Does Facebook really give you less privacy?

Okay i had a long weekend at my conference track meet, where me and brian killed people and won one of our relays, so I'm getting into this, enjoy it because its right..

This seems to be a hot topic nowadays and i touched on it briefly in a previous blog because a team at my school got in trouble by the athletic administration for some questionable photos they were posting. But does facebook really give us less privacy?

I don't think it does because in the end we are the ones putting everything out there for the world to see. People aren't forcing us to put up a photos of ourself doing a 40 second keg stand. We think its sweet and we want the rest of the world to see. Is that a problem? No, not a all. If you can do a 40 second keg stand more power to you. But don't go around complaining if you get grief from an employer or someone else.

Privacy settings also allow you to only have your friends view that sensitive material, and you can even limit some friends from seeing parts of your profile. So when it comes down to it, who make the final call as to how private or unprivate you want your facebook? You that's who.

I just wanted to link in the facebook privacy settings policy. Notice how often they use the word "YOU"

Second Life

The first time I heard about this new virtual phenomenon was when I was sitting on a plane to a track meet in Texas. My assistant coach was sitting next to me and was raving about this article he was reading an article about some "weird new thing on the internet." So of course I was curious and had to read the article myself.

I didn't really get it at first and found myself rereading things a few times to understand it. Actually thinking back on it, I think it was more me being in disbelief. The article was basically saying I could make an alternative life for myself on-line, which I struggled to believe. People could basically turn themselves into whatever they wanted, and live out some of their real life dreams in a virtual world. I didn't really think I would here much about it once I finished the article until last week in my I-tech class when my teacher said we would be having class in second life.

Once I joined, I found Second Life to be immediately addicting. I'm not surprised though because I like video games and this is very similar. I have my own xbox live name (Theconducktor- spelled wrong on purpose) and even used this name in my Second Life name (Conducktor Nightfire). The article More Internet Users Getting a Virtual Life states:

Technology research firm Gartner forecast this year that by 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users will have a "second life" in some sort of virtual world.

I don't know how good this will be for a society that already is, in my mind pretty lazy, but I guess only time will tell.

ouchhhhh charlie (this has over 6 million views on youtube)

The Power of Youtube

Watching youtube videos has become a strong hobby of mine over the past couple months. Most of the context of conversations between me and my friends involve referencing lines from various videos we see on youtube, such as unforgivable.

• (I won't a chicken sandwich and some waffle fries.. fo free- its EXTREMELY crude and vulgar so i wont link to it but i think its funny so if you want to watch it go ahead)

Anyway, youtube has grown to become a major staple in the life of a web surfer because friends are constantly emailing each other to check out this funny video, or people are putting videos up of themselves for the world to see (my 5 year old godson is on youtube doing the soulja boy). Because of this I feel the power of youtube is limitless. Videos are somewhat monitored but people can put up whatever videos they want and have them broadcasted for the world to see. As I saw in the article about the spoofs on youtube, people can take shots at companies or products because they have the freedom to. As long as this freedom remains, I don't see youtube ever losing steam.

If your interested....

If you've found my blog fun and interesting to read, you should check out my friend and fellow teammates Brians Blog.


Another friend, Ashley, always has great points of view on IT topics so i would recommend her blog too.

Sharing is Caring

One of the first lessons I remember learning as a youngster was how to share. I can vividly remember hearing my mom telling me:

• "If you aren't nice and don't share with people, no one is going to want to play with you or be your friend."
  

Yeah I know, sounds heartbreaking. But we are still faced with this simple sharing (or lack there of) issue today when dealing with communities of practice. People are so unwilling to share ideas and knowledge on certain areas because they are afraid their ideas will get stolen. To help improve this companies should work towards building incentive programs that award people who share ides to get work done. Work will be done more efficiently and effectively, which will have a positive affect on everyone involved.


And as the old saying goes:

• "Two heads are better than one."