Americansingles.com is a medium through which men and women, ages 18 to 99, can meet other people virtually for many reasons including dating, marriage, or just wanting a companion. This virtual world which people are able to communicate through leads one to believe that the targeted viewers, or audience, is singles in America seeking other singles for some kind of relationship. This is an assumption that many make when going on this site since everyone is listed in America and why else would someone go on this site unless they were looking for a date. There are major flaws with this medium though which prevent someone from knowing whether or not someone is truthful.
The website itself is virtual, so there is no real parts to it. This turns anyone who goes onto the site virtual as well. The people talking aren't actually virtual, but the medium itself transforms people into virtual characters inside a virtual world. The consequence of this is a virtual person can be made for things such as advertising or pranks. From research done on americansingles.com, researchers were instant messaged by virtual "women" and asked to view their web cam videos. This seemed intimidating for the researchers since they did not want to show themselves on a web cam. The conversation ended at this point because the researchers would be sent to web cam porn sites. This situation is very strange at first glance, but is not a very surprising result if you know about the major internet usages.
According to an internet pornography filter, 42.7% of internet users viewed porn in 2006. This brought in 4.9 billion dollars in sales. These numbers show that there is a significant advantage in selling web cam porn on a dating website. The audience is assumed to be lonely and single, men and women. This is an opportune medium for someone who sells virtual sex because their targets are not having sex and they're 18 or older. To prove this point, one of the largest websites on the internet is an adult dating website called adultfriendfinder.com which is the 42nd most viewed website out of 175 million websites on the internet. According to these numbers, more people want to view "sex and swinger personals"(adultfriendfinder.com), then "Online dating, romance and friendship"(americansingles.com) websites.
With this knowledge, one may now assume that not only are the users of americansingles lonely and single, but 2 in 5 users are interested in virtual sex according to the internet pornography filter. Since advertisers for pornography websites know this, they are able to manipulate single internet users into going on their website giving them the impression they will find a relationship easily. Then they make virtual characters that will try to persuade users to view their site. They make everything seem free upfront, but it ends up costing in the long run. This is no different from the real world though. For example, you can go to a store for free, but if you want anything then you have to pay. The workers make virtual personalities to persuade you to buy their products, even ones you do not really want, but are related to what you are buying. The difference between the two mediums is you know who the sells person is at a store. On a dating website, the seller can be anyone. Also a dating websites world allows the seller to change his appearance along with his personality.
Altogether, a dating website is not safe from advertisers and porn, therefore it is not a reliable dating medium. It can be potentially dangerous for some, since they can be tricked into paying for something they thought was free. People will continue to use dating websites though because it is easier to live in this virtual world called the internet because not only can others change themselves, but so can you.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Search Engines Role on the Internet
Every day, hundreds of millions of people search the internet. Either for news or just because they want to see the latest Youtube videos. All of this is possible by the invention of the search engine. Without it, no one would be able to find any web sites on the internet unless they already knew the exact name of the web site they wanted to visit. In the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", Nicholas Carr tries to convince the readers that Google, one of the best search engines, is contributing to his new found difficulty in reading and writing. He accuses the internet of decreasing his and several people he knows attention. The author attempts to make himself and his friends seem well educated, but it still seems like they are ignorant of the internet uses and purpose.
Google has many faults, like most sites on the internet, but it is not the real problem. There are many other search engines that are worse than Google, such as Yahoo. Yahoo is used more often than Google and Yahoo offers the kinds of features that keep a person sitting in front of their computer for hours at a time. It offers games, news, e-mail, instant messenging, radio the list goes on. Google has some comparable features, but Yahoo still has so many more, that Google will have a hard time catching up. This is mainly shown by Google's rank on page views. Yahoo has more than twice as many page views as Google, which means people visit more than twice as many different web pages on Yahoo than on Google. To make Yahoo look even worse, it places many more ads on its web site than Google.
When one uses Google's search engine, you may get ads if you are searching for something that can be offered as some sort of service or product you can buy. Yahoo, on the other hand places ads on the page no matter what is being searched. For example, when "stuff" is searched on Google, no ads show up because there are no products that could identify with something as simple as the word "stuff". But when "stuff" is searched on Yahoo, several random ads are placed on the side bar, even though none of the ads shown sell "stuff". The ads just happen to have to word "stuff" in it. Also, Yahoo has ads everywhere else on its web site, unlike Google. Even if you want to check your e-mail, you get several huge ads placed in the middle of the screen, attempting to pull you into the web.
Google does show many ads on its site, when it applies to your search though. But running a huge site , such as Google, isn't free. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to run a such a big site, therefore ads are a huge source of income. Many of the ads shown are usually very useful especially if the searcher is looking for something to buy. There are ads sometimes that have nothing to do with a search, but no one is forced to click on the ad, it is against the law to force anyone to click on an ad.
The main reason Google shouldn't be disliked is it mostly links to other sites. It only does what you tell it to do, so you have complete control over the search engine. Google will take you where you want and no where else because that's all it knows. So, if anyone is to be blamed for an inability to read something for more than a minute or two because they cannot stop surfing the web is the user. Google cannot be accused because it does not tell you to do anything, it merely presents to you what you want to find. If user does not want to spend hours on the internet browsing aimlessly, then that person simply can stop. The problem is surfing the internet can be very addicting if you are bored. It is just like watching TV, you can be sucked into the screen so easily, and once you start watching your favorite show, it is hard to stop. The internet is no different, but it is not Google that does this to you, it is the sites that contain the content in which you are interested.
Without Google or any other search engine, the internet would be exactly the same as it is now. It would be just as harmful to someone who is easily distracted or browses the internet because they are bored. When you go on any site on the internet, you will be linked to many other sites. Those sites will also have links to many more sites, and the chain will never end. But this is not a horrible thing because we are able to find so much information in such a short period of time that it is well worth it. This is true only if you know what you are looking for and not ready to be side tracked by the billions of other things that can be searched for on the internet. Overall the internet and it's search engines have many more benefits to them then Carr may think.
Google has many faults, like most sites on the internet, but it is not the real problem. There are many other search engines that are worse than Google, such as Yahoo. Yahoo is used more often than Google and Yahoo offers the kinds of features that keep a person sitting in front of their computer for hours at a time. It offers games, news, e-mail, instant messenging, radio the list goes on. Google has some comparable features, but Yahoo still has so many more, that Google will have a hard time catching up. This is mainly shown by Google's rank on page views. Yahoo has more than twice as many page views as Google, which means people visit more than twice as many different web pages on Yahoo than on Google. To make Yahoo look even worse, it places many more ads on its web site than Google.
When one uses Google's search engine, you may get ads if you are searching for something that can be offered as some sort of service or product you can buy. Yahoo, on the other hand places ads on the page no matter what is being searched. For example, when "stuff" is searched on Google, no ads show up because there are no products that could identify with something as simple as the word "stuff". But when "stuff" is searched on Yahoo, several random ads are placed on the side bar, even though none of the ads shown sell "stuff". The ads just happen to have to word "stuff" in it. Also, Yahoo has ads everywhere else on its web site, unlike Google. Even if you want to check your e-mail, you get several huge ads placed in the middle of the screen, attempting to pull you into the web.
Google does show many ads on its site, when it applies to your search though. But running a huge site , such as Google, isn't free. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to run a such a big site, therefore ads are a huge source of income. Many of the ads shown are usually very useful especially if the searcher is looking for something to buy. There are ads sometimes that have nothing to do with a search, but no one is forced to click on the ad, it is against the law to force anyone to click on an ad.
The main reason Google shouldn't be disliked is it mostly links to other sites. It only does what you tell it to do, so you have complete control over the search engine. Google will take you where you want and no where else because that's all it knows. So, if anyone is to be blamed for an inability to read something for more than a minute or two because they cannot stop surfing the web is the user. Google cannot be accused because it does not tell you to do anything, it merely presents to you what you want to find. If user does not want to spend hours on the internet browsing aimlessly, then that person simply can stop. The problem is surfing the internet can be very addicting if you are bored. It is just like watching TV, you can be sucked into the screen so easily, and once you start watching your favorite show, it is hard to stop. The internet is no different, but it is not Google that does this to you, it is the sites that contain the content in which you are interested.
Without Google or any other search engine, the internet would be exactly the same as it is now. It would be just as harmful to someone who is easily distracted or browses the internet because they are bored. When you go on any site on the internet, you will be linked to many other sites. Those sites will also have links to many more sites, and the chain will never end. But this is not a horrible thing because we are able to find so much information in such a short period of time that it is well worth it. This is true only if you know what you are looking for and not ready to be side tracked by the billions of other things that can be searched for on the internet. Overall the internet and it's search engines have many more benefits to them then Carr may think.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Are technologies given more value than the deserve?
Are technologies here to improve and ease life in a way that benefits the user? One may look at this question and rush to say yes, of course they do. I couldn't fully disagree, but many of the things that are supposed to improve our life also harm us at the same time. Social Networks, GPS, video games, computers, and internet are just a few of these technologies that seem so wonderful. What is it about all of these that improves or eases your life? Social Networks connect you to your friends and family, so that is unarguably a benefit. With GPS you will never be lost again because your GPS will find you where ever you are. You don't have to make friends or see your family anymore because now you can have friends and family in a video game. Computers can do anything from adding to guiding a space ship. And with the internet, all computers can be connected. All of these benefits for something that I could consider harmful. So we will take a look at each of these technologies one at a time to find what could possibly be so aweful about them.
The number one social network, myspace, became popular about five years ago. It attracted people from all over the world, partly because you can change your myspace page to anything you want and it's free. As of 2006, myspace had over 100,000,000 active users. That's a lot of people on a website that's free. To run a site like that, it would cost 10,000's if not 100,000's of dollars a month. So they have to be making money somehow to run this site. This is what makes myspace so harmful. You may first go on myspace and want to talk with your friends or family, that helps myspace a little bit because now they have a large group coming to their site. But you're only going to stay so long on their site. It will end up being just like e-mail, so they allow you to customize your myspace in so many ways that you spend even more time on the site. Then they add all sorts of features such as blogs, forums, music, video clips the list goes on. Each of these different features attracts more and more people and it gets you to sit on myspace even longer. America is already suffering from an obesity problem and this doesn't help. People get trapped on myspace and now they don't have to hang out with their friends because they can go on myspace. Then myspace makes money from this at the same time.
Myspace have so many people on their site all the time that advertisers are willing to pay really high prices to put any ads on the site. Another way they can make money is from all the information you are required to provide when you sign up for a myspace. With this information, they can find out what kind of things you look at and then categorize you based on location, age group, and gender. That seems kinda scary that they could collect all that information about you, but myspace would tell you if they were going to do something with your information, so you don't have to worry. It even says it in the privacy policy, "MySpace will get your permission before we use the PII you provide to us in a way that is inconsistent with the purpose for which it was submitted or share your PII with third parties that are not affiliated with MySpace"(PII is personally identifiable information). It says right there that they can't give away your information without your permission, but there is one word in there which changes everything, "affiliated". So, the information can be given away to other third parties, as long as they are affiliated with myspace. When myspace puts someones ads on their site, they become an affiliate of that advertiser, so does that mean myspace can potentially sell your information to that advertiser? It is a risk you have to take if you want to apply to myspace. There are other problems with myspace, but lets take a look at how video games have major downfalls, some of which are related to myspace.
Many video games have a very addictive component to them. Just like myspace, they show you tons of flashing lights, give you more features than you could ever possibly need, and you're hooked. The problems with video games though, are by far worst than myspace's. One such example is the addiction problem people have with mmorpg(massively multiplayer online role playing game). I've seen people addicted to myspace so badly that they were on most of the day, but that is nothing in comparison to what mmorpg players do. Some of my friends were addicted to one and they were on from the time they woke up, until the time the went to sleep. They might take a break to get something to eat, but they'd bring it make to their computer and eat while they played. They would even skip class because they couldn't stop playing the game. I've even read stories about people getting a divorce because one of the spouses could no longer put up with the addiction.
This seems crazy that someone could be so addicted to a video game. But is it really that much different from any of the other things in which people become addicted? Video games put the user into a "virtual reality" where they can do things that aren't possible in the real world. It numbs reality so you don't have to deal with your problems in life because you take on the identity of the video game characters. Its easier to get friends because you can talk to anyone in the game without any feelings of nervousness. If they don't want to talk to you, then their's no real rejection because they don't actually see or know you and you can always talk to someone else, just like myspace.
Even though there are several disadvantages to using certain technologies, people will continue to use them. Just like cigarettes, people know they'll suffer an agonizing death from smoking, but the continue to do so anyways.
The number one social network, myspace, became popular about five years ago. It attracted people from all over the world, partly because you can change your myspace page to anything you want and it's free. As of 2006, myspace had over 100,000,000 active users. That's a lot of people on a website that's free. To run a site like that, it would cost 10,000's if not 100,000's of dollars a month. So they have to be making money somehow to run this site. This is what makes myspace so harmful. You may first go on myspace and want to talk with your friends or family, that helps myspace a little bit because now they have a large group coming to their site. But you're only going to stay so long on their site. It will end up being just like e-mail, so they allow you to customize your myspace in so many ways that you spend even more time on the site. Then they add all sorts of features such as blogs, forums, music, video clips the list goes on. Each of these different features attracts more and more people and it gets you to sit on myspace even longer. America is already suffering from an obesity problem and this doesn't help. People get trapped on myspace and now they don't have to hang out with their friends because they can go on myspace. Then myspace makes money from this at the same time.
Myspace have so many people on their site all the time that advertisers are willing to pay really high prices to put any ads on the site. Another way they can make money is from all the information you are required to provide when you sign up for a myspace. With this information, they can find out what kind of things you look at and then categorize you based on location, age group, and gender. That seems kinda scary that they could collect all that information about you, but myspace would tell you if they were going to do something with your information, so you don't have to worry. It even says it in the privacy policy, "MySpace will get your permission before we use the PII you provide to us in a way that is inconsistent with the purpose for which it was submitted or share your PII with third parties that are not affiliated with MySpace"(PII is personally identifiable information). It says right there that they can't give away your information without your permission, but there is one word in there which changes everything, "affiliated". So, the information can be given away to other third parties, as long as they are affiliated with myspace. When myspace puts someones ads on their site, they become an affiliate of that advertiser, so does that mean myspace can potentially sell your information to that advertiser? It is a risk you have to take if you want to apply to myspace. There are other problems with myspace, but lets take a look at how video games have major downfalls, some of which are related to myspace.
Many video games have a very addictive component to them. Just like myspace, they show you tons of flashing lights, give you more features than you could ever possibly need, and you're hooked. The problems with video games though, are by far worst than myspace's. One such example is the addiction problem people have with mmorpg(massively multiplayer online role playing game). I've seen people addicted to myspace so badly that they were on most of the day, but that is nothing in comparison to what mmorpg players do. Some of my friends were addicted to one and they were on from the time they woke up, until the time the went to sleep. They might take a break to get something to eat, but they'd bring it make to their computer and eat while they played. They would even skip class because they couldn't stop playing the game. I've even read stories about people getting a divorce because one of the spouses could no longer put up with the addiction.
This seems crazy that someone could be so addicted to a video game. But is it really that much different from any of the other things in which people become addicted? Video games put the user into a "virtual reality" where they can do things that aren't possible in the real world. It numbs reality so you don't have to deal with your problems in life because you take on the identity of the video game characters. Its easier to get friends because you can talk to anyone in the game without any feelings of nervousness. If they don't want to talk to you, then their's no real rejection because they don't actually see or know you and you can always talk to someone else, just like myspace.
Even though there are several disadvantages to using certain technologies, people will continue to use them. Just like cigarettes, people know they'll suffer an agonizing death from smoking, but the continue to do so anyways.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Dislike for Blogging
I never thought I'd write a blog until last night when I got an e-mail about my writing class. The main reason for this is I could never understand why someone would want to write about their life everyday, then let anyone in the world read their stories. Also, reading someone's journal is not very interesting. Reading a blog is like reading about a celebrity story, no one really cares, but if you're bored enough and have nothing better to do, then it actually seems a little interesting. Though many blogs are like this, not all blogs are personal journals made public. For this reason, I don't mind writing blogs for this class.
Blogging is an efficient way of improving writing skills, since anyone can make corrections to your papers. This makes blogging useful in this case since I'd like to greatly improve my writing skills. I have not had many teachers that could be considered qualified to teach a writing course. So I have never liked writing much because I was only taught how to write using a formulaic writing style. I wanted to write my own way, but I would be punished with a lower grade because my writing didn't have the write number of commentary or concrete details in a paragraph. Once I got to college I started to like writing, since my professors let me write the way I wanted to, as long as my essays made sense. Now I'd like to take more writing classes then I thought I would so I can become a proficient writer. My main goal is getting into law school which makes writing one of my top priorities.
Blogging is an efficient way of improving writing skills, since anyone can make corrections to your papers. This makes blogging useful in this case since I'd like to greatly improve my writing skills. I have not had many teachers that could be considered qualified to teach a writing course. So I have never liked writing much because I was only taught how to write using a formulaic writing style. I wanted to write my own way, but I would be punished with a lower grade because my writing didn't have the write number of commentary or concrete details in a paragraph. Once I got to college I started to like writing, since my professors let me write the way I wanted to, as long as my essays made sense. Now I'd like to take more writing classes then I thought I would so I can become a proficient writer. My main goal is getting into law school which makes writing one of my top priorities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)