As the lecture is on Monday and the seminars Tuesday/Wednesday it is unlikely that you will have access to the reading (Winston, B. (1998), Media, Technology and Society: a history from the telegraph to the internet London: Routledge, pp321-336.). If you would like to read something else you could take a look at some of the articles in a special issue of the journal New Media and Society edited by Jankowski et al (2004) 'What’s Changed About New Media?' 6(1).

Targeted adverts: Phorm is a tea cup?

One of the top ways that websites make money these days is that they target their adverts depending on your personal details - e.g. Facebook ads. When you create an account, you give over lots of personal details that can be used to ensure that you receive adverts relative to your hobbies. If you say you like cooking..... Phorm is slightly different - it is used by ISPs (BT did it without customer knowledge apparently) who have access to what websites you look at and what you do online this. This metadata is hugely valuable (think nectar card) and can be exploited for commercial profit - but some people are very concerned that this is a huge invasion of privacy....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7619297.stm

Who Should decide who can advertise on google?

Google has been forced to backdown from its position of banning adverts about "abortion and religion-related content". I wasn't even aware that such a practice existed. You can understand that they have to stick within the law, but how do they go about deciding what they think is ok, and what isn't. Is this a moral issue or a business issue?

Is online gaming bad for your health?

Not says a new survey of the game EverQuest II. Some interesting comments by Professor Mark Griffiths that challenge some people's assumptions: "A lot of people talk about 'excessive gaming' as if it is always bad to take part in gaming, but the context can make a big difference. I can think of two case studies of people who both spend 12 hours a day playing EverQuest, but while one is clearly obsessional, the other one is perfectly normal. Genuine addicts are few and far between." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7621412.stm

You Tube - should it censor videos?

This is always a hot topic - You Tube, under pressure from the UK governments, has said that they will censor some vidoes where people use weapons to threaten people. The interesting aspect is that it's country-specific censorship. It's not a new thing (e.g. they ban Nazi related footage in Germany - where it is illegal) but it is an example of "glocalisation".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7621013.stm

managing content (control?)

Very interesting development - like so many websites, facebook is now allowing users to rank application (software/widgets etc) and their developers. It's designed to build an element of the trust into the system and takes the pressure (and negative aspects) off centralised control. Similar systems include eBay (see Colin Rule's book on this) or Amazon seller ratings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7522691.stm

Are people in favour of this or does it just allow a small group to dominate apps development?

web interfaces: the new facebook

Web interfaces can shape user experiences. They can, for example, influence the nature of debate that takes place - say in an online forum (see Wright and Street in New Media and Society). When a familiar website changes its web page design it can have a big impact - and confuse people. What do you think to the new facebook design? A lot of people have joined a group to say they hate it and they want to be able to choose whether they use the old or the new design. When I set this blog up I chose blogger. In hindsight, Word press is IMO a better software tool: it is aesthetically nicer and have more functionality built in (e.g. stats tracker). I don't change because, for now, the negatives outweight the positives. And that's the danger for Facebook. Will it stay the dominant social networking tool or is becoming too annoying?

The 79th Richest Nation on Earth is Virtual?

So claims Wired...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/gaming.html

I'm not sure on how they came to that conclusion, or whether it includes more than one virtual world....

War Games

An all time classic movie. But now (well, it isn't new) the military are using online environments to train troops for conditions in Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7587057.stm

Online Hacker Forums...

Some interesting ethnographic-style journalism on the Beeb about an online (black hat/illegal) hacking community where they help each other apparently commit crimes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/08/a_forum_for_fraudsters.html

Facebook: the movie?

I'm a huge fan of the West Wing its original writer, Aaron Sorkin. Apparently he is lining up Facebook: the movie. Alas, he does not know how Facebook works, and has joined to find out. If you want to ask him a question you can. He has said that the response is changing his perceptions of the net: ""I have very strong feelings about the internet and its effect on our national culture, but frankly those feelings are being countered by the sophistication, kindness, curiosity and wit of the posts in this site." I'm not normally a fan of movies like this, but with Sorkin on board maybe I'll give it a chance.

What not to sell on eBay...

Ooops

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581540.stm

Internet Penetration Stats in UK

The Office for National Statistics has just published its report on Internet penetration. It has almost plateaued now, with significant digital divide discrepancies. See Mossberger et al for a discussion of the digital divide, and particularly how to define it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7582081.stm

Interesting Hacking Article

The Democrats aren't the only people having a convention this week. There's a nice little piece in The Times about hacking that is well worth a read.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4606524.ece

Scott

"Poor earning virtual gaming gold"

Research from Manchester University has found that 500,000 "poor" people (this is how they are described by the BBC - mainly from China) are earning money by developing virtual gold. Basically a player can pay someone to boost their character rating, their virtual clothes, or in the development of property etc in second life.

The report is here: http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/documents/di_wp32.pdf

The BBC story is here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7575902.stm

Scott

Copyright and Internet Regulation: Scrabulous

The popular facebook app Scrabulous appears to be dead - the owners of scrabble having taken legal action for breach of copyright... this raises lots of interesting questions. Can you blame the owners, or is it all hot water? I would think it might have helped the sales of scrabble... If you are interested in such issues, please look at the work of Lawrence Lessig.

Scott

Encouraging Young People to Vote?

Xbox will shortly allow people to register to vote and a forum will be used to elicit players opinions which will then be passed onto the candidates. Will this make any difference? Or is it a clever bit of marketing?

Meanwhile, WWF/WWE is running a "Smackdown Your Vote" campaign: http://vote.wwe.com/. The Dems had previously recorded speeches - complete with wrestling puns.... http://www.wwe.com/content/media/video/vms/raw/2008/april22-28/6927230

Scott

Downing Street website

As some of you may know, thousands of people have signed a petition to make Jeremy Clarkson PM via the e-petitions website. Someone within Downing Street decided to make a "joke" response (is that worse than tokenism, or are they right to interpret it in this way?)

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1184614595/bctid1743114113

Is this a waste of taxpayers money, or a sign of a sense of humour? A C4 news piece (link above)discusses this and notes that the Downing Street websites fails to meet the government's own guidelines on website accessibility. I've previously published a couple of articles about the Downing Street site that you might want to look as well if interested.

The telegraph article below has the video in full:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/2590109/Downing-Street-wastes-money-on-anti-Jeremy-Clarkson-video.html

http://www.youtube.com/DowningSt

China's Online Population overtakes USA

New research suggests that China has now overtaken the US as having the most people online. This trend is only going to continue - as internet penetration stands at 19% in China (71% in USA).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7528396.stm

Piracy Regulation

The music industry has come to an agreement with ISPs to clamp down in illegal music downloading and filesharing. The government is going to hold a consultation on the issue too. Of course, illegal downloading doesn't help the ISPs either - it takes up valuable bandwidth and can slow their service down, so it seems in there interest to help regulate this.....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/24/digitalmedia.piracy

facebook libel case

The BBC reports that a man has won significant damages after someone made a fake ersonal Facebook profile of him. An example of legal regulation of the internet...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7523128.stm

Regulating Games?

The government appears to remain interested in regulating "dangerous" computer games.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/09/games.digitalmedia

It will be interesting to hear what the official review comes up with - to what extent do such games influence our behaviour?

S

CSI goes to Second Life

I'm not sure if anyone saw CSI in Second Life - what did everyone think? I really enjoyed the show - and I've become a belated CSI fan recently. The episode certainly showed how the real and the virtual can become blurred. There are plenty of clips on You Tube but here is something official:

http://alpha.cbs.com/primetime/csi_ny/second_life/

Scott

trial photo upload!

This is just a trial to see if I can upload photos. In this case an avatar that allows people to virtually try on clothes for size!