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The websites below reveal the directions that the internet is going
in at the moment. Of course, I have to update this each year as it so quickly
becomes out of date!
Directions:
1.
Read the article below. In your notes, list four trends and issues involving the
internet today.
2.
Choose one of the web site links described below to
explore. Discuss:
a)
What your reaction is to the website: useful? Waste of time?
b)
What problems – legal, social, and even psychological-
can
yhou see arising from the use of this web site: for users, for its
creators, for the people who market their products on it.
c)
What is the “next step” for the type of website? What
direction do you think future websites offering this service could provide to
make them even better?
RECENT TRENDS IN INTERNET SITES ( Read this article)
One
current direction in website creators is to tailor some service to each
individual. This first choice below the article is a website that helps you find a movie to match your
current mood!
A
similar site allows you to customize your own music! This site grew out of a
research project to identify all the mini-components of every song (The Music
Genome Project).
The
internet today is a little like the Wild West of the past. It’s relatively
lawless. As soon as a product hits the market, hackers are on their keyboards
trying to find ways to get the software without paying for it. What is their
motivation? Many claim they are trying to “fight the corporate giants” but
frequently their motivation is “because they can” rather than for any
personal financial gain. The free software Senuti, for example also
short-circuits Apple’s attempt to keep Ipod users from sharing playlists and
songs.
How
does anyone make any money off of these sites? Many sites earn money for their
creators the same way magazines do – by selling advertising. The more
“hits” the site gets, the more exposure an ad will get by being placed as a
link or pop-up on it! An ad on the internet can be much more creative – using
animation, links to other sites, etc., than a newspaper or magazine ad. Also,
newly published books are now getting more public attention through web sources
such as Amazon.com that tracks customers’ purchases of books, videos, and
music and then offers them suggestions about what other customers with similar
interests bought.
The
democratization of the web has skyrocketed in the past five years. Rather than
just surfing the net to get information, internet users are now creating their
own blogs, uploading their own music as well as downloading commercial bands’
music. The web becomes increasingly more interactive by the day. A
designer of web pages has to have a pretty dynamic page to advertise his
services – check out the two below .
Of
course, a disadvantage of all this internet innovation is that it is often
infinitely more entertaining to surf the internet in your work cubicle than to
do the monotonous work that the information age jobs can entail. One webpage
creator offers a diversion for anyone bored and sitting at this office computer.
By the way, this
trend in internet innovation seems to be matched by an equally intense effort on
the part of office managers to keep its employees FROM using the internet for
non-business- related surfing.
Offices have surveillance cameras installed; employees have been warned that
their internet sites are being tracked, etc.)
Fortunes are
now made in months, not decades when a good idea arises for a web service. The
YouTube story is not uncommon today. A group of people get together with a good
idea, create a company and a webpage. When the web page starts getting a huge
number of “hits” (viewers visiting the site), eventually a larger web
presence – like Google in this case- buys them out.
Another
phenomenon in this new technotopia is the way information is processed - and
created. Wikipedia is a type of online encyclopedia. However, it can be
added to by anyone reading it. Some people have ciritcized this, claiming that
there is no real oversight on Wiklipedia. For example, there have been cases
where one person has added some information to an entry, and another has erased
it becasue he found it personally insulting! What is the truth? What is
fiction?.../and how does one know?
Wikipedia
Sample:
“YouTube
is a popular free video
sharing website which lets users upload, view, and share video
clips.” Founded in February
2005 by three employees of PayPal,
the San
Bruno-based service utilizes Adobe
Flash technology to display video. The wide variety of site content includes
movie and TV
clips and music
videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging
and short original videos. Currently staffed by 67 employees,[1]
the company was named TIME
magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006.[2]
In October 2006, Google
Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65
billion in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13
November 2006.[3]
www.youtube.com
WEBPAGE
CHOICES - PICK ONE TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ABOUT
A)
Do you have trouble finding good movies to watch in your current
emotional mood sometimes? Do you find yourself watching totally wrong kind of
movie for your current mental state? If so, then we have the solution for you
right here, a movie search engine that listens to your emotions. The
following form gives you the opportunity to choose between emotional states
and allows you to change the power of each human emotion to appropriate
level evident in a movie you would like to watch. After choosing the emotional
values and strengths just click "Search" button and the search engine
gives you a list of suitable movies.http://www.movieprofiler.com/
B)
With this site, you can type in the names of your favorite singers or favorite
songs, and they will make suggestions of other musicians, radio stations,
and even songs you might be interested in. Over the past 6 years, we've carefully listened
to the songs of over 10,000 different artists - ranging from popular to obscure
- and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time.)
http://www.pandora.com/i
C)
If
you’ve got an iPod, you know how easy it is to get your music onto it and to
keep it in sync with your music collection. But you may have also discovered
that Apple has made it difficult to get music from
your iPod to your Mac. The
reasons behind this are understandable: Apple doesn’t want people using iPods
as “music mules” to illicitly copy tunes between computers.
This free software
allows you to download entire music libraries – or just a playlist or two- to
any computer. http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23390
D) Web page ads for recently published books can dress up their
advertisement with animation. Check out this page: click on
the characters on this page to see his creations.
http://www.evethenovel.com/index.html
(In
his debut novel, EVE, Aureio O'Brien transports us to a future where technology
has been replaced by biology in the form of genetically engineered
CreatureComforts™. The last functioning robot, Pentser, offended by this turn
of events, induces its lonely human owner, Govil, a genetic designer for
GenieCorp™, into secretly creating a deliberately average woman, Eve. This act
violates every law of their new age.)
E) Personally owned websites: this web designer advertises his own designs : http://www.mattspanky.com/. This British
site allows participants to post a critique of anyone or anything. http://www.culturewars.org.uk/
F) Now here's an unusual site: Totally
Useless Office Skills, where you'll learn how to play with office
supplies. For example, you can learn how to play "Happy Birthday" by
punching in the numbers on your telephone. http://www.jlc.net/~useless/
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