Are you the Queen of Googlers?

How much information is there out on the internet about people? Too much it seems in some cases. Dr. Scott Haig was seeing a potential patient and found she had been searching information about him. "Susan had chosen me because she had researched my education, read a paper I had written, determined my university affiliation and knew where I lived. It was a little too much — as if she knew how stinky and snorey I was last Sunday morning."

What constitutes as invading one's privacy? One blogger, nicoles7183 said: " AN IDEA: Don't put anything out there that you do not want certain people to see!" I definitely think this is true, but what about when, as in the example of the doctor, you can find out where someone lives or personal information you didn't put out there for people to see. As I've mentioned in past blogs, I think you need to be careful of what you do at work because you are being tracked and don't put information about yourself on the internet that you don't want others to see. But there is other information somehow getting out and who has control of that?

You can Google someone and almost find something out about everyone. That is kind of scary and especially in the case of Susan, who needs to be assured that she is getting someone who can help her. Yet she is getting information that isn't relevant to Dr. Haig's profession and shouldn't be available to a potential patient when it isn't their business. What should be done about that? Further, what can be done about it?

Second Life Wedding Bells and On the Go

I was searching the internet for information for a project in another class and I happened to see an article relating to Second Life about a woman who had a virtual wedding in Second Life. The article compares Second Life to Facebook, MySpace, and even matchmaking sites that connect people to each other in different ways, especially on Valentine's Day.

Anyone interested in virtual life on mobile phone?! Well you might just have that chance! People who want to be in Second Life on the go may be in luck!

Not quite sure what to think of all this; any thoughts?

Chat to Virtual

(http://secondlife.com/whatis/)

They've done it! Real world and chat rooms have met The Sims!

Does this seem familiar? From experience, this reminds me of The Sims game. You create characters and live their lives through school, works, activities, etc...

Currently I have only heard about Second Life and other virtual worlds and done a little research, but from what I've read, it seems to be the same basic concept, except that the other characters are controlled by other people throughout the world.

When thinking about Second Life, it seems to add to the idea that face to face communication is not being used as much and will continue to do so. According to Gartner research firm it is predicted that "by 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users will have a "second life" in some sort of virtual world." If this is the future of communicating and networking, it will seem more like a game. I can't help but look at videos and pictures of this and think of playing a game. If this becomes a common view, communicating will not be taken seriously and where will we end up? What is the future of communication and networking?!

Check it Out!

Atlas is a band from New Zealand. They just recently released their first album in November, 2007. They are not well known, but is an awesome band and you should listen to them! This is one of their songs, called "Crawl" and it was filmed in Britomart, which is in downtown Auckland.

Fly with the Best

I was working on my first assignment and as I was reading the different company blogs, I was noting down what the different ones were like and how they were the same and how they were different. They were interesting in their own way, but once I got into the Southwest Airlines company blog, I couldn't stop reading the blogs. As a flier of Southwest, I was curious of what the blog would be like, especially because they are so different and very fun. I got the same type of feeling when I read the blog posts.

They have a variety of different types of blogs, varying from humorous pick up lines, to the integrity of the airlines, to how a woman became an employee for Southwest Airlines. I've been flying with southwest for almost four years now and every once in a while I've seen southern singing flight attendants, ones who crack jokes throughout the whole safety speech, and those who have random conversations on the intercom. Even the labels of the blog posts were interesting, such as "nutty stuff" and "under the hood." I got the same entertaining, friendly feeling reading their posts. Most of the posts from other companies were written by CEO's and higher management, but Southwest posts were written by a variety of employees.

I highly recommend reading Southwests' Blog. If you ever have enjoyed their flights or don't really know about the company, this should give you a good idea of what they are about.

Who says...

...the internet makes people dumb? According to Doris Lessing, a recent winner of the Nobel Prize, the internet are making people stupid and that people aren't reading anything of importance. The younger generation "who have had years of education... know nothing of the world, have read nothing" and "know only some speciality or other. (Lessing)"

I disagree with this. I feel that the internet has opened more people's eyes to what is going on in the world. It has also given people another source to find information about absolutely anything. I never read the newspaper throughout my life. Since I've come to college, I've started reading it, and that is due to the internet. My homepage is Yahoo! and every time I open the internet, there are different stories on the front page and I often sift through the different headlines to see what is different in the world or something that just interests me. Now when I go to school, I pick up the free newspaper to read what else there is going on that I may have missed.

Many people, as well as myself, now use search engines such as Google, or online encyclopedias, such as Wikipedia or Ask.com to learn about different subjects. A key tool in the use of the internet is interest in a subject. Things I hear or learn about peak my interest, which causes me to look online about the subject. Along with that idea, the internet is more accessible than libraries or other sources. How can the internet be seen as something that makes people more ignorant of what is going on in the world when it is probably the best source of information and the most updated?

Blog to Blog

Carolyn's most recent blog post talked about NIKEiD and again I am going to agree about some of the comments she made about customization of shoes as time consuming and expensive if the other blogs I've read are correct. Also from some of the discussions in class, I've heard about how this process of customizing your shoe and getting it shipped to you can take up to a month. There was also a comment about having problems with getting the right product and having to send back the product multiple times. This just reinforces my belief that this doesn't sound like a good idea. I feel this is breaking away from the Nike image.

Social Networking... Targeting?!

"Corporate social networking software measures, reads, and evaluates e-mails, instant messages, and calendar entries, capturing the names of message authors..." When I first read this, a whole different thought came into my mind than what the article talked about. I immediately thought about how businesses are watching, or you could say targeting, each employee. With the new technology innovations, companies are becoming more watchful of each employee. They track everything an employee does in their system and judges their character and work performance basically based off their personal life.

I just recently read an article in the paper that talked about a handful of employees that got fired for porn searching over 19,000 times in 2007 at work. I think in some cases, such as this, it is important to watch over your employees, because you obviously don't always know what they are doing. In such situations, it's evident that employees are not getting work done. Although this is only one example, I do think there are many situations where this would be an invasion of privacy. When I first heard about companies searching possible new graduate employees on facebook, I thought, well OK, maybe they want to see their work background or perhaps where they are from. Then, of course, I heard about companies not accepting some people based of pictures or comments, and then I thought, what do you expect from someone who was just in college and wanted to enjoy the rest of their freedom?! In some cases, it's necessary to search what employees are doing. My one question is where do you draw the line? How much searching is too much and constitutes as invading one's privacy?