Facebook Blog: Part 3

In this third and final blog of Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect, he continues to discuss the rising value of Facebook.  Also, he writes about Zuckerberg’s announcement to development platforms for programmers to create social applications within Facebook. Within a matter of weeks, many applications had been built and some already had millions of users. Zuckerberg explained, “We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system, so you can run full applications.” (pg. 217) I think Zuckerberg wanted to have Facebook be like Microsoft, where it is very much like a monopoly on the social network. Microsoft wiped out all the other competition and Zuckerberg wants Facebook to dominate the social network.

What I found interesting was Kirkpatrick’s comment about Facebook taking the burden off itself to built better applications. In becoming a platform, Facebook did not have to keep building better applications; it can now rely on others to do it for them. Yet, with this simple plan Facebook can reap the benefit and share these applications with the whole world.  (pg. 218)

When it came time for Facebook to make money, Zuckerberg’s personality showed itself.  To him, everything was about the “long-term” plan. Zuckerberg believed, “Long-term financial success depended on continued growth, he believed, and even his grand declaration at the Facebook Ads launch just meant the company would start seeking new approaches.” (pg. 259)  Zuckerberg could not see anything but, “...growth and continued improvement in the customer experience...” (pg. 258) it is fascinating to read about a young man not dazzled by all those billions!

In chapter fifteen, Kirkpatrick writes about Zuckerberg’s concept of “gift economy”. He believes that, “The whole culture works on this framework of mutual giving. The thing that binds those communities together and makes the potlatch work is the fact that the community is small enough that people can see each other’s contributions.” (pg. 287) When Zuckerberg talks about a community is small enough, he means since Facebook has made the world smaller and closer. Zuckerberg goes on to say, “When there’s more openness, with everyone being able to express their opinion very quickly...” (pg. 287) He felt companies would become “more good, and trustworthy”. Maybe I am more jaded, but I found this ideology idealistic, but it can also be his youth. That said, Facebook has come a long way in a short time and it has shown it resilience. Facebook keeps on improving itself, maybe it can improve the way the world works.

facebook: Part 2

In the second part of David Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, he continues his story about the rise of a ground breaking Web site and the young men responsible. Kirkpatrick writes about the amazing job Sean Parker did to recruit several investor for Facebook. Say what you will about the man’s personal behavior, he was a good talker. Zuckerberg's personality was another matter all together. Kirkpatrick’s descriptions of Zuckerberg’s characteristics bring the reader face to face with the young man. Although I could understand why his employees worried about all the meets he took with all those companies who wanted to buy Facebook. As CEO of the company, open communication with his employee would have stop their fear of Zuckerberg selling Facebook.

I found the second part of the book exciting following Kirkpatrick’s written map of Facebook’s rise to a "real" company. The picture of all the employees pushing their office chairs, full of their equipment, to their new office was really funny. What really interested me was all this money offered for Facebook, billions of dollars, and yet they were going through the money they had borrowed from Accel.

Through all the wheeling and dealing, Zuckerberg and his fellow workers stayed firm. Aaron Sittig, the graphic designer said it best, “We wanted to get the site out of the way and not have a particular attitude. We didn’t want people to have a relationship with Facebook so much as to find and interact with each other.” (pg. 145) Zuckerberg only liked working with young people, because they were smarter, but I think, like his ambition for Facebook, he wanted to interact with people he enjoyed being around. So, I’m sure it was sad when he had to ask Sean Parker to step down. He had contributed a large part of Facebook’s success.

When Zuckerberg added the photo feature to Facebook, the Web site took off! This step in Facebook’s journey most definitely assisted in people interacting with each other making the world a little smaller and closer to Zuckerberg’s dream of socializing the world. The success of the “photo-hosting application” on Facebook “...was magic of overlaying an ordinary online activity with a set of social relationship.” (pg. 156) By adding photos to the Web site, Facebook gave their customer “a sense of companionship” never felt from the Internet before. (pg. 157) With this success, Zuckerberg now wanted to open Facebook to adults and from there the world. Zuckerberg’s dream was very close to becoming a reality. While I continue to read this book, I could not help think of the book, Made to Break, and planned obsolescence. Zuckerberg has successfully made the world vastness obsolete, it is now just a button away and you can now have a relationship with a large number of friends.

Internet Privacy: What are they doing About it?

Internet privacy is a major concern for anyone who signs on to a computer. Privacy on the Internet is a status where an individual can work on his or her information without fear of said information being used without the user permission. With each passing day, more and more people are signing on to a computer, unaware their private information is being collected and used without their knowledge.

Businesses should be aware that consumers are looking for privacy protection and a privacy statement can help to ease consumer's concerns. If businesses do not provide privacy protection, people will start to abstain from buying products off the Internet. It is not only businesses that need to implement privacy protection. To protect consumer’s privacy, legislation, self-regulation, and technical solutions are some of a few solutions ways that can be implemented.

Another tool that can be used for the protection of Internet privacy is the use of anonymity by the user. This is a good tool for some users and dangerous for others.  For example, any stalker can use this particular tool against another user with any repercussions. While for some using a fake name can protect some users and their personal information.

 Recently, well known journalist, Esther Dyson stated the problem, “The biggest challenge right now is ignorance: People aren’t worried enough, and are careless. Other people are worried too much, and are paranoid. No one knows what is known and what isn’t. It’s the one-way mirror effect that makes people so uneasy” (1)

A large number of services have been provided by online businesses that are posted on the home page; this is to reassure customers of their privacy. These services usually require a web site to pay a fee and also to enter in a contract, even go through an audit just to display a “seal of approval” to cover the consumers privacy. When using the Internet, the user should search diligently for these seals.

1 http://lorrie.cranor.org/pubs/networker-privacy.html

Facebook, Part 1

In David Kirkpatrick's book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World, he describes the history of Facebook and its creator, Mark Zuckerberg. With an unusual twist Kirkpatrick starts his book in the middle of the story. The book begins with a story about Oscar Morales and his hatred for FARC, terrorist located in Colombian. Morales used Facebook to form a group against the hostile guerillas and because of that, the group attracted thousands of people, in the end millions. The story ends with a march against the guerillas. This was thanks to Facebook. By starting the book with this story, Kirkpatrick demonstrates how powerful Facebook has become.

While Facebook took several people to get it off the ground, it is Mark Zuckerberg tenacity that is the backbone of Facebook. Kirkpatrick describes Zuckerberg as a “geek” that wore jeans and tee shirts, as a matter of fact; Kirkpatrick describes all the collaborators of Facebook as “geeks”. Yet, each person involved with the creation of Facebook did their jobs extremely well. But like all college students, Zuckerberg and his group of “geeks” wanted to have fun and creating Facebook was fun, up until egos got in the way.

What I found interesting was that Zuckerberg was not that interested in making money, but he did want Facebook to be its best and for people to reach out to each other. Another aspect of Zuckerberg’s personality that aided in Facebook’s success was his commonness in making huge executive decision. Kirkpatrick attributes this to Zuckerberg vision on where he wanted Facebook to go.

While reading this book, I could not help but think about the young people who created the website, Texts from Last Night. They too are college age, and started a website for the fun of it, much like Zuckerberg and his group of friends. Another thing Ben Lator and Lauren Leto have in common with Zuckerberg is these young people have tapped into a market that student can identify with and they share this with millions of people worldwide. Lastly, you cannot overlook the money these two sites have brought into the lives of these students who just wanted to have fun.

Carry Your Classroom with You, the Disconnection

In today’s world, the classroom has taken on a new look and shape. It is no longer a room full of desks and a chalk board. Today’s classroom is now anywhere a person can carry their computer (laptop hopefully). Using the Internet is the norm for today’s youth and adults going back to school. Of course, there is also how the Internet is used as a tool in the conventional classroom. While the use of the Internet is more structured in the classroom, a student’s educational use of the Internet occurs outside of the school day, outside of the school building, outside the direction of their teachers. Students report that there is a substantial disconnect between how they use the Internet for school and how they use the Internet during the school day and under teacher direction.

In this isolated classroom students find many different educational uses for the Internet. All students use the Internet to do research to assist them in doing homework, study for tests and write research papers. The Internet is a virtual reference book, teacher, tutor, desk, and so on. My first experience with an online class was very disconcerting, but I got use to it very fast. No going to class when you are tired, you can do your work when you have the time. Alas, I feel eventually, there will be no need to drive to school with a teacher and classmates. Yet, this is the direction that education is taking its students.

One problem with using the Internet for school is the lack of instructions teacher give their students in using this tool. That is due to the fact the student has more knowledge about the Internet than the teacher. Also, some teachers decide not to use the Internet for an assignment because of their concern that not all kids have access to the Internet at home.

Nonetheless, as students, we are changing due to the out-of-school use of the Internet and our reliance on it. Students have different skills, different opportunities and most of all different resources at their finger tips.

Our Group Presentation

Hello everyone, this past Wednesday evening in class my group (Stephanie, Kristen and myself) presented our Wikipedia article to the class. Our topic was on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in the United States. In our search, we were surprised to find the lack information about the topic. It is a brief overview on the topic, a good starting point, but not for an in-depth research on the topic. Another surprise to the article is that there are no recent cases mentioned in the article.

My group did some additional research on euthanasia and found the case on Terri Schiavo. I found it puzzling that our article had no mention of such a famous case. We also mentioned the famous Dr. “Death” Jack Kevorkian and a basic outline of his work and convictions.

For the most part, our group agreed that Wikipedia is a good place to start when doing research on this particular topic. There is no real in-depth information, only a basic outline of the topic. Of the resources at the bottom of the page, there were dead links, articles and even someone blog. The only article of primary source was from The New England Journal of Medicine.

Because of Wikipedia’s format, this article is not that well rounded, anyone can write and edit this page. This is a double edged sword, because this is also Wikipedia’s strength as well. Wikipedia is a tool found in the easiest position of Google, which makes it the obvious choice when looking for a topic. Like with any research one does for either school or one’s self, no one source is good enough to solely rely on. While I feel Wikipedia is a good starting off point, I would never rely on it for my only information. The Internet is a great tool, with information we could never find sitting at home, and yet now we can.

Even though Wikipedia has its strengths and weaknesses, people are lazy by nature. Since Google places Wikipedia in a top position, people will always go for the most obvious Web page. Because of their laziness, some wrong information will be citied. I learned a lot from this project, due to the fact I knew nothing about our subject. Granted, I only learned about basic facts and not the emotional side to our topic. I take away from this project how much I enjoyed the process of team work and researching an interesting topic.

Part 3 of Made to Break

In the third and last segment of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America, by Giles Slade, he continues to discuss obsolescence in America. Slade writes about the invention of the chip in chapter seven, the cold war in chapter eight and lastly cell phones and e-waste in chapter nine. I have to say, chapter seven was a repeat of what I have already read in the book Computers. Much of this chapter is about the competition between the company’s Apple, Microsoft, and IBM. So I found chapter seven a little boring. What I did find interesting was the different characters that made up the cold war chapter. I had no idea that the Soviet Union was holding on by a thread in their competition with the United States. 

Slade credits Gus Weiss as, “…the brilliant cold warrior responsible for turning planned obsolescence into a weapon against the Soviet Union…” (pg. 228) I had always wondered why the USSR stole from the United States all the technology they did, and in reading the section on “Industrial Espionage” I took note on the fact that Western technology “stolen or covertly purchased” from the Soviets assisted in their equal strength. (pg. 233)

Slade went on to describe the “Farewell” documents and how with these documents and the dissatisfaction of a KGB officer assisted in the downfall of Soviet’s neck and neck race with the United States. It is this race, the “Cold War” and the men behind the scenes that were major factor in the obsolescence of weapons. What I found fascinating in the reading were the two men, Gus Weiss and Vladimir Vetrov. Slade wrote detailed descriptions on both men and their part in the Cold War.

Slade closes his book discussing the cell phone and e-waste. He writes, “In the United States, cell phones built to last five years are now retired after only eighteen months of use”. (pg. 261) This statement gave me a moment of pause, because I am guilty of this very act, as are so many other Americans. But it is not just cell phones, computers, televisions and so on, we want it fast and shiny, like all our toys. Yet, this fascination with the new never last for very long, that is why our e-waste is growing out of control.

As Slade has stated throughout his book, consumers “…are creating unmanageable mounds of electronic waste…” (pg. 261)  He closes his book with a warning, as consumers of e-waste, we must stop and think about not only our next toy to buy, but we also need to address the “disassembly and reuse” of that same product. (pg. 281) I feel Slade has backed his argument with well documented examples, and gives his reader a lot to think about.

  

Part 2: Made to Break

In chapters four through six of Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade, Slade begins by writing about the numerous ways in which obsolescence became a way of life in America starting with radio, and television. Using multiple examples, Slade explores how companies marketed their product for profit, through consumer manipulation. Slade starts chapter four with the introduction of a rivalry that lasted for decades, a rivalry in the advancing field of radio. This rivalry was between two very different men, David Sarnoff and Edwin Armstrong. Sarnoff business sense was all about making a name for himself at all cost. He built up radio, only to destroy it with the introduction of television. Armstrong had great faith in his product, FM radio, and he spent his life trying to make it great.

Continuing with chapter four on radio, Slade discusses the invention of transistor radios and how even the old way of listening to the radio became obsolete. Case in point, many companies invented smaller radios so that the radio could be taken with you anywhere. This made listening to a radio a mobile event, instead of sitting around the radio with your family. As America became a modern society, transistor radios aided in the person on the go. This makes me pause; I think with the transistor radio, America began to move away from the close knot family unit. While families could watch television together, as future can tell, that would not last long. Once again “planned obsolescence” moves people away from the family unit to more isolation, but for now in the reading, television moved people away from the radio.

Also, another aspect of family life that became obsolete was the front porches and basements of houses. When new houses started going up in the suburbs they were built without front porches and basements. This was to keep costs down on their construction, but the public were told through advertisements, that this was a break from the past. Once again the idea of the new was projected as better for the family than the old way. In chapter six, Brooks Stevens said it best, “We make good products, we induce people to buy them, and then next year we deliberately introduce something that will those old fashion, out of date, obsolete”. (pg. 153)  Again I ask, what will America leave behind for the new generations? While reading this book, I have taken a good look at how we as America are driven and manipulated into running after what is new, whether we need it or not. I guess I should be more opened minded; one of the foundations this country is built on is freedom of religion. For make no mistake, America’s belief system and new God is to buy the new toy out each and every week.