Wiki edit 9

This is my final Wikipedia edit for Dumb and Dumber. I added a fact to the trivia section. I feel trivia gives life to a movie by providing information about the production and characters that we as viewers would otherwise never know.

This Wikipedia article had a lot of people looking at it, making incremental changes, however, it did not change drastically all that much over the course of the semester. The parts that were added when I was working on it were the Trivia section, the Soundtrack section, and lastly the Unrated Version section. All other sections had minor updates with people adding or subtracting information. My first edit, the quotes section, however short-lived, showed the response rate of the people watching the site. Some people didn't mind it and made changes to improve it, while others thought it best somewhere else and removed it from the site.

Classmate Comment

Since most of my teammates have been focusing on their Wikipedia edits for blog entries, i decided to look at other classmates blogs to find one to comment on. I happened to look at Lauren Pittaro's blog. She had posted an article about an independent radio station in Russia that, under new management, will report 50% positive news. The article caught my eye because I had head it mentioned on the Colbert Report the night before. Lauren made a good point when she brought up the issue of freedom of speech. I don't know what the conditions are in post-communist Russia but I can imagine the press and citizens do not enjoy the amount of freedom we do in America. It seems to me that the new managers of the station are looking to gain favor from the government by taking this approach. Since it is technically an "independent" radio station I assume it has minimal direct control from the government. this lack of control may be at the cost of certain benefits the new managers are seeking to achieve by promoting this positive media policy.

While I do not believe the coverage of positive news stories is outright propaganda, it does raise questions if in the pursuit of this goal the station manipulates facts, omits details or ignores stories all together in the hope to make the news more positive. Someone who posted a comment on the original article stated that news of a derivation from the norm, which tends to be a negative deviation. Based on the logic of this individual the majority of bad news is news and positive happenings are not as noteworthy. Another individual commented on how news stations love bad news because it sells and the public are gluttons for disasters and negative stories. I believe this is true which makes it harder for us to understand the idea behind positive news. We are so conditioned to turning on the 5 o'clock news and seeing murders and rapes that we doubt the significance of the world of positive things going on.

The part about the article, which Lauren mentioned, that bothered me the most was that the radio station will portray America as the enemy. Our foreign policy is already in shambles and to think this station may be turning potential allies into enemies is a disturbing thought. Freedom is speech and public dissent are one thing, but this sort of propaganda is how blind hatred and international distrust form.

Wiki edit # 8

This is the second time I edited the Wikipedia page I created for my high school, Gorham High School. For this edit I added a picture of the school. This was a slow and deliberate process since I had to prior experience. Once I figured out what I was doing the process made sense and the rationale behind the tags became clear. This might be something go to go over in class.

By adding the picture someone accessing the site will be able to see what my high school looks like.

Google Acquires DoubleClick

I recently read in the Wall Street Journal that Google had acquired the firm DoubleClick for $3.1 billion dollars. Having read this I was interested in seeing what any of the required blogs had to say about it. I found such an article on click Z. The purchase of DoubleClick was the biggest in Google's history and signaled a huge consolidation of power in the online marketing industry, combining the largest search engine with an original and still biggest ad management firm. Sources have sited a large factor inhibiting Google's growth has been its reluctance to work with third party ad servers, electing to keep advertising tracking and reporting in-house. With the DoubleClick acquisition Google will overcome this barrier and will have the necessary technology to manage accounts more effectively. Theoretically the advertising community should benefit from the consolidation which will improve service for both Google and DoubleClick's customers.

The deal is not without scrutiny though. Both Microsoft, who had been in talks with DoubleClick prior to Google, and Time Warner are urging the US government to apply antitrust legislation to the deal. With Google's 60% share in Internet search and DoubleClick's high market share in advertising, the threat of monopolistic behavior is present. While the outcry from Microsoft may be a result of its not-so-long-ago antitrust court case, it is becoming evident that as Google grows it is doing so under greater scrutiny.

DealCatcher

I have spent the past hour or so on the site dealcatcher.com. This site is an unbelievable resource that I was never aware of until now. The site has a number of features including coupons you are able to download, print, or use online, ads to price compare and shop for bargains, and forums to communicate with others about specials all over the retail world. Besides the overwhelming amount of merchandise offered, it is the prices that are the most significant. While not all stores the site is connected with carry exhaustive inventories, if you are able to find something on one of those sites it is not uncommon to find it listed for 25% or more below the retail price. Many of the deals are valid for the day of the search only, so impulse buys may be required, but if you are one looking for the right price on an item you have been shopping for, this may be the place to get it.

The site is essentially an aggregator of deals from a number of different retailers found online. Instead of searching all over the Internet on different sites for the same items and looking for the best price, you can come to this site where it does all the work for you. All you need to do is scroll through the many options the search returns and compare.

An interesting thing I found was the nature of prices. For example, when I searched for the book Titan, a book about John D. Rockefeller, on dealcatcher it returned several amazon results with the lowest price being right around $2.50. When I ran the same search from the amazon.com homepage, it returned the same book but at the lowest price of $8.50. This may be a result of price discrimination on amazon's part or the result of an agreement worked out by amazon and dealcatcher. Either way it pays to use dealcatcher if you are looking for a specific item and the best possible price today.

I am looking forward to the presentation on Friday when the people behind the site are coming to discuss it. I'm interested in how they got the site up and running and their method for aggregating the deals they find.

Wiki edit 7

I just edited the Mykonos page in Wikipedia for the second time. this time I Switched a Mapquest map of the island, which did not have any detail available with one that showed the streets and labeled a majority of the attractions the town (island) offers. This should aid researchers by allowing them to see the layout of the town and the relative proximity of the attractions within it.

Microsoft accused of bait-and-switch

According to a post on Slashdot, a class action lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft corp for deceptive marketing practices. The suit claims that Microsoft allowed PCs to be labeled Windows Vista compatible when the PC was only able to support Windows Vista Home Basic, a stripped down version of the software that excludes features like the "Aero" on-screen appearance, Media Center PC interface, and Flip 3D window-switching. Consumers were led to believe they had purchased a PC that had the capabilities to handle all the new features of Windows Vista which Microsoft has been advertising in their unprecedented marketing campaign for the system. Microsoft contends that it went above and beyond to try and communicate the computer specifications necessary to run the new system but the lawyer representing the plaintiffs indicates that this information was not conveyed in the "Windows Vista Compatible" stickers.

This lawsuit could do a lot of damage to the Microsoft image the company has been working so hard to improve. Any time there is a new product launch there is the need for positive publicity to ensure the product does well on the market. A lawsuit like this will surely cast a shadow over the company and the new product, especially if Microsoft loses the dispute.

This is similar to the case of Intel which we read about in Naked Conversations. They realized their new chip was not compatible in a small number of computers but chose to ignore the issue. When this was discovered the small problem became a big one and the product suffered immensely. I do not foresee this happening to Microsoft to that extent but consumer confidence will surely be affected by the negative press. Robert Scoble had better be ready.

Wiki edit #6

I edited the Pi Kappa Phi wikipedia page for the second time. I added the date the PiKapp was incorporated, a significant date in the fraternity's history. There has been a lot of activity on the page since I began editing it. Several items posted by others have been taken down, cited to be nonfactual or illegally cut and pasted from other sites. It appears there are many eyes on this page.

stiuqxela experiment

As part of the class experiment I am linking to the Packer's site via the word stiuqxela. The experiment will use Google's PageRank algorithm to show how a site can gain "Google Juice" by having links connected to it. I hope I win the prize.