Falvoem12's Blog

Gowalla

falvoem12 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:33:59 +0000

After searching the internet, I found an article that introduces a new form of social networking. The article announces that the corporation known as “Gowalla” recently made public that they collected over $84 million in investments last Wednesday. Due to the fact that social networking is drving a huge amount of revenue in today’s world, many new social networking applications are on the rise. Similarly, Gowalla is an mobile application that allows users to track their own location as well as their friends. The idea of the application is to locate your whereabouts and upload it to different social networking sites such as facebook or twitter. Also, you can see where your other friends are as well. The twist to Gowalla, is that it is considered to be a scavenger hunt. This means that once you establish your location, Gowalla will locate other items that have been dropped there by your friends. You can then add these items to your “bag” online. By visiting different locations you can continue to add different items into your bag of souveniers. Gowalla explains that this can be anywhere from virtual items to actually leaving presents such as free cups of coffee for your other friends. Gowalla also tracks the amount of times that you have been to that location. I think this is interesting because this is definitely something that I could see my self doing in the future. In class, we have discussed innovative technology and the future of technology. This application is just one of the many future improvements in social networking that companies are using to drive revenue.

Igoogle

falvoem12 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:30:04 +0000

After searching online for an article to relate to class, I came across one discussing Googles new applications. Google has once again expanded it’s website in order to offer its users with current events from news papers. Although it was not been added the the igoogle homepage, livingstories.googlabs.com is experimenting with the new idea. Google decided to collaborate with the New York Time and The Wall Street Journal in order to have a new page with RSS feeds of important information for both. The two new papers view google as a friend because they promote both websites. In exchange for their RSS feeds and stories, google is allowing easy access to all of it users to those news paper articles. On the living stories google page, google provides users with a head line title and then sub articles underneath. Living stories is considered to be part of the live web because it is constantly updated as soon as new articles are produced. In class we have discussed the benefits of using google, and as the company grows, they are providing us with more and more convienent resources.

imovie

falvoem12 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:32:38 +0000

I am currently studying for test, and my friend is making an imovie for her class project. She was stuck and didnt know how to use many of the functions available on imovie. In order to assist her, I first used delicious to search for imovie information. I came across interesting tutorials for her to use. I found that this was really convenient that I could use the social book marking that I learned in class in order to help her out. As a result, although it’s late, she is not completely stuck, instead she can finish her project and turn it in on time. These stories relate to class because as we work on our final cut pro video projects, I find it extremely beneficial to use the social bookmarking sites in order to find out more information about the program!

Xbox and The Internet

falvoem12 — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:07:45 +0000

After browsing the internet, I came across this interesting article the future of XBoxs’. Although most consumers buy Xbox Consoles strictly to play games, they now can recieve other benefits. With recent technology, Xboxes can now play movies and television shoes. Right now, Microsoft is also working on Applications that will allow Xbox users to surf the Web and manage digital media such as music and photos. The article continues to exlpain how Microsoft has a partnership with Netflix and Sony that is allowing these advantages to progress. One example of this provided in the article states that one of Microsofts Premium LIve Gold members took advantage of the Netflix application and has watched over 1.5 billion minutes of movies and television. These are definitely applications of the futre. By introducing this application, Microsoft is definitely becoming a first mover. Although the were not the first mover’s in video games, their expansions are both innovative and original. Competitiors such as Nintendo and Wii are having a hard time keeping up. Also, as discussed in class, the internet is expanding at a rapid pace. With more and more user generated content, more consumers not only have daily access to the web, but are allowing it to make up a big part of their lives. This concept is important, because now corporations are trying to connect their products to the internet. This is precisely why Microsoft is now constantly trying to provide more and more internet applications to xbox users.

Social Networking and E-commerce

falvoem12 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:17:31 +0000

While browsing the web, I found this Interesting article that connects social netorking to E-commerce. As social networking sites become more and more popular, companies are beginning to expand their marketing ideas to incorporate these popular sites. I read somewhere that facebook has been exanding rapidly and has millions of new users each day. This article explains how Burberry is using social networking to market their new products to users. Instead of a social networking site such as facebook, Burberry is using social networking in the form of a blog. They have created a blog online and are asking users to post interesting stories they have from past experiences while they were wearing a Burberry product, such as a trench coat. By doing this blog, they are trying to connect their product with a good life experience/memory. Also, by doing this they are putting a face to their customers and gaining popularity over the internet. Also, they are acquiring a demographic for their customers as well. I think this article is interesting because as a business major, articles like this provides me confidence that I will be able to use social networking to gain a competitive advantage in the busines world. This article also ties in to the beginning of the year when our class learned all about web 2.0 and it’s benefits.

Music and the Web

falvoem12 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:52:45 +0000

In this article ReadWriteWeb is looking back on the defining Web trends of the last decade. No industry has been rocked harder than the music one. At the beginning of the decade online music sharing was dominated by Napster, which enabled people to freely share MP3 files over the internet. In July 2001 Napster was shut down by court order after several major record labels went after the company. After Napster a P2P application called Kazaa became the most popular for music sharing but it too was shut down after attacks by record labels. Apple with itunes took on the record industry in an entirely legal way. It offered the ability to purchase songs for 99 cents each. Apple launched the iPod in October 2001 and it quickly became the most popular portable music player. MySpace was launched in 2003 and became a popular hangout for local bands and provided them with a way to promote their music and reach a wide audience through social networking. However, in 2008 MySpace stepped down as the major social networker to rival facebook. Since the ‘web 2.0′ era, finding and sharing music has become increasingly sophisticaated. Pandora, a free online music discovery service continues to grow despite various legal issues. Last.fm is another music discovery service. It continues to improve like adding combo stations, allowing a user to create a station with up to three artists or tags. This article is interesting because it tracks the history of music availability on the internet and provides readers with information on why sites like itunes and pandora are so successful. In our video projects we will be importing music to go along with the presentation. In order to legally provide music for our presentation, our group must find download songs from an appropriate place such as itunes.

Itunes Subscription

falvoem12 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:17:13 +0000

This interesting article explains how Apple is currently in the process of developing an option for people to pay them less than half as much as they pay now for their cable or satellite TV. Apple is attempting to do this by working with programmers to make shows available through iTunes subscriptions. These subscriptions would cost around $30 a month. Apple is in a perfect position to push for a program like this because of iTunes. iTunes has millions of subscribers, which would make the switch for people easy and basically free. Other companies would have to come up with a program suiting for the idea, which would essentially only cost everyone time and money.

I think this article is fascinating because I use itunes every single day. With subscription people whom use itunes as much as I will be able to save money. More importantly, Miami University uses itunes as well and we are using itunes in our final cut project. I think the idea of a subscription will benefit just about anyone who uses itunes.

Best Buy Expands Using High Speed Internet

falvoem12 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:56:36 +0000

This interesting article informs consumers that Best Buy is beginning to allow customers to buy software that downloads DVD’s over a high-speed internet connection. They have created a partnership with CinemaNow which is a digital delivery service company. All the web-connected products sold from Best Buy stores will be able to use this software. This article shows that consumers are able to access entertainment without leaving their living room. If you buy a television from Best Buy you are able to stream the DVD’s straight to your television screen. I found this article on USA today. I think it is interesting because it seems that as technology advances, more and more companies are using internet sources to perform tasks that in the past were not associated in any way with the internet. As we progress in class using final cut pro, I feel like this technology could be at some use to us. Similiarly to this, we are using computer based technology (itunes) to import that videos we are filming into final cut pro.

UGC Backfires

falvoem12 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:42:40 +0000

This article posted by the New York Times covers the topic of Internet safety involving pictures. Focused mostly on children, this article asks parents their opinions of posting pictures of their children young children and the safety threat this poses. One mother’s story involved her Flickr account. Jessica Gwozdz, a professional photographer, posted pictures on a Flickr account of her family; with the intention of viewing from her work clients and other family members. She later found out that her 4-year-old daughters image was being used on a social networking site in Brazil. Her daughter was given a fake name along with other false information. This instance is an argument that fuels many parents dislike for the Internet as a means for posting pictures. On discussion sites for mothers such as urbanbaby.com and momversation.com, mother’s posts generally favor not posting picture of their children. Some people argue that posting pictures online is another means for pedophiles to track children. In opposition to this, the Crimes Against Children Research Center, says that children’s pictures on the Internet won’t lead to more abductions. A safety precaution that some mother’s are taking is to watermark all pictures with the websites URL.

This article is important because we discussed in class how web 2.0 can be a negative thing. Although UGC allows the internet to expand, these same users can also be affected negatively by adding too much personal information to websites. It is important for all users to recognize all the potential dangers the Internet and public sites create. Web 2.0 is rapidly developing and we have never experienced anything like it before, so now we have to research and test it out to find what is safe or unsafe. I personally liked this article because I think it is important for college students to also be cautious when posting pictures to sites such as facebook. Facebook reserves the right to use anything you post.

The government Benefits from Web 2.0

falvoem12 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:36:14 +0000

The article I found shows how open sourcing offers accessibility to a software’s source code. The White House is doing this because they want more citizen involvement on its website. By having open sourcing software, people are now able to have blogs and be able to voice their opinion more openly. This also enables the White House to reduce costs on previous technology used, and gives them a more efficient method of learning what citizens wants and needs. According to Nick Shapiro, “We now have a technology platform to get more and more voices on the site. This is state-of-the-art technology.” Obama was a big proponent of this technology because he wants to interact with more citizens.

This relates to our class because it is a prime example of web 2.0. In this particular situation we can pinpoint one advantage of web 2.0 which would be saving money. By having users input, many websites can grow and expand with out wasting money. I found this article interesting because I am interested in politics and I was happy to see how politics could relate to IMS 201 through web 2.0.