Reading Reflection for Week Nine

I found the article “How VoIP Works” by Robert Valdes, to be very interesting because I have recently heard a lot about VoIP but didn’t know how it worked. I was familiar with VoIP service for computer-to-computer communication; however I didn’t know that Wi-Fi IP phones will be available to be used in Wi-Fi hot spots. These Wi-Fi IP phones sounds interesting, and it made me start thinking of where there are Wi-Fi hot spots and why someone would want a phone to use in these Wi-Fi hot spots instead of using a cell phone.
~Could Wi-Fi IP phones replace cell phones or maybe all phones since some people have wireless internet in their house?

One thing that I liked about this article was that it defined many terms using very simple language. This made reading the article a little easier, even though this article was using a lot of technical language, since they defined the terms I could understand the article. Before reading this article I had never heard of softphones and only remember vaguely seeing a commercial for Vontage. I found it interesting that the strongest selling points for home users were price and flexibility. The article goes on to list the services that VoIP companies provide, which are very similar to what traditional phone companies provide.
~Since VoIP companies provide similar services to traditional phone companies, what is stopping people from switching?

The “Pros and Cons” section of this article brings up the point that although VoIP is cheap and flexible, it is not as reliable as are traditional phone network. Especially because VoIP is dependant on wall power which would cause problems if the power was down, and Emergency 911 calls are had to locate when the call is placed using VoIP.
~Is it a good idea for homes to do away with traditional phones in case of an emergency or should VoIP be used as an alternative to long-distance calls and traditional phones for local and emergency calls?
~I think that eventually VoIP will be able to work around these two emergency problems; however VoIP still only works when your computer and internet work, so will people ever be able to safely switch to VoIP as their only phone in their house or will they always need a cell phone or traditional phone as a back up?

~Will the adoption of VoIP create enough of a push for rural areas to start getting broadband?

Final Blog Post

I think that one of the most important things I have learned from this course is about blogs. Before this class I had a very narrow idea of what blogs were. I simply thought that blogs were like individual’s public journals. I think that is the reason I never had any interest in blogging, I didn’t know that there were so many uses for blogs, from political discussion forums, to a place to post recipes. I didn’t know all the different types of blogs that were out there on the web. I don’t know if I will continue to blog after this class ends, however I will still continue to read blogs (especially some of the cooking blogs I found while completing assignment two).

One think that I would have liked to study a little more is the visual aspect of websites and blogs. I know when I go on certain websites or blogs they seem too busy, which makes me not want to read them, however I have also seen sites that are very simple, which makes the site seem unfinished and unprofessional. I know there were a few times when we talked about the visual aspect of a webpage or blog, however I would have been interested to learn more about why certain color don’t look right or why blog rolls are best on one side of the screen and not the other.

I found some aspect of all the topics interesting, although a few of the weekly articles sort of bombarded me with too much technical information. I am not a very tech savvy person, so a little technical information is good, however too much makes my eyes glaze over. However I realize that in some cases the technical information was very important in order to understand how something worked and maybe other individuals in the class enjoyed the technical aspect of some of the articles. Although the technical information given in these articles was a little hard to understand, I was very glad that for the most part I was able to understand most of the technical information in class.

Cantwell's website vs. McGavick's webiste

My first impression of Maria Cantwell’s website was that it appeared very simple and did not include very much information; this website would be beneficial to a person who had already new the issues that Cantwell supported and was planning to support her and the polls. I got this impression mainly because what stands out most on her homepage is how to donate and how to volunteer for her campaign. Mike McGavick’s website, on the other hand, was geared towards an undecided voter because he wants people to find out what he supports, his webpage listing issues and states where he stands, this website also contains video files of speeches and audio files of interviews. Although it is easy on McGavick’s site to find out how to get involved with his campaign, it does not seem to be the primary focus of this webpage.

On both websites I found that it was easy to contact their campaigns through email, I really liked how on McGavick’s there was a separate link if you wanted to contact his campaign about having him visit an event. I also liked how on McGavick’s site he lists his event schedule.

For an issue I choose balancing the budget and dealing with the deficit. On McGavick’s it was easy to find his link on what he believes about the deficit and this link even included a link to watch his speech on the deficit. On Cantwell’s webpage I could not find out any information on any of her issues other than environmental issues.

I am not sure which candidate I trust more, however I really thought that McGavick’s website was more user friendly, and included a lot of information than Cantwell’s site.

Extra Credit- Week Seven

I found the article “The Race of the Web Sites 2004” by Kathy Gill, to be a very interesting, especially from a public relation standpoint. It is one think for a website to be hard to navigate, but it is another then the color and font that are chosen make it had to read, especially for older people. Another thing that I thought was interesting was that both websites did not meet Section 508 Approval. I had never heard of section 508 Approval, so at first I was not sure what it meant that both websites did not meet the criteria for Section 508 Approval, however after I looked into Section 508 Approval, this meant that the visually impaired could not use this site. I was shocked by this, because I would think that since government agencies websites are suppose to meet the standards for Section 508 Approval, I would think that it was in both campaigns best interest for their website to meet these standards.

Reading Reflection for Week Seven

I found the research study “The Role of the Internet in National and Local News Media Use” to be very interesting, however I was not very surprised by the results. Throughout this class we have talked about the connection between newspapers and the Internet, and how newspapers benefit from being online because people can read a newspaper that is produced anywhere in the world pretty much as soon as the stories are updated. The downside of the newspapers on the Internet is that newspapers still have to figure out how to adapt to the Internet so that they can make a profit.

I think the reason that the Internet is gaining in popularity as a news source is because the Internet makes obtaining national political knowledge so much easier than more traditional media, since there are so many sources at your fingertips. If you want to find out what a more information about issues that conservative states is considering a hot topic then you look at one of their newspapers, and same thing goes for a more liberal state.

According to this study, the public still turns to newspapers for local political knowledge, even if they get their national news from Internet sources. I think that this makes perfect since, because who is going to report on local news other than your local newspaper. There are just not as many sources for local news. This study reports, “we suspect that over time [the Internet] may become more of a substitute for traditional newspapers and magazines than a supplement.” I think that even when this time comes, and majority of the population gets all their political knowledge from the Internet, people will still be getting their local news from their local paper, however it will be the local paper’s website and not an actual newspaper.


Questions:

Should the results of this study be somewhat shocking? At first I though that this study made perfect since, I feel like a few years ago I used The Seattle Times as my main source of news, and although I still read the Times I also like to go online to see what is on the front page The New York Times and Washington Post. Then I got to thinking, Americans in general are known for consuming a large quantity of television, therefore do the people who watch TV news shows consider TV news a secondary sources and get their primary news from the Internet?

Years ago when the editorial page of a local newspaper choose to run which candidates they endorse, those endorsement where a good predictor as to which candidates would win that election. The editorial board does not have as much leverage as they once had, people read their endorsements as one of many sources on that issue. Is the reason that the Internet has gotten so popular as a news source because there is so much information so that they can form their own opinion?

It is easy to understand why people have replaced their morning newspaper with the Internet as a source for national news, however where will people get their local news from, if it is not coming from their local newspaper? Are their very many credible sources for local news on the Internet?

Identifying Media Support for Blogging, RSS Technology-Continued

WSJ.com

WSJ.com offers seventeen RRS feeds, and of those seventeen, six RRS feeds are available to all uses, the rest are only available to Online Journal subscribers. The RRS feeds include What's News - US, What's News - Europe, What's News – Asia,
What's News - Technology, US Business, Market News, Opinion - Review & Outlook, Personal Technology/Walt Mossberg, Health, Media & Marketing, Today's Free Features, Today's Most Popular, Career Journal, Real Estate Journal, Startup Journal, College Journal, Opinion Journal. WSJ.com offers two blogs: Law Blog and Washington Wire.
Both BBC.com and WSJ.com offer about the same number of RRS feeds, however BBC.com has more blogs.

Identifying Media Support for Blogging, RSS Technology

BBC.com

When viewing BBC.com you will find that there are nineteen RRS feeds including News Front Page, World, UK, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Business, Politics, Health, Education, Science/Nature, Technology, Entertainment, Have Your Say, Magazine, Week At a Glance, Programmes, Latest Published Stories, and eight video RSS Feeds. If you are interested in blogging, the BBC does have www.bcc.co.uk/blogs which contains the BBC Blog Network which links to blogs posted by journalists, DJs and radio shows.
One thing that I thought was interesting about BBC Blog Network, was that it contains a blog called “Level Up” which is connected with CBBC and aimed at teens and uses text messages language posting. There is also a blog from the BBC sports editors which includes the director of BBC sports and sports editors blogging on sports related topics.

Reading Reflection for Week Six

I found the article “Will NPR’s podcasts birth a new business model for public radio?” to be very interesting, especially the part about advertising. This article states that “first off, anyone who sells advertising usually has to have metrics on the audience: who is listening, how often do they listen, what’s the demographic of listeners. These remain a mystery for podcasts, because there is no current way to track who actually listens to podcasts. Just because you subscribe to a podcast, doesn’t mean you upload it to your MP3 player or listen to it.” I found this quote to very interesting, because I hadn’t really thought much about how a company could track who was listening to a podcast. I think that before podcasting and TiVo, networks had a pretty good idea of who was in their audience and that was the reason that they aired certain shows at certain times, however now with podcasting and TiVo there is no way of telling who is watching or listening.

First question: Is judging how many people download the podcast a good gauge to how many people are actually listening?

The reason I ask is because I download a lot of podcasts, and half of them I never get around to listening to, so how do you tell if something is popular when you are not sure they are listening?

In the sentence after the above quote, NRP.org states that they “hope to get listener information when technology companies can solve the metrics issue, as long as it doesn’t invade personal privacy.”

Second question: How far do you thing technology companies can go before they invade personal privacy? What kind of information are you willing to give up?

Another part of this article that I found interesting is the quote, “Rather than just offering podcasts of entire NPR radio shows, the most popular NPR podcasts have been “best of”-type offereings by topic…That way, it’s easier to sell to underwriters interested in particular topic.” I thought that this was an inventive idea, since NPR doesn’t know what type of demographic is listening to their shows, which makes it hard to find underwriters, so they bundle parts of shows under particular topics so that it is easier to sell to underwriters.

Third question: Is knowing the demographics of the audience going to benefit NPR’s ability to sell underwriters more so than their ability to meet the needs and interests of their listeners?

I think I would be more willing to give out information if I thought that a network was going to use that information when they where developing new shows, verses selling ads.


I also thought that there were some very interesting points made in “From Tom Paine to Blogs and Beyond.” Some points that I found interesting were on page 13, “What has happened? Communications had completed a transformation. The printing press and broadcasting are one-to-many medium. The telephone is one-to-one. Now we had a medium that was anything we wanted it to be: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.” I think that is why the internet is so popular and has completely changed the way we live is because it can be anything we want it to be. We can use the internet to broadcast or we can use the internet like a telephone.

Dan Gillmor makes an interesting point on page 18, when he says, “An open source philosophy may produce better journalism at the outset, but that’s just the start of a wider phenomenon.” This idea makes sense that an article written by one expert might not be as well written as a group of experts pooling their knowledge.

Another part of this article that I found interesting is the history of blogs and how Justin Hall a sophomore in college was able to create the “first serious weblog.” Hall states, “Why did I do it? The urge to share of oneself, to join a great global knowledge sharing party.” This quote made me thing of an article that was published in the New York Times last week about how blogs have changed the way people grieve. The article was titled “Rituals of Grief Go Online,” and this article was about how facebook.com and myspace.com have allowed people to blog on a person’s site after they have died, which has allowed people to share memories and messages for that person’s family and friends. I think that this idea of share through a blog after someone has died goes along with what Hall was saying was the reason he first created a blog, because he had an urge to share.