I recommend ITEC-333 class not only because of the class discussion, but also because of hands-on experience. It is very useful to have hands-on experience of many tools especially after I learned how significant influence they have. Creating my own blog and learning its significance at the same time is a good example of it. Other than blog, I experienced many tools such as RSS, network analysis, wiki, social bookmarking,SEO, social news, etc. They are useful and important tools in today's Web world. In addition, most of these tools are for free, so you will get a lot of benefit from learnig these tools.
I won't recommend this class to those who are not interested in social networking and have allergy to computer. It is not very difficult to utilize these tools, but you have to deal with computer anyway. So if you can't endure facing to face with computer screen, you should not take this class. Except such cases, I strongly recommend this class.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Government & IT. Hope or Threat?
Some of the reading for this week mention dual nature of technology. Many people think technology make the world better, but it can be threat. Like McGovern said, "technology is neutral". Since technology has developed rapidly and has huge influence on society, it will be a nightmare if government misuse technology.
It reminds me two stories related to technology and government. The first story is about USA PATRIOT act. It was established after 9/11 and gave the US government the right to access private information. The government can gain the information about what we searched, what we clicked, what we sent by e-mail, etc. Such records remain on Internet service providers or search engines such as Google. It was established to prevent terrorism, but the government can abuse its power, so the privacy issue became a big concern.
The second story is about Google and the Chinese government. Since China is big market and the government demand to eliminate some Web sites, which are adverse to its interest, from the search results, Google accepted the censorship of its search results. Therefore, some Web sites which can be searched by Google in the US cannot be searched by Google in China. The number of Web pages today are enormous and everyone use search engines to find Web pages, so not appearing on search results is almost same as not existing.
If government can control some IT companies, it may be able to control all information. If it abuses its power, it will be horrible.
It reminds me two stories related to technology and government. The first story is about USA PATRIOT act. It was established after 9/11 and gave the US government the right to access private information. The government can gain the information about what we searched, what we clicked, what we sent by e-mail, etc. Such records remain on Internet service providers or search engines such as Google. It was established to prevent terrorism, but the government can abuse its power, so the privacy issue became a big concern.
The second story is about Google and the Chinese government. Since China is big market and the government demand to eliminate some Web sites, which are adverse to its interest, from the search results, Google accepted the censorship of its search results. Therefore, some Web sites which can be searched by Google in the US cannot be searched by Google in China. The number of Web pages today are enormous and everyone use search engines to find Web pages, so not appearing on search results is almost same as not existing.
If government can control some IT companies, it may be able to control all information. If it abuses its power, it will be horrible.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Online game and its problems
Online game become popular these days. Its connectivity with other players makes it more interesting. However, its connectivity can cause several problems.
First problem is its security. Since it is exposed to outside Web world, it can suffer for computer crimes such as DoS attack. Network problem of Final Fantasy 11 was caused by DDoS attack. Offline games don't have such problems because they work in their individual machines. Like usual Web services, it will be the semi permanent competition between computer criminals and online game companies. Therefore, this problem is hard to solve.
Second problem is Real-Money Trading (RMT). It is the problem that players of online games trade the imaginary currency in games with real money. It is also impossible in offline games because they have no means to interact its data with other software's data. Since online games started to involve real money, RMT can bring more fraud in online games. In addition, other players can be disturbed by those who involve RMT.
Third problem is how to charge the fee. Due to these days price competition, some companies moved from monthly fee system. They started the new system that players will be charged when they purchase in-game currency or some items with free connection. It sounds creative system, but one's wealth can influence how well players can play in this system. It may be inappropriate for original purpose of games.
In addition, although it may be same as offline game, some people are addicted to online games. One guy in Korea died because he keep playing online game for 86 hours in Internet cafe. Similar accident happened in some other countries, so be careful.
First problem is its security. Since it is exposed to outside Web world, it can suffer for computer crimes such as DoS attack. Network problem of Final Fantasy 11 was caused by DDoS attack. Offline games don't have such problems because they work in their individual machines. Like usual Web services, it will be the semi permanent competition between computer criminals and online game companies. Therefore, this problem is hard to solve.
Second problem is Real-Money Trading (RMT). It is the problem that players of online games trade the imaginary currency in games with real money. It is also impossible in offline games because they have no means to interact its data with other software's data. Since online games started to involve real money, RMT can bring more fraud in online games. In addition, other players can be disturbed by those who involve RMT.
Third problem is how to charge the fee. Due to these days price competition, some companies moved from monthly fee system. They started the new system that players will be charged when they purchase in-game currency or some items with free connection. It sounds creative system, but one's wealth can influence how well players can play in this system. It may be inappropriate for original purpose of games.
In addition, although it may be same as offline game, some people are addicted to online games. One guy in Korea died because he keep playing online game for 86 hours in Internet cafe. Similar accident happened in some other countries, so be careful.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Reputation systems and anonymity
Reputation systems help to maintain the order in Web world, and many sites utilize this system such as Amazon and eBay. However, there is still the possibility that someone will cheat in reputation systems. According to Dellarocas, one way to prevent cheating is controlled anonymity which means that the information about the reputation is open, but the information about identity is not open. But I don't think anonymity will prevent such cheating.
I think anonymity and reputation are conflicting concepts. In reputation systems, one is discouraged from cheating or antisocial behavior because such actions will cause bad reputation and that reputation will remain open to everyone. It based on the theory that without such a kind of punishment, people will not take appropriate action. However, that theory should be applied to the people who create reputation, in other words, evaluators. It is not guaranteed that they will equally evaluate. If they can evaluate anonymously, they may evaluate someone unfairly bad or good (maybe because of prisoner's dilemma). I often see that Amazon's some customer reviews are unusually low-rated (ex. I sometimes see "1 of 16 people found the following review helpful" on the reviews which I think pretty good). You need only Amazon's account to evaluate customer's review, and no one can see who evaluated it. Such things happen because of anonymity.
To avoid such situation, evaluators should also be exposed to reputation systems. Everyone should be able to see how they evaluated. Then, there will be the reputation of evaluator, and they will be discouraged from inappropriate evaluation. The reputation of evaluator is impossible with anonymity.
I think anonymity and reputation are conflicting concepts. In reputation systems, one is discouraged from cheating or antisocial behavior because such actions will cause bad reputation and that reputation will remain open to everyone. It based on the theory that without such a kind of punishment, people will not take appropriate action. However, that theory should be applied to the people who create reputation, in other words, evaluators. It is not guaranteed that they will equally evaluate. If they can evaluate anonymously, they may evaluate someone unfairly bad or good (maybe because of prisoner's dilemma). I often see that Amazon's some customer reviews are unusually low-rated (ex. I sometimes see "1 of 16 people found the following review helpful" on the reviews which I think pretty good). You need only Amazon's account to evaluate customer's review, and no one can see who evaluated it. Such things happen because of anonymity.
To avoid such situation, evaluators should also be exposed to reputation systems. Everyone should be able to see how they evaluated. Then, there will be the reputation of evaluator, and they will be discouraged from inappropriate evaluation. The reputation of evaluator is impossible with anonymity.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Tag's potential & problem
What I'm gonna write is very complicated and dfficult for me to express in English. If I write something incomprehensible, I apologize it.
Tag will help files to be categorized. This function will help seach engine because the data which has no letter information, such as picture and movie, can't be categorized without tag. In addition, if all Web pages are categorized by tag in advance, it will make search easy for search engine.
Tag has the potential to enable the Semanric Web. In Semantic Web, tag will categorize information by its meaning, and search engines can search infromation based on the purpose or meaning of the query. Oh, I can't describe it well. Just imagine that you put the query like "What is a picture painted by the Impressionists in 19c?". Semantic Web can answer your question. Search engine will find the file which has the tags "19c", "Impressionist", "picture". Usual Web will only match words in query with text, so such search is impossible. This is amazing.
However, using tag has one problem. Tag is not necessarily visible. Some blog shows it, but it is not always appeared. Therefore, if someone put irrelevant tags on his or her Web page, the readers can't find whether its tag is correct. It is possible to put irrelevant tag on the page to make the page searched for every words and ranked higher. That's why Google does not emphasize tag so much. When Google searched the Web pages just by matching query with contents, they had to struggle with those who attempted to be ranked higher by distributing many irrelevant words in their page. They don't want to go back those days. So to utilize tag for search, it is necessary to prepare countermeasure to avoid such mess.
Tag will help files to be categorized. This function will help seach engine because the data which has no letter information, such as picture and movie, can't be categorized without tag. In addition, if all Web pages are categorized by tag in advance, it will make search easy for search engine.
Tag has the potential to enable the Semanric Web. In Semantic Web, tag will categorize information by its meaning, and search engines can search infromation based on the purpose or meaning of the query. Oh, I can't describe it well. Just imagine that you put the query like "What is a picture painted by the Impressionists in 19c?". Semantic Web can answer your question. Search engine will find the file which has the tags "19c", "Impressionist", "picture". Usual Web will only match words in query with text, so such search is impossible. This is amazing.
However, using tag has one problem. Tag is not necessarily visible. Some blog shows it, but it is not always appeared. Therefore, if someone put irrelevant tags on his or her Web page, the readers can't find whether its tag is correct. It is possible to put irrelevant tag on the page to make the page searched for every words and ranked higher. That's why Google does not emphasize tag so much. When Google searched the Web pages just by matching query with contents, they had to struggle with those who attempted to be ranked higher by distributing many irrelevant words in their page. They don't want to go back those days. So to utilize tag for search, it is necessary to prepare countermeasure to avoid such mess.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The Advantages of Blog
When a company utilizes a blog for its business, what advantage a blog has? In "Naked Conversation", Scoble mentions that a blog enables two-way communications. Two-way communications are important for business because it is impossible for traditional advertisement to achieve two-way communications. Blog can do both advertisement and two-way communications at the same time. Is there other advantages? Let's think about them.
There are two types of advertisement. One of them is traditional advertisement such as TV commercial and junk-mail. It is "push" style, which means that a company unilaterally pushes its product information to customers. It pushes their advertisement regardless of customer's need. However, such ad started to lose its effect because customers don't want such ad and also technology help them refuses such ad, such as the recorders' commercial skipping function. Therefore, there is increasing need for another type of ads, and it is "pull" style advertisement. Pull style ad supposes that customers voluntarily access ads. Blog is effective as pull style ad because corporate blog will be read only by those who are really interested in that company. It can address to interested customers.
Another awesome thing about blog is good products can be mentioned in customer's blog. It will be a good advertisement because the comment by the users can be more reliable than what a company says. In addition, a blog tends to be read by people who have the similar preferences with the writer. Therefore, it can appeal to new potential customer. A company's good reputation can be spread by word-of-mouth. Moreover, if a blog can get track-back by many blogs, it will be ranked higher in search result.
There are two types of advertisement. One of them is traditional advertisement such as TV commercial and junk-mail. It is "push" style, which means that a company unilaterally pushes its product information to customers. It pushes their advertisement regardless of customer's need. However, such ad started to lose its effect because customers don't want such ad and also technology help them refuses such ad, such as the recorders' commercial skipping function. Therefore, there is increasing need for another type of ads, and it is "pull" style advertisement. Pull style ad supposes that customers voluntarily access ads. Blog is effective as pull style ad because corporate blog will be read only by those who are really interested in that company. It can address to interested customers.
Another awesome thing about blog is good products can be mentioned in customer's blog. It will be a good advertisement because the comment by the users can be more reliable than what a company says. In addition, a blog tends to be read by people who have the similar preferences with the writer. Therefore, it can appeal to new potential customer. A company's good reputation can be spread by word-of-mouth. Moreover, if a blog can get track-back by many blogs, it will be ranked higher in search result.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
What motivates people to cooperate
Rheingold mentions the cooperation of the masses for public goods. He refers to the development of Internet which is one of the successes of this cooperation. Today, utilizing this cooperation becomes trend. Open source, You Tube, Wikipedia, and Amazon's customer reviews are good examples. However, the success of these companies brought me a question. What motivates people to cooperate?
In fact, I can't find answer on my own. I can come up with several ideas, such as pursuit of self-benefit, intellectual satisfaction, good reputation and admiration, but none of them can convince me.
In many cases, the cooperation relates to their own benefit. For example, if someone develops a program based on open source, which means the program code opened to everyone for free, it can be for self-interest because that program can bring huge money to him or her.
However, self-interest alone can't explain the case of Wikipedia because posting something on Wiki can't bring any money. In Wiki's case, it may relate to intellectual satisfaction because if one's post is reflected on the pages without causing any argument, it means that many intelligent people accept his or her posting.
In Amazon's case, the desire for good reputation or admiration may be related. Amazon's customer review is also reviewed by users (You always see "X of X people found the following review helpful" in Amazon, right?). In addition, there is a ranking system called "Top Reviewers". These systems will bring reviewers a sense of admiration.
Yes, I could come up with these ideas, but I can't still be comfortable with the conclusion that these factors motivate them to cooperate. I can't understand why the quality of Wiki can be better than Encyclopedia Britannica (and also why many professors don't like student referring to Wiki!). So if you have any idea, please feel free to comment.
In fact, I can't find answer on my own. I can come up with several ideas, such as pursuit of self-benefit, intellectual satisfaction, good reputation and admiration, but none of them can convince me.
In many cases, the cooperation relates to their own benefit. For example, if someone develops a program based on open source, which means the program code opened to everyone for free, it can be for self-interest because that program can bring huge money to him or her.
However, self-interest alone can't explain the case of Wikipedia because posting something on Wiki can't bring any money. In Wiki's case, it may relate to intellectual satisfaction because if one's post is reflected on the pages without causing any argument, it means that many intelligent people accept his or her posting.
In Amazon's case, the desire for good reputation or admiration may be related. Amazon's customer review is also reviewed by users (You always see "X of X people found the following review helpful" in Amazon, right?). In addition, there is a ranking system called "Top Reviewers". These systems will bring reviewers a sense of admiration.
Yes, I could come up with these ideas, but I can't still be comfortable with the conclusion that these factors motivate them to cooperate. I can't understand why the quality of Wiki can be better than Encyclopedia Britannica (and also why many professors don't like student referring to Wiki!). So if you have any idea, please feel free to comment.
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