Week 6

There are many implications that social graphs such as Facebook’s Graph have on privacy. One of the main issues is how advertisers can use data in the graphs from user profiles to specifically target audiences. Using criteria such as race, age, interests and location. There are users who feel uncomfortable about this and feel it is against their privacy, although many are not aware of the process.

The biggest problem of the social graph is demonstrated by how users can now access Facebook information using the graph search. For example, a user could search “Pictures of people who like NRL” and pictures of the users who liked that page would appear in an album. Additionally, a person could search for an album of all photos that their friends, or even friends of their friends have commented on. This shows major privacy issues with the way Facebook’s social graph gives access to data, although there are ways users can reduce this by adjusting their privacy levels.

Week 5

The Google maps API gives users the ability to use Google maps on their website. This can be a standard map by itself, but other information can also be added to tailor the experience. Google’s website demonstrates this with examples of data visualization using the API. These include a record of earthquakes by date represented by circles, a heat map of population growth, animated planes showing flights to and from London and a click-and-drag geography puzzle. The examples show just how versatile the Google Maps API is.

Embedding a map is as simple as going into Google maps, navigating to an area you like and selecting the “Share and Embed option. As an example here is a satellite view map of where i used to play soccer and t-ball when i was a kid.

Week 4

The Johnny Cash project was developed by digital media artist Aaron Koblin. It is an intriguing media mashup that utilizes crowd sourcing in an unique, innovative way of paying respects to musician Johnny Cash. The general concept is to have fans of Johnny cash submit drawings based on different frames of the music video to Johnny Cash’s song “Ain’t no Grave”. The frames are played in time to the original song and in most instances there are multiple different interpretations of the same frame.

There are also different modes to change the viewing experience, such as viewing the highest rated frames or frames selected by a director. Viewers can inspect all of the images for each frame by holding their mouse pointer over the tiny thumbnails on the timeline. Even now, people can still contribute to the page by using the drawing tools in the contribute section of the site. The Johnny Cash Project successfully innovates by allowing artists to recreate the individual frames of the “Ain’t no grave” music video, while playing the original song in time. It was also very robust in its functionality. Giving users the ability to create, view and sort the images. The random sort option gives a different result every time the video is played. This project was a fantastic opportunity for Johnny cash fans to pay tribute to one of their favorite musicians.

Week 3

The Best Job in the World marketing campaign was devised by an Australian advertising agency called CumminsNitro for Tourism Queensland. It was incredibly successful, winning several advertising awards, including three Cannes Lions and two of the coveted D&AD black pencil awards. This marks the first time an Australian agency has ever won a black pencil. The campaign is widely considered to be one of the best advertising campaigns ever created and it generated an impressive amount of free advertising. With an initial investment of $1,000,000 resulting in approximately seventy million dollars worth of global publicity in the first month and two hundred million by the campaigns end. This is a massive increase of 20000%, two hundred times more than Tourism Queensland invested. For comparison, that is like a small business spending a paltry $100 on advertising and having free publicity equal to $20,000.

The campaign itself was simple and low key, featuring the implementation of job advertisements in newspapers all around the world for “The best job in the world”. This directed potential applicants to a website with details about the job and how to apply, which involved interested applicants submitting their own video applications. The campaign’s popularity soon started to grow at a phenomenal rate due to word of mouth and free press from news organizations around the world. Totaling over 34,000 applicants and resulting in Ben Southall from the United kingdom, winning the job.

 

Week 2

Facebook is generally considered to be a trustworthy social network that grants users ownership of content they post. Many users trust Facebook with their information and have various ways to protect their privacy. This includes the ability to see what personal information applications will get access to if they choose to download it. For example, if a user wanted to download the game Farmville they would be shown a list of their personal information that the applications developer has access to. In this case, the developer of Farmville will have access to the users basic information, email address, birthday and location. After viewing this information the user can choose whether or not to proceed to play the game. If the user decide to play they automatically agree to the company’s terms of service and Privacy Policy. Facebook also has options for users to set their own privacy settings and they aren’t forced to fill out certain parts of their profile. Such as Interests, Places lived, work and occupation. These options mean that up to a certain extent, a users profile is as private or public as they want it to be. If someone was really concerned about privacy they could potentially thwart most advertisers from using location, interest or other Facebook targeting techniques.

Content posted on Facebook is generally considered too be owned by the content poster, but there are many exceptions. If a user posts a photo they don’t own for example, it is usually something they find interesting and are not attempting to state that they own the photo. Sharing other users content is similar to this. Additionally, if a user posts a photo they took themselves or something they created then they do own that content. Almost everything a person types as a comment or status belongs to them to some extent, as they are creating the content.

Week 1

The only social network that I utilize daily is Facebook, which is currently the largest network on the internet. It has a user base is so large it dwarfs most countries, with over one billion registered accounts. It is hard to say what Facebook’s target audience is, as it seems to involve anyone with an internet connection. The main reason it exists is to allow users to have an easier way to connect with friends and acquaintances. It does this primarily by giving users the ability to create statuses, post comments and like other users comments and posts.

The ability to share statuses and receive updates from followed pages and friends means that Facebook is constantly being updated. This gives users a reason to check their Facebook page often. Many of which tend to access Facebook multiple times a day, whether they want to keep up to date, are bored or obsessed with one of Facebook’s many online games. Personally, I engage with Facebook by posting statuses if i think i have something worth sharing and by engaging in conversations with friends in the private instant message chat. Although i only keep in contact with around seven people, which is a fraction of my friends list. The network is also used to keep track of companies and pages I am interested in, such as “The Simpsons” and “Nerd fitness”. These pages also give me the option to share their content and they update frequently.