word cloud

MyAlltop

http://my.alltop.com/rkmmarks

Google podcast report

I’ve always had a problem with Google. Not necessarily their search engine, but the way they seem to be trying to take over the internet is a concern of mine. It seems like every useful site nowadays has an option to link it to your Google account. YouTube recently made it mandatory to link a Google account. As far as the internet goes, I really think putting all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. If my YouTube info gets phished, suddenly my email, blog, Flickr account, and more are compromised. I like keeping things separate. Also, I like internet anonymity because it allows people to say what they really think without fear of it affecting their lives and livelihood. Anonymous conversations are the most truthful conversations because there is no need to take other people’s emotions into account. Some people think this is brutal and harsh, I think that it is one of the most brilliant ways of bringing up new ideas ever.  Facebook and Google would seek to remove the anonymity and ease of entry to the internet and turn it into something corporatized and directly connected to your real life. That seems like the complete antithesis to what the internet is about.

Those are my opinions on Google. Recently the guys at Marketplace Tech Report reported another sinister thing that Google is doing. They filter certain search results and favor things that they think you’ll like. Ideally this would mean you are able to easily find important information on any subject. What it actually means is that people are getting the information Google wants them to get. People can pay Google to get to the top of their lists for certain keywords and people who refuse to pay can get sent to the back. What can we do to fight this and keep a wide variety of information available? Several things. When doing a Google search, try clicking on the second page of results instead of clicking the top link. Try using a different search engine every now and then. Don’t be a sheep; get information from many sources instead of one.

Assignment 2

I read an article today in the Chicago Tribune (Sunday, March 20, 2011). Well, it wasn't actually an article, it was more like a list of small things that are different in the internet age. The article mentioned missing the feel of holding a book and how you can't bring a kindle into the bathtub. It mentioned the destruction of proper spelling on twitter. Even older mediums like TV is starting to catch up and have their characters use the internet. Old people are using facebook. Loosing your phone is like loosing your arm. People no longer care about missing a call, with the increase in answering machine usage.


It was a cute article, but ultimately pointless. I never owned e-books, so I can't comment on them. However, I have noticed a decline in people's ability to spell simple words. The media's use of the internet is intriguing. Normally they don't catch onto things this quickly, and people were saying that social media was a fad only a few years ago. It's amazing that stodgy old TV executives caught on so quickly. But now that I think about it, it makes sense. The advent of social media was such a huge shift in the way people find information and communicate that it is hard to imagine life without it. Just the other day I was reading a review of Harry Potter (a big theme of Harry Potter is finding information, and they find information in dusty old tomes.) and the reviewer made the excellent point that if they had "Wizard Google" they could have found all the information on Nicholas Flammel in five minutes, instead of five months.

THIS IS NOT FOR REAL

This is part of a class assignment. If you're looking for my real blog, with the magic and the internets, go to http://supdawgihearduliek.blogspot.com/