The Paradigm Has Shifted!

Well…with advanced technology, people go to their computers to find products that they want. Consumers used to go out shopping to department stores and malls when they were looking for particular items. Now, they sit at their computers and shop (and save gas). They use search engines to find the businesses with the best prices and lowest shipping fees. And, through the internet, they can find just about anything they are looking for with the click of the mouse on the “go” button. That means that businesses need to compete by having websites and keeping their prices low in order to attract people to their site or business. 

Colleges need to sell themselves by having a good online, easy to navigate site. They should have pictures and video tours of the campus. They should have photos and bios of the professors and staff of each department. This would create a welcome feeling to the visitors on the website. The school store should offer discounts to the enrolled students. (If there is a textbook that they sell, but the price is too high, then the student would log on to amzon.com and would find that book for a cheaper price. If the school offered a discount, then the student would probably just buy the book there.) The website should have links to all the different activity clubs on the campus. This would show the student body’s involvement at the school. The website has to be very attractive and be kept up to date.

I don’t really know anything about clothing designers, but I would assume that they would want to sell their designs to either stores or to individual customers. The web would make it easy for them to sell to individuals, but they would probably have to go to the stores to sell them their designs. I think designers would be better off selling their clothing through stores because then people could try on the clothes to make sure they fit rather than buying it and finding out that it doesn’t fit and returning it.

If I Was Running The Show…

How would I run a newspaper? First of all, I would still keep the printed version. The older generation, like my grandparents, would want to still receive the version of the newspaper that they are use to, since they don’t really like the change in media or even have a computer to go to news websites. However, keeping up with the technology today, I would offer newspaper versions (different sections like entertainment, breaking news, sports, etc.) that would be sent to peoples phones, for whoever subscribed to it. I would also expand or make adjustments to my online version of the newspaper. I would have on the website pictures that were taken, but never made it to the printed paper. There people would be able to purchase those pictures (that are worth a thousand words). I would also have on the website video versions of stories, just like the Courier News, my local paper (see: http://www.c-n.com), offers. This is how I would run a newspaper company.

Now on the other hand, as far as running a local radio station, I would focus on maintaing and expanding the radio station’s website. First of all, I would have minimal advertising on the website. Just have just a few advertisers that are in our local area — unlike the WPST website (see: http://www.wpst.com) where they went overboard. I would focus more on our on-air personalities and also the station’s promotions/contests. I would also have a page for podcasting where people can download, for free, clips of their favorite shows. Lastly, I would have a link to a streaming video of inside the studio, so listeners could watch the show while they listen to it. I think that would make a successful radio station website.

Mashup site

I think that a useful Web 2.0 mashup site would be a site that simplifies the planning and driving of long road trips. I would have on this mashup site mapquest.com, to help the person find a simple map and directions to use when driving. I would also have traffic.com on this site, to help the driver understand which roads and highways have backups, accidents, roadwork on them. Google.com would be the next on this site. The family going on the trip can look up the states that they are driving through – they can look up the history, points of interest, lodging, and local restaurants. I would finally have youtube on this mashup site, so that the family can look up travel videos about their destination and what they can do there.

Web 2.0

I believe that Web 2.0 sites will make money, however, not directly from the users. The Web 2.0 sites would be making their money from the advertisers that are advertising on their sites – when people link to the advertiser’s website they get a commission. I would not pay a subscription fee (at this time anyway) to use facebook or youtube because I am more into my music and my iPod rather than these sites. I think that a subscription fee would discourage use of these sites, and the percentage of users would drop. Lastly, if these sites would not make any money in five years, either from advertisers or users, then I think you could kiss these sites goodbye. The reason being, they would not have enough money to support themselves, and nobody would maintain these sites for free. No money, no website.

“We the Media”

I think that, looking at the concept of “We the Media”, the fact that anyone can post anything has turned people into media hunters. Just an average person can get involved in another persons life. They don’t know when to stop and when to leave people alone. One good example of this is the paparazzi. They are out looking for the best and most embarrassing photo to take of celebrities. And the way they handle it is with extreme measures — even sometimes breaking the law. They invade the privacy of the celebrities and by doing that they endanger the lives of themselves, the celebrities, and even innocent bystanders. I think that, because of them not knowing when to stop, they make situations dangerous. There is also the consideration of moral decency.

In the latest edition of the magazine, The Week, there were two articles which I was reading that were about this exact topic. One of the articles was about paparazzi and the other talked about “Should the media back off?” (back off Britney Spears, that is).  In the article, one quote from Miranda Devine of The Sydney Morning Herald was very interesting and true:

Thanks to camera phones and the internet, the professional media doesn’t have the power it once had to decide what should or shouldn’t be covered. The tabloids could call off their hounds tomorrow, and Spears would still be pursued by packs of photographers – albeit with less-expensive cameras – for the delectation of the tens of millions of online voyeurs who have developed a “taste for Britney’s distress.”

“We the Media” has to learn that sometimes it is necessary to just leave people alone. It’s the decent thing to do.

The Change of Education Utlizing Technology

I wouldn’t try to change the basic curriculum for the different subjects. I would make some changes to the atmosphere of the “traditional classroom”. Instead of having students rush to the physical classroom, they would be able to log on to an internet classroom to listen to lectures and get their assignments. I’m talking about college students, not K-12.  I do think that it’s important that students, before college level, go to classrooms and learn how to work together and get along while they are learning everything else. (They should be able to interact with each other instead of being socially independent. They need face to face contact, not just all text messaging and IM contact.) Actually, college students need some face to face contact, too – not all their work should be through the computer. I took one of the MCCC online courses this past summer. It was a bit weird not ever meeting my fellow classmates – I knew their names and read what they wrote, but there were no faces to go with their names. I guess I am basically saying that I like how this class that we are taking right now works, and I would want to produce more classes that would run this way.   

http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct98/compute.html

The Change in Education

Basically, education has not changed much over the past 50 years. The curriculums for the basic classes (English, science, history, and math) are pretty much the same as they were – grammar is grammar, biology is biology, algebra is algebra, and history is history. (Although with history, it changes pretty much every day.) However, the tools used in education have changed dramatically. Pens, papers, books, and even trips to the library are competing with the computer and the internet. Teachers and students are using much more advanced technology for study, research, learning, and communicating back and forth with each other.

Scenarios

My comments are going to be about scenario #10 – Tom makes a CD of Jazz music for his girlfriend, because she’s never hear of the majority of the artists and clearly doesn’t have any of the CDs.

Basically, I would want to know where Tom got the music from to make the CD. Did he download it from the internet illegally? If so, then the download is illegal and unethical. If he got the music from CDs of his own or from songs that he paid for through iTunes, then it is probably more unethical than anything.  I don’t think that it’s illegal.

Now, as far as giving the mix to his girlfriend, I think that this is absolutely no problem. He made her the compilation CD and gave it to her. He didn’t sell it for profit. Anyway, it might turn out to be a benefit to the artists if the girlfriend really likes the artists and decides to buy their CDs herself.

The article http://shumans.com/articles/000031.php talks about how “copyright infringement is unstoppable from a technological perspective” and I think that’s true. I think that, if the person isn’t making money off the copyright infringement it is but it isn’t illegal, it’s more unethical. Actually, this article was written in 2003. What was a problem then is still an issue now.

Role of the Government

I was never a history buff or into political or economic stuff, however I believe the role of government is to keep the citizens of the United States safe. This is done by keeping order and setting laws and standards for us to follow. The three branches of the government – Executive, Legislative and Judicial – are there to make and enforce the laws, and to be the “watchdog”.

Through the website http://economics.about.com, I found information about free enterprise and capitalism. Even though there is the American belief in free enterprise, the government is relied on to “break up or regulate companies that appeared to be developing so much power that they could defy market forces”. The people expect the government to “nurture new industries, and at times ever to protect American companies from competition”. I found out that there are government agencies that handle things like this. For example, there is the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (www.ntia.doc.gov). Their Office of Telecommunications and Information Applications (OTIA) helps “public and non-profit entities in effectively using telecommunications and information technologies to better provide public services”. This office is actually setting up programs that are helping the national transition to digital television. There are actually two programs that are interesting and relate to the new developments in communications and media.

   

• The Digital TV Converter Box Coupon Program – “Between Jan. 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, all U.S. households will be eligible to request up to two coupons, worth $40 each, to be used toward the purchase of digital-to-analog converter boxes. Up to $1.5 billion will be available in funding.”

• The Low Power Television and Translator Assistance Programs – “The Conversion Program will provide funds to assist low-power TV broadcast stations, Class A television stations, television translator stations, and television booster stations (“low-power facilities”) to broadcast in analog after the February 17, 2009 digital conversion deadline for full power television stations. The Upgrade Program will reimburse the costs to upgrade these types of facilities in rural communities to digital transmission.”

It’s nice to know that the government gets involved in protecting the little guy – the households without money to buy all the new digital equipment, or the small, low-power stations that can’t afford to upgrade to digital.

As far as communications and media are concerned, I believe that the government’s role is the “watchdog”. This is actually the role of the FCC government agency. According to www.fcc.gov the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a United States government agency that is responsible to Congress. It was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is responsible for “regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable”.

 

Either the FCC or another government agency would be the “watchdog” of the World Wide Web, since the internet is another form of communications and media.