TWITTER!!!

This week blog about “How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live” by Johnson.

I’m totally agreed with the author that Twitter makes a terrible first impression. When I first had contact with Twitter, I totally do not know how to use it and the purpose of using it. It can’t share pictures, video, and it just let you send 140 characters message. I was too used to Facebook, so I’m totally do not like this new service when I first in-touch with it. Then, slowly I found it is kind of interesting to just post a short and straight forward tweet just like a conversation. I keep up with my friend in UK on Twitter to know how she is doing there and what she is doing. Just like what the author mention in the article – “We don't think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask.” I always had conversation with her on twitter instead of msn because both of us do not have the time for long conversation, both of us are doing our own stuff and Twitter is the perfect choice for us.

            Twitter is very simple, and straightforward. It do not have the like button, comment button and share button, it just have reply, retweet and favorite. Sometimes, my friend said something that I really like, I can’t click the like button or share it (I was so use to Facebook) but to reply with short words like I like it. It is so simple that when you like what people said about it, you can reply to that person that you like it or retweet it. Retweet button is the same as the sharing button on Facebook. Since Twitter can’t share pictures, video and so on, but Twitter user can share it with friends by tweet the links with a short and simple introduction with it. I like the simplicity of Twitter, so, and i totally agree that once you start tweeting, you will get addicted to it.

Many artists own a Twitter account and of course they have tons of followers. They tweet about their daily life just like all of us and share it with their fans. There are many artist promote their new songs thru twitter. They just need to share a link of their music video and their fans will it. There are artist also inform their fans about their new song in twitter too. For example, Jesse Mccartney tweeted that his new song will be at iTune soon and asks his fans to purchase it. Therefore, twitter has become an advertising tool too although it does not have a corner for advertising.

Besides, the author had mention about the intimacy that the fans had with their idol thru Twitter. Whenever their idol tweeted something, they can reply it and some of the artist do reply their fans. For example, Justin Bieber will go thru their fans tweet, reply them or retweet it and he even follow his fans on twitter. This is one of the reasons why people is crazy about Twitter.

Did Bieber follow you on Twitter?

            Twitter also had become a business tool. It is because many businesses had a twitter account and tweeted about their product, services to update their follower as well as customer and also communicate with their customers. For example, MY FM – a Chinese radio station in Malaysia owns a Twitter. It will keep update with the news, which artist is coming to the studio for live broadcast, who is in the studio now, what game is coming up next and so on to attract people to listen to MY FM.

Better than Free!! =)

This week blogging will be “Better than Free” by Kevin Kelly
Introduction
Before I read this article, I was attracted by the topic of this article – “Better than Free”. What is better than free? Everyone likes free things. Everyone goes for it when there are free things. I was curious about the idea of – Better than free.

“Better than Free”

The internet is a copy machine

                The author stated that “The internet is a copy machine”. It is the most suitable words to describe the information on the internet. It is because that everything on the internet will be copy again and again. For example, when we are out of idea on doing an assignment, we will find the information on the internet and get some inspiration and idea from it. From this, we copy the idea of other people’s work and make it into ours.

How can we make money with the “copy machine” while the information can be easily copied in millions? The author had stated there are eight intangible values that are better than free.

Eight intangible values that are better than free:

Books and Internet

1.       Immediacy – People can get free copy online for free but still there are people will pay money for it. Why so? Because people want the immediacy. For example, when a new “Harry Potter” was released, there are people lines up in front of the book store in the early morning just to buy the books.  There are even people that camp it in front of the book store the night before it release just to get the books. Internet can’t do all this. Another example, people will still spend money to watch movie even though the movie will be free to watch or download through internet sooner or later. Why? Because of immediacy. They want to enjoy the movie once it was release.

To stand out - personalized

2.       Personalization – There are bloggers earning money by blogging; the more visitors they have to their blog, the more money they earn. There are many bloggers around the world. They blog about different stuff everyday and how does a blogger to make his or her blog stands out in order to attract the visitors? The answer here will be personalized. This makes them different from other bloggers and makes the visitor remember and differentiate them from other bloggers easily and visit their blogs frequently.

Get help from Manual

3.       Interpretation – How people learn a new thing? For me, I prefer guidance from others – people or manual. The author gave a good example in the article - there are companies like Red Hat provide paid support for free software and they earn money by support and guidance.

Online shopping vs in store shopping

4.       Authenticity – Nowadays there are many people selling clothes through internet because it is cheap, more convenience and so on. But still many people still prefers to go to the shops and buy it. It is because they can know the quality of the clothes and the actual size, and make sure it is perfectly fine before purchase it or they can go back and change it if something goes wrong. They feel that the shop will be more reliable and warranty. Online shopping can’t do that. People do not know the quality of the clothes, the actual size of the clothes, odes it fits and whether the clothes in perfect form. Therefore, people rather pay more and go to the shop to buy clothes.

5.       Accessibility – Accessibility talk about backed up. The author state that the ownership sucks and he gave a good example of it - Acme backs everything up, pays the creators, and delivers us our desires.

The environment of a football match

6.       Embodiment – Internet is a virtual world. You can’t touch or feel the internet. It the same goes to the information and everything available in the internet. It means that it do not have the feeling of embodiment. For me, I like to read through an article on a paper more than on a laptop screen. It because I can easily take notes at the side on the paper or make a mark on it to remind myself. Other than that, when you watch a football match through your laptop screen is so much different from watching live in the stadium. You can’t enjoy the environment in the stadium, the excitement and the feel when everyone is shouting together; become sad when they team you support missed the goal and so much more. It is much more fun to watch it live in the stadium, that’s why, there are many people willing to paid the expensive tickets and watch it in the stadium.

7.       Patronage – “Audiences want to pay creators” – Kelly. It’s so true and this makes the music records to sales while there are songs available online for downloading. Like the author said, the fans feel connection between them and their idol when they purchase the album. It also shows the appreciation to their hard work. Another example is that people will purchase song thru iPod while there are songs available online for download.

Harry Potter =)

8.       Findability – “No matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless.” – Kelly. The author clearly state that a work that can be seen and can be found is very important and valuable. The internet has all sort of information and there are millions and millions of information of work, so it’s not easy for a specific work to be seen. This is known as clutter on the internet. For example, if J.K Rowling publish “Harry Potter” through internet it has huge possibility that her work won’t be seen and this lead to work that not sales. Besides that, people can easily make copy with it or stole her idea and produce a better work.

These eight facts are the basic things for people that want to earn money from conducting the business online. So, you should understand it, remember it if you want to conduct a business online or offline.

Media convergence

This week blogging – ‘The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence’ from Henry Jenkins

What is media convergence? Media convergence means that the use of several media on the same time. The typical example is that when we doing our assignment, we will use Microsoft word, listen to music, chat with friends, using social network – Facebook on the same time. Basically is media convergence means multitasking. People will not want to own a device that does not have much function or application. Now, even a basic mobile phone has mp3 function, camera, video recorder, can online and so on. This is known as the shift of technology.

The new technology/ new media

I remember when I was young, I did not know what is Internet but now, we can’t survive without Internet. The internet is the basic need for everyone now. People used internet to search for information, get information, for social purpose and even for education like e-learning, for assignment and so on. The widely used of the internet shows the shift of technology from traditional technology like books to internet. Like me, I rather used Internet to search for information instead of books. It is because internet has wider information and its very convenience.

 Another typical example of technology shift

The author stated that media convergence impacts the way we consume the media. It is very true because we multitasking every day. For example, we use mobile photo to take picture, edit it and post in on Facebook or mail it to other people. While we edit the photo, we may on the mp3 player on mobile phone – typical multitasking. As i mention just now, I used Microsoft word to type my assignments, listen to music, and chat with my friends, on Facebook and sometimes, I even watch the television program while i'm doing my assignemnt. We are multitasking at every minute, every seconds because of the new technology.

The uses of mobile phone/laptop/tablets/pc

The author stated that “Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift.” The author means that media convergence also link to the shift of technologies, industries, audience and so on. The shift of technologies and industries had focus on the internet because internet is the basic for people. Because of that, the behavior of audience also changed. One of it is that, audience behavior has change from passive to active. For example, last time, audience from traditional media is passive which they just take what it showed on television without giving any opinion or comments while the audience on the new media – Internet is very active. They can give comments; speak out their thoughts on Internet. For example, Harry Potter fans can share their thoughts, opinion and feeling with others fan on internet like forum or even social network like Facebook.

“Convergence is also a risk for creative industries because it requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media” – Jenkins

The companies have to rethink what the consumer wants and the consumer needs in this new era. They need to make changes in order to fit to the audience and to attract the audience attention. For example, many people do their business online because Internet has larger audience, no physical borders, free and so on. Many companies have their own webpage and advertise online to attract people’s attention or create awareness. Traditional media like newspaper also have online news because people do not read newspaper but read news online. For example, The Star newspaper has its own webpage which called The Star Online. A business that does not change accordingly or follow the trend will be outdated, difficult to fit in the society, and even get eliminated from the market.

As a conclusion, the media convergence changes the way we consume media, our daily life as we attached to our mobile phone, communicate with the new technology more than communicate with people. People will spend more time with the new technology instead of the time with people. Therefore, media convergence had its bad and goods. Do you agree with me?

Intellectual Monopoly

This week blogging will be “Against Intellectual Monopoly”

In this article, the author used the Watt story to relate to the intellectual property. The story begins with James Watt created the steam engine. Watt wanted to become the only one to provide this steam engine and earn money from it so he used the patents to protect his right toward the steam engine. He also wanted to prevent others from producing cheaper and better quality steam engine. With this, he can keep the price of his steam engine high. He had monopoly the production of the steam engine and this slowed the economic growth. This is an bad example of intellectual monopoly.

Intellectual Property

First, what do you think of intellectual property? For me, intellectual property means that the owner or the creator owns the ownership for what he or she created and prevent people to used it to earn money.  For example, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, the author of Harry Potter owns the ownership for the harry potter’s story, the character inside the story, and basically she own everything about Harry Potter. She can earn money by selling the story books; sell the copyright to the movie industry and so on. She can do whatever she wants towards the story and Harry Potter. Because Harry Potter is very popular, many people will to use the name of “Harry Potter” to earn money and Joanne Kathleen Rowling have the right to sue them about it.

There are three broad types of intellectual property recognized in most legal systems which are patents, copyrights and trademarks.

The three broad types of intellectual property:

1.    Patents – Patents is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state (national government) to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.

2.    Copyright – Copyright is the right given to the author to protect the original work of the authorship. It applies right to the copy, and author has the right to make copy and earn money from it.  Copyright have a longer period compare to patent. For example, in United State, the copyright apply through the life of the author and plus 70 years the author die.

3.    Trademarks – Trademarks serve to identify the providers of goods, services or ideas. For example, the yellow man from Digi is the trademark for Digi. Whenever people see the yellow man, they know that it is from Digi. Another example is the Apple logo from Apple. People will know that an advertisement is from apple when there is an Apple Logo on it. People recognize a several brand from its trademark.

Which one is the Apple's Logo?

For me, copyrights, patents and trademarks is very important to protect ones right for his creation. Without it, there will be no new creations or idea because everyone is too scared to share their creation or idea. They scared that what they have created will be used by the others and earn money without their knowing. This is very unfair for the creator. For example, people illegally download the music through internet is very unfair for the artist because the artist make living by selling their music. So, when people can have it online for free, what will the artist do for living?

            Back to the topic, intellectual monopoly has their bad and good part. From the Watt’s story, we know that one of the bad parts of intellectual monopoly is slower down the economic growth. There are many good part of intellectual monopoly. The creator or owner can have all the rights towards their creation. For example, the author of Harry Potter, Joanne Kathleen Rowling has the ownership for everything about Harry Potter. If she did not monopolize Harry Potter, there will be different version of story of Harry Potter. People will use “Harry Potter” as a character in other story and this may confuse the reader.

As a conclusion, I think intellectual monopoly is not a bad things, people can own what he or she had created. This is their rights as the creator of it. What do you think about it?

Information Ecology

This reading is Information Ecology

Network is full of information and knowledge. In order for the network to work, it needs nodes and flow of information. The author state that “Flows without elements of structure would be noise and nodes without flows would be dead.” The nodes carry the information and they are interconnected with each other. It constitutes the pattern in the flow of the information. They need each other in order to function. We get information from the nodes and communicate with each other through network. The author had come out with four dimension of information ecology.

 Four dimensions of an information ecology:

1.      Interdependency

The nodes are dependent on each other in order to work. The nodes are interconnected with each other and it can’t work alone. The purposes of network are sharing and get information so the nodes have to connect to each other to allow the flow of information and with this we are able to get the information and connect to each other.

nodes are interconnected with each other

2.      Change

Change means that the change of the flow of the information. The flow can go through different path or nodes to get to the destination. Because the network is decentralized, the information can flow through any nodes to get to the final destination.  

3.      Time-boundness

The author stated that “In an environment where information flows very quickly, at the speed of light through computer networks, and the new interrelations are born as fast as old connections die time is a supreme factor.” This means the information flow on the network is very fast and people can get the information in a blink of eyes. For example, when you sent an email to a friend in the opposite of the world, he or she will get the email in the blink of eyes. The flow of information is very fast regardless or the physical borders and time. It can reach to the targets immediately.

4.      Differentiation

“Information is difference and the nodes survive as long as they can make a difference, which is for as long as they can produce information that is valid for others.” So, differentiation at here means that, each node have to be special and unique. It should hold different information to differentiate themselves from the thousand thousands of nodes in order to survive.

In conclusion, network is made up of many nodes. Nodes and flow of information need to work together and they need each other to work in order for the network to work well. Nodes are interconnected to each other and its hold the information while the flow of information carries the information to us. Nodes and flow of information are “business partner” inorder to make the business called “network” to work properly.

Economies in Networking Citizens

This week reading is Economies in Networking Citizens (pp. 25-31)

Link >> http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Network%20citizens%20-%20web.pdf

The author said that “Technology is the only part of the answer to why it is that networks have remained in such sharp focus, and have occupied thinking around work and businesses.”The rapid growth of the technology have make network become very important to us. We can easily access to the network because of the new technology like iPad and smart phone at anywhere and anytime. This makes it easier for us to access to the network and make the network become convenient to us. For example, people are frequently updates their status through their mobile phone on Facebook or Twitter to let people know what they are doing. With these reason, network has become very important to business too.

social network

Network changes the way people conduct their business. In the past, people need the physical office to start a business but now, you just need a laptop and access to network and do business online. For example, there are many people selling clothes on the popular social network, Facebook. There are also a lot of organizations or company using Facebook to promote their service or product to millions of the Facebook user. They created a fan page for the company and update their company’s information for their fans in the fan page. They also keep in touch with their customer on Facebook. They can also advertise at the Facebook to create awareness towards their services or product. The labour had change from industry labour to liquid labour which means that the business had change from the factory machine assembly lines to the computer which processing information. Many company or organization had computerized their systems to be more systematic, convenience and flexible. With this, it is easier to find the data in the company when the data is computerized. It will save a lot of time for the staff to look for the data where time is the money for the company.

Besides that, network can help the organization or company in interact with client and customers.  I had just mention that many organization used the popular social network, Facebook to keep in touch and updates with the customer and clients. Network is a must for business especially when dealing with the client at different country. Organization or company need to keep in touch with the client frequently by email or have video conference. Network breaks the physical border in the real world and with this; it’s easier for the organization or company to make business throughout the whole world. The time on network is homogenization which means that the sense of time is less obvious on network. People can send the email or data anytime and can contact the people on the opposite on the earth at anytime.

Interact through Network

Because of the network, business can be done easily and faster. So, network is helps in economic. According to the author, he stated that the last two decades have seen a shift away towards service and knowledge-based work. In this century, the Katerina Rudiger has argued in a report for the Work foundation, ‘this shift to “intangibles” is underpinned by modern economic growth theory, which acknowledge the vital role that technological progress and knowledge play in generating long term growth. Network is full of different types of information and knowledge, it also can stores the organization data and helps to contact and deal with the clients. The employees can find the information on the network easily and make their work easier and can complete it in short time. Network also can help the employees from different department to communicate at anytime and anywhere. This helps to save time and make the work more effective.

There are many people do business through network to cut down the transaction cost. For example, organization or company can promote their service and product through social network which cost nothing like set up a fan page on Facebook. It can make a big impact on the audience and create great awareness. Besides that, people that do the business online also save down a lot of cost because they do not need to setting up an office for business.

As a conclusion, the network helps a lot in business. When the business or transaction had increase, our economic will increase as well. That means network will directly affect the economic. But there are some disadvantages of network in business as well. The network make the work become easier as well as cut down the job opportunities. The technology had replaced the job for us and the many people is losing their job. The author stated that “high-tech manufacturing declined from 443 300 jobs in 1996 to 288 000 in 2006”. It had become an issue in many develop country. What do you think?

I'm unemployed =(

What do you think about Cyberspace?

This week reading is “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” by Barlow.

Cyberspace - A world without fresh and bones

What is cyberspace? Cyberspace is the electronic medium of computer networks, in which online communication takes place (Free Dictionary). For me, I think that cyberspace is a virtual world. It is not a physical environment; all it need is just typing and clicking. There are no rules, no laws and no control in it. It also can say is a perfect world, a world that can satisfy each and everyone’s need. People can do everything and anything at cyberspace at anywhere and anytime. Everyone used cyberspace for different purposes and needs.

Get connected to the world - find information

Released Stress

Connect to the social network

Cyberspace has no central authority. Nobody owns the cyberspace. You can have total privacy in the cyberspace and you do not need to report to anyone when you use the cyberspace. The cyberspace is independent as well as you in the cyberspace. You can communicate with different people in different country without restriction and borders in cyberspace. People can also share information, files and so on on the cyberspace. Because of this, there are huge copyright issues on the cyberspace. For example, people can upload and download songs on the cyberspace for free.

According to the Barlow, cyberspace is free from law. Barlow said that “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.” People can do whatever they want and like on the cyberspace. No people will restrict anyone from doing anything. Basically people can do anything on cyberspace without worrying about the law.


“We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” quoted by Barlow. This means that people have the freedom of speech that they do not have in the reality. You can post up their opinion and speak whatever they think is right on the cyberspace and you will not get arrested because there are no rules on cyberspace.

When there are no rules and law, people will tend to do things that will hurt people, post up the fake information, news to affect the peace of the world. For example, people will fake their identity in the cyberspace and try to cheat money from people. People may post up the fake information that will make people panic and affect the peace of the world. Is it good that there are no rules and laws to control the cyberspace? It is a very subjective question, for the author, he thinks that there should not be any law for the cyberspace; they are forming their own Social Contract on cyberspace. He thought that cyberspace is different from the physical world and the government had no right to set a rules or law against them.


There are some country are trying to set laws for the cyberspace to try to control it. According to Barlow, United State had created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act. In Malaysia, there are ISA – Internal Security Act. ISA is an emergency act to fight against the terrorist and to maintain the national security. So, ISA have the rights to detent anyone that posted on the cyberspace if they found the content of the post is harmful towards the society of it will affect the peace in our country.

Everyone is equal in cyberspace

Everyone is equal in cyberspace. Everyone have the same rights on cyberspace. There are no stereotyping, no discrimination on cyberspace, people do not need to expose their identity to each other, and they have total privacy. With all this reason, people feel save while using cyberspace, they can freely speak out their thought and secrets without worrying the other parties will betray them. They can do things in the cyberspace that they are afraid to do in the real world.  But is the cyberspace really safe? If it’s really safe, why there are many hackers around and there people around tend to steal people’s personal data and fake their identity?

As a conclusion, I personally think that there need some rules or laws to control the cyberspace for the sake of people not for the sake of government. We need some laws or rules to protect our rights in the cyberspace. What do you think about it? Do you think that a cyberspace without any law and rules is better?