Social Media & The 2011 Egyptian Revolution
Module 12: Future Issues
The one important thing I think I learned from the Digital Media course are a mix of two things: First, is that it was confirmed to me where the world of internet and technology is heading and how fast things are moving in the world of gadgets. From the reading material, videos ,and reading fellow classmates blogs. Second, is learning the history of the making of the internet and the digital media in general. I couldn’t believe how much time and hard work was put into it.
Best part of the course was that I felt that I have an experience to share and relate to every module we learnt. May be that is because I am from the generation Y (GEN Y). I think that generation was the Lab Rat of the digital era. We went from giant desktops to smart phones, tablets and mini laptops. We went from turtle slow dial up where we spent hours trying to get online, waiting for a page to finish loading, game consoles that crash and bad video resolution to HD & LED monitors. Many of us heard the saying “You don’t know how lucky you are” and I think we can now say the same thing to Generation Z.
It’s Valentines day, you have a crush, you whack together a Spotify playlist for them and their heart melts. Do you have any idea how long a mix tape took to make!?
I think things will keep moving fast, new discoveries, ideas and inventions will come up for the web & digital world. Pretty soon I will be reading my email on the inside wall of a drone. A personal drone that will fly me to work on autopilot, that will not require fuel but solar energy, or may be my personal robot will plug it to an electric outlet every now and then to run a diagnostic.
New Trend:
I decided to create an account with Pinterest. I choose that website because I assumed it was similar to Instagram. I thought that it a website for people to post pictures and for others to comment on it. I logged in to the account via browser not the app, it was very easy to use and navigate. I learned on my own, I still do not master the website and I know there is a lot more to discover. But I really like the idea so far, there are a lot of great and useful inventions that I would like to have for my home. I think it is very valuable because most of the items i saw are things I never seen before. I was surprised to see that many friends of mine are signed up to it, but my favorite moment is when I discovered that my wife has an account as well.
Here are couple of things that I liked/pined, a recipe and an useful kitchen invention.
Module 11: CyberLaw
I think what Girl Talk does is definitely art, but he should somehow recognize anything that he is using from other sources. And the same goes for people like him that are doing the same thing. I think real artists respect art but at the same time you must give credit to originality. I think Girl Talk has not been sued yet because he will have a strong fair use defense for any case. The music industry is scared to sue him because they are afraid that the courts will return fair use back to music.
One of the most important legal considerations associated with our digital environment is copy right law. I think it is important to stop internet piracy and to make sure artists are getting rewarded for their hard work. In the past (early 2000’s) when Napster came out, it was the next new thing to download music and movies you liked. I remember sitting at work downloading every song that I ever listened to & liked. Then all of a sudden Napster was shut down and I remember everyone that I knew was very upset and annoyed. We all felt that something precious was stripped away and we did not realize that what we were doing was illegal or not right. But later on we understood. I remember after Napster many more peer to peer file sharing programs came out.
I am very surprised that still many years after the Napster scandal some people out there are still trying to get music and movies illegally. Should we blame the consumer? or should we blame the companies that still allow piracy to exist. Pirate bay Trial
I think that is one of the reasons why some countries are using this as an angle to control the internet like in China & the middle east. Some of these countries control the bandwidth as well as the content. They don’t believe in net neutrality.
But the strategies China uses to control cyberspace, including its digital barricades against Google, Facebook, YouTube and thousands of other websites, and its never-ending arrests of scholars and dissidents who post government critiques online, actually constitute one of the greatest attacks on internet freedom the world has ever seen, said William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International.
Did you know that Americans pay a lot more for internet than many other countries? … Why?
“Americans pay so much because they don’t have a choice,” says Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Barack Obama on science, technology and innovation policy.
Although there are several national companies, local markets tend to be dominated by just one or two main providers.
On the other hand I think we are better off than many other countries when it comes to net neutrality. Many countries are still struggling with that subject.
Module 10: Business Models/Branding
From just reading the title of the new module I realized right away that it will be about business reviews and recommendations. These things now can make or break a business. Reading the “Long Tail” by Chris Anderson it is easy to grasp that point of the article from the first paragraph, which is about how a book became successful because of the new technology of referring and recommendations of similar books for the consumer on Amazon.com.
It was great to learn about the free concept, how one product can seem free at first but you will end up spending money on other items related to the same product. Like if a store is advertising for a sale at one department but the goal is just to bring you in to look at other department that needs to go.
Here is a video about how business can benefit from negative reviews and turn the table around.
These concepts changed our understanding of some business models like scale & approach. In the past young kids used to always request to go out with their friends and play outside, but now it is the opposite. Kids want to stay in to play with their handheld devices and game consoles. How do they change our understanding of business models in terms of approach, marketing and scale?
Bad reviews are an inevitable fact of life, like death, taxes, and fruit-flavored beer. No matter how scrupulous you are when conducting your business, you’re going to eventually run into a disgruntled customer who takes to the internet to air his grievances. (How Bad Reviews Can Benefit Your Business)
The internet is transforming the business, now online reviews are probably the first thing the consumer checks before visiting or using that business. People are relying on the online word of mouth, which is the strongest form of advertisement. I predict that things are going to change in the future when it comes to media and entrepreneurship. I think we are going to see a major change in the management and communications department of every business, that will have an important task to search the web to dispute and remove any negative reviews about the business.
Module 9: Mobile & Big Data
I never thought that one day I will get to put my app idea on paper, but I had one in mind for a few years now that I don’t know where to go and where to start with it. There are similar apps to it but none share the same functionality.
My app is called “Ice Breaker”, The point of this app is to help people locate other people for different purposes and needs: dating, tutoring, handy work, life coaching, advice, …etc. By allowing people to create a personal/professional profile where they can put a picture and list things & skills they can help other people with or list something they need. But by using your location on a map. And people can rate if you were helpful so future users can determine if they like to do business with you or not. At the same time the app can be used for social dating. A user can choose whether they want to post their availability for dating or for tutoring or for performing a specific work like gardening.
It can be considered a mix of craigslist, yelp, LinkedIn, match.com,..etc, All these website serve the same purpose which is fulfilling a need. but all in one network and by using your location via GPS to determine who is available in a certain area.
The risk is to use a service or someone that was not previously rated on the app, which means the more you do good the more positive rating you will have. Of course that will not work in the area of dating.
Module 8: Online Journalism
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from an economics teacher when I was going for my undergrad degree. Which was to make it a habit of listening to a news TV channel or radio channel every day in the morning while getting ready to go to work and/or while driving to work. This way I can stay in touch with the world and be aware of what is going on in every field and location. Some times I forget to do that so I end up browsing my favorite news website while on a break at work or lunch break.
The best thing about news websites is that they have a Search feature where you can search the entire website for a specific subject that interests me.
I like this video below by Big Think, it talks about the innovation of the human behavior from a journalism and community interaction angle.
I like news posts that contains videos and pictures. I am a visual type person, I prefer watching a video or seeing pictures rather than reading lots of text. That is the innovation in journalism, successful news websites are the ones that can post news articles in different ways in order to satisfy all types of people.
In surveys conducted by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, 34% of respondents said they read news online within the past 24 hours (as opposed to 31% who favored newspapers); and a full 41% said they get most of their news online, 10% more than those who said they got most of their news from a newspaper.Source
Decline in Newspaper sales News article shows that news paper sales are declining by 9% per year. Lets look at the bright side, eventually with the decline in the printing industries we will be able to save more and more trees.
Module 7: Cyber Culture Research
Ever wondered if people use the internet the same way you do? I thought about this many times before, that is why every now and then i take a look at the Wikipedia Page that shows the top visited websites up to a couple of months ago. You will realize how different people are and that there may be some websites on the top of that list that you never visited and never knew it existed.
The cyber world changes as time goes by, the internet usage now is not the same compared to 5, 10, 15 and 20 years ago. Which led me to think that the type of people that work in the field of technology, computers and internet changed as well. But I was wrong according to this report by Fortune it seems that there is still discrimination and a gender gap in most of the major tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, …etc. Even though they all announced publicly that they realize the problem and are working on fixing it. As we can see in this Fortune report about Apple.
The gender wage gap, unlike the racial wage gap, is mainly related to choices that women make between home and the workplace. Working women typically have had as much education as male workers. In fact, in recent years women have been acquiring more years of education than men, particularly at the post graduate level, and that education gives them greater access to relatively high-paying occupations.
Race & Gender Wage Gaps
The gender gap also exists in poor underdeveloped countries where things are even more difficult for women because the country’s culture and government still favoring a male dominant system.
According to this study by Junior Achievement USA and The Allstate Foundation’s Teens & Personal Finance Survey reveals a gender gap among teenagers’ views and habits on college plans and future earning power. The survey found that 91 percent of teen girls, ages 13-18, plan to attend college or trade school after they graduate from high school, compared to 86 percent of their male counterparts.
Module 6: Social Media
Now with MySpace gone I think Facebook has no competitors. Google has competitors because for me I don’t mind using other search engines like Yahoo MSN or bing. And when it comes to business ratings the only competitor that I see fit to challenge google is Yelp.
I think the next big thing in Social Media is respecting users privacy and offering to pay the uses for their personal information. Because many people are starting to close their Facebook accounts or stopped using to to avoid sharing information on the internet. But i think by offering a small incentive in return could switch things around for Facebook and social network in general. I know that some websites do that already like YouTube.
I don’t use social networking to meet new people or make new friends. I remember back in 2005/2006 I started getting email invites from various friends to join Facebook & MySpace. At the beginning I thought it was some kind of spam but in 2007 i decided to make a Facebook account and I was glad I did because it reconnected me with many old friends even all the way back to kindergarten. After reading (Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship) by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, I was reassured that I was not the only one that uses social networks the way I do. “What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks. This can result in connections between individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal, and these meetings are frequently between ‘‘latent ties’’ (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not necessarily ‘‘networking’’ or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network” (Page 211, JCMC).
I mainly use Facebook & LinkedIn, Facebook is for staying in touch with old friends & distant family and I use LinkedIn for my professional network. I keep my Facebook page as private as possible, that includes news ports, updates, pictures, status. I don’t feel that I should share that information with friends that are not very close anymore or contacts that slowly became distant or decided to have a more private life. Some of my friends are an open book, they update their status and news every hour and they share very personal details with the world. I don’t think that is wise on their part, considering how the internet web pages can easily be hacked these days.
Since I am talking about privacy, I always wondered how is it that every time i travel some where like a different city or country then log in to Facebook i noticed that there are advertisements for the city or area I am in. In the past i used to think that it was because my ip address and isp must have changed, but i was wrong. After watching this: How Does Facebook Make Money? I was a bit shocked and angry at the same time, i felt used and i felt that my privacy have been invaded. Now it all makes sense, that Facebook gives away some personal data about me to determine which advertisements fit my needs according to location, age, status, check in…etc.
I am glad that Facebook was not able to purchase Whatsapp. I use Whatsapp all time and everyday. Now because I lost trust in Facebook, I can predict that Facebook would have definitely used Whataspp application as well to generate more revenue by giving away people’s private data and locations from Whatsapp as well.
Module 4: Digital Media Research
Reading Karpf’s (Social Science Research Methods in Internet Time) reminded me of my first days days of the internet back in the early 90’s. One of my hobbies was writing to pen pals across the world. It was fun and exciting waiting for a letter back. With the Internet it felt like a giant leap in technology, by being able to join mIRC chat rooms and chat with multiple people that are sharing and experiencing this new trend. Next big thing was ICQ one of the first instant messaging computer programs. In the early 2000’s video chatting came out but you needed a very fast connection for it to work well. Now you video chat from your cell phone with ease.
Its amazing how fast things are moving in the world of the internet and computers. Last time i purchased a laptop was in July of 2013, I just recently found out that my laptop specifications are now considered not that great and it is less than two years old. Good thing i have the latest iPhone model which in may way replaced the need for a laptop.
Education wise, Many of my elderly family members are still questioning how will i be able to obtain a Masters degree that is almost completely online! They find it difficult to understand that i don’t need to go to a library anymore and that most of the books are available online.
It is tough when my smart phone dies, because everything that i do now is linked with it. Emails, college courses, grades, e-books, reading newspaper, stocks, socializing, looking for new jobs, printing…etc
In 2012, during the presdential elections, I followed the results step by step. Not via smart phone, not by watching tv or cable, not by turning my computer on, but by watching my xbox gaming console. xbox provided an interactive menu where you can watch the news, polls results from other xbox users, interactive map showing voter decisions as they come in. I tell everyone now not to be surprised if a few years from now we will all be able to vote directly from our xbox and Play station consoles.
After reading (Interactivity: A Concept Explication) by Spiro Kiousis, It sparked an idea for me in the area of public administration. What if all the governmental departments in the public sector utilized a forums or discussion boards on their website. I think this will reduce their incoming call volumes and incoming emails. This way many questions can be answered and at the same time people can browse through older conversations and stickies to find what they are looking for. I think this can be an amazing tool to have along with an FAQ page, email and phones.
Module 3: Digital Media Theory
For me websites like Facebook and Myspace were only tools to communicate with distant family and friends. It also helped me reconnect with early childhood classmates. Amazingly with the help of google two long lost uncles brothers to my mother that were born in a different country were found after 45 years! I am sure there are many other stories like mine from all over the world. But it is important to appreciate how this technology works and the origins of it. Because like many others I am one of the people that are taking advantage of it without really understanding all the hard work and time spent to have this technology so easy to use nowadays. Nicholas Negroponte’s book “Being Digital” is full of knowledgeable and true vision. Many of the approaches and possibilities he mentions have since been realized and many more are yet to be actualized. Negroponte spends a lot of time filling in the gaps between what you were supposed to know in the late 90’s about the rise of the digital era, and what you actually absorbed from everyone else who were also just pretending to know what the difference between digital and analog meant.
The Relative Advantage. Like many guys from my age bracket I spent many years of my life playing online games. During those years I learned a lot about computers and internet. You may wonder how can a person learn anything while playing a game! The answer is that in many of these online games there are online communities, each community contains a large number of teams, guilds or clans. While being a part of a team you are expected to have a good internet connection and a reliable computer to perform your part of whatever the task is you are doing in that game. Over the years I relied on my teammates to trouble shoot a technical problem or get an advice from the game’s discussion board on how to upgrade my computer or how to install a certain hardware or software. As years went by I became an IT expert without having a degree in computer science. Which also helped me in my career because everyone in the office would come to me to fix an issue on their computer or their internet connection.
Even though gamers are sometimes seen as nerds or anti-socials, “video games are good for you—and good for democracy, too. With all the talk of violence, addiction, and isolation, such an idea is not intuitive. But a recent study showed that online game communities provide access to social capital. “Online gaming has a positive effect not only on each gamer’s life, but also on society as a whole,” says Tetsuro Kobayashi, a social psychologist at the National Institute of Information in Tokyo” (Stanford Social Innovation Review).
Video games now are different from video games before. In the past you were only able to compete or play against the computer. Now you can compete against other players, interact with other players, there are personal and team goals that can take months to achieve. During that time a player creates a social interaction where he or she can make and lose friends. You get to meet people that are from different backgrounds and cultures, therefore you get to learn new things and experience things that you might not have been able to experience by joining your local chess club.
The challenge with video games is time. Usually players quit once they graduate from college because their time becomes limited with the added responsibilities. Sadly some people end up struggling with video games addiction and organizing their time.
Going back to diffusion of innovation after reading “Diffusion of Innovation” by Everett Rogers I was able to relate online gaming to it. One of the elements of diffusion is Communications Channels, Rogers states that diffusion is a specific kind of communication and includes these communication elements: an innovation, two individuals or other units of adoption, and a communication channel. How was this video game introduced to me? Through friends at work and college that shared with me their joy and experience.
Works Cited
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/research_online_gaming_is_the_new_bowling_league
New Twitter accounts, (@egypt_jobs_) following this account because I am looking into the possiblty of moving to Egypt. (@ICRC) following this account which is for the International committee of the red cross because I currently work for the American Red Cross and it is important for me to see the news of the ICRC. (@BritishAirways) following this account because I use this airlines a lot in my traveling.
xegyptianmummyx 