So the proverbial 'scientists' have done it again. Researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University are using computer software to track the development of language, and colloquialism, across the US.
The BBC published this article, written by Phillip Ball, recently exploring the work of Jacob Eisenstein, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech. Eisenstein is using Statistical Analysis techniques to analyze around 40 million messages from about 400,000 different users to track where different terms, like "bruh" or "af", originated from and have moved to.
In the case of "bruh," the term originated in the southeast US and moved to southern California due to it's usage on Twitter. The result of tracking terms like these is a representational map of how different slang terms and emoticons have moved across the US, perhaps even across international borders. Think of movies where detectives use string and different photographs to track suspects in an organized crime case (they may still do this)
This new system of organizing and analyzing data could help linguistics and other researches in many ways. The entertainment industry could now localize productions to specific geographical locations. Law enforcement could use this to track different slang or gang terms across the country to track where gangs are located and spreading to. Linguists could use the information to project the spread of colloquialisms across geographical lines and gain a better understanding of how culture develops.
I want to discuss news aggregation software. It is deadly and could possibly be the death of an educated and aware civilization.
In simple terms news aggregation software is a piece of software that searches news feeds from all over the web looking for tags, and consolidating that information into a singular feed.
It sounds like a great idea doesn't it?
NO! No it does not. It in fact, is a perfect symptomatic representation of how my current generation has abused the technology available to it. Now the software can be quite useful, in fact Twitter is based on this system.
The dangers of news aggregate software lies if the habits developed by my generation. News aggregation allows for a person to tailor the news they read to specific topics. We can now put blinders on our eyes to make sure we stay extremely narrow-minded.
If we are not exposed to news under other topics our personal innovation, and inner dialogue. Imagine the kinds of adults that will exist once we no longer pay attention to the front page of the newspaper! Already a large section of Americans don't know their military is involved in so many conflicts abroad.
The other issue caused by news aggregation software is the lack of funding to established news sources. The NY Times has already seen a significant drop in ad revenue.
When a person looks at a news article given to them by news aggregation they no longer skip around websites to find that article. The chance of that person seeing an ad that pertains to them drops drastically just like ad revenue to major news sources has. When that happens less funding can be used to support investigative journalism that helps keep businesses, political figures, and most importantly the government honest and transparent.
Use news aggregation software if you like. I won't blame you, but for all that is good in the world please look elsewhere for your news and information as well!
Because this could happen if we don't find our own news...
Earlier this year Facebook boasted about how it had hit the 1 billion user mark, making it the third largest country in the world (if it was a country). There have been many news articles that discuss the idea about how 'healthy' this is for Facebook or society at large. This article discusses the fact that Facebook has over 80% of it's accounts being faked or shells. These shells include businesses, repeat accounts (where a user has an account to fool employers, parents, and or friends), accounts that have been left alone because users forgot the passwords, accounts used to stalk exes, and over a fourth of these accounts were created by Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg.
The existence of these shell accounts begs the question "what is a real user?" Not to mention "how reliable is Facebook as an institution and how can we trust them now?"
I am not qualified to answer these questions outside of my own opinions, but I can say Facebook seems to be a necessary part of life for most people. I myself live in another part of the country where it is difficult to stay in touch with old friends and family members. Facebook helps solve this problem. I use it to find out information about businesses and public figures. I use it when investigating news stories or when I am trying to contact sources. I also know many employers use it to either evaluate future employees or keep tabs on current employees.
The ethical questions raised by all of these uses will become more and more pressing as time goes on but for now we can say without a doubt that Facebook is like so many companies in the past that have inflated numbers to be looked at in a more positive light. Bernie Madoff, Enron, and 'Crazy Eddie' were all guilty of the same taboo. Why is it these people were put on trial, yet it is moral for Mark Zuckerberg to inflate his numbers using bots? It's not, it is just Facebook is still a necessary part of life so we seem to overlook it's moral failings.
Here is a related blogpost by Ken Burbary that has a more in depth analysis of Facebook demographics found on his blog called Web Business by Ken Burbary.
Lets first talk about how wikipedia has saved college students countless times when burning the midnight oil since it was brought online of January of 2001. Yes, we all know that teachers and professors have a deep distrust of wikipedia, but I say they should trust, nay, honor this great creation for what it is.
A global encyclopedia of all there is, or all that matters. Originally the idea was to include everything possible and have the pages be created and edited by readers, by anyone who thought to sit down and write what they could. This lead to a great schism that was similar to that of the Catholic Church's great schism in 1378. This schism in wikipedia readers led to two factions, the inclusionists and the deletionists.
The inclusionsists wanted to of course include everything they could about anything ever. The believed that since they were not limited by the classic constraints of other encyclopedias, number of pages, costs of volumes, and financial support there should be no reason to judge the validity of entries based on relevance of facts. They believe that a wikipedia held just has much value as an entry about Marlon Brando.
Conversely the deletionists believe the exact opposite. Relevance of facts is the only standard of value by which we should judge entries. If we do not do this the site could become a jumbled mess of useless information that holds no benefit to anyone anywhere. Who really cares about me other than those I know who should already know me.
Granted we must be concerned with the reliability of the information presented to us. Since any of the readers, anyone with an internet connection, can edit information the reliability of the information presented is in questions. Two of the greatest benefits of the site are 1) transparency is held at high value and it sheds light on many subjects previously neglected; 2) many pages hold source references at the bottom and serve as an excellent starting point for research that one can actually have faith in.
So please, don't overlook the value of wikipedia simply because some professor told you they would not allow you to cite the information or because a friend of a friend has a "this one time at bandcamp I was writing a paper on the relation between neutrino physics and saxophone notes" story...
So, Youtube has been hailed as the 'stickiest' sight on the internet, but how and why is that sticky icky so irresistible?
Now that you have finished watching... well whatever it is you watched, think back on how long you spent watching the video. Now think: did you click on some related links, did you forward this to a friend, did you tweet it, did you post it on Facebook, did you post it on a blog?
All of these things contribute to why Youtube is so sticky. I can't tell you why we are so addicted to watching babies be babies, or people failing at life, or videos of cats being absurd, or puppies being cute; but I can tell you we are, and that for 2011 Youtube had over one trillion views (1,000,000,000,000). That is approximately 140 views for every person on the planet!
Some have their own opinion of why Youtube is so addicting; see the following article. I can agree with some of these people, but I believe that Youtube is so addictive because it is not network television.
Youtube is not only instant access, instant learn anything, instant replay, instant sharing, instant memories, it is instant everything. I view anything I can find in the blink of an eye (depending on 30 second commercials and my internet speed). I can learn how to make bombs, or pick locks, or fold an oragami swan, or cook a duck, or write a poem, or anything I am studying in school. I can watch newsreel bloopers, I can watch old sports games and old MTV videos. But even more importantly, I can post these. I am in control of the content.
Like everything else in new media I have control of the content I post. Unlike having to watch whatever the TV Network deems appropriate or valuable I can film what I want and then post it to the internet. I have instantly become my very own producer, director, actor, sound technician, director of photography and whatever other credit I choose to give myself. And boy, don't we kids just love that instant control!
Hello folks, yet another week has passed us by and in doing so has reminded me that it is time again for another post about social media. Unlike my past two posts I'd like to dedicate this post to the concept of big brother.
In this fashion I discovered this article. If you don't care to read it I will certainly summarize. In short a team from Compass Labs conducted a study of Facebook pages to analyze the difference between Republican and Democrat voters. Now this idea is not new, studies have been done and published since the publishing of The American Voter in 1960. However, it is one of the recent studies that has used social media as a primary source for data.
But the question still remains "what did they find out?"
Well for one, both Democrats and Republicans think 'The Hangover' was a great movie. But on perhaps a more influential level, the study illustrated a breakdown of voters beyond their personal habits. For example: Obama is flying high with over 28.3 million likes on his Facebook fan-page, while Romney is struggling to maintain just 6.4 million. While at the same time Compass Labs found that the engagement ration for both were 52% for Romney and just 11% for Obama. Now I can agree that this use of social media to collect social data is an intelligent idea. This issue I have with it is how reliable of a source it is. First of all it is wonderful that I know that Republicans typically like to shop at Walmart and Democrats enjoy playing video games. Secondly, I can glean that the most effective way to reach my voter base may not be through Facebook or in Walmart. However, most importantly this tell me that the American citizen is now publicly offering their personal information that 40 years ago I would have to go door to door, or cold call, to discover.
If Compass Labs can use Facebook to find all this information... what could Google do with it?
I am continuing down this pathway of studying new new media, and at the moment blogging. I posted a video of an interview with Paul Levinson in my last post, but I feel as though I should mention he is the author of the textbook I am currently studying at the moment.
In the most recent chapter read, Levinson made the assertion that most social media has returned the communication sphere to a time predating the invention of print media. During these ancient times communication took place via word of mouth and lacked gatekeepers. Print media, radio, and television all use gatekeepers to control content. Networks hire station directors as a gatekeeper to make sure everything on air is valid and true, or in line with the overall mission of the network. Newspapers employ editors at all levels, from copy to desk to chief; content is reviewed and edited every step of the way.
Blogging was the first of the social media developments, and the first to re-introduce society to this idea of unadulterated communication. I could publish anything from porn to pastry recipes on this blog without an editor telling me I was fired. Cursing, bias, untrue stories and more are published everyday in posts across the blogosphere.
Like the delightful cartoon above demonstrates (illustrated by Dave Coverly) blogging is like wandering around and saying anything you want to anybody who will listen. There is no editor, no director, no board of directors available to control content. It is absolute freedom of speech, as long as you can find a way to host the site.
PS: When searching for a definition of blogosphere I found a hilarious one on urbandictionary.com. The following is the definition: "Imagine a million lunatics wandering the streets mumbling to themselves. Write it all down and put it on the web. Congratulations, you've just created the blogosphere."
