Category: Jackie Kozma

How far away are AR tools, like holodecks or the types of interfaces we’ve seen in sci-fi movies? (there already exists virtual keyboards)

How are the newest video game AR developments (the XBox Kinect and the Playstation Move) going to affect AR adoption rates? (The Kinect utilizes voice command and gestures and the Move allows users to interact with things in the 3d environment through their physical movement such as moving into the environment, not just up down left right) Will it open the market to more such devices and will it bring the starting price points down at all?

How does AR in things such as cars and driving situations affect the safety of the driver and their attention when driving?

How will cloud computing affect the future of the gaming industry in regards to consoles and development in general (e.g. the coding needed, the graphical quality available, economics of releasing games)

Is there any possibility of convergence between the film industry and the video game industry? Or will they always stay relatively separate?

Why has the move in advertising strategies been so slow in aiming at the changing demographics of gamers?  (The new Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial is one of the first commercials I’ve seen that really aims at all different demographics of gamers…)

Well, after the group presentation with the young child using an iPad and then Qian’s weekly reading about usability testing for children’s computer games with children as young as kindergarten, it seems that as silly an SNSs for young children are, they’re here and probably here to stay.

I looked into SNSs for kids and there’s one called “Togetherville” that is available for “kids and their grown-ups” meaning that their parents monitor their friends and contacts – no creepers and no real anonymity.  Which is a good thing but the video about it also said “it allows kids to send friendly taunts” for playing games. Does this just allow cyber-bullying and bullying in general to begin at a younger age?

One of the good features of Togetherville is that it filters YouTube for kid-friendly videos, thus eliminating the risk of kids watching something graphic or too adult for them. You never know what a child might accidentally run into while using YouTube.

Togetherville also has games for kids. Although this might be educational, I feel as if it’s just contributing to the  issues of less physical activity in children and according to a top neuroscientist  in England said repeated exposure to such sites with young children can effectively rewire their brains.

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153583/Social-websites-harm-childrens-brains-Chilling-warning-parents-neuroscientist.html)

Apparently these types of social networking sites are creating even shorter attention spans in children and making them more self-centered. I’ve heard arguments in the past about whether or not ADD/ADHD is real or whether it’s just the massive amount of stimuli children experience nowadays. This research seems to be targeted in that direction. They believe today’s environment of instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging is leading to short and short attention spans.

The article also states that children should be kept away from video games until they are 7. Video games apparently trigger the “fight or flight” reaction instead of developing a child’s reasoning skills. Children no longer have to plan essays or decipher maps with today’s GPS and word processor programs.

Overall, the rise of SNSs in children younger and younger is going to affect their real-world social skills – people are more comfortable in front of a computer instead of communication with real people face-to-face. This can become a very real problem. Or is the future going to be mostly online and in video chat instead of face-to-face?

Do kids really need SNSs? There are SNSs out there that are aimed at young children. There’s no way they  could possible need this when they can barely use a computer. Are parents monitoring their children on these sites or just letting them run wild?

Is it ethical for Facebook to make their privacy settings difficult to use? I assume a site as large as Facebook has done qualitative and quantitative usability testing… and I assume they know the difficulty users incur attempting to change settings. Is it on purpose?

Will Facebook be standard practice in the future? Will privacy concerns eventually fade away, Facebook being sort of a new interactive phone book? If you don’t want someone to be able to search or see you on Facebook, there are settings that allow that, sort of like an unlisted number. Is using the internet period free license to access our usage data the way ads track our usage and advertise accordingly? Is it really just a faster, more intensive version of the mail and mass advertising?

Out of the 3 sites in the article, Guerilla News Network is “no longer open to the public” whatever that means.  From the sound of it, that would be the only “true” citizen journalism site out of the 3, since Digg and Newsvine sound more like news aggregate sites. Is it possible for citizen journalism sites to last long term or is the financial pressure of consistently producing original content too great?

Will people be able to consider sites like digg trustworthy news sources or are these sites better left to popular or fun (not important) news – the majority of the articles I saw on digg were not what I would consider “newsworthy” by any means, whereas newsvine had a more professional feel to its design as well as a higher caliber of articles listed.

Looking at the sites listed, I felt more comfortable with mainstream news sources delivering “real news”. Is it only a matter of time before people realize that they too prefer these mainstream sources and with new revenue models, these sources will be able to make money again, because I definitely don’t want them going away. I wouldn’t want to primarily rely on citizen journalism for my news source.

New Revenue Models

If advertising is always going to be the main source of revenues as the report claims, whether companies try to sell news with subscriptions or pay-per-article, I feel like those articles are doomed to fail in the long run. ESPN can their “in” articles which are for paying subscribers only, and as a casual sports reader, even when there’s an article I really really want to read behind a pay wall, there’s no way I’m paying a subscription fee for one or two articles. And those articles are a relatively niche market -sports- a site I’m specifically at for sports news – how would an online news source be able to target the broad array of people reading their articles with pay articles? It would be a lot more difficult because of the wide array of tastes browsing their site. And besides perhaps some pay-per-article revenues, I think the advertising revenue stream is where news companies have to innovate, and where they will. On to advertising!

Reading about “ViewPass LINK” in the State of the Media report, the “targeted marketing” that sites like Facebook use, I can’t help but agree that this is part of the future of online advertising. I can with all certainty say that of all the online ads I’ve ever clicked on, the majority have been on Facebook and they’ve had something to do with my particular interests. Online stores, bands’ new music, new movies coming out, new products being sold, Facebook gathers all this data from the fan pages we “like” and our profile information. And we give it them willingly. So as much as like to think they’re invading our privacy, we freely give them this information. And part of me likes it. Facebook tells me I can win free Sony headphones? Great! That’s something I kind of want. Facebook tells me to check out GoogleTV? I already have but I will check out their new ad for it. A Japanese festival in my area? Awesome. I definitely want to the check that out. Facebook is leading the way in advertising that actually kind of works. It’s not just banners I ignore. I actually look to see what the new ads are.

And Hulu’s getting in on this type of advertising too. Have you noticed when you watch a Hulu ad now, in the upper right hand of the video, they ask you if this is the kind of advertising that is relevant to you?  They’re working to customize ads so if you like car commercials or whatever other kind of ad they’re showing, they’ll show you more of that and less of the ads aimed at not your age group or target audience. I actually appreciate this effort because honestly, I hate sitting through ads that are for products I don’t want or have no use to me at this point in my life. I like that the ads I’m starting to see are things I don’t entirely mind sitting through. It’s still in beta phases I believe but companies are leading the way to try and connect us with companies and products we might actually have an interest in and if the newspapers and news sources can get in on that, I think it might just be possible for them to survive.

It’s always been about the advertising in just about any type of media – maybe newspapers can start doing product placement in their photos? Probably not but they have to start getting creative somehow.

1. Citizen journalists aren’t able to cover global events as well as security-restricted news, such as probably top government officials, especially the president. They probably also have a more difficult time getting access to high-profile figures, such as company heads. Is there a way for citizen journalists and legacy news sources to cooperate and still sustain both news sources? Local news is free and major news, global news, breaking news, harder to access? Take a survey to get to the article?

2. I found it interesting that a lot of citizen journalists didn’t seem as concerned with revenues. Do they honestly think they can survive without real revenue support or will time gradually separate the real players from the temporary news sources?

3. What are some of the business models being thrown around and how sustainable are they? Is there a way to force revenue through advertisers before you access the article instead of clickable banners? Will major sources become even more of an oligopoly as news companies may be forced to condense and buy each other out?

Lanier  seems to think the internet is depriving us of individuality and creativity… is it true that we’re slowly being put into safe little boxes… that we let the internet tell us what to do, such as Google’s new instant search which in a way, tries to make our choices for us. Or the fact that people use Facebook because “it’s just so easy and useful” even though some people really don’t like it. We survived before Facebook but now we have to use it, hate it or love it? Is the internet beginning to control our actions, however subtly?

Lanier seems to directly contradict a lot of what Shirky believed in, such as the collective power of the masses. His tone is much more negative. Are experts, and the individual genius, much more important than the power of the masses? Similar to when people say monkeys could write Shakespeare eventually through sheer probability, could the masses create the same work of Einstein? Or is the individual human expert much more productive than the average yes massively produced work of the masses?

Could socialism work with the help of the Internet? Lanier seems to think maybe something along those lines could happen, where information is available for free, through volunteerism, in the future. What is the actual probability of such a thing and do people who have good information really just give it up for free or is everyone out to make a buck?

Chapter 10: In regards to communication in instant messaging and buddy lists, how has Googlechat and Facebook IM affected communication. Yes we can organize our Facebook lists into buddy lists which we can turn on and off but many people don’t go through all that effort. They’re fair game to any friends or acquaintances on Facebook.

Looking at alexa.com, which ranks web traffic, globally facebook.com is ranked #2, youtube.com is #3,  wikipedia.com is #7 and blogspot is #10. What does this say about how we’ve come to rely on these types of social sites as a society?

Will the title of “expert”‘s importance be diminished as people create things peer to peer or will experts and amateurs work together for the greater good?

Brittany commented on my framing questions, responding to if technology is making us more detached and she argued that she feels it allows us to be closer to people.

I agree with so many of the points she made.  But I feel that online networking, social media, all of it, has become a double-edged sword, especially as of late.

What made me really question so strongly was the fact that I hadn’t talked to one of my best friends in awhile because I’ve been so busy. So what did I do? Did I call? Did I text? No, I posted a message on her Facebook wall. And after I did it, I was a little disgusted with myself. I know part of me though ‘I know she’s busy so I don’t want to bother her and she’ll get back to me when you does’ but a part of me was aghast that I couldn’t even send a text, let alone, make time to call her.  Yes we share a certain portion of ourselves online and I will delve further into that aspect of it, but I feel like I contact my friends less by phone or even in person when I was home, and chose to comment on Facebook statuses and pictures instead of just calling the person up and going out and doing something. I feel like the Internet is making me even more lazy.

On the other hand, I love that Facebook allows me to learn about people more in-depth. I love the fact that I can read a profile or look at pictures and see places they’ve been, or what their favorite books and movies are and be able to talk to them about it later. I love that people I might normally be a bit too shy to really talk to or haven’t had the time to get to know better, I can still be Facebook friends with them and quickly get to know at least a little bit about them.

And I do feel that Facebook makes us, in a way, more compassionate. We are concerned with the well-being of people we barely know. People who may not tell us something is upsetting them in person may mention it on Facebook and we are now aware of it. But it also depends on the user and how open they are on these networks.

And the danger as time goes on? We have to censor ourselves to an extent on these websites. Yes, now we have increased privacy settings on a lot of sites, but say some distant acquaintance who you are friends with on Facebook works at a company you are applying to. Say the employer is doing a background check and demands they give them access to your profile or they lose their job (ok, maybe not that bad but you get the picture).

We put ourselves on a lot of these sites, but what version? It feels like a squeaky-clean photoshopped version of only our politically-correct aspects so as not to offend future employer possibilities or parents or relatives or even teachers. I know after we learned in school teachers could see our profiles, I definitely cleaned my up.

What does any of these mean in terms of how we interact with people? I don’t know but I do know I hope the future doesn’t become like the recent Bruce Willis movie “Surrogates” where we never leave our rooms and send out robot copies to face the real world each day (once again, a little exaggerated but who knows what the future really holds?)