For this week I will take a look at the second section of Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect. In this section Kirkpatrick discusses the investors and how Facebook was funded early on. Again, from watching the movie The Social Network I feel like I did know some of this information, but I would say the majority in this section was new to me. I can't believe that as college aged kids the founders of Facebook were as far along as they were. They were already seeking, and eventually fighting off investors who wanted to claim their stake in Facebook. One section of the book that I found to be very interesting is on page 110 when he writes, "As soon as word got out that Thefacebook was contemplating an investment, the Silicon Valley greed machine kicked into high gear. Inquiries started pouring in." To me it is shocking that so many people wanted to invest.
What I also find interesting is that since, "Mark was kind of against ads, as far as [they] could tell" Thefacebook had to find other sources of income to keep the website running. So many people used the internet to make money and using ad space is the most simple way to create a profit. However, because Zuckerburg chose not to, Thefacebook had to find money elsewhere. I believe that this, combined with the enormous marketing potential of Thefacebook led to the immense amount of people who wanted to invest.
Later in the book Kirkpatrick writes about how Facebook developed into a young company and not just kids running a website. He discusses many things such as how they basically reinvented privacy. He writes that, "Only one in one hundred messages to Facebook about News Feed was positive" (189). No one liked the News Feed at first, however now it is an integral part of Facebook. I also found it interesting how Kirkpatrick explained how the Photos team decided to make it so you can click anywhere on the photo to advance and also how the photos were lower resolution so people can view many photos quickly. I found this to be extremely interesting because it makes me realize how smart the Facebook team is. Facebook is not accidentally addicting. It was well thought out and I think that is the main reason Facebook has become what it is today. Kirkpatrick describes these events and does a great job giving credit to the people behind Facebook. Overall I enjoy reading this book and look forward to finishing it because it is about something that is involved in my life.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Critical Analysis #10
For this week I will examine the first section of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick. Virtually everyone in our society is able to recognize what Facebook is, and an very large portion participates in it's online social network. The popularity of Facebook is enormous and it is obvious that because it influences many people's actions every day. Students across the country are tortured by the looming question: To do homework, or to check my notifications? With so many people all using the same service one must wonder what effects it will have on our society.
The Facebook Effect begins with the history of Facebook. I was pretty well aware of a lot of this information after seeing the movie The Social Network where they follow Zuckerburg from his young days at Harvard. To me it is truly amazing that one person could be creating such amazing computer programs such as Facemash. I have taken programming courses and the difficulty of them is almost unbearable for me and that helps me respect the work that The Facebook team has done in order to accomplish their goal so quickly. As a side note: it seems like every time I get used to Facebook there is a new template and new features. It baffles me that the company can remain ahead of the users so often.
A really interesting part of the book for me is how Facebook is largely considered the reason Myspace is no longer used. For me personally It has been forever since I have even used Myspace to listen to music or anything like that. After reading this section I began to think about what the differences between Myspace and Facebook were. I realized that essentially they were the same, a social networking tool that people could use to stay in touch. However, just like in the movie, I believe that Facebook was able to succeed because it was "exclusive". Unlike Myspace, Facebook used to require a collegiate e-mail address and that made it "cool". Myspace allowed anyone to use its website, and because of that a large amount of "creepers" joined the network thus making it less appealing than the exclusivity of the Facebook community.
The other thing that made Facebook last longer than other things was probably the fact that it began so simply. Unlike Myspace users could not create flashy backgrounds with music and annoying ads etc. Facebook only recently began using ads and they are not too cumbersome to be honest and due to the algorithms used the ads generally apply to the user. By creating a more simple website, Zuckerburg erased the opportunity for users to be overwhelmed by the Facebook "world".
Overall I have enjoyed reading Kirkpatricks book The Facebook Effect thus far because it is something that touches my daily lives. I look forward to continuing the book and hopefully will enjoy the rest of it as well.
The Facebook Effect begins with the history of Facebook. I was pretty well aware of a lot of this information after seeing the movie The Social Network where they follow Zuckerburg from his young days at Harvard. To me it is truly amazing that one person could be creating such amazing computer programs such as Facemash. I have taken programming courses and the difficulty of them is almost unbearable for me and that helps me respect the work that The Facebook team has done in order to accomplish their goal so quickly. As a side note: it seems like every time I get used to Facebook there is a new template and new features. It baffles me that the company can remain ahead of the users so often.
A really interesting part of the book for me is how Facebook is largely considered the reason Myspace is no longer used. For me personally It has been forever since I have even used Myspace to listen to music or anything like that. After reading this section I began to think about what the differences between Myspace and Facebook were. I realized that essentially they were the same, a social networking tool that people could use to stay in touch. However, just like in the movie, I believe that Facebook was able to succeed because it was "exclusive". Unlike Myspace, Facebook used to require a collegiate e-mail address and that made it "cool". Myspace allowed anyone to use its website, and because of that a large amount of "creepers" joined the network thus making it less appealing than the exclusivity of the Facebook community.
The other thing that made Facebook last longer than other things was probably the fact that it began so simply. Unlike Myspace users could not create flashy backgrounds with music and annoying ads etc. Facebook only recently began using ads and they are not too cumbersome to be honest and due to the algorithms used the ads generally apply to the user. By creating a more simple website, Zuckerburg erased the opportunity for users to be overwhelmed by the Facebook "world".
Overall I have enjoyed reading Kirkpatricks book The Facebook Effect thus far because it is something that touches my daily lives. I look forward to continuing the book and hopefully will enjoy the rest of it as well.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Being a Wikipedia Auditor
Last week a large portion of my time was dedicated to Auditing the JFK Assassination Wikipedia page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination
I thought this was a really interesting project because I spend so much time reading and using Wikipedia that it was great to finally do some research and understand where all the information is coming from. Since Wikipedia has been popular people have said that it is not a very good scholarly source, however learning that first hand definitely affected my view of the website. Our group decided to split the work up into five different sections. My sections of the Article were the Intro and the Assassination.
My first step was to read the whole article so I had all of the knowledge it could provide on the subject. Then I re-read my own sections a couple times in order to check for bad grammar, syntax, and other clues that would indicate an "amateur" without proper knowledge was writing them. Everything seemed to be in good order so I moved onto my next step. One by one I began going through the citations in my section, clicking on each and every link in order to verify a few things:
1. That the sources information coincided with the information on Wikipedia
2. That the sources information was from a legitimate source and credible
3. That the source was not an amateur site without citations etc.
Of all the citations in my section I only found one that I had issues with. John McAdam's site appeared to have no citations on it and while the information on his site appeared to be good, there was nothing that I could find proving the legitimacy of John McAdam's website. The website itself looked poorly put together as if an amateur had done it and a google search did not return any results on John McAdam's that would make me view his information as credible. Because of those things I believed that the website cannot be trusted. This was the only site in my section that was an unacceptable source. Our group then rated each of our sections out of 5 and I awarded my section 4/5 stars. While it is certainly a good place to get an overview of the events, and despite many of the good sources, it would simply be irresponsible to recommend using this article as a scholarly source if even one of the citations is bad. For a scholarly source we want everything to be perfect essentially and this was not.
Overall I really enjoyed the process, I learned first hand that while Wikipedia is accurate, it cannot be used scholarly because one tiny portion (which may be the portion you are using in a academic paper) can be filled with wrong or potentially wrong information. Ultimately we gave the article a 4/5... it was a great place to start research, however should not be used as a scholarly source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination
I thought this was a really interesting project because I spend so much time reading and using Wikipedia that it was great to finally do some research and understand where all the information is coming from. Since Wikipedia has been popular people have said that it is not a very good scholarly source, however learning that first hand definitely affected my view of the website. Our group decided to split the work up into five different sections. My sections of the Article were the Intro and the Assassination.
My first step was to read the whole article so I had all of the knowledge it could provide on the subject. Then I re-read my own sections a couple times in order to check for bad grammar, syntax, and other clues that would indicate an "amateur" without proper knowledge was writing them. Everything seemed to be in good order so I moved onto my next step. One by one I began going through the citations in my section, clicking on each and every link in order to verify a few things:
1. That the sources information coincided with the information on Wikipedia
2. That the sources information was from a legitimate source and credible
3. That the source was not an amateur site without citations etc.
Of all the citations in my section I only found one that I had issues with. John McAdam's site appeared to have no citations on it and while the information on his site appeared to be good, there was nothing that I could find proving the legitimacy of John McAdam's website. The website itself looked poorly put together as if an amateur had done it and a google search did not return any results on John McAdam's that would make me view his information as credible. Because of those things I believed that the website cannot be trusted. This was the only site in my section that was an unacceptable source. Our group then rated each of our sections out of 5 and I awarded my section 4/5 stars. While it is certainly a good place to get an overview of the events, and despite many of the good sources, it would simply be irresponsible to recommend using this article as a scholarly source if even one of the citations is bad. For a scholarly source we want everything to be perfect essentially and this was not.
Overall I really enjoyed the process, I learned first hand that while Wikipedia is accurate, it cannot be used scholarly because one tiny portion (which may be the portion you are using in a academic paper) can be filled with wrong or potentially wrong information. Ultimately we gave the article a 4/5... it was a great place to start research, however should not be used as a scholarly source.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Critical Analysis #9
For the past three blogs I have been taking a look at Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade. In the first two sections Slade has talked mostly about how our society has conditioned us to need new things after a certain period of time. Manufacturers have done this through new models, and items that are made to break after a certain period of time.
In the third section of his book Slade continues to talk about the development of obsolescence becoming normal in our society. He writes, "By this time, the rapid pace of technological obsolescence was an accepted fact in software design. Application packages were updated every eighteen months or so, in a spiral of repetitive consumption" (214). With this quote we can see one of Slade's main points; that since technology was advancing so quickly our society was growing to accept obsolescence because without it we could not advance. Ultimately I agree with Slade's point here. I think this because I personally accept the fact that things go obsolete because I know in the future I will get another version of the product. A perfect example is the Ipod. When a new one comes out everyone either gets it or decides to wait for the next one. This type of behavior is exemplified by many in our culture.
Slade also talks about how the industry of video games was advancing quickly as well. As someone who enjoys video games a lot I can see effects of this still today. For example, every year there are new versions of the best games and because of that unless you buy a new one you lose out on many of the features. The premise is the same in that in all aspects of life we expect to have to buy new versions of things when they come out because our culture has conditioned us to.
Another thing that Slade talks about is e-waste. He says that in terms of cell phones, "The number of these discarded miniaturized devices now threatens to "exceed that of wired, brown goods [in landfills]" (276). Because with new technology people buy new things very often there is a lot of e-waste. I know for me I get a new cell phone every six months and so every six months I'm also throwing one away. All of this trash including cell phones, computers, lap tops, etc. it has to go somewhere and we are filling up our landfills with it.
Overall I thought Slade's book was very informative but I did not find it to be very interesting. I feel like I definitely learned from it, but it is not a book I would recommend to others. One thing that I will point out though is that I really never thought of the idea that things are "made to break" before. But now that seems like a feasible option. In fact it seems like a profitable option so I don't know why they wouldn't do that. Giles Slade provides a very strong argument for this and his other claims.
In the third section of his book Slade continues to talk about the development of obsolescence becoming normal in our society. He writes, "By this time, the rapid pace of technological obsolescence was an accepted fact in software design. Application packages were updated every eighteen months or so, in a spiral of repetitive consumption" (214). With this quote we can see one of Slade's main points; that since technology was advancing so quickly our society was growing to accept obsolescence because without it we could not advance. Ultimately I agree with Slade's point here. I think this because I personally accept the fact that things go obsolete because I know in the future I will get another version of the product. A perfect example is the Ipod. When a new one comes out everyone either gets it or decides to wait for the next one. This type of behavior is exemplified by many in our culture.
Slade also talks about how the industry of video games was advancing quickly as well. As someone who enjoys video games a lot I can see effects of this still today. For example, every year there are new versions of the best games and because of that unless you buy a new one you lose out on many of the features. The premise is the same in that in all aspects of life we expect to have to buy new versions of things when they come out because our culture has conditioned us to.
Another thing that Slade talks about is e-waste. He says that in terms of cell phones, "The number of these discarded miniaturized devices now threatens to "exceed that of wired, brown goods [in landfills]" (276). Because with new technology people buy new things very often there is a lot of e-waste. I know for me I get a new cell phone every six months and so every six months I'm also throwing one away. All of this trash including cell phones, computers, lap tops, etc. it has to go somewhere and we are filling up our landfills with it.
Overall I thought Slade's book was very informative but I did not find it to be very interesting. I feel like I definitely learned from it, but it is not a book I would recommend to others. One thing that I will point out though is that I really never thought of the idea that things are "made to break" before. But now that seems like a feasible option. In fact it seems like a profitable option so I don't know why they wouldn't do that. Giles Slade provides a very strong argument for this and his other claims.
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