I first jumped into an interesting article about a previous player for the Dallas Cowboys, Daryl Johnston, and his views on Cowboy fans. He argued that many people are bandwagon fans and are throwing in the white towel already to give up. He is saying since the Cowboys started out with a bang and they were doing exceptionally well, now that they are in the hole their fans are abandoning ship.
The bloggers were not too happy about this article. Right off the bat there was a couple people that said they were Cowboy fans to the end whether doing good or bad. It once again went off football talk and back to politics. This is getting to become routine now the whole mix of football and politics. Rudypm says the Cowboys have to stand up and take charge like Obama. This sparks a couple users attention and feelings start coming out. Ernest t rat throws in a smart remark about raising taxes and re-distributing them out to the NFL and Mo challenges his statement. Mo says that at least it would be a change for the cowboys and that is what they need. Ernest t rat then comes off, living up to his character, and states that Stalin and Hitler brought change as well. I believe all three of these users want change for the Cowboys but disagree on how to accomplish this. It is crazy to see how defensive people get about their favorite sports team and the measures they go to show their emotion.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
November 6th Observation
The first article that I read today was on T.O. once again. It was on his reactions this season and how mellow he has been. He has not blown up like he usually does and is well known for. Every Cowboy fan is frustrated on how they have been playing. To be a player and be calm is a totally different thing. I think if I was a player I would be even angrier because the team stats are representing me as well. In this blog the bloggers are giving T.O. his credit for keeping his cool. It was a coin flip when the Cowboys went after T.O. for a player. Some fans thought it was crazy to get him based on his character. Then the other half thought that he is an excellent wide receiver and we should take a shot. Overall T.O. has been an asset to the Cowboys organization and most fans think so as well. There was another post about how the Democrats are in office and how the Cowboys are going to dominate once again. I think these guys are crazy to think since one party holds office it affects the outcome of a football team. The user that kept posting this got some nasty comments because he was leaving similar messages in all the blogs. I think it is funny how it goes from football and turns homosexual after about one reaction. Chris Crapcha on a graham craka says that cris is a moron and un-clever for comparing the two and it takes about a half hour for cris to react. They go off on another tangent but this shows how the users like to protect their community. Chris Crapcha on a graham craka is expressing that cris is filling the blogs with garbage and demoralizes him in efforts for cris to stop. This was the most interesting article today with the most chemistry in it.
November 5th Observation
The first article that came out today was about the game Sunday night against the New York Giants. It seems that people are really mad at the coach. They are saying how Wade Phillips is not worthy to be the Dallas Cowboys coach and they need a new head coach. I found it weird how it went from a game from a couple days ago to the presidential election. I mean it was the day after the election but everyone seemed oblivious to the topic that was originally at hand. I do not think Cowboy fans like Obama very much. One blogger put Obama’s change in presidency is just as unlikely as the Cowboys making the Playoffs.
Another article covered today was Terrell Owens, also known as T.O., outlook on the previous couple weeks of the backup quarterbacks. Understanding the mindset of T.O. is key before hearing anything about what he says. He is the type of player that likes the attention on him. He is a loud mouth player and likes attention. He is a good player when he is fed the ball and makes plays but when he does not get his way, move out of the way. He has been fined many of times for his behavior and will most likely be fined in the future for his behavior. He likes to celebrate and entertain when he scores and that has cost him thousands of dollars. To sum T.O. up he is a showboat. The article spoke about how T.O. said the backup quarterbacks were horrible and he is glad that the starting quarterback, Tony Romo, is back. T.O. said, “If I'm open and I don't get the ball, then I don't get the ball. There's nothing really I can do. I can't throw and catch the ball myself. I can only just do what I can control." This is just a typical statement from T.O. This perfectly sums him up as a player. I personally like his attitude because I think he is a good player and goes out there and gets his job done. The fans on the blog seem to disagree with T.O. and are complaining about his character and say he fumbles too much. One blogger compared the Cowboys winning to Republicans in office and Democrats in office. He goes on to state the years that they won while the Democrats were in and vice versa. I thought this was really interesting. It happened to be that they absolutely dominated while the Democrats were in office. He goes on to conclude that the Cowboys are going to rule for the next four years while Obama is in office.
November 4th Observation
So the blog that I chose was on the Dallas Cowboys. As many of us already know they are an National Football League (NFL) team. They have been struggling over the past couple of years to get into the Super Bowl where they belong, but they keep choking. I was going to do a blog on Gizmodo.com but I visit this site everyday and did not realize it was a blog type news report. Well today there was the first article that caught my attention about Monday Night Football. The Cowboys were not even playing on Monday Night Football and they still got mentioned. The broadcasters related back to the game from the previous day on Sunday November 2, 2008. The Cowboys played the New York Giants and got blown out. They were not even close in this game mainly because they did not have their starting quarterback, Tony Romo. He got hurt a couple weeks back and fractured his pinkie finger. Everyone is on the Cowboys back because they are expected to do well and they are not competing at the level they should be. The people posting to this article mostly agree with the author of the article that the Cowboys should be doing a lot better. Much of the loss can be contributed to the loss of the Cowboys starting quarterback but that is an excuse everyone does not care about. Cowboys overall have to pick up the slack and get it together to even think about the playoffs.
It is funny to see that a couple articles later talks about the head coach, Wade Phillips, saying how he thinks the Cowboys will have a strong finish. The article says that the Cowboys have to win the next 5 out of 7 games to even contend for a playoff spot. I think this is going to be pretty hard considering the teams that they are playing. Three tough teams that they are going to have to play are the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Pittsburgh Steelers. These are all solid teams that will give the Cowboys a run for their money. The Giants already embarrassed the Cowboys while the Eagles gave them a really close game. There were mixed feelings on the Cowboys making the playoffs in this blog. It seems that the diehard Cowboy fans are getting mad that people doubt that they will make the playoffs. The Cowboys are not going on the field with that championship spark. They were playing solid football in the first couple of weeks and then they lost it. It is going to be a tough road to make the playoffs.
It is funny to see that a couple articles later talks about the head coach, Wade Phillips, saying how he thinks the Cowboys will have a strong finish. The article says that the Cowboys have to win the next 5 out of 7 games to even contend for a playoff spot. I think this is going to be pretty hard considering the teams that they are playing. Three tough teams that they are going to have to play are the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Pittsburgh Steelers. These are all solid teams that will give the Cowboys a run for their money. The Giants already embarrassed the Cowboys while the Eagles gave them a really close game. There were mixed feelings on the Cowboys making the playoffs in this blog. It seems that the diehard Cowboy fans are getting mad that people doubt that they will make the playoffs. The Cowboys are not going on the field with that championship spark. They were playing solid football in the first couple of weeks and then they lost it. It is going to be a tough road to make the playoffs.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
October 22 --> Wiki information any good?
In the reading "What's on Wikipedia and what's not . . . ?" by Cindy Royal and Deepina Kapila they speak about Wikipedia and how useful it is as a source. On page one they state that "Wikipedia is more a socially produced document than a value-free information source. It reflects the viewpoints, interests, and emphases of the people that use it (Kapila & Royal, Pg 1)." These two sentences perfectly sum up the whole article.
There are many factors that contribute to the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is a wiki type encyclopedia, anyone can comment on it and change information about a certain topic. There is a board that reviews the changes on certain terms but that does not validate the accuracy of everything on the site. People may leave their own opinions on the site and they may have a biased opinion on a term. Upon reviewing a term that has favoritism toward a subject matter this reflects the opinions of others. So now we have an encyclopedia forming around biased opinions rather than being an information source. This is a highly viewed inaccuracy of the site.
Turning our attention toward the review of the literature on Wikipedia there are many inaccuracies as well. After looking at many articles on Wikipedia Denning, Horning, Parnas, and Weinstein (2005) noticed that found that much of the content is focused toward frequent internet users and the youth (pg 152). They also mention that much of late history is vaguely touched upon and may be inaccurate. These are important factors because alot of this information we are using in our essays for school and as scholarly sources. Again this is another downfall of the overall content of Wikipedia.
There are many views on Wikipedia as well as great information. Some may be biased and not what you are looking for. All in all I would try to find other sources besides Wikipedia when looking for information.
Royal, Cindy & Kapila, Deepina. (in press). What's on Wikipedia, and what's not . . . ? Social Science Computer Review.
There are many factors that contribute to the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is a wiki type encyclopedia, anyone can comment on it and change information about a certain topic. There is a board that reviews the changes on certain terms but that does not validate the accuracy of everything on the site. People may leave their own opinions on the site and they may have a biased opinion on a term. Upon reviewing a term that has favoritism toward a subject matter this reflects the opinions of others. So now we have an encyclopedia forming around biased opinions rather than being an information source. This is a highly viewed inaccuracy of the site.
Turning our attention toward the review of the literature on Wikipedia there are many inaccuracies as well. After looking at many articles on Wikipedia Denning, Horning, Parnas, and Weinstein (2005) noticed that found that much of the content is focused toward frequent internet users and the youth (pg 152). They also mention that much of late history is vaguely touched upon and may be inaccurate. These are important factors because alot of this information we are using in our essays for school and as scholarly sources. Again this is another downfall of the overall content of Wikipedia.
There are many views on Wikipedia as well as great information. Some may be biased and not what you are looking for. All in all I would try to find other sources besides Wikipedia when looking for information.
Royal, Cindy & Kapila, Deepina. (in press). What's on Wikipedia, and what's not . . . ? Social Science Computer Review.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Third Essay --- Facebook/Web 2.0
There are many Web 2.0 media that have contributed to the broad spectrum of communication, as we know today. Some examples are MySpace, Facebook, BitTorrent, Napster, Wikis, Google AdSense, and Flickr. The medium that I chose to research is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking website with many applications that make the site more exciting. Some applications include graffiti wall, sports betting (fake money), personality tests, and group making applications. There are many sources that I have evaluated for the content of my final essay. I will be basing the my resources on the criteria Bonnie Tensen lays out in “Research strategies for a digital age.” The six main things to look for when analyzing an article are purpose, source, intended audience, date publication, appearance, and reputation (pg 80).
First I started out with the Yahoo! Search engine to look for articles. The keywords that I used for the search was “Facebook web 2.0”. I chose these words because, I thought that Yahoo! would bring up any information with relevance of web 2.0 technology related to Facebook. The first article that I looked at was, “Will Facebook Platform Be The New Arbiter Of Web 2.0?” written by Scott Karp. The first thing that I noticed about this article was the date, which was, May 27, 2007. I would say this article is a bit outdated compared to what I want to look for on my paper. Considering the article is also a blog focused on music only I would not use it because it has one focus. The next article on Yahoo! that I found was, ”Will IBM compete with Facebook/Web 2.0?” written by Dennis Howlett. This article lost my interest right away because it was also sort of outdated with a publication date of August 10, 2007. I decided to read further into the article and found it to be a little intriguing. I find it interesting how they are talking about bringing IBM into the social networking world. The page layout and appearance was very professional which made me want to read the article. This could be a useful source and I wont take it off the list just yet. The third site on Yahoo! was “Facebook set to overtake MySpace” by Dion Hinchcliffe. This is another blog from the same site as the second article that I just looked up. This could be a positive thing because if there are many articles from this site maybe it can help the sites reputation. Reputation is a good thing to look for because, you do not want to use a site that has a bad reputation that you may not know about. This page was created a little over a year ago but has some good facts. It compares two huge social networking sites. This is a great thing to compare when looking at web 2.0 and names in the same field. These were the three sites that I chose on Yahoo!.
The next search engine I chose was Google. Again the keywords that I chose were “Facebook web 2.0”. The first article that I looked at was “How Facebook Is Bringing Web 2.0 Mainstream”. This is a blog from a user on 9rules and is a pretty good description of Facebook and how it incorporates all the essentials of web 2.0. I would most definitely use this as a source on paper because there are great facts in this article as well as key terms associated with Facebook and web 2.0. This was the only useful article I got off of Google. I was really surprised and disappointed at the same time, so off I went to Ask Jeeves.
When I typed in the same keywords in Ask I got a lot of the same articles that I saw on Yahoo! and Google. The first different one that I retrieved was ”ABC News, Facebook add Web 2.0 angle to presidential race”. This article was from November of last year and very interesting. This article spoke of the presidential debate and how the new technology may play a roll on voters. We are talking about this same topic in another class as well and I find this article to be useful. This article is from a computer site which serves the purpose of letting people know about new technology. The next article was “MySpace, Facebook bantering at Web 2.0 conference” posted by Caroline McCarthy. This article is great because it talks about MySpace another social networking site and how it has to catch up to Facebook in a sense. This site is very professional and has commentary from the CEO of MySpace which makes it more reputable. The third article “A Very Facebook Web 2.0 Summit” by Frank Gruber is about his experience at web 2.0 conferences. He talks about how Facebook is a huge topic at all these events and how popular it has become. This article is from October of last year but brings up important topics about web 2.0 as well as Facebook. The next article that I looked at was very attention grabbing. It was called "Facebook hack fuels web 2.0 concerns" by Matt Hines. It spoke about an application on Facebook that people downloaded and it was actually an adware program that was disguised. This article points out that this is the first attack on Facebook while there have been many attacks on MySpace already. This article is useful because it is from January 2008 and its purpose is to inform users of possible threats on Facebook. These are the articles that I found on Ask Jeeves that would pertain to my final essay.
The next place that I chose to look for articles was on University at Albany’s library database. I did an overall search for “Facebook” so it could search everything. The first article that I retrieved was ”Evaluating Web Content Social Networking Sites”. This article spoke about social networking site communities and it happened to mention Facebook. There was not much information about Facebook on here, just information about it related to social networking. I did not expect there to be much information on the databases with Facebook because it is a fairly new technology. This page did not serve much of a purpose for me and I most likely would not use it on my paper. The next page I found was “Introduction to the Internet” which basically was a timeline. This gave a brief history on the Internet and how it was formed and such and it gave years in which big events happened. In 2004 Facebook was mentioned about being a web 2.0 technologies. There is not much information on Facebook or web 2.0 so the only time I might use this source is if I was looking for an event pertaining to my topic. I did not find the library resources very useful because it did not cover my topics that much. This may be because the technology is new compared to the information the library has.
I think with the information I have retrieved from the three search engines and the little information from the library database I am well prepared for my final essay. I could give pros and cons of Facebook as a medium as well. Educating the public on this issue should not be a problem using these resources that I have researched.
Tensen, Bonnie L. (2004). Research strategies for a digital age (Chapter 5). Boston: Wadsworth.
First I started out with the Yahoo! Search engine to look for articles. The keywords that I used for the search was “Facebook web 2.0”. I chose these words because, I thought that Yahoo! would bring up any information with relevance of web 2.0 technology related to Facebook. The first article that I looked at was, “Will Facebook Platform Be The New Arbiter Of Web 2.0?” written by Scott Karp. The first thing that I noticed about this article was the date, which was, May 27, 2007. I would say this article is a bit outdated compared to what I want to look for on my paper. Considering the article is also a blog focused on music only I would not use it because it has one focus. The next article on Yahoo! that I found was, ”Will IBM compete with Facebook/Web 2.0?” written by Dennis Howlett. This article lost my interest right away because it was also sort of outdated with a publication date of August 10, 2007. I decided to read further into the article and found it to be a little intriguing. I find it interesting how they are talking about bringing IBM into the social networking world. The page layout and appearance was very professional which made me want to read the article. This could be a useful source and I wont take it off the list just yet. The third site on Yahoo! was “Facebook set to overtake MySpace” by Dion Hinchcliffe. This is another blog from the same site as the second article that I just looked up. This could be a positive thing because if there are many articles from this site maybe it can help the sites reputation. Reputation is a good thing to look for because, you do not want to use a site that has a bad reputation that you may not know about. This page was created a little over a year ago but has some good facts. It compares two huge social networking sites. This is a great thing to compare when looking at web 2.0 and names in the same field. These were the three sites that I chose on Yahoo!.
The next search engine I chose was Google. Again the keywords that I chose were “Facebook web 2.0”. The first article that I looked at was “How Facebook Is Bringing Web 2.0 Mainstream”. This is a blog from a user on 9rules and is a pretty good description of Facebook and how it incorporates all the essentials of web 2.0. I would most definitely use this as a source on paper because there are great facts in this article as well as key terms associated with Facebook and web 2.0. This was the only useful article I got off of Google. I was really surprised and disappointed at the same time, so off I went to Ask Jeeves.
When I typed in the same keywords in Ask I got a lot of the same articles that I saw on Yahoo! and Google. The first different one that I retrieved was ”ABC News, Facebook add Web 2.0 angle to presidential race”. This article was from November of last year and very interesting. This article spoke of the presidential debate and how the new technology may play a roll on voters. We are talking about this same topic in another class as well and I find this article to be useful. This article is from a computer site which serves the purpose of letting people know about new technology. The next article was “MySpace, Facebook bantering at Web 2.0 conference” posted by Caroline McCarthy. This article is great because it talks about MySpace another social networking site and how it has to catch up to Facebook in a sense. This site is very professional and has commentary from the CEO of MySpace which makes it more reputable. The third article “A Very Facebook Web 2.0 Summit” by Frank Gruber is about his experience at web 2.0 conferences. He talks about how Facebook is a huge topic at all these events and how popular it has become. This article is from October of last year but brings up important topics about web 2.0 as well as Facebook. The next article that I looked at was very attention grabbing. It was called "Facebook hack fuels web 2.0 concerns" by Matt Hines. It spoke about an application on Facebook that people downloaded and it was actually an adware program that was disguised. This article points out that this is the first attack on Facebook while there have been many attacks on MySpace already. This article is useful because it is from January 2008 and its purpose is to inform users of possible threats on Facebook. These are the articles that I found on Ask Jeeves that would pertain to my final essay.
The next place that I chose to look for articles was on University at Albany’s library database. I did an overall search for “Facebook” so it could search everything. The first article that I retrieved was ”Evaluating Web Content Social Networking Sites”. This article spoke about social networking site communities and it happened to mention Facebook. There was not much information about Facebook on here, just information about it related to social networking. I did not expect there to be much information on the databases with Facebook because it is a fairly new technology. This page did not serve much of a purpose for me and I most likely would not use it on my paper. The next page I found was “Introduction to the Internet” which basically was a timeline. This gave a brief history on the Internet and how it was formed and such and it gave years in which big events happened. In 2004 Facebook was mentioned about being a web 2.0 technologies. There is not much information on Facebook or web 2.0 so the only time I might use this source is if I was looking for an event pertaining to my topic. I did not find the library resources very useful because it did not cover my topics that much. This may be because the technology is new compared to the information the library has.
I think with the information I have retrieved from the three search engines and the little information from the library database I am well prepared for my final essay. I could give pros and cons of Facebook as a medium as well. Educating the public on this issue should not be a problem using these resources that I have researched.
Tensen, Bonnie L. (2004). Research strategies for a digital age (Chapter 5). Boston: Wadsworth.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Quality of Information ---> October 13, 2008
In today’s reading Research strategies for a digital age by Bonnie Tensen she explains how to determine the quality of information online. She states on pages 72 the key differences between search engines and subject guides. Tensen explains how “Yahoo! organizes its search mechanisms around subject categories.” Every search engine does not follow this same set of steps. “Many search engines use “robots” or “spiders” that rank pages according to algorithmic programs. These programs search the whole page and look for the keywords in the text (Tensen, pg 72).” Subject directories on the other hand use “guides”. Tensen define the job of “guides” as, “steering the user to the most appropriate sites and help them avoid inaccurate and/or unverifiable Web pages.” This is why a directory would be more useful for research rather than a search engine. These are many of the ways that data is retrieved but there is more to look at when it comes to validity of content.
There are many things that have to be observed when looking at Web pages to find it suitable to use. Tensen gives six valid points to look at when reviewing an online source. They are purpose, source, intended audience, date of publication, appearance, and reputation (pg 80). These are all great areas to look into before using any publication for a resource. I think the areas that would give the piece of writing the most credit would be the purpose why they wrote it and the intended audience. Hopefully with students using these check marks teachers will not second guess online content as much.
There are many things that have to be observed when looking at Web pages to find it suitable to use. Tensen gives six valid points to look at when reviewing an online source. They are purpose, source, intended audience, date of publication, appearance, and reputation (pg 80). These are all great areas to look into before using any publication for a resource. I think the areas that would give the piece of writing the most credit would be the purpose why they wrote it and the intended audience. Hopefully with students using these check marks teachers will not second guess online content as much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
