I recently read a rather sad article about a woman named Shana Greatman Swers who posted just about everything on her Facebook. Which sounds a bit odd, but I can assure you that it's worth reading.
When Shana and her husband Jeff found out they were going to have a baby she posted over the next eight months the joys of pregnancy. Even during some of her scariest moments, she still posted about her health and medical conditions on her Facebook. In this article you will see a story line of her most popular posts. I highly recommend that you read them, it's a very moving story.
Recently on Facebook you might of noticed that some of your friends changed their profile pictures to a familiar cartoon, along with this message as their status...
"Change your FB profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood. The goal? To not see a human face on FB till Monday, December 6th. Join the fight against child abuse! Copy and paste to your status to invite your friends"
So, now that you've learned why your friends have been changing their profile pictures, are you going to change yours and help join the fight against child abuse? I did, my profile picture is currently a picture of Angelica from my favorite Nickelodeon show, Rugrats. What childhood cartoon character would you be?
Here is an interesting article I just found, by ABC News discussing the Facebook Viral Fad's. This weekend's Profile Picture changes is discussed as well as some other viral changes that have occurred in the past.
For example some of you may remember the Breast Cancer Awareness Fad last year when women were putting their bra color as their status or this year's changing your status to wear you put your purse "I like it on the..." or even Doppelganger Week. Any of these Facebook fad's sound familiar...well this week's fad is to help join the fight against child abuse. Will you?
Below are pictures of popular TV shows from our childhood. Look Familiar?
Earlier this week, a family friend contacted me and my mom saying that she had found a stray dog outside her apartment and needed help finding him a home. After hearing the sad news my mom and I quickly posted a little note on our Facebook walls along with a picture...
My Wallpost: "I have a friend that found a stray lab mix eating garbage that is looking for a home. Here's a little note from her: I took it home to give to a shelter & turns out the only DC shelters are kill shelters. He is very sweet, plays well w/other dogs, is +/- 9 mos old, still has most of his puppy teeth, probably 30 lbs & will only fill out after he's cared for. He's black & looks just like a lab only skinnier. He responds well to correction and she is calling him Gordon. This puppy needs a home, please let me know if you are interested!"
Within an hour we had found 2 great options for Gordon, either a foster home or a permanent family. Someone had commented that she has "a friend through a friend from work" who was looking for a dog. After being connected through a quick Facebook message, we were able to get a name and number to set up a meeting. Two days later, Gordon is now home.
It was so amazing to see how many people responded so quickly to our posts. This wonderful puppy now has a safe home and a loving family that will take care of him...all thanks to Facebook and our friends for caring!
I recently came across a web series, on Hulu while searching around the site; the web series is called The LXD, also known as The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. These dancers are specially chosen to become a part of The LXD, because their specific style of dance has a power that protects them. The LXD is what brings all of these special dancers together at a special school, where they learn new tricks and the importance of being apart of this group. While you wouldn't of been able to figure this all out by the first 14 minute episode, you will continue to learn this throughout seasons one and two. In episode one, as you will see below, is about one of the first dancers chosen for The LXD.
I personally was quite intrigued by the first episode, mostly because I am a dancer but also because it just left me guessing and wanting more. As a dancer I've always been a huge fan of So You Think You Can Dance and well in some of these episodes if you also are too you may recognize some familiar faces. But primarily Twitch from Season 4 and Season 7 as an "All-Star Dancer," he was also in last week's episode of Bones. In The LXD, he is an instructor's assistant, students teacher, and lastly a performer.
I think that this web series has good potential, and considering they already have a Season 2 it must be doing good. What I think makes this series special, is the simple yet unique story line and how every single dancer's artistic talent is portrayed. Although their acting might not be as good as their dancing skills, I still think they play it off well.
As we discussed in class, one of the problems we found with the youtube videos was that you couldn't just play one after another, continuously and without any advertisements. But on Hulu, you are capable of doing so; by turning on the "autoplay button," in the bottom left corner of the video, it will play all of the videos, in order, and with limited commercials.
If you have some free time and enjoy watching very talented dancers, I would highly recommend this web series!
So after reading Bill's blog, it shed a new perspective of vlogging for me. While I also am not a vlogger or a vlog follower, primarily because I don't get the purpose of it. I don't have as strong of an opinion towards vlogging like Bill, largely because I don't watch them or have any desire to watch them, or in the end I just don't care. But after watching the video of "The Shaytards" on Bill's blog, for some reason I found humor in watching the video of this man. So I decided to check out more of his vlogs; below is one of their most recent posts that I found interesting.
As you'll see, from watching the above video, for the Shaytards, making vlogs has become more then just entertainment, it made them famous...well sort of. Here is why, after taking a photo with their iPhone and posting it on their site, Custard Records contacted the family asking for the rights to one of their photos. All because James Blunt was searching around the internet, came across them, saw the picture and decided to use it as his album cover.
Like I said earlier, I'm not a follower of vlogs but after watching the Shaytards, I might become a daily follwer...keyword might. Which most likely is not going to happen.
While scanning through Twitter, earlier this week, I came across a tweet from NowPublic that read "Alexandra Tobias Guilty of Killing Son Who Interrupted Farmville." After reading this tweet I clicked the link and continued to read more on the story, where I was shocked to find that "Alexandra Tobias, 22, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after shaking her three month old baby Dylan Lee Edmondson to death." In the anotherarticlefrom CBS News, it mentions that she became very angry with her son, because he was crying while she was playing Farmville, causing her to shake him. After doing so, she then decided to go outside for a little break, smoke a cigarette while composing herself, later returning inside, to shake her child again, while possibly hitting his head and killing him. Alexandra pleaded guilty on Wednesday, currently remains in jail and will be sentenced in December. State guidelines call for 25-50 years, while her prosecutor said it could be shorter.
I personally am not a Farmville player, I do know people whom are avid players on, while the other hand I know some who just play when their bored. But to think that while playing this game you could get so angry from your own child that you would go so far as to killing him, seems a bit insane. Although I don't want to judge by the picture above, I'm sorry but I just have to...she looks crazy. I hope that serves her full 50 years, because killing your child because he/she is interrupting your Farmville/Facebook session is absolutely ridiculous.
If there are any Farmville users out there reading this, I hope that the next time you play; be sure to take a break, calm down and let your farm animals eat.
Do you know know why most Social Network Sites are blue?
For example: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Tumblr, Flickr, Digg, FourSquare and more.
A little unknown fact about Mark Zukerberg, after reading the article, The Face of Facebook, I found that the reason why Facebook is blue is because the founder Zukerberg is red-green color blind, causing blue to be the only color he can see. He said, "blue is the richest color for me - I can see all of blue." But is there a connection as to why all of the other Social Network sites are blue or is is just a common theme?
Studies have shown that because much of the world is blue (skies, seas), seeing the color blue causes the body to produce chemicals that are calming; but that isn't true for all shades of blue. Over the ages blue has become associated with steadfastness, dependability, wisdom and loyalty. People tend to be more productive in a blue room because they are calm and focused on the task at hand. Some other studies are showing that weight lifters can lift more weight in a blue gym - in fact, nearly all sports are enhanced in blue surroundings.
Did you know any of this, because I didn't. After reading about the studies found I began to think if this was possible or true. When connecting the studies found and how most of the Social Network sites are blue, do you think the designers do this to make the users more focused and productive when on their sites? Which could then cause them to get more users, or is it just a coincidence that blue is the common theme.
Earlier this week I found anarticleabout the concern for Facebook's users whom could possibly be friends with Federal Agents and not know it. More specifically the concern that these agents are using their Facebook friendship as a tool for spying. I think the bigger concern should be that Federal Agents are not the only ones spying, it was found that Government could even be using their privileges to spy. In another article, someone commented on how the Government is not only using Facebook, but also Twitter, Myspace, Craigslist and Wikipedia.
How would you feel if you found out that one of your actual friends or even just one of your "Facebook Friends" was using the information you post against you. Would you be upset? While, I know I have nothing specific to hide, I still believe that there should be a thicker line on privacy from the government. Or do you believe this is a good thing, as it could possibly help the country and our safety?
Well after reading this article I decided to try it it out. I located the Terms and Conditions page, which then brought me to the Copyright page, which then directed me to the Help Center Page. I then searched "death" in the "what can we help you with?" box, here is what I found..
I found this to be very interesting, especially the first suggested Q&A, "I'd like to report a deceased user's account that is appearing in my Suggestions." Which is exactly what had happened to the woman, in one of our articles we read this week, and has probably happened to many of us before.
I have found that the list of people that pop-up as "suggested friends" or "reconnect with" sometimes scares me. When seeing these profiles of friends that have passed is startling to think that although they have passed they still exist in the virtual world. While this may be the case for many of you, I instead begin to think think of the good memories I've shared with that person. Which brings me to the other side bar pop-up, "photo memories," this is sometimes refreshing to see old photos with friends and/or family. On the other hand, it doesn't bring back those good memories, which then causes me to click the "X" button hoping it never pops up again.
So I ask you now, what would you want done with your Facebook after you pass? As mentioned in the in the article I posted earlier, the writer jokingly suggests "you might want to put this in your will or something, if you have one."
It's weird to think that this could be something we will have to do in the near future...
If you were to think about it at this very moment, you probably wouldn't be able to come up with a solid definition. Because if you're really thinking about this, nothing in the world today is private, but according to the dictionary privacy is defined as "the quality of being secluded from the presence or view of others." Earlier this week we discussed the news on the Rutgers student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after his roommate allegedly streamed his gay tryst online using a Webcam and posted it live on the internet. In response to this tragic video post, Tyler posted a goodbye message on his Facebook page, Sept. 22 at 8:42 p.m. which read, "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry." The fact that his goodbye message was posted as his Facebook status for all of his friends to see was something I could not believe. But in today's world, Facebook and other Social Network Sites are the new outlet to post such things.
This month alone Tyler and a substantial amount of teens have committed suicide because they were either bullied, cyber-bullied and/or teased. There have been many responses to this tragedy, but there was one which struck people the most. Ellen DeGeneres' video post, in my opinion was the most sincere, not only was she deeply saddened but she knows how they feel. If you haven't seen this video I highly recommend you do, below is a link to her response.
After reading the assigned article, Pillaged MySpace Photos Show Up in Massive BitTorrent Download by Kevin Poulsen I decided to take a look at MySpace. Well, MySpace today hasn't changed much since the last time I vaguely remember signing in, which would have been sometime around 2004-2005 or my middle school years, it just looked modernized. Although, some things that have changed are the large amounts of space used for advertising, or the new bar on the side for links or personal MySpace's that are trending. But one thing I did notice is that MySpace, without being able to sign in, has not changed their layout or design. In comparison to Facebook that changes it's layout and design almost too much that it kind of gets annoying to many of the users. I also find it annoying, but also do understand why they go about updating and cleaning the look of Facebook. While both of these sites are very different, they both have their issues. As discussed in the article, MySpace had a privacy leak causing many problems in 2008. "A 17-gigabyte file purporting to contain more than half a million images lifted from private MySpace profiles has shown up on BitTorrent, potentially making it the biggest privacy breach yet on the top social networking site." Earlier this week Facebook's server went down for about 3 hours on Thursday, causing many to turn to "Twitter to share the news, complain and get their fix of social networking" said Craig Kanalley from The Huffington Post. The title to this post was on of the tweets I found and here are many more funny tweets mentioned in this post. I highly recommend you check them out on the second link below.
This week in media we discussed the origins of the Internet, history and definition of blogs, social network sites and an introduction to wiki's. I personally found the introduction to Internet not as interesting in comparison to the other topics we've discussed in class. More specifically the reading's assigned for the last couple of classes, especially the first reading, have been quite long and dry.
My hopes for this class are to learn more about social network sites and how they have changed or affected our lives today. After last week's homework assignment on blogs, I started checking them more often. When checking PostSecrets blog posting this week there was a link to the twitter account and earlier today their was a tweet that caught my eye. "Is it okay to crash a party you learn about through a friend's Facebook page?#social media etiquette." Earlier I mentioned that I would like to learn more about how social network sites will change our lives, this quote is exactly what I am referring to.
