For the most part what I learned during this project is the same thing I always learn when during a group project- people are difficult to organize with and manage. First, this is surprisingly not much more difficult online; true it is slightly more difficult as you have to wait for responses (which can take days), but all in all apathy is the same wether in person or through a computer. Secondly, it is just a matter of reality that there are those who will actively work toward a goal (even if it something they are not horribly interested in), those who do the bare minimum, and those who free ride and drag others down. Finally, most people are followers who will wait for someone to take the reins and tell them what to do, and if that person is not expressly specific in what they tell people those people (even if there are explicit instructions given to all) will inevitable place that onus onto the person who inevitable did what needed to be done.
Sorry for the rant, but I loathe group projects unless I get to choose who I want to work with, at least (and even then not so much)-- I know this is not always possible in the world; however, in the real world people are getting paid and that is a powerful tool in getting people to care about the final product and the initial effort.
Finally, I did learn a few things while doing this project. First, I learned what Google Alerts are-- pretty cool stuff that I'm sure I will be able to make great use of. It reminds me of RSS feeds but Internet Wide and subject specific, great idea! I also learned a lot about how social media can be used as a tool. Before last weeks lesson I still looked at social media and a personal vehicle for communication-- even though I have been getting used to corporations making use of the for a couple of years now. But after this project I can take a step back and actually analyze how well a firm is using social media to interact with consumers.
I for one, do not like being talked to by a company (as in traditional advertising), but to have a company offer interaction, or more specifically the power to opt in or out, even I am incline to look at a website for a company I do like. (this is truly profound as I have been an avid reader of Adbusters for over 10 years.
We covered all of the social media and web 2.0 heavy hitters and their use by EA (Electronic Arts): Facebook, Twitter, Twitrater, Google, Bing, Flickr, Instagram, Wikipedia, and Youtube. What I found most interesting, however, was the use of Flickr and Instagram to give users a window to see inside the offices of EA and from the point of view of the employees. I find this interesting because I don't think that it is necessarily the idea of the company to do this, but more of a spontaneous thing employees have don. It is an interesting perspective.
You can find the Wiki report here: https://ism3004.wikispaces.com/Electronic+Arts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Week:13 Muddy
Although I am familiar with such things as tags and hashtags, I was not familiar with the term folksonomy; and although I've heard the word taxonomy in my education in biology as the classification of species, I was unsure what this meant pertaining to data on the Web. In other words, i understand the ideas, but am interested in fully fledging out the concepts.
Since we discussed Wiki's as a form of Web 2.0 throughout the lessons this week, I will use them as a tool to show how powerful the wisdom of the crowds and crowdsourcing can be, I'll allow Wikipedia to speak for itself. According to Wikipedia, taxonomy is:
"is the practice and science of classification or the result of it. Taxonomy uses taxonomic units, known as taxa (singular taxon). A resulting taxonomy, a taxonomy, or taxonomic scheme, is a particular classification ("the taxonomy of ..."), arranged in a hierarchical structure or classification scheme. Typically this is organized by supertype-subtype relationships, also called generalization-specialization relationships, or less formally, parent-child relationships, typically indicated by the phrase 'is a kind of' or 'is a subtype of'. In such an inheritance relationship, the subtype by definition has the same properties, behaviours, and constraints as the supertype plus one or more additional properties, behaviours, or constraints."
This explanation cleared up little for me, but the article continued:
"Originally taxonomy referred only to the classifying of organisms (now sometimes known as alpha taxonomy) or a particular classification of organisms. It is also used to refer a classification of things or concepts, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification.
Now where this idea gets really fun is in the postulation that the human mind naturally categorizes its understanding of the work in such systems. The philosopher Immanual Kant theorized such, and some anthropologists have claimed to have witnessed such systems existing in local cultural systems; such a thing is called a folk taxonomy. Which is where we get the term folksonomy, which is discussed in our book, from. However, the terms are not completely synonymous, as we will see.
A folksonomy specifically refers to categorizing on the Internet. Just like a folk taxonomy it is a taxonomy belonging to a group of people (in the latter a culture or society and in the former the group of users that make up the activity on the Internet). The term folksonomy is attributed to Thomas Vander Wal, a well-known information architect.
Essentially, folksonomies are a way of categorizing web content through the participation of users who create and manage tags. According to Wikipedia, "Folksonomies became popular on the Web around 2004[4] as part of social software applications such as social bookmarking and photograph annotation. Tagging, which is one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 services, allows users to collectively classify and find information. Some websites include tag clouds as a way to visualize tags in a folksonomy.[5] A good example of a social website that utilizes folksonomy is 43 Things."
Most people are familiar with a tag cloud due to the popularity of Twitter. They look like this:
Since we discussed Wiki's as a form of Web 2.0 throughout the lessons this week, I will use them as a tool to show how powerful the wisdom of the crowds and crowdsourcing can be, I'll allow Wikipedia to speak for itself. According to Wikipedia, taxonomy is:
"is the practice and science of classification or the result of it. Taxonomy uses taxonomic units, known as taxa (singular taxon). A resulting taxonomy, a taxonomy, or taxonomic scheme, is a particular classification ("the taxonomy of ..."), arranged in a hierarchical structure or classification scheme. Typically this is organized by supertype-subtype relationships, also called generalization-specialization relationships, or less formally, parent-child relationships, typically indicated by the phrase 'is a kind of' or 'is a subtype of'. In such an inheritance relationship, the subtype by definition has the same properties, behaviours, and constraints as the supertype plus one or more additional properties, behaviours, or constraints."
This explanation cleared up little for me, but the article continued:
"Originally taxonomy referred only to the classifying of organisms (now sometimes known as alpha taxonomy) or a particular classification of organisms. It is also used to refer a classification of things or concepts, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification.
Taxonomy is the science which deals with the study of identifying, grouping, and naming organisms according to their established natural relationship.
Almost anything—animate objects, inanimate objects, places, concepts, events, properties, and relationships—may then be classified according to some taxonomic scheme."
I now had a good understanding of where my confusion came from; I was unaware that the use of the word was so wide in scope-- though in hindsight, that makes much sense.
Now where this idea gets really fun is in the postulation that the human mind naturally categorizes its understanding of the work in such systems. The philosopher Immanual Kant theorized such, and some anthropologists have claimed to have witnessed such systems existing in local cultural systems; such a thing is called a folk taxonomy. Which is where we get the term folksonomy, which is discussed in our book, from. However, the terms are not completely synonymous, as we will see.
A folksonomy specifically refers to categorizing on the Internet. Just like a folk taxonomy it is a taxonomy belonging to a group of people (in the latter a culture or society and in the former the group of users that make up the activity on the Internet). The term folksonomy is attributed to Thomas Vander Wal, a well-known information architect.
Essentially, folksonomies are a way of categorizing web content through the participation of users who create and manage tags. According to Wikipedia, "Folksonomies became popular on the Web around 2004[4] as part of social software applications such as social bookmarking and photograph annotation. Tagging, which is one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 services, allows users to collectively classify and find information. Some websites include tag clouds as a way to visualize tags in a folksonomy.[5] A good example of a social website that utilizes folksonomy is 43 Things."
Most people are familiar with a tag cloud due to the popularity of Twitter. They look like this:
| Photo by:Cyprien |
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Week 12: Clear
I feel like everything was quite clear as we've covered a little bit of everything that was discussed this week in previous weeks (or with security, will be discussing it in the future in depth). I was kind of confused as to the purpose of this weeks lesson due to that. The discussion was interesting, but that feels like it could easily replace this blogging assignment for the week.
This lesson really just tied all of the things we've been learning nicely together (networking, waves of computing, DNS, protocols, Etc.) and added some Internet history and specifics; which was very interesting. I did go online and delve deeper. I found out that Norway was the first to disconnect from and implement TCP/IP over SATNET. Apparently this was before but around the same time the ARPANET implemented TCP/IP.
The history I found is a very detailed timeline and can be found here.
I guess what this timeline made clear to me is that before and after the creation of the Internet through implementing TCP/IP, there were are a lot of hardwired network infrastructures that were set up. It showed me the scale of the Internet "hubs". These I suppose these are the vertebrae or centralized locations seen on the infographic in this weeks lesson.
This lesson really just tied all of the things we've been learning nicely together (networking, waves of computing, DNS, protocols, Etc.) and added some Internet history and specifics; which was very interesting. I did go online and delve deeper. I found out that Norway was the first to disconnect from and implement TCP/IP over SATNET. Apparently this was before but around the same time the ARPANET implemented TCP/IP.
The history I found is a very detailed timeline and can be found here.
I guess what this timeline made clear to me is that before and after the creation of the Internet through implementing TCP/IP, there were are a lot of hardwired network infrastructures that were set up. It showed me the scale of the Internet "hubs". These I suppose these are the vertebrae or centralized locations seen on the infographic in this weeks lesson.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Week 11: Muddy
This may have everything to do with the fact that I am the farthest thing from a business major and am taking a business class, but all of this talk about collection of data makes me very uncomfortable. This could also be to the fact that I simply do not trust large corporations, not at all.
I am very skeptical of how easy it has become to collect data on individuals over recent years. I think there should definitely be more legislation restricting this kind of behavior. In fact, I’m quite shocked about how so many people are simply nonchalant about this matter and how it affects them; however, I shouldn’t be surprised when its becoming clearer just how apathetic and complacent people have come when it comes to technology issues.
First, lets start with the practical, groups like Anonymous have recently made it a mission to prove to IT professionals, corporations, governments, and individuals that what they think about online and database security is a farce. So far they have been quite successful in proving that such organizations that pride themselves on their “security” abilities are far from being secure. Luckily, Anonymous carries out attacks but has no interest in stealing information, however many others with an equal knowledge and ability do seek to acquire such information for malicious use.
You can view Anonymous's posting site in order to see what kind of activities "they" (they have no central leadership and are only loosely connected through sites like 4chan; hence, the quotations) have been up to and obtain explanations from "them" here.
The Logo is offered under the creative commons license by Anonymous. This can be seen by following the above link.
On another note, Anonymous has sought to single out and attack companies (most recently Facebook) that handle massive amounts of our (the common people's) private information and help to make it more readily available to corporations and government organizations (such as the FBI or CIA who by law can not spy on citizens, which is ironic because now citizens just give up all the information they can happily. note: before Facebook, it was more common for users to use pseudonyms or usernames when participating in social networking. Facebook changed this by simply asking users for their information to be displayed…this connects back to the previous statement about apathy and complacency).
This issue came up at a really good time for discussion as Anonymous, three months ago, declared #OpFacebook. Since that time, the collective has disavowed the action, but the website has a lot of activity and the possibility of an attack in the future is possible. The attack would not be malicious per se, but an action take to get Facebook to handle users personal information with more care and consideration. There are many who doubt such an attack is possible (as Anonymous typically uses DDoS attacks), however they have often surprised their critics with they’re abilities.
As far as my personal feelings and experiences go I have many concerns.
I used to work an “unnamed” bookstore, where I was made to collect a quota on their for-sale loyalty cards. I was to talk customers in to giving up $20 dollars so that the company could collect data from the customer about the customer and their purchases. What did the customer get for this? A 10% discount. This meant that in a year the customer needed to spend $200 dollars in order to make their money back! After 6 months, I felt ashamed with myself and left the company. The company called this “customer service”; I find it to be predatory and quite opposite to customer service.
The fact that a company can turn selling information about people through data aggregators, into a multi-billion dollar industry is abhorrent and that should be obvious, I won't even go into an full explanation of why.
Other things like RFID chips, seem to be a little weird to me. I personally do not want a chip connected to anything that I carry around on my person. The ability to use this technology to more than just follow an item from production to storage to shipping and finally to store shelves seems obvious. There has been much talk about placing these in ID cards: one would have to be insane to let the government force you to carry an ID that can locate you at anytime. But that is where we are at. These things are becoming more and more acceptable to more and more people. And we go further down the rabbit hole.
This is just me, this is just opinion. But like the massive marketing and advertising world and public relations field, this kind of thing simply lowers my faith in humanity and unsettles my stomach.
I am very skeptical of how easy it has become to collect data on individuals over recent years. I think there should definitely be more legislation restricting this kind of behavior. In fact, I’m quite shocked about how so many people are simply nonchalant about this matter and how it affects them; however, I shouldn’t be surprised when its becoming clearer just how apathetic and complacent people have come when it comes to technology issues.
First, lets start with the practical, groups like Anonymous have recently made it a mission to prove to IT professionals, corporations, governments, and individuals that what they think about online and database security is a farce. So far they have been quite successful in proving that such organizations that pride themselves on their “security” abilities are far from being secure. Luckily, Anonymous carries out attacks but has no interest in stealing information, however many others with an equal knowledge and ability do seek to acquire such information for malicious use.
You can view Anonymous's posting site in order to see what kind of activities "they" (they have no central leadership and are only loosely connected through sites like 4chan; hence, the quotations) have been up to and obtain explanations from "them" here.
The Logo is offered under the creative commons license by Anonymous. This can be seen by following the above link.
On another note, Anonymous has sought to single out and attack companies (most recently Facebook) that handle massive amounts of our (the common people's) private information and help to make it more readily available to corporations and government organizations (such as the FBI or CIA who by law can not spy on citizens, which is ironic because now citizens just give up all the information they can happily. note: before Facebook, it was more common for users to use pseudonyms or usernames when participating in social networking. Facebook changed this by simply asking users for their information to be displayed…this connects back to the previous statement about apathy and complacency).
This issue came up at a really good time for discussion as Anonymous, three months ago, declared #OpFacebook. Since that time, the collective has disavowed the action, but the website has a lot of activity and the possibility of an attack in the future is possible. The attack would not be malicious per se, but an action take to get Facebook to handle users personal information with more care and consideration. There are many who doubt such an attack is possible (as Anonymous typically uses DDoS attacks), however they have often surprised their critics with they’re abilities.
As far as my personal feelings and experiences go I have many concerns.
I used to work an “unnamed” bookstore, where I was made to collect a quota on their for-sale loyalty cards. I was to talk customers in to giving up $20 dollars so that the company could collect data from the customer about the customer and their purchases. What did the customer get for this? A 10% discount. This meant that in a year the customer needed to spend $200 dollars in order to make their money back! After 6 months, I felt ashamed with myself and left the company. The company called this “customer service”; I find it to be predatory and quite opposite to customer service.
The fact that a company can turn selling information about people through data aggregators, into a multi-billion dollar industry is abhorrent and that should be obvious, I won't even go into an full explanation of why.
Other things like RFID chips, seem to be a little weird to me. I personally do not want a chip connected to anything that I carry around on my person. The ability to use this technology to more than just follow an item from production to storage to shipping and finally to store shelves seems obvious. There has been much talk about placing these in ID cards: one would have to be insane to let the government force you to carry an ID that can locate you at anytime. But that is where we are at. These things are becoming more and more acceptable to more and more people. And we go further down the rabbit hole.
This is just me, this is just opinion. But like the massive marketing and advertising world and public relations field, this kind of thing simply lowers my faith in humanity and unsettles my stomach.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Week 11: Database Project
I learned a lot during this project. For starters, I learned what a database was. Unlike Excel, which I had some rudimentary understanding of, I had never come into contact with a database nor did I know anyone who was familiar with one. In that sense, every in every aspect of this process I learned something.
One thing I definitely learned was that, again unlike Excel, there is not a good "undo" function in a database. Once I finished the project-- the first time -- and began to start the scripting extra credit, I somehow removed a members information from the database (you have to love touch-pads). I searched futilely for quite sometime to find a way to restore the data. Finally, I just began anew. Luckily, I had gotten pretty quick with the process on a second (well actually 3rd) go around.
One thing I would have added to the database would have been adding the "Membership Type" to the "Departed Member Report". My reasoning being that family memberships are going to be more expensive and therefore should be more aggressively sought after (followed-up with) by the business.
Due to the type of data (i.e. not a whole lot of numerical data) there not a lot you could do with it. You could determine your male-to-female ratios i suppose, or look for a time period where there was an increased number of "Departed members" to try an determine if there was an underlying reason. Also, you could look for the newest members (especially individuals to target people that you could offer a "friend sign-up bonus" to: this would be a program where you give the member a free months membership if they can refer a friend). For the most part, from looking at the scavenger hunt and lecture, I don't see much that would apply with this particular data set.
One thing I definitely learned was that, again unlike Excel, there is not a good "undo" function in a database. Once I finished the project-- the first time -- and began to start the scripting extra credit, I somehow removed a members information from the database (you have to love touch-pads). I searched futilely for quite sometime to find a way to restore the data. Finally, I just began anew. Luckily, I had gotten pretty quick with the process on a second (well actually 3rd) go around.
One thing I would have added to the database would have been adding the "Membership Type" to the "Departed Member Report". My reasoning being that family memberships are going to be more expensive and therefore should be more aggressively sought after (followed-up with) by the business.
Due to the type of data (i.e. not a whole lot of numerical data) there not a lot you could do with it. You could determine your male-to-female ratios i suppose, or look for a time period where there was an increased number of "Departed members" to try an determine if there was an underlying reason. Also, you could look for the newest members (especially individuals to target people that you could offer a "friend sign-up bonus" to: this would be a program where you give the member a free months membership if they can refer a friend). For the most part, from looking at the scavenger hunt and lecture, I don't see much that would apply with this particular data set.
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