risk for Reward?

From email, to ecommerce, lets not forget efinance!

I am examining why we Americans, knowing the dangers and the risk factors of participating in online trading, finance management and investing, do we continue to lay trust in it?

I can't help but think of it as a rocket ship, already in orbit and free fall. The world wide web has become such a monopoly for portals. It is our portal for communication, marketing, commerce, information and finances. At this point, we can't help but to lie trust and faith into the web. We've created it and attached ourselves to it with a crutch. We can't function with out it! And if you try to, you might be considered to be "living under a rock" or in straight up denial of the technological revolution that has taken place over the past couple decades!

So, in light of our love hate relationship with the web, we gamble. We know the risks, some we can afford to take, others we really can't and shouldn't, but nonetheless we end up taking a great deal of those risks! I think our reasons are plentiful. I think it is partially due to having all our eggs in one basket. Sure, online trading requires a lot of trust that may or may not have been earned, but what else are you gonna do? I mean seriously, some of the younger generations aren't even aware of the alternatives. For example, I can honestly say I wouldn't know how to book a trip with a car, hotel, flights, etc., with out the use of the web. That said, I take the risk for the reward of that convenient, one stop shop, where from the ease of the keyboard and monitor, I can do it all! It's definitely a gamble, entrusting the lines of the Internet with my personal information, but it's something the world as a whole has invested in greatly and we'd be dumb, in a way, not to support something we've built our way of life around!

So whether it's handling all your accounts online, transferring funds, remixing your stocks and bonds, purchasing stocks, etc., we do tend to take that risk for reward time and time again! If you really wanna know why, ask someone who was around decades ago when it was an ordeal to move your money from one account to another, something that I am fortunate to be able to do in 1 minute flat from my own personal computer. Or investing, it almost seems like a right these days, to be able to invest. But that's really only thanks to the web. Before, it was so tedious and time consuming, you would spend hundreds just paying a broker to expedite the transaction for you because there was know way just any average Joe could do it.

I personally, as cautious as I know I have to be on the web, will continue to take that risk, for the reward of convenience and speed that us Americans love and value oh so much! Simply put, the risk is great, but the reward is greater.

Marks Briggs & the World Wide Web

Mark Briggs, recently resigned editor of thenewstribune.com, author of Journalism 2.0, speaker and consultant, visited my Living and Working in a Virtual World class earlier this week. Mark is a well known blogger in the south sound for the Tacoma News Tribune, but as of yesterday he is officially resigned from his position there and moving on to some hopefully bigger and better things. Very inspiring, he shared with us his plans to continue on to a less constrained path, traveling, speaking, training, teaching and consulting. He is also working on a start up business in Seattle's Capital Hill area, working on a new technology, hyper local news, that will ideally be licensed and used by local newspapers. I won't get too into the details of that, but nonetheless, he seems to have quite a bit of momentum built up in his career and a wealth of opportunities knocking at his door. The News Tribune will miss him, I'm sure, but he did assure us that his position, though not his well known blog, would be taken over and left in good hands.

What I found interesting is his point and emphasis on how much the evolution of the digital age is creating opportunities! It really is just a matter of who's more willing to change, and as Mark said, who has less inertia? The need to "change" or be in constant evolvement, hasn't always been there. If we think back 20+ years, businesses were able to find their niche, make it work and stick with it! The news papers are a great example, as Mark pointed out. They did so great for decades, bringing in profit margins between 20% & 40%! They were good at what they did, in fact they monopolized the news and information industry and people liked the product. Now a days, a businesses flow always has to be being analyzed, someone at the top has to stay ahead of the pack, ahead of the curve, and keep things moving forward or the business is certain to get left in the dust of the fast passed protocols we now have.

A side note, but on the topic of this idea of a new and growing need for change, this is something that Universities are realizing may be just as useful or maybe more useful of a skill to teach. Students of the present need not only learn their trait or profession, but they need to have the skills of evolving. Knowing how to be resourceful, stay current, be innovative and creative! With out that, our education will be of little value as little as 2 to 5 years after being completed! What an expensive waist!

This class definitely has me thinking about how the web will affect my life and career in the future. Will I be a leader, will I have the ability to be one of the minds behind the next revolution, will be innovative enough, will I have the ideas and timing? As "change" and technology change faster and faster hand in hand it is becoming harder and harder to keep up with the changes taking place around us every day. This is a new playground and a more dynamic playground, unlike any roamed by previous gernerations. We are living in a time of accelerated motion. Momentum is everywhere..... & the web is what's feeding it.

I wish Mark Briggs good luck on his new ventures, I thank him for his time spent with my class and will continue to ponder the thoughts he spurred.

Back in the clouds.... WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING??? (Conversation Cont'd)

Amazon, a giant in its industry, is introducing Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Obviously a very anticipated launch, EC2 seems to be the next big swing in computer science and promises to be "a true virtual computing environment".

Ok, now I'm by no stretch at all a genius, but I do credit myself with an adequate ability to figure things out and comprehend information. Unfortunately, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out exactly what this abstract idea called cloud computing is. Since about a week ago when I first read Andrew Fry's blog on the subject, I have been following feeds from Amazon and Microsoft about EC2, and still, I don't get it.

My jist is that it will at first be distributed for businesses. The convertion to the use of products like EC2 is at least partly motivated by the potential savings in overhead for IT departments. It will allow for a sort of pay as you go, or use rather, for network server availability (if that's the right way of saying it) rather than paying an upfront capital. Also, working in the cloud is suppose to up the any on reliability, speed and overall intelligence level and ability by a substantially large amount. Keep in mind, I'm still not completely sure of all this.

Anyway, trust me, if I could explain it all to you I would but it just hasn't sunk in for me yet. If anyone has read up on this at all and can shed some light I would love it! And trust me, as soon as I figure this out I'm sure you'll hear me talk more about it....

To Buy or Not to Buy, That is the Question

So many Americans are exercising the fast lane in life, and not just on the freeway. Instant satisfaction, it's the American way... so what a big surprise it is that the ease and speed computers have added to our daily lives has lead us to grow so increasingly dependant on them. Purchasing online, which as recently as only a few years ago was extremely risky and uncomfortable to do, is now done by many, many Americans of all demographics. The fact is, people demand convenience, and though online purchasing had many challenges to overcome in it's early stages, it is now a heavily accepted part of our everyday way of living.

So the question for each of us to ask ourselves is, "what are we comfortable and NOT comfortable buying online, and why"? For me, while I don't necessarily make many purchases online, I do handle most of my bill paying and transferring of funds between accounts online. For purchases, I tend to be a little more on the uncomfortable side.

A number of key factors are generally part of my case by case decision making, but the top four question I ask myself are:

1. How mandatory is this purchase? Do I really need to do it online?
2. What source of validation do I have for the site? (domain, referral, prior use, etc.)
3. What type of payments are accepted?
4. Do I trust that I will receive my product?

I'm basically checking to see if I believe the site to be legit, payment friendly (fees?) and overall instinctive comfort level about the purchase. In many cases, it strongly depends on the type of transaction. As an example, for a private party, I would be much, much more cautious than if dealing with a corporate entity.

In my opinion, while I am impressed with the growth of the online buying market and it's ability to overcome concerns of security, delivery, satisfaction, etc. over the past decade, I think many people still have some concerns when it comes to buying online. At the same time, I would agree that the comfort level is still growing rapidly as people gain more and more trust and understanding in the Internet.

Working in the Couds??

It's true, that may in fact be what my future holds if Cloud Computing is the next big thing in programming! Professor Andrew Fry of UWT's Institute of Technology has brought this to light in a recent blog he wrtoe as a possible huge shift in the face of technology that is in the works and already the topic rumbling around many of the big time companies, Google, HP, Yahoo!, etc., as they all try and jump on the band wagon!

For myself, it reminds me of how green I am to the industry! As a current computer sciense student, I'm ashaimed that I'm just now learning of this! Just confirms for me that I need to subscribe to some sort of industry feed... new paper, magazine, whatever. If something like cloud computing is the future of technology and computers then it's my future!

I'm not 100% clear on what Cloud Computing is yet, but if you're into technology and computer programming, check it out online, there's a vast amount of info on it. Also, Aaron Kimball, Founder of Spinnaker Labs, is giving a 30 minute presentation on cloud computing at the South Sound Technology Conference this November. It'll be another great oppertunity to be submerged into the current events of the industry! Should be good!

Dude, Where's My Car?

In class the other day, we discussed our vanity searches and were enlightened on how many ways these searches can be completed. Many people thought to search things related to themselves that others didn't. For instance, I thought to search the prefix of my email account and another person thought to search their address.

In class, most intriguing to me was a site called Zillow.com. It was completely new to me, though I've seen similar things before. Zillow.com is a real estate interested database that allows you to type in an address and using satellite images, obtain a birds eye view of a desired area/ location. The website, using a Microsoft program call Virtual Earth, amazingly allows you to zoom in to a ridiculous point, so close you can see the cars on the streets!

This entire class discussion prompted a cause for a second more refined vanity search. I decided to do an additional search on my address, other names my friends might call me and some public showings I've been a part of. A search of my address on google info, as well as a few other databases, came up with none other than the name and phone number with some pictures of the apartment complex I live in. And then, sure enough, a search on Zillow.com showed a nice and precise aerial view of the complex. My husband and I even speculated that a particular car in view was ours! On that note, we also found another site, very similar with satellite images and all, that got us an even clearer picture! I believe that one was on google! Gotta tell you, it was kinda freaky, for sure!! Lucky for me, at this point in time, I wasn't able to find any other additional instances of me "popping up" with these more refined key words. YAY!!

In the end, I feel good right now about the fact that there isn't wayyy to much info about me on the web, none that's very easy to find anyway. But it's scary knowing that as I get older and start to have more to my name and deal with more accounts, agreements, purchases, etc., that mixed with exponentially growing abilities of technology is a recipe for great risk!

I think as we continue to befriend technology and it's abilities more and more, we'll have to continue to learn and protect ourselves from it just as much if not more!!

I'm on Google!

For most of us, everyday we encounter the world wide web, we pay bills, check our email, read the news, and maybe search for information. Others who use it even more have various accounts with online sites and publish pictures and papers and video to the web on a regular basis.

As a class assignment, I was asked to attempt a vanity search. An online search on myself that is. The idea seemed interesting and definitely struck my curiosity cord, but the fear of what I would find had me anxious to complete it!

Just before leaving that class, my professor was able to do a quick vanity search on himself and pull up not only his blog web page but public records showing his full name, age, city and even a couple relatives! For myself, not really knowing what someone could do with this information doesn't suit me so I'd just rather them not have it. That being said, as I sat down to do my own vanity search my fingers were crossed! But sure enough, all my info... name, age, city, mom and dad, high school.... I was so bummed!

I continued searching various databases, google, yahoo, etc., and though I didn't find a ton on my name, probably because I'm young, a search of my overused email prefix, which I've used as a user name for many accounts, came up with more info on me! What annoyed me most was that most of the searches, all but one, were from accounts that I'd opened myself and then never used.... like reunion.com and classmatefinder.com, blah!! I quickly deleted the accounts, trying to rid the web of my personal info!

On a better note, now a days, while I can't keep my info completely off of the web, I've learned some ways of limiting it. I never input a real name into accounts I have online and in general, I limit the concrete stuff I put on the web voluntarily. Even this blog, for instance, has little of me besides a picture and my email address.

So, how much is too much, what can be done with what is there, what rights DO I have and what rights do I NOT have? I don't know the answers to these questions yet, but I'm sure as heck gonna find out!

The Future of the Newspaper

I once worked for the local newspaper distribution center. I was always amazed by how dependant customers were on their paper! If I missed a house, you better bet they'd be calling first thing in the morning to complain and ask how could I have missed them!? They seemed dependant on the paper not just for their news, but for their morning! Like coffee, reading the paper sets a tone for the day for so many. As a matter of fact, the two often go hand in hand.... nothing like coffee and a paper, & not just in the morning but for any down time during the day.

As beloved as our traditional printed newspaper is, all around the world, there is fierce competition that has moved in and is giving our neighborly distribution centers a run for their money! By now, it's no secret to most that the internet has moved in and is posing a threat to many of our traditional methods of doing things, from the way we communicate and the way we shop to the way we stay in the loop with current events things are changing and at lightening bolt speed!

Blogs, for example, rather than being considered measly online diaries, are being given much more credit now a days! Bare with me, I'm new to the blogging world, but just a quick search on the web brings evidence of a strong relationship between online blogs being published and the publishing our newspapers are producing! Online blogs have been credited with leaks, gossip columns, debates, breaking news and I'm sure more! Point being that online publishing is getting easier and easier! And while reliability may be a matter now, speculation persists that it's only a matter of time before sites like blogger.com cast a shadow on the al mighty newspaper!

Now, while this all seems very interesting and fits right along with the rest of the dramatic changes taking place around the world, lets not get too carried away. Newspapers may have some competition and maybe even some catching up to do, but is the demise of the newspaper really creeping around the corner? As dreary as it may look at the present time, the internet is not only an enemy to the newspaper but also a friend! With the development of digital newspapers and digital editors, newspapers are finding ways to be more accessible, more portable, more up to date, cutting edge and reach more demographics! There is vast untouched potential there!

So, I may be being an optimist, but perhaps the fall of print only means the rise of digi news. So often after one cake crumbles we bake one ten times better! What if instead of a collapse, the newspaper industry is on the break of a boom... a good boom?! In my opinion, if they play their cards right, and in a timely matter, even with posed threats such as blogging, google, yahoo, etc., the newspapers still have a huge lead being extremely established and greatly respected within the information industry and our culture! If they can get hip to the game quick enough and use this push for change to their advantage, I strongly think they could pull out of this ahead of the pack and ahead of where they once were! Time will tell....

Email Vs. The Postal Service

I remember when I was a young child, everyday after school as we pulled into our apartment complex we would make a stop at this isolated little room, the mail room. To me as a child this room always seemed so peculiar! All of those little metal boxes on the walls! Oh and the special little key you needed to get into your "needle in a hay stack" box! And when we checked the mail, EVERYDAY there would be tons of stuff in there! Ads galour, bills, letters, calendars, samples and more!

Now a days, checking the mail for my children isn't quite as exciting. Some days our household receives NOTHING in the mail! Can you believe that!? With very few subscriptions and most of our accounts handled online now, at least half of what was delivered by mail is either available online or done by email.

Ten years ago, the pace at which business, marketing and personal communications moved at was much slower. Postal mail did and still does require a somewhat long process by which mail is picked up by a postal worker, sorted and distributed at a postal office, transported and delivered to another postal office and then again sorted and distributed at that postal office, all to be delivered to the recipient labeled on the envelope. It's all very physical and on going. By now of course, this process is perfected and aided with machines, technology and more efficient transportation to make it faster and more reliable. But still, it can be quite slow and costly by some means.

On the other hand, for my generation and generations to come, email has come along and changed communication protocols for us, all over the world. We deal with spam, instead of constant paper ads, and instead of making a stop at that peculiar little mail room everyday, we check our emails dozens of times a day and might check our physical mail every few days. As for the pace of communication, business, marketing, etc., it has sped up at an extremely fast exponential rate! Everyday, families share pictures and videos almost instantly with the click of a button and business matters are solved with in minutes or hours.

So which is better? Or, is one better? I'm sure we all pose different opinions, depending on our styles of living, but from my perspective, while they are both built somewhat around the same core ideas, they are executed with different mediums that result in distinct differences in speed and cost. To be frank, mailing something out via the postal service costs money for stamps and the price can get to be pretty big if you send larger packages, while email on the other hand is FREE! Regular mail also takes so much longer than email! While an email is sent with the ease of clicking a button, regular mail is known to take a day or two at least, often times longer! These days, the rest of the world is running circles around you if you're using the postal service! Another leg up on the postal service that email has is that it is "green" friendly! It's paperless! And with growing environmental concerns, saving on resources is a huge interest for many concerned citizens. So, clearly I tend to lean more towards email. It's efficient, fast, easy and free! But, the postal service is still around so there is good to be found in it too. The postal service continues to be comforting to the old soles around and those with the appreciation for having a "paper trail" as well as those who still get excited by a real hand written letter in the mail.... or a post card! You can't do post cards by email! Not with the same effect anyway.

For me, I wouldn't want to go with out our old school, traditional postal service, but mostly for the sake of ease and zero cost, I'm on the email band wagon all the way!!

I've Been Living Under a Rock!

Apparently anyway, because I have been walking around completely clueless to this very developed world of blogging!

And now, it's like having a new car, once you have that car you start seeing them all over the place. Now that I have this blog account, everyone I know suddenly has a blog and is a regular reader to "so & so's" blog. I mean, I'm a regular on the web. Hell, I'm one of the original MySpacers! But Blogger.com, never heard of it...??? I just think it's weird! I've been missin out!

Now that I've found this interesting world of blogging, my imagination is running wild with idea's of cool and productive things I could do with it.

Also, another important key point is that, for now, this blog will also serve as a portal for homework assignments in a college course I am currently enrolled in, studying technologies of the world wide web. A number of my posts in the coming weeks will be in response to assignments and lectures from this class. Other posts will be in regards to interesting news in the technology industry, computer programming/ computer science, environmental science and anything else I find interesting along the way :-)