Search Engines

http://www.fireflimedia.com/search_engine_marketing.php

When you go online which search engine are you more likely to use?  Our options are practically unlimited when it comes to looking something up.  According to the book, “Search Engine Marketing Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site” written by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt, Google takes up 64.9% of the U.S.’s share in searches.  Yahoo! comes into second place with 18.8% of searches.  Do you know the engine differences?

Google first started out small and then grew as the Internet itself continued to grow.  Unlike some companies, Google did not go public until 2004 without the use of advertisements.  Like Facebook, Google grew through word of mouth.  Google offers an organic and paid search which is where a business has to decide which avenue to take so that the public has an easy time looking or “Googling” their business. 

Yahoo! provides more than the opportunity of just the searching capability.  Yahoo! offers news, shopping, e-mailing, and other functions.  These functions are easily accessible on Yahoo!’s home page, unlike Google’s homepage which focuses mostly on search.  In its competition with Google, Yahoo! is trying to expand their language format so that they can reach a larger audience outside the United States.

Bing is a third leading competitor in the search engine market.  Bing takes up about 9.4% of the U.S.’s searches.  Bing was first known as MSN Search; it then changed to Live Search, and finally evolved to what we know today as Bing.  Many businesses use Bing due to Microsoft’s organic search technology and its adCenter that is used for paid search. 

Who doesn’t remember AOL?  AOL Search is used by only 3% of U.S. searchers (being mostly used by AOL users).  AOL was once a partner with Google, but as it continued to grow and mature, AOL slowly separated itself and became more independent.  They are using their own capabilities to advertise companies with their new advertising network.

A final search engine you may be familiar with is Ask.com.  Ask.com was first founded as Ask Jeeves in 1996.  Unlike some search engines, Ask.com allows the searcher to enter a question into the search rather than a phrase or list of words.  The answers to the searcher’s question are then answered by a human editor that will try to select the best answer.  For businesses however, this search engine may not be the best to choose.

-Kendall Fagan

iGod Can You Hear Me?

     I love technology. I have always loved technological advances. When the powers that be find a way to make something better than it was before, it gets me excited. I remember the first car stereo I ever bought. It was a Pioneer. This was about 1999. The wattage and controls was about the same as the other stereos on the market, but the technology that made me have to have it was the capability to change the display color and a completely detachable face plate. this is pretty tame by todays standards but at the time it was cutting edge. We are taught that newer is better. Every six months something newer comes along which gets the people in a uproar. But why? Why do people people have to have the newest of the new? Why are fighting, stealing and going into debt behind the newest "it" thing?

      I read a article about people lining up eight days before the release of the iPhone 5. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/09/16/iphone-5-customers-in-the-big-apple-camp-out-8-days-early/.
Eight days? Who has a job that will allow you to miss eight days to stand in line for a phone? There were kids in line as well. Is this phone more important than education? How can one justify missing eight days of school for something that will be replaced in six months? Where are our priorities as a society? There were people actually wearing diapers while they waited so they could go to the bathroom just so they wouldn't lose their place in line. We are totally consumed and dependent on these advancements. I think people's need for the newest game or phone is more of a status symbol more than an actual necessity.

     A popular conscience hip hop artist named Lupe Fiasco made a song called, "WWJD he'd prollyLOL Like WTF!!!". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzm1l7V1uqE. In the song he talks about how people praise the newest technology like God. Technology has become their god and do whatever it takes to get it. One line of the song really put things in perspective for me. He compaired the people wearing diapers to use the bathroom on themselves so they wouldn't lose their place in line to snipers at war doing the same thing. Snipers wait for days just for that perfect shot at their target. Waiting for a new game can't possibly be of the same consequence. It cannot be that important that we as adults are willing to have a bile movement on ourselves in order to be the first to praise our iGod. We have got to get a grip on whats important in life.

-Daryl Washington

Digital Editing with Gimp

   Gimp has came to be a life savor for me, being part of the of people who do not have the money for other digital editing software. As soon as I found out about Gimp, I quickly immersed myself in its features. While it may not be Photoshop, with Gimp 2.8 being the latest updated version of this open-source software, and not to mention the plug-ins that can be added into the program, Gimp can come pretty close to it. I like to think Gimp is kind of more towards general use, while Photoshop being more toward professional use for business applications. Gimp is a really good stepping stone if one is planning to buy Photoshop in the future.

     

   Gimp's use of sliders, and dock-able tabs makes it easier to use and organize to one's specific preference on how they want their layout to be. The single-window mode is very helpful when having multiple windows open at once, instead of having them all cluttered together. The tools translated on canvas are smoother through the use of a software library, Cairo. Gimp use's  XCF as its main file format, and can be exported into a plethora of other format's including JPEG, GIF, PSD, BMP and PNG. The draw back is that not many other image editing software uses XCF files, so while Gimp is compatible with some editing software, not many other brands of software are compatible with Gimp.

    

   Gimp, being an open-source software, does not receive as much support as some similar software that is backed up by major companies and are more popular, so expect to do quite a bit of searching around online if problems arise. However, one can still efficiently use Gimp to its fullest. Knowing the right plug-in for example, G'MIC is the name of one plug-in that is quite popular among Gimp users for more complex/3D editing.

   Gimp 2.8 is a very excellent program, it has room to improve, but its fun and easy to use. The best part is its free, and is especially nice for those new to digital editing. 

   
Posted By: Mauricio Schebesch
   

The Sims Social

        As a gamer and a fan of “The Sims” since the first installment on GameCube, I was very excited when I heard that EA was creating a new version of Sims for Facebook. When “The Sims Social” first appeared, I quickly clicked the link and began to create my Sim, which I named Natalia Davons after my Sim on my PC version of “The Sims 3.” Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t as huge of a selection of customizable facial features, hair, and clothing that I’m used to, but about a year and a half later I’m still playing.
“The Sims Social” is by far one of the best social media games I’ve played, completely blowing Zynga’s “Mafia Wars” and “Vampire Wars” out of the water. Instead of “text quests” where you can’t actually view your character doing anything (see example below),

in “The Sims Social” you can actually see your character completing the task you told them to do. “The Sims Social” is also inherently more social than other Facebook and MySpace games I’ve played. To craft certain household objects you’ve bought, you need certain collectibles, depending on what the object is. Sure, some collectibles are randomly spawned when you do certain actions, such as your Sim being rewarded with Plans after cooking or a Muse after painting or playing guitar, but this is a very lengthy process, and some collectibles, such as Hope, are very rarely generated randomly. So EA gives players the option to “Ask Friends,” which sends a game request to your chosen gamer (and non-gamer) friends for help. This shows up as a notification on their screen, and when they enter the game they have the option to send you the stuff you asked for, or be mean and delete the request. Players are also given the option to ask friends for collectibles needed for quests, which are very useful for the limited edition quests that go on every other week or so.  The picture below shows the reward for a limited time quest (the dragon that my Sim is riding).

There is a once a day request limit to this game, though, so if your friends don’t get on much or you don’t have many friends helping you out, it can be problematic. EA has “solved” this problem by introducing Simcash, which you can buy certain packages of with real currency. They have also implemented a feature that allows you to send requests to your friends that don’t play the game, and if they accept the request and play past the mandatory tutorial, you will be sent four of whatever you asked them for. EA also gives you 3 SimCash for every new player that you add as your neighbor in the game. With SimCash a player can buy exclusive shop and clothing items that regular players cannot. To lessen the jealousy gap, and probably also to increase the amount of people that actually purchase SimCash, EA gives up to 10 SimCash for every fifth consecutive day that you log on to the game (although I only seem to get 4 each time). Players also need to ask their friends for help building new rooms that they buy and signatures and contracts to expand their property. The amount of friends you need helping you to build your room increases with the size of the room, and the amount of signatures and contracts you need for expanding your land increases depending on the current size of your property.
EA has created an exceptional social game that requires players to invite their friends to ensure making significant headway into the game. This can be problematic if you don’t have many friends playing, your friends never get on, your friends stop playing all of a sudden, or if you try to do too many things at once. People with the problems just listed could always buy SimCash, which EA hopes for (or create a bunch of fake accounts that will give you SimCash for free).

-Megan Commings

Ubiquitous Computing and Privacy Concern

What is ubiquitous computing? In a nutshell it is computing power ‘anywhere any time’. Ultimately, it sends the computer to the background where the user need not to think about the computer. It is precisely this nature that places privacy at risk.

Hong Sheng, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, and Keng Siau published a study on ubiquitous computing and privacy in Journal of the Association for Information Systems. The study describes the four fundamental characteristics of ubiquitous computing.

 

Ubiquity          Computers are everywhere, and people are able to access networks and are reachable anytime and anywhere.

 

Universality    The elimination of incompatibility problems caused by the lack of standardization, so people can have universal devices that stay connected all the time regardless of their locations.

 

Uniqueness     Users can be uniquely identified not only by identity and preferences, but also in terms of geographical positions. Uniqueness also incorporates the idea of identification, localization, and portability.

 

Unison              Data integration across different applications so that people have a consistent view of information.

 

From the description of these characteristics, it can be seen that technology is more useful when it provides more personalized services. This is precisely what drives the personalization-privacy paradox. Where privacy can be defined as the right to control the collection and use of information about oneself, it appears that when technology attempts to provide more personalized services customers become more concerned about privacy. This particular study investigated how the concept of situation dependency could alter the personalization-privacy paradox.
 

While user demographics such as age, gender, education, experience, and location  affect how accepting and open a customer is to ubiquitous computing,  in a non-emergency context, the more personalized the service, the more concerned the consumer is about their privacy.  However, in an emergency situation such as an accident, hurricane, or other disaster, personalization is more desired and concern for privacy goes out the window.

Maryellen Bailey

America Chooses!

Well I have to say I am disappointed in America today.  We have chosen a path that may lead us to the likes of Greece, France, and Spain.  Hopefully, America will heal and our children will know the America we have known up until now.  I would like to say that I think it is very detrimental to the country when you have people working for the gov't promising things to people for votes, especially when it comes from the money of other people.  We have become a nation of theives and takers, living off the wealth of the few in hopes to maintain a meager life of existance.  When we look at our children, are we proud?  Are we sure their future is bright?  I can honestly say No! 

With Jan. 1st on its way, and our increased taxes and sequestration kicks in, who will save us? A President, that believes in taking and spending? A Congress, that believes in nothing but filling their pockets with the people's money? Or the People, that believe in......well I just don't know any more.
Can America fall?  That is the real question!  Right now we have more debt per person than Greece, we have a gov't that has expanded at an exponential rate, people rely more on gov't than themselves.  What does this all mean?  Is there Hope?  Is this Change really taking us Forward? All I can say is that I have lived in the greatest country in the world, America exceptionalism is what makes the world take notice.


If we become like every other country, then what?  When Atlas Shrugs, who will take their place?  I know a lot of questions, a grimm outlook.  I think it has come to this, with our stagnant economy and welfare mentality what do we do? 


My god save the USA!

Christopher Todd

Children and Digital Media

I found an absolutely fascinating study the other day while researching this topic. It was a study done to determine in what ways children in America were using digital media and at what ages they were using it.

You can find a summary here: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/zero-eight-childrens-media-use-america/key-finding-1%3A-young-children-use-digital-media-frequently

Or view the whole report here: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/zerotoeightfinal2011.pdf

What they determined was amazing to me. To quote the report, “Computer use is pervasive among very young children, with half (53%) of all 2- to 4-year- olds having ever used a computer, and nine out of ten (90%) 5- to 8-year-olds having done so. For many of these children, computer use is a regular occurrence: 22% of 5- to 8-year-olds use a computer at least once a day, and another 46% use it at least once a week. Even among 2- to 4-year-olds, 12% use a computer every day, with another 24% doing so at least once a week. Among all children who have used a computer, the average age at first use was just 3 ½ years old.”

Now this just blows my mind. The world has changed so much since I was a kid. And I'm only 33 so we're not talking about the stone ages here, even if my kids think so sometimes. In my mother's generation, entertainment was outside. You left the house, you came back at supper. And how you filled your time was only limited by your imagination and what trouble you didn't want mama to find out about. In my generation, we had outside too, but we also had tv we could veg out in front of at any given point and by the time I was a teenager, video games were just getting started. I still remember my first NES. But now I have kids, and they and their friends not only have tv and video games, they have hand-held Nintendo DS's and Facebook games and virtual classrooms, cell phones and texting and twitter. They're so much more technologically sophisticated than we were and at such younger ages. I have to wonder, how is this altering our development? What changes in our cognition, in our thinking patterns, in our ability to process data is this all creating?

In researching this question further, I came across some interesting information. The entire thing would be too long to post here in its entirety, but I'll include the link if you're interested.** One of things discussed that was pertinent to this post was that the required multi-tasking the comes along with our children's increasing immersion in technology and the digital world can sometimes make it harder for them to learn and remember than it has to be. Now in my last post, I was praising the virtues of technology in the classroom and talking about how much it helped our kids learn. But bear with me for a minute, I'm not pulling a 180 on you here. I still absolutely believe that our kids need access to technology in the classroom and at home as well if they're going to get ahead in our modern world.  

But what I got from all of this was that, as parents, we need to make sure that we're providing BALANCE for them. Do our kids need to be savvy? Absolutely. They've got to be to get by these days. But sometimes, and maybe more often than we do now, we need to unplug them, take away the IPad, and make sure they're experiencing things in the real world as well – things that don't move at quite such a frenetic pace. So even though this is a blog for a digital media class, I guess what I'm saying is that every now and then we need to kick their little butts out the door and tell them to be back by supper.

Posted by: Natasha Phelps

**More info:
 http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2012/february-2011-2012-observer-publications/rewired.html#.UJSgzYbA3fU

http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/5230/136.pdf 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131509002656