Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these
questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me.
You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title.
It’s a lot harder than you think!
Repost as “my life according to (band name)”
*****************************************************************
Pick your Artist: Hey Ocean!
Are you a male or female? Female
Describe yourself: Terribly Stable
How do you feel: Alright
Describe where you currently live: Vagabond
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: One City
Your favorite form of transportation: Fish
Your best friend is: My Friends
You and your best friends are: Watcha Lookin For
What’s the weather like: Rainy Day
Favorite time of day: Turn up the Stars
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Last Mistake
What is life to you: Wise
Describe your most recent relationship: Beatboxer who Broke my Heart
Your fear: Liar
What is the best advice you have to give: Alleyways
Thought for the Day: Thank You Very Much
How I would like to die: Beg Your Pardon?
My soul’s present condition: A Song About California
Have you notice how much the business model for Facebook appears to be morphing into the “Walled Garden” Media App Stores employed by the Telcos and the handset manufacturers (e.g. Nokia, Apple and Blackberry)?
Today the Facebook economy is a mirror of the Mobile Phone Bling economy we examined months ago in More Eyeballs and More Revenues but is it the future of the mass media?
As we discovered in Media Platform or Fashion Statement? the bulk of the new media sales from the original “Walled Gardens” provided the customers with Music, Ringtones, Wall Papers and Games that enhanced or personalised the handset. Today we are seeing the same thing happening on Facebook.
“Virtual Goods: Insane, but insanely popular. The creation and selling of virtual goods and gifts makes absolutely no sense to people who just use the Internet as a basic communications tool. Try telling someone who isn’t really into Facebook that they could buy a virtual bouquet of flowers for 99 cents and send them to a friend — they’d look at you like you were mad.” – Web Daily Worker
The Facebook business model is morphing into the desktop version of owning the mobile phone network or handset. Own the network or the platform and you’re the new gatekeeper. Once you’re the gatekeeper then its 7 4 U 3 4 Me for anyone who wants access to your subscriber base.
“Today more than 500,000 applications exist on Facebook, and the virtual goods within those applications (particularly games) have become an increasingly valuable part of the user experience…The long-term goal of Facebook Credits is to provide a currency that makes purchasing virtual items across applications fast and simple. To make it easy to buy Facebook Credits we support several different credit cards, fifteen currencies, mobile payments, and now, PayPal.” – Facebook Developers
The “Facebook Credits” is a debit account system just like Apple’s iTunes store and the Telco’s original pre-paid mobile service. It allows Facebook it to build a virtual bank without actually having to deal with the regulatory problems of becoming a bank.
The reason why Mobile Bling and SMS translate into virtual goods, social games and twitter on the desktop web is very simple. It’s because the behaviour of people using Social Media platforms like Facebook and Twitter basically mirrors the behaviour of Mobile Phone subscribers. Sending messages (SMS) and playing games are the two most popular activities on both platforms.
That’s why in Japan Social Media and Mobile Media have morphed into a single Mobile Social Media platform.
The question is how sustainable is Facebook’s strategy once America and the Rest of the World catch up to Japan and embrace Mobile Social Media? Can Facebook still be the gatekeeper in a mobile world where the Telcos and the handset manufacturers already own the keys to profiting from the network and the handsets?
And what happens in the online world if Google decides it should also been in the business of “owning the platform” and introduces the Pay wall to end all Pay walls to allow Media Content Producers and Applications Developers to profit from Google’s web? After all isn’t Google in the business of having a little bit of Google in everybody’s transaction with the Internet? I can just see Google pitching the revolutionary idea to the online world.
That’s 9 4 U 1 4 G.
Imagine a world where you could buy a magazine article or a video clip for 10 cents and send it to a friend. Even if it’s 1 cent most content producers would make more money online with this model than what they will putting ads on the menu.
I guess you have to ask the question. If the object of the game is to amass the largest amount of traffic and then introducing a pay wall so developers and content owners can make a profit this “walled” traffic why hasn’t Google done it already?
After all Google could already be the biggest “Virtual” Banker in the world today if “Walled Gardens” really are the Past, Present and Future of online media.
Sometimes I have a hard time communicating on Facebook?
People think I’m serious when I’m not or vice versa.
When in doubt, I find it’s best to be direct.
And not to read too much into things.
It’s also good to get a good handle on the current lingo.
If you struggle like I do, feel free to use any of these
badges to let people know how you feel.
Also, let me know if you have any clever and/or useful
ideas I can add to the collection. And, please be direct. Thanks.
About halfway through yesterday’s all-day healthcare summit, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina told another of the many insurance horror stories that peppered the proceedings:
A gentleman was called in and he was very, very emotional. He was getting ready to have transplant surgery. But he was told that because he’s on Medicare, his post-operative treatment is going to be limited to three years. After that, he’s going to have to find some way to pay. He was very, very emotional.
Think about that for a minute. The patient is about to receive a transplanted organ (the Congressman didn’t specify what it was) and the horror is the government is only going to continue to pay his medical bills for three years. If this is the worst we can say about American medicine, are we really in that bad shape after all?
Yesterday’s all-day event went much better than it might have. There was no shouting, no screaming, no name-calling. Despite the talk that Washington doesn’t work anymore, the dialogue was very civilized. Deliberation seems to be alive and well.
Except of course, for the fundamental difference, which remains the same — Republicans want to reform and improve health care without destroying its free-enterprise base, while Democrats would be very happy to see the entire thing absorbed into a government-controlled system, as half of it has been already through the extension of Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs.
What became most outstanding is that President Obama and his teammates still do not have any real understanding of how the current system works. Take for example the President’s constant insistence that the problem is the insurance pools in which very sick people must shop and that the solution is to “get everybody into those pools” so that risks can be shared. That’s a very good idea and a very simple principle of insurance — people who aren’t sick pay for those who are sick. But “getting everybody into those pools” is precisely what the current system is designed to avoid.
It's My Way or the Highway
Just as a guess, what percentage of the population do you think now buys their insurance individually on the open market? 15 percent? 20 percent? The answer is 6 percent. The figure has not changed for the last 15 years.
Only 6 percent of the population actually buys their own insurance. (And for this, we are painting the insurance companies as the villains of this melodrama?) Fourteen percent of the population is on Medicare, 14 percent on Medicaid. The other 66 percent do not have insurance but health benefits¸, which is not the same thing. Nine percent gets its benefits from government employment, 4 percent from the military and the remaining 43 percent get their benefits from private employment. The last 15 percent (there is some overlap) has no coverage at all.
President Obama kept talking about how it is these “large pools” in big companies that make insurance cheap, but that is not true. Large pools are only part of the equation. Equally important is that these employees are getting their benefits tax-free. This is a huge advantage not available to the uninsured population. Because the government is not getting its cut, employers are also eager to convey benefits to their employees instead of wage increases because they have more value. This is why, for many people, health benefits constitute the major reason for employment. Wages transfer easily from job to job but benefits do not.
Yet another advantage of company-run health benefits programs is that they are exempt from state regulations. There was a lot of talk at Blair House yesterday about monopolies and how many states are served by only one or two insurance companies. There was also talk about how the government must mandate minimum coverage or people will not realize their insurance doesn’t cover much. What no one said is that all these mandates are now being imposed at the state level and it is precisely this that limits competition and makes insurance so expensive.
Corporate benefit plans, on the other hand, are all exempt from state regulations under the Employees Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which pre-empts state regulation. This is why large corporations are able to provide insurance relatively cheaply — because they don’t have to comply with state mandates that insist that chiropractic, foot massage, alcoholic treatment and all kinds of marginal medical services be included. Companies can provide their employees with what they want — and it doesn’t take any government oversight to do it.
So Obama’s premise is wrong. We’re not going to be able to “get everybody into the pool” because doing that would mean breaking up the system of employment-based health benefits that is protected by ERISA. That 43 percent of the market is staying put. The only thing that could crack this wall of protection would be if benefits were highly taxed and the federal “insurance exchanges” were made so attractive that people were willing to give up their employment-based benefits in exchange. Those are the things that Obama has sworn won’t happen.
Instead, whatever “exchanges” are created will remain isolated, populated only by the very sick and people who can’t get coverage anywhere else. That’s what we have now. The only thing that can make the exchange more attractive is if it is highly subsidized. Several states tried this in the 1990s and found it impossibly expensive — as several Senators testified yesterday. It’s hard to believe the federal government will find it any different.
Because the President does not recognize what makes health benefits such a good deal for employees of large companies, he also refuses to do what Republicans have been suggesting all along — extend those same advantages to everyone else. Several times, Obama talked about the Senators’ and Congressmen’s own health plans — apparently thinking he was embarrassing them — and asked why we couldn’t extend the same benefits to everyone else? But of course that would mean everybody working for the government — which might eventually happen if the Democrats stay in power long enough.
Instead, these advantages could simply be identified and passed on to everyone else. Give people an allowance of tax-free money to spend on their own health benefits. Let them buy insurance that is not weighted down with government mandates. This is what health savings accounts do. Eight million people now have them (almost as many as are covered by the military) and they work very well.
Ah, but the President doesn’t like that, either. “All the data says that the people who have health savings account have a lot of disposable income,” he said yesterday. The implication is, of course, that HSA’s are a rich man’s game and will leave the poor to fend for themselves.
But then in the next minute he contradicts himself. The uninsured, he said, are not the poor. The poor are covered by Medicaid. The uninsured tend to be the self-employed and people working for smaller companies that cannot afford to provide benefits to their employees. Aren’t these precisely the people who could benefit from health savings accounts? But instead, the Democrats would prefer to mandate that these smaller businesses provide health insurance to their employees — even though they obviously can’t afford it. Could there be a more efficient way of killing job creation in this country?
The Republicans came off very well in yesterday’s summit. They drew a line in the sand — solve the problem by enhancing free markets — and stuck with it. If Democrats want to persist in pushing their reform bill on the American people, let them. Then let them stand by it in the November election.
Well got home from work this morning from work to find out my 2nd PC is down for the count and its either going to be the mainboard or the PSU. So far it seems to be the PSU due to the fact that I can bypass the drives save for the hdd and it works then when you hit IE it crashes.
But then again this also started after dealing with some asshat names Jon Alto or otherwise known as Chili Palmer on MB2 Vendetta on Facebook of the AOD Mob started shit with me and after I retaliated he goes off on some hate spree so I blocked him. Then he starts posting and trying to start crap with me on other profiles. SO wtf am I supposed to do? But what I think is strange is the crap that started happening only started happening *AFTER* I had left the house for work yesterday.
The twink just doesn’t know when to stfu and just play the game properly or at least apologize for beating someone down for Xp. Its just proper game etiquette, just because the game can be barbaric at times does not mean you have to be a barbarian either. Most of the times it’s a show of maturity and that person will respect that and want to join up or extend a hand to have you join theirs.
Anyways, I have some upgrades here I can hopefully use to rebuild at least one machine and with the help of a buddy of mine I might be able to repair the 2nd unit too. I’ll be installing Windows 2k on a dell CPI finally tomorrow as well and getting that ready for my wife and her Girl Scout stuff. Besides being completely depressed and wanting to tear someone’s head I’ve never met off and using it for a soccer ball? Yea I’m fine…… NOT! I WANT MY COMPUTER BACK!
It’s the BOMB.COM!!! Literally, it is. It’s the newest innovation in communication technology. Social media allows users to connect with friends, family, businesses, politicians, celebrities, and whomever else we want to connect with. Various social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Linkedin, and many others, all help people to stay connected with people they choose to communicate with as well as get information and updates about certain businesses/organizations.
Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace allow users to keep in touch with their friends and family even if they’re thousands of miles away. Along with this, these sites allow users to follow their favorites sports team, celebrities, corporations, as well as politicians in order to remain up-to-date with information going on with the various entities they are following.
YouTube is a different kind of social networking site, but it basically offers the same communicative benefits as the ones previously listed. It allows users to completely communicate through videos and also by leaving comments on certain videos. This site allows people interested in certain channels to subscribe to those channels which display informative videos and/or videos on topics that interest them. Here is a very interesting YouTube video about social media!
Linkedin is another social networking site, but a little different from the others. Yes, it allows users to stay in contact with other users, but in a more professional manner. This site allows users to stay in contact with business professionals that they’ve encountered with throughout their educational and professional careers. It allows job seekers and employers to see an online resumé of various people who they’ve encountered and/or who they may work with in the future.
With all this said, there are so many sites to join in order to socially network. Over the years, the expansion of social media has drastically increased and so many people are joining the social media revolution. What started out as a fad has turned into a permanent transformation within the aspects of communication. And with the steady rise of social media continuing to increase, more and more people are deciding to join a network and/or participate in the developments of the revolution. The article The exploding PR frontier of social networking by Michael McCord discusses how social networking is massively changing the innovative ways people get their news and how social media is transforming the realm of PR.
Whether it be for professional reasons or casual conversation, there is a social networking site for everyone!
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
Facebook (Facebook) is known for its uniformity. You can post all sorts of content, but the actual design and layout of your profile is the same as everyone else’s
I thought coming to the library would help me to buckle down and study but that is obviously not the case because I am blogging, listening to Celine Dion, tweeting, and surfing facebook. I really want to run around and collect books about medicine, psychology case studies, and ballet. I love the smell of old books, especially ones that have not been read in about 50 years. The library I am in right now has books from as long ago as the 1400s. That is old! I have had to sit myself next to the mass communication section otherwise I would not even get minutes of work in tonight.
I am never going to get anything done. I guess since it is the Winter Olympics I should listen to “The Power of the Dream” and watch skiing. I would watch skiing or figure skating…if they would ever quit covering curling. How is that even a sport? It’s like watching shuffle board! Come on…lets show Apollo now!
You would think that since the games were in Canada this year, then Celine would have been part of the opening ceremony. Maybe she will sing at the closing. I saw her new movie and it was absolutely fabulous! It was like being on tour with her and experiencing the concert all over again! That’s right…I saw the Taking Chances tour and got lost in New Orleans trying to get back to my hotel. You have to remember that I did not live here at that point. On a good note, I will never get lost leaving the arena ever again! Here are a few pics from the best night of my life so far!
Going to see Celine with Nana!
Deep within each heart
There lies a magic spark
That lights the fire of our imagination
And since the dawn of man
The strenght of just “I can”
Has brought together people of all nations
There’s nothing ordinary
In the living of each day
There’s a special part
Every one of us will play
Feel the flame forever burn
Teaching lessons we must learn
To bring us closer to the power of the dream
As the world gives us its best
To stand apart from all the rest
It is the power of the dream that brings us here
Your mind will take you far
The rest is just pure heart
You’ll find your fate is all your own creation
Every boy and girl
As they come into this world
They bring the gift of hope and inspiration
Feel the flame forever burn
Teaching lessons we must learn
To bring us closer to the power of the dream
The world unites in hope and peace
We pray that it will always be
It is the power of the dream that brings us here
Singing "My Heart Will Go On"
There’s so much strength in all of us
Every woman child and man
It’s the moment that you think you can’t
You’ll discover that you can
Feel the flame forever burn
Teaching lessons we must learn
To bring us closer to the power of the dream
The world unites in hope and peace
We pray that it will always be
It is the power of the dream that brings us here
Feel the flame forever burn
Teaching lessons we must learn
To bring us closer to the power of the dream
The world unites in hope and peace
We pray that it will always be
It is the power of the dream that brings us
The power of the dream
The faith in things unseen
The courage to embrace your fear
No matter where you are
Belting out "It's a Man's World" cover
To reach for your own star
To realize the power of the dream
To realize the power of the dream
I really have to finish this homework! I am going to get back to sining Celine songs in my head and working in this biology lab report. Go see “Celine Through the Eyes of the World” and enjoy! Ooo! Unison just started playing! Taking it back to the early 90s!
Kelihatannya seperti Google bukanlah satu-satunya perusahaan web dengan kebutuhan untuk kecepatan. Sementara upaya perbatasan pada obsesi, lain berbasis di Silicon Valley startup berpaling raksasa internet mulai menjadi pesaing untuk judul, yang dengan cepat menjadi musuh utama Google. Facebook telah menangkap kecepatan bug dan tampaknya serius. Beberapa minggu yang lalu, jaringan sosial insinyur memamerkan teknologi, HipHop, yang mengurangi penggunaan CPU server hingga 50 persen pada beberapa kasus dan sekarang Facebook membual bahwa hal itu berhasil membuat situs dua kali lebih cepat hanya dalam waktu enam bulan berkat berat optimasi dan front end.
“Dari awal 2008 sampai pertengahan 2009, kami menghabiskan banyak waktu mengikuti praktek-praktek terbaik ditetapkan oleh pionir dalam bidang kinerja web untuk mencoba dan meningkatkan TTI [Sisa untuk Berinteraksi],” software engineer Facebook Jason Sobel menulis.
“Pada bulan Juni 2009, kami telah melakukan perbaikan signifikan, pemotongan rata-rata waktu render setengah untuk pengguna di Amerika Serikat … Kami memutuskan untuk mengukur TTI di persentil 75 untuk semua pengguna sebagai cara yang lebih baik untuk mewakili seberapa cepat situs rasakan. Setelah melihat data, kami menetapkan tujuan ambisius untuk mengurangi separuh pengukuran ini pada tahun 2010, kami memiliki sekitar enam bulan untuk membuat Facebook dua kali lebih cepat, “ia menjelaskan.
“Saya senang untuk mengatakan bahwa pada 22 Desember sebagai hasil dari upaya ini dan lainnya, kami mengumumkan kemenangan pada tujuan kami untuk membuat situs dua kali lebih cepat. Kami bahkan sudah 9 hari penuh untuk cadangan!” Sobel mengumumkan.
Facebook itu terutama senang dengan kinerja dari infrastruktur, tetapi merasa bahwa waktu pembukaan halaman bisa lebih pendek. Signifikan lebih pendek, sebenarnya. Tim berfokus pada beberapa aspek, yang dapat menghasilkan kecepatan loading lebih cepat bagi kebanyakan orang. Salah satu cara yang jelas untuk melakukan hal ini, meski lebih mudah dikatakan daripada dilakukan, adalah untuk mengurangi ukuran file yang harus diambil untuk situs yang akan dijalankan dalam browser.
Para insinyur mampu mengurangi ukuran rata-rata kue-kue yang digunakan oleh situs oleh 42 persen dan itu sebelum mengompresi file. Bidang lain yang ditingkatkan adalah dalam cara berbagai halaman di Facebook berbagi Common kode HTML dan CSS. Sebelumnya, setiap page loaded kode kustom sendiri meskipun elemen-elemen yang sama pada berbagai halaman. Sekarang, Facebook menggunakan kode bersama untuk beberapa halaman, yang berarti bahwa setelah pengguna men-download sekali, kode akan digunakan kembali oleh halaman Facebook lain mereka beban. Ini memungkinkan Facebook untuk mengurangi ukuran file CSS diambil untuk setiap halaman dengan 19 persen, dan kompresi dari hmtl yang sebesar 44 persen.
Satu daerah terakhir kode yang diperlukan adalah mengoptimalkan beberapa JavaScript. Sebagai tempat tumbuh dan menambahkan lebih banyak fitur, kode basis yang diperlukan untuk tumbuh juga. Tapi setelah menganalisis berbagai kode JavaScript yang digunakan pada situs, Facebook insinyur menyadari bahwa banyak fitur yang dapat menggunakan kode umum untuk mencapai banyak dari apa yang mereka dibutuhkan. Facebook menciptakan sebuah perpustakaan dasar baru itu disebut Primer, yang digunakan kembali oleh berbagai fitur di situs. Hal ini mengakibatkan penurunan 40 persen ukuran file JavaScript download per halaman.
Akhirnya, Facebook memutuskan untuk berpisah elemen pada halaman, sehingga mereka beban secara terpisah. “Kami menyebut seluruh sistem BigPipe dan memungkinkan kita untuk memecah halaman web kami di blok logis isi, yang disebut Pagelets, dan pipa generasi dan membuat Pagelets ini. Melihat di halaman rumah, misalnya, memikirkan newsfeed sebagai salah satu Pagelet, maka kotak Saran lain, dan iklan lain, “Sobel mengungkapkan. Idenya adalah browser memberikan sesuatu untuk dilakukan sementara komponen lainnya masih sedang diproses. Hal ini juga membuat segalanya tampak lebih cepat bagi pengguna bahkan jika beban kali adalah sama dengan hanya menampilkan semuanya dalam satu push besar.
Baru-baru ini pemerintah memperketat akses internet,terutama yang bersifat situs porno atau situs yang dirasa dapat menggangu dalam hal pendidikan anak-anak. Cara mereka adalah dengan bekerja sama dengan provider untuk melakukan block/tidak boleh akses pada situs yang telah ditentukan. Jaringan internet kantor juga seringkali melakukan blok kepada beberapa situs seperti facebook, maupun situs downloader. Permasalahannya terkadang situs yang diblok bukan merupakan situs porno atau downloader berbahaya dan kita sangat butuh untuk mengaksesnya, misalnya situs download update anti virus.
Berikut ini adalah tips dan trik untuk membuka situs-situs yang terkena blok (komputer tidak bisa membuka situs tertentu karena akses yang ditolak) : 1. Akses/buka situs dengan alamat IP nya langsung.
Internet Protocol (IP) adalah metode atau protokol untuk mengirimkan data ke Internet. Setiap komputer dalam internet setidaknya harus mempunyai sebuah alamat IP yang unik yang mengidentifikasikan komputer tersebut terhadap komputer yang lainnya.
Bagaimana caranya mengetahui IP Address/alamat IP dari suatu situs? Sebagai acuan standart jika menggunakan OS Windows XP
Klik pada Menu Start > Run, kemudian ketikkan perintah “ping www.nama-suatudomain.com -t” (tanpa tanda petik dalam mengetikkan), lalu tekan ok
Setelah itu akan ditampilkan alamat IP Address dengan mode DOS Prompt
Setelah anda mengetahui IP Address situs tersebut,maka ketikkan ip tersebut pada browser bar sebagai pengganti alamat situs
2. Gunakan proxy pada browser
Alternatif cara lainnya untuk mengakses situs yang diblok adalah dengan menggunakan proxy server. Apa yang dimaksud dengan Proxy ? Secara umum proxy merupakan IP (Internet Protocol) atau alamat perantara yang dapat berfungsi sebagai media penghubung koneksi dengan ISP. Salah satu fungsi Proxy adalah dapat merubah identitas komputer kita ( IP ) dengan IP yang berbeda. Berikut ini adalah tips mengganti IP dengan proxy (tutorial kali ini kita akan menggunakan browser Mozilla Firefox).
Langkah pertama kita cek alamat IP Address kita (sebelum menggunakan Proxy Server) melalui what is my ip (situs http://www.hariesdesign.com/tools/what-is-my-ip) terlihat IP dan lokasi server sebagai berikut (IP sengaja dikaburkan untuk alasan privacy) :
setelah dimasukkan proxy akan terlihat sebagai berikut :
Semua identitas akan berganti dengan memasukkan alamat proxy.
Ikuti langkah berikut untuk memasukkan alamat Proxy Server (untuk merubah IP Address):
Pada Browser tekan Tools > Options, maka akan muncul kotak konfigurasi sebagai berikut
Kemudian pilih Advance > Network > Setting , akan muncul sebagai berikut :
isikan HTTP Proxy dengan Proxy anda, untuk contoh ini saya menggunakan data IP : 89.97.232.161 Port : 80 (Country : Italy)
Kemudian tekan tombol OK untuk mengakhiri. Anda dapat mengetahui IP baru komputer anda dengan tool what is my IP.
Sedangkan untuk mendapatkan beberapa proxy yang dapat anda gunakan silakan download Proxy disini beberapa proxy juga bisa dilihat antara lain disini (http://www.proxy4free.com/page1.html), misalnya menggunakan service dari server: http://www.proxoin.com/
Selamat mencoba !
3. Bypass/jalan pintas melalui Situs penerjemah (Translation)
Contoh Situs penerjemah antara lain : AltaVista BabelFish, Google Translate
Silakan coba http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ maupun http://translate.google.com/#
sumber: http://tipsntrick.net/tips-and-trick/umum/836-3-cara-alternatif-yang-jitu-untuk-dapat-membuka-situs-yang-telah-di-block?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook dan http://www.hariesdesign.com/tools/what-is-my-ip
Two weeks ago Google broke into the social networking game with Buzz, the new Google tool that allows people to microblog through the Google interface. Rather than signing into your twitter or facebook accounts, Google suspects that your Google portal or G-portal, will eventually replace the need for twitter/facebook. Odds are that for a lot of people, Google is right. After using this for two weeks, I can totally understand why a reluctant social networker might totally give in to Buzz. The Buzz application streamlines the complex universe of social networking. It’s pretty basic, you can see pictures, post little thoughts on your g-wall, and as with other networking tools, whatever others post on your g-wall is public to the other Google users who are following you on Buzz.
But something doesn’t feel right about Buzz, and after watching the progress with other uses, I’m not sure how great this is. Granted, it’s only been two weeks, but nobody I know seems too eager to post a lot of stuff on their buzz walls. And it’s probably beacause of the same reason I don’t feel like posting. Email just isn’t the place for social networking. Yes G-chat is kind of cool, but really, doesn’t it get kind of awkward when you can see when your email associates are online or not? It breaks down certain walls that must remain up between email users. After all, email accounts are often vehicles for very bad news, or private correspondences, surely the combination of the buzz wall and the G chat features are sort of invasive. Even our email accounts no longer belong to us privately.
Maybe I’m too old fashioned, but I do think it’s a little different with Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, which are applications designed specifically for social networking. Do I really want my accountant or my lawyer or some other private online cohort following me on Buzz?
The year was 1993 and all was right in the world. MTV was blasting Smells Like Teen Spirit non-stop but the tone of my 28.8 baud modem was almost drowning it out. I remember chucking a Pepsi Clear across the room after 6 failed attempts to log into AOL. They were having growth issues and was at my wits end. Thinking, should have signed up for Compuserve
Today as I sit here and think back, how different are things really?
- The iPad is cool and all but in 1993 I had an Apple Newton. It had hand recognition, looked cool as hell and even had hand recognition.
- Today we have blue tooth, wifi, 3G networks, GPS, AGPS and some other things I won’t pretend to even understand. We’ll in 1993 I had a pager the size of a pack of cigarettes and a car phone the size of a PS3 still in the box. People could get in touch with me anywhere. Ok, we’ll anywhere might be a bit of an exaggeration. If the car phone wasn’t turned on or out of range, I had my beeper as backup. Find a payphone was never a problem in 1993. Do they even have payphones anymore?
- We had our browser wars. They were between Netscape & Mosaic. – What ever happened to those two companies did they finally self implode or kill each other off.
- We had Twitter, Facebook and buzz. It was just called IRC, Newsgroups and BBS’s. It was a little less real time, but real-time is overrated anyway.)
- Hell we even had video chat with a program called CUSEEME. That’s where I saw my first live internet naked girl. At least I think she was naked and I think it was a girl. Hard to tell with all those pixels missing.
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I have a question to anyone who may read this blog entry … I am not exactly sure who of you follow my blog, but I am curious to know when did people become so obsessed with FACEBOOK? I mean seriously …. what ever happened to the days when this social network didn’t have affect on the entire human population? I have friends ask me why I don’t have a facebook account and I guess all I can say is ” I just don’t “. To people I have lost contact with … if we are ment to connect again .. we will. If not, then well I guess our time is done. To people who would like to know how I am … this is my blog. If you are interested to know what I am about, visit my website. A good evening to all. Let us expand our horizons and step out of the box.
After years of claiming to be Amy Baumann’s #1 fan, I finally proved it.
I chose Amy as my brand for our social media project. While she’s been my best friend since the age of seven, she’s also an incredible singer. Amy has training in both classical and musical theater performance, and went to college at the Manhattan School of Music.
While my entire hometown knows how amazing Amy is, the woman really needs to start marketing herself – which is where I come in. I asked Amy if she would be alright with me making a Facebook fan page for her and a Twitter account. She was a bit timid about it, but I totally ignored that and bugged her for her résumé, photos and songs. As an artist in a sea of other artists over in New York City, I hope she’ll stick with it to let everyone else discover her at home – not just in auditions.
Here’s the breakdown:
Facebook
The name of the site I made is pretty straight forward; it’s called The Amy Baumann Fan Club. The main photo is a professional headshot and it’s pretty sexy, if I do say so myself. I added one photo album of the other headshots she gave me and asked for other members to add photos of her performing if they wanted.
I have posted ten links/status updates, but I’ll be adding more and more. Besides, I want to encourage Amy to keep the site, and she seemed to look at the site as a motivating factor for going to more auditions and starting new performance projects.
Every time a fan comments on the site, I make sure to comment back. While it’s true that one of the commenters is my mom, I still want people to see that they’ll receive feedback with just a light amount of effort on their part. Also, it’s nice that Amy herself commented, making the site more personal. That way, if someone doesn’t know too much about Amy and stumbles upon the site, they’ll be able to see that she stays close to her fans.
I invited an embarrassing amount of people to be fans of The Amy Baumann Fan Club, and it worked like a charm – after a mere 24 hours, the site has 73 fans, some of whom I’m not friends with on Facebook. Of course, it helps that she’s such an impressive singer.
I filled out the info tab using clips of Amy’s résumé and some quick information she sent me. After I filled that out, I had most of the site finished, I made Amy an administrator and asked her to load some recordings of her singing on the site. I moved the songs to the main Wall instead of another tab to make them more visible.
To get more fans, I’ll keep the fan club in my personal Facebook profile statuses frequently and keep asking people to join. I think I’ll also have Amy ask people to join, since she seems more comfortable with the idea now and sees it as a marketing project, which it is, instead of a popularity contest or something of that nature. She also knows a lot more people in the music world. I’ll also try to find more Facebook groups related to her and try to promote them there.
Twitter
Amy’s Twitter account is also pretty self-explanatory: it’s Amy_Baumann. On the site, I added the same profile picture as the one on the Facebook profile. A short bio lists her school, general location (New York) and the singing styles she studied.
I do think it would make sense for me to tweak the design of the page, but as of now, I’m not sure how to do that. I’d love to design some sort of background for it to make it more visually stunning and perhaps add another picture of her performing.
I have posted 10 messages and plan on adding more. I’ve been sending messages to those that follow, both thanking them and asking them if they’re music fans. I have sought out several people who do not follow the account and am currently following 26 people and have 9 followers.
From here…
As long as Amy is ok with it, I hope the fan club and Twitter account keeps growing. I’ll keep looking up links relevant to Amy and encouraging her to put up videos, audio and anything else she might want someone to see or hear. As she auditions, I’ll put up the audition dates. As she develops concerts, I’ll promote them. She’ll be giving me plenty to work with just by being the artist she is.
Facebook mengumumkan layanan terbarunya yang diberi nama Facebook Lite. Layanan tersebut merupakan bentuk sederhana dari Facebook yang biasa digunakan.
Kendati kemampuannya disederhanakan, namun Facebook Lite ini memiliki kemampuan yang tidak biasa dibanding dengan Facebook terdahulu.
Beralamat di Lite.facebook.com. layanan ini memang diluncurkan perdana di Amerika Serikat dan India. Namun, pengguna di Indonesia dapat pula memanfaatkan situs ini, walaupun tanpa tambahan fungsi bahasa Indonesia. Di tampilan awal saat akan memasuki ke Facebook Lite, perubahan sudah terlihat.
Ada gambar balon udara yang disisipkan logo ‘F’ Facebook, yang mungkin menjadi trade mark Facebook Lite nanti. Setelah masuk ke dalam Facebook Lite, Anda mungkin tidak akan terlalu kaget dan masih tetap familiar dengan tampilan layanan anyar ini dengan Facebook yang biasanya.
Misalnya, halaman depan yang masih terlihat fitur profile dan inbox yang ditempatkan pada baris paling atas. Yang terbaru, adalah fitur events, yang biasanya tidak disematkan di Facebook Full di baris teratas.
Melanjutkan ke bagian bawah, tentunya ini menjadi menu utama yang disajikan di Facebook Lite, lihat saja dengan tampilan yang bersih, bahkan boleh dibilang sangat bersih dari fitur-fitur Facebook yang menyesaki sebelumnya.
Di baris utama ini, Anda hanya disajikan full status dan aktivitas yang dilakukan oleh akun Facebook teman kita yang lain. Ini tentu saja, membuat bermain-main di status menjadi lebih familar.
Tampilan ini tentu saja sesuai dengan tujuan situs besuatan Mark Zuckbereg itu, yang pada dasarnya merupakan streamlined ‘feed’ version yang berfungsi sebagai stream update. Apalagi, jika melihat tampilannya, Facebook Lite memang mirip dengan layanan Twitter.
Di mana terdapat linear stream status update teman Facebook yang mendominasi halaman. Hal ini semakin memperkuat persaingan antara Twitter dengan Facebook. Selain fitur meng-update yang menarik, fitur lain tetap dihadirkan oleh Facebook untuk semakin memikat Facebook Lite.
Di antara yang dihadirkan adalah, fitur mengunggah foto dan video. Tampilan notification juga menarik, tidak hadir di kanan bawah melainkan muncul di kanan atas. Dengan laman khusus yang dihadirkan, tentu menjadi agak membingungkan di awal-awalnya. Namun lambat laun, pengguna akan terbiasa dengan layanan baru ini.
Karena sifatnya yang disederhanakan agar dapat memangkas bandwith yang digunakan, tentunya ada beberapa fitur yang harus dihilangkan. Yang paling terasa tentu saja fitur chatting dengan sesama pengguna Facebook, yang sebetulnya juga menjadi fitur andalan.
Hilangnya fitur chatting ini sangat disesalkan, sebab fitur iklan yang biasa nongol di samping kanan tetap ada, padahal tampilan iklan cukup mengganggu di situs Facebook yang versi penuh.
Berikut adalah beberapa aplikiasi yang dihadirkan di Facebook Lite:
1. Update status
2. Unggah foto dan video
3. Notification
4. People You May Know
5. Kreasi event
Beberapa aplikasi yang dihilangkan diantaranya adalah:
1. Fitur chatting
2. Notes
3. Unggah link di status
Namun demikian, fitur-fitur tersebut kemungkinan besar masih akan berubah-ubah. Hal ini dikarenakan Facebook terus mengembangkannya demi menghadirkan kepuasan dan kenyamanan bagi para pengguna yang memakainya. (tyo)
USA Today reports that people are walking away from their social media networks. In fact, you can now pay for services that will scrub your identity from the internet. Freedom for the Mac will disconnect you for up to 8 hours at a time.
According to the USA article by della Cava, the common theme for the exodus is “the nagging sense that a time-sucking habit was sucking the ‘real’ out of life.” She quotes Leanna Fry who says, “I’ve discovered I don’t need to know what hundreds of people are doing. Now I have time for the people who really matter in my life.”
Personally I use Twitter to keep up with some of those people who really matter, and to share relevant links about advertising and journalism with current and former students. And I announce new entries on my blog. But Twitter itself is becoming one big spam machine. I have over 1000 followers on my professional account, mostly people trying to sell things to people who are trying to sell things to them.
On Facebook the problem is clutter. An old college friend told me he was about to quit because of all the people who wanted help on their farm. I explained how he could “hide” certain applications and he went home to get rid of all the Farm, Aquarium and Mafia requests.
Other people take different approaches to this overload problem. One of my sons has 72 unanswered friend requests. And I know lots of people who are “defriending” distant or unnecessary friends.
Checking Facebook less often is another approach. A woman in our church has a sister-in-law who is quite upset when she doesn’t respond to her on Facebook immediately, which is difficult since she now only checks it once a month. I update my status with Twitter but often look at Facebook just once or twice a week, although I am notified if someone writes on my wall.
The clutter recently spawned a “I don’t care about your pony” fan page, which had 4 million fans in just a few days, at one point picking up 40 new fans a second. Actually I had a draft of this post, with this title, two weeks ago, before the fan page started. The gist of it? Seriously, folks, it’s not a real pony.
But not only do I not care about your pony I don’t care about your “I don’t care about your pony” fan page. I tend to ignore all requests, both for games and causes, the same I way I ignore forwarded emails. And if someone is particularly annoying I “hide” them.
Life is short and I can’t be a part of every cause, and just accepting an invitation is no way to solve actual problems. Real problems require real solutions, real causes require real sacrifices, and real ponies require real work.
Community can exist online, but it’s not a game. It requires shared values and thoughtful communication. Even a little restraint. Here’s how Proverbs 25:17 puts it:
Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house,
lest he have his fill of you and hate you.
This is true, even if it’s a virtual foot. And especially if it’s a virtual pony.
Being the pseudo-troglodyte that I am, I have not joined Facebook, Twitter, or any number of social networking services that friends and colleagues enjoy on a daily basis. On the other hand, I’ve found LinkedIn, Ning, and a few other tools to be tremendously effective for what I value: using online tools as tools rather than letting them demand minutes and hours I simply don’t have time to spare.
Google, this week, shifted my thinking a bit by pushing a new free and easy-to-use add-on into my Gmail account: Google Buzz. It turns out to be an interesting variation on the theme of microblogging a la Twitter and LinkedIn updates by allowing participants to connect to each other very easily through the posting of short messages back and forth over a shared network.
What really drew me to experiment with Buzz over the first few days of its existence was the realization that I could view—or not view—Buzz entries as time and desire allowed. Friends who use Twitter tell me that if I don’t want to check for updates frequently and respond rapidly, there’s really no point in using Twitter; Buzz, on the other hand, approaches me as I love being approached: it’s available, but not demanding.
Twitter, on its own website, bills itself as “a real-time information network powered by people all over the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now…[w]hether it’s breaking news, a local traffic jam, a deal at your favorite shop or a funny pick-me-up from a friend.” The result is that users post an overwhelming amount of personal information which can quickly drown readers in minutiae.
Facebook clearly provides a playfully social gathering place for people looking for the online equivalent of the “third place” away from home and work that Ray Oldenburg described so well in The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community more than 20 years ago. With the online Facebook community comes an expectation that responses from community members will be swift and plentiful.
LinkedIn offers a relatively unobtrusive business- and career-oriented variation on the theme, serving as a way to “find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.” Controlling the flow of incoming information is easy to manage, which is one of its most attractive features for me.
And now we reach Buzz, which attempts to provide a way to “start conversations about the things you find interesting,” according to the introductory video posted by Google. It’s already clear that much of the information overload seen through other microblogging tools is possible, and it’s equally clear that its success as a valuable information source depends on how we all use it.
While it’s far too soon to know how it will play out, I have to admit that I’ve already been delighted with a few of the results. While several people are posting exactly the sort of personal ephemeral updates which keep me away from Twitter and Facebook, a few are exploring the possibilities of sharing useful resources along the lines of meeting notices and professional print and online resources we might otherwise overlook.
UC Berkeley E-Learning Librarian Char Booth, for example, posted a link providing information on her forthcoming book, Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators right at a time when I had been exploring and writing about the need for more reflection in learning. Writer-instructor-librarian Meredith Farkas initiated an exchange soliciting recommendations for “a really good book (or books) with concrete suggestions for engaging library instruction activities.” And ALA Learning colleague and co-writer Lori Reed posted a link to “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America” in the March 2010 issue of The Atlantic, a fascinating article with interesting repercussions for all of us involved in training-teaching-learning.
So I’ve been Buzzed. And I’ve already absorbed that wonderful article from The Atlantic. And am now ready to Buzz others with thoughts about what that article suggests to the trainer-teacher-learners among us.
Next: What the Atlantic Article Suggests for Trainer-Teacher-Learners
Tanjungpinang – Edy Trisno Arifin mengaku anaknya terpukul akibat dikeluarkan dari sekolah, setelah berkomentar di jejaring sosial Facebook bersama tiga orang temannya yang dituduh menghina salah seorang guru.
“Anak saya sampai saat ini masih terpukul akibat kejadian itu,” kata Edy di kediamannya Jalan Brigjend Katamso, Tanjungpinang.
Edy merupakan orang tua dari salah seorang siswa SMA 4 Tanjungpinang, Provinsi Kepulauan Riau (Kepri), yang dikeluarkan dari sekolah karena dituduh menghina salah seorang guru perempuan dengan kata-kata kotor.
Dia menuturkan, anaknya AN bersama tiga orang temannya MA, AR dan YK sudah berusaha meminta maaf kepada guru yang bersangkutan dan kepada pihak sekolah.
“Sampai tengah malam mereka dibantu teman-temannya berusaha mendatangi guru-guru di SMA 4 untuk meminta maaf, bahkan mereka mau bersimpuh di hadapan guru-guru tersebut meminta maaf dan menyatakan penyesalan, namun hanya sebagian guru yang bisa ditemui.” ujarnya bersedih.
Yang lebih menyedihkan menurut dia, di saat dia dan istrinya melihat anak mereka hanya duduk di lantai depan kelas karena tidak diizinkan mengikuti pelajaran oleh wali kelas.
“Saya bersama ibu AN menangis di sekolah tersebut melihat anak saya tidak boleh belajar dan hanya duduk di depan teras ruang kelasnya,” ujarnya sambil mengusap air mata yang menetes di pipinya.
“Kami juga kecewa kenapa pihak sekolah tidak memberikan sanksi lain selain dikembalikan kepada orang tua, bukan kami membenarkan tindakan anak kami, karena guru adalah orang tua siswa di sekolah,” katanya.
Edy mengaku masih trauma mengingat kejadian yang menimpa anaknya tersebut, namun merasa bersyukur anaknya masih diterima di salah satu SMA negeri di Tanjungpinang.
“Kami merasa bersyukur masih diterima di sekolah lain, karena sebelumnya salah seorang teman AN sempat ditolak oleh sekolah itu karena sekolah tersebut sudah mendapat laporan dari SMA 4 kalau anak-anak kami melakukan perbuatan itu,” ujarnya.
Edy mengaku anaknya tersebut juga aktif di sekolah dan pernah menjadi utusan sekolah mengikuti lomba “grafity” tingkat SMA di Kabupaten Bintan dan mendapat juara pertama.
“Dia juga tercatat sebagai anggota Paskibraka Kota Tanjungpinang tahun 2009,” ujarnya.
Dia berharap, guru-guru di sekolah proaktif dalam memberikan pengetahuan kepada siswa mengenai kerugian, bahaya maupun keuntungan dari jejaring sosial Facebook tersebut, agar siswa dapat memahami.
“Sebagai orang tua di sekolah, hendaknya guru memberikan pemahaman kepada siswa mengenai bahaya maupun manfaat dari jejaring sosial Facebook ataupun mengenai pengetahuan dalam mengakses dunia maya tersebut,” harapnya
sumber: inilah.com
Historically, I’ve been a recluse of sorts. I tend to keep to myself and only call a select few people regularly to talk. I talk to myself more often than not, and recently I decided I’d address why I don’t really call people to talk much. I’ll text you, but call and talk? Nah, won’t do that too much. It could be due to the heavy level of psychoanalysis I’ve been receiving in class combined with my natural introspective prowess, but I thought I’d try to figure out why I don’t really communicate with many people.
If I went back to my childhood, I’d find that I kept to myself then – but I really only knew my family. It was kind of how we grew up; very “clannish,” as my grandmother told my mom once. You might know the folks in your neighborhoods, but you rode with your family. Even now, my cousins stick tightly and the cousins my age are a deep part of my rideout crew. But when phones got introduced to me and I learned phone numbers, I don’t remember calling people to talk. I played with my action figures, read Calvin & Hobbes, and tended to keep to myself. I had friends at school, and I’d go to their houses and stuff, but no, I don’t really remember talking on the phone to people much. Then came middle and high school, and something happened – I did talk to people on the phone. But I think those experiences might have shaped my phone use now.
I only called people if I wanted to talk to them or felt like I should call them for some reason or another. So I’d call aunts, cousins, friends to either keep up with them or because I had a question. But alas, enter the female into the equation. Phone conversations became something…more important all of a sudden. They gained an extra meaning. No longer was I calling to see how you were doing; now I called to flirt and show interest and the like. When I called my friends (this is prior to the text message), we would shoot the breeze and whatnot. But when I called girls, everything flipped. Words had to be chosen carefully. Conversations needed to be interesting. Always a salesman. I can remember once having a buddy of mine on the 3 way on mute while I talked to this girl I liked and every so often I’d tell her, “Hold on,” mute her and quickly talk to him to see how I was doing. Perhaps all of this just expresses my sheer awkwardness as a teen, but there’s something about those phone conversations. The nervousness of it all. The fear of saying the wrong thing. You’ve really got to be comfortable to just TALK on the phone.
So high school happens, and my phone conversations become less and less. I still really call my family and then my close friends…but talking? No, there’s usually a reason to call somebody, right? And at that point in time the instant messaging systems were REALLY booming, also lessening my need to open my mouth and use my voice to communicate. Alas, this problem has only gotten worse with the advent of as many ways possible to NOT call people. As the ability to text grew, along with social networking sites like Facebook, the need to call people lessened and lessened. Still, the only constants were my family and close friends were the ones I called and who called me mostly – if someone else called, it was usually for a quick question or a meeting up or something along those lines. As I write this, it dawns on me just how socially awkward I was (and probably still am). Nevertheless, this little reflective piece is designed for information, and information indeed I am gaining.
So I get to college and the wonderful world of texting and Facebooking and instant messaging really hits. I called now to contact people, not to communicate with people. And the more phone calls became for contacting and not communicating, the bigger my personal thing with phone calls became. It’s like an obsolete technology, reserved for emergencies or necessity. But if people had their druthers, they’d just as soon text you/tweet you/Skype you…everything but call you. I feel weird calling the vast majority of the people in my phone, because I don’t have anything to say to them. Now, as I live alone, I find that those few people I call tend to get more phone calls than before. But in college, I still had no real reason to call people unless there was a “conversation” to be had.
And there it is – conversation. The only reason I would engage in a phone call is for a conversation. But perhaps I’m not as confident in my conversational abilities, so I resort to the text. But the phone call is designed for two people to converse now. At least, my conception of the phone call is such that we talk. Not like the obvious (if you use the phone, clearly you’ll be talking), but more like there’s a purpose to a phone call. You can mass text people to see what’s going on on a larger scale, but if you want to see what’s happening with this one person, you give them a phone call. It shows a type of intentionality. You’ve expressed, by dialing their number or pulling it up out of your phonebook, that YOU want to talk to THIS SPECIFIC PERSON at that specific time. The downside is…
I tell stories. I firmly believe all conversations are nothing more than stories, and the good storytellers make great conversations. I’m not the best storyteller though, because I ramble incessently while I talk, generally. One story reminds me of another story so I jump to that story but end up forgetting why I jumped to that story…and many times I just don’t want to waste people’s time with my rambling. I’ve been home for a couple of hours now and the only words that have come out of my mouth were the ones I left on a voicemail because I just needed to tell somebody something important. Either way, many times I don’t value my phone call unless it goes to a close friend or a family member. I’ve got friends who I should have called but now, I feel like I’m imposing on them if I do call them.
In the end, my reluctance to call people shows up even now – when trying to let someone know something I text much quicker than I think to pick up the phone. Perhaps I’ve been caught up in the “now, now, now” action of the 21st century. Either way, I’ll still be calling my family and close friends. This was a fun reflection to do. Maybe you all should try it.
I have never been a fan of holidays, especially romantic ones.
Suddenly on your birthday, you get 10,000 people writing on your wall. People you forgot were even alive, suddenly saw your name pop up on the right side of their Facebook homepage and they have to write on your wall. The 364 days of the year, they don’t even know you exist.
I’d rather they treat my birthday like every other day of the year, because frankly I find this sudden interest insulting.
The same can be said for Valentines Day. All year around, these men and women treat each other awful; cheating, fighting, hitting, and everything else that couples do today. Every other day you hear the guy calling his girlfriend another name, and the two of them breaking up for the 3rd time that week. BUT THEN COMES VALENTINES DAY! And suddenly the roses, chocolate, and teddy bears come out. The couples wear their “sunday clothes” and go out for dinner. He may pull out a ring, and she’ll cry (loudly, because everyone in the restaurant has to know how much they love each other).
And then it never fails – February 15 they will be right back at it again! The ring, only a day old on the girls finger, will be thrown in a fight! Mr Perfect, who gave you the chocolate and poems, will be home late and have an unsaved number in his phone.
Listen, do yourselves a favor – this year, make everyday Valentines Day. Make everyday that person’s Birthday. Put back the heart full of chocolates … save the ring for when you are both truly ready … and open your heart, mind and self to that person. Truly love each other, each and everyday.
Roses will die, chocolates will go bad. With the right amount of attention, and love, your relationship can truly be enjoyable everyday.
We live in a strange time. Remember a couple of years ago when the whole country was up in arms about federal wiretapping for the sake of national security? It seemed as if everyone had something to hide. What were we scared of, the government finding out Aunt Judy’s secret pancake recipe?
Now, only two years later, we are posting every little detail of our life on Facebook. I’ve got people on my “friend list” sharing pictures of their breakfasts. Someone is telling me (and the world) that their flight has been delayed for two hours due to the snowstorms in the mid-Atlantic region. Another thought we needed to know they are watching the latest episode of “Lost” on their DVR. I know what my friends are eating, when they will be vulnerable in the air, and what they watch on television after their work day. For a nation consumed with their right to privacy (which, incidentally, is one of those things that is not mentioned, even in passing, in the Constitution), we are sharing an awful lot of personal stuff with the world at large.
But the people who annoy me most on Facebook are the ones who solicit prayer, or otherwise plug their God to me. A good number (I’d estimate about 10%) of the status updates I see when I log in have something to do with religion. Someone asked me and the rest of their friend list to pray for the people of Haiti a few weeks ago. I don’t pray. I never have, and I don’t plan to start. It’s hard enough for me to quit cigarettes. I don’t need another habit.
When you bring God into a conversation, you can only count on about 5% of your audience to agree with you. The other 95% are either nonreligious or otherwise dissimilar to your personal belief system. There are so many flavors of religion that it is irresponsible to use it as leverage in any conversation.
I have no problem with religious people. I think without religion, a lot of people would be completely lost in this world. It has helped many people get off drugs, get out of gangs, and get their life back on track. I respect that. That said, I expect the same respect from them. Do not ever try to convert me to your belief system. I have lived 32 years as a generally good person without ever asking for help from God. I do not need religion. If you’re worried about my soul (whatever your definition of that may be), stop it. I’m taking care of it the best way I know how: by being a good person and trying not to step on too many toes. Shouldn’t the well-being of my soul be my responsibility? It’s mine. I own it. Like my car. Unless you are going to pay to fix my driver’s side power window, which keeps coming off the track and falling into the door, don’t refer me to your church as a repair shop for my soul.
Don’t get the wrong impression of me: I do believe in God. And I choose to express that belief in my own way. I don’t blame God for my weaknesses or failures. Nor do I thank God for my successes. I own them all. They make me who I am. I thank myself for them.
James Wright’s “Speak” is a plea by the narrator for God to show himself. It is written in a familiar, almost conversational tone for the majority of the first four stanzas, but changes to a very biblical form in the fifth stanza.
The poem is written in five, eight-line stanzas of rhymed verse with the scheme A-B-A-B-C-D-C-D. Only a few of the lines are in perfect rhyme; 16 of the 20 lines are in near rhyme, and one line is not rhymed at all.
Wright’s poem begins somberly: “To speak in a flat voice / Is all that I can do” (1090; lines 1-2). The reader can presume from the tone of these lines that the speaker is dejected or unhappy. The lines also set a sort of slow, dark rhythm for the poem: it would be difficult to read the remaining lines aloud in a singsong voice or a lively rhythm.
In the next lines, Wright reveals the poem is directed at a specific person: “I have gone every place / Asking for you” (3-4). The narrator continues by wondering where the search will end, but does not reveal who it is he is searching for. Wright employs perfect end rhyme in lines 2 and 4 with the words “do” and “you,” but lines 1 and 3 are in near rhyme: “voice” and “place” depend on the consonance of the “s” sound at the end of each word. The first stanza ends with four more lines in near rhyme: “turn” is rhymed with “spin” and “end” is rhymed with “blind.” Wright brings forth an image of an urban landscape with the lines, “And the last streetlight spin / Above me blind” (7-8).
The second stanza concerns the narrator’s return from his search:
Then I returned rebuffed
And saw under the sun
The race not to the swift
Nor the battle won. (9-12)
Still, the identity of the person for whom he is searching is not revealed. However, the biblical paraphrase in lines 10-12 gives a clue as to whom he is seeking. This change in vocabulary and structure seems out of place in comparison to the colloquial tone set by the first stanza.
Wright returns to a more informal tone in the following lines: “Liston dives in the tank / Lord, in Lewiston, Maine” (13-14). The natural rhythm of the lines sounds almost like that of an excited sports announcer, finally imparting some liveliness to a poem which thus far has been dreary and somber. However, another way of reading these lines could make it sound like a dejected sports fan using the word “dive” derogatorily, accusing Liston of purposely losing his iconic fight with Muhammad Ali. Regardless of the mood in which the line is spoken, Wright deliberately calls attention to the word “Lord” by putting it on a new line; the word seems more naturally related to the first line than the second. Breaking the line between “tank” and “Lord” makes the reader acutely aware of the narrator’s call to God.
Besides enjambment, Wright also uses alliteration to call attention to the word “Lord,” as it begins with the same sound as the words “Liston” and “Lewiston.” This is also the first time the narrator makes a direct claim to a specific person. It can now be assumed that the “person” he has been searching for is God.
Wright also refers to a person named Ernie Doty, who has taken his own fall: “And Ernie Doty’s drunk / In hell again” (15-16). As the poem progresses, Wright introduces characters who have fallen from grace.
The third stanza introduces a female figure:
And Jenny, oh my Jenny
Whom I love, rhyme be damned,
Has broken her spare beauty
In a whorehouse old. (17-20)
Jenny seems to be an old flame of the narrator’s, but has, like Liston and Doty in the stanza before, fallen from grace. Lines 18 and 20 introduce a form of meta-poetry to the poem by warning the reader that the narrator has no ambition of making a rhyme. It gives the passage a feeling of sincerity; in lieu of conforming to the self-imposed structure of the poem, the poet speaks frankly about his feelings for the girl he once knew and loved, but has become a prostitute.
Line 20 also uses a bit of hyperbaton: instead of writing “In an old whorehouse,” Wright prefers to say “In a whorehouse old.” The effect of this switch in word order is a line that ends without a falling rhythm, propelling the remainder of the stanza:
She left her new baby
In a bus-station can,
And sprightly danced away
Through Jacksontown. (21-24)
Besides continuing the story of Jenny, these four lines add a sense of incongruity: the dark subject matter of a woman who literally threw away a newborn baby is presented in a rhythm that sounds quite a bit like a child’s jump-rope rhyme. This juxtaposition serves to make the subject matter even darker by revealing the narrator’s indifference to the situation.
In the fourth stanza, the narrator speaks of his own defeat. He refers again to Jacksontown:
Which is a place I know,
One where I got picked up
A few shrunk years ago
By a good cop.
Believe it, Lord, or not. (25-29)
The speaker now puts himself in the same group as Jenny, Liston and Ernie Doty; all have fallen from grace. He also speaks directly to God for the second time. Wright again draws attention to the communication with God by continuing a thought on the fifth line, which until stanza four has been reserved for introducing a new thought for the final four lines of each stanza.
The speaker once again places himself in the company of the other characters in the poem in the fifth stanza:
I have gone forward with
Some, few lonely some.
They have fallen to death.
I die with them. (33-36)
Clearly, the narrator feels he is no better than Jenny, Liston, or Ernie Doty. He likens their falls and defeats to death, and says his defeat is much like theirs.
The final four lines are a direct plea to God to show himself:
Lord, I have loved thy cursed,
The beauty of thy house:
Come down, Come down. Why dost
Thou hide thy face? (37-40)
Wright draws more attention to the fact the narrator is speaking to God by writing in biblical verse for the final four lines of “Speak.” Besides adding a sense of desperation, the lines come across as a reverent plea. The speaker is asking for reciprocation from God. He tells God that he loved the cursed people mentioned in earlier stanzas, as well as the earth He created. As a reward, he asks God to show himself on Earth.
In “Speak,” Wright uses alliteration, rhythm and rhyme to paint a picture of a man who has searched for God and watched the demise of the people he loves, all the while descending himself. By employing biblical verse, a constant rhyme scheme, and occasional incongruous rhythm, Wright has written a desperate plea to his God.
Beberapa Hari yang lalu, seorang remaja melarikan teman dekatnya yang dikenalnya melalui situs jejaring facebook, tentu saja hal ini berakibat buruk khususnya bagi keluarganya. Kluarganya tidak tau apakah anak mereka sengaja dibawa atau dilarikan atau justru karena suka sama suka. Terlepas dari itu, yang menjadi pokok permasalahan adalah Facebook yang merupakan media awal mreka berkenalan. Muncul pertanyaan, Apakah menurut anda Facebook berguna bagi usernya??
Additionally to the “Infos” chapter on this website, we published a Facebook page proclaiming all relevant information. Keep in touch with us! Stay up to date! We will let you know about our latest appointments, public screenings, terrific articles, stunning images and all background informations. We are looking forward for your visit!
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This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
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