Jandule

Course Reflection

2006-05-26T20:48:00.000-07:00

COM 300 was a fun course to take. Even though it was a lot of work, I really enjoyed it. I liked the idea of first learning about a new technology, and then trying to use it myself. I have never kept a blog before, and now I am thinking about continuing with what I have started in this course.

Another aspect of the course that contributed to my learning were the weekly reading reflections. Having to write a few paragraphs each week helped me form my opinions and be better prepared for our class discussions. It was also nice to be able to submit the weekly reflections in the form of a blog. This way, I was able to have a direct experience with this medium.

I regret not being able to go more in depth on certain topics such as, for example, creating a website, or how to become a more creative blog writer (both textually and graphically). I also would have liked to spend more time on critical evaluations of websites such as we did in the class exercise on Cantwell and McGavick.

The course overall presented a good variety of topics. I am not aware of not enjoying learning about any of them.

Discussion Leader Remarks

2006-05-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

I had a very good experience with presenting my article to the class. I was pleased to see that my classmates showed interest in what I had to say about my topic. At the end of the presentation, we engaged in a discussion on VoIP technology. Going into the presentation, I believed that Skype was a well-known software, and that everyone would be at least familiar with VoIP. It was interesting for me to see how few people were aware of Skype, or VoIP in general. Another surprising aspect was that almost half of the students were skeptical about VoIP and that they did not think that they would adopt this technology in the near future.

Here is a reference to my article:

Holtz, S. (2006, January). Cutting the Cost of Calls with Skype. Strategic Communication Management, 10(1), 3. Retrieved May 13, 2006, from ProQuest database.

If you would like to see my PPT presentation, please go to http://students.washington.edu/janap/com300/ and click on “Skype Presentation.”

Reading Review Week #9

2006-05-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

The VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology is impacting not only its users but also its competitors. The user impact is quite obvious. While five years ago, a 10-minute call from the U.S. to Australia would have cost around twenty dollars, with VoIP technology, one can make this call for free. As long as the two callers have broadband internet access, they can talk unlimitedly. One can talk about the same impact on small businesses and organizations. By cutting the cost of phone calls, a small business owner can reduce his/her monthly business-related expenses substantially.

This, of course, can be worrisome for the big telephone companies that charge money for long-distance and international calls. They are unable to compete with the service that the VoIP provides. The only factor that still plays to the advantage of analogous telephony is reliability. When using VoIP, one has to be prepared for occasional blackouts of the system. The analogous system, on the other hand, is very reliable. However, because the VoIP technology constantly improves, reliability might not be much of a factor in the future.

If the big telephone companies want to compete with VoIP, they will need to adopt some of the same strategies that VoIP is using. First, they will need to lower the cost of calls by incorporating the VoIP technology. Second, they will need to enlarge the spectrum of services. One of the VoIP software called Skype offers about eight additional services such as Chat, Video Calling, Voice Mail, and so forth. Unless the big telephone companies adopt to the market, they will sooner or later lose their market share.

QUESTIONS:

How can the old telephone companies maintain a good portion of the telephone market share?
Should the FCC regulate the VoIP technology in order to equal out the playing field for all telephone companies/software?
Because the telephone industry tends to be either partially or entirely owned by the state (Europe, South America, Asia), with the rise of VoIP, the state will begin to lose a great portion of its revenue. Assuming that more and more people will use VoIP instead of analogous phones, what will be the reaction of the state? What is the possible outcome for the taxpayers?

Reading Review Week #8

2006-05-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

We often talk about the Internet as being a public place. We certainly want the same rules to apply to the Internet as those that apply to the public space. Public space should be open and welcome everyone to freely express one’s ideas. However, not everyone has access to this space. Even though majority of public libraries in the U.S provide Internet access, many people still live more than 30 miles from the closest library. The Internet access is even more scarce elsewhere in the world.

Based on this knowledge, one might easily question the idea of Internet as a public space. However, according to the study by Michael Best, some good news is on the way. He sees a great potential in the wireless fidelity applications. As he describes in the text, this technology offers a cheap and easy way to support broadband data as well as voice. He tells about a number of successful projects in India, Bhutan, and the Dominican Republic. This would mean a greater Internet coverage around the world. Once people around the world have an easy access to the Internet, then maybe the comparison between the Internet and the public space will be more valid.

QUESTIONS:

Should the U.S. and other western countries subsidize the technological development in the developing countries? Explain.
Is it possible for the all the radio and microwave bands to get saturated? If so, what happens then?
Is it healthy to live in such a densely signal-saturated environment?

In-Class Exercise: Cantwell vs. McGavick

2006-05-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

My first impression of the two candidates and their websites is very different for each of them. Maria Cantwell’s website is very simple with a simple message. It is very easy to navigate and there is not too much information. However, the reader can find all the important information such as volunteering opportunities and contributions. Mike McGavick’s website contains a lot more information. However, it is also more difficult to navigate. It uses very strong colors and can almost be overwhelming at once. There are opportunities for interaction with candidates on both websites. But again, Cantwell’s website makes it easier to find this information.

If the websites were my only source of information about the candidates, I would vote for Maria Cantwell. I identify with the issues that she stands for and value her political experience. As for McGavick, I do not agree with his stance on issues, such as the Kyoto Protocol, drilling in ANWR, and other energy and environmental issues.

Extra Credit Week #7

2006-05-07T17:09:00.000-07:00

Reading the article on website design made me think of how difficult it has to be to create a website for a wide audience. The challenge for the website designer is that he/she has to tailor the website to both the decided and undecided voters from all over the country.

It also brings up the issue of politics as business. Winning a presidential race is not about the values and beliefs of the candidate, but about the way he and his team can present these values and beliefs. In other words, how well they can package them. The creation of a campaign website allows for such packaging to take place.

Reading Review Week #7

2006-05-07T16:18:00.000-07:00

The Internet technology has had a huge impact on politics, and the impact will be even more profound in the future. The Howard Dean’s campaign is a great example of how the Internet allows for grass roots organizing of political campaigns. The fact that Joe Trippi was able to get tens of thousands of people to support the Dean’s campaign shows the power and the great potential of the Internet.

In the future, any successful campaign will need to use the Internet as a means to raise support and money. Now that politicians have had a chance to learn from the Dean’s campaign, it would play against them if they did not implement some of Dean’s strategies into their own campaigns.

In the study on “The Role of the Internet in National and Local News Media Use,” the authors predict that the Internet news will over time become a leading news source rather than just a supplement for traditional newspapers and magazines. There are many reasons for why people prefer the Internet news to the traditional newspapers such as price, or convenience. However, what makes the Internet news different from traditional newspapers is that it offers an up-to-date and in depth coverage of an event. The Internet news allows the reader to follow links related to the topic, and some Internet news sites offer even a short video coverage of the event. In summary, the Internet News is interactive and gives the reader a complete freedom to pick the news he/she wants to read. It is the lack of interactivity that will play against the traditional newspapers and magazines and will eventually force them out of the market.

QUESTIONS:

How can the traditional newspapers and magazines prevent their own demise?
If the Internet technology could “spare” the political candidates from traveling around the country by allowing them to talk to their supporters through a computer screen, would this online meeting effectively replace the face to face interaction? Explain.
What do you predict will be the Internet strategies used in the next presidential campaign?

In-Class Exercise Part #1

2006-05-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

BBC News

The BBC News provides 20 different RSS feeds. There are feeds such as Politics, Business, Technology, and so forth. There is no subscription fee for the RSS feed, or the archives. BBC also has its own Blog Network that can be accessed from http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/.

OhMyNews.com

OhMyNews provides 13 RSS feeds. The RSS feeds are free of charge. There are no blogs on the OhMyNews website, however, a person can become a global citizen reporter and contribute stories to this website.

Both BBC News and OhMyNews are trying to incorporate modern technology such as the RSS feed or blogs into their websites. Even though OhMyNews does not have any blogs on its website, it allows every-day citizens to contribute to the creation of news. BBC has a stable team of reporters, but gives a lot of space to non-journalists to contribute to the website. They do so in the form of blogs, or by providing a comment section at the end of each article. In general, the new technologies seem to have a significant impact on old media. New technologies force old media to be more open and allow non-journalists to actively participate in the world of news.

Reading Review Week #6

2006-04-26T01:43:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that new technology will have an impact on established media. Already, we can see that the traditional role of media is changing. Take, for example, the BBC News online, or the National Public Radio. The BBC’s editors always invite readers to join in and share their experiences, and they often post links to interesting blogs onto the website. The NPR, on the other hand, provides its shows in the form of podcasts, thus granting the listener greater flexibility.

In an article on podcasting by Mark Glaser, the author speculates about the driving forces behind this new technology. He sees those who download podcasts as being “compelled by unique independent niche programming.” I agree with Glaser in that podcasting is not just a different form of radio broadcasting. I believe that podcasting came to life because it offered a new outlet for programming that was not available in the established media.

Just like blogging, podcasting enables individuals to actively participate in the creation of news and entertainment. Both of these new technologies have taken up a market niche that might soon be able to compete with established media such as television or radio. If these established media will want to stay competitive, they, too, will need to jump onto the bandwagon. In my opinion, both BBC and NPR were among the first established media that managed to react to the rise of the new media. They adopted some of the new technology and created a synergy between the established and the new. I believe that such synergy will be necessary for other established media as well.

QUESTIONS:

1. What are other examples of established and new media synergy?
2. Do you think journalism has changed since 9/11? If so, how?
3. What drives the new media forward? Please explain.

Reading Review Week #5

2006-04-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Open Source Movement presents a pragmatic and noble idea of freely available software. According to the Open Source Movement a software should be available for anyone to study, change, and improve. Anyone should be able to understand how the software works, so that she could make possible changes to it, or create a duplicate software of her own. The Open Source Movement also introduces an alternative to the profit-driven software industry. In the GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman explains how the free software can benefit the whole society. According to Stallman, free software will contribute to greater technical productivity and will, therefore, reduce the amount of work for each of us. In the end, people should work less and have more time for leisure activities.

Even though the Movement seems a little too idealistic, there are some key ideas that I think are worth the attention. First, if the software is out there for anyone to use and improve, it is more likely that the end product will be of higher quality than of software designed by a limited group of programmers. A good analogy is the Wikipedia which has millions of different editors. By allowing anyone to go online and edit the content of the encyclopedia at any time, the encyclopedia ensures maximum impartiality and objectivity while benefiting from a vast pool of intelligence. Second, by allowing the software to be tested by “normal” people (those who are not professional programmers), the software will more likely take on a more human-centered approach. In other words, every day computer users as opposed to professional programmers are more likely to draw attention to little software faults that would otherwise go unnoticed, or would not be considered as worthy attention.

I also liked the ideas presented by Jim Moore in “The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head.” I agree that the Internet has the potential of creating a second superpower to counterbalance the power of the U.S. Moore uses ants as symbol of the second superpower. He says that ants rule from below and that even though they are small, if they invade our space, we are likely to notice them. I think that there are many examples out there that prove this point. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, a group of individuals launched a site called “Sorryeverybody.com.” It quickly became news and I remember reading about this website in the online newspapers from all around the world. This project was so successful in drawing attention to the disunity of opinion in the U.S. regarding foreign politics, that it not only made its way to the media, but it also led to the publishing of a book about this movement.

QUESTIONS:

Should software be freely available for anyone to use? Explain.
What are the benefits (or drawbacks) of having freely available software?
What are the benefits (or drawbacks) of having the Internet act as the second superpower?

Extra Credit Week#5

2006-04-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

In “Social Software and the Politics of Groups” Clay Shirky calls for an increase of the number of group-oriented software. The main reason for why he argues for an increase of this type of software is because he is aware of the difficulties of protecting a group on the Web from spam and other attacks. A good example of such difficulties is a recent abuse of “MySpace.com.” This site serves as a meeting place for young people. Each person posts a personal profile and often shares very personal information. Someone misused this openness with which young people treat MySpace and took advantage of some of the teenagers. Because the number of websites similar to MySpace is rising, I think that the need to protect the groups will be even greater in the future. Therefore, I agree with Shirky that more energy should be invested into creating a group-oriented software that would allow people within a group to communicate freely.

Reading Review Week #4

2006-04-14T09:53:00.000-07:00

In “Being Analog” Donald Norman makes a distinction between the way people and machines think and work. He talks about the differences in evolution of people and machines. He describes the way people think as analog, meaning analogous to the real world, compared to the digital processing of machines of which the recorded is an abstraction of the real signal. I like this distinction a lot as it allows us to understand the fundamental differences between our and the computer world. Realizing differences is the first step towards improving the relationship between people and machines.

It is almost impossible to imagine the world without computers. Computers have become part of our lives. Some see computers as their best friends and some as their greatest enemies. But whether we have a positive or negative relationship with computers, we are typically the ones responsible for an error. Hardly ever do we blame the computer for a mistake. As Norman describes, when faced with an error, the typical response is to blame the person and train him/her to a new procedure. We often hear about human error, and it is true that hardly ever does the error lead to a correction of the system. Rather, we blame the people and train them to prevent the accidents from occurring again.

Norman asks whether the relationship between people and machines will ever change towards a more human-centered approach. It is my hope that it will. I think that people will start to realize that they have given up what is natural for them and that they have instead taken up the ways of machines. We cannot just form bits and pieces of a whole. We are individuals. We need to feel that we are creating something and that what we create matters. We are compliant, flexible, and we do not like routines. And so instead of having the computer tell us what to do, we should be the ones in command. We should use technology to be better people and not to imitate machines.

Another interesting aspect of the people-technology relationship, as Zuckerman and McLaughlin describe, is the gap that the modern technology has created between the western countries and much of the rest of the world. I personally see this “informational gap” as one of the greatest problems that we face in the world today. While the western countries improve their technologies, those without access to these technologies will be left behind. In the globalized world that we live in, those without the top technologies will no longer be able to compete and will, thereby, be forced to submit to the dictate of rules by the western countries. It is my fear that this inability to compete and be independent could potentially lead to unrest.

QUESTIONS:

Would you like to see the computer science take on a more human-centered approach? If so, why?
What do you think should the western countries do in order to create a more equal playing field in terms of technological development for all countries in the world?
Do you think we should care about the technological development in other countries? Explain.

Reading Review Week #3

2006-04-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

New technologies have allowed us to access a great amount of information. We can read the newspapers online and see what is happening in other parts of the world. We have free access to databases and encyclopedias, and we can communicate instantly with people half way around the world. The Internet has clearly played the most significant role in allowing us access the information that gets produced daily across the globe. However, as Mark Nelson and Christopher Carlson note, this “informational revolution” has also brought some drawbacks.

As a university student, I use the Internet daily. Besides email, I often use online dictionaries, reference websites, encyclopedias, databases and so forth. I browse the Internet when I look for information related to the subject I am studying, or when I look for specific information. Even though the Internet has greatly contributed to the amount of information I am able to find on a particular topic, having to sort through the great number of information has also many times distracted me from my original project.

I often find myself feeling frustrated when I look for specific information that I know is somewhere on the Web, but I am unable to locate it. I end up spending hours searching for it, and it often leads me to giving up without finding what I originally had intended to find. I also get easily distracted when I search for specific information. I take the wrong turn and before I know it I am reading something completely unrelated. Sometimes, I even forget what my original goal was and what I set out to find in the first place. This way, I end up wasting valuable time that I could otherwise use for improving my project.

Lastly, I find the Internet to be a challenge to my discipline. Because the Internet is a source of all different kinds of information from scholarly texts to personal interest websites, I often have to make a deal with myself not to pursue my interests and hobbies and to stay within the realm of school-related websites. Whereas in other cases, pursuing one’s interests, for example going swimming, or going for a walk, would require getting up from the table, thanks to the Internet, switching from doing homework to having fun only requires pressing a button or moving the mouse. I think that it is this “convenience” that could potentially negate the effectiveness that we now contribute to the Internet.

QUESTIONS:

Do you think that the Internet is going to diversify into “channels” that will each concentrate on providing a certain type of information such as the television channels? Do you think that there is a need for such a diversification? Explain.
Should there be a way to control the information that is being put onto the Web? Explain your opinion.
What is your strategy for not getting lost in all the information that pours at us from all directions?

Reading Review Week #2

2006-04-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

In the last few decades we have witnessed the rise of new types of digital media. The new media have changed the ways we communicate and how we interact with other members of the society. But perhaps the greatest change that the new media have brought is the speed in which we communicate. Roger Fidler traces the first demand on speed to the development of railroads. The next most important development that played role in speeding up the communication processes was the invention of electricity. Later, the telegraph and the telephone became symbols of instant communication.

Looking back at the technological developments of the twentieth century, it seems impossible that anyone would be able to predict the technological advancements that would later take place. When reading “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush, I was amazed at how precisely Bush was able to predict in which direction the technological development would go. It is astonishing that in the year 1945, Bush talks about what we now know as digital photography and the Internet.

Modern digital media such as digital photography and the Internet have not only changed the way we communicate, but as Botler and Grusin say in “Networks of Remediation,” new digital media have challenged our concept of reality. Classical photography as our grandparents knew it was very transparent in its efforts to portray reality. In other words, photographers tried to depict a moment in time with their photographs. When looking at a picture, people knew that what they saw was just a second in someone’s life and that, thereby, the picture by itself could not be thought of as the sole representation of reality. However, digital photography gives us the ability to alter images and create a new reality as we wish it to be. It, thereby, challenges our perception of what is real and what is not. Therefore, it is important that we keep this in mind whenever we either create digital images or look at somebody else’s digital work.

The last reading of this week by the FCC helps us understand how the Internet evolved from a government-funded project to a world-wide communication tool. It also helps us to understand that people do not just invent new media, but rather that media evolve from other media. As was the case, for example, with television which brought together the visual with the audio. Another interesting point is that a mere invention or idea of a new medium is not enough for the medium to become popular and widely used. There are several factors that determine whether a new medium will become popular among people such as price, usefulness, convenience, etc. What that means is that people have a say in whether a new medium will become successful. I find this to be a powerful realization because it asserts the role of the individual in society.

QUESTIONS:

Which factor do you think contributes the most to the creation of a new medium?
Do you think that the speed in which we now communicate (e-mail, mobile phones, etc.) has improved our communication?
What technological innovations do you think will take place in the next 20 years?