It seems this year's Black Friday was exceptionally good with using technology. Besides the usual flyers, any reputable store with Black Friday deals had their deals posted online. Some, such as Sears, even had exclusive online deals before, during, and after Black Friday. Then there are retailers such as Newegg and Amazon who host their sales exclusively online.

The other interesting thing about this Black Friday was the focus on media. TVs are usually popular items during Black Friday, but they were particularly so this year. In particular, "smart" TVs that allow for web browsing and app installation, similar to a smartphone, were popular. Another hot item was tablets and phones, also media consumption devices.

I feel that for future Black Fridays, advertising through media will become even more important. This year stores were advertising through Facebook and Twitter as well as their traditional ads. As consumers become less paper based, so will stores if they hope to maintain exposure to consumers.

With hurricane Sandy starting to be felt in Bloomsburg, I feel natural disasters such as these can have a humbling experience. Pertaining to this class, many people could lose their social media outlets for days, depending on the severity of damage to the area. With no electricity and therefore limited social media exposure people feel stranded in their houses. Right now I am typing on a computer that could lose power any second, and I'm definitely wondering what I would do if the power went out now. Most of my coursework requires a computer!

Hopefully I keep power for most of the storm. Last year I went without power and water for nearly a week!

Last week's presidential debate was not as interesting as I was anticipating, although it was full of sly remarks and attacks, which was to be expected.

Unlike in the Vice Presidential debate, both participants in last weeks debate were confident, composed, and enthusiastic. They both used good posture and "powerful poses" as discussed in last week's TED talk. Both also exhibited smiling and other confidence facial gestures, as well as body gestures that displayed attention and confidence. Both, as expected, kept their cool quite well (except for the few times when both were trying to talk over one another). In the VP debate, some criticized Biden as being mean or accused him of laughing at the issues. On the other hand, I felt it displayed Biden as extremely confident of his stances, with most chuckles indicating what he thought was "BS" or a statement that permitted a response. During the first debate, we saw a much more powerless and unresponsive president, but during the last debate we got to see a completely new Obama who kicked back with great amounts of confidence.

The town hall style debates are supposed to seem more welcoming and casual, as well as a chance for the public to ask questions. However, I did hear rumor that all the questions were predetermined and merely given to people to ask. I have not researched this claim further but felt I would mention it. I feel it is also worth noting that the only "clear" win in last week's debate was when the moderator pointing out Romney's false remarks towards Obama's handling of the Libya incident. Besides this one point, people start watching the debate and already know who is going to win. In other words, I feel people usually think that who they already support "won" the debate, regardless of who had better responses or body language.

Tonight's debate, the last one, should prove to be very interesting. How will Romney and Obama act? Will they both appear confident and powerful again, or will one become submissive? Tune in at 9:00PM EST tonight to find out!

Our readings this week focus on the Tragedy of the Commons, game theory, and social dilemma's. These topics interest me greatly and are brought up in the mathematics and computer science fields frequently. My focus with this post, however, is to hit a little closer to home for Bloomsburg University students.

Our student population has grown tremendously in the past few years, with large growth in incoming class size in the past 2 years. This has been accompanied new campus housing as well as multiple off-campus housing developments. One neglected area, however, has been parking.

Recently, Bloomsburg University sent out an email about this year's particularly poor parking situation. With just two commuter lots near campus and an increasing number of students who can be commuters (freshmen cannot so the large increase 2 years ago is just now hitting the commuter lots) coupled with increased off-campus housing opportunities has resulted in a large increase in commuter-status students. With such a large number of commuters (which is only growing year by year) and limited parking area, finding a parking space after the first classes of the day becomes extremely difficult. The universities answer? To remind and encourage drivers that there is a commuter lot on upper campus that usually has open spots and that students can get bussed from upper campus down to lower campus.

Obviously, nobody has listened to the email. Each driver, in trying to benefit himself or herself, still fervently tries to acquire a space at one of the closer commuter lots. If they find a spot, they have saved themselves much wasted time compared to driving further to upper campus and then being at the mercy campus busing. However, in the end, many of the students actually spend more time trying to find a spot, or end up having to pay costly tickets. This decision is something game theory would study, and the public parking (although only open to certain "public") can be studied as a resource utilized by the commons. The resource allocation scheme of over-scheduling utilized by the university is something that is interesting to look at from a statistical, moral (especially when parking is a privilege that is paid for), and economic perspective as well.

My question is this: is there a better way to manage the current parking situation besides reminding students there is an upper-campus lot and hoping that they listen? Even if this did work, it would end up disadvantaging the students who chose to listen even though they are the desirable students and the ones that allow the system to function. I think quite a few superior solutions could be formulated from the ideas of this week's readings as well as from the independent minds of my fellow classmates. Maybe the university bureaucrats should be taking this class instead!

On the topic of last week's discussion (social control and censorship), I came across an article about how the interception and recording of internet traffic was detected on the internet connection of the Megaupload.com founder who goes by the pseudonym Kim Dotcom.

Kim Dotcom is a big name in the computer industry, especially among the sharing community primarily for his founding of the file hosting and sharing site Megaupload.com. The site was blocked by the US using DNS blocks and the site was later permanently taken down by the New Zealand government. Kim Dotcom is currently in a large legal battle with New Zealand and even the US (who wants him extradited).

The article explains how Dotcom's internet connection may have been monitored much earlier than earlier claimed. Regardless of how you feel about Dotcom's website and business model, it is clear that illegal monitoring of any connection is wrong. The New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau is currently under investigation for admitted illegal spying. This is something that Dotcom may be able to use to his advantage in his legal battles, so it goes to show the breaking the rule doesn't always pay - even if you are the government.

Danah Boyd's Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites takes a look into the social constructs found in social networking sites, particularly the "friends" feature. Friends seem to be an integral part of all social networking sites. Obviously, such a site without the feature would be very "social" at all.

The interesting aspect about social networking sites and their friends feature is that friends are made public for others to see. This creates an interesting dynamic where your friends determine your social niche and your place within the network. The number of friends you have is displayed as well and may be a testament to ones popularity or likeability. In this sense, your network of "friends" is what anchors you into the network.

Boyd goes on to make some assertions about how friending norms evolved and why. At this point, I got to thinking: "what friending norms?" Sure, if somebody tries to friend us on a social networking site that we have never heard of and is from a long distance away we might not accept it (some people would, though). What I feel turns half of this upside down is how nonchalantly many people accept "friends" who they now nothing about simply because they have a high number of mutual friends, are from the same area, go to the same university, etc. I'm not going to lie, I have quite a few such friends. Do I feel this is bad? No. I do wonder, though, if Boyd is over-analyzing this "friend" thing too much by applying assumptions and generalization gained from in-real-life networks to social networks. Social networks clearly have many differences with "real" networks, and one such difference is often their norms and rules.

Overall, I feel Boyd does offer some insightful ideas about friending on social networking sites, but I have to question if some of the ideas are bit over thought.

Today I was diagnosing an internet problem for a family member and the connection was getting unusually slow speeds. Although this is not most likely the cause of the slowdown, it got me thinking about how ISPs currently have the ability to prioritize traffic and to slow down users who are using lots of bandwidth (or for other reasons, theoretically even content). This is definitely a form of censorship and social control that can be asserted by the large ISP companies. Comcast, in particular, is known for aggressively monitoring connections for P2P traffic and will slow down heavy users. This is, probably more than many people think, a decently strong social control mechanism over the internet that is purely at the discretion of the ISP company. Although there may be legitimate uses for prioritization and monitoring, it seems most people do not agree with it. Comcast has gotten a lot of criticism for the practice.

Those who think that "all traffic is created equal" believe is something called net neutrality. There are multiple internet and technology organizations (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, to name a few) that support the stance. If you want to get more information about contributing to the cause, consider visiting this site.

In Manuel Castell's "Why Networks Matter," he explains how the "information age" or "knowledge age" is really a misnomer. All societies have valued knowledge. The true aspect that separates us from other ages is our communication structure: we are the "network age."

Modern day control is held in networks, argues Castell. Even though the economic system has been consolidating, the successful businesses are those who make productive connections and form a reliable network. The power elite aren't really the power elite, as they solicit their power from their networks and often change their position on the power scale when connections are created, broken, or changed.

I definitely agree with most of his listed points. As the saying goes "its not what you know its who you know." I find it interesting how people always call this era the "information age" when we don't generally expect people to remember large amounts of information. Instead, we expect them to be able to retrieve the information when needed by using their set of networks (one of the reasons I feel modern standardized testing is archaic). Although I feel he disregards the existence of a power elite that I feel clearly exists (one that utilizes their closed networks). I think the general idea is correct, and hopefully we see this reflected more in our society such as our testing practices, education, job requirements, etc.

Critique of solvetheissues.com:

At first glance, it looks like this site is meant to be a forum where users can discuss current issues and craft solutions collectively. It aims to put the power of democracy back to the people by allowing people to figure out the majority consensus, as well as be exposed to other perspectives that can affect the final solution. Of course, for a site of this nature to work it must have a decently sized user base. This site is much more forum-oriented than other politics-geared sites I've encountered.

It appears that the intended audience is the general, politics-aware public. It is definitely not aimed at a specific, narrow group of people. After all, democracy is about everyone, not just those who have certain resources or knowledge. In this sense the site is non-technical enough for average users to use, although it could use from pretty-ing up as well as some better design.

Looking through the recent issues, there doesn't seem to be a lot of user activity. I would say that this site primarily doesn't reach its intended audience, or at least as much as it should given its purpose. I know other political issue websites (such as MoveOn.org, Change.org, WatchDog.net, etc...) that garner much more support that this site (from a quick glance) seems to have. Unfortunately, a site like this needs sizable support to be affective.

I don't find this site terribly useful to me, particularly because of its seemingly low traffic. I know other sites that focus on issues that get much more support, and there are other forums for discussing issues that can get much more feedback (such as the r/politics and related subreddits of reddit.com). Reddit usually meets my needs when it comes to getting others' opinions.

I find it interesting that this site addresses the Syrian leadership issue, when there are many more pertinent issues that are not addressed. It seems like many of the issues seem like the less important ones, by my standards.

I would not encourage people to visit this site, as it looks like it gets almost no membership as of now. It also does not seem very professional and, as one fellow student mentioned, almost looks like it could be a scam.

This site could be improved greatly with the use of a better color palette (red on blue... really!?) as well as a less bright background and better banner (first impressions matter!). I find it interesting that it has features such as Facebook sign-in, an Amazon link, and keyboard navigation yet doesn't sport a simple, clean layout. Its navigation could look better, as well.

Overall, I find this site very disappointing for how great of an idea it is. Maybe this is why it seems to be such a deserted site, with little membership.

Bruce Schneier, in August 3rd, 2009 blog post Building in Surveillance, mentions how new technology is being utilized by government for surveillance. While this phenomenon is nothing new, the extent to which modern technology allows quick, easy, inclusive surveillance and censorship is unique to the recent past and present.

There's no doubt that current technology makes it very easy to track people or gain intelligence on them. While everyone always acknowledges that it can help catch real criminals, at which people to people decide a measure is too much of an infringement on citizens' lives?

Of course, the resistance against censorship is always one step ahead. For example, the TOR project is a project that provides and anonymization network that is quite effective. The only problem is that users must remember to use it, and that services or plugins can still log activity and data bout the machine or user. There have also been many ideas for a distributed DNS system (the system that resolves website names into IP addresses to that a site can be accessed) instead of the current localized DNS system that allows for easy governmental control. Blocking DNS requests for particular sites is how the US government has recently been targeting file sharing sites.

I feel with how new computer technology is (and it really is new in comparison to others), we have not yet fully come to terms with it. It will take a lot of time and attempts to find a system that is fair to all parties involved. This is something that we may see much change in throughout our lifetimes.

With the Bloomsburg Fair now in session, I was reminded of something that I was looking at a few days back.

Apple recently pushed its iOS6 update, with an update for almost all newer Apple devices. This update touted [supposedly] 200+ new fixes, features, and improvements. Of these new features included a new set of many of the default apps that are present on a device. One that I found interesting is called "Find Friends." The app allows you to let certain other friends know your location, either permanently or for a short period of time. If the word "permanently" irks you do not worry: its only when you have the app set to broadcast you location.

I have actually thought about such an app in the past, and am surprised it hasn't been adopted until now. With the fair now in session, people often times want to meet up with their friends. With how large the fair is, there could be many of your friends at the fair. Instead of posting on Facebook and hoping they see it or sending everyone a text message, you could just use the "Find Friends" app and it would tell you who is at the Bloomsburg Fair (as long as you and your friends both have the app and decide to let it broadcast that you are at the fair).

I think this is a great idea, as you can easily find people who are near you quickly, assuming they want to be found. I don't really see a privacy problem as users can turn it off and even when on, must grant particular people full or temporary privilege to their location.

Need a book? Try Amazon.com. A cheap television? Walmart.com. Upgrading your computer? Newegg.com. Selling an old antique? Ebay.com. What do all of these sites have in common? A rating system.

With the explosion of online commerce, people have been looking for ways to guarantee a good product without actually seeing it. By far the most common way is through a product, seller, and/or buyer rating system. Online buyers have become accustomed to checking ratings and reviews for products and sellers before purchasing a particular product or using a particular service. Most online buyers will tell you that a poor, or even mediocre, rating alone can make them not even consider a product or service.

The problem is that companies are learning this. Its is no secret that companies have been trying to improve their image by hiring people to make good reviews. However, this reputation engineering may be more prevalent than many think. In fact, it is now estimated that at least 1:10 fans, likes, and reviews for products will be fake by 2014. This manipulation is sometimes refereed to as "marketeering."

This could be a real problem for consumers. Will we find ways of making it hard or impossible to give phony ratings? If so, how would this even be possible? If they cannot be prevented, will we learn how to distinguish real reviews from fake ones? Then there is the fact that some things, like fans or likes, cannot be scrutinized individually in most rating systems and therefore are hard to determine if legitimate. I think this is going to be a major problem in the near future that can only be addressed with creativity.

In Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community, he stresses that those critical of virtual communities often are focusing on the wrong people.

Critics often focus on the few people who are addicted to virtual worlds or those who use them in abusive or destructive manners. However, this is most likely not the majority of virtual community goers. Rheingold rightfully acknowledges that this simply is not a fair way of critiquing the virtual sphere. We don't associate the actions of alcoholics with anyone who drinks alcohol, nor do we associate coffee drinkers with coffee addicts (or worse, all stimulant addicts such those dependent on cocaine or amphetamines). Instead, users of objects or ideas need to be considered as a whole or by using the "average" user.

Virtual communities have many legitimate uses for those who use them properly. Rheingold points out many examples of when people reached out to their virtual community and received aid. These are the cases that should be taken into account as well when evaluating these communities - especially because I feel these are probably the more common uses of these communities.

Sure, people can have problems, such as addiction, with virtual communities, but just like any other object we don't judge all users based on the few. Instead, we treat those people on an individual basis or add safeguards to help prevent such issues.

One of the vital aspects of the current social media scene is the ability to be mobile. With the proliferation of smart phones and other internet-connected mobile devices, people have started taking their social sites with them on the go. Of course, what makes this possible is the internet technology found on these devices coupled with a data plan from an internet service provider or cellular company.

With the increased use of mobile devices for social media, it is not hard to see that the available bandwidth of these devices is important. Cellular companies such as AT&T and Verizon are constantly marketing networks that are supposedly faster than the competition, as well as battles over who offers more coverage. Unfortunately, users have no concrete way of testing these claims and have no ability to complain if they do not get the speeds their provider advertised - until now.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it will begin testing wireless carriers' broadband speed claims. This is a great move for consumers, since this will hopefully allow us know exactly what speeds we will be getting on our devices instead of the theoretical speeds that are possible on the network. Whether or not this will cause carriers to advertise slower speeds or to charge users more is yet to be seen. Either way, a more accurate report of speeds will allow more informed decisions by users when it comes to their wireless plan.

It will be interesting to see how the current wireless network speeds actually add up. I'm sure most wireless users can attest that they get far below the speeds advertised by the companies when marketing their plans. Overall, I feel this is something that will benefit users and, hopefully, encourage wireless carriers to upgrade their infrastructure in order to offer competitive speeds at competitive prices.

While reading The Computer as a Communication Device by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor, it is interesting to see how well they predicted the influence of technology on communication and the characteristics of technological communication.

Their first assertion to hit the nail right on the head was how creative, interactive communication requires a flexible, dynamic medium that can be accessed and used by all. Of course, little did they know they were talking about the modern-day Internet. They also mention how it is the "programmed digital computer" that will create such a medium and change communication forever, and that this will chance communication "even more profoundly than did the printing press and the picture tube." This is because computers not only allow access to information, but can perform processes for making use of the information.

The authors' intuition on the subject is phenomenal: they clearly point out getting a computer alone will not solve all of your communications problems and they make it clear that the "current" (for their time) hardware and software were limiting. They predicted that significant hardware and software achievements that would make way for a communication revolution were on the horizon. It is also interesting that they foresaw the legal and administrative obstacles that would ensue.

What really intrigues me is their dead-on critique of the time's communication infrastructure, where one had to buy a dedicated line with a (for the time) large bandwidth in order to network information. This would be cost prohibitive, especially because most of the time a computer would not be using the connection at all, and even when it did possibly not at the connected maximum speed. Their solution, which is strikingly familiar to today's Internet infrastructure utilizing TCP/IP, was to have networked computers that would transfer data between each other as necessary. Any communications lines that had to be used could then be utilized fully by using them for everyone's traffic. This is basically what our current Internet backbone does.

They continue to say that the cost of such a network would be comparable to other forms of meeting such as telephone or travel. However, they note that computer technology has consistently dropped in price by 50% every 2 years, and as such computer-based communication could be cheaper than other methods by the time the system was implemented (which the cited as taking at least 2 years as well).

Finally, the most relevant discussion to our class that they partake in is that of the nature of future communities based on computer technology. They cite common interest, instead of "accidental proximity," as the main glue between them, which is what our class unanimously agreed upon on day one. The idea of OLIVER, the hardware and software in the network that works for your behalf, seems extreme at first glance. This is, until you realize most of the listed tasks are something available today on common websites or through common services. They end with some utopian ideas that such a network could provide, including no unemployment. They note the importance of whether access to this facility is a right or a privilege in determining its usefulness.

Overall, I am very impressed with the authors' insight. Most of their predictions have come true, and its almost hard to believe they could have conceived of such with the limited hardware and software of the time.

This weeks readings seem to focus on whether the internet and mobile technology are good for communities or not. Of course there are those who support each side, but it seems apparent to me that it is how we decide to use the technology that makes it beneficial or detrimental to our communities.

With this is mind, I recalled a new story I had read in the past about something is is not quite as subjective. The fact that the internet and mobile technology is changing the way our brains operate. Of course, everything we do changes our brain, but the persistent use of the internet and mobile phones are the cause of some concern. Some feel that the internet is lowering our attention span and giving us constant interruption. These and similar concerns are definitely not unwarranted, as studies are showing substantial brain chances for those who are use the internet, especially from mobile devices. One interesting one is how internet addiction parallels cocaine. I'm sure we all know (or at least can think of the stereotypical idea of) someone who discovers the internet and becomes a hermit in their room. Mobile users are even worse. I know many people who cannot go through a normal day (heck, even an hour!) without their mobile phone. On a side note, I always wondered what people who act like this think is so important that they need their phones 24/7, since from my experience these people are the most likely to be using it for not much more than entertainment, social networking, and texting friends. Is this level of dependance on the internet and social interaction even healthy?

It is easy to criticize our our society's dependance on the internet, mobile phones, and computers in general. However, as this article alludes to near the end, I feel this isn't as much of a problem as we think it is. All of this technology is new, and we are still in a period of neurological adjustment. Eventually, most likely starting with the current or shortly upcoming generations, most American children will have access to the internet and mobile devices from a very young age. This exposure will definitely cause a change in their brains. However, the brain changes whenever a person does anything, such as learning an instrument or making a cup of coffee. Brain changes are merely a way of adapting to our varying environment. As we learn to become more dependent on technology for quick communication and computation, we will be free to manage multiple tasks at once and handle the less concrete aspects of life. Giving us more time to focus on creativity, ingenuity, and task management - including managing our social life - is not a bad thing. The same changes in our brain can be seen whenever there is a major invention that allows us to overcome a repetitive, meticulous, or hard task. Look at how our work and lifestyles changed after farm equipment, the engine, and the telephone were invented. Our brains are changing, most definitely, but it is something we should embrace.

Not to say that we do need to know when enough is enough. We don't drive 24/7 and we don't talk on the telephone 24/7. There needs to be time for physical personal interaction, physical activity, "alone time," and the likes. Hopefully we will find a happy medium with this new technology and use it to enhance our lives instead of engulf them.

Yesterday, an online community I participate in gained lots of media attention when president Obama decided to let the community ask him questions. The community I am referring to is Reddit: a site where users post links to web content, or post their own content, to share with other users. Posts are submitted to a particular "subreddit" which is a forum for a particular subject or genre. Users then "upvote" posts they like to increase the likelihood of others seeing the content, and "downvote" posts they do not like. When viewing a subreddit, the posts with the highest rating (upvotes minus downvotes) are shown first.

One of the larger and more interesting subreddits is called r/IAmA ("r/name" is the convention for identifying subreddits by name). IAmA stands for "I Am A" and the subreddit is a place for users to assert what they are and let people ask questions about their life. They then end with "AMA" meaning "Ask Me Away." It is interesting to see what its like for others in a different industry, job, career, or lifestyle. The posters range from "ordinary" people to people who are far from ordinary. Some examples of posts include: "IAmA Legal, Oregon Marijuana Farmer AMA," "IAmA Former Stripper Who Has Recently Finished a Graduate Program at Harvard AMA," and "IAmA High School Math Teacher in Nebraska AMA."

Yesterday, president Obama worked with the r/IAmA moderators and reddit staff to participate in an IAmA session. The discussion thread almost instantly blew up with hundreds of posts. At first people were skeptical, but reddit moderators, as well as proof via pictures and the Obama twitter feed, confirmed that the poster was legitimately president Obama. Obama spent the time to answer several of the questions posed by the reddit community. Questions by the community dealt with a large variety of topics including the economy, the NASA space program, money in politics, internet freedom, and even the recipe for the White House's signature beer.

The post caused so much traffic to the page that it had to be put into read-only mode, disallowing comments or upvoting and downvoting. This is rarely done; since the reddit creators favor free exchange of ideas and fair community evaluation, censorship or limiting expression is only done when absolutely necessary to keep the site running smoothly. Once the news hit the media the large increase in traffic actually caused the reddit site to crash and remain offline temporarily.

I think it was a courageous act for Obama to submit to the reddit community, which is known to be filled with jokers, smart-asses, "trolls" and the like. Inappropriate comments and raging debates are not uncommon on reddit, and giving reddit a chance to ask him questions was an interesting public move for Obama. However, with the growing size and popularity of reddit he was able to reach out to the reddit community, many of whom may support him due to their younger demographic. Reddit is not the most well known of sites either, so it displays an up-to-date position in this technology world that other politicians don't seem to display. Of course it was probably an idea by a media relations staff member, but its still impressive nonetheless.

Overall, I feel Obama reaching out to the reddit community was a interesting and unexpected move for its members, but it may benefit him the support of some of the community. That's an upvote for Obama!

First day of my "Social Media & Virtual Worlds" course.

This course seems like it will be fun. I am already pretty connected to Facebook. I have Twitter, MySpace, and Google+ accounts but don't check them often. Too bad I do not have a smartphone, I feel that would make this class more interesting!