Why Can’t You Ignore Social Media?

What I took away from this class was that social media is not something you can ignore. In the past, people used to brush off the Internet as nothing valuable. Look at our society now. The Internet has become another necessity to life. Can you imagine not being able to be online for a day? It’s rather difficult (at least for me). In the beginning of the course, Professor Kane said that social media was a double-edged sword. At the end of this course, this still holds true. From everything we talked about in class about social media, there was always the right way to use it and the wrong way. That’s another lesson  I will carry forward. Back to my main point, social media is becoming so entwined with our daily life. It has gradually made many older forms of information sharing and communication outdated. Why even rely on television or the newspaper? You can get real-time updates in matters of seconds. Do you need some decent explanation of a topic? Just go to Wikipedia instead of going to a library to check out an encyclopedia. Social media is impacting many aspects of our lives. Therefore, companies can no longer give a cold shoulder to social media. It’s basically like technology. If you don’t keep up in this technology-drive age, then you’ll lag behind and probably won’t make it in the long-run.

Companies don’t have to use social media. However, the reasoning cannot be simply due to fear of the unknown or loss of control. The reasoning should be based on weighing the actual benefits against the disadvantages.  Companies should see social media as another means to communicate with their customers. It says a lot about a company when a company goes out of its way to try to form relationships with its customers. This benefits both the companies and the customers  in the long-run.

Social media gives benefits to consumers as well. It gives us another medium to communicate with others and share information easily. The convenience created by social media has provided us so much value that many of us have grown reliant on it. Google has allowed us to quickly find whatever we need. This efficiency has given us potential productivity. Wikipedia has allowed us to get general knowledge about any topic without going to traditional printed sources. Facebook has given us a new way to create and strengthen our ties with people we know. It also allows us to communicate with some brands we like. Twitter has become a popular medium for real-time updates about any news around the world. Twitter’s hashtags have made it easier to follow any real world crisis and seek assistance. It has also allowed for efficient customer service where we can get a real answer from a real representative from a company. Don’t forget following any of these companies for any updates too. The list goes on.

Social media has a lot to offer to both companies and to us. Although there are notorious misuses of social media, the overall benefits outweigh the risks. Before I took the class, I knew social media was popular but I didn’t believe it would ever be useful beyond personal use. After this class though, I can see that companies can definitely benefit from this. Companies that still ignore social media are companies that will stay unsuccessful. I am convinced that social media is more than just hype. Social media still have tons of room for innovation. If you don’t keep up with social media, you’re going to be left behind since most businesses now are looking if not already expecting many people to be social media savvy. This class was a real eye-opener. Social media has serious usages and can bring serious benefits. It’s not something silly anymore.

This was a great class and I highly recommend it to anyone. If there was a sequel to this class, I’d take it. Social Media 4.0 or something of that sort. Everyone was awesome, each bringing in their own opinions and perspectives on social media. It definitely was a good fit to have undergrads and MBAs.

On a final note, I still hate Twitter… and Tumblr.

How Safe Is Our Data?

Yesterday, I received this while logging into Steam: (for those who don’t know what Steam is, it is like the iTunes of PC games)

November 10th, 2011
Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

Was I worried? Not really because I rarely use the forums. I think most people would be worried about if their account credentials were compromised. I’m somewhat apathetic because I constantly check these things so I know what actions to take to ensure my information is safe. What got me thinking though is how safe is our data when we give it to these companies that say they will keep it as safe as possible? I know hackers will always exist and they will always attempt to steal our private information. Judging from this public announcement, it seems as if Gabe does not know much from the hacking except the fact that sensitive information was accessed. Some consumers will be worried but I think most would carry on with their usage of the software.

I think what scares me is how helpless we are as consumers when data that we entrusted to people gets accessed or stolen. The only thing we can do is just stop trusting the company and move on. This doesn’t help us because it doesn’t change the fact that our data was accessed or stolen. Therefore, what do you think we can do? Companies storing data can only assure us that intense security measures are taken to ensure it is protected. However, do you guys remember when Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked in April? 77 million accounts were compromised, making it the largest data security breach in history. How helpless are we when we trust companies with our info but then have our trust broken? Now, how devastating would this be for social media? What if social media giants like Facebook and Twitter were breached and valuable data of people were stolen? Sure, we may not have important financial information stored on it but what about just who we are in general? Hackers can sell this data to companies who will then use this data to market to us, which many consumers may not want to be marketed by. Although we allow a lot of information about us to be public, what about the personal things that only a small amount of people should only know? It’s as if your secrets are now known to strangers. I guess that’s why people say never to put things on the Internet that you don’t want others finding out.

I think this state of learned helplessness is rather frustrating for us as consumers. I guess this is why we give our utmost trust to companies in hopes that they will never betray us and stay vigilant in protecting our valuable information. If there were data breaches in Facebook and Twitter, what would you do? Can you even do anything? Many will quit using the service but what does this solve? Can you afford to not be using Facebook and Twitter? This reinstates my notion that privacy does not exist on the Internet.

Incarceration or Infamy?

Recently, I watched a video of a judge beating his daughter for illegally downloading music and games over the Internet. Here is the news article. This is the actual YouTube video. I warn you, it is a very disturbing and graphic video. To sum up the ordeal, a judge in the past, used to beat his daughter repeatedly, who has cerebral palsy. One day, she decides to record it and was successful in capturing the beating on camera. She kept it quiet for 7 years. Now 23 years old, she was free from her father’s hold and due to some recent argument about financial support, she was dared into posting the video publicly on YouTube, in which she did. Due to some state laws, the judge will not face criminal charges. After the video was uploaded, it reached almost 2 million views within 24 hours and the public is outraged. That’s basically the gist of it.

Instead of receiving criminal charges, the judge will forever be hated by many on the Internet and in society for his terrible act. The power of social media has allowed publicity to be stronger than ever. You can no longer ignore the significance social media plays in the role of sharing information. If you do something bad and it gets uploaded on the Internet for the world to see, you will never recover. It is almost like an extreme form of libel. This led me to wonder, what’s worse, imprisonment for your crimes with only the few knowing or living in a society where millions of people indirectly know of you and your crimes? Although the judge can go on with his daily life, can he anymore? He has become somewhat of an infamous celebrity. People will refer to him as the judge that beat his daughter. Will he even be a judge anymore? The indirect consequences of infamy I would believe is way more overbearing than that of simple imprisonment. To be imprisoned, you lose your freedom but you live in a place of solitude for a period of time in which you can be once again put back into society. In this judge’s case, he will be in a society that no longer respects him and view him as what he once was. Is this type of punishment more damaging than physical isolation?

Here’s a radical suggestion, can being despised on the Internet be just as bad a punishment as incarceration? I know there’s a fatal flaw with this question. If your crimes are really terrible, the news gets out and spreads to people of the world of what you did. However, let’s take this back to this video. If she didn’t record this and simply told the authorities of her getting beat, news of it will probably stay within the region. Will it still have the same public outrage as to when the actual graphic video was displayed across the world? What do you guys think? Could defaming a person be a possible punishment for certain crimes? Perhaps, instead of incarcerating you, the authorities upload a video of you committing your crime (somehow)? This is probably too dangerous. Bad people don’t care about reputation if they are already bad. “Good” people who do bad things are worried about it though. As a result, maybe this is just the consequences of any crime you commit. News of it will always get out and spread on the Internet, depending on the nature of the crime.

As social media grows in presence in society, I wouldn’t be surprised if some sort of social media punishment arises. You did some petty theft? Your punishment is you cannot use social media for a month. I don’t know. Something silly like that I guess. For the judge’s case, do you think he was better off imprisoned rather than suffer this current public outrage?

Natural Moderation?

In our last class, we had a brief introduction to cyberbullying. It was about cyberbullying with kids and how moderating this stuff is crucial. Kids are susceptible to dangerous things on the Internet because of their innocence. Most children are oblivious to the negative things in the real world, let alone tackle the void that is the Internet. What got me thinking was moderation for people of our age/tech-savvy. We are significantly older than kids and wiser. We supposedly can handle many situations that kids alone do not know how to. So how does moderation play a role for us? Is it something that we need or even if we don’t need it, does it somehow come naturally?

I think we’ve all been in this situation. We are posting on some forums about some discussion and somewhere down the line, you get into an argument with some random person. You try to discuss with this person logically but this person is offended and starts personally attacking you. What do you do? You have many options. One, you can attempt to talk this person out from being mad and that it’s just a discussion. Two, you express the same behavior. Three, you report it to the authorities of the forums. Or four, you just ignore it. Each of these options results in more anger of that person. Trying to talk to this person logically is what got them angry in the first place so attempting this would not be helpful to you. Expressing the same behavior is not a good choice because then it’ll just become a fight of words and portrays you in a bad light as well. Reporting this person causes this person to hate you for some period of time – repercussion if you will. Ignoring it might be the best choice because if you don’t say anything, nothing will really happen… unless this person is crazy and starts going after you. Is this where moderation comes into play? A forum moderator comes in and sees this type of argument and settles it for both of you. There’s a problem in this. What if there are no moderators? What if this is a place that has no rules and anything goes? I guess most people would say stay away from something like that. This helplessness on the Internet is not a good feeling. The popular adage, “Kill or be killed” can be applied here. It’s either “troll or be trolled”. Is moderation needed to protect us against these bullies/trolls? Or should we learn to defend ourselves? Better yet is it just best to “walk away”?

Here is a personal example of moderation. I actively participate on some forums and the only moderators are the actual operators of the site. Unfortunately, they are not very active and only address issues if you contact them directly or if they just happened to browse and see an issue. This is a rather inefficient way to handle forums, especially if there is a slow reaction time towards explosive discussions. There are times when I wish there were moderators so that some discussions can be taken care of swiftly but without any immediate action, it goes out of control. However, the other side of the coin is, since the community knows of this problem, many members work together in addressing the issues. They, in that sense, become unofficial moderators. In this case, if there are no authorized moderators, does moderation come naturally? Is it in our nature to put things in its place if there is chaos? Another example of this is Wikipedia editors. There is no actual authority on Wikipedia. However, when it comes to heated debates on certain aspects of an article, people come in and settle it.

Therefore, if natural moderation comes into play, is there any need of having real authorized moderators for people like us? Obviously children online need as much protection as possible. But do we need something like this or are we as human beings naturally inclined to moderate?

What is Internet Identity?

Last week, I tweeted this video. Basically, the 4chan founder gave a speech on how Google+ and Facebook have been doing identity wrong on the Internet. It’s a remarkable video and definitely worth watching.

This got me thinking. Has Facebook and every other social media sites portrayed identity wrong? We know identity as one entity but 4chan founder states that our identity is composed of many other identities. Sometimes we are a student, a parent, an employee, a friend, etc. On Facebook and most social media sites, we are forced to consolidate all our identities into one whole identity. Is this who we really are? One can argue that the consolidated identity is really who are. The whole is the sum of all parts right? However, each and every one of our identities is unique and is a huge part of who we are. Does representing them in one identity dilute the individual identities?

This video really got me thinking about what identity truly is on the Internet and in society. In the real world, is it possible for us to combine who we are into one identity? In all real world situations, we introduce ourselves accordingly to our circumstances. Hi, I’m a freshman. Hi, I’m an intern. Hi, I’m a stranger. Aren’t these all different identities we create for others to identify us? If this is true, isn’t social media been trying to make all of this into one identity? On Facebook, who are you really? Are you a combination of all the identities you have created or have you represented only one identity there? Perhaps on Facebook, it is your friend identity but on Twitter, it is your work identity. In this regard, I think social media sites have been doing identity wrong.

Facebook should start allowing you to post multiple identities of who you are and only allow people who know that identity to see it. Obviously, this would complicate things. Where would we draw the line in identities? There would be too many “profiles” to manage and I don’t think anyone would like to invest time in maintaining each one. I would though. I would like to post in student mode to my professors or work mode to my coworkers. Something like this would be rather helpful because I think some people don’t want certain identities overlapping.

I’d ramble on about this if I wanted to but I think you get the point. So what do you guys think? Is having one whole identity a better representation of who we are online than having individual multiple identities? Should Facebook and other social media sites start shifting to a multiple identities rather than just one?

Social Media in Restaurants?

An idea just came into my head. What if all this social media stuff could be directly used in the real world? Specifically, restaurants. The Internet has a lot of sites that review restaurants and whatnot such as Yelp and you can check-in to them using Foursquare and what have you. But, do these sites really help you decide on going to eat at the restaurant or not? I’ve used Yelp and I find it semi-helpful but when it comes down to actually eating in the restaurant, it doesn’t help me at all. I’m the type of guy who researches the restaurant, gets a good idea on what to get, but when it finally comes down to ordering, I stare at it  for a half an hour wondering what to really get. Yeah, I’m that type of a customer.

What I’m suggesting is having a digital menu (perhaps on an iPad or some other tablet device) and allowing the customers to log in with whatever credentials and show which items on the menu are the most popular, tastes the best, great deal, etc. These types of statistics will make the dining experience so much better because you are given a lot of criteria to choose from. Maybe I just like looking at data. I would love to go into a restaurant and see which is their most popular dish and which is not. The type of criteria can expand dramatically and could even range to the most random of criteria such as the most elaborate dish or the most orange dish. Something of that fancy. But I think most importantly is which dishes taste the best and which you should stay away from. So how does social media play a role in this? It’s one thing to see statistics but what about statistics that also include your friends? For example, your friend ate here and on the menu it says your friend really enjoyed this or stay away from that. It becomes even more helpful when you see a lot of your friends picking a lot of things and you can then narrow down your choices. I know this sounds really complicated but I believe it can serve some real benefits to customers in the restaurant industry. It will be beneficial to customers and restaurant owners. Customers enjoy the food and may come back while owners get to see which dishes are succeeding or failing and modify their business model. I can see this happening in the future of the restaurant industry. Who doesn’t want to dine at a restaurant and see what their friends actually tried and/or recommend? Also, it includes statistics from both your friends and the rest of the world. For example, the menu might display that X of your friends really liked this while Y others liked this. It can show you daily, yesterday, last week, or of any other time frame. I believe that this information can help improve the restaurant experience. I think something like this can either complement restaurant review sites or perhaps eliminate them entirely. I could expand more on this idea but it would start getting too huge for me to keep track of so I just posted the basic idea. All this data could be taken from many social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc or integrated into them.

What do you guys think? Is something like this possible? The implementation might be very costly for a restaurant but I think in the long-term, it can make the restaurant more social and personalized. I can see why someone wouldn’t want this type of experience but that’s why this is more of an opt-in option and if people want to this type of experience, they can sign up for it. Perhaps this complicates restaurants too much? Maybe some people just want a simple dining experience and doesn’t want this type of technology implemented? I think as people become more tech-savvy, social media data will start being put to use in all purchases we make in life, not just restaurants. For now though, I’m just thinking about restaurants. Is this a good practical idea or will it just not work?

Social Media’s Rock Bottom?

I’m going to be direct. What is the point of Tumblr? I thought Twitter was bad but I think Tumblr is practically the bottom of the barrel in terms of social media. I know it’s another form of microblogging but it really takes the cake for most unoriginal. Are there anyone in the class that avidly use Tumblr? I would really like someone to explain the real purpose of Tumblr and how valuable it is. Twitter got lucky last week but I really don’t think Tumblr can help me in any possible way. So I have an avid Tumblr friend and all she does is constantly post pictures that she has seen… on other Tumblrs. Her page is just a barrage of images/videos that she deemed worthy to share with others. I looked at other Tumblrs, they seem to have the same nature. This is probably the most basic form of sharing information.

Tumblr is microblogging but it feels like the hybrid child of Twitter and WordPress. Instead of short small statuses, it’s pictures/videos and unlike a full length blog,  it’s fewer words but not as few as Twitter. So really, how great is this as social media? Facebook is for friends. Twitter is for quick real-time updates especially useful for emergencies. Tumblr? You use it to just re-blog a blog you liked, which probably was re-blogged? This never-ending cycle of re-blogging seems somewhat useless and not helpful at all. It’s like Twitter but with no real content except personal entertainment. Could you not have done this on Facebook where you can share pictures/links to your friends? Or is it the idea that you can share with random people what you found interesting? You can just do that on Twitter though. So where does Tumblr pick up the gaps in social media?

Social media is great but is Tumblr the bottom of the barrel? There seems to be no originality and real purpose in using Tumblr except to spam your Tumblr with images you liked. Facebook profiles already have people liking everything and Twitters are filled with massive links to everything. Is having a spamfest of images/videos really that necessary? Why don’t people just use Flickr to share images? Oh, it’s because Flickr is used to share original photos and not to share a photo that has been shared with no true author… like on Tumblr. Video sharing obviously can be done on YouTube.

What do you guys think? Is Tumblr more of a more picture blog compared to a text blog like WordPress? That’s what microblogging means right? You blog in the most minimal way possible without any effort yet simultaneously convey something important. I dislike Tumblr more than Twitter. We’ll see if this changes.

Also, I lied. I don’t know why it’s called Tumblr.