Cartoon Profile Pics & Ideas about the 2nd Life

This past week I've seen tons of my Facebook friends update their profile pictures to cartoon characters. Once I found out it was to raise awareness for child abuse I thought it was a great idea. However, this morning I started to read a common status from some of my Facebook friends which said,

Apparently the group asking everyone to change their profile picture to their favorite cartoon is actually a group of pedophiles. They're doing it because kids will accept their friend request if they see a cartoon. Nothing to do with supporting child violence. It was on Dateline NBC. Its on Tonights News. Pass this on to everyone who has a cartoon profile picture!

This was shocking to me! When I told my roommates about it they were shocked too, especially since some of them changed their profile pictures to different cartoon characters. When I looked this up I found several articles saying it was true and several saying it was not true. The most recent article I found was from the Huffington Post and it stated that it was all a rumor. Here is their article. They got their information from the Facebook team. There is some speculation that the Facebook team is defending the rumor because they want Facebook to appear safe for people of all ages. Facebook did release a statement warning its users not to accept friend requests from people they do not know.

On a different note, I was surprised when I learned (from our class reading) that the Second Life is being used in schools still. I never even knew that the Second Life was used in schools. I feel like a lot of schools, well at least the schools I went to, discourage that.I think it is true that studying the Second Life could be a good way of learning, especially for students interested in that field. I found this blog that gives tons of information about the Second Life. The blog is titled "Managing a Class in Second Life." The blog is very informative and I learned a lot just by reading a few posts. It poses questions you could ask students and even gives an orientation outline for beginning a Second Life class. I think more and more schools will start opening up the idea of having a class on the Second Life because it truly can be used as a tool for studying computer skills.

Keep a Child Alive by Killing Digital Media

This week in honor of World Aids Day celebrities are "killing" their forms of digital media. Popular celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, and many more have decided to shut down their Twitters, Facebooks, Myspaces, and other forms of social media in order to save lives. These celebrities, who are well known for their constant Twitter and Facebook status's, will not get back on their social networking sites until 1 million dollars is raised for the AIDS foundation. Here is the website about this cause. Kim Kardashian tweeted this morning...

"I'm kinda sad that all of my social media will be dead tomorrow and I won't be tweeting. I love u guys! Bring me back to life soon!"

I think this is a great way to raise money for a great cause! I know many people that are going to donate simply because they want their favorite celebrities back on Twitter, Facebook, ect. I also know many people that want to donate just because they know it is a good cause. 1 million dollars will help save many kids in Africa and I am sure they will earn more than 1 million...I hope so! If anyone is interested in donating here are the directions:

Text "KIM" "Justin" or "Lady Gaga" to 90999 that you reply "YES" to confirm your donation to @keepachildalive.

Another interesting thing going on this week in social media is "cyber Monday" was yesterday. I honestly knew nothing about cyber Monday until I saw it facebook status's, which led me to Google it. Here is the website I found,basically on cyber Monday many online stores provide awesome discounts and free shipping to many of their customers. The reason the stores do this is because many people are not up for Black Friday shopping and are not into waking up at 4am to go shopping. Since cyber Monday was created people can do the shopping from their own homes online and not have to deal with the craziness of the malls and shops around the holidays. According the to the website above cyber Monday sales went up 20% from last year..that is ALOT! I was also shocked to read that 4% of all online shopping on cyber Mondays was done on Smartphones. I am not a big fan of shopping using my phone, but apparently others are. People do not just use their phones to purchase gifts they also use it to compare prices at different stores. Here is a quote from the article..

"Mobile phones play a key role. "People are using their mobile phones to compare prices, look for store locations and inventory in stock locally and find deals," read the Google blog.The blog said that 52% of U.S. smartphone users plan to use their phone to compare prices during the holiday season and 40% plan to read product reviews on their phones."

I think online shopping is a great thing. I do not think I will ever do all of my shopping online but this year I expect to do at least half of it online. Sometimes I just find the mall too stressful and shopping online is becoming easier and easier, so why not try it?!

The Death of Email & Spam Online

Recently in class we have been discuss the death of the World Wide Web due to Smartphones, Iphones, Ipads, ect. Today when reading the news online I found this website that suggest email is now dead. The article from Fox News says that email is becoming too troublesome and annoying with all of the spam and viruses that it now has. It says that since texting and bbming has become so easy, people would rather send a text than send an email. It also says emails are "too formal." I totally agree with that. Sometimes I would rather text my mom than send her an email because I find myself being too formal when I am typing an email. The same applies with my friends or family members. Texting is just so much easier. Another interesting thing I learned from the article is that Facebook just announced it has going to have a new messaging system that will be easier than email. Here is a quote from the article that describes the new messaging system...

"Facebook's system will recognize that and send quick notes and messages to those people's e-mail accounts. It will also recognize that you usually parlay with your girlfriend through text messages and only send your love missives to her that way. Plus there will be none of that onerous subject-line stuff any more."

I am excited to see this new system. I doubt I will use it, at least not at first. However, if it becomes popular, I wouldn't be opposed to it. The author of the article thinks it may be overwhelming to users at first, but then again, so was Facebook chat and that became a huge hit. I think Facebook chat may have totally replaced AIM and Ichat. I hardly know anyone that goes on AIM anymore and the only time my friends use Ichat is to video chat. Facebook is pairing with AOL to create this messaging center so I am curious to see what it is like. Keep an eye out for it!

Speaking of spam online and with emails...there has also been a lot of spam on Facebook lately. Did any of you hear of the page that says "A girl kills herself because of what her dad posted on Facebook!" I saw it but thankfully never clicked on it. This website says that it was all a scam! When you click on it you will be forced to share the page with all of your friends. The article says that Facebook needs to clean up its spam so that people do not end up getting viruses from clicking on these various sites. It says that Facebook is more powerful than the people creating these scams so they should be able to handle this. I searched this scam on Facebook and it still comes up in the search engine. I hope that Facebook gets a handle on this soon before it creates a problem for its users!

Students Constant Need for Internet Access

We discussed the digital divide several times in New Media Class. For this blog post I did some more research on the digital divide and how it is influencing children in today's society. This article shows some hope for this children whose families cannot afford the monthly internet bill, or even a laptop. The article tells how many teachers require internet research for nightly homework assignments and the kids that do not have internet are stuck at school or in a library late at night working on these assignments or even worse...not doing the assignments. The article says that you cannot blame the teachers for wanting the children to get exposed to the internet because the internet is the future of our generation. I was shocked with some of the statistics that I read regarding how many homes function (or do not function) without the internet. Here is a quote from the article...

"Nearly 69 percent of households in the United States have Internet access (including about 5 percent of homes with slower dial-up access), up from 44.5 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. In Maryland, nearly 79 percent of individuals live in a household with Internet access."

I really liked the way the article ended. Since it was written for a local paper in Southern Maryland it gave some suggestions for children who still have yet to get internet access in their homes. For example, it gave a list of all the local libraries and told the audience how many computers each library had with available internet access. It also said that many public schools are extending their media lab hours so that no child feels rushed for time when trying to complete an assignment. Lastly, it encourages the students to go to libraries with free internet access, since most libraries offer free internet to their members.

To go along with this same topic of this digital divide I also read this article that I found informative. It tells how typically a family that has one or more college student or graduate have an 84% likelihood that they will have high-speed internet. A family without a college student or graduate is only 28% likely to be connected to the net. This article has more of a negative view of the digital divide because the author finds it rather annoying that our culture is "ALWAYS ON." By this he means that people are constantly texting or using their cell phones in some way. He even says how our generation cannot sit through an entire movie without looking at their phone. I found that statement to be rather funny because I know I most certainly cannot get through a movie with sending a text or checking my phone. I do not know if thats a good or a bad thing..I have not really decided yet. I just know that my addiction to my phone and other social media devices will most likely never change.

Youtube Lawsuits and Vicious Comments

Our reading for today was about Youtube and how it integrates all different types of people. For example, anyone from political figures to school teachers use Youtube for their profession. It is also used by students all over the world for entertainment and school projects. I decided to do some more research on the secrets behind Youtube and some lawsuits that have been brought against Youtube. I found this story in which a Columbia Business School Grad, who also holds a degree from Duke, sued Youtube for a comment posted on a video posted on the site. The video was one of her promoting the Columbia Business School and the comments below it were pretty harsh. One commenter posted "whore" another one posted "skank" and the last one called her an "old hag." The video had over 400 viewers, which does not even sound like a lot compared to other Youtube videos, however, it was enough to upset this Columbia student. The student has a good idea about who posted these comments but she wants proof and justice. The suit is still going on but the article leaves the audience with several questions....

1) Should commenters be allowed to post anonymously?

2) Should google(who owns Youtube) be forced to turn in the commenters names?

3) Will more lawsuits against Youtube happen as a result of this case?

These are all important questions to examine when looking and hearing about lawsuits on all types of social networking sites, not just Youtube.

I also found this article which tells the story of a mother that posted a 30 second video of her 18-month old son dancing around to the song "Lets go Crazy." In June 2007 the mother received an email from Youtube saying that the video had been removed due to copyright infringements. The mother was very confused because when she got this notice the Youtube video only had 28 hits..mostly from family and friends. This mother fought back by saying that she uses Youtube for her home videos and just because 3o second music clip was played in the background, no one has the right to remove her online home videos. After much talk between lawyers, the video was reposted and the mother was very happy. Many commenters on this article felt that Youtube should not have reposted her video because she did break the law. However, others felt that it was stupid that the woman ever even got in trouble since the video only had 28 hits. Since this lawsuit the video has gotten over 1 millions hits. Check it out!

New Media in Classrooms

The reading we discussed today talked a lot about the forms of new technology used in schools and how it is used interactively. The article said how we should use technology together and not apart, that way we will get the most effective type of new media advances. When I was in grade school we rarely ever used new media, except for in computer class. My brother is in grade school now and I feel like they do much more online work than I even did, which is a great thing. Without introducing kids to new media, you are not preparing them. They need to learn about new media because that is pretty much all the business world uses today. I found this website that gives teachers hints on how to expose kids more to new media and technology. Some of the ideas it suggest are; online homework, which I think is a great idea because in college a lot of my homework is on Blackboard or other online sites. They also suggest using overhead projections and powerpoints because they will draw kids attention more than just writing on the chalkboard. The thing I liked the most about this website is it mentions the "paperless classroom" which means that you submit everything online and there are no worksheets or handed in paper. This idea will teach kids how to be comfortable with the online world and also help the keep the world "green" by not wasting paper.

We also discussed in class the importance of Facebook and politics and mentioned how the most common reason people "defriend" others on Facebook is because they get annoyed with their political views that they post via their status. I have bad news for those who get annoyed with the politics on Facebook...it is NEVER going away! Well..at least according to this blog/website. This article states that Facebook is going to play a permanent place in Politics. The author cites several reasons for this. For example, Facebook is free, unlike many other campaign sites. It costs politicians nothing to campaign via Facebook, so why wouldn't they use that as their main source of getting their message out there. This article also makes another important point saying that unlike Google where ads are targeted at content keywords on a site, Facebook ads allow one to identify with the ads and target people who agree with your value system. The author of this article ends by saying, Facebook is around to stay because as of right now it is America's top social media source.

Lastly, I decided to do some more research on "defriending" others on Facebook and look more into the most common reasons people "defriend." This article states many top reasons that people "defriend" such as; annoying status' about politics and religions, also crude or racist comments on their walls or status updates. This article discusses a survey done about unfriending in which they discovered that the people being "unfriended" are typically the ones that go around "friending" random people. Those who rarely "friend" others are rarely ever "unfriended" by others. I thought this was interesting but it does sound about right. I know my friends that never friend request people on Facebook often get very annoyed when they get friend request from people they do not know well, so it does make sense that they would later unfriend those people.

Reviews of DIGG & Spying on Children Online

Today in class we discussed DIGG and how different people like and dislike it for certain reasons. I had never been on the DIGG website before today and I actually really liked it. Sometimes I am too lazy to look for interesting articles to read online so from now on I will turn to DIGG. The top articles on DIGG all sounded like articles I typically read when I am on a news website or when reading the newspaper. I found this website that provided various reviews of DIGG and went through the websites pros and cons. Here is the website, it is called Webtrends. It says that one of the cons would be that if someone does not like a certain topic or author, they can simply "sink" that article. However, I think the majority of the people using the website are judging the article by what it says or what point it makes, not if they agree with the article or author. The pros state that DIGG is extremely easy to use and it has a large variety of articles so it should appeal to a large audience. The website it came from, Webtrends, also has a cool concept. It gives ratings on various new and old online sites. For example, I found reviews for Propeller, Newsvine, and it even has a list of the top Social News and Networking sites. Check it out!

I also searched "Facebook" on the Webtrends website and it gave the top reasons why everyone should be on Facebook. It says you should use Facebook because you can find old friends on it, it can be your online photobook, it has game, and it is good for your job and business. All of these things are true and I feel like these days more and more adults are getting Facebook for their jobs and some jobs are even requiring their employees to get Facebooks so they can connect with others within the business. I am curious if Facebook started to charge people how many members would stop using Facebook. I also wonder if companies would pay for their employees accounts, since some employees are required to have a Facebook.

I also found this website called ALLFACEBOOK.com. Their tag line is "The unofficial Facebook Resource." The website includes tons of posts about things that happen on Facebook, both good and bad. This article from the website talks about a teacher who got fired for "flirting" with his students online and "friended" many of his students on Facebook. The teacher also commented on students pictures saying totally unprofessional and inappropriate things like "this is sexy" on student's photos. I know that many of my high school teachers would not accept our "friend requests" until after we graduated in order to avoid any trouble. I do not think some students realize just how much trouble a teacher can get in for communicating with a student online about non school related issues. People should really think twice before accepting a friend request or even worse, posting comments for the whole world to see.