YouTube: An Icon for Web 2.0
Wikipedia describes Web 2.0 as being a “trend in the World Wide Web technology” which encompass such elements as: sites for social networking (other sites are: emailing, blogging, wikis, newsgroups, etc.) and other services that help: creating web-pages, web-hosting, designing, or creating group-gathering “rooms”; users socialize, debate, discuss, analyze, or share information. (Web 2.0, 2008).
One of the components of Web 2.0, though not one of the newest features, is YouTube. This site enables users to share videos. Wikipedia’s description of YouTube is a “website where users can upload, view, and share video clips”; it goes on to cite that the site was started in 2005 by three people employed by a company which eventually became part of “eBay.” The website became wildly popular, featuring a wide variety of film clips from movies, TV, and personal content.
People who subscribe to the service are permitted to upload the clips; non-subscribers are permitted to view and share clips but not upload them. Some clips are restricted; videos with questionable content can only be viewed, shared or uploaded by those individuals who are at least 18 years of age. Though not restricted from being posted, pornography or those clips which may contain offensive material are prohibited from being uploaded from the site.
Wikipedia reports that in June of 2006, over 2 billion videos were watched in that month, alone, and 50,000 more were added per day in May 2006; that number increased to 65,000 (per day) by July of that year.
In August of 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that YouTube boasted a half million subscribers and had an impressive showing of over six million videos. (Wikipedia, 2008).
what-is-what.com states that as of 2007, the video-hosting website is one of the ten most popular sites on the Internet and says that YouTube has 20 million users, most of which are teens and young adults. This article reports that though most of the videos are of amateur quality and content, large companies and corporations such as CBS, Sony, Universal, and Warner are allowing YouTube to license copyrighted material from them.
This article also brings out the point that although the website tries to ban pornographic content, videos of questionable and morally objectionable clips do make it on the marquee. For this reason, the website has been banned from some countries (Turkey, India, and Brazil are just a few), along with many schools and libraries. (what-is-what.com, 2008).
YouTube is known to many of the “Gen X’ers”, virtually all of the Millenials” and is still a thing of “awe and wonder” to a majority of us “Baby Boomers.” I’ll admit that my knowledge of this website was extremely limited, though I confess that a few good friends of mine found it and are completely enamored of it—some have even submitted personal clips! Yikes! I had heard of the site but hadn’t spent much time there since my first experience involved amateurish home videos of late teens or early twenty-something’s getting extremely drunk and falling off sofas—not my “thing”, if you know what I mean (actually, one young man shook a bottle of soda and stuck the open end up his nose, laughing hysterically as the bubbly stuff shot up into his brain and exited through his other nostril; a note here: if I had been in his place, my brain would have exploded and there would have been no material for the film clip—end of story. And I guarantee that there would have been very little humor on my part). For this reason, I chose to give this site another peek, just to confirm or refute the impression I formed after my first experience.
When visiting this site, I watched videos on how to do salsa dancing, belly dancing (3 types of “the shimmy” (I’d be in bed for a week after attempting any of the 3), how to balance 2 forks on a toothpick from the lip of a glass, and how to make a toothpick star from a collection of toothpicks and a drop of water. Although I enjoyed the videos, I often do not have the time to sift through and select clips that would interest me.
The link to my annotated bibliography is:
http://tinyurl.com/2nzuak
References
What is YouTube?http://what-is-what.com/what_is/youtube.htm
Wikipedia. YouTube.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
Wikipedia. (2008). Web 2.0.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
A Usenet Experience
A Usenet, Experience
As an “Older-Something” person and an admitted member of the Boomer Generation, I’ll confess that since returning to finish my degree, I have had many (many) new experiences—quite a number of them involving a computer and the Internet. Now, for most of you, these two interconnected communication systems are symbiotic with life, itself. Unfortunately, for many of my generation (I, myself, included), a computer was not a part of our birth appendages. In other words, my new “birth” of computer knowledge started about 3 years ago. At this point in time, I have successfully learned how to turn the “beast” on and even learned the name of various parts in a computer. Through classes such as this one, I am learning how to research topics on the Internet. Up to now the “web” has been a nebulous, mysterious realm where, with a few keystrokes, Wallah! Instant knowledge (or not—one has to be very careful, as I found out the hard way, that information, unless verified or found on a substantiated site such as educational one (“.edu” sites) may be falsely relayed or may be an opinion rather than fact or truth. This is especially true when one visits a Usenet site. On these sites it seems that “anything goes.” Rules of Nettiquette such as “#4- Respect other people’s time and bandwidth” and “#6- Share expert knowledge” seem to be ignored by many of the participants in the newsgroups that I visited. (Ross, 2005).
Though extremely entertaining—everyone can find a topic of interest—a person must be aware that not all information is fact, and indeed, most, if not all of the forums (the ones that I visited) are opinion-based. Some sites, such as “alt. support.depression.flame” (http://tinyurl.com/3drpx3), was an odd mix of facts and opinions; one post was about the business environment (http://tinyurl.com/345q4t); some were jokes (this was a blonde joke: http://tinyurl.com/39zjmw); to, well, questionably “tasteful” posts (Indian Actress Pictures hot sex )—I did not go into this post as I was not comfortable doing so—(and, no, I am NOT a prude, just not curious or interested in such posts, thank you very much). Some posts were conversational ramblings aimed at…? (Luna hates me—didn’t bother to investigate what that post even involved). It was amazing that almost every group that I visited had posts from people complaining that Rule #1- “Remember the Human” (Ross, 2005) was frequently broken. It is inconceivable that so many people would forget the Golden Rule of “do onto others…”
I did go on to one googlegroup site which I “searched” as “pets.” I then went to “rec.pets.dogs.behavior” (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pets.dogs.behavior/topics?lnk=gschg). I logged in as “afriend4u” and posted a message about the problems my husband and I were having with our 14 year-old dog named Stoney. My post (“My Stoney”- http://tinyurl.com/38h5qc)
drew 7 messages; some were from sympathetic dog lovers; one was very informative and I will follow up with my vet on some meds that could alleviate the problems we are experiencing with Stoney (“FurPaw”); one message, I have yet to figure out (it starts out “HOWEDY afriend4u…)--I have no idea what that person is saying to me except to tell me to read a booklet that he has written. His name is Jerry Howe and I wrote back to thank him for his time and advice.
Another site that I investigated was the WELL community site. I found the introduction interesting as well as the forums that were offered (Pamela McCorduck, “The Edge of Chaos” http://tinyurl.com/2tmch9). I watched one of the videos “The Martian Report: Episode Two, Extraterrestrial Anthropologist Investigates Solar Energy”, Howard Rheingold’s Vlog. The jury is still out on that one, Ladies and Gentlemen. (http://vlog.rheingold.com/).
All and all, my experience with the Usenet was intriguing although I am not sure that I will be a “frequent flyer” there, at this point in my life; the lack of respect for others and the liberal topics of discussion are not to my liking although the outpouring of sympathy and the candor of some respondents were touching—I found them to be refreshing. Although newsgroups and googlegroups are not my favorite things to do at this time, I know that these sites are very popular with many people and I don't feel that they will decline or disappear. Because they are a pure form of "Freedom of Expression" and a great socialization tool (even though I prefer "face time"), I think that this method of communication will continue to evolve and develope into a primary factor of interconnectivity as the world becomes acclimated more and more toward a global environment.
Later, when I have time on my hands and don't have to worry about working (I am just starting a new business), I may link up to some sites and enjoy a leisure perusal of them but for the time being, I haven’t the time or the need to seek conversations with those I don’t already know well such as friends or family.
References:
Ross, S. T. (2005). The core rules of nettiquette.http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
As an “Older-Something” person and an admitted member of the Boomer Generation, I’ll confess that since returning to finish my degree, I have had many (many) new experiences—quite a number of them involving a computer and the Internet. Now, for most of you, these two interconnected communication systems are symbiotic with life, itself. Unfortunately, for many of my generation (I, myself, included), a computer was not a part of our birth appendages. In other words, my new “birth” of computer knowledge started about 3 years ago. At this point in time, I have successfully learned how to turn the “beast” on and even learned the name of various parts in a computer. Through classes such as this one, I am learning how to research topics on the Internet. Up to now the “web” has been a nebulous, mysterious realm where, with a few keystrokes, Wallah! Instant knowledge (or not—one has to be very careful, as I found out the hard way, that information, unless verified or found on a substantiated site such as educational one (“.edu” sites) may be falsely relayed or may be an opinion rather than fact or truth. This is especially true when one visits a Usenet site. On these sites it seems that “anything goes.” Rules of Nettiquette such as “#4- Respect other people’s time and bandwidth” and “#6- Share expert knowledge” seem to be ignored by many of the participants in the newsgroups that I visited. (Ross, 2005).
Though extremely entertaining—everyone can find a topic of interest—a person must be aware that not all information is fact, and indeed, most, if not all of the forums (the ones that I visited) are opinion-based. Some sites, such as “alt. support.depression.flame” (http://tinyurl.com/3drpx3), was an odd mix of facts and opinions; one post was about the business environment (http://tinyurl.com/345q4t); some were jokes (this was a blonde joke: http://tinyurl.com/39zjmw); to, well, questionably “tasteful” posts (Indian Actress Pictures hot sex )—I did not go into this post as I was not comfortable doing so—(and, no, I am NOT a prude, just not curious or interested in such posts, thank you very much). Some posts were conversational ramblings aimed at…? (Luna hates me—didn’t bother to investigate what that post even involved). It was amazing that almost every group that I visited had posts from people complaining that Rule #1- “Remember the Human” (Ross, 2005) was frequently broken. It is inconceivable that so many people would forget the Golden Rule of “do onto others…”
I did go on to one googlegroup site which I “searched” as “pets.” I then went to “rec.pets.dogs.behavior” (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.pets.dogs.behavior/topics?lnk=gschg). I logged in as “afriend4u” and posted a message about the problems my husband and I were having with our 14 year-old dog named Stoney. My post (“My Stoney”- http://tinyurl.com/38h5qc)
drew 7 messages; some were from sympathetic dog lovers; one was very informative and I will follow up with my vet on some meds that could alleviate the problems we are experiencing with Stoney (“FurPaw”); one message, I have yet to figure out (it starts out “HOWEDY afriend4u…)--I have no idea what that person is saying to me except to tell me to read a booklet that he has written. His name is Jerry Howe and I wrote back to thank him for his time and advice.
Another site that I investigated was the WELL community site. I found the introduction interesting as well as the forums that were offered (Pamela McCorduck, “The Edge of Chaos” http://tinyurl.com/2tmch9). I watched one of the videos “The Martian Report: Episode Two, Extraterrestrial Anthropologist Investigates Solar Energy”, Howard Rheingold’s Vlog. The jury is still out on that one, Ladies and Gentlemen. (http://vlog.rheingold.com/).
All and all, my experience with the Usenet was intriguing although I am not sure that I will be a “frequent flyer” there, at this point in my life; the lack of respect for others and the liberal topics of discussion are not to my liking although the outpouring of sympathy and the candor of some respondents were touching—I found them to be refreshing. Although newsgroups and googlegroups are not my favorite things to do at this time, I know that these sites are very popular with many people and I don't feel that they will decline or disappear. Because they are a pure form of "Freedom of Expression" and a great socialization tool (even though I prefer "face time"), I think that this method of communication will continue to evolve and develope into a primary factor of interconnectivity as the world becomes acclimated more and more toward a global environment.
Later, when I have time on my hands and don't have to worry about working (I am just starting a new business), I may link up to some sites and enjoy a leisure perusal of them but for the time being, I haven’t the time or the need to seek conversations with those I don’t already know well such as friends or family.
References:
Ross, S. T. (2005). The core rules of nettiquette.http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Nettiquette,you?
Being an "oldie but goodie" I have been having less than effective when learning how to use computers and the internet. When I found this class (through the enthusiastic accolade of some blessed new-found classmates), I signed up hoping to learn what most of you already know about computers and "the net." I found the article that Dr. Carmean kindly required her students to read about "Nettiquette" inspiring and eye-opening for me. Though quite well informed about social ettiquette in face-to-face situations, it had not occured to me that it would be any different in internet conversations. The "10 Commandments of Nettiquette" made sense to me and made me aware of things that I hadn't considered; #1-Remember the Human- called attention to the fact that when you make written comments, they may not be interepreted in the same way which they were intended. I can see where a written word or thought can be misinterepreted when "listener" can't see facial expressions or hear voice inflections. Where voice inflections can reveal a subtly-inferred joke, the written word might not reflect the humor. Some parts were a bit harder--#3- Know where you are (Goodness, I don't even know where I am in real time, sometimes!) but all in all, most made sense. "Be ethical." "Don't give an impression you wouldn't want people to hold of you in person," "Respect others' privacy", "Don't use offensive language", "#10- Be forgiving of others' mistakes" (One that I, personally, need to mark in my book), and my favorite--"#7- Keep flame wars under control"--I love that because I had no idea what a "flame" was and even less idea why a "flame war" needed to be kept under control but I was completely fascinated by the concept that something with a name such as "flame" and "flame war" existed that needed to be under control. It sounded devious--a "flame war"--woohoo, sounds kind of fun, huh? Not a good thing, though, if used the wrong way.
I did learn a great deal from this reading so a big "thank you" to the Good Doctor (Colleen). I enjoyed this. Please feel free to comment on my enthusiasm for this reading. Thanks for your input.
I did learn a great deal from this reading so a big "thank you" to the Good Doctor (Colleen). I enjoyed this. Please feel free to comment on my enthusiasm for this reading. Thanks for your input.
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