December 10, 2006
Del.ici.ous Highlights
Success on del.ici.ous
Throughout the semester we have collectively been tagging websites through a social bookmarking site known as del.ici.ous. Founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003, Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking web service which allows users to store, share, and discover bookmarks through the use of “tagging”. Through this tagging, we were able to not only gather resources and information for our blogs – but learn more about our friends and even our entire class. Essentially del.ici.ous allows you to learn so much because of four things: a small learning curve, quick processes, social networking, and bookmark history.
Small Learning Curve. For the most part, del.ici.ous was relatively easy to learn and use. Obviously, just like any other part of technology, there was some learning to be had. However, anyone who played around for a half an hour would quickly understand how the system works. In fact, when creating your account the website asks if you wish to install the browser buttons. We highly suggest saying yes – it’s worth it as the buttons allow you to quickly and efficiently add new tags to web pages. This small learning curve allows everyone to at least trying the site and creates the base for many people to stay. Aside from typical, “what does this mean?” questions, del.ici.ous is extremely user friendly.
Quick Processes. Part of the quick processes stems from the use of browser buttons, but del.ici.ous’s ability to quickly take tagged sites and update them on your home page is vital to its success. Granted, sometimes it takes time to update (if servers are busy) but the relative speed is what makes the trendiness of the website work. At any given time, anyone can see up to date tags from anyone who is a del.ici.ous member. Quick search options for key words are available and even the act of tagging websites is fast – two simple clicks and a few words to type in. In fact, there may even be words suggested for you to use as a tagger – simplicity at its finest.
Social Networking. Obviously, this is the heart and sole of del.ici.ous. Without it, the tagging would simply not mean as much. The power behind the website from its’ social aspects are astounding. If you wanted to, you could watch as other people find the hottest news on anything you wish to know about. Or you can use other people’s tags to guide your search and your tagging. Or, you can be the tag leader! Think it can’t be done? Well, in a matter of a few months our class tag, “Bit200F06,” became one of the top 30 tags on the website – it even sparked outsiders to email our professor. Del.ici.ous really creates a community of fresh thoughts and ideas to numerous people around the globe. Language is no barrier and the fresh way to navigate information is exciting, interesting, and fun.
Bookmark History. Bookmark History essentially supports the social networking, but we felt it was extremely well put together and deserved to be mentioned as a del.ici.ous strength. The history can be viewed alphabetically or by frequency tagged and could also be bundled to help view important topics. For instance, Grant thought it would be interesting to see which websites he tagged the most – so he bundled some of the technology websites he tagged off of. It turned out he tagged news from BBC News the most with CNN.com in second and the New York Times third. What is really cool about the history, though, is the ability to click on the tag name to see every article or website you tagged with that specific tag title. This was extremely relevant to our project as we were able to quickly see what topic interested us and immediately find articles to write blogs on. It also allows us to look at how other people tagged with the same words, thus creating the social community and information highway.
With that in mind we have a few ideas for a better del.ici.ous. First, we think it might be cool to have an area where a community can place tags without creating a new account. For instance, we would like to have had a spot where we could see all of our team’s Google tags without having to go through each of our lists separately. We could have made a team account, but it might be interesting to think how del.ici.ous can do this in another way. Secondly, we thought it would be interesting to think about del.ici.ous implementing “staple tags” to websites. These tags would work similar to the recommended tags, but would not be a choice – they would automatically be a tag name. Obviously, you would only want constant tag names to be used in this way. For instance, if ESPN is consistently used as a tag for ESPN articles, del.ici.ous should make it a “staple tag” for all articles tagged from the www.espn.go.com domain name. These staple tags would do two things – first they would make it easier to gather similar information for people to find. Secondly, it could also provide del.ici.ous with a valuable amount of information they could use to fund their website if they begin to fall.
Regardless, Del.ici.ous was a fun thing to learn and very interesting to use and each of us plan on continuing our tagging!
Posted by grantrob at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
Google Summary
Summary of Our Google Blogging Adventures
As our Google blogging comes to a close, we have come to realize the developments Google has made through their expansion into new areas. As a team we have blogged on a few of these expansions:
- Google's New Print Ad's
- The Google Book Literacy Project
- Google Leading into New Areas of Technology Stock
- Searching through Google (Google Searching tips)
- Google's Push Through Struggles in China
- Google's Testing of Audio Ads
- Google's partnership with BSkyB
These blogs taught us a lot about what it takes to continuously be among the top in business. No company is a hotter topic in technology right now than Google is. They are always expected to be the best; they almost never disappoint. How do they stay a leader? By constantly differentiating themselves from the rest of the market. Their creativity cannot be matched by competitors as they consistently stay one step ahead of their consumers wants and needs . This creativity can be seen through the wide array of areas Google developed through our three months of blogging. We went over some, but Google is on the crisp of literally hundreds of new developments including: the YouTube acquisition, Google's Teaching Partnership, Google Wikis, and much, much more.
It takes hard work. It takes determination. It takes a team of individuals with the desire to stay the best who work together for the good of the firm. Is it always easy? No, we saw this though their difficulties in China which Li blogged about. But they always find a way to get it done. They collectively come together and solve important issues and continue to move the company forward.
Google is about more than a search bar. They affect the lives of people across the globe, from the United States to France to China and back. This effort is proved through their project choice. One of their latest hit projects, the Google Book Literacy Project, has been thriving. Both Bret and Grant blogged on this topic and described its' in and outs, but the Google team is not even close to done with it as they continue make more books available for everyone to enjoy. They reach to new places, such as universities like the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. Projects like these make us step back and really re-evaluate our thoughts as to what Google is. Ten years ago, no one had any idea one company could alter the globe's information like Google does now. We are in a new age of technology because of their innovation. They work endlessly to go above and beyond what people expect and make a difference in the world around them.
Why?
Because they are committed to being the best.
Posted by grantrob at 08:23 PM | Comments (0)
Google Blog #7
Google Inc. to Take BSkyB Under its Wing
“I've been waiting for this for a while," Google Chairman and Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt said at a meeting in London detailing it’s new global partnership with British satellite broadcaster, BSkyB. While Schmidt might have been waiting, this was nothing the public didn’t already anticipate, given Google’s continuing expansion in the media world.
This deal will enable BSkyB to provide Google’s type of search portal, mail and video services to its broadband customers. In return, the revenue generated from pay-per-click advertising links on the BSkyB site will be shared between the two companies. More concrete financial arrangements have yet to be released. According to Schmidt, this partnership is just the first of what Google hopes to be many deals with other media firms, “If we can get this structure right over the next few months and it rolls out, then it becomes the index case for every other country and every other operator."
This deal is a significant example of the growing importance of Internet search-based advertising to media companies. As we have seen in previous examples, Google is on the cutting edge of online advertising and through this partnership they will only strengthen their firm. BSkyB will also help to strengthen the connection to European Google users and continue to help Google meet their ever expanding consumer base. We all believe BSkyB will be big for Google -- especially since they have had past troubles overseas. Li showed us some of these troubles in a previous blog the troubles with China; by continuing to match up with firms such as British Sky Broadcasting, Google continues to prove their global committment to meet every consumer around the globe.
Posted by eath at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2006
Google Blog #6
Google Begins Testing Audio Ads
Google's financial successes primarily stem from its profitable advertisements. As Brett, Grant, and I continuously find information, we are all amazed at the power Google and its ability to generate healthy cash flow from just simple advertisements. However, just today, Google announced that it will begin a new form of advertising through audio.
Google Begins Testing Audio Ads
Google plans to extend a system of audio advertisements through radios. This could be a bold move for the search giant. To diversify its financing strategy through audio ads, Google is essentially reducing risks to keep up with technology.
"Google Audio Ads is working with more than 700 radio stations covering more than 200 metropolitan U.S. markets, Google spokesman Mike Mayzel said.
We're happy to announce that the integration is now complete and we've recently begun a U.S. beta test of Google Audio Ads with a small group of AdWords advertisers," Google said in a statement on its official advertising blog.
Just as pay-by-click online advertisement, radio ads reach a wide variety of people in the market. "Audio Ads offers detailed reporting, targeting by demographic, location and station type, and provides easy access to the huge market reached by radio programming," Google said in discussing the project on its AdWords sales site.
This step for Google could prove to be profitable, however, it is still risky as the name Google does not seem to blend well radio stations. We believe that this is the challenge Google would have to face.
It is particularly interesting to see the extent what large technology companies are doing to keep up with fast-paced technology. As Brett, Grant, and I continue our career search for certain industires and specific companies, we realize that tech firms such as Google might not be a bad idea. However, we also realized that working for a technology company may be exciting, yet risky.
Posted by lisun at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Google Blog #5
Google Management Struggles in China
Grant, Brett, and I all acknowledge the power and influence of Google. However, little did we know the search engine's influence in other countries such as China.
Google Loses Top Ad-Man in China
Though Google has been the dominant search Engine in the United States, it might not be so indomitable in China. Yesterday, Google's top Chinese sales executive, Johnny Chou, is officially resigning his role. This could possibly indicate "a change in direction for the Internet search company."
Even though Google praised Mr. Chou "in making an important contribution in setting up an excellent local management team," Google is urgently looking to expand its sales and management division, which can only spark from leadership and creativity. Losing a key leader in this role will impact the search engine giant immediately.
Criticized with its failure to grasp the use of Chinese language, Google's market share in China dropped from 33% to 25%, behind Baidu.com, a Chinese based search engine. Unfamiliarity with the Chinese advertising business, Google will began facing tough challenges as it strives to penetrate the Chinese Market.
Well, you can't win them all. Google has climbed from a no-name start-up to the world's biggest search engine with over 200 billion market cap and $500/share. Though it might remain a dominant force in the West, it might not be so hot in other countries such as China. As technology changes in fast paces, Google's unique capability for innovation and excellence may create solutions -- it might just take a little time. What this does show is Google's continuous efforts to stay a leader not only in the US but worldwide. Through hard work, patience, determination, and innovation, we think Google will reach this goal in time.
Posted by lisun at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2006
Online security?
How Much is too Much?
After reading Richard O. Mason's article outline the threat of the information age through the acronym PAPA (Privacy, Accuracy, Property, and Accesibility), We believe online stores such as amazon unethically use consumer information. The article inspired Bret, Li, and I to think of the security debates within the PAPA framework:
“What must one person reveal about themselves, under what conditions?”
“Who is responsible for the information and who will be held accountable for errors?”
“Who owns the information?”
“What information do people or an organization have the right to obtain?”
The best way to understand the situation further is to simply go through each area of this. To create an amazon account we must provide numerous amounts of private information, including: email, name, mailing address, city, state, zip code, and phone number. We do have the option of using false information and thus have control of the information accuracy. Who is in charge of the Errors? Yup, you guessed it, we are. Amazon probably won’t be too forgiving if we happen to accidentally put in the incorrect mailing address (good luck with that phone call if it ever happens). But who owns the information? Well, we d...or do we? Yes, the information is ours. Yes, we control its’ accuracy. But it’s on Amazon’s website – and they have the ability to do numerous things with it. They run the domain and you chose to put your information into their databases. Aside from information ownership, accessibility provides some interesting debates for this Amazon example. Obviously we have accessibility to our account, and there is some security because we cannot directly look at other member’s homepages...but what about Amazon? They have free range on any information on us they want and we would never know. This is where market efficiency has led to less privacy. By having our information accessible, it makes transactions and purchasing problems less prevalent. However, by keeping tabs on everything we do, Amazon (and potentially other people) learns numerous things about us. They learn what we like, what we are looking to purchase, our purchasing habits, and much more. They are able to manipulate this and make themselves more profitable while making their consumer more vulnerable.
This shouldn’t be the case. Online stores should not be able to use information on the consumer unless explicitly allowed by the consumer themselves. Consumers should know exactly where their information is going, because in the big picture, it is the consumer's information.
Posted by grantrob at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2006
Google Blog #4
Searching through Google
As we continue through our Google blogs, we felt it was important to go over some neat searching characteristics which people can use through Google and other search engines (you may have forgotten by now, but searching IS Google’s main function). We found two articles in particular which were very informative and interesting to go through:
“Ten Tips for Smarter Google Searches” from informit.com
and
“Advanced Google Tips” by Cyberwyre
Both of these articles explain searching tips which most people are aware of, such as: using the either / or function and searching for exact phrases by using quotation marks. However, there were numerous things which we found insightful and different that how we typically search. One of these things was the “site, related, and link” functions.
Essentially, these search functions heap you go through resources in a more efficient manner. If we were performing a college search and we liked the University of Michigan, we could use google and search “site:http://www.umich.edu” to find websites which only reside within this domain (128,000 total), “related:http://www.umich.edu” to find websites which are very similar to it (10 total), or “link:http://www.umich.edu” to find all websites which have the U of M homepage linked in their own websites (25,600 total).
What is the next step? Well, as it says in the Cyberwyre article, we can begin to combine searching methods. For instance, think about a person who is looking for information on College Football on ESPN.go.com. They can search:
“College Football” site:http://www.espn.go.com
What does this all mean? Well, if means Google and other search engines are constantly making information pathways stronger and stronger. Gone are the days of shelved information; today we can find information on the most miniscule subject from thousands of miles away in a matter of milliseconds. On top of that, our searching has become better-organized and more capable to find our desired subject.
The evolution of these search tools is what keeps the engines themselves fresh, and their core strong. Do you think Google still be Google without them?
We don't.
Posted by grantrob at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2006
Google Blog #3
Google Shares Reaches $500 landmark
After successfully acquiring YouTube, Google's stock reached a landmark of $500 per share, closing at $509.65. Since it first went public at $85, Google jumped nearly six-folds. The #1 search engine surpass this milestone for the first time in history, demonstrating strong market power and healthy cash flow.
Over the last couple of years, Google seems to have dominated the search engine business, outperforming Yahoo. In fact, with its stock price rising, Google is now the second most valuable company in Silicon Valley, surpassing Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Cisco remains to be the only other company more profitable. Wow!
It seems unimaginable that a company providing a simple type-and-click search service can surpass computer giant Hewlett-Packard as well as Intel, the world’s largest chip maker.
From an investor’s perspective, Google has momentum. Growing since 2004 and recently acquiring other popular start-ups, Google will continue to increase sales and profit as demand for online advertising increases. Expectations for next quarter earnings are high according to several analysts.
``Expectations for the online advertising market overall remain very robust,'' said Sasa Zorovic, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in Boston who rates the shares 'buy.' ``Revenue continues to grow very nicely.''
“I was one of the first analysts to expect $100 billion market cap,” Rohan said. “It’s clearly exceeded any expectations I could’ve had along the way. The growth that Google has been able to capture is unprecedented.”
All in all, Google has made its mark. Everyone knows it, and most people use it. Synonymous with the word search, “Google” is defined as “to search for information about a specific person through the Google search engine” on dictionary.com.
Again, it seems unimaginable that a simple type-and-click search engine service can be worth so much, and it is absolutely ridiculous that Google have over 100 millionaire employees. This company could prove very profitable as we BBA's jumpstart our careers, where the typical annual starting salary of $60,000 could amass up to millions.
With one great idea and over 80,000 geeks working, Google is now worth over $155 billion!!!!!!
Posted by lisun at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2006
Google Blog #2
Welcome the Cavaliers!
On November 14th, Google announced the University of Virginia will be included within their "Google Books Library Project." Essentially this project involves the digitalization of thousands of books which will then become available online through Google's Book Search Function. According to the press release, the inclusion of Virginia will allow the search engine access to "more than five million volumes, 17 million manuscripts, rare books and archives, and rapidly-growing digital collections."
Bret and Li had both heard of this program, I had not -- and I think it is pretty cool [probably because I typically search with (shhhh) yahoo]. Essentially anyone who has the internet can come and look through the books online. The only exception are books which are copyright protected -- but even with those you can look through the books in the most basic manner.
Through this addition, the google library continues to contain a well-respected holding of libraries, including "[the] University of California, Harvard University, University Complutense of Madrid, University of Michigan, the New York Public Library, Oxford University, Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison."
From a press release on December 14th, 2004, the goal of the project was to "make the incredible breadth of information that librarians so lovingly organize searchable online"
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information, and we're excited to be working with libraries to help make this mission a reality."
-Larry Page, Google co-founder and president of Products
Will they be able to organize ALL information?
Probably not, but by combining with these well respected Universities they are certainly getting their fare share of information. And when reading the release I couldn't help but think about how far internet technology has really taken us.....years ago you would have to drive to the library, find the library card in the stacks, walk to the book, and hand copy it if you wanted information. But now? I can read an online book from the 13th century while checking my portfolio and watching Saturday cartoons.
The result?
Schools are better
Education as a whole is better
The world around us is better
Google's innovation wins once again
For a full synopsis of Google's Book Literacy Project please see Bret's October 15th Blog: Google launches literacy project
Posted by grantrob at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2006
Google Blog #1
Google's New Frontier: Print Ads
Dictionary.com definition:
Google – Innovative company whose expansion is unlimited and strives to have their hands in every aspect of the media world.
Ok, maybe that wasn’t the exact definition but it can’t be too far off, especially after reading about Google’s newest pet project, Google Print Ads. GPA is taking notes from the success of their Internet advertising network and moving into the field of print. The general idea behind the project which is still in experimental stages is Google will buy up ad pages in tech magazines, divide them up into smaller sections, and then resell those sections to advertisers who bid on them.
GPA marks Google’s first move offline and will establish Google as an intermediary between publishers and advertisers. The addition of print ads is part of an effort to find new sales and avoid an eventual slowdown in the booming search ads business. Google has been an innovator in the field of advertising, being the pioneers of the extremely lucrative “cost per click” system.
How do advertisers feel about all this…?
"It's a lot of exposure for cheap… (Google is) doing a ton of tracking on this. They're using their own 1-800 numbers on this, and it forwards to our line."
-Jeff Witkowski
President, AHS Systems
"I think Google might be able to bring the same benefits to small advertisers where it is too cost-prohibitive to get into… This is certainly a departure from what they've been doing, but it's certainly a good thing for the industry."
-Michael Keen
President, Inksite
While no one in our group is pursuing a career in advertising, the sheer intuitiveness of the project is still something to be zealous of and is sure to be a topic at the center of many water-cooler talks in months to come.
Posted by eath at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2006
Topic Announcement
As our blogging moves forward, Li, Bret, and I would like to announce "Google's expansion and growth into new areas" as our focused topic for the rest of the semester. Each post will deal with Google's further development as more than a simple search engine -- this includes new topics and continuations of topics from previous blogs.
Two of our past blogs (#'s 2 and 3) were each on Google's development:
Blog #2 can be read here
Blog #3 can be read here.
Posted by grantrob at 07:54 PM | Comments (0)
IT Blog #5
Delicious Tips #2 Managing Tags
Grant, Brett, and I have all been tagging extensively on a variety of IT news and information sites. As we progress over the last few weeks, we have managed to find tools that facilitate our search processes. Two weeks ago, Grant mentioned the search benefits of Delicious Network Explorer.
This week, with more and more sites tagged, we all thought it would be better if we organized our tags a little bit more. So, we found another fun tool called Delicer.
To download Delicer: Delicer Download
This is a desktop program that allows us to effectively manage our whole delicious account. With this program, we can easily search for our own tags and navigate through URLs accordingly without opening a single browser. Also, we can post new, rename existing, and delete old tags without surfing through delicious.com. Furthermore, feeds from You.Tube and Delicious are available with one button-click.
To give an analogy, Delicer to Delicious is essentially like Microsoft Outlook to our email account. It is very useful to us as our bookmark collection increases. Just like me, Grant & Brett have downloaded the program and is currently using it.
Because it is a really cool, efficient bookmark organizer, Delicious is getting more and more popular. So Grant, Brett, and I all think that tools like Delicer is not only helpful but neccessary as Delicious reaches more and more users worldwide.
Along with its functional advantages, the name "Delicer" is really cool because it seems as if you are "slicing" into your bookmark collection. Whoever thought of this name deserve my praises because there is definitely a catch to it.
For more Delicious official and third-party tools, pleas visit Absolute Delicious Tools Collection
Posted by lisun at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2006
IT Blog #4
Delicious Tip #1
Over the past few weeks, Bret, Li, and I have each looked into seperate information technology news stories. This week, instead of looking at simply another entry, we thought it would be productive to go through an interesting and fun way to uncover breaking news stories (IT and not-IT related) within delicious.
One thing we all found to be incredibly cool and fun to play with was an "unofficial" Delicious visualization tool called:
Del.icio.us network explorer (click to link).
Essentially what this tool does is visually shows your available delicious network connections. You are then able to explore through the network and see how your network is connected.
For example, if I wanted to find a tag of someone who is in both my BIT professor's and my delicious network, I could use the network explorer to find an individual who is connected to both of us. From there I could click on the person's bubble, and select "visit at delicious.com" at the top of the screen. This would take me to that individual's delicious screen, and thus I can search through their links. This tool could be very effective if you do not know the name of other individuals you are looking for, or are trying to keep your links within a certain group of people.
There are, however, negatives to this network as well. It is very limited in the information immediately available. It would also take a large base of people within your network for this to work to its full extent. It also requires java to be able to run effectively.
Stay tuned for another helpful internet searching tip in the upcoming weeks
For more "neat unofficial tools" on Delicious, visit the website at http://del.icio.us/help/thirdpartytools
Posted by grantrob at 03:47 PM | Comments (1)
October 15, 2006
IT Blog #3
Google launches literacy project
In the media world, search engines are king. Looking at the blogs from the past two weeks, it is evident that search engine giants Yahoo and Google have no bounds to their expansion. The most recent step forward in Google’s plan for world domination is the launch of a new website. The website, google.com/literacy, is a collection of resources that can be used to help combat illiteracy.
Google is teaming up with the United Nations and a literacy campaign organized by the Frankfurt Book Fair in hopes of cutting down the more than 1 billion people in the world over the age of 15 that are illiterate. The project will utilize Google’s video, mapping and blogging services. Google’s massive project of scanning all the world’s books into their system will also be a part of the literacy program. The website will help to provide teachers, educators and other members of academia with an organized set of educational resources to eliminate illiteracy. Google is requesting that other organizations contribute to their project by donating media that helps demonstrate various teaching techniques.
Grant, Li and I all agree that it’s great to see a company as renowned as Google take such a huge step forward in giving back to the world. By searching and finding out that many people in this world are illiterate, we all agreed that we, as Ross Students, are taking things for granted. When you look at the valuable education we are receiving and the numerous children in Africa who couldn't even understand a single word, there is no comparison as to how lucky we are. Knowing this issue, it feels as if we are obliged to use our "fortunate" education to help these unfortunate individuals.
So it is really good to hear that Google is doing that already. As Google’s vice president of European operations, Nikesh Arora says, “Google’s business was born out of a desire to help people find information. We hope this site will serve as a bridge to even greater communication and access to important information about literacy problems.”
For a first-hand look at the project, look here: Google Literacy Project
Posted by eath at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)
October 07, 2006
IT Blog #2
Google Hunting Down YouTube
Just as sports teams try to acquire top athletes, search giants such as Google and Yahoo are currently in the race to acquire popular and growing online sites. Google is currently neogotiating with top executives of You-Tube, only to purchase the leading online-video site for 1.6 billion dollars.
Last week, Grant, Brett, and I shared the thought of Yahoo wanting to buy Facebook for 1 billion dollars. As Facebook users, we all thought that this amount is quite ridiculous; yes, a lot people do use Facebook. Yes, Facebook is very popular. But, what is the factor that makes these sites worth so much. In the BILLIONS!!!
We have all been on You-tube. However, we did not know that You-tube commanded 46% of visits to U.S. online-video sites in September while Google online video only has about 11%. If Google do land this deal in buying You-Tube, then the search giant would be the dominant leader in online-video.
The You-tube acquisition could mean so much to Google. First of all, Google can enhance You-tube's search engine making videos easier and more accessible to viewers. Secondly, Google can extend its profit-making ad strategy and bring lucrative cash flow from You-tube's ads. Finally, as the current dominant search engine, Google will expand and soon become the dominant "online video" provider. This all will prove very valuable to Google. Considering a market cap of over $150 billion, the $1.5 billion paid for You-tube may be a worthy acquisition in the long run.
Yet, as Grant, Brett, and I have discussed, the billions of dollars spent in acquisitions is unimaginable for a simple URL.
Posted by lisun at 12:41 PM | Comments (1)
September 28, 2006
IT Blog #1
Facebook = Yahoo??
This week's blog entry will be examining the rumor of facebook selling their collective souls to yahoo for 1 Billion dollars. In fact, Li actually heard that facebook wanted TWO billion! See the link here:
Is this ethically and morally fair to do? All three of us on this team (Grant, Li, and Brett) are members of facebook, and all of us agree that this is a severe breach of personal security. All of us have personal information on the website that we dont necessarily feel everyone should be able to see. The networking in facebook allows between friends and colleages is unmatched by many other competitors, but is it right for the authors of facebook to exploit us to unknown people for a profit?
Lets face it, this type of information availability is rare. Facebook has gained steam over the last few years and people will pay top dollars to be able to reach that many students. Networking is HUGE, and facebook has a lot of it.
If you don't know exactly what facebook is, it is essentially a networking website much like myspace where you can create a personal profile and stay connected with past friends as well as have information handy on current friends (i.e. cell phone #, address, etc.). It has helped me (Grant) personally get quick information to help me find people I need to talk to as well as make great connections through people at the University of Michigan. Unfortunately, even though it began as a very innocent, fun, new site, it has undergone many numerous changes lately. The biggest change occured just recently, when facebook announced the allowing of anyone to join in the "fun." In the past it had only allowed university and high school students to join.
What do we see happening? Well, facebook will eventually phase itself out of being big with the college crowd and work more towards a myspace type of mass-connection website. We already have seen parts of this, with many people becoming conscious about what is in their profiles because of rumors of people "stalking" them, as well as companies and recruiters looking through to see prospective workers.
Is it worth 1 Billion? Well, apparently Yahoo thinks so.
Posted by grantrob at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
Welcome
Authors for Final Project Blog:
Grant Robinson, Section 1
Li Sun, Section 1
Bret Eathorne, Section 1
Each Team-Member is set up to edit on grantrob's blog
Posted by grantrob at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)