One web site that I found which enables Buffalo residents to blog about politics is BuffaloPundit. The web site is affiliated with WNYmedia.net. According to their website, the Western New York Media Network is an online micro news outlet which enables regional, political and cultural progress. They do this by providing the people of Western New York with a platform that enables them to advocate for causes they believe in, entertain readers with fun and viral content, inform people about news, events and organizations that are shaping the region in which they live, opinionate on the news and issues of the day, and to unite people with a common cause.

This web site is a great example of how the Internet enables communication between different people that normally probably would not have contact with each other. By broadening communication capabilities, more ideas and knowledge are shared, more relationships are created and more people can benefit from others experiences. I liked the way Brandis Griffin put it, “Weblogs, or blogs, began as online personal journals but have evolved to include editorials and information from journalists and political analysts. Readers and other bloggers can make comments on the posted topic or start a new "thread" of discussion.”

With the 2008 presidential election right around the corner, a very hot topic in the world of blogging is politics. Here is the information for the blog I chose.

Blog’s Title: Be the Change/We are the Change

Blog’s URL: http://wearethechange.wordpress.com/what-is-this-all-about/

Blogger’s Name: Diana

Blogger’s Occupation: Community Organizer at a progressive political and social organization called Citizen Action of NY

Blog’s Date of Birth: The first entry I found was on September 27^th

I tried looking up the website on technorati but didn’t really get any results back, but I’m not sure that I was doing it correctly.

I enjoyed Diana’s blog very much. She is an avid Obama supporter who organized Obama campaign activities as a volunteer in Buffalo. Her blog includes lots of links to other websites with more information about the topics she is discussing, as well as YouTube clips. She seems to be very down to earth and a bit of a comedian. She makes sarcastic remarks about McCain’s camp claiming that the NY Times is not a legitimate news source but how they fully endorse Fox News.

In 2004, Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell conducted a study to try and find out how blogs were effecting politics. Their main question was, “why do blogs sometimes have real political consequences, given the relatively low number of blog readers in the overall population?”(Drezner and Farrell 22). What they found, was that “blogs may frame political debates and create focal points for the media as a whole. Because certain opinion makers within the media take blogs seriously, they can have a much wider impact on politics” (Drezner and Farrell 22).

Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrel July 2004
http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~farrell/blogpaperfinal.pdf October 22nd 2008

Brandis Griffin November 2006
http://www.oread.ku.edu/2006/november/20/blogs.shtml October 22nd 2008

Diana
http://wearethechange.wordpress.com/ October 22nd 2008

Web Application Review

The interactive and productive Web site I choose to write my blog about was Google Maps. I had never used this application nor did I know it existed until class on Wednesday when the Internet privacy group did their presentation on it.

The sites URL is http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

Google maps is a very user friendly functional internet application. You access it through Googles main homepage, in the left hand corner there are different search options including, Web, Images, Maps, News, Shopping, Gmail and more. When you click on maps, it takes you to an image of the United States. Like many other Google web applications, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively. As the user drags the map, the grid squares are downloaded from the server and inserted into the page

Instead of other applications used to get directions like MapQuest for example, Google Maps provides users with 360 degrees of real life images of locations they are planning on visiting. They were able to accomplish this my deploying Google cars to drive all around different parts of the world recording images to store onto the Web sites data base.

I think this site is a great demonstration in how far we have come technologically. For people like me who have no clue how to read a map, this application is very useful and accommodating. However, not everyone is happy about this new development.

The Government believes that Google Maps is like a welcome sign for terrorists. Enabling anyone, possibly terrorists, to see monumental buildings, airports, cities, or marinas for example, from a variety of different points of view, can help them in planning different strategies for an attack against the US. However, it is Google’s response that they are taking pictures of public property and technically I guess there is no law that tells them they can’t do this.

Other people that have a problem with this new site, are the innocent bystanders who just so happen to end up in the pictures that the Google cars take. This might not be such a big deal, unless you leaving your mistresses house, picking your nose, picking a weggy, falling down or doing any other type of embarrassing thing. Google’s response to this was that they would blur the faces of those who sent complaints.

All in all, I think this is a great new way people can benefit from the internet. The way I look at it is, if terrorists are going to attack, shutting down Google Maps is not going to stop whatever horrible plan they are stirring up. And if you get caught in a compromising position, changes are you will probably never even know it’s up there and if you do find out about it and that’s the worst thing going on in your life, consider yourself lucky. I looked up my address and it just so happens that my dad is outside mowing the lawn and my sister is rollerblading , neither one of them know this and even if they did I doubt they would care. The images are so blurry that if I didn’t know them I wouldn’t be able to tell it was them or even know what that person really looked like based on the photo.

According to Cowen & Co., Google Maps is the de facto leader in the space, while its rivals, Yahoo Maps, MapQuest, and Live Search Maps have slipped well behind Google. I’m pretty sure that means it’s here to stay.

Citation:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps October 16, 2008
2. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/29/analyst-google-maps-reigns-supreme/ October 16, 2008

Community

A community that I identify myself with that is mediated by the Internet is the social networking site Facebook. Facebook is completely mediated by the Internet. Every interaction that takes place through this social networking cite takes place on the web. However, interactions that take place through using Facebook as the medium, may lead to interaction between people face to face.

Facebook can be used in order to maintain relationships with people you currently don’t see as much as you used to as a result of distance or a busy lifestyle, or in order to develop new relationships.

Prior to going to college, I was never into the whole online social networking ordeal. I never made a MySpace account and laughed at those who did. I found it to be so irrelevant. In my opinion, sites like MySpace only purpose was to give people a confidence boost. It was a competition, who had the most friends, who had the most random people telling them how beautiful they were and who could create the most elaborate homepage. I didn’t see any real benefits to having an account.

When I first created my Facebook account, I did so in order to meet people that would be going to the same college as myself. I’m from Long Island and taking the big step of moving 8 hrs away from home was very scary for me, I figured if I could recognize a few familiar faces from Facebook I would be a little more comfortable.

Facebook allows users to communicate through a multitude of different applications. Facebook has a number of features for users to interact with. They include the Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see, Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification that tells a user that they have been poked),Photos, where users can upload albums and photos, and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions. A user's Wall is visible to anyone who is able to see that user's profile, which depends on their privacy settings. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only. When I first created my account and was using it primarily as a way of meeting new people, I would often receive messages like “ hey I see we’re both going to Buffalo next year, where are you leaving on campus?” The ability to write on others walls and introduce yourself without the fears of face-to-face interactions enabled users to meet lots of people and create a lot of acquaintance-like relationships.

Now, I used my Facebook account for different purposes. Mainly I use the account to keep in touch with my home friends while I’m at school; the complete opposite reason of why I created the account. Facebook allows me to see what my friends are up to while I’m at school, through photo albums and posts written on their wall. This allows me to remain close to friends that I am separated from by distance, because it gives me the sense of still knowing what’s going on in their lives and enables me to make comments about what their doing or just to say hi so that I am still involved in their life.

Another major aspect of Facebook when creating or maintaining relationships is how quickly and easily it is used. It only takes a few minutes to write on someone’s wall or look at someone’s pictures and comment on them. Also, you can do this while doing a multitude of other things, in contrast sitting down and calling someone and listening to what’s going on in their life, this can be very time consuming. Also, when interacting with someone through a social networking site there is little to no fear of damaging your face. The aspect of rejection is greatly decreased when communicating over the Internet. As a result its easier to meet new people or say things you would normally feel weird saying in person.

Popular social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook, are changing the human fabric of the Internet.

Citations:
1. http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1463 October 16, 2008
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook October 16, 2008

Different Identites on the Internet

According to Judith S. Donath, identity plays a key role in virtual communities. In order to understand an evaluate an interaction one must know the identity of the person they are communicating with. However, the virtual world of internet communities, it is very easy for one to manipulate or lie about who they really are in the physical world.
I have two online identities. One is portrayed through my Facebook profile and account and the other is portrayed through my screen name that I use when communicating with others via instant messaging.

My Facebook account establishes much more of an internet identity then my screen name. My Facebook profile reveals a lot of personally identifiable information. For example, the more basic things it lists are my home town, birthday, and whether or not I’m in a relationship. More specific personal characteristics of my profile are lists of my favorite movies and TV shows, groups I’m involved in, and where I live while at school. There are also visual representations of myself provided by the hundreds of pictures of me that are attached to my profile page. This is not an avatar because it is an actual photograph instead of an icon-sized graphic image. Therefore, it depicts more personal information.

I think people establish their reputations on Facebook by who they have in their “friends”. Just because your Facebook friends with someone doesn’t mean you have ever even met the person or had an type of interaction with them. However, the friends you accept or request on Facebook usually have similar likes or interests as you and portray they type of people you normally do hang out with. Your friend list would not make you identifiable as worthy of trust or not, but it might influence someone when deciding whether or not they want to be your friend. Once you accept someone’s friend request, they can see your Wall. This enables them to see who you are talking to on this forum and who is talking to you. This is another tool that can be used to make judgments about peoples personal identity through their virtual identity.

Having so many pictures of yourself on the internet, free to the hundreds of people you are “friends” with, can be dangerous. I have a friend whose identity was assumed on MySpace. Someone took some of the pictures she had posted in this forum and established a different profile under a different name using her pictures. This was a very annoying and frustrating ordeal for my friend, because the person put the profile on a private, so since my friend was not friends with her alias she had no way of contacting the person to tell them to delete the profile they had created.

I myself don’t have an e-bay account but my dad does. He uses his screen name as his pseudonyms. This does reveal some personal indentify because it includes part of his name. e-bay, unlike Facebook, is a forum that allows users to establish a reputation, which allows others to decide whether or not they consider you to be trust worthy. After you sell something or buy something the person who you interacted with in the exchange is given the opportunity to provide feedback on how the exchange went. A person who has a lot of negative feedback, for example, they did not send a product on time, they mis-advertised the product they were selling, or did not respond to bids made on the product, will likely be marked as untrustworthy and people will not do business with that person. On the other hand, a person with a lot of positive feedback, who sends things quickly and easily, uses pay-pal, and correctly advertises their products, will be marked as a trustworthy person and people will use them without worrying that they have just fallen victim to a scam.

All in all, virtual identities can establish great forums to meet new people, and in the case of e-bay obtain products at a discounted price. However, you must be very careful. Chat rooms and other internet forums can be very dangerous. It is so easy to create a false identity on the internet.. ever see To Catch a Predator?, there are some sick people out there. Internet identities have become so extreme that there are now psychiatric help centers for people who have lost their sense of reality because they are so raped up in their internet identities. BE CAREFUL!