The price of security

I’d like to begin by presenting a question. Why would a billion dollar company purchase a small app start-up for $19 billion dollars? The answer is more complicated than you might think. Facebook recently purchased WhatsApp, an app that took in a shabby $20 million in profits compared to its new big brother company led by Mark Zuckerberg. But WhatsApp, a private messaging app, was labeled successful by Facebook’s terms, boasting 450 million users and counting. And when Mark Zuckerberg considers you a threat, he does something about it. The deal was relatively quiet. For the most part, news organizations and websites covered the story, while users accepted it and moved on. I, for one, am surprised this deal didn’t get more media attention. By that, I mean I’m shocked people didn’t freak out.

After all, $19 billion is the most any one company has ever paid for another tech company. $19 billion American dollars on something made up of signals and messages. When a person or company decides to make a purchase for an amount close to this price, they usually receive something physical in return. But Facebook didn’t need anything like that. What they needed was a guarantee of continued success. Mark Zuckerberg purchased WhatsApp to secure Facebook’s spot on the social media throne. Security has a price, and when it comes to a successful mobile app, that price happens to be $19 billion.

This seems to answer my first question of why Facebook would spend so much on a less popular app. The deal was designed to protect the company by knocking out the competition. We saw this a few years ago when the company acquired Instagram, and again when they attempted to purchase Snapchat. This article calls it the “world’s most expensive game of whac-a-mole.”

But this deal makes a major statement about the future of social media. It isn’t going away anytime soon.

Rewind five years to 2009. Could we have ever imagined we’d be here, in 2014, spending billions of dollars on one app? Inspired by this Imgur post, here are a few things that cost less than WhatsApp:

The Hubble Space Telescope - $10 billion

London Olympics - $10.4 billion

American Airlines - $11 billion

50 most expensive paintings ever sold - $5 billion

Aircraft carrier - $13 billion

We won’t pay for scientific technology to advance our knowledge of the social system and promote aerospace engineering, but by golly, you better believe we’ll be able to update our friends on what we ate for lunch.

Facebook has made it clear they are the star of the social media show, and they’ll take down any company who stands in their way. I’ll leave you with one more question. How big will we let Facebook get? If we don’t pay attention, they might just become the Google of social networking. When Comcast announced its plans to purchase Time Warner Cable, people were worried the company would become a monopoly by knocking out the competition. Although it’s on a much smaller scale, isn’t this exactly what Facebook is doing? So far, the company has made it clear they’ll do anything to stay on top, even if it costs them two years of profits and stock. They’re letting us, the users, know we can always check the little box that says “stay logged in,” and we will, because deep down we know Facebook probably isn’t going anywhere.

Mark Zuckerberg will make sure of that.

Netflix Hack Day

This February, Netflix held a “hackathon” encouraging employees and users to submit their ideas on how to improve the website. The results were impressive, and it’s obvious users know what users want. Many of the suggestions borrowed ideas from other successful websites and companies, altering it to fit the preexisting Netflix user interface. Until I saw these ideas, I didn’t think Netflix could be improved; it’s already a simple design offering a lot of video for only $7.99/month. Now, I’m just hoping Netflix will make these changes soon.  

This technology incorporates the Fitbit bracelet to monitor stats and daily activity. Although the bracelet is often used for weight loss, it also monitors your sleep. Because of Fitbit’s wireless connectivity, Netflix could connect to the bracelet and monitor when a user fell asleep. If a user falls asleep in the middle of a Netflix TV or movie, the Fitbit bracelet will recognize this and transmit a signal to Netflix telling the program to pause. When the user wakes up, they have the ability to resume where they left off. This is cool in two big ways. First, it is connecting with a bracelet primarily used for weight loss. It’s a simple (and for the most part, cheap) solution to an annoying problem, plus it could potentially advance the field of wearable technology.

Playlists are often used on sites like Pandora, 8tracks and iTunes, so why not use them on a platform for TV shows and movies? With this hack, users would have the ability to group items together. Just as you’re in the “mood” to listen to a certain type of music, you may want to watch a certain “type” of TV show or movie. Each playlist could even be based on a user’s emotions; if they were happy, they may want to watch a happy movie.

Using Netflix Beam, users with Netflix accounts could beam a program onto another device without signing in. This hack is ideal for guests who don’t want to sign in and sign out after visiting a friend’s house and watching something on the site. None of these hacks are crucial for the continued success of Netflix, but they are all designed to perfect the user experience. These hackers have stepped back and thought of things that bother them. In doing so, they may have come up with Netflix’s next big idea.

These ideas are just a few of my favorites, but you can check out all of the hacks here. Note: you can't search for these videos on Google.

Comcast doesn't care

I know there has been a lot of conversation on this topic, but this clip was too good to pass up. WARNING: CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE.

Although the video above is by a parody account called Funny or Die, there is more truth behind it than we’d like to think. The video suggests Comcast, a major company that purchased Time Warner Cable thereby making a super corporation, may be gaining a little too much control across the United States. With all that control, the fake spokesperson is essentially saying “we don’t care about you” and “we don’t have to.”

Most of us have heard about the potential negative results that could come along with the merger. You thought Time Warner Cable customer service was bad? Oh, just you wait. Comcast customer service will be even worse, because they don’t care and they don’t have to. Even if viewers threaten to switch to Hulu and Netflix (which I’ve previously done when I got tired of being put on hold with TWC), Comcast still has some control over you; the company is a co-owner of Hulu and charges Netflix for streaming content. They have their foot in every door.

The video even suggests Comcast has been called “the Walmart” of mass media simply because of how much they don’t care about their customers. The lawsuits and violations don’t seem to faze the company in the least. If they have enough money and power to purchase a (mostly) successful company for $45 billion, they certainly have enough to pay off a few companies or people.

In the end, even though this video is a joke, it’s still pretty scary to think about how much power and influence one company could have over our lives.

Twitter storytelling

This morning, I saw a link to an article titled “20 terrifying two-sentence horror stories.” I’ve seen a few of these before, but I clicked on the article anyway. Here’s an example: I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, "Daddy, check for monsters under my bed." I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, "Daddy, there's somebody on my bed."

That’s pretty creepy stuff, but the content is not the most important factor. These stories are limited to two sentences, which means most of them will be under 140 characters (the story above is one of the longer ones), the perfect length for a tweet. Think about the emotions this “story” invoked and the fact that just a few words can make up meaningful content. When we tweet, we become storytellers. Granted, our story may not be anything more than a simple “GTHD,” but isn’t that a story in its own? Four characters is all it takes to get the point across.

Because of sites like Twitter that limit the number of characters users can post, we’re adapting to shorter stories. We’re learning how to tell them in fewer words but still invoke the same emotions as if we were sharing the story on a full page. I’d even argue we like these shorter stories better, and this is an opinion that will likely continue in the future. Not every story on the Internet will have a beginning, middle and end, but we as users can still understand the meaning behind it, even if it’s only 140 characters.

PSA: Update your iPhone NOW

As a class, we've talked a little bit about privacy, specifically our privacy online. Since you're already aware of the privacy issues that can potentially arise online and through other technologies, you should stop reading this post now and go update your iPhone. Seriously, if you have an iPhone, download and install iOS 7.0.6 as soon as possible. I'll tell you exactly why. When I receive the iOS update pop-up on my phone, I usually close out of the box and forget about the update until I get tired of the little notification on my settings app, which is exactly what I did this time around until I read this article.

Upon releasing the update, Apple issued a press release saying the new iOS would fix a bug in which "an attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS." SSL and TLS are essentially protocols keeping user information private and secure. The Apple bug to be fixed by the iOS update leaves you vulnerable to attackers who can intercept information you send over the server. That means if you're on a public network, an attacker could be targeting you. Through this bug, they have access to whatever you send in Safari, as well as your mail accounts or any personal information you submit on your phone. To put the icing on the cake, this has been going on since September of 2012.

A year and a half later, consumers are finally offered an update to fix the problem. But what if a hacker has already intercepted your information? I guess it's just too late for you! It's scary to think these big companies that create products consuming a major part of our lives aren't fully informing us on important issues such as this one. Most people will upgrade and move on. Is that really the standard we're setting for corporations like Apple? Consumers threw a fit when they realized their personal information may have been compromised in a security breach in Target stores nationwide. So, why is it any different when it's our iPhones, a device so near and dear to our hearts?

iPhone users or not, most people (myself included) should stop being so naive when it comes to our privacy in the new technological era. Odds are, this recent Apple bug bug was not meant to be malicious or harmful; it was likely just a mistake in the coding. Nonetheless, it's a mistake that could cost users big time. We need to start questioning large corporations and small businesses alike to make sure they're doing everything they can to ensure our personal information is protected.

I can already hear Apple saying, "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"

The girl who tweeted wolf

If you've been on social media in the past week, you've probably seen the video above floating around online.

Kate Hansen, a member of the U.S. Olympic Luge team, tweeted the video earlier last week after uploading it to her Youtube account (katehansen92). The 18-second clip is titled “Epic #SochiFail: Wolf in my hall,” and shows a wolf wandering the halls in the city’s Olympic Village housing. Hansen’s tweet uses the hashtags “SochiFail” and “SochiProblems,” both of which have garnered thousands of tweets from news organizations, Olympians and many others regarding the poor conditions from the host city, so it was no surprise to see a wolf wandering the halls of Hansen’s dorm.

Hansen’s tweet was retweeted over 2,600 times and the actual video has almost 5 million views. Media outlets all over the country aired the video and many news websites shared the link to Hansen’s Twitter and her Youtube account. Within 24 hours, the video had been seen by millions.

And that’s when Jimmy Kimmel stepped in.

The video was faked. The entire scene was shot in Kimmel’s studio after his staff recreated a hallway in the Olympic Village dorms. You can watch his video segment below.

As part of his show, Kimmel pieced together clips taken from the media after Hansen tweeted the video. Not only does Kimmel’s prank show the gullibility of viewers and social media users, it also shows the failure of news stations to provide accurate facts. In the reading for tomorrow’s class, we see the first Principle of Journalism is an obligation to the truth. Hansen tweeted the video as a truth, but it seems many news organizations failed to verify the accuracy of the content. A major part of journalism involves separating fact from fiction before reporting a story to the masses. Without a doubt, social media makes this more difficult. Regardless, accuracy is arguably the most important factor in the field of journalism, so reporters must be careful to verify their sources before they share. Unfortunately, it looks like many individuals in the media failed to investigate the girl who tweeted wolf.

You're missing the point

I’m no expert on body image or the way women are presented in media, so I’m still not sure I feel qualified to share my thoughts on the issue. Regardless, I feel the need to point out another major problem that has yet to be addressed. Almost every blog post and class discussion debated the topics of how women are portrayed in the media, how women view themselves and the way men view women through media. But I think we’re missing the point.

We can’t sit back and ask, “Why do women continue to be portrayed in this way?” without looking at where it all started and the major reason it continues. People criticize the media for sexualizing women and treating them as sexual objects; some may refuse to buy magazines or watch TV shows where women are viewed in this way. Men are often attacked for contributing their time and money to outlets facilitating the sexual image of women. We accuse them of being misogynist assholes like it’s our duty as American citizens. Companies spend millions on campaigns like Dove’s “Real Beauty” and Victoria’s Secret’s “Love Your Body” in order to promote the positive body image of females everywhere. They aim to change the negative way in which some women view themselves, possibly a side effect of the judgmental nature of media.

After all this negativity from men and the media, there’s still one person, or rather a group of people, we failed to mention. One group we simply skipped over like they weren’t an important piece of this body image puzzle. So, I must ask you, have you seen the way women view other women? I already know the answer, and it’s far from positive.

I’ll give you a current example. Bennett discusses Kate Upton’s recent zero gravity photo-shoot for the first back cover of Sports Illustrated.

“My point is that someone…spent ALOT of money and effort to photograph this woman that is presumed by some portion of the male population to be ‘fat,’” he writes. “Perhaps its a baby step (or perhaps I'm going to incessantly roasted for saying this) towards more acceptable standards for women.”

I have to disagree with this point for two reasons. First, just because some people deem Upton curvier than most women they’re used to seeing, doesn't make her unattractive to the majority of readers. She was still a huge hit when she graced the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and she’s certainly popular enough among readers of the magazine for them to feature her on the back cover. Second, this isn’t a step forward for the standards of women in the media. Then again, it isn’t a step backward, either. No matter how many people refuse to purchase magazines like Sports Illustrated featuring images of scantily clad women or how many positive body image campaigns big companies endorse, nothing will change if women don’t stop judging other women. For as much as we criticize men and the media for treating women as objects, women are just as guilty, if not more.

Fox Sports and the New York Daily News covered Upton’s swimsuit photo shoot, but you can scroll past the articles. They’re nowhere as interesting as the comments, and by interesting, I mean terrible. The comments section of both sites allows users to create a username, add a picture and information, or remain anonymous. Although comments are refreshed relatively often, here are my findings. Are you ready?

Not one comment by a male on either site was negatively critiquing Upton’s looks, weight or reason for modeling. All of the negative comments were from females.

Just let that sink in. Take a look at what a few women had to say.

As a society, how can we expect anything to change if members of half of the population openly criticize each other? How can women object to men and the media objectifying women when they’re setting female celebrities, models, and even Olympic athletes on a pedestal to be judged on their appearance? All American women need to take a step back and reflect on their goals and the changes that still need to be made. They should ask themselves if they’re promoting change by their actions or stifling it by their words.

It won’t be easy. After all, not only has media dictated what size women should be in order to succeed, but it has also taught women how to judge and critique others in a sort of twisted competition. But remember, there’s no prize waiting for you at the end.

Social media, like the comments section, is a dangerous place. Users have the ability to critique every aspect of a person, often anonymously. True, women are often the victims on these platforms, being placed in an arena to be judged, but women are also common offenders. Social media has ultimately become the internet side-eye.

I’m not saying men and the media don’t objectify women, because they do. But we need to recognize the real problem before we assign scapegoats and wonder why nothing is changing. Women need to stand up and help other women, whether it’s in real life or online. That’s the only way our society may one day portray women in a different light. Simply put, women should support other women so that they are not only viewed by their positive traits, but because it’s the right thing to do. Otherwise, you’re missing the point.

"May every word that is ever spoken my our mouths or typed by our fingers be words that lift up, and never words that tear down." -Brave Girls Club

Just Ask Jeeves

When I was little, I remember my mom using the Q&A site www.askjeeves.com when she needed to find something online. For those of you who aren't familiar with Ask Jeeves, the earliest version asked the user to input a question and it would provide results. When I was old enough to use the computer with my mom's help, she let me type in my own questions. As a kid, it was neat to think someone named Jeeves was on the other side of my computer screen, and he knew it all. How many teeth does a shark have? Ask Jeeves. When is the next full moon? Jeeves could tell you.

At that point in time, Internet was dial-up and Google didn't exist. Over the years, search engines transformed from question-based to search-based. Pretty soon, you didn't even have to search in question format, and now you have the ability to input only a few terms which will still return results. It's interesting to consider the transformation from asking questions to searching for answers. I googled the phrase "number of teeth in shark," and Google provided me the exact information I was looking for, and then some.

Ask Jeeves no longer exists in its original format; it's now ask.com, and it's nowhere near as popular as its competitors (who could compete with Google, anyway?). In the beginning of the Internet, users wanted simple answers to simple questions. Now, we use search engines for personal research on any given topic. Because of this, Q&A sites like the original askjeeves.com will never be as popular as they once were.

As for Jeeves, I'd say he's doing pretty well...

How many tweets contain racial slurs?

Following our class discussion on the Coca-Cola Superbowl commercial featuring the song "America the Beautiful" in several different languages, as well as the corresponding tweets, I read this article regarding the amount of racial slurs that occur online. A study done by Demos estimated over 10,000 tweets per day include racial slurs, and that's just in the English language. The study divided the tweets containing the racial slurs into six categories, one of them being "non-offensive"/"non-abusive." I was pleasantly surprised to learn that most of the tweets containing sensitive words fell into this category. In fact, 47.5-70 percent of the tweets studied actually fell into the categories of in-group solidarity and non-derogatory description, respectively.

This is not to say the terms used were appropriate, but they may not have been targeted at one or more races in a negative way. A large portion of the tweets were not designed to exclude a certain group, but to demonstrate the inclusiveness of one's own group.

The study doesn't discuss the number of racial slurs during or after a controversial topic comes to light. Although the use of targeted racial slurs most likely increases after an advertisement such as the Coca-Cola commercial, it is a little comforting to know some of them may not be meant in a derogatory manner. That being said, the remaining 30 percent of tweets containing racial slurs were targeted at one or more groups, demonstrating the fact that we as a people have a long way to go toward acceptance.

I Twitter Dare You

Remember when you were little and your friends would dare you to do something? You might have refused at first, but if they broke out the "double dog dare," you knew you had to do it.

The closest thing to a modern day "double dog dare" is the Twitter dare, a phenomena that has yet to be thoroughly documented. If you're on Twitter, you've likely seen posts from users asking for a certain amount of retweets or favorites to perform what they call a "dare." On Tuesday, July 16, 2013, Twitter user @MasoneDylan, tweeted “1000 RTs and ill run across the field.. #ASG #CitiField" during the All-Star Game. When his tweet received over 1,000 retweets, he took off onto the field and was eventually tackled by security guards.

I have two questions. What compels followers to retweet tweets like this in the first place? And, what compels the users to follow-up on a Twitter dare? Retweets and favorites aren't real, tangible things, but they still hold a lot of power in many people's lives.

Twitter dares go both ways. Some "Twitter celebrities," people who are more famous on the site than they are in real life, may often ask their followers to complete a certain task or "dare." For some reason, I follow the often inappropriate Elijah Daniel (@aguywithnolife), and he sometimes posts tweets asking his followers to submit something in exchange for a follow or a direct message from him. One of his recent tweets asked his followers to submit photos of themselves eating butter. People are stupid, so naturally, people did. At the end of the night, he posted a collage of some of the photos he received from the users. The collage has since been deleted, but it was shocking to see what users on Twitter would do for a follow from a guy with the Twitter handle "@aguywithnolife."

Essentially, Twitter dares give users a lot of power. In one way, they provide users the ability to contribute to an action (like retweeting the baseball game tweet). On the other hand, some people can ask their followers to complete a task, and the followers will do so, no questions asked. I can't say I've never retweeted content asking for retweets to complete a dare, but I can promise I will never eat butter for a direct message from anyone.

Here's one more example of a Twitter "dare." Check out the 899 retweets.