What does
Rheingold say about cooperation and collaboration?
Rheingold’s
says that collaboration is key to the individuals who want to succeed in today’s
world because of the culture that is emerging and knowing how to collaborate is
one of the skills/concepts that we have to adapt and accept. Cooperation he
says is necessary because you have to be willing to learn the action provided
by this technology. It decides whether or not you use it effectively and
determines if people learn how to execute the right kind of collaboration.
How does it
relate to the open-source movement as we discussed in class today?
It relates to
the open source movement because that is also a new type of social media that
is evolving with multiple networks, and person-to-person learning processes.
This is a type of digital media that has lowered the barriers to joint actions
in the way we as humans live our everyday lives.
What do you
think about the open-source movement?
I think that
the open source movement is a type of methodology that will take time for it’s
process to effectively take hold of the digital and social networks. It is a
useful tool that has shown up within recent years and people are still trying
to figure out how to use it and where to use it most effectively. It isn’t for
just for the people developing but it gives the consumers a voice as to what
they want which is a new concept that takes time for everyone to explore.
What are the
odds of its success?
I think the
odds of success can go either way. Like I stated before it targets not just the
developers but the consumers using it and provides them a voice which as we all
know people like to be heard and are more inclined to react positively when
able to do so. I believe it’s success will do well especially in a business
aspect because of the ability for customization, the cost is not monetary, it’s motivated by a
desire to make things better, come out with better software due to the
collaboration among employees, and it expands the market to a more global
aspect keeping everyone on the same page. If it continues to address the
business and social needs of the consumers and create a type o routine where it
becomes necessary to use then it will most likely succeed.
Do you think
people will move towards it or will proprietary software companies always have
bank on software development and distribution?
I
think that people will always want proprietary software such as, Microsoft
Office, because you can’t alter it and it is the same basic concept no matter
where you go. If people start to use a more open source software and the
benefits outrank proprietary software then the distribution of software and its
development it up for grabs. Like Rheingold says “technology trends made a persuasive case that pervasive
mobile communications, combined with always-on Internet connections, will
produce new kinds of ad-hoc social groups.” Until the movement becomes a more dominate technological
trend it will continue to have the potential to go either way.
Will you buy
into it?
I haven’t
bought into it at the moment because like I have discussed before I haven’t
really used the open source software in my everyday life to the point where I
have developed a real need for it. If I was working in a business then maybe I
would buy into it a little more, but for right now its nothing that will gain
my attention.
Recently with the development of social media sites and the
growth in their usage a main issue that has risen from it is cyber bullying. A
lot of teens these days are using sites like Twitter to attack other people and
reveal personal things about them in order to embarrass them. This year I’ve
seen on Twitter numerous fight between friends about stuff that should have
been kept private and dealt with in not such a public manner. Girls will either
directly “tag” someone in their tweet in order to hurt them or tweet about them
indirectly which is called “sub-tweeting”. Although people think that they are being clever when sub
tweeting it usually isn’t that hard to figure out whom the person is generally
tweeting about. This year because of the multiple twitter fights between girls,
sororities have started to implement a social media contract, which they all
have to sign and agree to the terms. This is an approach to stop the consistent
Twitter drama and because it doesn’t make the girls or their organization look
good. Approaches like a social media contract is something that most
organizations have had to develop due to some of the controversy about content
on people’s individual social media pages. 
