Category Archives: In-class Activity

Newslist team 5

News Sources:

Facebook:  Liked Sources, Friends statuses

Television: CNN, NY1, etc.

Radio:

Print: Newspaper, Magazines, Journals

Word of mouth: Friends, Relatives, Strangers

Mobile: Texts, Applications, Calls, Web browser

Websites: Yahoo, Aol etc.

Survey questions:

1) What is the quickest source of news for you?

2) What is your favorite news source?

3) Where do you mostly get your news from?

4) What are your favorite news topics/stories?

5) What news stories tend to catch your attention first?

Group 3

Where do we find our news content –

The New York Times, Wall street Journal, Friends, over hearing strangers conversations, news on tv, iPhone alerts (new york times app)

Survey

Do you openly seek the news?

Where do you look for your content? print or digital?

If digital, a tablet, smart phone or computer?

Do you prefer to read or watch/ listen to the news?

 

Team 4 Survey: Ways to Get the News

Different News Outlets:

Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, PinInterest, Email, Blogs, Twitter, My Space, HighFive, Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing)

TV: News, TV shows, Late Night Shows, Comedy (SNL), Reality TV

Print: Newspaper, News Magazines, Enterntainment News, Gossip News,

Word of Mouth: Radio, Speech, Interview, Face to Face, Telephone, text, Face Time,

________________________________________________________________

Take the Survey:

1. What outlet do you use most to get your news?

A. Social Media         B. TV                C. Word of Mouth        D. Print

2. From that outlet which do you use most, please list it below.

___________________

3. How often do you use it?

A. Daily         B. Weekly                       C. Every Second of the Day             D. Monthly

List of news sources/Survey. Group 2:)

SOURCES

-Twitter

-Facebook statuses

-Texting

-Email

-Family members

-Friends

-reddit.com (other online sources)

-magazines (subscriptions)

-newspapers

-yahoo! home page

-Google news

-TV news

-radio

-from professors (in class)

-YouTube

-crazy people on the street

SURVEY

What types of news sources do you prefer?

  1. Social media
  2. Online
  3. Print
  4. Visual
  5. Audio
  6. Word of mouth
  7. Other

Which type of social media do you follow for latest news?

  1. Twitter
  2. Facebook
  3. Tumblr
  4. Instagram
  5. Other
  6. None

Which type of an online news source do you read?

  1. NYT
  2. Wall Street Journal
  3. CNN
  4. BBC
  5. Blogs
  6. Other
  7. None

Do you read any of the following:

  1. Newspapers
  2. Magazines
  3. Other
  4. None

Which category of news are you most interested in?

  1. Politics
  2. Finance
  3. Economics
  4. Technology
  5. Fashion
  6. Science
  7. World News
  8. Gossip
  9. Sports
  10. Other

Ways of Encountering News Team #1

  1. Newspapers
  2. Magazines
  3. Facebook
  4. Twitter
  5. Tumblr
  6. Word of mouth
  7. Email/newsletters
  8. Youtube
  9. Television
  10. Radio
  11. Announcements
  12. Advertisements
  13. Blogs
  14. Mail (snail mail)
  15. 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?

Group 2 Soures Exercise

Books (7)

  • “A squirrel dying”: David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 296

Magazines (2)

  • 96 percent of Americans: Richard Behar, “Never Heard of Acxiom? Chances Are It’s Heard of You.” Fortune, Feb. 23, 2004, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/02/23/362182/index.htm

Newspapers/News Sources (7)

  • accumulated an average of 1,500 pieces of data: Stephanie Clifford, “Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal,” New York Times, July 30, 2009, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/media/31privacy.html

Online News Sources (3)

  • part of our daily experience: Cass Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007)

Social Media/Blog Posts (11)

  • information: 900,000 blog posts, 50 million tweets: “Measuring tweets,” Twitter blog, Feb. 22, 2010, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, http://blog.twitter.com/2010/02/measuring-tweets.html

Interviews (7)

  • Google would use fifty-seven signals: Author interview with confidential source

Team 4 on Sources in The Filter Bubble

Categories:

Books: 5

-Example: “a squirrel dying”: David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of thr Company That Is Connecting the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 296.

Articles: 9

-Example: “thereafter our tools shape us”: Marshall Mcluhan, Understanding Media: The Extenstions of Man (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994).

Newspaper: 4

-Example: Wall Street Journal study: Julia Angwin, “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2010, accessed Dec.19, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487039409045735395073512989404.html.

Website: 3

-Example: “tell them what they should be doing”: James Farrar, “Google to end Serendipity (by Creating it),” ZDNet, Aug. 17, 2010, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, www.zdnet.com/blog/sustainability/google-to-end-serendipity-by-creating-it/1304.

Interviews: 5

-Example: Google would use fifty-seven signals: Author interview with confidential source.

TV News Programs: 3

-Example: Teflon-coated pots: At the time of writing, ABC News used a piece of sharing software called “Add this.” When you use AddThis to share a piece of content on ABC News’s site (or anyone else’s), Add This places a tracking cookie on your computer that can be used to target advertising to people who share items from particular sites.

Speeches: 2

– Example: third-party marketing firms: “Preliminary FTC Staff Privacy Report,” remarks of Chairman Jon Leibowitz, as prepared for delivery, Dec. 1, 2010, accessed Feb. 8, 2011, www.ftc.gov/speeches/leibowitz/101201privacyreportremarks.pdf

Blog: 4

-Example: “Personalized search for everyone”: Google Blog, Dec 4, 2009, accessed  Dec. 19, 2010,http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html.

Quote: 1

-Example: “Yahoo”: Although the official trademark is Yahoo!, I’ve ommitted the exclamantion point throughout this book for easier reading.

Magazine: 3

-Example: biggest source of news in the world: Ellen McGrit, “Hacker: Drop out. CEO,” Fast Company, May 1, 2007, accessed Feb 7, 2011,www.fastcompany.com/magazine/115/open_features-hacker

Team #1 on Sources in The Filter Bubble

We categorized the sources from the introduction to The Filter Bubble by sorting them by their type.  For example, we separated the books, magazines, etc.  We chose this method for its simplicity.

 

Books 8
Web Article 6
Newspaper 2
Interview 6
Blog 8
Magazine 2
Internet News 3
Book Review 1
Press Review 1
Staff Report 1
Law Journal 1
Total 39

Capture

Example Citations:

Book

The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 296.

Web Article

ReadWriteWeb, June 26, 2009, accessed Dec. 19 2010, www.readwriteweb.com/archives/they_did_it_one_team_reports_success_in_the_1m_net.php

Newspaper

Julia Angwin, “The web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2010, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405278703940904575395073512989404.html

Interview

Danny Sullivan, phone interview with author, Sept 10, 2010

Blog

A Day in the Internet,” Online Education, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, www.onlineeducation.net/internet.

Magazine

Richard Behar, “Never Heard of Axciom? Chances are its Heard of You.” Fortune, Feb 23, 2004. accessed Dec 19, 2010, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/02/23/362182/index.htm

Internet News

“Ovulation Hormones Make Women Choose Clingy Clothes,; “BBC News, Aug. 5, 2010, accessed Feb.  8, 2011, www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10878750

Book Review

James Bamford, “Who’s in Big Brother’s Database?,” The New York Times Review of Books, Nov 5, 2009, accessed Feb 8, 2011, www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/nov/o5/whos-in-big-brothers-database

Press Review

Cass Sunstein, Republic.com 2.0. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007)

Staff Report

“Preliminary FTC Staff Privacy Report, “remarks of Chairman Job Leibowitz, as prepared for delivery, Dec. 1, 2010, accessed Feb. 8, 2011, www.ftc.gov/speeches/leibowitz/101201privacyreportremarks.pdf

Law Journal

Yochai Bentler, “Siren Songs and Amish Children: Autonomy, Information, and Law,” New York University Law Review, Apr. 2001.

Team # 5 Sources in Intro

Source Categories:
1. Books = 6
“A squirrel dying”: David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 296

2. Blogs = 9
“Personalized search for everyone”: Google Blog, Dec. 4, 2009, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, http://googleblogspot.blogspot.com/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html

3. Interviews= 5
”the cost is information about you”: Chris Palmer, phone interview with author, Dec 10, 2010.

4. Articles
a. web =14
Wall Street Journal study: Julia Angwin, “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets,” Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2010, accessed Dec. 19, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703940904575395073512989404.html

b. Print =3
site installs 223 tracking cookies: Angwin, “The World’s New Gold Mine,” July 30,2010.

Facebook graph search “New York Times”

I could not find the article through the Baruch library search page. I went to the NY Times website, searched for “facebook search”, sorted my results by date, and found correct article published on the 28th.

Link to article

Author:

People Mentioned:

  1. Kathryn Hymes, 25 left a master’s program in linguistics at Stanford to join the team in late 2011, said the goal was to create “this natural, intuitive language.”
  2. Loren Cheng, 39 led what is known as the natural language processing part of the project
  3. Clifford I. Nass professor of communication at Stanford who specializes in human-computer interaction

Ideas:

  1. the new search reflects an “idealized view of how people communicate.”
  2. the search engine can recognize at least 275,000 ways to ask about “students.”
  3. The very principle of the like button is based on a psychological concept known as homophily: the notion that people like similar kinds of people and things.

 

New York Times Facebook Article

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

 

New York Times Facebook Graph Search

In order to find the article:

  1. I had to go to Google and search New York Times
  2. In the search box wrote Facebook
  3. Put in the  specific dates, 01/28/2013
  4. The very first article was what I was searching for
  • The author of the article is Somini Sengupta, who covers technology issues. She graduated with honors from Berkeley University.
  • The people who were mentioned in this article are:
  1. Loren Cheng, who is a search product manager and “who led what is known as the natural language processing part of the project”.  Mr. Cheng’s goal was to provide the comfort of the control for the users considering that all this time everything was done under the computer’s terms.
  2. 2 Linguists: Amy Campbell and Kathryn Hymes, both of who’s missions were “to teach Facebook’s computers how to communicate better with people.”
  3. Professor Clifford I. Nass, a professor of communication at Stanford who specializes in human-computer interaction.
  • Keywords/ Ideas

The ideas that i found interesting were:

“teach Facebook’s computers how to communicate better with people.”

“and all told, the search engine can recognize at least 275,000 ways to ask about “students.””

NY Times Article

The steps I took to find the article were to search for specific keywords about the article that I knew such as the date, facebook and new york times. With the help of Google being my go-to search engine, I entered in the following “article facebook search tool jan 28”, although it was not the first option they gave me it was close to second.

topics-sengupta-pic-articleInline

The author is Somini Sengupta, who is based in San Francisco, covers technology issues. She was previously The Times’s bureau chief in New Delhi and Dakar and was the recipient of the 2004 George Polk Award for foreign reporting. She was born in Calcutta and grew up in Canada and California. She graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkeley.

People mentioned in the article:

Kathryn Hymes – left a masters linguistics program in Standford to join this team, her goal was to create a natural, intuitive language.

Clifford I. Nass – a professor of communication at Stanford who specializes in human-computer interaction

Loren Cheng – led the natural language processing part of the project, said the search engine had to adjust to the demands of users.

 Keywords/Ideas

It explains why there is a “like” button but not a “dislike” button; negative emotions turn people away.

Teach Facebook’s computers how to communicate better with people.

Facebook constantly tests and tweaks its features for its diverse, global audience, paying close attention to the responses.

 

NY Times, 1/28th – “For Search, Facebook Had to Go Beyond ‘Robospeak'”

How I Found The Article:

I first logged in to the website for the Baruch College Library, and searched for the NY Times article on FB’s new search engine there. After several attempts, I was unable to find the article through the library’s website, and decided to search on the NY Times website, which is where I eventually found the article, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/how-facebook-taught-its-search-tool-to-understand-people.html?pagewanted=all

About the Article

Somini Sengupta was born in Calcutta, which is the captial of the Indian state of west Bengal. She grew up in both Canada and California for the remainder her life. Based in San Francisco, Sengupta now writes for the New York Times, in which she covers issues pertinet to the technology sector. Sengupta is a recipient of the 2004 George Polk Award for foreign reporting.

People Mentioned in the Article

Kathryn Hymes – Studied liguistics in Standford through the Masters program, but she never completed  the program.

Amy Campbell – obtained her doctorate in linguistics for the University of California, Berkeley

Loren Cheg – Led the natural language processing portion of the Graph Search project for Facebook

Clifford Nass – Communications professor specializing human-computer interaction, at Stanford

Keywords/Ideas

-Search tool

-Human behavior is facebooks business

– Eclectic team

– Natural, Intuitive Language

– Robospeak

– Natural Language Procssing

– trained algorithms

– diverse, global audience

Facebook Graph Search

First, I made my way to the Newman Library website through Baruch’s main website. On the libraries website I tried to search up articles using different search formats such as facebook graph search, NY times articles on facebook, and NY time facebook graph search. When i put these different topics in the database did not bring up the specific article that i was looking for. So i decided to just look it up on the NY times website itself. While looking it up on the NY times, the first search that i used was facebook graph search. Although the search was very specific, the article that i needed did not show up. So i entered facebook search and clicked the past 7 days tab and there it was “For search, Facebook had to go beyond Robospeak” by Somini Sengupta.

Somini Sengupta covers technology issues for the New York Times although she is located in San Francisco. This Indian-American journalist was born in Calcutta and raised in Canada and California. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with B.A’s in English and Development Studies.

Amongst the people named in this article were Kathryn Hymes, Amy Campbell, Loren Cheng, and Clifford I. Nass. Kathryn Hymes is 25 years old and she studies linguistics at Stanford but she left to join the facebook team in late 2011. Amy Campbell, who has also teamed up with facebook, got her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Loren Cheng at the age of 39 led the natural language part of the project for facebook. Clifford I. Nass is a professor of communication at Stanford who specializes in human-computer interaction.

Important ideas and keywords:

  • search tool
  • eclectic team
  • teach facebook new ways to let people communicate easier
  • guinea pigs
  • search engine can understand 25 close synonyms
  • computers= bad context
  • real world trust
  • social distance
  • homophily
  • search tool has already come under scrutiny

Facebook Graph Search

 

Steps taken to find the article

First I tried library database, but after several failed attempts, I googled “ny times facebook gragh search jan 28”. I clicked a NY Times link resulted from Google search and it seemed like a right one, but turns out it was a NY Times blog post with bunch of links of articles from other news websites.

From that point, I gave another try with NY Times website and typed “facebook graph search”, but even that didn’t work. The weired thing was that a lot of articles from search results shiwed the phrase “facebook graph search” but when I clicked on them, they had  irrelevant topics.  I asked for help and Prof.Francoeur told me to get rid of the word “graph”, so I typed in “facebook search”. Finally ! I was able to find the article.

 

About the author

The name of the author is Somini Sengupta. She was born in Calcutta and grew up in Canada and California. She graduated with honors B.A in English and development studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a West Africa and Delhi Bureau chief and currently a technology correspondent at the NY Times.

 

List of people mentioned in article

Kathryn Hymes – Joined Facebook graph searched team last March/ Left Stanford to join the team.

Amy Campbell – Earned doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, Berkel / Recruited Ms. Hymes

Loren Cheng – Led natural processing part of the graph search system / An engineer educated at Stanford

Clifford I. Nass –  a professor of communication at Stanford who specializes in human-computer interaction.

 

Keywords and Ideas

Facebook / Search Tool / Robospeak / Psychology / Communicate / Human Behavior / Homophily / Context / Social distance

“The project represents how Facebook builds products. It studies human behavior. It tests its ideas. Its goal is to draw more and more people to the site and keep them there longer”

”  The search tool, in its first iteration, answers queries by mining some of the data at the company’s disposal, including photos, interests and likes. It will eventually mine status updates and other activities, from what users eat to where they hike.”

” The company is betting on the principle of homophily: if it is from someone the user likes, the user may be more likely to pay attention to it — and click on the link.”

 

Finding Facebook

Challenge started off with us having to search for an article on Facebook posted in the New York Times on 28th of January.

Initially, I took the harder route of trying to find the article through the Baruch library website, which I failed miserably. I tried typing in the key words in the search bar, searched the database, even got transported to some gogale.com website, but none of that helped, after which I resorted to Google, who threw me off the bus as well. Therefore, with no other options I finally HAD to go to the New York Times website and after typing in the key words, I found THE ARTICLE, mockingly staring at me. Oh! The shame.

The article titled, For Search, Facebook Had to Go Beyond ‘Robospeak’, was written by Somini Sengupta, an Indian-American journalist who generally writes about topics on
‘technology and why it matters.’ Sengupta dishes to us about Facebook’s newest plot in trying to secure and cash in more users. This time they intend on using a different route to connect people- making Facebook the new Google. They want their billion users to make facebook their go-to search engine and this article ravels on how the young facebook team is on a go, working feverishly to make it happen.

This is an interesting read and I would encourage you to read it and decide what you think of it.

 

The Missing Article

I followed several steps to find the Jan 28th NY Times article that covered Facebook’s newest search tool, Graph Search. The first step I took was to go to Baruch’s Newman Library database. I don’t usually navigate the database search engine so it was a little difficult for me to get started. The first step I took was typing in the key words “NY Times on Facebook graph search” This got me to what i thought was the right article except it was not published by the NY times. Then I typed into Google, “NY times article on graph search Jan 28.” This did not work. I tried several more failed attempts before finally going to the NY Times website. I entered “Facebook” into the search box and then clicked on “past 7 days” before finding the mystery article.

The author of the article is Somini Sengupta, she is a journalist at the NY Times. She is an expert on technology issues. In 2004, she was the recipient of the George Polk Award.

There is a number of other people mentioned in the article. Kathryn Hymes left a masters program. Amy Campbell earned a doctorate in lingustics. Loren Chang also known as the human language processor. Some of the key words used in the article were: “robospeak,” “human- computer interaction,” and “homophily.”

Class Activity: For Search, Facebook Had to Go Beyond ‘Robospeak’

How I found the article – I entered nyt.com into the address bar, searched “facebook”, refined my search by specifying a specific date range (01/28/2013) and finally selected the first article from the results page (which happened to be the one we were looking for).

What you can find out about the author of the article (who she is, etc.) and what if any is her expertise on this topic – Somini Sengupta currently resides in San Francisco, graduated with honors from the University of California, Berkely and mainly covers technology news for the NYT. She is currently the Technology Correspondent at The New York Times. In her previous years she was the New Delhi Bureau Chief and West Africa Bureau Chief at the NYT.

A list of all the people mentioned in the article and a phrase of two about each that sums up who they are
– Kathryn Hymes –  Left a master’s program in linguistics at Stanford to join the eclectic team in developing the new facebook search. Her goal is to create “this natural, intuitive language.”
– Amy Campbell  – Another member of the eclectic team. Earned a doctorate in linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley
– Loren Cheng – Led the natural language processing part of the project. He emphasized that the searches should be adjusted to the demands of the users rather than based on the “terms” of the computer.
– Clifford I. Nass – Professor of communicaiton at Stanford. Specializes in human-computer interaction.

A list of all the keywords/ideas in the article
– Search Tool / Search Engine
– Real world knowledge
– Google
– Facebook
– Robospeak
– Code/Algorithms/Query
– Demands of users
-Human-Computer Interaction
-Like vs Dislike Button / Homophily
– Social Distance
– Synonyms