"Time" Article Reviews

The articles I chose to read were "Citizens of the New Digital Democracy", "Your Web, Your Way", and "Time's Person of the Year: You" (reviewed in my previous blog).

"Citizens of the New Digital Democracy" - I am amazed at what people will post on the Internet. That is the subject of many conversations between myself, my husband, and my two teenage children around the dinner table: "Once on the Web, always on the Web".

I read articles and watch news casts of people whose lives have been ruined because of one misplaced photo being posted on the Internet. In this day and age where your resume is not just a piece of paper that you have carefully written to convey the best about yourself, now a perspective employer can check out your blog to decide whether or not you get the job or even whether or not you keep the job.

This brings me to the article - is everything posted on the Internet true? Am I "young and pretty, with a complicated and absolutely compelling personal life" like Lonelygirl15 or am I a 42 year old high school special education teacher? I guess that's the beauty of it. I can be whomever or whatever I choose to be in that specific moment in time, and it appears, that others "out there" care.

The article quotes one blogger as saying "You have peole from all walks of life wanting to share a piece of their life with you. The feeling of togetherness is unbeatable. It's a beautiful thing." And as to how authentic the faces on the computer screen really are? She says "I guess that's the only flaw, You can never really know the whole sidfe of the story. You just get bits and pieces. You have to put blind faith in who the person it."

"Your Web, Your Way" - The basis of this article is explaining how "Web 2.0 is all about empowering individual consumers".

The web has grown from being just an on-line dictionary or encyclopedia. It is now a place where you can "make your own film, distribute it worldwirde and find out what people think almost instantly". How is this done?

You Make It: "User generated content is revolutionizing the media landscape"
You Name It: "Users tag images, text, and produced ober 20 billion Web pages"
You Work on It: "Crowdsourcing is being used in fields ranging from photography to the sciences to dramatically cut costs"
You Find It: "Users are able to find an "endless array of obscure products in a new business model knows as the "LONG TAIL".

"The list is endless of the new "tangle of webisites" designed to help big business tap the expertise of everyone out there to enhance their products."