Trend-setting in a virtual society

Recently, I have observed, especially on Facebook, that people start to follow several trends of answering notes, tag friends in similar comic pictures, and answer trivial quizzes. Before I started to wonder why people follow these trends, I found myself answering one of the quizzes on Facebook, “How old are you on the inside?”. Suddenly, I think about one power of networking community: trend-setting. In a virtual society, when one person posted a picture, a note, or changing his/ her status, it is very likely that his/ her friends will be interested in and copy that item and publicize it in their profiles. Think about how many people in your friendlist will do that, and subsequently friends of them will do just the same.

Many people think that having their friends to follow their actions is an example of common interest, which made them friends in the first place. On the other hand, people may feel that being “tagged” in notes or photos on Facebook, or “invited” to applications is a way to maintain relationships (which is why in one of the previous entries, I mention internet as a relationship maintenance tool). By saying this, I mean that Facebook users desire of ways of using Facebook to remind friends of their existence (You may not talk to a friend for a long time, but suddenly she tagged you in her note, wouldn’t you be happy even a little?), as well as ways to make friends know better about each other. What may be the other reason for such trend-following? It may simply because that they have time for such activities, or they do not want to be missed out in the domino game.

But let’s think about trend-setters and followers in another view: it is a way that one expresses uniqueness and creativity. If you more and more people are following your actions, more frequently they visit your profile, would you think about setting a more “meaningful” trend? If you say yes, you are not the only one. Facebook users have invented so many ways to use their profile pictures, notes, status, and photos to convey certain messages. These messages may regard political or environmental campaigns, soliciting votes, fundraising, or even news broadcasting. I have seen my Nepali friend uses his Facebook as a way to express his political view of freedom for Tibet: using his status, profile pictures, quotations, wall posts, and groups. It cannot be denied that by such use of a networking community like Facebook, he was successful in raising awareness of his international friends about Tibet issue. And, if his Nepali friends follow such use into a trend, it will be a very effective way to achieve their goals.

Furthermore, if people can set trends and have followers, I think it is about time to think about a way that users can shape a new way they use Facebook: combining a networking community with a virtual marketplace, or in the other word: Facebook as an enterprise platform. By saying this, I am introducing a terminology: social-shaping, which roughly means that our society influences design and use of technology and vice versa. Users will start to use Facebook as a tool for them to do things such as marketing and revenue-creating. With Facebook, people can turn their profile completely into personal websites with existing Facebook platform, and introduce people in their friendlist about new products, news through using wall posting, photos, video-uploading. An on-going example is that singers can use their Facebook as means to communicate with fans, introducing new released albums, updating location of new tours, etc. Want more than that? Singers can probably sell their songs by using hyperlink of commercial music video to online music providers, such as iTunes. Asides from marketing, virtual networking platform can be a potential place for technology-savvy users to start earning their money by working as professional Facebook application writers and earn subscription fees from their work. With just as small as $1 for each individual to be able to subscribe for unlimited download of virtual gifts, of songs, or unlimited plays for online game, it may turn Facebook to a wonderful source of earning. How about payment method for these businesses? PayPal is a good candidate. However, with such new uses of Facebook, we may expect new technical issues regarding security and privacy: wall-scamming bugs, Deny of Service attacks, phishing, fee soliciting frauds, etc.

To conclude this entry, I want to quote my favorite saying about successful entrepreneurship: “ Wherever there are more than 2 people, there is a chance for establishing a market and earning profit.”. It seems to be true in both physical world and virtual world.

Long distance relationships

For today’s blog I would like to talk about how the modern information systems help to fan the flames of long distance relationships. I have known several friends who have been in long distance relationships. They range from New York and Kansas, Switzerland and Hong Kong, to the UK and Peru. Thanks to modern information technology systems couples from around the globe can now reach each other as if they were right next to each other. The way these relationships are realized can often be as creative as they are romantic. If couples can do the math to compensate for the time difference, than long distance relationships can still exist
To begin with, let me list out the technologies that couples use to reach each other through the day: internet, telephone, online chat, video chat, facebook, or even regular snail mail. Through these technologies couples can connect with each other over long distances. Video chat is probably the most realistic way to communicate with your significant other, to see their face and voice through the computer is almost as if you are talking face to face with the other person right infront of you
One of my friends orders food for his girlfriend on the other side of the states online. So when his girlfriends receives her food and see that her boyfriend ordered it she is pleasantly surprised. It is almost as if this act brings them closer to each other.
I have also heard about kids in MIT who designing custom beer mug that communicates through wireless internet. These beer mugs come in couples and when one takes a drink the bottom of the beer mug lights up and half-way across the world their significant others beer mug also lights up. So this is almost like couples are having a drink together.
However information technology can that never substitute physical intimacy you are not using all your senses there is no touch involved.

Virtual workplace– Let’s imagine!

Imagine one day not far from now, there is no job interview where interviewer and interviewee both get stress, no physical office where you have to sit on your chair for eight hours or more every day, no falling asleep in a meeting room, and no awkward feeling when handing in the resignation letter. All can be done via the Internet. It may be an awesome vision for some people and an undesirable vision for the others. But the point is, now you may believe you cannot have enough time for your family (especially for women workers) to take care of your family and still have a good and satisfying job. But with the development of IT in the near future, you can be still be an efficient worker and still have your own time for family and other social relationship. Your home may as well be your work place.

If you are ready, now we are to move in to the future and see what may go on.

Recruitment

You have a resume. But not like long ago, you do not have to write by yourself and edit according to different job fields. Just like CMI (Customer- Managed Interaction), an organized file name Employee-Managed Interaction (EMI) is developed to describe your previous education and work experience. Every time you successfully move from job to job or get a promotion, there is an employment performance file you can receive from your employer. When all experience and skills piled up over time, you have your own database or job experience and knowledge. Let your computer automatically tag each position with one or several keyword of actual and potential job title, knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA), then when categorize and produce a professional formatted resume based on those title and KSA. You then are ready to transmit your EMI file to a recruitment database broker (just like you posted your resume on ob-seeking website long ago) and get recommendation of the jobs suitable and available for you to decide. Based on the recommendation, you select the company that you are interested in and click Accept to request an interview (if need one) for that job.

As I said, there is no more anxious and stressful moment on a physical interview. Since people now work on at home, you can absolutely get an interview at home. At least dress up yourself professionally and sit (if you want, feel free to stand up and walk while talking) in front of a webcam connected with wireless Internet. The job interview is a type of video conference. Interviewers can interview with not only one but a pool of selected applicants and interact with them. If you are admitted, congratulation, and do not forget to send a thank-you email to your interviewer.

Working

Now you have a job. Your job gives you flexible hours, so there is no need to skip your breakfast and rush to work in bad traffic hours. Assignments are disseminated based on your ability and sent to you through a secure intra-network email account. Work can be done by yourself or in group. Since your company has its own Networking IT, there is wiki, employee network (like Facebook), as well as a cloud platform to work in team collaboratively. Two new things in this kind or work environment are: networking and collaboration with your co-workers and people elsewhere who work on common field, and the visualization of data on not only spreadsheet or charts, but also in an interactive 3D form or touch-screen form that can be articulated for what-if analysis and stored for further querying. Meetings are now video conference with video, audio, files transferred and notes taken to be stored in archived meeting file. Again, if you don’t feel like joining the meeting, feel free to consult the archived file of the meeting. Furthermore, since you can work with people from anywhere in the world, it is time for you to have a global perspective on work and learn new language and culture to master your KSA.

Retention

When you feel like move on to another job for various reasons, you can contact your employer to stop receiving assignments and subscription to the intra-network. Your employer will need to have an exit-interview with you through video-conference or company chat-room to see why you are leaving your job and what change you would have expected. Afterward, he or she would conclude and send you your employment file related to your recent job description for you to update your EMI record. Now you are ready to start again with same job or different job in another company.

Many people believe that physical human interaction at work is the key to successful performance and task-fulfillment, especially in the service industry and art-based jobs. However, what I am describing above to be viewed and customized totally or partly on an individual firm basis.

Credits for illustration go to CNET. < http://news.cnet.com/2300-1001_3-10000444-4.html?tag=mncol >

Internet Celebrities

For today’s post I would like to talk about how web 2.0 given average human beings to achieve levels of unprecedented popularity on the internet. One of the major mediums in which this phenomenon in taking place is Youtube. The Vblog, or video blog allows any internet user to upload a video onto the internet for the masses. All of a sudden ordinary every day people with a webcam have become overnight celebrities. Some people even get attention through completely unintentional means. They way they get attention are through a variety of different means, whether it be through humor, display of talent, or sheer malignant display of narcissism.

But what is driving their instant fame? It is bored everyday internet users using any form of entertainment they could possibly find online.

Firstly, I’d like to talk about the self-made celebrity Vblog personas. My 13 year old little brother is a big fan of famous YouTube personality called Kevjumba.

Kevjumba is an ordinary kid who makes frequent weblogs about his own thoughts, views, opinions and life stories. In total, his YouTube videos have been viewed a total of about 50 million times and he has only uploaded about 45 of them. Of course, a certain percentage of those are repeat views, but still the number 30 million is quite astounding. Thus, on average his video postings average about 1,111,111 views.

When Kevjumba makes his videos he doesn’t need to spend any money, minimal time and man power (he is a one-man show). Yet he is able to put together a successful show with millions of eager fans, hungrily awaiting his next video posting. And this is just one example of many ordinary people that have taken advantage of the even playing field of the internet. This teenage play has proven that anyone with the right amount of charisma, talent, ideas, or sense of humor can be an instant overnight internet celebrity.

Another example of how not to leverage the internet to achieve personal popularity can be described by a term “Malignant Narcissism” coined by my Business Computing Professor Talbert. Malignant narcissism is an example of shocking behavior that is done for the sole reason of garnering more attention.

An example of malignant narcissism can be seen in this video:

In the video a young man by the name of Chris Croker publicly displays his hysteria and uncontrollable emotional outburst by defending the pop-star Britney Spears—to a very comical effect. This one video garnered about 24 million hits. This has a very similar phenomenon to reality TV, wherein people liked to see other people displaying this kind of atypical behavior in order to have the believe that in the world out there, there are people more messed up than they are.

With the internet’s ability to give one person access to a massive audience, websites like YouTube are creating instant celebrities who provide easy to access entertainment to a bored audience base.