the Facebook Effect part 2

In these chapters, Zuckerberg shows profound skills in leadership as he deals with multi-billion investors. Zuckerberg befriends Sean Parker, who worked for Napster and Plaxo, and the dynamic duo worked together to further expand thefacebook. Many investors were interested in thefacebook's growth in popularity as the ultimate social network website. Companies like the Post and Accel were willing to cooperate with thefacebook. Out of many investors, Donald Graham at the Post was one of the candidates that both Zuckerberg and Parker were interested in working with. However, Kevin Efrusy of Accel put in a lot of work into convincing Zuckerberg and Parker to take his deal. Although the duo was more interested in Graham's offer by the Post, Efrusy was not hesitant to give up. As Parker kept on turning down Accel's numerous offers, Accel finally made an offer that thefacebook could not refuse. When Zuckerberg finally made his choice to be partners with Accel, Accel brought in a few minor changes to the company by bringing Breyer to join the board at thefacebook. The growth of the company was expanding at a tremendous rate which only meant that thefacebook needed better equipment and a larger staff. The only problem to this was that many people were not willing to work for twenty-something year old college drop outs. Further, Sean Parker's shady reputation of drug use was another factor that made thefacebook hard to hire employees. Although Zuckerberg showed tremendous amount of loyalty to his friend and his partner, "Breyer thought Parker was a liability for the company well beyond his actions in North Carolina, whatever they might have been" (Kirkpatrick 147). The end result of this dispute left Zuckerberg with the total control of three board seats when Parker gave Zuckerberg his board seat after he stepped down from his position as president of Facebook.

the Facebook Effect part 1

In the first part of David Kirkpatrick's book, "The Facebook Effect," he talks about the background of Facebook's creator, Mark Zuckerberg and how Facebook came to be the number one social network website. Reading about Mark in the first chapter reminds me of the movie I saw for extra credit, The Social Network. It all started with a girl that Mark was hung up over and to keep his mind off of her, he created a small, "harmless" website called Facemash where the user has a choice to pick from two contestants based on their looks. This website became an instant hit, which led Mark to think of more projects that would essentially connect students online thus creating his own version of friendster, thefacebook.com. Zuckerberg soon realized that Harvard wasn't the only school that needed a social networking website, so he began to expand thefacebook elsewhere starting with Columbia, Stanford, etc. "So at Harvard, Dartmouth, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, and other schools, Thefacebook quickly became an essential social tool - a considerable advance over the outdated paper book" (Kirkpatrick 91). This type of expansion meant that he needed more money. Managing a website where the growth of its users were constant wasn't easy to do so he staffed his roommates. "In September alone they nearly doubled membership, to around 400,000. The number hit half a million on October 21, as growth began to accelerate" (Kirkpatrick 95). With constant popularity and traffic growing, thefacebook team desperately needed more money and funds. Thus, Y2M has made a partnership with thefacebook which placed ads on the website. This advertising income helped thefacebook team buy new equipments and servers to support the website's growth.

Current Event Blog

Oops, didn't know that we had to blog about our current event presentations.

My current event was called "Where's Jimmy? Just Google His Barcode" by Gene Koprowski.
I found this article on FOXNews.com.
Basically, it's about the creation and wide spread use of RFID (radio frequency identification) tags. I have first heard about RFID tags a long time ago and I have decided to do a follow-up research on them because I was so outraged by this when I heard about it. RFID chips are being embedded in people's hands, arms etc and these chips store personal information about the beholder such as credit card usage, bank statements, tracker of whereabouts, etc. It also can be used as your car keys - just wave your hand on the handle of the car. It's amazing what technology could do but I think the advancement of technology went too far with RFID. I mean, there's chips for your dogs just in case they get lost or whatnot but for humans?! This is far too creepy - I imagine one of those science fiction movie going horribly wrong. And if RFID chips are being used as tracking devices... who's keeping track? Certainly not yourself.... parents? Personally, I think these chips are an invasion of privacy and a barrier to our freedom if it is being used as a tracking device. “RFID tags make the perfect tracking device,” Stanley said. 


“The prospect of RFID chips carried by all in identity papers means that any individual’s presence at a given location can be detected or recorded simply through the installation of an invisible RFID reader”(Koprowski). 

The article goes on to say that the staff of Mexico's attorney general has RFID embedded in their arms to ensure the safety of information, trespassing of drug lords and etc.

"Already, the government of Mexico has surgically implanted the chips, the size of a grain of rice, in the upper arms of staff at the attorney general’s office in Mexico City. The chips contain codes that, when read by scanners, allow access to a secure building, and prevent trespassing by drug lords" (Koprowski). 


Questions I thought about when reading this article were:
1. What would happen if someone (hypothetically) cut off the person's arm to use their identification?
2. In what ways could this be advantages/disadvantages to society?
3. Who controls RFID? maybe a government conspiracy?!

Midterm: Wikipedia Auditing Process

It was very interesting to work with my team, Chris, John, Alex and Zach. For our wikipedia auditing midterm, we picked Grand Theft Auto series. The wikipage listed 46 sources that we latter came to find as either reliable or unreliable sources. As a group, we each part took in auditing the sources that were listed and we have come to the conclusion that news websites like ABC and CNN were deemed reliable whereas, fan websites and blogs were unreliable. I was pleased that everyone in this group contributed equally if not more - John: auditing resources, making/editing the powerpoint, research Devin Moore case, handout. Chris: auditing resources, making the powerpoint. Alex: auditing resources and finding real GTA clip. Zach: auditing resources and making the powerpoint. Me: auditing resources, create powerpoint (make it presentable), research Devin Moore case, and handout. After all the auditing process, my group has decided that Wikipedia page on GTA is not a scholarly source. Although, they have reliable information, there were many subjects where the facts were hindered by opinions, fan blogs, and bias.

Made to Break pt 3

When purchasing a TV, cell phone, or ipod, do you ever think about where these items will go after you no longer use or need them? "When e-waste is burned anywhere in the world, dioxins, furans, and other pollutants are released into the air, with potentially disastrous health consequences around the globe" (Slade 261). The amount of e-waste is growing exponentially in that people are throwing away perfectly useable products to buy newer and better ones. For example, cell phones are having the shortest life cycle of any electronic consumer product in the country. I, myself, am the contributing factor to this exponential growth of e-waste. I had 14 cellphones since I was in 6th grade. Most of them were either broken, lost, or perfectly normal but outdated. With an extra charge of $10 per month, consumers can get a warranty in which one can replace or update one's electronic devices. Phone companies also have a plan where you can easily update to a better/newer cell phone every year with the addition of another 2-year contract.
- So why does e-waste occur?
The main contributor to the exponential growth is due to the media and advertising strategies of manufacturers. "The average American, one analyst has noted, will have watched more than three years of television advertising by the end of his or her life" (Slade 265). That is a lot of time spent on watching manipulative advertising.
- So what happens to all the e-waste?
It is important as a consumer to understand the effects of e-waste on our environment. The universal problem has been compounded by fast growing technological advances, and a lack of resources to deal with the resulting e-waste. The waste that is left over from consumers' electronics consists of PCB's or polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury, lead, and cadmium. These are very TOXIC and studies have shown that PCB's may cause cancer. Our water and soil may become contaminated, which would eventually enter our food chain, if these wastes are not properly disposed of. Almost all of the e-waste is being dumped into landfills due to its hazardous toxins. From there, the e-waste becomes incinerated, recycled, and reused. Incineration releases heavy metals like PCB's into the air and ashes which can cause both ozone depletion and health problems through inhalation. Much of the remaining e-waste are being exported to developing countries where laborers, under unsafe conditions, are working to recycle the e-waste. 

- Is there a solution? 

Most people today upgrade after about a year or so and leave their old laptop or cellphone lying around abandoned until it's no longer any good to anyone. If people sold their one or two year old laptops, PCs, cellphones, cameras, etc as pre-owned, then the e-waste would be cut by a huge percentage... So why not people? Sell your "old" and "outdated" one or two years of used items and get money and save the planet. DUH. 

internet helps society?

Let's face it, there are a lot of websites (way too many) that are totally pointless yet many users are hooked/addicted to it. Most of these pointless websites are user generated like TFLN, urbandictionary, stumbleupon, postsecrets, fml, youtube just to name a few. Although there are many of these useless websites that cure boredom, there are also many websites that are designed to help or better this society or for me at least. Websites that help me are yahoo.com (e-mail), hotschedules.com (work), bankofamerica.com (finance), various rutgers websites (school), weather.com (weather), mapquest.com (directions), and many more.

Made to Break pt 2

What is death - dating?
Death-dating is a strategy for manufacturers to create a product that would essentially break down after three years of use.

My friend bought a MacBook in 2004 and recently his screen went blank and the battery went dead. When he went to the Apple store to get it looked at, the technician said that MacBook models after year 2003 has a warranty that insures buyers for a free tune up (or in his case, fix the MacBook entirely) because it was noted that those models were more susceptible to random damages. My friend's situation reminds me of death-dating in that manufacturers purposefully created products that would break down after few years of use. In Apple's case, they were nice enough to offer free damage control - which would regularly cost around a grand if there was no insurance.

So why would anyone create such a thing called "death-dating"?
Well, the Commerce Department in WWII set up a minimum requirement for a durable good at three years, which means that all goods must last at least 3 years. But why not more? Since consumers are 'trained' to have psychological obsolescence for style, they are constantly looking for the next better, cooler, updated models of technology. Once the durable good breaks down, consumers HAVE to get another good but a better one. Stafford believed that "purposeful design for product failure is unethical" (Slade 164). Although I do agree with him on this, because of obsolescence of planning and style has made society into materialistic fiends, I think it's uncontrollable at this point. I do believe that there is a cycle of planned obsolescence between the manufacturers and consumers. Manufacturers purposefully use death-dating as a strategy to have consumers keep buying new things which would increase their profits and income. And because manufacturers embedded the idea of "cool" behind new things, consumers have a planned obsolescence in buying new technologies.

But isn't death-dating hurting the industry's reputation?
Who would want to buy a product that would only last them 3 years? There's a new craze for e-books (Kindle, Nook, iPad etc). Amazon has already come up with 3 different versions of their e-book, Kindle. E-book competitors are constantly coming up with new innovative designs so it entices consumers to choose their product over their competitors. There was a recent news article that advised people on which e-books to buy and not buy. Amazon has introduced several different versions of Kindle in that the first version was merely a "test-run" to see if it would be popular, its durability, and its effectiveness in the product. Well it was certaintly popular, effective and a lot of readers took a liking to the product but was it durable? Did it last? Apparently not, since they have created new versions with better features. I feel that if a product from a certain company keeps on breaking, then no one would want to buy them. A key advice to fellow consumers is that to always get insurance on technologies because they tend to break or malfunction randomly!! Or in this case.. only last for three years :(