ITEC-656 Blog

Sing Out Loud, Sing Out Strong

2008-03-04T07:31:00.006-05:00

You really need to have something to say.

No, no, of course everyone has something to say. I'm talking about posturing your blog to mean something to the world you are targeting. It's more than just having a focus. Anyone can have a focus. I could make this blog about skydiving, I could make it about cars, I could make it about how to have a focus(a Ford car or narrowed scope? lol). But, what is going to get you on the first few pages of a google search is not only about the above.

It's about pertinence.

It's about having a voice that people can relate to.

It's about trust.

People have to trust that either you know what you're talking about, or that you will make a comment that they can use.

Maybe you can get people to your blog because of your pretty face, and you have pics strewn all about your site. You might as well have a Myspace account, cuz you'll get more hits that way. No, if you want to really reach people, you need to grab that little niche on the web that you can call your own, that little piece that you can speak to, that you can be an authority on, and make it yours. You need to be able to say something so profound or drastic that people will want to chime in. But you need to keep the conversation going as well.

Social networking is about connecting with others through similar interests, and the blog is a tool to bare your soul, be it about your professional career, some other area of interest you are particularly versed in, or about nothing at all. It needs to be cultivated and sculpted for the masses, because this is who you are, and this is what people and future employers will judge you by.

So, let's keep it clean guys. The Internet is watching.

Comic grabbed from http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/images/ but is originally from http://toothpastefordinner.com/

_MY_ Contacts!

2008-02-26T06:57:00.006-05:00

It's difficult to see the professional value of a professional networking site like Linkedin when the users of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are overwhelmingly youth-based, only containing links to favorite bands and compromising pictures at wild house parties. Of course, this is assuming you are not part of a event promotion agency or the like.

In any case, one cannot argue the strength of networks: knowing someone, or knowing someone that knows someone. Harnessing the power of such links through software that organizes those links via how strong the relationship is, is of course only part of the picture. Companies that use social networking tools internally are always asking themselves how to gain more participation from their employees.

I don't think of myself as the most popular in my circles of friends, but it's hard to ignore that when people don't know how to get in touch with someone at a party I've hosted or some big dinner I attended with them, they usually go through me, and I go through my supposed extensive list of contacts in my address book. So I guess, in my little band of thieves, I am the connector.

However, sometimes I won't know a contact very well, and yet that someone still wants me to get them in touch with a friend. Or vice-versa, I won't really know how to get a friend in touch with someone I don't really know, because they were a friend of a friend that was invited last minute. I am all for meeting new people, but I cannot vouch for someone I do not know, nor can I freely give contact information of a friend over to a stranger, because I don't know what the stranger will do with it, nor will my friend be happy I did so.

I can easily imagine this problem surfacing in a company attempting to leverage social networking software internally: how does an employer incentivise sharing contacts with a bunch of strangers, albeit in your own company? *I* would find it hard. The CFO article does a good job of lightly addressing the concern. It suggests using well positioned cash-incentives, as well as making examples of upper management; company loyalty and spirit are not always sufficient. Heck, make it part of your PMP and tie it to bonuses.

Which still leaves me the same problem in my social life. If I could somehow get people to pay me for accessing my address book, I would be set.

No Time For Second Life, Dr. Jones

2008-02-19T07:03:00.008-05:00

I used to play around in several user environments called mucks (Multi-User Chat Kingdoms), back in the day. These were virtual environments similar to MUDs, but the difference between then and now was that it was all text. No pics or images to look at (unless you used ascii images), so all you had to go on was your imagination and good writing. In the mucks, I would create virtual landscapes, and bedrooms in a house. I wasn't a particularly good writer, so they were pretty much static things based off of a show I liked or something. My avatar was based on a character I liked, and was part of a group in the show, but made up of my RL (real life) friends. Unlike Second Life, there was no economy, and no upgradeable membership. That was it. I still made a couple friends online therein, but mostly I did it to hang out with RL friends.

I did that for a year, maybe 2. I eventually logged in less and less, and so did my RL friends. It was immersive, but not that immersive.

About a decade later, along comes WoW. Now this was immersive. You could create an avatar that people could look at and earn XP (experience that allows you to "buy" more skills, magic spells, etc) and any money you "earn" from fighting NPC (non-player characters) and other players from the enemy clan could buy you better weapons/armor/clothing...All at a monthly subscription price. You could spend the hard-earned in-game cash in the online auction house for new magical items and weapons and armor, or you could put any of your treasure up for auction as well. Heck, there were gold farmers out in China that would sell you in-game gold for RL money (as long as you didn't get caught violating the EULA). The world was beautiful, vast, and one could spend days online, and many people would, to the detriment of their RL responsibilities.

I did that for a year and a half, but some of my friends still do it and run a couple clans. They spend upwards of 8 hours a night online many times, and I just couldn't put that kind of time in anymore. Heck, I usually could only put in an hour or 2 before I had to attend to RL stuff, barring the random all-nighter to raise a few levels.

I keep telling myself I'll get to playing again, and maybe even check out another MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) called CoH/CoV (City of Heroes/Villains) where you can play either a super-hero or villain. I have a few good friends on there that would show me the ropes. But I still don't have time, and I don't know when I will.

For now, it will have to be a "No thanks" from me; my first life stresses me out enough.

"So many widgets....."

2008-02-14T22:14:00.004-05:00

This is a post to try out the widgets lab.

What makes her vids unique is the whole idea that it's all her!
--piscesjdci (a YouTube user)

YouTube...On TV (YGTBKM)

2008-02-12T02:36:00.003-05:00

So Al Gore and his friend want to put User-Generated Content into a format palatable on the television set.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me.

I mean, I like Al and all his green-ness, but I think to take a successful format such as YouTube.com and put it into a format that is financially supportable on a cable tv format just doesn't sound like a good business model.

Now, now, I'm no MBA, granted, but everyone knows that TV is corporate, and all TV is owned by just a few corporations. Their business model consists of million-dollar ads that support a whole cadre of shows, entertaining and informing. Those ads pay for actors and actress billing, writers, set crews, and every other production price in-between.

User-generated means that people create content...for free. Now, there are beginning to be exceptions. How wonderful for them. Al's Current TV is turning all the above mentioned business models on their head by paying for all the content, YouTube-like content that consist of only a few minutes of material, created by normal people like yourselves. Are the prices-paid worthwhile? Can such a thing be sustainable in the end? YouTube's success was created out of people not initially being motivated by greed or monetary-incentives. How can Current TV hope to change those incentives and create a whole TV channel of this type of material? How can it think that something that worked on the wild, wild internet can possible be just as successful...on a cable TV channel?

Ok, ok. So it has an internet-counterpart.

Big whoop. It's gonna take a bit more to convince me. In the meantime, I will continue to watch my favorites on YouTube.

test link

2008-02-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

have you ever dropped by bloggle's blog lately? you can make pretty shoes.

"No disassemble..."

2008-02-05T07:20:00.000-05:00

Software has a long way to go before it is sentient. But that doesn't stop Google and other companies from developing software that intentionally adds a human component to make up for what their software lacks.

Take for instance how face recognition software works; scientists have been developing face recognition since the 60s, and it is still not perfect. Security personnel and government agencies have been utilizing the technology to help with volume, but just a few years ago there were quite a few dismal failures.

Can you trust it even now, 4-5 years later?

or how about how Google's image labeler leverages human input? Google knows the limitations of image recognition by software and so uses human eyes to fill in the gaps. By making it a game, Google has harnessed free labor in providing useful labels to random bits and bytes. And I would trust this a little more, probably because it doesn't involve a system that plays with people's lives, like some dead, robot-like process like immigration. Plus, a few people wanting to sabotage results can't hurt the overall accuracy of the system with thousands of users ensuring that accuracy.

We still have a long way to go in the manner of artificial intelligence.

Then again, look how far things have gone since the 80s :)

All I Want for Xmas is a PSP

2008-01-29T07:07:00.000-05:00

Companies beware: the Internet is here. Gone are the days that the underdog can be ignored by big business. If anyone complained about a crappy product or disservice, it was a quiet, ineffectual whisper. Who would listen? Maybe a few friends. Maybe their friends.

No more.

You hate a product, you tell hundreds, thousands, even millions: you write a negative review on Amazon, Buy.com, or any other of the hundreds of popular mail-order sites utilizing a review feature in their retail pages. If more people agree with you, the strength of your voice will be added to the other negative complaints. People hear enough of the negative reviews, from tens of people, they will start to see a pattern. They will question their decision to buy the product.

Maybe they _won't_ buy the product.

The Internet is now being used as one big customer forum to voice complaints as well as compliments, the only difference now is that you can add more than just your real life friends' opinions to the mix. Millions can be informed because positive news travels quickly, and negative news travels _more quickly_.

It is interesting how big companies are now using this technology to stay in touch with their customers. Viral marketing to me is even more engaging and captivating than product reviews on retail sites, at least to me. Infecting news travels even faster. There are good examples (Cloverfield, Blair Witch Project) just as there are bad ones *cough* alliwantforxmasisapsp... *cough*

Social Capital and Networks

2008-01-23T07:58:00.001-05:00

I always thought of Social Capital as the goodwill I built-up in people for doing favors for or, spending time with them. I always felt that I was more successful at it than others because mine seemed to come from a more genuine place...

or maybe I was just more convincing :P

In any case, I found the Rob Cross interview very enlightening. Cross' perspective on social networks seems to effectively categorize my own situation: one who is struggling to balance work and quality of life issues, and is beginning to become a poor performer due to it. I feel that I am on the way out, as Cross warns, and need to not be thrown "back into the fray" or they will lose me permanently. A lot of this can be attributed to poor staffing, as my department is one of the smallest in IT, but has an inordinate amount of work and responsibility.

IM conversation

2008-01-17T22:28:00.000-05:00

co-worker: how long have you been working (here)?
me: since dec 1, 2003 so just a little over 3 yrs
co-worker: glad you weren't a math major

i'm an econ major.