Friday, April 29, 2016

Everyone Gets A Personal Shopper!

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Have you ever just been having a chat with your friend on Facebook messenger and decide "Oh, I think I am in the mood to buy something online....immediately." Well friends, what a time to be alive...now you can! 

That is right, FACEBOOK has just recently announced that people will be able to go shopping directly from messenger. How, you ask? Well..let me enlighten you.

 According to THIS article the messenger chat service will soon come equipped with artificial intelligence called "shopbots". As of now, only a few companies are signed onto the service but the article states that if more companies start to hop onto the personal shopping band wagon, all of us could soon be chatting with these "shopbots". The shopbots work much like a conversation. The bot opens up with asking you what kind of items you are looking for, men's or women's. Then, each time you speak to the bot the search becomes increasingly specific  until you ideally find what you are looking for. 

Seems pretty interesting, right?

After doing further research into these personal shoppers I found an article by Lukas Thoms who has tried out these shopbots. Long story short, his experience with these bots was not up to par. ( I recommend reading the article, it is pretty funny) It is pretty clear that Facebook has some work to do if this is the path they want to pursue. 

BUT!

Just like the article mentions, Facebook is no Amazon... people do not log onto Facebook to shop much like they would not log onto Amazon to chat with friends. How do you feel about Facebook trying to expand its purposes into the realm of online shopping? Will Facebook become an online shopping mall?

Monday, April 25, 2016

Why Do Doves Cry?

Unfortunately as time goes on the world continues to lose amazing musicians in the music industry. When this happens, the media gets flooded with all sorts of tributes, stories, and memorials for the musician that passes away.  While I love the idea that these extremely talented (well, some of them... ) people are being remembered for their works, I believe that it is NOT fair that they receive this surge of popularity AFTER they die. 

I was reading an article earlier about how Prince received a surge in the amount of albums sold after he passed away. The surge was extremely dramatic, some 42,000%. The article also mentioned a surge in albums sold that was similar to this when David Bowie and Michael Jackson died. At the end of the article the author wrote how this was a wonderful tribute to Prince from his fans. Again, while I agree with having tributes for these amazing musicians, why is it that this surge in fame happens only after they pass away? This especially goes towards the people who may have never listened to their music then all of the sudden when the media gets hype after they die the people decide they want to listen. Support musicians before they pass away!!



Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Questioning Your Privacy?

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The Internet is a wonderful place where people can learn and express themselves more frequently, and more easily than in the real world...because of this many questions about privacy problems have risen along with the popularity of the Internet. Among these privacy issues are that of companies, and school systems screening people's online profiles for information regarding their lifestyles. This is either something that is a huge problem, or not a problem at all for Internet users.

In my opinion, when Internet users are actively using online profiles and sites they keep a reputation much like the one they keep in the real world. What each person chooses to do with that reputation is up to them. Knowing this, we can assume that each person should uphold a reputation that they see fit. Due to how vast the Internet is, I do not believe we will be able to keep companies, and schools from monitoring people's online activities. While I agree that a person should have a right to freedom of speech on the Internet, is it always necessary to post EVERYTHING online for the world to see? If you feel like your privacy on a certain post to the Internet might be improvised...chances are you should not post whatever that may be in the first place. If you do not want the CIA to know you are going out for pizza...then do not post that you are going out for pizza.


Wednesday, April 13, 2016

99 Problems but the Internet Ain't One



The big question that is posed in today's society is... "is the internet making us dumb?". Well, I think it is fair to say that that may not be the case.

The internet has brought us many awesome tools to broaden our educations and learn about things that we would have had a harder time learning about before the age of the internet. The ability to have information instantaneously is a powerful thing when becoming more educated about the world. 

According to an article by Nicholas Carr, the internet can have some bad effects on us as well. I do believe that because of the fast paced aura of the internet that we as learners are losing our ability to focus on long, complex texts. I do NOT believe that this is what is making us "dumb". I think that we as a society are becoming "dumb" because of our lack of motivation to change the way we are becoming. I don't think it is right to blame our societal problems on the internet, after all we as a society are the ones that make up the internet. 

I think the question to ask here is not "is the internet making us dumb?" but maybe, "are we making the internet dumb?".


Saturday, April 9, 2016

SPOILER ALERT




In reference to Jenkins book, Convergence Culture, he talks about spoilers and how they came to bring a whole community of fans of the CBS hit show Survivor together. I thought this chapter was super interesting to read, I never thought that hunting for spoilers of a TV series had become such a popular activity. Although it was interesting to read, I do not get where the fun is in "spoiling".



It was even more interesting to read how the participants were getting really into this hobby. In the book Jenkins references a forum website called SurviorSucks. According to the book this forum was filled with posts about possible spoilers for the show. There was a mystery participant called ChillOne who was active on the forums spread his vacation information claiming to have all of these legitimate spoilers. The community got pretty fired up about it and spent months picking apart his information and analyzing it, there was even a book written about it.

I think that working so hard to "spoil" the show ruins the show to begin with. What is the fun in watching a show if you already know everything there is to know about the outcomes? One could argue that there is fun in the game itself, but isn't the show alone supposed to be what is fun in the first place?
 

Friday, April 8, 2016

Have you ever Google'd Google?



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I can say, until recently this would most definitely always be me. If I had a question about something, I would go straight to Google for the answer. I will say though, after going through a personal realization of how much I actually use the Google's search engine I have recently decided to give another search engine a try (DuckDuckGo). One of the reasons I enjoy making the switch is knowing that Google won't be tracking my every move (Google, I know you run Blogger…if you're reading this...no hard feelings) BUT, I will say that DuckDuckGo does not have a nifty feature like Google Images, or some of the other features of the Google search engine.
This brings up an interesting point though... are we being spoiled by Google? If the answer to this question is yes…which I do believe it is, then we are essentially allowing Google to take over our lives by continuing to let ourselves be spoiled by it. Life moves at a very fast pace in today's society so people are always looking for the quickest answer, which Google has become very successful in providing us.
Opinions on Google are really a personal preference, personally I am going to cut back on how much I really choose to let Google control my internet experience...but I am also okay with losing the features over gaining more privacy while online. Google gaining more control over our online experiences (and other aspects of our lives as well) is inevitable, people will continue using Google because it is easy and quick to use.