Blog #4

Weinberger says that "And we college students had it right. We were just ahead of our time. The best digital strategy is to dump everything into one large miscellaneous pile and leave it to the machines to find exactly the table setting we need for tonight's dinner." This quote matches with web 2.0 because it is all about information flow. That is what was so monumental and continues to be monumental about the internet. It is a constant flow of linked in words and pictures that flow seamlessly and endlessly among one another. According to the Web 2.0 article there are more than 9.5 million citations in Google. That is a TON of referencing and books/scholarly journals etc. getting on the web. Web 2.0 states, "Google, by contrast, began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a service, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service....it was just a massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems."
This is why google succeeded so well and why others like Netscape failed, because they wanted to control the market and jack up prices.

The internet has to be classified some way and we do it through a sorting program like Google which links keywords. These classifications are political because the person who controls the means of classification controls the whole system. Weinberger stated that when we try to 'organize' our systems and plug things into boxes that match, we will inevitably leave out more than we include. He mentioned cupcakes and hard candy as dessert, but now you have eliminated carbs. This is where tags let us bridge the gap and simultaneously labels both. In Web squared they touched on collective intelligence and how it leads to, "“crowdsourcing,” meaning that a large group of people can create a collective work whose value far exceeds that provided by any of the individual participants." Weinberger mentioned he see's this as the end of gate keeping, or the filtering of 'slush' that is considered unworthy. I would argue that as we move forward there will be different web locations for the 'slush'. There are now, we have good wordpress blogs, and bad wordpress blogs. This is determined by you. It doesn't mean we can delete them off of the internet, but we will probably choose to stop reading them. Its like someone on the side of the road protesting and yelling. You will probably walk away, they still may be there, and garner negative attention, but the very idea of crowd sourcing means you must interact with peers to gather intelligent thought. So they will stand as islands of one. I would argue that among the generations my age now that myspace has become 'slush' there is a collective intelligence at work that ended their success. Why? We probably could break it down, but the point is at some time, the majority stopped crowdsourcing myspace.

Blog #3

Go back to the thing you described organizing on Tuedsay's blog. How might someone else organize this item? What does how YOU organize it say about what you value and who you are?

I organize my photos by date/assignment into folders. This says i value time and each event as traceable in a linear time frame. I also then edit the pictures i would like to keep and save them in the folder outside of the originals. So it looks like this... 1/27 WSU vs Arizona > 100EOSD and below this would be something like, A1.jpg A2.jpg A3.jpg A4.jpg A5.jpg and then in the 100EOSD > there would be the original files, a couple hundred or so. I value organization and every photo i consider somewhat worthy i edit and consider for print. I may have anywhere from 7-20 photos from a game or event that were close to the cut. Then sometimes, if there really is that many, depending on the publication i am shooting for and how many images they want, i may make a sub folder in the 100EOSD folder that says something like >Edited final picks, and place those final files to send, in there. I organize this way so i may easily find by date or assignment what i have previously shot. This is good for submitting resume's, and soon will be good for a photo blog which i plan to start soon. Others may not use the date, they may just pick a blerb. Many people just categorize into like and don't like, or have big folders labeled like friends, family, fun etc. For me having the date gives my images a sense of order, and i like being able to revisit my previous shoots in a timely manner and keep up with what i have done in a semester.

DTC 356 Blog #2

Weinberger discusses in chapters 1 & 2 the physical order of things and data and how this cannot be translated into the digital realm in the way we have traditionally organized knowledge and physical thins. There are three types of organization, called the three orders of order.
Objects and data are the first. The second, physical meta-date, is like a card catalog. The third is digital data that has no by physical limitations. Weinberger thinks that because the internet is filled with miscellaneous information that there is no logical organizational place for everything in the digital realm.
In the second chapter he discusses methods and how disorder is inefficient in physical terms, but when it comes to the internet and computers and labeling, and keywords, there is so much more gray area to finding things stored on your computer and the web.

I keep my apartment super organized as well as photos/hw etc on my computer. I have folders and sub folder for everything, labeled by date and assignment, complete with quick description. This is because I am totally OCD about organization. Without being this way though, it would be totally difficult to manage my portfolio, and save to my hard-rive each semester to free up space on my computer. I also really really dislike having a messy room. It takes me forever to find things/clothes/HW and such when everything isn't put away where it belongs. When i am messy, things don't get done as quickly as they should and it stresses me out. If its not where i last put it, for some reason, things get lost in a black hole that follows me around. therefore. yep. borderline OCD.

DTC 356 Blog #1

1). First, describe what you see as the most important idea from this article given your own future professional goals--what can/should you take with you?

I think the most important idea from the article is that the internet is evolving and taking on new forms based on the needs of the individual. The internet is a tool that reflects the needs of the people and despite the lack of face-to-face contact, there is consideration that it is actually bringing people together. The article states, "there is worry about the dehumanizing effect of technology.We share that worry, but also see the countertrend,that communication binds us together, gives us shared context, and ultimately shared identity." (Web 2.0 Web Squared) I think as we move forward, technology will only have a stronger influence in our everyday lives. As i write this i am on my computer, connected to the internet and have a cell phone that can do almost half of what my computer is capable of. My professional goals are photography and communication. I hope to use my knowledge of the evolving internet presence to propel a future business forward. Understanding the importance of a web presence, i will be able to market myself. My abilities in web design and communication will help me to build an online presence that will propel my work.

Second, what is the most exciting web application you've seen in the past year? What is exciting about it?

There are so many web applications that are out there these days! The first neatest one i have seen in the past year is the syncing of your facebook application with the contacts on your phone. This is really helpful when meeting new people and tying a face with a name. I also like GPS ability to locate your phone when you can't find it. It takes a little setup, but is really handy when your phone is lost or stolen. Most of the innovative 'web' applications are related to the phone. Phones are really the future of the internet. There are some innovative web applications for sites like steepandcheap.com where you can get text messages, or a pop up on your screen indicating there is limited time to buy a certain item.