The End

Just wanted to let you all know that the summer semester is over and my blog, for all intents and purposes, is over as well. I may keep blogging in the future, or I may not. It's going to be a busy year. But thanks for reading, it's been fun!

the future, it's not about micropayments...

After thinking long and hard on what to dedicate my last official post to, I decided to pick a topic I skipped over last week, but one I actually do have a strong opinion about. Phil and Emi assigned a slew of readings on microtargeting, a concept that has been around since 1998 but that I had actually not heard of until Phil brought it up in class.

There's no way to respond to all 11 articles, ranging from 1998 to 2005, but I'll try and hit the highlights for you.

Our good buddy Jakob Nielsen introduced microtargeting as a way for a user to control his website, and profit from it, without the interference of advertisers. The more advertisements a site has, the less time a user will spend there before giving up out of frustration. I know that those sites that have ads taking up the whole screen or that appear when you accidentally drag your mouse over the smaller ad and cover up what you’re trying to see are especially annoying and can effect how often I visit the site and how long I spend there.

However, I do not agree with Nielsen and his prediction that any site not financed through product sales will soon require an entrance fee of sorts to view the page. I don’t care if it’s only a dime or a quarter, I don’t think the web will ever be run that way. The fact that Nielsen predicted this would happen by 2000 makes me even more confident that there is significant resistance to this idea. Nielsen predicts an average of 10-30 dollars in user fees for the typical Internet user a month.

Charging 25 cents to see a person’s comic strip, as Phil showed us in class is one thing, because that is a site that I will never have to visit. However, charging me to Google that person’s comic strip is quite another story. I can see newspapers possibly using micropayments effectively as well, since users are used to paying for them in hard copy. But the fact that seven years after Nielsen wrote his article, micropayments are still not commonplace makes me wonder if we’ll ever see them on mainstream websites.

In April of this year, Steven Marlin wrote a piece for InternetWeek explaining how micropayments are successfully being used. However, they are only really used for services such as photos, news, music, etc. that people do not mind paying for. If a person utilizes enough of these services, it makes since to get a BitPass account and deduct a quarter from your account each time you want a song. I know plenty of people who buy Itunes debit cards to get music for their Ipod with little to no complaint.

However, I stand by my prediction that micropayments will never be used to the extent that Nielsen originally predicted. Thoughts?

ok, one last free pass...

There's just one blog entry left! I'm not sure whether I feel relieved or sad...

the clash between freedom and control...

Over the semester, I have often alluded to Siva Vaidhyanathan's book, The Anarchist in the Library. I will be the first to admit that I did not find much of it very interesting. It was published a year ago, but much of it already seemed out of date. Control of information evolves and changes so rapidly, it's almost impossible to keep up. But in his conclusion, Vaidhyanathan made two observations that stand the test of time.

The first line that struck me as ironically true is the American government's feeling that "Too much truth is dangerous, and lies make us safer." As Americans, we have always prided ourselves on our freedoms of speech and expression and strong sense of democracy for all. But in the past few years, attacks on our soil and a President who seems to believe in the theory of acting now and explaining later, Americans have often felt as betrayed by our own government and by some of our own cultures. Do we still pride ourselves on being a "melting pot" of culture when we now are suspicious of the loyalty of some of our own?

Which brings me to the second observation, how do we control the negative aspect of some cultures while still extolling our democratic values? Vaidhyanathan noted, "As cultures build themselves and proliferate, they pretty much follow anarchists' description of the ideal political state...Culture builds itself without leaders." So what right do leaders have to then dictate how cultures manifest themselves? Just in the past few years, Americans have been witness to detainment of members of certain cultural groups for our own safety, a war being fought in order to further democracy, and not so random security checks at airports. What is the line between a government's limits on freedom and doing what it needs to do to keep its people safe?

I don't know the answer, Vaidhyanathan doesn't know the answer either. But we're both unsettled by what he terms "the clash between freedom and control," and one concerned for the battle for information will effect cultures and politics in the future.

Since I haven't had a day off yet...

Is persuasion inherently unethical?

I've never really considered the ethics involved with Internet technology, perhaps because I've always accepted its persuasion techniques as an annoying fact of life, but after reading Fogg's thoughts on the issue in his book Persuasive Technology, I see how there should be some cause for concern.

I am very aware not to click on pop up or banner ads advising me that I have $1,000 or a free ipod waiting for me, but is a 12 year old? I know that my family computer back home in NC is so laden with viruses from programs my brother either purposely or inadvertently downloaded that it is often impossible to get online at this point. Like anything in life, many people fail to read the fine print associated with downloads or promotions, which can turn out to be an extremely frustrating and/or expensive mistake. And there's not much a person can do to combat it. A computer isn't a person, you can't take it to court. Whenever I call Dell for technical support, an automated voice reminds me as I'm holding that they are not responsible for any problems cause by third party software and all they can do to help is recommend programs that may or may not help.

Fogg also made a suggestion in which a company could use the Internet as a tool for operant conditioning (Bandura's theory concerning the use of reinforcement or punishment to promote certain behavior).

For instance, a company could create a Web browser that uses operant conditioning to change people's Web surfing behavior without their awareness. If the browser were programmed to give faster page downloads to certain Web sites - say, those affiliated with the company's strategic partners - and delay the download of other sites, users would be subtly rewarded for accessing certain sites and punished for visiting others.

Fogg considers this possibility unethical and so do I. What worries me most is that chances are good even people that are fairly technologically knowledgeable like myself would likely have no idea it was happening. Between work and school, I am a busy person with no time to wait around for pages to load. As the Web becomes increasingly savvy and more people of all ages and cultures log on, ethical red flags will continue to be a cause for concern. It's great that the Net is unregulated and a true platform for freedom of expression but are the costs getting too high?

So that's not really what he said?

I've never actually been to factcheck.org. I remember Cheney's gaffe during the vice-presidential debate however, so I read with interest the analysis of the MoveOn PAC Internet ad pitting Edwards vs. Cheney. As is their style, they summarize the ad, offer the full text, analyze it, and then edit it to show the true context of the words. As is done in most campaign ads, the "Compassion" ad took from speeches both men had given earlier and used snippets, splicing them together to portray Edwards as trustworthy, caring, and hopeful while Cheney's words provoked fear.

As a student of political communication, I am well aware of the techniques and tactics used to make political ads and take them with a grain of salt. I also assume most of America sees enough of these to understand that they are partisan and can not be taken literally. Factcheck may go to extremes in spelling out what was exactly the original context of the speech. The ad designers did nothing wrong in editing the way they did, and even included the proper disclaimer. I would be more upset if a partisan organization did NOT produce and ad like "Compassion."

However, the service that Factcheck offers is a good one. I noticed that you can sign up to receive all of the factchecks in your email as they are released. I think that doing so is a smart move for any swing voter, well really any voter, but in particular a voter who can be persuaded. It shows integrity to do whatever you can to gather all of the facts in order to make an educated decision. Next time campaign season rolls around, I'll have to remember to see what Factcheck.org is up to and encourage my non-political management friends to check it out as well.