About DanWest
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We have done many activities in this LIB 3040 class which can be utilized in many other courses at Baruch. We have done everything from class room discussions to hands on activities with the computers. As I look back to all the many activities we have done in class, the first thing that comes to mind is utilizing the Baruch databases. Before using these databases, I would do every research paper with the help of our good friend Google. Google would then direct me to Wikipedia. Now that I have learned how to navigate through the Baruch databases, I will definitely be able to use them in future courses that require research to be done. For example, I will be taking BPL next semester and from what I heard, its a difficult course which is research intensive. The knowledge on databases I have obtained from this course will definitely help me get through this difficult class, since it requires the research of various companies.
Something else I learned after taking this course is the different ways published works can be used as sources and the differences between these published works. For example, trade journals, newspaper articles, magazines, interviews, etc. are different in many ways and can all be used when doing research. The sources Pariser uses in the Filter Bubble are all very unique. He took sources which were scholarly works and are reputable. Reputation of the work plays a big roll in choosing the right source. That is something this course has taught me. This course went in to great depth on the differences and similarities of each published work. I can definitely use the knowledge I’ve obtained from the sources Pariser uses in selecting the proper sources for other classes at Baruch. Which brings me to the discussion of something that I would’ve liked to learn in this course. I would’ve appreciated learning more about proper citation when citing sources. I know this isn’t an English class, but I sort of forgot how to properly cite works. I mean I have some intellect of citation, but I’m pretty sure it’s not ideal.
The final thing which I recall learning in this class is the “Filter Bubble” itself. Taking part in this course and reading the Filter Bubble really opened my eyes to many things. It made me more conscious of where and who I give my personal information to. It made me think twice before handing out any information to websites or surveys. Before this class, I never took the time to actually Google my own name. When I did I was astonished by the amount of personal information was on the web for the world to see. Reading this book also made me want to get away from this Filter Bubble. In Chapter 8 Pariser gives readers various ways to get out of the Filter Bubble, which are somewhat difficult to follow. His “plan” is explained by providing guidelines for individuals, government, and companies to follow which would get us out of the Filter Bubble. Technology is vastly growing. From this course and book I’ve learned that we need to be able to grasp the information provided through technology, thus giving us full control of the Internet. I feel this course is very different and unique from any other course offered at Baruch since it went in to depth of something which can be utilized in all courses; the Internet. This course not only helped me in other courses which I have taken at Baruch, but life in general.
One of the companies leading in the retrieval of our personal information, Google is soon releasing another way to gather personal information. This time it’s being done through music. Google plans on releasing a new application subscription which streams music. I feel Google is taking it to the extreme by implementing a way of streaming music. They first started off as only a search engine, then an email service and are now being known for streaming music, similar to Spotify. Google will only gain a greater understanding of who we are personally. They already signed deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment and are catching the eyes of other record labels. Our personal information may be handed out to these record labels as well and used for reasons unknown. How do you guys feel about this?
Check out the article yourself: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584490-93/google-close-to-launching-streaming-music-service/
Bing Google Play commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yZ5O96TtM
This commercial is currently being aired on television today. I thought it was funny and it immediately reminded me of various discussions we had in class. In this commercial Bing is stating that Google is using their Google Play app store to obtain our personal information and send it out to who knows where. This not only relates to class discussions but to Pariser’s the Filter Bubble and the topic of “Do Not Track” as well. The Do Not Track feature is a idea which would attempt to stop companies from gathering personal information. Do Not Track is doing its job, but it doesn’t erase the fact that companies already have an obscene amount of our personal information in their databases. Bing is out to exploit Google. It’s interesting to see that Bing is exploiting Google’s gathering of personal information and using it as a way to get consumers to use the Bing search engine. After watching this commercial and related it to the many discussions we had in class, I ask you one question; Are you getting Scroogled?
Based on what I have read from this article, it is clear to see that Facebook is simply trying to increase their advertising revenue from last year. Facebook rolled out a new way to advertise and market products via Facebook. By partnering up with data companies that track online and offline purchase behavior, (Acxiom, Blue Kai, Epsilon, and Datalogix) these Facebook partner categories are able to predict what consumers purchase the most and what consumers would buy again, based on previous purchases. By simply swiping or entering the 16 digits on your credit card, we are basically handing out a whole lot of information to companies without even knowing it. Talk about invasion of privacy. This relates to Pariser’s book heavily, seeing as how social networks are finding more and more concealed and profitable ways to obtain personal information. Coming from a marketing perspective I would say that this is a clever and a different way to increase revenue. However coming from someone who uses Facebook on a daily basis, I would say that this completely invades our privacy, even more than how it already does.
Any thoughts?
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/facebook-refines-ad-targeting/
I began interacting with technology as soon as my day began. Here are a few in which I encountered throughout the day. First, I woke up to the sound of an alarm on my cell phone. After shutting off the alarm on my phone, for a few minutes I went through my phone (text messages, Facebook, email, etc.) I immediately turned on the radio in my bedroom as I chose picked out my outfit for today. On my way outside the house, I set my alarm/security system for the house. I got to my car and while driving the radio happened to be on. I parked my car by the train station. When I got to the train station, I swiped my metro card and went through the turnstile. During the train ride I used my phone to listen to music. Upon arriving to school I went to the nearby Dunkin Donuts, where I paid for my meal with the credit card in which the card reader obtains a whole bunch of information through that one swipe. When arriving to Baruch, I swiped my student ID card through the turnstiles. When going to class I took the elevator to head upstairs. After class I took the escalators.
Transportation- Metro card swipe, car, car radio, car charger for phone, phone on train for music.
School- elevator, escalators, credit card for food, phone for music,
Home- radio, alarm/security system, refrigerator, oven, house phone, cell phone
Computer- Speaker, monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer
Phone- social media networks, bank accounts
This article I found in the technology section of the NY Times relates to the “Filter Bubble” in many ways. About a month ago, we participated in a group activity regarding where we think most people get there news from and which source of news can be considered the most reliable. This NY Times article basically depicts the statistics received from research done. In this day and age news spreads like wildfire. News is spreading faster and further with the development of technology. Researchers found that “word of mouth” communication, emails, web posts and face-to-face conversations which are about news topics which are classified as “good news”. In my opinion I feel people are tired of getting the “bad news” (deaths, earthquakes, plagues, floods, etc.) from media such as television and radios, which is why people tend to share the “good news” through word of mouth, web emails, blogs, etc.
Also in this article is an opinion given by researchers that states news that spreads through conversation/word of mouth isn’t so reliable or credible. News spread through social media tend to be reliable sources. The article states, “We fill conversational spaces by saying what’s top of mind. But when you write something, you have the time to construct and refine what you say, so it involves more self-presentation.” Basically they are saying that the more time and thought we put in to spreading news via social media networks, the more reliable the story will become.
Any thoughts?
Here’s a link to the article if you are interested:
This article relates to a majority of what we have already read in the “Filter Bubble”. Businesses are using a “privacy friendly” feature to give them a competitive advantage in the market. Mozilla is an example of a company doing so. Companies have noticed that people are learning towards companies which part take in this feature. Having this feature in today’s browser market is considered a competitive advantage. Many companies of web browsers and there CEO’s are debating on whether or not to produce a “Do Not Track” feature for their products. Not only computer based web browsers, but internet mobile platforms would also have the option to enable this feature. According to the article more and more users are beginning to have the “Do Not Track” signal on. “..nearly 12 percent of desktop users of Firefox and 14 percent of Firefox users on Google’s Android mobile operating system have turned on the Do Not Track signal.” As mentioned before, Mozilla is one of the first to take initiative and are really close to launching a new tool which fully blocks third party tracking software, or cookies. This is big for Mozilla since they are considered underdogs in the web browser market. This new tool could be a huge factor in users deciding what makes them feel secure.
How do you guys feel?
Do you feel this new “Do Not Track” tool is the real deal? Or are third parties still tracking you?
What do you think Pariser would have to say about such a tool?
Source:
Google and Facebook are both different in many ways. At the same time they are both similar in various ways as well. Both feel as if they have a clear description of who we are. Personally I agree with what Pariser stated in the “Filter Bubble”; “Both are pretty poor representations of who we are, in part because there is no set of data that describes who we are…” (p115). Pariser is basically saying that, both Google and Facebook are taking what we enter in our search history or Facebook bio, as not being substantial enough.
If I were to choose who I feel represents and knows more about me, I would side with Google. Other than the advertisements Google implements in each and every search, I feel there actual searches themselves are very accurate. For example, if I were to enter my name, Daniel Westerband in to a Google search, a whole bunch of websites containing information about me come up in the search. Also, personal information I wouldn’t expect to find would appear in my search. That is why I feel Google captures who I am more as a person, than Facebook since its somewhat “connected” to various sites, such as social media platforms. In essence, Google allows others not only myself to obtain information about who I am, what I like to eat, where I live, where I like to visit.
Facebook as Pariser mentions, “is more aspirational: Facebook takes you more at your word, presenting you as you’d like to be seen by others.” (p115). I feel Pariser was right on with that statement. Facebook knows me as a user of their social media platform. They don’t know me personally. Your personal Facebook profile contains a whole bunch of information in which you personally set up yourself. This information may not be factual. The information you put on Facebook could be used to alter the way others portray you. For example, the “likes” in which you select on your Facebook bio, could be chosen to maybe impress someone, maybe a girl/boy you have interest in, or a company who is looking to hire you for a job.
Based on the two I feel Google has more of a clear cut understanding of who I am. The searches we make and what we click to obtain information is made unconsciously. People simply enter a search without being aren’t aware of the information Google takes from our searches; better yet internet browsers themselves. As Pariser mentions on p116 of the “Filter Bubble”, Zuckerberg states that we have one true identity. This obviously is not true. As stated before, everything we enter on to Facebook is not accurate. Facebook gives us the ability to have a little more control of what is put out there for the world to see.
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Tumblr
- Word of mouth
- Email/newsletters
- Youtube
- Television
- Radio
- Announcements
- Advertisements
- Blogs
- Mail (snail mail)
- Websites
Survey Questions
- Rank the top 5 most used methods of accessing news.
- From which of these would you say is the most trust-worthy?
- Are there any of these that you’ve never heard of or used?
- Do you find social networks to be reliable sources?
- Which ones from the list would you recommend to others the most?
At first I went to the Baruch College website and clicked the “library” tab at the very top of the homepage. I then skimmed through various databases and entered in keywords to find this Facebook article on the new graph search tool. I must admit, I had a hard time navigated through this website, for it has been far too long since I’ve last used the Baruch databases to gather information. Finally, I went ahead and took the easy route and used our trusty friend, Google. I found the article with ease after that. I found a link with keywords that related to the article and instantly clicked it.
The author seems to know a whole lot of information of the uprising of this new Facebook search tool. She also seems to have done a lot of research on the individuals who partook in these teams (the statisticians, linguists and programmers). She seems very interested in the Facebook search tool success and failure rates.
Kathryn Hymes- a 25 year old, who was undergoing the master’s program in linguistics in Standford but left to join the team in late 2011. She then joined Amy Campbell, who received a doctorate in linguistics from the University of California Berkeley.
Loren Cheng, is 39 and led what is known as the natural language processing part of the project.
Mark Zuckerberg was also mention a good amount of times.
Key terms- “like” button
“dislike” button
“robospeak”
search
Comments:
"Personally I do feel that the facial recognition tool should be used to solve crime, but to an extent. There should many guidelines and rules that follow this tool if it were to be used by the public. If this recognition tool were to be released to the public without having any guidelines to follow, I feel that it would be a complete disaster. People would use this tool for the wrong reasons. Limitations must be implemented in to something such as this, just like everything published is limited."
posted on May 14, 2013, on the post FACE RECOGNITION USED TO SOLVE CRIME"The main purpose of advertisements is to create a promotional platform for consumers to become knowledgeable of the product or service which would lead to obtaining revenue. Companies will do anything and everything to get people to pay that extra dollar for a product or service, even if it's considered unethical. But ethics is a whole other topic. The fact that Google+ is promoting sending a tweet to mothers on Mother's Day is rather amusing. I don't think anyone in their write mind would greet their mothers a "Happy Mothers Day" through twitter or through text unless distance is an issue."
posted on May 14, 2013, on the post Happy Mother’s Day, Tweeters!"I would never give up my personal privacy to technology, well willingly that is. Subconsciously a majority of us already do so. The amount of personal information these companies have on us is amazing. As Pariser mentions, there have been many attempts in trying to cut down on the amount of personal information being gathered. This industry of gathering our personal information is a major force in today's internet market. In a nut shell, my own personal privacy is important to me and if that information were to get in to the wrong hands, my identity may be at risk."
posted on May 14, 2013, on the post More convenience, less privacy"I feel as if its not all that necessary to put that kind of personal information up on a network like this. I mean yes networking and discovering new work out methods is always good to do, but that's where personal trainers and going to the actual gym comes in to play. If the app hands out personal information like you said, I would expect them to have a feature which allows you to limit what information is being "handed out". I wouldn't use them if feedback was positive, because I'm all about doing things personally and old fashioned, without the help of technology. This app would be great if it wasn't for the fact that they obtain information like that, but then again in today's society, everything is open to the public for the world to see."
posted on May 14, 2013, on the post My smartphone is my workout buddy!"I had a discussion about this in one my CIS classes the other day. Basically I feel the internet is a great tool to use. Notice how I said tool. Meaning something to help you get the job done in a more efficient way and of course a quicker way. People take the internet and rely on it more heavily. When writing a research paper, they go in having no knowledge of the topic what so ever and tend to heavily rely on what the internet has to say. What they don't take in to account that everything on the internet may not be factual. For example, Wikipedia contains information which can be edited and adjusted by just anyone."
posted on Mar 19, 2013, on the post How we do research"The more we sign up and join social networks, the more our names and pictures will be out there available for the world to see. Many of us join these social networks or join web blogs without reading the Terms of Use, and then go ahead and wonder how and why their name or photos comes up in a simple Google search. In this article I feel Google does make a strong case that this was completely coincidental and "accidental." There is just so much out there on the web to see, that it's not out of the norm to find something with you name in it but has nothing to do with you. In this case Google is generating profits which is unjust. In cases such as this, I feel SOME profit should go to Beverly. Haha."
posted on Mar 19, 2013, on the post What is your name promoting?"As the previous comment stated, we are always told to read the agreements before accepting anything. A majority of us won't even consider reading the terms of use. However as you stated they suddenly and quietly altered there terms of use without bringing it to our attention. I wasn't aware that Facebook did that until I actually searched for my name on Google, and a whole bunch of images from not only my Facebook account came up but from other social networks such as Twitter. I found it to be weird since I deactivated my Facebook account; at the time it hadn't been up and running for about 4 months. That's how I knew Facebook wasn't as safe and secure as they said they were."
posted on Mar 18, 2013, on the post Facebook Owns YOU!"Technology is changing each and every day. At my current internship, I work with many laptops which have facial recognition to log you on into your computer. I also have worked with laptops which contain finger print readers that are you used for employees to clock in and out. As we discussed in class the internet is indeed using our cache and cookies to personalize our news, advertisements, etc. and I feel that is perfectly fine, since we may run in to an ad on Facebook or google search which are interested in.
This facial "screen resizing font" program doesn't seem so bad, since it is only for the benefit of our eyes. I feel that within this program should also incorporate a feature that adjusts the lighting of the computer/laptop automatically based on the environment surrounding it. All in all as long as this program doesn't require giving away any personal information and we are able to turn this feature on and off at any time, I feel that it is a safe and unique way of incorporating technology in our every day lives."
posted on Mar 5, 2013, on the post SCREEN RESIZING FONTS"As Pariser stated in chapter 4, Zuckerberg feels people will no longer have to maintain numerous images of themselves. I feel that if people aren't found out about they "dishonesty", then they will continue to alter there Facebook for various companies. Altering your Facebook for professionalism purposes does not necessarily mean you lack integrity. Although companies may use Facebook as a way to find out information about an applicant, its only one of many other ways to obtain information. There is the resume in which you provide, and of course the interview process which really shows who you are and what you are about. Therefore, if one were to adjust and create different identities, you can really learn about ones true identity through different and much more reliable ways other than Facebook."
posted on Mar 5, 2013, on the post What Is Your Facebook Identity?"Here is the link of the surveys summary:
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Communities-and-Local-News/Summary-of-Findings.aspx"
posted on Feb 27, 2013, on the post Results of the Survey from Class Today"As I compared the results of both our in class activity and the actual Pew Internet survey, I noticed many similarities. Stated in the Pew Internet summary of the survey, were statements regarding the types of resources people from different living areas would use. For example the summary stated, people living in urban and large cities tend to want more of a variety in where they obtain there news. Whether it'd be from local news or the Internet, they use it all. I thought there was a correlation between our survey results in class and that statement. According to our in class survey, and under the assumption that a majority of us live in large cities such as NY or NJ, we see a similar trend the Pew Internet summary was referring to. Also mentioned in this summary was the fact that suburban, rural and small residents rely on more traditional ways of obtaining news (television, radio, local news). These results can also relate to the results of our in class survey seeing as how a majority of us rely on the Internet, Twitter, etc."
posted on Feb 27, 2013, on the post Results of the Survey from Class Today"Great post, similar to mine."
posted on Jan 31, 2013, on the post Hello Everyone =)
