So how does BitTorrent accomplish this? It maximizes the transfer speed by gathering bits of pieces of the file you’re downloading simultaneously from people who have already downloaded the file. As such, popular (and usually extremely large) files download much faster than other methods of file distribution… making BitTorrent is the most innovative way to send files over the Internet.

The above diagram maps out how BitTorrent works. (c) HowStuffWorks

BitTorrent works like any other element of Web 2.0. It is “waged precisely over how many individual users will continue to participate in making the networked information environment, and how much of the population of consumers will continue to sit on the couch ad passively receive the finished goods of industrial information producers.” (385)

Sources: Yochai Benkler, “The Battle over the Institutional Ecology of the Digital Environment”, 383-429

“…Virtual communities would come to represent a new form of human communal existence, providing new scope for building and shared experiences of human interaction.” (356)

I was seeing this guy for a few months. (Don’t fret- this blog post isn’t going to be an episode of Sex & The City.) Recently, I told him that I’m cutting it off because a few close friends of mine spotted him at various different locations with his ex-girlfriend. When I approached him about it, he told me, “Why don’t you look on Facebook? My relationship status is set as single.” Wow. Seriously?

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I decided to Google this “Facebook as truth” topic to see what I get. And boy oh boy- the Brits seem to take Facebook a little too seriously. Not only do they have affairs on Second Life (as mentioned in one of my previous blog posts), but now they’re also divorcing via Facebook! A British husband announced his divorce on Facebook before he actually got around to telling his wife that he wanted one. Don’t forget the strange news about another Brit who murdered his wife because she changed her relationship status on Facebook to single.

Jeez.

Facebook is the new Bible.

Sources: Yochai Benkler, “The Wealth of Networks”. Chapter 10: 356-378

In early February of 2007, Google blacklisted BMW.de (German site) because they violated what Google calls “Webmaster quality guidelines” by means of black hat SEO/SEM (search engine optimization/search engine marketing). What does this mean? The site included “doorway pages” that would automatically redirect its visitors to a different URL. When viewers clicked a BMW.de page, blocks of text with repeated key search words such as “neuwagen” (new car in German). When the visitor clicked on the listed page, they would be automatically redirected to another page with almost no text and mostly pictures. These pages would be scored much lower in Google’s PageRank system. In short, BMW tried to artificially boost its search engine rating through non-approved marketing strategies.

In response, Google removed BMW.de from its Web index. The violation? “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.” BMW Germany quickly removed their redirect pages and wrote a formal letter of apology to Google. They regained Google listing status shortly after.

Sources: Yochai Benkler, “The Wealth of Networks”. Chapter 8: 273-300

If you use one of its clients (i.e. Twitterrific), you can create “tweets”, text-based posts of up to 140 characters, through the website and SMS network, producing a real-time stream of information. This information tells viewers what they’re doing, what their friends are doing, and where their friends are. This is then displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers.

So what makes Twitter so powerful? There is something beautiful in its simplicity. It is because of this simplicity that it is able to draw power from its capability. It caters to everyone. It’s so simple that anyone – your 80 yr old grandpa or your 4 yr old daughter – can get it.

“And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this “ambient awareness”: by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don’t think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.”

- TIME, article can be found here.

Sources: Yochai Benkler, “The Wealth of Networks”. Chapter 7: 212-233; 260-272

As the Residents interact, they begin to develop human-like relationships with one another. This phenomenon is an interesting example of social interaction mixed with massive capitalism. You can buy huge islands and make your own environment, something that is exclusive to a few individuals. (You have to spend a lot of time on this massive multi-player online game to get that far…) You can start your own Company and trade resources. For its Residents, Second Life is a world which enable users to virtually do things that they are not capable of in normal everyday life.

A British couple divorced after the wife discovered that her husband’s online avatar, was with another woman. Virtual woman, that is. Quoting the article below:

“It may have started on-line but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much,” she said. “His was the ultimate betrayal. He had been lying to me.”

Who would have thought? People got so into the game that they started building relationships that meant something to them. They would meet their online “friends” and start “dating” through this virtual world. Both people can make their avatars to whatever they want it to be. Whether it be a buff figure or size D’s, you can make your avatar be anything and do anything. Even “fall in love”.

Crazy-ness.

ARTICLE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/13/second-life-divorce

A question that has come up again and again: is the Internet a qualitative revolution? As Benkler puts it, “In some academic circles, it is positively naive. But it should not be.” (1) Going back to the basics: the Internet is based on TCP/IP and is packet-switched. This is more than a simple technical coincidence. The significance on this fact alone is crucial. It has given access to computers to the global mass, and allowed communication between computers to be common protocol. Benkler also points out that the Internet is a structured political system. I firmly agree with this. The Internet is the best modern-day example of democracy, due to three important factors: space, time, and reach. Let’s take a look at history:

Speech: synchronized in space and time, able to reach few to few
Writing: document in space, able to reach few to few at anytime
Printing: document in space, able to reach few to many at anytime
Telephone: anywhere in space, able to reach few to few, synchronized in time
Radio/TV: anywhere in space, able to reach few to many, synchronized in time
Internet: able to reach many to many anywhere in space and at anytime

Without a doubt, the Internet has and will continue to affect society as profoundly as did the invention of printing. I’ve noticed the impact of the Internet in business more and more so over the past few years. Information, communication, coordination, and computer software are significant components to the economy. For example, the company I’m working with starting using “guerrilla” marketing techniques. We’ve made thousands and thousands of dollars via Facebook advertising, and have used SEO/SEM tactics to climb our way to dramatically increase site popularity and visibility. We’ve used Youtube and Vimeo as a way of broadcasting viral videos to promote products and business alike, and have used e-Commerce solutions as a primary source of revenue.

With any great revolution comes great consequences. The consequences of TCP/IP are still being slowly revealed. Some common problems include privacy and security concerns, controlling social and business behavior, the issue of intellectual property, threats towards current financial and tax systems, another haves/have-nots divide, and an increasing possibility of monoculture. As Benkler tells us, “how these battles turn out over the next decade or so will likely have a significant effect on how we come to know what is going on in the world we occupy, and to what extent and in what forms we will be able to affect how we and others see the world as it is and as it might be.” (2)

Sources: Yochai Benkler, “The Wealth of Networks”. Introduction: p1-28.

Shirky explains the three basic components that make a social platform, such as Craigslist, successful. These three components are the Promise, the Tool, and the Bargain. The Promise is the reason behind why anyone should join or contribute to the site. In other words, it creates the desire to participate. The Tool allows the users to participate together. It is also the major factor that determines individual and collective behavior. Different sets of Tools allow different users to collaborate towards the Promise. The Bargain states the expectations from both the platform and the user.

Craigslist offers the Promise of a free classifieds listing board, featuring user Tools that allow people to post jobs, resumes, items for sale, items wanted, and even has a “dating” section where individuals can post m4w, w4m, m4m, w4w, etc. These Tools include posting options, flagging options (for moderation purposes), and an automatically generated Craigslist email in which listing seekers can respond to.The Bargain is this: providing a classifieds board where users can post listings and respond to listings at no charge for both parties.

As Craig Newmark tells us in this Youtube video, Craigslist served a very important function during Hurricane Katrina. Using the tools on the site survivors let friends and families know where they were located. Within a day, other users were offering survivors a place to live. A few days later, others were offering jobs.

Sources: Clay Shirky Chapter 11: “Promise, Tool, Bargain” (260-292)

RELATIVE ARTICLES:

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/10/22/illinois-lawyer-in-hot-water-over-lurid-craigslist-posting/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/174261/judge_throws_out_craigslist_lawsuit.html

“Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies – it happens when society adopts new behaviours.” (Shirky 160)

The social tools of Web 2.0 have allowed us to quickly and easily create collective action. For example, let’s take a look at the lost cell phone case in Chapter 1. Collective action happened because of blogging, social networking websites, email, and the use of other discussion platforms such as forums. Social tools remove the obstacles that were previously presented to us before the rise of the information age. Newspapers and clipped articles are a thing of the past. Such methods proved to be inefficient and slow. By the time anything was shared, it was already old news.

The two major benefits of information sharing through Web 2.0 tools are as follows:

(1) low-cost;

(2) instant.

Can you imagine life without email? It’s become an integral part of everyday life; a common tool for communication. The next generation won’t be able to remember what it was like without it. But the truth is, it isn’t even worth remembering because the few tools that we did have were never any good. Free. Fast. These are the two most commonly associated terms with email. It has proved to be a proactive tool in which its users can communicate with family members, friends, grow businesses… the list goes on. More importantly, email allows for immediate response.

As Shirky puts it, information is now shared as fast as “the spread of disease”. (159)

Sources: Clay Shirky Chapter 6: “Collective Action & Institutional Challenges”. P143-160.

Podcast

Lyrics:

Only author to rewrite history without a pen
Blogspot, Twitter let the story begin
Begin… begin
This is anti-newspaper, death of false media
This ain’t for CNN, I’m known on Wikipedia
My Mac and iPhone is all I really need
Mom said get a job, Martin said have a dream
A blog shuts down, a new blog comes up
Ain’t nothing you can do once my video’s up
From Iraqi blackouts to Sudan, let ‘em know
We shed a little light on things they won’t expose
They got more friends on Facebook than they do in real life
They got porn, and WoW girls, so who needs a real life
Shout out – A K underscore Alias
We mash up minds while they think were entertaining ‘em

Shirky tells us that user-generated content is an amateur and group phenonmenon. Most of what is produced is generally trash. I wrote some lyrics to accompany Jay-Z’s D.O.A instrumental in response to this. Enjoy!

Sources: Clay Shirky Chapter 4 “Publish, Then Filter”

1. Generally, we want to do good things.

2. We have a desire to make some sort of meaningful contribution to the world.

3. We’re animals. We want to leave our mark.

This is true. Example: I love my music. I’m one of those people who always send you Youtube links to videos on MSN Messenger. I’ve added a couple band pages here and there to Wikipedia because of my undying desire to promote their underrated existence. And of course – “CHENNY WAS HERE B*^@%#&!!” was definitely a strong element during the process.

So, how reliable is this thing? As soon as someone makes a change, the page could receive hundreds and hundreds of hits the moment it’s posted. People can flag a change and thus restore the page to its previous state. Someone can then come back in and say “no, that change was excellent”, and reverse the flag. It’s a project based on the “behavior of the collective” (128). Nothing is irreversible and each time something is done to any given article, a new version of it is saved.

Wikipedia is the new generation of web publishing, new age journalism and bloggers. When you’re reading something on Wikipedia, you’re trusting a stranger’s words. Not every posting is perfect the first time around. Be “buyer beware”. Follow the references. Anything that is unreferenced should be read with a pinch of salt. After all, a Wikipedia article is “a process, not a product, and as a result, it is never finished”. (119)

Sources: Clay Shirky Chapter 5 “Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production” 109-142