In this installment of the Facebook Effect three part blog mini-series we start to the see how Facebook is transforming from a dorm room project to a billion dollar company. The first part in this section of the book discusses investors, specifically that of the Washington Post. Thefacebook (at the time the 'the' was still in there) was ready to take the next big plunge into corporatism. They allready had some investors that Sean Parker, formerly of Napster, had dug up, but this one seemed like a big deal. Kirkpatrick emphasizes the positive vibes that Zuckerberg and Don Graham, leader of the Washington Post, were bouncing off each other during their meeting. While Kirkpatrick still hardly remains objective when discussing Mark Zuckerberg I can realize that this moment is a big one for the company.
By this time, it is clear that Zuckerberg is hardly a business man. He has a set of ideas derived from psychoanalyzing average college students that he and other people know have the ability to make a lot of money. However, advertising is how you make money on websites and this is something he has expressed a strong disinterest in. I feel like the introduction of investors as large as the Post would eventually lead to the increase in advertising that we experience on Facebook today.
Throughout the next couple years, due to the help of major investors, Facebook started incorporating new applications into their website. The photo app became one of its biggest successes as well as the ability to plan events and invite people to them. By 2006, Facebook was in a good place and had just implemented its newest addition to keep people up-to-date on what their friends were doing. This idea was the 'News Feed'. The algorithms involved behind what shows up on the News Feed were pretty interesting and lend themselves to a lot of the data mining accusations made against Facebook. The News Feed apparently analyzes your Facebook habits and bases what you will see on the your frontpage on that. Recently the same thing has been done with the Facebook Ads. They cater to your claimed interests and then request feedback on whether or not you thought the ad was helpful. As far as advertising goes, its still annoying, but at least its better than looking at stuff you have absolutely no interest in.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
The Social Network Extra Credit
I went to see this movie about a month ago, but wanted to write about it now while I was in the midst of reading the Facebook Effect. For this blog entry I want to give a short summary of the plot, provide my own criticisms, and then finish with a comparison of the movie to the story that we are reading about in Kirkpatrick's book.
While attending Harvard University, young programmer Mark Zuckerberg, creates a website called 'FaceMash' that takes pictures of girls on campus and allows other students to compare their looks or 'hotness' to each other. The website creates such a stir that Zuckerberg instantly becomes well known and is sought after by a group of frat brothers attempting to make a Harvard exclusive social networking site. Zuckerberg agrees to do it, but then takes their core idea (which is that users must have a harvard.edu email address to use it) and applies to his own website that he called 'thefacebook'. Zuckerberg brings his roommate, Eduardo Saverin, into the project by having him supply the start-up capitol to get the site going, but then once the site escalates to a certain point, Saverin's shares are dropped well below 1%.
From here on out, the bulk of the movie takes places during the trial where Mark Zuckerberg is being sued by Eduardo Saverin as well as the frat brothers. As each person involved in the case makes their statements, and we see flashbacks of how actions unfolded.
The first thing worth noting is that this movie uses the real names of most people involved and is more or less telling a story of events that actually happened. This is not new to movies, but I thought that it was pretty neat they did it this way instead of making a movie about some arbitrary social network and having the plot loosely based on Facebook's story. It felt more real to me and at the same time gave audiences a pretty decent crash course on how Facebook came to be so popular (although its almost guaranteed that some aspects of the movie were inflated for entertainment purposes). The best part of the movie, for me, was the dialog. It was consistently witty and creative while paced appropriately such that there were hardly any moments that allowed for an absence of attention. They did this and still managed to keep the plot easy to follow which is impressive considering the movie clocks in at just about 2 hours. While not be a huge fan of the actors involved in the movie (i.e. Justin Timberlake and the Fake Michael Cera kid) I thought they a good job creating a dramatic interpretation of this real life story.
After reading more than half of the Facebook Effect and watching this movie, it was nice to see the story from two seperate angles. Kirkpatrick really made you feel like Zuckerberg was a revolutionary while The Social Network gave off this vibe that he was a kind of a self-centered backstabber. This put me in good spirits to know that the reality of the situation probably fell somewhere in the middle. It's so difficult sometimes to determine when the people that wrote these stories are trying to give you facts or entertain you, but I suppose thats the magic of the media.
While attending Harvard University, young programmer Mark Zuckerberg, creates a website called 'FaceMash' that takes pictures of girls on campus and allows other students to compare their looks or 'hotness' to each other. The website creates such a stir that Zuckerberg instantly becomes well known and is sought after by a group of frat brothers attempting to make a Harvard exclusive social networking site. Zuckerberg agrees to do it, but then takes their core idea (which is that users must have a harvard.edu email address to use it) and applies to his own website that he called 'thefacebook'. Zuckerberg brings his roommate, Eduardo Saverin, into the project by having him supply the start-up capitol to get the site going, but then once the site escalates to a certain point, Saverin's shares are dropped well below 1%.
From here on out, the bulk of the movie takes places during the trial where Mark Zuckerberg is being sued by Eduardo Saverin as well as the frat brothers. As each person involved in the case makes their statements, and we see flashbacks of how actions unfolded.
The first thing worth noting is that this movie uses the real names of most people involved and is more or less telling a story of events that actually happened. This is not new to movies, but I thought that it was pretty neat they did it this way instead of making a movie about some arbitrary social network and having the plot loosely based on Facebook's story. It felt more real to me and at the same time gave audiences a pretty decent crash course on how Facebook came to be so popular (although its almost guaranteed that some aspects of the movie were inflated for entertainment purposes). The best part of the movie, for me, was the dialog. It was consistently witty and creative while paced appropriately such that there were hardly any moments that allowed for an absence of attention. They did this and still managed to keep the plot easy to follow which is impressive considering the movie clocks in at just about 2 hours. While not be a huge fan of the actors involved in the movie (i.e. Justin Timberlake and the Fake Michael Cera kid) I thought they a good job creating a dramatic interpretation of this real life story.
After reading more than half of the Facebook Effect and watching this movie, it was nice to see the story from two seperate angles. Kirkpatrick really made you feel like Zuckerberg was a revolutionary while The Social Network gave off this vibe that he was a kind of a self-centered backstabber. This put me in good spirits to know that the reality of the situation probably fell somewhere in the middle. It's so difficult sometimes to determine when the people that wrote these stories are trying to give you facts or entertain you, but I suppose thats the magic of the media.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wikipedia Audit
For this class our midterm was to audit a Wikipedia entry and present on our results. This is only the second time that I have dealt with some of the back-end procedures of Wikipedia. (The first time was creating/editing my own Wiki for another class.) Auditting was a truly next-level experience and I could honestly admit that at some points I noticed myself sort of enjoying it. Our topic was Polygamy in North America and as soon as this topic came to light I knew there was going to be some sort of bias involved with its resources. It's almost impossible to have a topic that is closely related to a major/controversial religion and not have bias information. Needlessly to say, we, as a group, were confident that we would dig up something interesting to present.
A little about our process:
We first thought about splitting up the article into sections and tackling the assignment that way with each person focusing on a different section. Someone had the thought that it was possible for other sections to touch on each other and kind of tie the whole article together. For example, if there was something that could be considered 'missing' in one section, it was likely to be addressed in the next since the section titles were only loosely descriptive. This would cause more work than necessary to be done in the long run. Ultimately we decided to independently read the article and contrive our own thoughts about it then meet up and use what we agreed on as the premise for our project. It seemed to work out well because at the meeting we were all ready on track for determining bias and non-credible sources.
What we found:
After examining all of the sources cited in the Wiki article we found a considerable amount of information that was from Mormon websites. These articles and web references were mostly in support of Polygamy as a lifestyle dictated by religious practice. While there was nothing outlandish in most of the article's claims, just the nature of where they came from was suspect. Tom also noticed that there were four citations on one statistic that had little to do with the topic of the articles. We concluded that the Wiki got so diluted by users editing it that whatever statement was originally made got transformed into a small factoid.
Our Topic was Polygamy in NORTH AMERICA and we were surprised with the lack of information regarding Canada and Mexico. After a small amount of google-ing we noticed that there is a TON of information out there about polygamy in Mexico and Canada, but none of it was included in the Wiki. Max, in my opinion, did a great job at pulling out some of the most crucial of this information.
After working on this project I am a little hesitant about using Wikipedia. The information is written with such confidence that its sometimes really tough to figure out what is true and what is not. I feel like from now on I will be more interested in reading the sources from Wikipedia articles rather than just trusting them right off the bat. I think like more people should audit Wikis in order to fully understand the websites purpose.
A little about our process:
We first thought about splitting up the article into sections and tackling the assignment that way with each person focusing on a different section. Someone had the thought that it was possible for other sections to touch on each other and kind of tie the whole article together. For example, if there was something that could be considered 'missing' in one section, it was likely to be addressed in the next since the section titles were only loosely descriptive. This would cause more work than necessary to be done in the long run. Ultimately we decided to independently read the article and contrive our own thoughts about it then meet up and use what we agreed on as the premise for our project. It seemed to work out well because at the meeting we were all ready on track for determining bias and non-credible sources.
What we found:
After examining all of the sources cited in the Wiki article we found a considerable amount of information that was from Mormon websites. These articles and web references were mostly in support of Polygamy as a lifestyle dictated by religious practice. While there was nothing outlandish in most of the article's claims, just the nature of where they came from was suspect. Tom also noticed that there were four citations on one statistic that had little to do with the topic of the articles. We concluded that the Wiki got so diluted by users editing it that whatever statement was originally made got transformed into a small factoid.
Our Topic was Polygamy in NORTH AMERICA and we were surprised with the lack of information regarding Canada and Mexico. After a small amount of google-ing we noticed that there is a TON of information out there about polygamy in Mexico and Canada, but none of it was included in the Wiki. Max, in my opinion, did a great job at pulling out some of the most crucial of this information.
After working on this project I am a little hesitant about using Wikipedia. The information is written with such confidence that its sometimes really tough to figure out what is true and what is not. I feel like from now on I will be more interested in reading the sources from Wikipedia articles rather than just trusting them right off the bat. I think like more people should audit Wikis in order to fully understand the websites purpose.
Facebook Effect I
So Facebook... yeah. This social networking site has gone BEYOND being just a popular Internet outlet for people wishing to connect with friends. For some it has become a part of a lifestyle, for others it is life and for even more people is has become a second life. It is much more than your plain old social networking site. Never in my life have I seen something that makes people hate it so much and yet still use it... almost religiously. A friend of mine has deleted his Facebook three times now, always rebounding after about a week or so with some lame excuse like he doesn't know what events are happening when anymore. I find it really funny when people discuss things like how Facebook is so great, but dont understand how they can make money of the idea and keep doing all this stuff. You know that saying 'If you cant tell who the sucker is... than its YOU'? Well it works in this case too. If you cant figure out the product Facebook is selling, than its YOU!
So there's this website where you post all your personal information with a privacy policy that changes every two weeks that has been known to distribute the aforementioned personal info to advertising companies and government agencies. Try explaining that to someone thats never used to Facebook then convince them to join. I'm not too thrilled with the overwhelming popularity of Facebook and often wish that people would just let it go. By having most friends only communicate through this medium it has kept me on so far. Although I AM a Facebook user, I feel that at least I am not in denial about what it actually is and try to keep as little about myself on there as possible. This is has kind of been my personal outlook on Facebook and like most opinions could probably be totally argued against, but since no one comments on my blog I feel like I'm safe saying whatever I want. Let's move to the book.
The first section of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick tells the story of young Mark Zuckerberg as an undergrad student at Harvard who slowly developed one of the most influential pieces of Web 2.0. The first chapter is all about glorifying Zuckerberg as this greater-than-you, super academic mega-nerd that gets all the babes and loves his white board. This is the first problem I ran into while reading this book. It is SO apparent that Kirkpatrick loves Facebook. He's describing Zuckerberg as a hero of his time claiming that he's so creative and such a hard-worker and a 'deliberate' thinker. That having a conversation with the guy is a mind-opening experience. If you read any other objective writing about Zuckerberg, it kind of says the same sort of things, but he comes off as a huge jerk. As I am NOT a fan of Facebook, I all ready can tell that this book is gonna have some 'come on.... REALLY?!' moments in it.
My interpretation of the M.Zuck story would be more or less about how this privileged kid pissed off all his roommates by not cleaning up his garbage (its ok, he had a nanny when he was growing up!), then created some killer pieces of software that everyone loved. Proceeded to get his roommates involved with the creative process, thus gaining their friendship and then stole all their ideas and made a billion dollars. Definitely sounds like TIME's person of the year material to me. I suppose when the rest of the competition consists of people like LeBron James and Lady GaGa there isn't much hope left anyway. (TIME's Person of the Year 2010 Poll Results)
disclaimer: For those that couldn't really tell, this blog entry was sort of an experiment for me to be as bias on the opposite side of Kirkpatrick as possible and show that without objectivity it is difficult to create valid resources. Over the course of the hundred of so pages, Kirkpatrick makes some good points about the evolution of social networks and the technology behind it. I was just so struck by how he portrayed Mark Zuckerberg that all I wanted to do was write about how much he sucks. IRL I am much more willing to see both the positive and negative in any topic or situation , I assure you.
So there's this website where you post all your personal information with a privacy policy that changes every two weeks that has been known to distribute the aforementioned personal info to advertising companies and government agencies. Try explaining that to someone thats never used to Facebook then convince them to join. I'm not too thrilled with the overwhelming popularity of Facebook and often wish that people would just let it go. By having most friends only communicate through this medium it has kept me on so far. Although I AM a Facebook user, I feel that at least I am not in denial about what it actually is and try to keep as little about myself on there as possible. This is has kind of been my personal outlook on Facebook and like most opinions could probably be totally argued against, but since no one comments on my blog I feel like I'm safe saying whatever I want. Let's move to the book.
The first section of The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick tells the story of young Mark Zuckerberg as an undergrad student at Harvard who slowly developed one of the most influential pieces of Web 2.0. The first chapter is all about glorifying Zuckerberg as this greater-than-you, super academic mega-nerd that gets all the babes and loves his white board. This is the first problem I ran into while reading this book. It is SO apparent that Kirkpatrick loves Facebook. He's describing Zuckerberg as a hero of his time claiming that he's so creative and such a hard-worker and a 'deliberate' thinker. That having a conversation with the guy is a mind-opening experience. If you read any other objective writing about Zuckerberg, it kind of says the same sort of things, but he comes off as a huge jerk. As I am NOT a fan of Facebook, I all ready can tell that this book is gonna have some 'come on.... REALLY?!' moments in it.
My interpretation of the M.Zuck story would be more or less about how this privileged kid pissed off all his roommates by not cleaning up his garbage (its ok, he had a nanny when he was growing up!), then created some killer pieces of software that everyone loved. Proceeded to get his roommates involved with the creative process, thus gaining their friendship and then stole all their ideas and made a billion dollars. Definitely sounds like TIME's person of the year material to me. I suppose when the rest of the competition consists of people like LeBron James and Lady GaGa there isn't much hope left anyway. (TIME's Person of the Year 2010 Poll Results)
disclaimer: For those that couldn't really tell, this blog entry was sort of an experiment for me to be as bias on the opposite side of Kirkpatrick as possible and show that without objectivity it is difficult to create valid resources. Over the course of the hundred of so pages, Kirkpatrick makes some good points about the evolution of social networks and the technology behind it. I was just so struck by how he portrayed Mark Zuckerberg that all I wanted to do was write about how much he sucks. IRL I am much more willing to see both the positive and negative in any topic or situation , I assure you.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Obsolescence III
In this third installment of my interpretation of Giles Slade's book Made to Break I would like to focus specifically on a chapter titled 'Weaponizing Planned Obsolescence'. Right off the bat, this chapter title grabbed my attention. I was hoping that it would ultimately be where Slade gets into the nitty-gritty of how planned obsolescence is used as a weapon by companies against its consumers (cause that would be some interesting stuff!). To my slight dismay it focused much more on how planned obsolescence affected the evolution of actual weapons, which is still pretty cool, I guess.
The chapter starts out comparing the evolution of technology in the US to that of the Soviet Union. I feel like this is worth mentioning mostly because it directly relates to a previous blog entry that I wrote about the importance of the integrated circuitry. Apparently the USSR was about 10 years behind technologically than the US and this put us at a HUGE advantage when it came to weapons manufacturing. So I feel that its fair to update that not only has the integrated circuit allowed for a huge boom in technology at the time of its creation, it also had a large contribution to the sociopolitical efforts of the time.
Things start to get interesting when the USSR, in desperate need of this new technology (US embargo is preventing them from receiving it at this time), resort to espionage to acquire it. This is where the whole idea of planned obsolescence starts coming into play. Gus Weiss, a security adviser at the time, came up with the idea to let the Soviets get a hold of the technology, but plan for it to be obsolete shortly thereafter. They sold the Soviets chips that appeared to be normal, but would eventually cause 'catastrophic malfunctions'. As dirty and deceitful as this was, it was also brilliant. This forced me to take a different perspective on the idea of planned obsolescence. I cannot shake my initial feeling that its wrong, but at least now I believe I have a more objective look at the topic, having the ability to see both the positive and the negative.
I want to bring up, as a final point another statement that was mentioned in this chapter that really stood out to me.
"When people are persuaded, advertised, propagandized, and victimized into throwing away their cars every three years, their clothes twice yearly... then we may consider most other things fully obsolete." (Slade pg. 228)
This quote pretty much sums up what I believe is wrong with planned obsolescence. Especially where we stand today technologically. Don't you think we owe it to ourselves to just slow down for a minute? I guess that is just not the nature of our society though. On the plus side, if it bailed us out of a recession once, perhaps it will work again.
The chapter starts out comparing the evolution of technology in the US to that of the Soviet Union. I feel like this is worth mentioning mostly because it directly relates to a previous blog entry that I wrote about the importance of the integrated circuitry. Apparently the USSR was about 10 years behind technologically than the US and this put us at a HUGE advantage when it came to weapons manufacturing. So I feel that its fair to update that not only has the integrated circuit allowed for a huge boom in technology at the time of its creation, it also had a large contribution to the sociopolitical efforts of the time.
Things start to get interesting when the USSR, in desperate need of this new technology (US embargo is preventing them from receiving it at this time), resort to espionage to acquire it. This is where the whole idea of planned obsolescence starts coming into play. Gus Weiss, a security adviser at the time, came up with the idea to let the Soviets get a hold of the technology, but plan for it to be obsolete shortly thereafter. They sold the Soviets chips that appeared to be normal, but would eventually cause 'catastrophic malfunctions'. As dirty and deceitful as this was, it was also brilliant. This forced me to take a different perspective on the idea of planned obsolescence. I cannot shake my initial feeling that its wrong, but at least now I believe I have a more objective look at the topic, having the ability to see both the positive and the negative.
I want to bring up, as a final point another statement that was mentioned in this chapter that really stood out to me.
"When people are persuaded, advertised, propagandized, and victimized into throwing away their cars every three years, their clothes twice yearly... then we may consider most other things fully obsolete." (Slade pg. 228)
This quote pretty much sums up what I believe is wrong with planned obsolescence. Especially where we stand today technologically. Don't you think we owe it to ourselves to just slow down for a minute? I guess that is just not the nature of our society though. On the plus side, if it bailed us out of a recession once, perhaps it will work again.
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