response to ‘Social Media Project Readings’

Twitter is a service I feel is here to stay. The concept of micro-blogging and sharing short anecdotal stories, news or events have become a popular shift in Internet usage. Twitter provides a platform for users to connect and share information in real time. With the ability to ‘follow’ users who are leaders in communities like the tech, music or academic spaces, we can become active contributors to conversations or simply consume the information provided.

When a user does become an active participant and post relevant or useful information about a particular area of interest (for example Scobleizer and tech) they become an information source. I would consider myself an information seeker, as I do not post often and check Twitter for news and other information since I primarily follow leaders in the tech and design industry.

Twitter can be a very useful tool; if you build your network around members who are well connected and privy to information and share often, Twitter can be used like a filter for information or put another way, a form of curation. It is because of this characteristic that Twitter does not have the same intentions as Facebook in relation to how they function as a web platform. Twitter is a microblog that globally connects its users to form networks of communities on the Internet, however it seems Facebook wants to become the Internet rather than a platform for social networking on the Internet.

In The Great Wall of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg describes Facebook as being, “more personalized, humanized Web, where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary source of information, just as it is offline”. Which in other words means that instead of searching for information through a search engine, say Google for example, we will find it more efficient to ask our friends for perhaps programming advice, the cost of a book or pair of shoes and cures for illnesses. I interpret this implication as being not only arrogant, but also an inaccurate perception of what people actually use Facebook for.

As we discussed in class, no one would ever consult their Facebook friends for health advice or information that would be considered extremely personal. I think this view is just a misconception of why we use a platform like Facebook for communicating to our friends and a different platform like Google or Amazon for search. Saying that people are going to use Facebook in same ways they communicate in real life is a delusion of grandeur. Striving to become a replacement for Google is a concept that will never manifest itself, the two platforms serve two different functions, plain and simple.

When reading Why they Future Doesn’t Need Us, I had not noticed that the article was written almost 12 years ago until I was nearly half way through it. As fast as we have experienced the growth rate of technologies over the past 10 years, there are concepts and discoveries of technologies that have been documented a decade ago, but have not been a highly discussed matter in the mass media. The concept of living amongst robots is not a new one, but as we continually develop new technological capabilities with the advent of nanotechnologies, we are moving closer to robots, engineered organisms, self-replicating nanobots and possibly moving beyond earth for survival while the development of these technologies take place behind closed doors. I thought the article discussed many important points that are still viable today, if we are to successfully implement nanotechnologies and the use of more electronically embedded objects we must be made aware of the potential negative outcomes and for this to happen more people need to be vocal about these possibilities.

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