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!