Telepresence

With the growth of companies and the increase of airline tickets its harder everyday for companies to send their employees on business trips. However, technology is always a step ahead and telepresence has played an important role in the communication between companies. Telepresence is video-conferencing that is modified. Conference rooms are equipped with high-quality audio, video and networking technology in order for business meetings to take place. This new type of networking and technology helps big companies to have important meetings without expenses and traveling. I think this is a create invention and it will help many business to have closer relationships with important clients. Some of the companies who currently use telepresence are Teliris, Hewlett-Packard, Tandberg, Cisco and Polycom.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/16/db.telepresence/index.html

World Hunger

World Hunger is an issue that surrounds us all and affects the entire world. This video was made to inspire people to contribute a little bit of their time and money to help all the children and people around the world that suffer from hunger. Every 5 seconds a child dies due to hunger related diseases, so lets all try to help and make this statistics change. If everybody could donate a small amount of money to organizations that help children around the world, we could improve their lives. The video shows some pictures taken of small children who suffer from hunger day by day. Please take a minute to watch it and please help us change this situation.

Democrats and the Web

As elections approach the mailbox of million of Americans begin to fill up and the phones cant stop ringing. The democrats have decided to change that with the 2008 elections, Hillary and Obama have taken the best advantage of the Internet to communicate with their followers and to gain new public. Videos on youtube and information sent to emails have been a huge part of their success in their 08 campaigns."For millions of Americans, the Internet has turned presidential politics into a fully interactive event, a chance to give money with mouse clicks and to volunteer virtually from miles away. And the Democrats have used these tools to produce historic results". I think that the use of social networks on the web has increased the advantage of this politicians to communicate more effectively with their followers. Donating for campaigns with the click of a mouse is easier than ever, and at the same time you become more informed on their positions and their personal ideas. I have watched tons of videos on youtube of Hillary's and Obama's speeches given at college campuses, such as the one given recently at UT. Facebook and MySpace have also served to great groups and to support their political leaders. They have created a space in which the public can express their ideas and ask questions as well. This interaction between the communities helps us to make an informed decision on the day of voting for the next presidential election.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1731879,00.html?cnn=yes

Girl Beating

Lately, I've seen new incidents of middle school girls getting into fights and being taped. After that the tapes are loaded up on popular social media outlets such as youtube. The last incident took place in Florida and the most recent one in Clarksville, Indiana. The police say that the incident was plotted by a group of girls. They took the victim near a warehouse and one of the girl's began a discussion with her until she started beating her up. The other girls present at the scene taped the beating and laughed. After this the tapes go online and they are viewed by millions of people on the Internet. I think that this is a serious issue and parents must become aware of what is going on with their teenage children. Girls have always been seen as the disciplined and not involved in cat fights. Now a days the violence on television and video games inspire not only boys to become violent but girls as well. As new influence rs we have to take into consideration of what kind of information and media we put out their because this those affect the youth and their behavior.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/19/girl.beating.ap/index.html

Overcoming Language Barriers

Chris de Wolfe, the co-founder of My space announced their launching of a Korean language site. My space representatives believe that the popular hangout language website will be a success in South Korea. The site will include a "Minilog" which is a place were the youth of South Korea can share their feeling and thoughts.On of the representatives stated "The MySpace site will be primarily in Korean, though users can easily switch the interface to another language. Information written on the personal profile pages, however, won't be automatically translated". The facebook website is also breaking barriers by incorporating a facebook in spanish. I think that breaking language barriers is a great idea, this way social media becomes more global and everybody can be a part of it. However, I think that the communication between different languages will probably be very difficult, but the whole idea is to create communication and for everybody to be part of it. Social media outlets are so important today and it is crucial for them to exist in other cultures and languages.http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/15/south.korea.myspace.ap/index.html

Facebook News Feed on Wedding Ring

On monday we talked about the new Facebook news feed that was installed during 2007. Of course it's fun to see what your friends are writing among each other and know who's friends with who now. However, it is not fun when you buy an engagement ring and all your friends including your bride to be finds out about it. This is what happened to a guy who bought the engagement ring on overstock.com and a couple of hours later his buddies were calling him to congratulate him. I think this has gone to far on the part of Facebook, their is a privacy section on the website for a reason and I think that your personal purchases should be kept private as well. In class we learned that facebook did offer an apology and some of the news feed related to online purchases were removed. I think that this is just the beginning of other intrusions of privacy coming in our direction, with new technology and websites such as facebook their is more ground for marketers and advertising agencies to reach us and know more information about our private lives. Although I am a pr and advertising major and I want to know my costumer more at the same time I want to respect their personal life and I don't want them to feel intruded by our company or product. Facebook made a mistake and apologized, but this leads me to believe that their will be more upcoming surprising news feeds.

Baghdad Burning

I am currently taking a Gender and Globalization class here at St. Edward's. One of our textbooks for the class is based on the true story of an Iraqi woman who narrates her experience during the war. The name of the book is "Baghdad Burning", the interesting thing about this book and the reason why Im relating it to this class is that the book is based on the blogs she writes daily. At the beginning many people were suspicious of her blogs because she remains anonymous and her english is perfect. Her blog name is Riverbend and only her publisher knows her true identity. In her blogs she talks about the constant struggle she is currently living in her own country. She also talks about how americans and the world have a twisted notion of how Iraq really is. In her blog she says: I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night."
This book and Riverbend's blogs have taught me that your experiences can be shared with the whole world through the internet. This woman now has a book that is talked about in colleges around the nation and the information that she wants to share with us can help change a bit of the perception that people in america have of Iraq.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/