The Future of Technology – What do you think?

Decades ago, the only way to communicate is meeting in real-life or sending letters through mail. But now it seems that email, chat and video-conferencing can be used anywhere with applications or programs like Skype, Yahoo Messenger and MSN. These programs are mostly used by people for video meetings, conferencing with friends or way of meeting new people at the first time. Since video-conferencing is getting popular, even websites have now this feature such as Facebook and Omegle.

Similarly with other gadgets like iPhone or iPad, they are getting more high-tech each year. Now comes the decision whether to buy the latest version or not because technology changes so fast. In time, I guess most of our actions and choices  will be highly dependent on technology, like robots that will do certain things more efficient and faster  than people. It might affect people’s  lives because robots would just replace people.  I remember when my father once said to me, that our generation is so lucky because of technology  makes our life easier like computer. During  their time, they only had books to get information whereas now  we have  computers.

Here is a video to have awareness about what might happen in our future:

The future technology facilitates easier communication with the use of actual actions. When the girl talks to the other person which is from a different location, the technology automatically translated the language. This feature will be effective for global businesses because some people are not that fluent in a certain language. At the same time, they do not have to travel anymore just for business meetings which is a hassle.

Connection: Facebook’s Tag and Share feature

What is Connection? “Connection is the action of linking one thing with another.” – Oxford Dictionary. In online society, connection is almost the same as communication. Connecting to people through social sites such as fan pages, applications, blogging and groups are ways to connect people. Connection is related to Collaboration. For example in Facebook fan page, the owner and the people who liked the page are connected together. Anything that the owner posts on the profile, people can see, including the notices as well. So I think Connection is useful especially when you are in an organization promoting products or services through a website or a page.

From my experience of having a friend who is a business minded person, she  sells shirts, shoes and accessories with the use of photos then uploading them in a social networking site Facebook and tagging her friends. This strategy is quite effective because the people who she tagged along with will get a notification about that photo  regardless the site’s popularity. If they get interested with the first item, there is a chance they would browse more. I find the tagging feature in Facebook as a good idea for an on-line shopping because it will be easier for the sellers to publicize their items or certain things especially when they have a huge connection in the internet. Although sometimes it could be annoying for being “spammy” for  some people who are not interested in on-line shopping.

Another way of promoting products in Facebook is the sharing feature. Whereas people can just click the share button and will automatically appear in their profile. No need to make an album and upload these photos which is a plus because it is less hassle and easier. Since these days people prefer shortcuts or easier ways to do certain actions.

Collaboration: Wikipedia? Yes or no?

As my third blog is about Cooperation of social networking sites, this blog is all about Collaboration. Cooperation and Collaboration are almost similar although Cooperation focuses more on social software “that it supports the engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve a problem, with shared commitment and goals” as stated by Niall Cook. On the other hand Collaboration involves regular discussions and relationship management.

In our studies today, Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites of students for documenting and researching. I could not say it is a social networking site instead I would refer to it as  a social media tool, a community that become one of the largest and most popular general reference works on the Internet. It is a site full of information like Encyclopedia, but unfortunately Wikipedia can be edited by anyone with the access required level. Wikis work well for drafting and editing information especially useful for organizations on making research projects and documentation. At the same time, the content can be changed easily without the use of email or other communication materials.

I would not recommend Wikis for referencing or getting information due  to its  constant changes of information. No wonder when we have assignments in class, our professors do not accept a reference from Wikipedia because  it is not a reliable  site. This  means it can be edited by anyone else, making it unreliable and possibly giving the wrong information. Maybe some of the information is correct in the Wiki site but it is more advisable to use other consistent and more accurate web reference site such as Encyclopedia.

An example of this I got from a friend who was searching recently a diagram in Wikipedia, and there was a word ‘TANGA’ in it. He searched the meaning and got totally shocked because it is a Filipino word meaning “stupid”. Although I tried to search it again in Wikipedia but the word was not there anymore.

But I can honestly say that I still visit Wikipedia since when we are looking for a certain topic and type it in Google. Most of the time Wikipedia is always the first site that will come out.

Cooperation: The power of media-sharing

This blog focuses on the Cooperation of social networking sites on how they affect people through the use of social software; to support blogs, videos, tags and a lot more. A well-known dictionary defines “cooperation” as the process of working together to the same end. An example of this software is media sharing. These days if we want to watch movie trailers or news, we usually visit the site YouTube that has a large variety of videos in the global internet. YouTube has become one of the popular sites that use social software in the consumer space through the use of embedded codes that can be added as well on blogs or web based applications.

Recently as a Facebook and Twitter user, there is a video from YouTube spreading about “Kony 2012”. Joseph Kony is from Africa, mainly Uganda that abducts children and turns them into sex slaves or soldiers. Kony has been doing this crime for more than 20 years and people are not aware of this. Similarly in Twitter, #Kony is one of the top worldwide trends. I realized that the person who made this video has already influenced a lot of people to increase Kony’s popularity, not to be known but to be aware of Kony. In my point of view, this is the power of video sharing, it can make you famous or be in the hall of shame.

From my observation, when you post interesting and controversial topics in a popular social networking site the news spread so quickly. I wonder how celebrities deal with these on-line issues, because it seems like they do not have privacy anymore. These  social networking sites are so public and open where people  could access  and read very private matters of other people . There are  parties who are like false accusations about individuals  that  can also ruin their lives.

There are also some videos that are illegal to share or post publicly  because of copyright infringement.  Few months ago, Mega-upload got  shut down because of this violation. Kim Dotcom the founder of this organization got  arrested for breaking copy right laws.  People commonly visit this site to watch TV series and movies and this has been their habitual routine, watching clips on Mega-upload. Nowadays, there are a lot of shared pirated movies and clips in the global network. Some people just watch movies through the internet; they do not bother spending money watching in the cinemas anymore.

Communication: The effect of technology in our daily lives

Today’s online businesses are becoming more competitive and evolving every day, because  technologies in this generation are making  huge impact in our daily lives. “The new information technology-Internet and email-have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications” as what Peter Drucker said. Back then, we used landline phones to communicate to people  overseas, which may be costly. But now we can communicate across miles as well through online-video, like Facebook and this is cheaper.

Nowadays, I think there is no day that we do  not use technology especially for workers and a student like me. Being in the Information Science course majoring in Information Technology, I  have to partake and explore the changes of Technology through  communication, cooperation, collaboration and connection (Cook 4c’s). Communication is one of the most important aspects in business operation. In the online business industry, I am aware that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are rapidly growing because of the sites’ popularity and people “being in the trend”. The  business industry could use these sites to promote or advertise their products and services  which will have more chances to be recognized.

On the contrary,  competition can make assumptions and destroy  other businesses for the sake of having  the better product or being the best company in the society. Likewise, businesses  can copy one another. Hence, communication plays a significant role in  online business interaction; it is the approach on  how people get to know certain products and services. Michael Dell , the CEO of Dell company  said that “Our business is about technology, yes. But it’s also about operations and customer relationships.” In my opinion, Michael implies  that having a good reputation and services in a community will help improve their business performance. It is not only showing their advanced technology but they also want to express how important their relationships with the people  they deal with.

China blocked Facebook, Twitter & YouTube

My first year in Massey University was last year, which was a bit of a challenge for me adjusting with the surroundings and the new environment. As interaction occurs in group projects or team work assignments, I met new friends.  Usually most of the students in the course Information Technology (IT) are boys, which make the girls group together.

Since the course IT is all about Computer and interaction with people, most of the  assignments also relate to  technology and people. For communications  matter, I asked my Chinese friend if she has “Facebook” account and she answered me that she does not have one. Well I respected that, but honestly these days you barely know people who do not have an account on Facebook. I  became curious so I asked her again, “Why don’t you have one?” and she replied that China blocked the websites Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.

The issue about China blocking these popular sites caught my attention, wondering why the government would do this kind of action. Curiosity made me want to know more about this situation so I read articles and blogs.  From the ABC news site, China blocked these sites during the 2008  Olympics in China. After this event, many sites became accessible again. A video about a Buddhist monk  being beaten in China was shown in websites which forced  the government to re-block these sites once more.

In my opinion the government of China blocked these sites to protect their reputation. It is so easy to ruin organizations, people and even countries through these  social media websites for they are popular and too publicized. This issue might affect China’s relationship with other countries, because of someone’s flaw although it does not mean it is everyone’s fault.  But I guess, I understand why China has to do this.

For more details about this issue, visit this link from ABC news:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2009/07/chinas-facebook-status-blocked/