looking back...

As the semester and school year close out, I take a look around and think about each class individually as an experience and hopefully that of learning. Some of the classes-mainly gen-eds are 98.2% busywork and often I find myself walking away with little or nothing to take away for the future.

On a more positive note...this IT class really taught me quite a bit and the range of the information which I gained from the class expands beyond the realms of IT, but is important in marketing, communication, finance, and almost every aspect of business and life. The many uses of both social networking and blogging are infinite.

Whether you're looking for a place to live, a bed for your apartment, a date on a Saturday night, an internship or job in August, or something to read when you're bored at night...blogs and social networks are the answer. Ten minutes ago I was reading an article from Forbes that I read on Digg which was about a man who found his wife on CraigsList while just trying to sell his sofa -- Check it out!

Coming in all shapes, forms, styles, and sizes blogs are helpful in many ways from finding the best product, price, restaurant, or reading about the latest car introduces 8 minutes ago at the Toyko Auto Show.

After taking this class, I realize the expanse of the Internet and its application in almost every aspect of life. All I can say is that due to the aforementioned reasons, i'm glad to be an IT major. ... not to mention the job opportunity and demand for IT majors in the workforce at an all time high!

On that note, I'm looking forward to a relaxing summer break.

-Alex Yale

GoLoco - Want to Carpool with...SoccerDude928?

social networking is being used to connect both people whom know each other and those who don't. many sites have a niche in the social networking society like college students, business professionals, singles (white, black, green, and blue), musicians..and the list goes on.

i'm sure there exists a social network for everything you are interested and anything you might hold in common with somebody. just when you thought this was the case...then there came another social network.

what do we have today? GoLoco.

GoLoco is a social networking site started by one of the founders of Zip Car which " is a service that helps people quickly arrange ride sharing between friends, neighbors, and colleagues. We also handle online payments from passengers to drivers for their share of the trip costs." -goloco.org

weirded out yet?

How Does it Work? -- GoLoco enables users to create a profile which has a picture of them, their interests, hobbies, friends (users), and college/university/employer with which they are associated.

On your profile you also post trips you are going on or trips you want to go on. This allows users to search through all the trips posted on the website and find a ride to a place where they too are going. Whether you're going somewhere, or want to get a ride to somewhere you post to either find a ride or give one. What i find to be interesting about GoLoco is that if you're somebody who has a car and can get somewhere on his/her own...the incentive is that you can charge for a ride to/from where you're going.

"While you can pick people up just for the sake of it, the website is also set up with money in mind. If you choose not to do it for free, the passenger pays a share of the total cost - and it will be deposited in the driver’s account (with the exception of 10%, which goes to the website) before you even meet each other. Assuming the driver doesn’t just ditch and keep the money, one person has gotten the ride they needed and the other now has more cash." - GoLoco Blog Write-Up

This is an interesting concept and use of a social network in that it can definitely help the environment out...less cars on the road, but it can also save somebody some money if they're going somewhere that somebody else needs to go.

While all this sounds find and dandy..the real question is how safe is finding somebody to carpool with online? At the inception of online dating - many were skeptical about meeting people whom they met online in person in a crowded restaurant in downtown DC. How do you feel about SoccerDude928 who you meet online coming to your house and you getting in their car for a 3 hour trip up to Philadelphia?

luckily -- GoLoco has thought about the safety aspect and has enabled users who have ridden with people to post comments and ratings about them. So if BeerBoy82 rode with JBWilson last week from DC to Annapolis he can write "Bad driver, smokes with the windows up -- don't recommend." Also, you can view people you have in common so if you see your friend Bill is a friend of SoccerDude928's then you can ask Bill about it. Thirdly, one of the important safety features is that if worst comes to worst....GoLoco sends your trip plans to a "secure buddy" that you have designated (friend, girlfriend, neighbor...) so that if you don't show up after 8 days at least somebody has some idea of who you drove with and to where.

even with the aforementioned safety restrains in place...i still feel like though its a great concept, it requires a lot of users to be signed up and a lot of feedback to be available in order for people to feel comfortable enough to drive with SoccerDude928. I just don't think we're quite ready to instill this kind of trust...yet in an age where somebody we require to have 90%+ feedback before we dare buy a $14 dollar item from them on eBay!

....a comment on one of the writeups I saw regarding GoLoco stated, "Why don’t they just make a website where you volunteer to get raped and dismembered? It’d save a step."

blogs and social networks can what...SAVE YOU MONEY!?!?

thats right....you head it (hopefully not for the first time)...a lot of blogs out there can help you save money

SlickDeals
Techdeals
SteepAndCheap

...only to name a few.

these blogs are collectively added on to by users updating the website with the most current deals, coupons, and offers ranging from free scoops at Ben & Jerry's to a wireless mouse deal after a coupon and mail-in-rebate at RadioShack. I'm a big fan of these websites and consult them on a daily basis whether i'm in the market for a product or not. However, if you're not somebody like me who has a list of websites in their browser that they check on a daily basis, then you should definitily use a website like Techdeals if you're in the market for something like a computer monitor, external hard drive, or digital camera. Techdeals has listings of where you can find the cheapest deals on products including incentives like Google Checkout, store percentage discounts, and mail-in rebates.

The other websites that I linked to above, such as Woot.com, and SteepAndCheap.com, both have daily deals where the product changes every day. Each product is the only one sold on the website at the time and the quantity is unknown so it may run out at any time.

With social and collaborative websites such as techdeals and slickdeals, users get the most for their money when buying online. This is an aspect of social networking that we have really not touched upon in class. Though we have discussed the important of users explaining and reviewing products they buy...this give users a central location to which they can post good deals they find when browsing everyday websites.

NOW.....using social networks and blogs, we now have the capability to find products, get reviews, find the best deals, learn how to use them, learn how to fix them, and finally, learn how to sell them as used when you're done! We have come full circle.

A WIRED Interview with Eric Schmidt: Google's CEO and the Interesting Concepts he explores.

so web 2.0 is all about user collaboration and user created content. it has proved that the web is now more geared toward the user and that it is more of an interactive medium that the viewing/reading medium it was not long ago. a definition of web 2.0 which I actually came up with states "Web 2.0 is the second generation of the world wide web which enables users to take a more active approach to the content available, as well as provide them with the opportunity to share and collaborate their thoughts, ideas, and interests with the world via a virtual connection."

as I was reading the articles posted for this class...i kind of drifted off of the realm of CRM capabilities online....and wandered to a homeland of sorts -- digg.com. as i was browsing the headlines to see what's new in the technology world I ran into an article from Wired which was an interview with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt. it highlighted a few major and interesting points.

- Web 2.0 enables any company or venture enter the market (like yahoo, ebay, google) which are all companies which make money in different ways.
-The fact that most web 2.0 technology and software is often free or very cheap due to the fact that money can often be made and especially specialized advertising like Google's AdSense
-Cloud Computer? - Internet as an operating system -- This concept explores the need for programs to exist on one's personal computer....or lack there of .

this third point of cloud computing was most interesting to me. the truth is that with programs like google docs, thumbstacks, basecamp, gmail and the list goes on....there really is no need for having computer software downloaded to our hard drives and paying for software when you can simply use a web app found on a server in the clouds for your every need. Schmidt even talks about the possibility that we can write a document on say....GoogleDocs on the airplane, and when we are reconnected to the internet the Document will then save to the server. Such a thing is impossible now but will one day be possible says Schmidt.

No need for me to summarize the entire article seeing I think you should read it as it is both relevant and interesting! Here's the link: Text of Wired's Interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt

in conclusion....i would like end with a statement made by Schmidt towards the end of the interview which poses an interesting questions....is it true? what do you think?

"I would argue that we in the industry forgot this. We became as a group - certainly I did - consumed with the complexity of the systems that we were building for powerful corporations, and we forgot that there's a much larger market around consumers for simple solutions."

home for passover...

while i was home for passover i realized some stuff.

1) the older generation as a whole is really unwilling to accept the extreme change in technology and its great effect on business, communication, and collaboration. not only do many of those who are involved in small businesses remain unaware of up and coming technologies, but they don't have the motivation that large corporations do to change.

Large companies such as GEICO or some mentioned in the articles who are utilizing or trying out programs like Basecamp have the departments or employees who are up to date on technology and provide IT solutions which make it possible for these companies to advance and use the new technology available to their benefit. Small businesses and businesses without money available for such allocation do not grasp such new technologies and may be hurt as a result. For these reasons, older generations currently occupying a major sector of the work force is unaware of the abilities that the internet and social networks provide...and are therefore unwilling to accept and adapt to new methods of interaction.

2) there was a couple at my house who met about 2 months ago on craigslist classifieds...who would think to post their profile there compared to a known dating site like match.com or jdate?

amazingly, for such a simple interface, it seems that craigs list really encompasses an plethora of opportunities and information...strange how a website that appears so old and simplistic can still be so effective and useful.

i know this post was short and random....but just some real life issues that I had encountered , and thought about during my few days home.

its all about who you know...and how well you know them.

networking. the single most important thing to do in business.

benefits of networking:
finding:
- customers
- clients
- partners
- employees
- manufacturers
- investors
- babysitters
- internships
- jobs
- opportunities
- a wife/husband
...and the list goes on.

bottom line is that networking is the way you meet people. whether you're at the campus cafeteria and you meet a friend through another friend, or you're at one of those Kogod sponsored networking receptions....the person you meet in Terrace Dining Room may be more, less, or un-important as the big business man you met at the reception. personally, i feel that there is no harm in meeting people and from everybody you meet, chances are that you'll grasp or think about at least one thing they did or said...or get one internship, or meet one person they know which will change your life in some way.

as far back as I can remember....every job i've ever had was because of a connection i've made, most times, somebody i knew who knew somebody else passed my resume along...or somebody my parents knew had some tie to something.

"It's not what you know, but who you know." (Don't know who said that..its just a cliche, but a true one at that.)

story time:
so remember that flight i was on last week from Madrid to JFK? yea--the one that caught on fire. well, i was sitting next to women who was an IT major at University of Michigan and now works for Nokia in the technology department. She basically talks to third party vendors and finds software for nokia to use with their phones....well yea, we schmoozed. And I got her card and emailed her and....lets hope I have an internship with Nokia next summer!
(no bull)

to conclude my argument on the importance of making connections and networking.....no matter who is or where you are, we all have something to gain from one and other, whether it be one of those things i listed in the beginning...or even finding out something you don't want to do or somewhere you don't want to work. I interned last fall at Simon Property Group in Arlington, VA....and though the stuff they had me doing was tedious (I was a marketing specialization at the time)....the internship was successful. It was successful because I was able to realize what i didn't want to do...marketing. therefore, even if what you get from meeting somebody is not a positive experience, chances are you'll benefit in some way.

linked here is an article I found which is relevant to my discussion and this week's reading entitled "It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in The Information Age"

blogging for a purpose

rather than reflecting on blogging and its connection and effect on politics this post is an experiment. Over spring break five of my friends and I decided to do an alternate spring break trip and venture to Spain with nothing but airline tickets and apartment and hostel reservations. Surprisingly, we made great use of all our days abroad and saw what there was to see in the cities as far as official tourism as well as a fair share of things that the Spanish government doesn’t support nor seem to prosecute – like hookers, beer vendors, and drug dealers who line “Las Ramblas” any night after about 1AM. Needless to say, with six best friends in Spain for eight days we had an awesome trip, however, the airline was the only damper. Anyway—the experiment I was going for in this blog was to post about my horrible experience on Iberia Airlines with a picture and see what kind of out-of-class reaction this can/ or will stir up.

on the way to Barcelona, other than about four gate changes connecting in Madrid to reach Barcelona and rude flight attendants – everything went fairly smoothly, that is, other than the landing in Barcelona. The only time I feel Iberia really screwed up was with the flight from Madrid back to JFK. After arriving at the airport we all check in at the ticket counter and are told that since the flight was oversold we don’t have seats and had to take all of our luggage and standby vouchers to a customer service desk. The good news is—they were able to get us seats. Arriving at the gate the flight was delayed 30 minutes for maintenance reasons and then we were able to board the plane. Everything goes smoothly…we take off, and then about 8 minutes later the pilot comes over the P.A. telling us that one of our engines overheated and we need to make an emergency landing back in Madrid. As we touch the ground the aircraft was surrounded by emergency vehicles (fire, police, ambulance) and then we were asked to disembark the plane. Here’s a picture I took from the jet-bridge as we were going back into the airport:




As it turned out, one of the engines had overheated, caught on fire, and was sprayed down by the fire crew. I would think that if they knew it was a problem they wouldn’t put some duct take on and send us on our way across the Atlantic…maybe its just standard procedure. After two hours of sitting in the Airport we were finally able to board a new aircraft and make our way to New York. My friends and I are still trying to come up with an acronym for I B E R I A. Any ideas?

Incompetently
Bringing
Everybody
Roughly
Into
Airports

Hopefully this will let the company know that they really need to get their act together, and possibly some free tickets to Spain for myself? Come on Iberia ....challenge my blog!

tom kyte & his second life/(job)

tom's presentation to the class was great in that we spoke to and met first hand one of the largest bloggers on the web. it was interesting to hear blogging from his point of view and hear about his beginnings in blogging on cnet news groups.

one of my favorite parts of the lecture was when he showed us a few of the websites that he gets his news from including FARK.COM which I thought was hilarious and read it on a daily basis now.

Aside from tom kyte, tomorrow I will be giving a presentation on Second Life. after spending a lot of time playing the game and becoming familiar with it, it is really impressive all that can be done in the game. With Dell Island, American Apparall Store, and millions of users, business, and services available there is so much to be done, learned, and profited on.

....i can't believe that in this day in age it is possible for one to profit off of a virtual reality. Sim city was one thing where users throughout the world had the ability to interact with each other and live together in another life. I was reading an article about Anshe Chung who was the first man to make $1,000,000 on Second Life. Check out the article from "Business Week"

let me know what you guys think about this new ability to make money in second life.

Do Small Indepndent e-commerce Stores Have a Chance?

reading "Are Online Reputations Portable?" from business week not only got me thinking about how powerful reputations are on eBay, but it made me go off track and think about the reputations of small independent e-commerce retailers...once in a while everybody goes on to google and types in an item they're looking to buy and one of the first links is one of these independent e-tailers...for example, if i want to buy a laptop battery for my computer i typed "buy laptop battery" into google and one of the first links that came up was www.batteryvalues.com here's my issue: you go to the site and it looks like it was made in 1999 for starters...then if I weren't so bias I might go ahead and look at the site but i'm just not sure if i trust it.

when i buy things on eBay the good news is I do have the ratings...but that eBay scale of reputation really doesn't go beyond eBay itself. unfortunately on batteryvalues.com doesn't have an area on their page where there are thousands of customer reviews and if they did, i'm not so sure they'd include the negatives! IM SORRY! I just need the reassurance of "A++++++ SELLER, FAST SHIPPING + GREAT PRODUCT!!!!". Sad, but I don't think i'm alone when I like that reassurance.

going back to the battervalues.com example, for multiple reasons I don't think that i'm highly likely to go on a website i've never heard of before and enter my credit card information. i'm not a big fan of website where i think i'm going to pay and pray that it comes within the next month. this said, i feel as if all of the small independent e-tailers that had been prevalent on the web landscape for years and soon going to diminish. just like on land where Wal-Marts and Super-Duper-Everything-Stores begin to dot the landscape and in turn Joe Bob's Mom & Pop Grocery Shop begin to turn into a Wal-Mart, or maybe one aisle within....as huge e-stores such as Amazon, OverStock, even Wal-Mart begin to gain support (as they already have) don't you think stores like batteryvalues.com and other sites like buy rite electronics have an end in sight? though one can argue that its easier to compete online without a storefront because of less overhead costs that it must still be heard to earn a good living competing against fortune 500 companies traded on the NYSE or NASDAQ?

Do you think that the trend of mom and pop shops being closed by Wal-Marts opening on main street will continue on e-street?

Let me know what you think?

i digg it...

before reading the article I was already extremely familiar with Digg. not only is it a great news source but it was an idea that somebody thought of which costs next to nothing to create, and as the economist states--its now worth about 200 million. pretty crazy.

as i'm already particularly familiar with digg.com i think i'm going to venture off topic and talk about the future. smart mobs brings up the future and how within two minutes somebody who was walking in NYC got a message on their cell phone that the first sept. 11 plane had hit. is this the future? NOT ANYMORE!

so these days we vote on the news everybody reads (pretty democratic), many of us carry our lives in our pockets with our PDAs and Blackberrys....email, telephone, web browsing, chatting, instant messaging, phone book, you name it...possibilities with technology are endless. so this brings me to my question-what's next? Sure there's going to be better websites which start popping out of your computer screen, and make food for you, but as far as computer technology, what will we be able to do with out computers in 20 years?

So far in this class we have already shown how these days you can:
- Vote on the news
-Control your life with your PDA
-Reach millions of people with a blog
-Market a product with a blog
-Find user reviews and best prices on products (with a blog too!)

while i was thinking about what capabilities we now have just as a result of blogs I went online and looked to find an article about the future of blogging. Though the article is entitled "The Future of the Blog" it doesn't directly answer that question. However, after reading this article from Business Week it is interesting to hear about the beginning of blogging as well as the challenges blog hosts face, the myths of blogging, their design issues, and most importantly, how bloggs effect societal views. If you have a minute check it out.

As I conclude, please provide me with how YOU THINK blogs of the future will differ from...this very blog or those viewed today?
....to get you thinking maybe the ability for a user to upload songs and movie clips using this simplistic blogger?

PLEASE COMMENT and let me know what you think!

Blogs: Good or Bad for Corporate Giants?

some of the posted readings for tomorrow's class were based upon the way large corporations could benefit or be at a disadvantage as a result of the blogosphere we live in today. the article along with the other article on the Business Week website highlights how users utilize bloggs and other forms of social networks to gang up and discuss issues they have regarding products, services, or the quality of a company. the internet and in blogs specifically are the first place where customers or people who own the same products from all over the country and the world can get together and openly discuss something. the beauty of it is that chances are that one of the people who is having the issue might be a specialist in that certain field of technology....this possibility often provides solutions to a common problem people seem to have with the same product or service. For example, the article in the Financial Times posted as a link in the syllabus speaks of a Verizon Motorola V710 cell phone. It talks about how VZW decided to ban bluetooth file transfer between the users' PC and their Motorola device. Users complained to the company and blogged about the issue online. Soon enough, a computer or cell phone genius in this case came up with a way to connect the phone to the computer using loopholes in the block. prior to the advent and high use of bloggs and online open forums no solution or group lawsuit could be filed. I was one of these users, whom found this blog using google and was again able to connect my phone to the computer to transfer files via bluetooth. Companies can be hurt by negative press which flows on bloggs between users...however, if users love products then blogs could really enhance the image of the product and give raving reviews on products that are not widely known. After reading this post, please vote by clicking the link below and if you care to-- explain your answer as a comment. Thanks!

http://snappoll.com/poll/169988.php

its not all about the microchips and web standards...

i usually start my posts with a quote, though it might cliche i feel as if it sets the tone and subject of the discussion early on in the game....

"The personal computer and the Internet would not exist as they do today without extraordinary collaborative enterprises in which acts of cooperation were as essential as microprocessors." (Rheingold 47).

keeping this blog entry short and sweet i feel as if sometime we tend to overlook the fact that its not the technological innovations and software advance which has brought the Internet to where it is today...its you....its me...its nearly every computer user throughout the world. Whether we look at the commerce that online community has bread through online retailers like Amazon, auction websites like eBay, and community commerce such as CraigsList...or we just look at news, blog, and other community supported web developments. What I have gained from reading this passage in the Mobs book...is that everything, including the blog for this class has only become what it has because of the users whom interact and make the internet what it is today. Without social networks and niches within the blogging community and virtually anywhere on the net....the internet and the accessibility given to its users would not exist today and would certainly not have brought the full value which it does to our lives on a daily basis. whether I'm searching for a product on eBay or amazon....or looking for the latest car information...the information i request or seek would not be available to me today if it weren't for the users throughout the world. though microprocessors and broadband connection does speed the process up, without social networks and e-communities, the internet would not be as successful and vibrant as it is today.

after watching the optional panel videos from the university of santa clara...i truly believe in this final statement:

"The foundations of the Internet were created by the community of creators as a gift to the community of users (Rheingold, 48)."

is the world really that small?

reading up on Kadushin's article posted on blackboard it was interesting to see how small the world is. the eye catching beginning to a paragraph which said "If there were no overlap in people’s personal networks, then one could reach the entire population of the
United States in two or three steps. (Pool and Kochen 1978). " I was frankly frightened by that fact, but in reality, in contrast, the world is huge. Last class i'm sure everybody remembers using that Small World Project website hosted by Columbia University in NYC and let me tell you something....this ain't no small world. As my people to connect to I had some 60 year old lady living in the United States Virgin Islands....I think the closes i came was being in the U.S.V.I. on a cruise a couple years back, other than that I couldn't think of a single person who I actually knew firsthand who might actually be connected to Agnes out in the U.S.V.I..

Still think the world is small? Consider this -- over 6,000 people PER DAY die in car accidents in the United States alone. If the world was that small, then I figure myself or a friend would know at least one of these people....but NO, no sign of connection or poor friends or family that died today in a car accident.

As I was reading the article on blackboard I also found an article in my defense which states how the world isn't too small after all from an IT perspective! Better yet- this article came from an IT Blog called ITToolbox --- Check it out here!

though this was a short post I feel as if reading the article linked above will give everybody the other side of the Small World argument. And if it fails to counter the argument posed in the reading as well as the small world project then it does provide some interesting reading material from an IT sense. Please feel free to respond to this post and the linked article I thought might be interesting especially for all you business majors out there!

blogs never sieze to amaze me....

ok. well i sat down to write this blog post after reading the selected chapters in "The Hidden Power of Social Networks" and "Smart Mobs". In between reading the chapters and actually writing in this blog I went on to one of the social networks/blogs that I read on a daily basis. For privacy purposes I won't disclose this particular blog at the current time. However, I was reading posted articles from today and I came across an article entitled "Seattle dealership rips off disabled man." While reading the headline I was thinking about a girl I dated last year from AU whose father owned a few dealerships in the Seattle area....low and behold. It was a dealership that her father was part-owner of. On the blog entry I was reading was an link to a Seattle newspaper with a picture of her parents on it. CRAZY. I will now go into the importance and effectiveness of social networking however, I thought this might be a rather relevant story to share with the class while on the topic of social connection through blogs and networks. Clearly, this exemplified the 6 Degrees of Separation topic of our class and how strange it is that I found this on a blog I read which practically quotes a girl whom has now transferred but I was dating only a year ago.

...Now on to some intelligent discussion:

From reading the chapters assigned for class I pulled a few major point which really struck me as important and the true reasons why I personally love to read blogs which interest and pertain to me (like the one listed (or rather unlisted) above). Since I've already started off this blog entry on a personal note -- for the day, i'll keep it that way.

A quote from "The Hidden Power of Social Networks" states that "engineers and scientists were roughly five times as likely to turn to a personal for information as to an impersonal source such as a database or a file cabinet..."

This is 100% true. The reason I read blogs is because I read the ones that interest me, and it serves as a newspaper which only focuses on one of the things I love -- such as cars. Sure, I can read the NY Times, or the Washington Post, but if I love cars, how many articles are going to talk about cars directly 1? 2 if i'm lucky? The beauty of social networks and blogs is that they are so personalized that reading a car blog for me is like a NY Times without the stuff I don't care about like....politics, the price of houses in Bobsville, Missouri...a State Rep who used state funds to buy a cottage... Hope that wasn't too ignorant of a comment. It all boils down to the availability of specialized knowledge and information which can only be found online through blogs and social networks, the NY Times or Washington Post is great if want to know what's going on in politics or global warming for the day, but if I want the latest information on technology or cars I turn to the social world online. For such reasons above, social networks and the opportunity to be anonymous are great ways to find specialized information about virtually anything you want to know...anything you're trying to do....or anything you want to discuss.

If anybody has any feedback on this -- feel free to respond.

Hey!
I am a student at American University this will be an IT blog which will deal with discussion about technology and the way it really molds social interaction and networking. This is partially for a class and also for communication and interactive discussion.

"On my honor, all of these posts are my own."