infoverse

This last post is a place for you to talk about something of interest to you through the course of the semester. It can be related to class discussions, blog posts, your book, your project, or anything related to the class. Has anything changed how you look at information? Do you feel ready to find information in today’s internet-heavy media environment?

Alternatively, if you’d like, you can comment on crowdsourcing.

We talked a bit about publishing today. A writer that I really admire, Cory Doctorow, gives away his books for free (and still sells copies, too). His website makes a good case about why he gives away works for free, and how you can donate money to him. What do you think about his approach? Does this make you more/less/the same amount likely to read his works? What do you think would happen if more writers started publishing this way? Any other thoughts?

Take a few minutes to read Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business in Wired Magazine and post a thoughtful response. What does this shift mean for business? The availability of information? How has it impacted you? How has your life been different from someone who grew up when this wasn’t the case? We look forward to the discussion!

Today we talked about transparency in the business world. This is related to our privacy discussion from our last class. Businesses that are transparent might find that there are significant benefits and drawbacks from sharing information online, just as we find in regards to sharing our own personal information online.

Transparency in business is growing. This is an important aspect of today’s information environment because it means that you can find out a lot more about companies when you are applying to work with them or if you have questions about their products and services. It also means you might be charged with helping your company be transparent in your future jobs.

Take a minute to read The See-Through CEO from Wired Magazine. Can you see reasons that this trend is important for your lifes? Why is this an important factor to consider when thinking about research in today’s information environment?

Take a look at this video and comment on some aspect of it. If you are not sure where to start, think about what statistic was most surprising or interesting, or what impact these changes might have on your future career or educational plans.

As we talk about managing information and the changing information environment, please take five minutes to watch this video and comment on something of interest within it.

For this discussion post, we’d like you to read the article, Is Google making us stupid?. Now that you know the book that your group will be reading, consider the perspective that your book would have on this article and elaborate on that perspective in the comments.

Please watch the following:

and

These fun videos bring up several thought provoking points. Please comment. If you aren’t sure where to begin, reflect on one of the following questions:

• Does this impact your view of unrestricted online resources? How?
• What, if anything, in this video reinforces the importance of citations?
• Does the ease of updating Wikipedia compensate for the possible inaccuracies?

In the Phaedrus, Plato illustrates Socrates’ arguments against writing. (This is one of the reasons that you won’t find anything written by Socrates.) Socrates argued, through story, that writing diminishes the memory, among other things. However, today, most people would probably assume that someone who couldn’t write wasn’t educated.

Are there similarities you can see with today’s technologies? Any that might make us less smart? Any that might make us smarter?

Our goal here is to keep politics and political parties out of this discussion as much as possible, and instead focus on general societal changes:

You’ve probably heard about Obama’s desire to keep his Blackberry and email accounts. This is the first time we’ve really had a president who used and relied on technology and email in this way. Clinton was elected in the early days of email so it was really a nonissue and Bush chose to give up his personal email address when he entered office. Obama has made it clear he depends on access to his Blackberry.

In addition to this, we saw major changes to the whitehouse.gov website today. You can see the before and after, if you’re interested. This is what the website looks like today:

Notice in the lower left corner: the whitehouse has a blog. Very recently blogging has been treated as a fringe activity, and is often not taken seriously. How does the inclusion of a blog on the whitehouse website potentially change the role of blogs in media? Is there anything that stands out or is missing from the whitehouse blog? What would you expect from a government that makes use of such media?