Get A Job

Social networking sites have become a lifeline for many people looking to find employment in today’s economy. While face-to-face networking isn’t always available, people are turning to online networking from websites such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers users a convenient way to network with other business contacts and reach a wide audience when searching for employment. A recent article (see below for link) provides data which shows a significant increase of users on LinkedIn over the past year. Apparently, many of the people being laid off by automobile manufacturers and financial firms have turned to LinkedIn to find work.

LinkedIn is not just a social network for people looking for jobs, but also for recruiters looking to find qualified candidates. However, to be successful on LinkedIn it’s still about who you know. Without a network of business contacts, how is one going to find a job? I think this issues places recent graduates at a distinct disadvantage when trying to navigate the online job market. Other social networking sites can be just as useful when looking for employment. For example, Twitter and Facebook allow users to post messages about what is currently happening in their life. A simple post saying “got laid off, looking for new start” may be all it takes to solicit a job lead from a Facebook friend or Twitter follower.

Although unemployment is an issue for many people today, online social networks provide a new outlet to reach more potential employers than ever before. Another benefit is that most job leads which originate from LinkedIn or Facebook will likely have come from a friend. So, that contact can give a prospective candidate a foot in the door, rather than going into an interview completely cold. Knowing more people and building online networks are not just a source for social activity, but also a way to gain business contacts in the professional world. You may not have the need to rely on your business network today, but you don’t know what could be waiting just around the corner. For that reason, I think many people have subscribed to the LinkedIn community, if for nothing more, as a precautionary measure. Should you ever get laid off, you know that you already have a strong network of business contacts and potential future employers.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-linkedin30-2009mar30,0,7095088.story

Kids Living Online

During our Second Life class last week, a question was posed asking if we would be comfortable with our child using Second Life as a social outlet. I think this is a realistic question that many parents face, especially in today’s world of online social networking. An important question for parents to ask is what is the appropriate age to allow children to begin using the Internet as a social outlet? In addition, should children be allowed to explore social websites before being permitted to experience social settings in real life? Obviously, potential dangers existed online as well as in real life, but there may be some advantages to introducing children to the Internet first. I think the questions posed above will be answered differently by every parent. However, it’s important for the parents to realize that predators exist on the Internet, and to address the potential dangers with their children before going online.

Through my experiences with Second Life I have never encountered anyone behaving inappropriately towards me. Not even an invitation to take a walk. In my opinion, social activity on the Internet is always going to be safer than real life because if things get out of hand the computer can always be shut down. However, if things get out of hand in real life, it’s not as easy to escape the problem. Part of this decision as a parent will also depend on the child. It’s hard to believe that any child/teenager today is disconnected from the Internet, but there are those people who are not attracted to MySpace and Facebook. However, t case certainly represents the minority of the population. In fact, I think that so many kids are involved in social networking sites because their parents won’t let them interact in any other social settings.

When kids have the desire to act socially but are considered too young to live independent social lives, their alternative is online social networks. This is one huge difference between my generation and the generation of today’s teenagers. By the time the teenagers of today enter college they will be experts on social networking sites. The younger generation is living in an online culture that allows them to establish a lifestyle of living through multiple online social networks. By the time I was introduced to online social networking it seemed much less attractive to me as a 25-year-old, compared to had I been 13-years-old. Social networking sites will continue to be popular among the younger generation, and it’s the parents responsibility to inform their children of the potential dangers of living an online life.

Online Gambling & Twitter

Online gambling is becoming very…convenient. Recently, I read two articles that discussed some of the changes and new technologies that will help to promote online gambling. In the past, I have used online sites to place sporadic sports bets or engage in an occasional poker game. And I’ve routinely heard the same argument from friends who remain skeptical of online gambling sites. Their argument always involves the fact that you don’t know who you’re playing against; or at least, you can’t look the person in the face. Is it possible that other people at the poker table are conspiring against you, or the card distribution isn’t completely random? Well, sure I guess it’s possible. But these are also two problems that can exist in casinos. For casinos and online gambling sites alike, it’s to their benefit to prevent illegal behavior from occurring within their organization. If illegal action is occurring the results would reflect poorly on the organization’s reputation.

The current status of online gambling websites states that they can not operate within the United States. This is a law that was past at the end of the Bush administration and has created difficulties for individuals who wish to fund their online gambling account from within the US. Fortunately for the online gambling industry legislation is in the pipeline to allow such websites to operate in the United States. Potentially, this could mean more money flowing through online gambling websites and less revenue for the brick and mortar casinos.

Some of the online gambling websites are stepping up to incorporate social networking capabilities into their gambling community. Gamblingplanet.org recently announced that they will begin a Twitter news feed. The Twitter news feed will allow its followers to receive up-to-the-minute news and updates relating to Gambling Planet. Subscribing to Twitter seems to be a popular way for any organization to break into the mainstream. Twitter is also a way for online gambling websites to remind users of upcoming tournaments, offer bonuses or incentives tied to funding accounts, and market to potential new users. If the anti-gambling regulations of the Bush era are repealed, I think we can expect to see a significant jump in online gambling revenues, and a push into the social networking communities.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/650c5afa-f249-11dd-9678-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

http://eon.businesswire.com/portal/site/eon/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090323005762&newsLang=en

Food Network - TV and Online

The Internet is a wonderful resource, but what I really love about it is how it makes existing aspects of my life even better. I’m not going to lie; I’m a diehard TV junkie. The amount of time I spend watching TV far exceeds the time I spend online. However maybe there should be a third category here – the time I spend online due to watching TV. At this point, nearly every television network has a corresponding website dedicated to the shows that can be watched on TV. I’m not really one who reads sitcom blogs, however some the network websites have a practical use and my favorite is the food network.

About 95 percent of the time that I spend watching the food network is purely for its entertainment value. The other 5 percent I’ll see a recipe that looks intriguing and may feel the need to test my culinary prowess to reproduce the recipe. In case you’re wondering, this usually turns out to be a bad idea. Now, pre-Internet times I have no idea what someone in my predicament would do. I know the food network or other cooking shows were around before the Internet, but seriously what did people do when they wanted a recipe from the cooking show? Were they watching TV with a pen in hand, taking notes? That requires enough work to make me forget about wanting to cook in the first place.

The fact is that today when I see a potential recipe on TV I can easily find that exact same recipe on the food network’s website. Their website offers recipes that can be searched by date aired, host/chef, or main ingredients. The search results can also be sorted by the difficulty of each recipe and its overall user rating. Once you click on an appealing recipe, you are directed to a web page containing the actual recipe along with other recommended recipes for related appetizers, side dishes, desserts, etc.

The food network website also allows users to submit their own recipes, which can then be rated by other users. The food network is just one example of how our routine to watch TV is being utilized to incorporate our use of the Internet. There is really no defined line between what belongs on TV and the Internet. These two channels of entertainment and information are merging in a collaborative way. The Internet provides a way to bring an interactive sense to simply watching our favorite TV shows.

I Watch March Madness at Work Like Everybody Else

March Madness is officially upon us, and for me that means countless hours of watching college basketball. It also means filling out tournament brackets to compete with friends and coworkers, mostly for fun but more importantly for bragging rights. The first round of the NCAA tournament is always played on Thursday and Friday, and some sports nuts at every office will take time off or call out “sick” to stay home at watch all 32 games. That’s fine if you’re one of those people who are going to watch first round match-ups like Gonzaga vs. Akron or Missouri vs. Cornell. While every game offers the potential for an upset, I’ll choose to skip those games. For the rest of us who do not schedule vacation time around sporting events, how are we going to watch the games that we do care about? Fortunately for us, every game of the NCAA tournament is broadcasted live online, however unfortunate for employers. Isn’t technology great?

I have blogged about the inconvenience of my workplace blocking popular social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. However, either someone in IT department is a huge college hoops fan or they don’t realize that virtually every man (and some women) will be watching a streaming broadcast of college basketball for the better part of two days. Perhaps therein lies the issue for our IT department. Many sites will be streaming live college basketball come Thursday, March 19th, so how can a company effective block all of the sites? I guess they can’t, for now. Again, good for me, but not so good for the company. The NCAA tournament is just a current example, but streaming live sporting events is also common with the Olympics, World Cup Soccer, etc. So, is it possible for a company to block websites that offer streaming video of live sporting events? I would say the answer to that question is if the technology is not currently available it will be in the near future.

I wrote a previous blog about new software that allows organizations to pick and choose not only which sites they want to make available to their employees, but also which specific features of each site. So, while I plan on sitting in my cubicle and intently watching the Maryland vs. California game on Thursday afternoon, I cringe to think that the day may come when I won’t be able to watch March Madness at work. If that’s the case, I’ll be taking a two-day vacation. Go Terps!

Law Enforcement 2.0

In an effort to find some new Web 2.0-related issues to blog about, I searched through a number of articles and found an interesting one about “Law Enforcement 2.0”. As you may have guessed, the topic of the article was about how various public and private agencies are using the Internet to share information pertaining to crimes and criminals. The web is providing a resource for these agencies to coordinate their efforts in solving crimes and catching the criminals who commit them. Before law enforcement turned to the Internet, different agencies ran the risk of pursuing the same suspect without being able to share information about the investigation.

At first, law enforcement agencies didn’t exactly have a sophisticated system to share information on the web. In fact, the article offered an example of a police department that posted surveillance images on Facebook. These images led to several tips and the suspects were eventually arrested. Using Facebook to catch criminals?! Is that even legal? Isn’t there some kind of privacy protection?

Well, to circumvent these issues raised by the Facebook arrest, web services has been developed for the specific purpose of law enforcement agencies sharing information. One such web service is called CrimeDex. Honestly, I think it’s about time that law enforcement has decided to utilize the Internet to aid their investigations. What better way to catalogue information and share tips relating to trends in crimes and individual criminal activity.

However, the development of a criminal database like CrimeDex also creates some sensitive issues for the potential suspects. For example, with the ability to share information across various agencies all over the country, if incorrect information is entered by one agency it can affect the action taken by every other agency. Hopefully, there is some sort of validation process before a suspect is officially entered into the database. If not, the CrimeDex application runs the risk of fostering police corruption or the arrest innocent suspects. The later could likely lead to a lawsuit relating to breach of civil liberties. Considering these pitfalls, the goal of online crime databases is to effectively reduce the occurrences of criminal activity. If applications like CrimeDex prove to be a valuable resource, and possible deterrent, I think this is one step in the right direction for virtual law enforcement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/technology/08stream.html?_r=1

Using Social Networking Sites at Work

Just last month my work blocked Facebook. MySpace and YouTube were the first to go; probably over two years ago, now Facebook is the latest victim to get the axe. I can understand why a company would want to block social networking sites. For one reason, the use of these sites probably has a direct correlation to employee productivity…in a negative way. Second, malicious software can be unknowingly downloaded onto the company’s servers through social networking sites. However, in today’s technology-driven environment many companies have a legitimate business need for sites like LinkedIn or Facebook. A company called Aladdin Knowledge Systems has developed a way to allow companies to provide employees with the essential functions of social networking sites, while blocking the potentially hazardous aspects.

The technology is called eSafe AppliFilter and it allows a company to determine which aspects of social networking sites will be available for their employees to access. The purpose of such technology is to reduce the amount of data leaked onto the web and protect the central servers from potentially harmful files. I know that most employees, such as myself, would be much happier with limited access to social networking sites rather than no access at all. This technology will likely be the most popular with recruiting agencies. The HR/recruiting industry has the most obvious need for social networking sites as relating to their job functions.

I imagine that not all employers will have use for a Web 2.0 technology like this one. For example, I work for a financial firm and I’m not really encouraged to visit social networking sites while at work, and for the most part I don’t. I think part of the deterrent comes from the fact that many companies keep a record of every website visited, and I don’t want to have to convince anyone that I’m using Facebook to research markets volatility.

I think the eSafe AppliFilter is a good example of how Web 2.0 technologies are advancing to the next level. We are beginning to surpass the stage of using social networking sites purely for personal use. Now these sites are being integrated into the business world. Aladdin has realized that businesses are accepting Web 2.0 sites as beneficial fixtures for their company, and they have developed a new technology that may bring social networking sites inside more companies in the future.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29505766/

No More Newspapers

It has become apparent that online news is steadily taking the place of traditional newspapers. One of the reasons for this transition is the cost factor. Why continue to pay for your news when you can get it for free online? And why wait for the newspaper to be delivered when you can power on the computer and get up-to-date news from all around the world? For these reasons it is understandable that the newspapers we grew up with are slowly being phased out completely. The Internet has taken over as our primary source for news, that’s the reality.

So how long will the newspaper industry continue to hang on? Many local newspapers are filing for bankruptcy because they can no long compete with the growing popularity on online news. I think it’s time for the traditional newspaper companies to consider transitioning their business to the web. People don’t want to read about yesterday’s news; they want the most current news possible. So what niche can the traditional newspapers fill online? For starters, many papers carry a strong reputation and following within their community. Newspapers already have an established customer base that can be used to promote the initiative to transition to the Internet.

If I want to read about local news, I’ll visit www.baltimoresun.com. The Sun has been a news staple in Baltimore ever since I can remember, and they have embraced the channel of online news. In reality, online news may be the only way for traditional newspaper companies to retain their existing customers. Unfortunately, if these companies refuse to grow in response to the advancements of technology, they will soon become extinct. This is a simple case of being able to change at the pace of technology, or get left behind.

It’s a certainty that the Internet isn’t going away anytime soon. However, the web isn’t the only other channel to receive news. Handheld devices like the iPhone and Blackberry, also offer alternative ways to stay informed in today’s mobile world. News has become more accessible than ever, and while some people still prefer to sit down with a newspaper in hand, that generation is fading away and the next generation of tech savvy consumers is taking over.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/28/earlyshow/main4835656.shtml

Virus-Infected E-mails

Unfortunately, I missed the guest speakers in class last week, so this blog is loosely based on my reaction to Ray Gabler’s power point presentation on Blackboard. It seems like one of the themes of his presentation was about security issues and how they affect Web 2.0 technologies. It’s easy to accept that with the evolution of the Internet, security threats have evolved as well. This is why antivirus software can be a very lucrative business. Since viruses of different types are continuously changing, antivirus software must release periodic patches or newer versions to fight the most current threats.

One particular part of Ray’s presentation that I found to be very interesting involved our online “friends”. I would say that “friend” is a relatively loose term because when you have hundreds of friends on your Facebook or MySpace page, how many of them do you actually know and interact with…in the real world? The fact that many of us are so willing to accept new “friends” leaves us vulnerable to security attacks. One of my previous blogs discussed the ease at which hackers can create fake profiles to befriend unsuspecting people on social networking sites. Once the hacker gains access to someone’s personal information the security barrier is breached and identity theft becomes a realistic possibility.

Several times a year I receive e-mails on my work and school account from the IT administration warning everyone of a potential virus. The potentially virus-infected e-mails usually possess the same characteristics. One, the sender may be a friend or coworker. Two, the e-mail contains an attachment. Three, the subject line or attachment name will be something friendly to peak your interest, something like “hey, you gotta check this out!” Normally, I can tell when I receive one of these corny e-mails because they are not inline with what I’ve come to expect from my friends. However, some people can’t tell the difference between an authentic e-mail and a bogus one. For this reason, the entire company or the entire student body and faculty receives a warning e-mail from the IT administration, telling us not to open any unfamiliar attachments or e-mails with “open me J” in the subject line. That’s sound advice.