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EGOCASTING

1.. Which lecture topics covered so far in class are related to the article’s content. Describe in what way.

• Well first thing i'd say is the lecture of convergence, because if in all these artcles we are seeing the convergence of all the things is helping the user get what he wants when he wants.

• Also the topic of smart agent technology(technology which learns about the user), because we see both in the development of the ipod there is the whole thing of the item trying to figure out what you like and doing it for you.

• Also the Article looks at social issues which we discussed in the class.

2.. The following quote appears in the article: “There’s such a unique emotional connection between people and this product [TiVo]”. Why do you think that is the case? So many other useful products donít seem to generate such a strong emotional response and cult like following, but TiVo does. Why? (see also http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66426,00.html?tw=rss.ENT )

Well, lets look see what the tivo does.

• It records their tv for them when they are not there without too much fussing about on part of the user.
  
• it knows (learns) what you like, and as a friend would, it tries and gives you those and similar programmes by recording them for you without you having to configure it.
• It is smart, it is usable, useful is reliable and will always be there to give you the type of entertainment you want. it will also manage it for you.

So i guess that's why people can not live without their tivo.

3.. In your opinion and based on the article, what are the problematic issues concerning the use of smart media consumption devices like TiVo and iPod?

These things will isolate people into a world of their own. It will almost be like, people walking in their own little worlds, dancing to their own music when and where they want without any notice of what is happening around them. When at home instead of the usual outdoor activities people will tend to sit longer infront of the box, because there is more of the stuff you like on tv, so you wont go out and mix with people. What was supposed to be just to manage your tv starts managing your life by totally sucking you into itself. We have to really look at the progress of technology and what it is creating of humans.

4.. View the Flash movie at http://oak.psych.gatech.edu/~epic/ and make note of the themes and topics shared by this movie and the article. Whatís your impression of the future the movie attempts to describe?

It shows us the true power of smart technology, or personalised technology. It shows us that each user is an individual and that they all want something different, up until now they all got the same news, same television, same products but in the future that will chang totally. With the power of technology and data gathered about the user, google and it's partners will be able to give news specific to each user and their taste, which is scary because, how accurate will a story be if it generated by algorithms to suit the taste of certain people. Also the whole privacy issue will flare up more because of the amount of knowledge thse companies will hold of people. But I guess we humans are like animals, give them something good and then you can do whatever you want to them, they won't mind because you are a nice person who is giving them so much.

5.. What alternative title would you have given the article instead of egocasting?

• The perfection of human laziness
• The age of power
• ipod to igod
  

6.. Describe at least one more example of personalized content consumption other than TV (TiVo) and Music (iPod). It doesn’t have to be a real one.

I will go for a real one, Google news! There you can configure the page to what news you would like from what region about what topic. It then only shows you that thus making it totally personalised

7.. Summarize your own thoughts and conclusions

Today's age can be labelled as the information age. Wherever we look at their is information. 50 years ago som much information was not everywhere, and even if it was there it was costly and was not so easily accessible. Today we have millions of pages of information available to us at the click of a button costing us ver very little, We have access to such amounts of music which we will peopbably never hear, We have access to so many television channels that we don't know what to watch. So in this age of information where we are being constantly being bomarded by content in all sorts of forms, we need a content manager for us. I guess that's where tivo, ipod & google have come in. tivo manages all over tv for us so it makes some sense of the realm of television. Ipod has come and brought some order and use for the gigabytes of music people have collected, and google has started to give users what they want to see on the net, by first customising the news for themand also by being able to search the net for information they need.

So I guess It's

Usability

Definition of Usability Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance.
In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability usually refers to the elegance and clarity with which the user interface of a computer program or a web site is designed. The term is also used often in the context of products like consumer electronics, or in the areas of communication, and knowledge transfer objects (such as a cookbook, a document or online help). It can also refer to the efficient design of a mechanical objects such as a door handle or a hammer.

Importance of Usability

If a website is not easy to use, then the visitor will not feel confident with the company. This can prove costly when competitors are only a mouse click away. If your site is difficult to use, then don't expect people to waste their time on it. "Launching a site that is difficult to use means that you not only lose your best customers - those who are eager to use the service - but they will also warn others not to visit the site." (Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group).

According to market research from Gartner Group, 50% plus of online sales are lost because visitors can’t find what they are looking for!

It’s easy to blame the user if something is not designed properly. or the user ends up blaming himself because they cannot figure out how a product works.

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Benefits of Good Usability

The benefits of Usability are endless. It can make companies succeed if it's good or kill them if their product is not usable.

• Increased productivity
• Decreased training and support costs
• Increased sales and revenues
• Reduced development time and costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Increased customer satisfaction

If something is usable, the customer will be happy with it. Their is no better sales person as a happy customer, he will tell others of the product or site and thus bring in more customers. It will give him trust in the company/ website and make him come back again and again.

"In our first year we didn't spend a single dollar on advertising, but we grew real big just on word of mouth. The best dollars spent are those we use to improve the customer experience." - Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com

If a website or designed with usability right from start they will end up saving you money and a lot of time, in the long run. Because later on you won't have to change the product or design because the customers aren't happy.

How can the Usability on interface be measured

• By how easy it is for people to get what they are looking for
• By Every one achieving same / similar results.
• By users not getting frustrated at trying to find / achieve something
• By seeing if the user is getting the info you want to give them

• The best mesure for a usable interface is to see

how easy people find it to use

how many people abandon the site


and the over all success of the site/product

• Questionnairess on the following topics can be used on a varied group to test usability
  
1. Usefulness
2. Ease of Use
3. Ease of Learning
4. Satisfaction

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Question 1

We have all in our time either used napster or heard of napster. It was the start of the music download through the internet.

It became so popular that a lot of the big companies thought that they would go bust because nobody would buy music no more. Also it gave a platform for less known artists to share their music with the masses without having to get a producer who would want them to change their music to the taste of the main boss.

So according to the Andrew Gullivan Blogging is heading the same way. The need for publishers will disappear and people will not have to worry that their original article will be watered down to the taste of the editorial board and the powers up above.


Question 2
Every person has his or her views on anything to everything. May it be the latest news headline on the TV or the paper, may it be the political situation, may it be on a company’s policies, or just life; Everyone has that view. Up till now there was very little one could do to voice those views.
Blogging has empowered the individual to voice his opinions with ease and to the whole world (it's another thing that nobody might be interested). It has given the individual to discuss his views with a broader audience than the pub he used to go to. He can also now get feedback on his opinions. The greatest thing about it all is the anonymity.

For the information hungry reader, blogs have given him a whole ocean full of latest news and views, and now he has the power to tell the reader I he thinks his info is wrong which he never had previously.


Question3
Yes the Traditional publication model will still be relevant in the future.

• Blogs are always coming up with news Ideas but what traditional media has the power to do is to get the facts to make the story solid.

"This is Journalism and Weblogs working together at its best. Bloggers break the news and hash it out... and a Journalist adds a layer of reporting on it, bringing that news beyond the Blogosphere."

• There are too many people with blogs who haven't got the faintest idea of how to write and end up putting very boring things

Alongside the boom, however, there have recently been a few faint signs of backlash. As increasing hordes take on the task of trying to keep new sites looking nice, sounding original and free from banalities, more hordes just seem to fail.

Question 4

With the proliferation of blogs we are seeing a whole new group of people blogging about everything from politics to what they ate this morning. I am sure that most people aren't interested in what someone ate this morning, so users are faced with trying to find something creative to write to get people to subscribe and read their blogs daily. And the challenge for them is to maintain their blogs, and not be let down if nobody reads.

Also for the developer it is a constant challenge to innovate blogging to get the real knowledge of experts onto the blogging world as written in Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog by farhad manjoo:-

Winer added that the technology behind weblogging still needs to get significantly easier for the real talent to come online. "What I'm interested in is the doctors and professors and engineers and people who have a good education and a social area of expertise. We need to really reach those people, we have to go a couple of levels in terms of ease-of-use."

I think a challenge many developers are facing is to make blogging available on all types of devices, from mobile phones, to pda's, blackberry's. They should look into how people can blog by text messaging, or how people can turn their mobile phones into live camera feeds.

The greatest challenge of all according to me is the challenge of authenticity. With blogging all sorts of people have access to be able to tell the world something. Blogging behaves just like Chinese whispers and before you know it the EU will have a new flag.

Over 60 blogs linked to the story about the new EU flag, most of them bemoaning the "hideous" and "truly ugly new flag". But what most people don't know is that the flag was just a concept design not officially commissioned by the EU.b
(Blogosphere: the emerging Media Ecosystem by John Hiler)

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answers

Question 1

We have all in our time either used napster or heard of napster. It was the start of the music download through the internet.

It became so popular that a lot of the big companies thought that they would go bust because nobody would buy music no more. Also it gave a platform for less known artists to share their music with the masses without having to get a producer who would want them to change their music to the taste of the main boss.

So according to the Andrew Gullivan Blogging is heading the same way. The need for publishers will disappear and people will not have to worry that their original article will be watered down to the taste of the editorial board and the powers up above.


Question 2
Every person has his or her views on anything to everything. May it be the latest news headline on the TV or the paper, may it be the political situation, may it be on a company’s policies, or just life; Everyone has that view. Up till now there was very little one could do to voice those views.
Blogging has empowered the individual to voice his opinions with ease and to the whole world (it's another thing that nobody might be interested). It has given the individual to discuss his views with a broader audience than the pub he used to go to. He can also now get feedback on his opinions. The greatest thing about it all is the anonymity.

For the information hungry reader, blogs have given him a whole ocean full of latest news and views, and now he has the power to tell the reader I he thinks his info is wrong which he never had previously.


Question3
Yes the Traditional publication model will still be relevant in the future.

• Blogs are always coming up with news Ideas but what traditional media has the power to do is to get the facts to make the story solid.

"This is Journalism and Weblogs working together at its best. Bloggers break the news and hash it out... and a Journalist adds a layer of reporting on it, bringing that news beyond the Blogosphere."

• There are too many people with blogs who haven't got the faintest idea of how to write and end up putting very boring things

Alongside the boom, however, there have recently been a few faint signs of backlash. As increasing hordes take on the task of trying to keep new sites looking nice, sounding original and free from banalities, more hordes just seem to fail.

Question 4

With the proliferation of blogs we are seeing a whole new group of people blogging about everything from politics to what they ate this morning. I am sure that most people aren't interested in what someone ate this morning, so users are faced with trying to find something creative to write to get people to subscribe and read their blogs daily. And the challenge for them is to maintain their blogs, and not be let down if nobody reads.

Also for the developer it is a constant challenge to innovate blogging to get the real knowledge of experts onto the blogging world as written in Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog by farhad manjoo:-

Winer added that the technology behind weblogging still needs to get significantly easier for the real talent to come online. "What I'm interested in is the doctors and professors and engineers and people who have a good education and a social area of expertise. We need to really reach those people, we have to go a couple of levels in terms of ease-of-use."

I think a challenge many developers are facing is to make blogging available on all types of devices, from mobile phones, to pda's, blackberry's. They should look into how people can blog by text messaging, or how people can turn their mobile phones into live camera feeds.

The greatest challenge of all according to me is the challenge of authenticity. With blogging all sorts of people have access to be able to tell the world something. Blogging behaves just like Chinese whispers and before you know it the EU will have a new flag.

Over 60 blogs linked to the story about the new EU flag, most of them bemoaning the "hideous" and "truly ugly new flag". But what most people don't know is that the flag was just a concept design not officially commissioned by the EU.b
(Blogosphere: the emerging Media Ecosystem by John Hiler)

blah blah & blog

• The practice of blogging is hardly new. Well before the dot-com swoon, blogging began to boom.
• a group "large enough that at least there's many different weblogs, and a million different kinds of weblogs,"
• John Dvorak of PC Magazine said that while a few blogs were insightful, many new webloggers were getting into blogging for all the wrong reasons. They were "wannabe writers" who were looking for "ego gratification," Dvorak wrote.
• 90 percent of science-fiction is crud. That's because 90 percent of everything is crud." so 90% of blogs are not interesting enough for people
• so what if most weblogs aren't interesting? The good thing, said Williams, is that everybody doesn't have to read them all.
• weblogging still needs to get significantly easier for the real talent to come online.
• even before this new technology arrives, some of those who have taken a dim view of the mainstreaming of blogging say there is still a lot to be celebrated.

The emerging Media Ecossystem

Blogosphere


A News Story life cycle

• It has to as soon as it comes otherwise somebody else will get the crowds.

BREAKING NEWS VERSUS ANALYSIS

1. Most news stories start off as Breaking News: a story that no one else knows about.
2. fter the Breaking News comes out, then it's time for the Analysis: Why did this happen? How could it have happened? What does it all mean?
3. Op-Ed

BACK TO THE FOOD CHAIN

1. Print Journalists break lots of news stories. If the story is exciting, other print media outlets will pick it up and run with it. You can almost always spot when this happens, because the story will often credit the source
2. There are a limited number of participants in the Traditional Media Food Chain, with only so many people available to do the original reporting and fact checking the whole systems needs to work. Because of these limited resources, many have charged Traditional Media with a consistent bias that fails to reflect the diversity of opinions and ideas.
3. a strong sense from some readers that Media organizations have a mixed record when it comes to accurately and fairly reporting the News.

WEBLOGS AS GRASSROOTS REPORTING

1. because bloggers are not biased by any one media you get a more original viewpoints and thus puts itself at the base of the media chain.
2. Because bloggers are closer to a story, they'll often pick up the sort of things that traditional Journalists miss.
3. Eyewitness blog can give readers an insiders account. and because of this grassroots reporting has continued to be a key strength of blogs.
4. As personal and powerful as eyewitness blogs can be, they often lack the credibility of a traditional news outlet.
5. grassroot blogging may differ from what the more traditional media has to say but this is what Then again, maybe the point of grassroots reporting: at least now there is access to another perspective.
6. Thematic Blogs usually involve one person(well versed in what they talk about) blogging about their area of expertise or passion.
   

COLLABORATIVE MEDIA

1. Anyone can submit an article
2. Anyone can vote on whether or not that article passes muster
3. Anyone can post comments about a story, providing feedback and building on the story

WEBLOGS WORKING TOGETHER: COLLABORATIVE MEDIA

1. people link to each others blogs many of them providing commentary and making additional points about the event.

JOURNALISTS AS PREDATOR: USING WEBLOGS FOR STORY IDEAS

1. Because of all the collborative blogs, traditional journalists get ideas for their own stories.
2. This is Journalism and Weblogs working together at its best. Bloggers break the news and hash it out... and a Journalist adds a layer of reporting on it, bringing that news beyond the Blogosphere.

WEBLOGS AS PREDATOR: FEASTING ON JOURNALISTS' ARTICLES

1. Blogs feast daily upon Articles writen by Journalists, linking to each article and adding their own comment and perspective.
   
2. now weblogs can check facts of a news article,story.

JOURNALISTS AS PREY

1. But before bloggers can start the conversation, first they need something to talk about and that is usually article are written by Journalists and published in Big Media newspapers and magazines.

THE COMPLETE BLOGOSPHERE

1. Grassroots Reporting

2. Blog Filtering

3. Traditional ReportingBlog Filtering and Fact Checking

LIES LIES AND MORE LIES

1. the information cycle between blogosphere and media can sometime reinforce lies or biases.
1. new media---people have a way to correct misinformation and circulate the correct information back into the Media Ecosystem
2. old media ---difficult in getting a Correction printed in the newspaper... and then, the chances of anyone seeing that Correction buried deep inside the next day's paper.

WARBLOGGERS TURBO-CHARGE BLOGOSPHERE

1. after 9/11 blogging became more popular and moved away from just tech blogs to political prsonal etc.
2. 
   

WHY THE BLOGOSPHERE MATTERS

1. Glenn Reynolds compares blogs to 18th century European coffeeshops. where intellectuals could read the free newspapers and debate the important issues of the day. According to Glenn, these coffeeshops were the birthplace of a whole new set of ideas that fueled the next generation of thinkers, artists, and business people
1. Advantages of blogs
1. you don't have to be European to participate. and langauage does not matter because there are many translating tools.
2. Geography has become irrelevant. you dont't have to travel to a coffe hpuse.
3. the Blogosphere is free - both for bloggers and for readers.
4. 
   

what makes a webloag a weblog

• That is the essential element of weblog writing, and almost all the other elements can be missing, and the rules can be violated, imho, as long as the voice of a person comes through, it's a weblog.
• Weblogs are unique in that only a weblog gives you a publication where your ideas can stand alone without interference. unlike others where you get morphed into something else.
• A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.

What is a weblog post

• A weblog post has three basic attributes: title, link and description. All are optional. Most weblog posts are short, a paragraph or two.
• ARCHIVES 7 PERMA LINK
• archives are where all artcles which are not on the home page are kept, there is a permalink (#) available ehich can be used to link directly to them
• COMMENTS
• containing reader comments and responses from the author
• CALENDAR
• The home page and each archive page of the weblog usually displays a calendar, in the familiar format, that allows the reader to easily locate the archive pages by time
• CATEGORIES
• all post are categorised and put in a certain area, so a reader can view all the posts of his interest.
• Rendering
• Most posts are rendred through a static template but you can use dynaimc ones

Infrastructure

• There are many wways to let people know of the latest entry to a blog. changes to it. when people have linked to it.

Content types

• there many types of content one can include in a blog
• summaries to a long article
• images
• movies, office documents, and any other downlloadable thing the user might want to add

The bolgging revolution

• Blogs are personal articles which can range from any topic, are well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radio, and will change how journalism functions.
• Readers of big newspapers doubt the real opinion of the writers knowing that behind them there is an editor who changes the real views.
• Blogging has made the writer the boss and given him the independance to write what he wants without no guidelines. unlike traditional media where the artcle was influenced by advertisers, editors, particular venuture etc.
  
• Blogging can be profitable. you can have a very vast audience and make a profit by writing. You can publish your works in book form through print on demand.
• Blogger could be to words what Napster was to music - except this time, it'll really work.

weblogs are to words what napster was to music?

Question 1
We have all in our time either used napster or heard of napster. It was the start of the music download through the internet.

It became so popular that a lot of the big companies thought that they would go bust because nobody would buy music no more. Also It gave a platform for less known artists to share their music with the masses without having to get a producer who would want them to change their music to the taste of the main boss.

So according to the Andrew Gullivan Blogging is heading the same way. The need for publishers will disappear and people will not have to worry that their original article will be watered down to the taste of the editorial board and the powers up above.


Question 2
Every person has his or her views on anything to everything. May it be the latest newsheadline on the tv or the paper, may it be the political situation, may it be on a companie's poliies, or just life; Everyone has that view. Up till now there was very little one could do to voice those views.
Blogging has empowered the individual to voice his opinions with ease and to the whole world(it's another thing that nobody might be interested). It has given the individual to discuss his views with a broader audience than the pub he used to go to. He can also now get feedback on his opinions. The greatest thing about it all is the anonimity.

For the information hungry reader the blogs have given him a whole ocean ful of latest news and views , and now he has the power to tell the reader i he thinks hisi info is wrong wich he never had previously.


Question3
Yes the Traditional publication model will still be relevant in the future.

• Blogs are always coming up with news Ideas but what traditional media has the power to do is to get the facts to make the story solid.

"This is Journalism and Weblogs working together at its best. Bloggers break the news and hash it out... and a Journalist adds a layer of reporting on it, bringing that news beyond the Blogosphere."

• There are too many people with blogs who aint got the faintest idea of how to write and end up puuting very boarin things

Alongside the boom, however, there have recently been a few faint signs of backlash. As increasing hordes take on the task of trying to keep new sites looking nice, sounding original and free from banalities, more hordes just seem to fail.

Question 4

With the proliferation of blogs we are seeing a whole new group of people blogging about everything from politics to what they ate this morning. I am sure that most people aren't inetersted in what someone ate this morning, so users are faced with trying to find something creative to write to get people to subscribe and read theirt blogs daily. and the clallenge for them is to maintain their blogs, and not be let down if nobody reads.

Also for the developer it is a constant challenge to innovate blogginging to get the real knowledge of experts onto the blogging world as written in Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog by farhad manjoo:-

Winer added that the technology behind weblogging still needs to get significantly easier for the real talent to come online. "What I'm interested in is the doctors and professors and engineers and people who have a good education and a social area of expertise. We need to really reach those people, we have to go a couple of levels in terms of ease-of-use."

I think a challege many developers are facing is to make blogging available on all types of devices, from mobile phones, to pda's, blackberry's. They should look into how people can blog by text messaging, or how people can turn their mobile phone's into live camera feeds.

The greatest challenge of all according to myself is the challenge of authenticity. With blogging all sorts of people have access to be able to tell the world something. Blogging behaves just like chinese whispers and before you know it the EU will have a new flag.

Over 60 blogs linked to the story about the new EU flag, most of them bemoaning the "hideous" and "truly ugly new flag". But what most people don't know is that the flag was just a concept design not officially commissioned by the EU.b
(Blogosphere: the emerging Media Ecosystem by John Hiler)

testing

hare krishna