Anniversaries are new on Facebook

http://mashable.com/2009/12/16/anniversary-facebook/

Facebook has just unveiled a new thing you can celebrate. Anniversaries! People who are in a relationship can now add the day they got together. Originally, Facebook was for college students, but now millions of married people are joining. Hopefully, there will be new relationship statuses to come!

Autom, The Fat Fighting Robot

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/12/01/autom-the-fat-fighting-robot-is-coming-in-2010/

http://www.intuitiveautomata.com/news/IntroducingAutom.html

I was really intrigued by this article. It's about this robot called Autom, that helps you stay on your diet. Everyday, it will ask you a different question (none of the questions are the same) as it gets to know you. You put in the amount of food you ate at each meal, how many minutes of exercise you have done and so on. In return, Autom will say encourage you to not eat "that last slice of pizza". This was interesting because the average person stays on their diet for about 3 weeks. The people who used Autom stayed on it for 8 weeks or more.

The War For the Web

I thought this article was very surprising. I surprised because Facebook wouldn't let links throught Twitter work. Most people would assume that they would not work because they are rivals. It turns out though, that they were just glitches in the system. Another things was that Apple isn't hesitant about blocking applications that they find a threat to their company. I find this not surprising because they are usually kind of uptight about the things they release.

Summary 4/5 of Here Comes Everybody

In Here Comes Everybody, chapter 4 talks about filtering and editing posts on sites like blogs and other networking sites. It talks about how people post things on pictures and whatnot, and it is checked after it is posted. If there is something wrong with it, it will be removed immediatley. Chapter 5 is about collabarative production, which means alot of people working on one idea. This is hard because alot of people will have different ideas and this might cause them to disagree. Now, it is easier with the internet because you can put stuff together in large groups.  

Response to "12 Inspiring Stories of Successful Social Networkers"

I thought this article had some very interesting stories. One story that I thought was interesting was the one about how Barret Swatek twitters as the character in her story Kate Maxwell. The author started following different groups like girl power groups, single women and dating sites to see what kind of audience she would get. She now has over 500 followers (including NBC, Lionsgate and Sony to name a few). Another story that I found interesting was the MyWorkButterfly. I thought it was really nice that people created a website just for moms who are working are who want to return back to the workforce.

My Opinion on The Snarky Optimist's Article...

I sort of agree with the writer of this blog post. I agree with how the writer says that every time you turn the page, it is a different subject. I was getting whiplash whenever I read the book because Godin kept switching from one subject to another. One thing i did not think about though was how Godin said managers cannot be leaders, and if they are they have to let people lower than them join them. I think managers can be leaders even though they are already so high up. I think she made some very good, interesting points in her post and I agree with most of them.

Drawing Connections and The Big Picture

Throughout the quarter we have seen/read many different articles and videos. One connection I saw in these is how technology has helped us. One example is in Shirky's book with the stolen cell phone. Ivanna never expected to get her phone back, but with the help of her friend Evan's website, she not only got the phone back but she found hundreds of people who support her. There hundreds, even thousands of support groups on the web.
        One example of a support group would be Flickr. This was mentioned in Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody. In the book he mentioned numerous tradgedies, and there were people from all around the world who gave encouragement to people in need. Another way technology has helped us is how we can talk about events that are happening all around the world. One example of this is the London Underground Bombing in 2005. The evacuees took pictures of what was happening and posted them to Flickr. Then people started commenting on these pictures and having discussions.
         Lastly, another connection I made is people use the internet to get their points across. An example of someone getting their point across is Dave Carroll's song United Breaks Guitars. When United Airlines broke his guitar, he wrote a song about it and posted it to YouTube. It obviously got tons of hits and this ties into the internet being a support group as well. I think we have alot to learn from the internet.