Week 2 - Tutorial Task

Part 1: B) When asked to find a clip about NCT this instantly popped into my head. An amusing parody by the Futurama team (created by Matt Groening) about the iPhone 4. I find this highly relevant to this course as the Apple brand is a technology that is dominating the market, and it shows the mindlessness of people blindly following media advertising. 

C) The application I found to better use and analyse one's own business website was Yahoo Web Analytics. If you go to this URL: http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/ you will get a comprehensive outline of it's capabilities and even a walk through video of your account once you join. The most innovative aspect I saw in this was the ability of this tool to view in real time when people are viewing your website, collecting this data and putting into graphs to show you visually how many hits you get. They also combine this with a revenue graph as a comparison of how much is coming in to who visits and when. Amazing!

Part 2:

Well the main communication technology I utilise to connect with family and friends at present is a mobile. Mainly via text, except with my parents who find this method painstakingly slow. But even then this is infrequent, as I am struggling with money and the recharge that lasts only a month is a bit of a strain. So I rely heavily of Facebook on wireless broadband and my partner's HTC Mozart. His phone is our "home phone", we have no land line connected as we would never use it; it being a waste of money. 

How long have you been using these communication technologies?

I have had a mobile since about 16 (2005), and have been on Facebook since later high school years.

What influenced you to start using these particular technologies?  How did you find out about them? 

For mobiles it would have to be peer pressure, as everyone around me were purchasing the Nokia 3315, which was all the rage back then. You could customise the outside with new cases and accessories, and inside allowed you to fiddle with ring-tones and even make your own. When it comes to Facebook I found out and joined up due to a Canadian friend of mine who was living in Australia for 10 months. It seemed everyone over there was using it, while all of us here were still on Myspace. It was a slow process but I eventually gave up on Myspace all together as no one was on it, having converted to Facebook. 

Is privacy an issue for you when using new technologies?  What do you think of companies like Facebook and Google who collect information about their users?   (How do you deal with issues around privacy?)

Although it's not a concern at the forefront of my mind, I do crinkle my brow now and then in concern of the rights Google and Facebook have over my personal information. Especially when it comes to photos, as I have posted up hundreds of my travels and many I would consider portfolio worthy. I know they're compressed images, not at all close to the quality of the real files, but who knows what they might use them for? 

Do you have friends whom you know only from the internet and have never met in person? Is this different to people that you know in person?  Describe the difference.

Yes. A person over in the UK with the same name as me added me on Facebook. But I don't know if I would consider her a real friend. I don't. Of course online and face to face friendships are different; there's no way you can achieve the same level of intimacy and camaraderie as when you have the physicality of the person. You don't just communicate with words on a screen, or even a face on Skype. There's the tactile - the hug, the playful push. And the olfactory - their musk, their breath. These are unavailable in a cyber relationship, and I find the physical essential in building a long lasting, real friendship.