Week 5 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week five assigned readings.
• Posted three blog entries (this makes four).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on eight separate entries.
• Read week five discussion board content, contributed eight comments, and posted my produsage project.
• Listened to class WebEx recorded session since I couldn’t make the actual meeting.
• Experimented a little with suggested tools: Librarything and Second Life.
• Created produsage project and wrote accompanying paper.
  

The Facebook Data Torrent Debacle

As I logged on to Yahoo this morning to check my email, this little ditty was displayed front and center on my homepage.

A security consultant, Ron Bowes, collected the names and profile URLs for 171 MILLION Facebook accounts (which is a little over a third of total Facebook users), then uploaded the data as a torrent file allowing anyone with a computer connection to download the data. This article provides Q&A for those who may be concerned about their privacy and security risks.

If you’re a Facebook user, does this make you nervous? Are you likely to alter your privacy settings as a result of this data mining?

The Free Problem

In addition to Blogger, another popular blogging website is Wordpress. One of the things I really like about Wordpress is their "Freshly Pressed" page, which is a home page of sorts that features recently updated user blogs on various trendy topics. Today, one of the freshly pressed blogs was Hightalk who had written about the Internet's "Free" Problem.

According to this blog, a recent survey found that 49% of Internet users have tried free micro-blogging services like Twitter, yet 0% of them would be willing to pay for it.

This introduces the Internet's Free Problem-- users do not want to pay for anything that they already receive for free. We have been conditioned to expect certain online services like email, social networks, music, etc. to be provided for us at no cost.

Of course, not all of these free services will be sustainable without eventually asking income from it's users. Just this past month, The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper started charging for online content, and some other periodicals do as well.

What I'm wondering is, if you had to choose between paying for Web 2.0 sites and applications, would you do it or go without? Which ones would you pay for and why?

I would pay for an online email account like Yahoo or Google, but that's about it.

Week 5 Prompt Response

Issues of authorship, copyright, and open access impact my desire, ability and willingness to engage in produsage differently personally and professionally.

Personally, I have minimal hesitancy in engaging in produsage. The materials that I typically produse on a personal level through Web 2.0 applications are just that – personal. I know that if I don’t want people to read or copy my work I can always implement certain privacy barriers so that only myself and select others can see it. However, I can’t imagine that my personal produsage consists of content matter that anyone would actually want to copy. Who really wants to steal or replicate my latest blog update recapping a friend’s birthday party or wedding?

Professionally, I have a great deal of hesitancy to engage in produsage. I am afraid to put my work out there because all too often there are people scavenging the web for papers, professional resources, etc. that they can use or plagiarize and not give credit where it’s due. Since I work in suicide prevention, a little bit of information can be dangerous in the wrong, uneducated hands. For that reason, I am very selective about what I put out there on the web for others to see. The bottom line is that if I don’t think it’s appropriate for public consumption or I don’t want others to copy it, then it stays on my computer.

Week 4 Participation

This week I completed the following tasks for class participation:

• Completed all week three assigned readings.
• Posted four blog entries (this makes five).
• Read all my classmates' blogs and the official class blog, and posted comments on ten separate entries.
• Read week four discussion board content and contributed seven comments.
• Researched online communities for the observations paper and wrote said paper.
• Still checking into outlets for my produsage project and still haven’t made a decision, even though I know the clock is ticking…

Pro-Ams

The discussion board threads this week led me to think about pro-ams in my line of work. As I’ve mentioned before, I currently work in the field of mental health and suicide prevention. Obviously, psychotherapy and the prescribing of medications must be done by a certified professional. However, there is a lot of room for pro-ams to contribute in policy, advocacy, and community mobilization.

Since 100% of my income springs from suicide prevention work, I guess I would be considered a professional. But it was my work as a pro-am that allowed me to become a professional. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? To transition from pro-am to professional, like the tennis player cited in the class text?

Many crisis hotlines employ counselors who don’t have any formal degree but instead have been through intense training programs. This allows the hotlines to employ a lot of counselors at less cost, or no cost at all if they take volunteers.

Our field is also strongly supported by suicide survivors, or people who have lost a loved one to suicide. They have formed statewide coalitions, community task forces, support groups, and they advocate for mental health legislation. These survivors have turned their personal loss and grief into action, and many survivors have educated themselves to reach the pro-am level. They all have their own separate work for non-related businesses and organizations, but ultimately their true passion has become preventing suicide, overcoming stigma, and promoting awareness for the issue.

At first I was skeptical about the pro-am concept because it seemed like having a glorified hobby. But after considering the real-life application to my work, I am more convinced that this is a real phenomena and extremely valuable to the success of my field.

Week 4 Prompt Response

Judging expertise on the web can be tricky. Generally, if I am looking for sound, reliable information, I look at the author and the source. Is the author a well-known, respected professional in the subject matter? Have they been published or quoted by their peers? However, if the source is considered reliable, then I will usually deem the author reliable by proxy. For example, if something is printed in The Economist or The Christian Science Monitor, I take it for granted that the publication wouldn’t risk their reputation by printing bogus material.

That being said, not all information on the web needs to come from an expert for it to be useful. I tend to look at reviews for almost everything on the web, and I know that most of the time the reviewers are not subject matter experts. I trust reviewers to give me lots of supplemental information that I wouldn’t be able to get strictly from the original websites. For example, before purchasing clothes from OldNavy.com I always read the reviews to see what kind of “fit” the clothing has; is it true to size? I read movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix before going to the theatre or renting a DVD. And I could spend hours reading a plethora of product reviews on Amazon without ever making a purchase. If the original websites don’t host member reviews, then I can usually look on Facebook and find a page dedicated to product discussion. I also use Wikipedia a lot, despite warnings on how unreliable it may be.

Judging expertise in person is different. When in person, reputation and word-of-mouth tends to bear heavily on my opinion. If my boss or colleague speaks highly of someone then they automatically win points with me. Work history is still important, but I think a strong recommendation can speak volumes for credibility.

So, judging expertise online and in person does differ. I think when searching for official “sources” online I scrutinize the information out of fear that I might quote wrongful data. I also think that many people are distrustful of online information because you can’t see the publisher, and we’ve all heard horror stories about people misrepresenting themselves on the web (reference: To Catch A Predator). However, it seems like many people (myself included) could stand to be more skeptical when judging in-person, because we tend to get swept away by the sensory experience of the actual meeting and have an inherent instinct to trust.