Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Reputation

A man can get a reputation from very small things. -Sophocles

Reputation. We all have one, whether we like it or not, from the moment we are born. There are plenty of wise people who have written famous things about having a reputation, be that in a good or bad sense. No surprise there. But, really, how much does the average person think about their reputation? Not a lot, most likely. We live our lives, interact with our friends on social media, without giving it a thought. Except that increasingly, we should give it a thought, especially if you’re one of the many people today who are looking for a job.

Now, I’m talking about more than your co-workers seeing embarrassing photos from your recent Vegas trip. No, now there are businesses offering services to look into your online reputation for potential employers, advertisers, and anyone else, really. Who would benefit from knowing if you are a slacker, hard worker, trustworthy or not? Anyone who would enter into a contract with you. Kinda creepy, but it should only be the latest in the reminders to be thoughtful about what you post online.

Reputation Graph VS. People Rank
Like It or Not the Reputation Graph is Here to Stay

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Do You Know What SOPA Is?

So, unless you’ve been vacationing underneath a rock for the last few months, you’ve probably heard of SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, or more boringly referred to as House Bill 3261. In its most basic form, it hopes to protect copyright holders from infringement, by enabling court orders to be granted against offenders. Sounds benign, right? No one wants a person’s intellectual property to be stolen from them, unless they’re a scumbag.

No problem.

Except, as things are prone to do, it has gotten more complicated than that.

Proponents of the bill say that it is needed to protect copyrights, to provide teeth to the current laws. However, because the wording of the bill is nice and vague, it threatens websites with user-submitted content (think Wikipedia, etsy, and YouTube) with taking down the entire site because of one user’s post. Opponents say that this opens up the door for internet censorship is a threat to first amendment rights. Though the proponents of this bill claim that it will also protect jobs within industries such as media and entertainment, some companies have said that should the bill pass, they would move their company outside the reach of US laws. To me, that seems like less jobs, but maybe I’m missing something. And it would threaten the growth of the internet itself by making more legal liability for those who would start a new website or business. More legal liability=less new competition/trade/start-ups/creativity. That’s not so good for jobs, either, the way I see it.

So, what, pray tell, is there to do about it? Well, we all know that people on the interwebz, when good and toasty ticked off about something, like to take action. So tomorrow, January18th, some sites are having a 12 hour blackout of their sites as a protest. Others, though not blacking out their sites, are making it easier to black out your own site with apps. And just so you know, we’re not just talking about small websites here, we’re talking about some major internet players—Wikipedia, Reddit, the Cheezeburger network, and Mozilla are just a few of them. But dont just take all of this at my word, here’s some articles that are about it too. Go, read, and make yourself better informed.

Wikipedia to join Web blackout protesting SOPA
Protest SOPA: Black Out Your Website the Google-Friendly Way
SOPA Blackout Set For January 18th: Here’s All The Info
Reddit to go silent in SOPA protest
Stop Online Piracy Act, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friday, January 6, 2012

SOPA, Buzzwords, IE6, and Squirrels

The beginning of a new year always seems to make me a little ADD, it seems. There are so many new things abounding, that I find it hard to focus on one, and write a coherent blog about it, because -squirrel- there's so many other interesting things competing for my eye. And so, since we haven't done a blog round up in a bit, here's a good one for you:

Heard anything about the whole GoDaddy/SOPA debacle? well here's some other SOPA -themed activities that might be in the works:
Google, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook consider 'nuclear' blackout

Buzzwords always are fun things to me. Oh sure, they convey what you're trying to say in a lovely jargon, but folks like me tend to make fun of them. Example: one that has been mocked here for nearly a decade: "multi-faceted revenue streams." Yes, we have heard that said in seriousness. teehee:
Words and expressions I want banned in 2012

If you recall This post then you will do the happy dance with us:
IE6 Almost Dead in the US

Not so much a shock, really:
US Survey Shows Piracy Common and Accepted

The ability to get your friend's opinions of places to travel (without actually pestering your friends), instead of wondering if the reviewer on Trip Advisor is being a troll:
How Expedia Plans to Make Travel More Social

Are you boring? Dull? Not so much gifted with interest? Well then, this is for you:
How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)

Another shocking development, Facebook and Twitter have been invaded with spammers. Wait, so you mean that the random hot chick that tried to follow me on twitter, yet only tweets in (*i think) Russian is a spammer? Dude, WTH?
Facebook, Twitter Battle Spammers