Google Fortune Telling- Based on your Search History

Google recently came out with a "Fortune Telling" application apart of the Google search engines which predicts your future based on your past Google searches. -- Just kidding, that's just what they wanted you to think. The page is set up as follows:

Just as you would on a normal Google page you type what you want to know- then it takes you to a page that says "OF COURSE WE CAN'T PREDICT YOUR FUTURE" and goes on to explain that we as a privileged Western society are more concerned in ourselves even though we already have everything we could want or need; it really makes you think.

However, the links at the top that read "Images of Refugees" and "Videos of Refugees" actually do lead to those such links. This promotes what Van Dijck would call a "culture of connectivity"- we are always connected with one and another whether it be through time or space and the Internet allows us to feel connected to those who experiencing something very different from what we're experiencing. Google acts as an intermediary in the sense that it facilitates various communication transactions between users all over the world. (Purset, 2009). 

The following link is an interesting scholarly article that further discusses Internet Intermediaries:
https://www.oecd.org/internet/ieconomy/44949023.pdf


Works CitedPerset. K. (2010). The Economic and Social Role of Internet Intermediaries. OECD Digital Economy Papers.

Will Streaming Take Over?

Patrick Burkart’s book, “Pirate Politics” addresses the use of piracy within society. In his introduction, Burkart addresses The Pirate Bay as one of the world’s most famous piracy sites, where users are able to download almost any song, movie or game, with the risk of course, of downloading a virus. With the rise of piracy, and the decrease in purchased music, we have recently seen an increase of free music streaming sites, for example, Grooveshark and Spotify. Spotify is a means of listening to music for free, and legally.

Ironically enough, similarly to The Pirate Bay, Spotify is also Swedish and was introduced in 2006. It hasn’t become popular until recently. Spotify offers users a free way to enjoy their favourite songs without downloading illegally. I personally am not a huge fan of the site because I prefer to have actual downloads of songs, which enables me to avoid advertisements. This does come with the risk of downloading a virus to my computer, however I have been lucky enough to be able to avoid any since downloading. I also find that having hard copies of songs on my phone or iPod means I can access any song at any time rather than having to rely on Internet. Do you stream, download, or purchase your music? Why?

With the rise of Spotify, there have been various artists, namely Taylor Swift, who has chosen to pull the rights to all her songs on the Spotify site. This means that users can no longer access her music on the site, creating more limiations for the success of the site and giving users more reasons to download illegally.

Do you think that streaming sites such as Spotify will ever represent the most popular way of listening to music? Do you think that more artists will continue to pull their support for free streaming sites such as Spotify at the risk of listeners downloading the music for free elsewhere?

Social Media Impacting Our Employment Opportunities?

As many of us are anticipating graduating from Laurier it is evident that we would all like to find the perfect job. For many this includes a position that pays us well for our labor and allows us to enjoy the labor we are performing. In order to get hired we often submit applications and send resumes with the intention of getting an interview to show how we can benefit a company. But the information we provide while applying or in the interview no longer markets who or what type of worker we can be, our online presence does. 

Mark Andrejevic speaks of how our labor or work ethic is often shown through our online presence and the unpaid labor we produce through social media. He adds how this unpaid labor can often be used during the hiring process. Within his writing he mentions how many employers are now using social networking sites in order to analyze applicants due to the quantity of useful information they receive for minimal or no fees. Having potential employers using online networks for this is a constant discussion of whether it can harm individuals more than it benefits the employer. 

Businessweek.com wrote a short article with Greg Fish and Timothy Lee providing the pros and cons to this newly popular procedure in the workforce. 

Employers, Get Outta My Facebook

After reading the article do you agree with Greg’s opinion of thinking that employers using social networking during the hiring process should not be done due to the concept of personal privacy, keeping personal and work spheres separate and the risk of gaining inaccurate information? Or Do you agree with Timothy that employers should use these social networks to not strictly use them as another resume, but rather to ensure that the individual will not pose a potential threat to the companies image and that putting information online for the world to see means that sometimes it may be used to judge you?

Problems with Freelancing and Online Personal Brands

Hi class! With all this snowfall I'm sure many of you are dreading a morning commute to work. Luckily we discussed how freelancing is becoming a more popular career choice, and the article “The Rise of the Projective City" by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, explains why. The structure of our social life has changed from wage-earning, permanent positions to reticular temporary connections. As a freelancer, your schedule is flexible and allows you the freedom to work in different industries. The negative aspect of this of course is the uncertainty of income and not having the full time employment benefits such as insurance etc. This article below discusses how to be a successful freelancer. It emphasizes the importance of yourself as a brand, which Boltanski and Chiapello accentuate, by using numerous social media platforms. The blogger says: "If you combine a strong digital brand with meeting people in person, you’ll make yourself: Easy to find, Easy to remember and Good to know."  Although it is arguably important to make yourself a brand online if you are planning to use social media professionally, these three things are eerily similar to being a brand commodity.  A brand's goal is to be recognizable, easy to access/purchase and has a reputation of high quality.  Are we simply commodifying ourselves by branding ourselves online?  How soon will it be before there will be websites to compare candidates side by side, as you can on websites such as Apple with their computer models?  Although this article discusses that it is important to make personal connections outside media, do you think people are neglecting personal contact more in terms of employment and applying to jobs?

hthttp://blog.careerfoundry.com/successful-freelancer/

The Web 3.0

Andrew Hermans’ article,  “Production, Consumption and Labour in the Social Media Mode of Communication and Production” discusses the increase of user generated content (UGC) within digital culture. The emergence of blogs and social news sites have creates a shift from the broadcast model of mass communication characterized by a one -to – many relationship between producer and consumer, the social web has moved us into a many-to-many dynamic of the circulation of media content. There are two principle axes of empowerment of the emergent social media mode that of production of content creation and content distribution.

The Web 1.0 was characterized by a structure of production and consumption of content, Web 2.0 created a different experience for the consumer, it is based upon an “architecture of participation” which allowed for blurring of the boundaries between producer and consumer and allowed for a “participatory culture” of media production and consumption.

The video below is a commercial for Google Glasses; will this be normality in the future? Do you believe the Web 3.0 will incorporate this type of virtual realties and augmentation?

Considering the next step for technology in the emergence of the Web 3.0, what will be the new dynamics of flow as a mode of consumption and production?

Power Relations on Facebook

Hermans article “Production, Consumption and Labor in the Social Media Mode of Communication and Production” discusses how pervasive Facebook has become as a social networking site in terms of being one of the dominant modalities of reoccurring communication; it operates as a mode of making meaning through communication and a platform that makes money through production.

Our ability to communicate with others and socialize, presents us with the risk of forgetting about power relations that determine whose property and communication is to command.

Facebook’s Terms of Service for Confirmation:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works, and distribute any User Content [remotely related to you].

This passage is from Facebook's Terms of Service, stating that they collect the records of users actions while using their platform, with this knowledge; does this discourage you from using Facebook or social media in general? There are alternate social media platforms, which do not store the records of users, why do you believe that users are mainly active on Facebook instead?

'Labouring' on Social Media

Mark Cote and Jennifer Pybus in the article “Learning to Immaterial Labour 2.0: Facebook and Social Networks” state that the (re)production of the ‘digital archives of the self’ is a deeply recursive process. For users, it is about the production and circulation of subjectivities; for Facebook, it is a political economic imperative. We are in a realm where our communicative and affective capacity attains a global reach while our material bodies remain static, this condition is call (non)locality. The attempt to capture ‘lived experiences” are trying to capture a specific  'way of life', is what is central to social networks. The user-generated digital archive of the self, circulates publicly in the newsfeed, and fuels others to do the same. The ‘digital archive of the self’ is first a communicative and affective practice; it is at the core of cultural practices which drives the (re)production of the individual profile.

Social and communicative practices underlying social networks like Facebook are central to immaterial labour 2.0; the process of creating your identity online is a means of ‘labour’.

Are your social media accounts a accurate representation of who you are and your everyday life? Do you feel that you ‘labour’ in your profiles to create this representation, if so what motivates you to do so? 

Can You Go Too Far With Self-Branding?

The advancement of technology has brought many changes to society through the way that social and economic barriers can now be broken. Not only are labor positions changing, but new positions are being created. The Web 2.0 and the desire to act as an entrepreneur in self-branding has allowed for society to create new labor positions which focus on the marketing of an individuals self image. This new entrepreneur ideal of marketing your own image online through social media has recently become popular among all age groups because of technological advancement and the large population you can reach online. An individual is no longer limited to face-to-face interactions to gain a following. 

Self-promotion ultimately works within Fisher’s theory of how network work is greatly blurring the division of what labor and work are considered to be. The liberation of this network employment often allows for more freedom in how you work, what your labor produces and what your action of work is considered to be. Ultimately it is evident that this concept of self-promotion through the internet has created online personalities who thrive and gain power through this online liberation. 

An example is bloggers who provide video’s online for personal enjoyment that vary in subject content. Successful ‘vloggers’ as they are called, often become financially supported and celebritized in this process. Thus, blurring the line of whether posting videos online is work or play. Although there are benefits from becoming successful at creating an online persona, there are as well negative aspects which can arise from this micro celebritization of an individual. An example of this is Essena O’Neill who created an online presence and was considered a micro-celebrity. She was able to gain fame and fortune through an imaginary that she created of herself, but admitted that the girl she displayed to the world was in fact not who she was. Do you find that these micro-celebrities actually gain power with their self-promotion or do they gain weakness through their personal exposure? Do you believe that there are economic, social or physical implications that cause for an individual to gain power or weakness? 

Freedome Private Browsing

In Brophy and de Peuters  Labours of mobility reading,  they discuss the smartphone, more specifically how it has become a capitalist tool for gaining expansive financial value. These constructed networks gain this financial value from the communication, information and the knowledge that is constructed. Invisible networks are constantly tracking our movements, monitoring our data and construct large databases of information on anyone who uses such a device. These large databases of information can offer a flow of capital from larger corporations looking to utilize specific pieces of information, for example corporations can use the purchase the information to assist marketing strategies.   

I recently discovered a new software that attempts to combat this, developed by a company called “F-secure” it offers the public anonymous access to the internet at a minimal fee. F- Secures software Freedome, allows for users to disconnect their devices such as smartphones, from the mass data collection that Internet occur on the networks. Disconnected from cookies, geo-trackers, and other that is available for public purchase that allows for users to become, untracked and anonymous users of the web. Freedome also Encrypts sensitive data,, bank files etc.  Making it inaccessible for individuals to gain access to over the web.

Basically Freedome masks ones IP address, which an individual’s online identity, masking this allows users to browse anonymously, on their devices whether they are on their smartphone or computer.  WIthout an IP address users are ghosts on the network. The software prevents companies collecting large amounts of data. Furthermore Freedome also introduced a new feature where users can view real-time maps of attempted tracking that has occurred while browsing they are simply browsing the Internet.

What do you think? Would you be interested in using the Freedome privacy service?

https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/freedome