update mar 20

Today I looked at a bunch of different sites about physical fitness. I used google to search key words, and I don't know if I found exactly what I want. I think I will use websites of popular magazines that I know to use for the project. I find they are the ones with the most in depth detail about specific exercises and what they do for you rather than these google search sites that are hardly ever updated. Some of them might be useful, but the magazine one's that are frequently updated are definitely the best. After the break I will need to sit and think about what I really want to do and get specific. I will start looking at stuff and putting it together. I will probably care more about this after the break. Below are the sites I looked at. I think they are helpful and will always be full of something good for me to use.

http://www.mensfitness.com/

http://www.bodybuilding.com/

march 2.0 madness

This is the month of March and that means it’s time to fill out NCAA tournament brackets. It seems like every website is having a bracket challenge, including Facebook, ESPN, CBS, and more. The Facebook contest is an example of mixed media, because a big company like CBS is combining with a social network to hold a bracket contest on their site. This is web 2.0 because of Facebook and because of the design of this contest. The official contest portion of Facebook reminds me of a wiki with its layout and content. There are many different links to click on that bring up a bunch of information such as brackets, teams, other people in the contest, your friends picks, message boards, and even pop up information about all 64 teams in the tourney. It is actually really cool and makes me happy that web 2.0 exists. Millions of Americans are going to be heavily using this web 2.0 spectrum over the next couple weeks and relying on it to show them just how bad their picks really are.

march 18 class

I am not sure what I am going to do for my project, but I think I might try to do something about exercise. Maybe I will do something that compares different types of exercises and rate their effectiveness. This would be a good topic because people are interested in exercise and there is a lot of information out there that I could use for sources. I don’t know what type of web 2.0 I would use to present this. I guess I will figure this out later. Maybe I could narrow it down to a specific type of exercise, like cardio or muscle building, or perhaps talk about ways to lose weight in certain areas of the body because people like to specifically target body parts and like to know the best ways they can burn fat in those areas. I think this is actually starting to sound like the idea I want to do the more I think about it. I will have to spend some time thinking about how I going to make it and what kind of information I want to use but I will do it.

video of web 2.0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6SefbFbixI


Here is a cool video about Web 2.0, specifically about the power this guy has gained through broadcasting using Web 2.0. He talks about how as a kid he bought a radio transmitter and started having his own little broadcasts, and now he can reach so many people because of web 2.0. It really shows how much technology has advanced and how much more connected people are. His first broadcasts were just to his neighbors and family because that was all he could reach. Now of course this guy has a podcast and he has a global audience. The funny part is that the guy says he can now reach twice as many people as when he used to do his radio broadcast. Well, that would only make 10, so maybe this guy misspoke. But regardless, it is an interesting video that shows just another example of the power of web 2.0.

more on mixing media

I don’t know what we’re supposed to write about today, so I’m going to rant about something. I am noticing how more and more “news” websites are becoming blogger friendly. Sites like CNN.com, ESPN, and more now encourage blogging to the point where Anderson Cooper talks about how he is blogging while he is also doing his show. Tonight I noticed that the KansasCityStar.com is becoming more like a Web 2.0 wiki than a news site. I was looking at the sports page on the website and I see a headline that read “Baylor Coached Peeved”. Now before, every time I click on something like this on this site it brings up a news story filled with quotes, facts, and a real actual journalist who wrote it. But no, not this time. What came up was one quote and a box that asks “what do you think?” Underneath there is a place for you to type your comments and for you to read other people’s thoughts. They even have this after every news article now, where the readers can leave comments for the journalist about the story and sometimes, they even blog back. This is a news site, NOT A BLOG. I don’t care about what KUhawk92 thinks about the Big 12 tournament, I want to know what is actually happening from the journalists who are supposed to be doing their job of gathering facts, not asking for everyone’s opinions. What’s next, are they going to let people start editing the stories too? I appreciate Web 2.0 and blogging, but if our news sites become nothing but blogs asking for everyone to write their opinions and have a big old blog conversation, I’m going to read the paper.

power to the machine

I have seen “The Machine is Us/ing us” before in one of my communications classes, and I think that it is both scary and amazing. It is scary to see how connected we are as humans to the all powerful internet, which can show us anything and everything and that nearly everyone uses. It’s scary to think that in the future we are bound to only become even more connected through advancement, and to not know what this might entail. I do think that these advancements we have seen over time do have good implications for society. We can now learn about stories that affect us faster, such as recent murder cases we have seen. I have seen pictures all over the different avenues of Web 2.0 of the guy from the UNC murder case. Facebook groups, Myspace, blogs and Wikipedia all have posted pictures and allowed forums for people to talk and see if anyone knows who the guy is. This example shows how connectivity is good; when people in Missouri can find out anything they want about a guy wanted for questioning in North Carolina, the internet is making it harder to hide. So, people do control the internet, but sometimes the internet is out to get you.

on media convergence

I am already somewhat familiar with the idea of media convergence because I used to want to do journalism and learned about this before. I think “Worship at the Altar…” points out good examples of what convergence is. With all of the different types of media and technology (specifically Web 2.0) available, media was destined to collide in a type of head on collision. With virtually anyone able to be a “journalist” anymore, different types of media are always playing off one another. For instance, the example of the movie being recorded and put on the internet was easily predictable with the invention of cell phone cameras. I knew this would happen, because I predicted this to my friends back when these were first coming out. Is this good or bad for society? Well, it is bad for the people involved in the production of the movie, because this loses them money. But then again, it does give them more access and exposure. But how much exposure is appropriate? With the Bert and Osama example, clearly this boy had the right to make a website and to innocently post Bert’s picture with Osama. Also, the middle eastern man had the right to print it and put it on his posters. Also, Sesame Street has the right to be angry about one of their characters being associated with terrorism. This is the problem that will have to be answered with media convergence since it is such a new concept. How much is too much? Should all media be allowed to cover whatever they want and use any type of media available to do so? I don’t even know what to think.

musewiki

http://www.musewiki.org/MuseWiki
The wiki I most admire is Musewiki, a site that prides itself on knowing every detail about Muse, an alternative rock band that I like. I came across this site a while ago, and was amazed they had their own wikipedia. At the time, I didn’t know about people making their own wiki’s so I thought these guys must be the most popular band in the world. This wiki’s purpose is to provide Muse fans intimate details about the band’s music, members, and regular lives. It has information that goes from about their latest album to what the drummer’s favorite cheese is. This wiki is obviously catering to Muse fans (there are many of them in Europe and throughout the rest of the world), who are caught up in the internet information craze and want to know everything about the music they like. It shows a lot of pictures of the band, and has a lot of little known or personal information about the band, as to show that this site is where you should come to find out whatever you want about Muse. There is information about the lead singers special “fetishes”, stories about their childhood upbringings, and information on where they get their instruments. I think that the only people that would ever visit this site are people that really like Muse. According to the site, the page has been accessed 687, 117 times, which means there is a decent obsessed Muse following. It seems to contain endless page after page and claims to have been edited by over 6,000 different people. I recommend checking this site out if you like Muse or want to admire the work of people that know way too much about them.

easy usage

Today during class we were asked to go and edit something on wikipedia we thought we knew a lot about. That was an interesting experience because I have never done that before and didn’t realize how easy it actually is for anyone to do that. I sure hope whoever edited the entry on cystic fibrosis knows what they’re talking about, because I just used the wikipedia entry to help me on my paper! But really, I actually read wikipedia a lot when I am bored around a computer, because it has basically everything you can think of or want to think of on it. I am amazed at how easy it is to edit, I didn’t even need to sign up or in or anything, just clicked edit and bang! Now I am actually worried about the credibility of the site. If anyone can edit whatever they want, how can we believe anything we read? Then again, I guess its kind of like trusting the news media (how can we be sure they are being honest?) So maybe wiki is ok after all, and will be looked to as a trusted source here shortly.

about wikinomics

The chapter we read from “Wikinomics” speaks directly to me because I worked at Best Buy and am familiar with their practices. I worked for Best Buy the past 2 summers in Kansas City, and can remember the use of blogs and Web 2.0 all the time. In fact, now that I think about it, I was relying on Web 2.0 everyday in the computer system we used to find the movies, music and games that people were wanting. The system had a bunch of different links to click on depending on what product you were looking for. Then once you typed it in it would bring up if we had it in stock and where it should be. Best Buy also used a blog to talk about the traditional company newsletter type of stuff, such as new products coming in, new policies, and even had a place for employee feedback or suggestions. I never really looked at the blog because I never really cared much about what they had to say, but some people did and I think they found it useful. I definitely agree that wiki is useful for companies and employees and will go along way in successful business practice.

examining wiki

Our discussion about wikipedia’s today made me think about something that occurred this weekend. My friend was going to look up some information about a TV show, and the first place he went to was wikipedia. After reading it, we both pretty much just accepted what the wikipedia said as fact. Then I remembered that anyone can edit these things, and there is a reason why we are told not to use wikipedia in our classes. So we looked directly at the TV show website and sure enough, wikipedia had some information about some of the characters wrong. I know our guest speaker said today that a study shows wikipedia to be more accurate than encyclopedia Brittanica, but still how can we trust anyone? That is what we are doing with wikipedia, we are trusting anyone and everyone. We have no way of knowing if what we are reading is true or if it is biased opinion or flat out lie. In fact, I heard that political candidates were trying to change things on their wikipedia that they didn’t like to make themselves look better. The idea of an information source that everyone can be a part of is a novel idea, but I think before we just all jump on board to the wiki craze that we take a step back and make sure that the flaws aren’t going to be too big. I know if there was a page up about me I would edit it if I didn’t like some of what it said.

mark cuban's blog

http://www.blogmaverick.com/

The blog I choose to analyze is the Blog Maverick by Mark Cuban. I have known about his blog because I like sports, but have never really read it. The colors are light blue and white, nothing particularly fancy or unique looking about it. In fact, if I stumbled across it without knowing, I wouldn’t have known it was a billionaire’s blog. When this blog was first started it’s purpose was so that a big time sports owner could connect personally with his fans, and so he could get his points out there about professional sports. It is making him seem like an accessible billionaire sports owner who really does care about the people that pay to see his teams. Judging by the comments he gets, it would seem mostly sports fans read his blog, but often times you can’t tell because the posts aren’t always about sports. There was his famous post that trashed Donald Trump, and other posts about a movie he funded. These are ways he makes his blog more popular by not just writing about sports all the time. Many people have probably checked it at least once when his name was in the news because they know that he will respond to it on the blog. I think this blog is one to be analyzed for its topics of invention: that is to say that people are judging this on the arguments he is making rather than any other reason. Sports fans want to feel like they have a voice in how their team is doing. Mark Cuban making this blog was genius on his part because he knows the fans will like him more and give him leeway if the team is struggling or don’t like a decision he makes as owner. Cuban understands new ideas and probably even has some money invested in 2.0 himself.