Final Paper DONE

After finishing writing my final paper, I must say that I am surprised at my conclusion. I feel like until I actually began getting towards the end of my paper I only saw the dependence on technology among colleges and ignored the importance of the people who work/attend them. It might sound cheesy, but technology enables many things to be easier/more orgnanized but could NEVER take the place of a person or compare to their abilities (after all, we created these technologies). Although technopolies are dependent on technology (which campuses are without a doubt), this dependency does not render humans "useless" or "less" than the technology. I actually really enjoyed writing this paper more than I expected to. I feel like I'm so amped off of my conclusion that I don't even want to be on a computer any longer, ha.

Final paper progress 1

I started my paper a couple days ago but have been so busy with finals that I haven't had a chance to write about it until now. I decided to write on Postman's "Technopoly" because I believe that college campuses are just that. I have made a list of the pros and cons to technology on the college campus and although there seem to be a pretty even amount on both sides. I understand that there are two sides to everything and I feel that my argument is shaping more as I continue to write and examine this topic, but I think in the end technology is for the benefit of higher education. Reading through the book for quotes to support my arguments has been a bit painstaking as I did not enjoy reading it the first time too much, but I do enjoy the topic of the paper so it's well worth it. I must admit that I have been experiencing first hand one of the cons to technology on the college campus: checking facebook while attempting to write my paper(s). This is something I know everybody battles with, but being so connected to the world also has many benefits that I will be discussing.

Current Event

I did my current event on an article from Foxnews.com titled "Tech Breakthrough Could Mean Disposable E-Readers" (found here: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/28/tech-breakthrough-mean-disposable-e-readers/). Basically the article discusses a new ink-like technology called "electrowetting" which would allow a flexible piece of organic/disposable paper to contain multiple pages. This is similar to E-readers such as the Kindle, except it is not as fragile or expensive. Dr. Steckl claims that this is the future of electronic paper and believes that in 3-5 there will be a prototype on the market. The technology of electrowetting is even said to be capable of containing video. With all this being said, this technology could completely change the way books/magazines/newspapers, etc. are sold and distributed throughout the world.

While talking with the class I wondered how people would feel disposing of a piece of paper with this kind of technology contained in it. Most people gave the same answer that I believed to be true myself: It seems pretty wild/strange now, but if the product is organic and mass produced I guess it would be easy to get used to.

Facebook (pt. 2)

In reading the second part of "The Facebook Effect" the chapters focus on the business aspect of owning a new company and provides a lot of insight into the process of getting investors. It was actually very enjoyable to see this perspective of how Facebook got started and I found it interesting how a 20 year old was handling being in serious conversations with people double his age and much more experienced then him. Also, there was a lot of information in these chapters that documented where Facebook came from and how it developed into the best social networking site in our lives today. Hearing Graham (of the Washington Post) talk about the similarities between what Facebook allows students to do in regards to leaving comments on pictures/posts and the ledgers that contained articles of the Harvard Crimson shows that many of the ideas that created Facebook weren't necessarily new, just tweaked and put on the internet for a much easier platform to gain many followers. The Washington Post's initial investment offers opened my eyes to the different approaches one could take while shopping a company around for investors. The fact that their plan focused more on the long-term development of the site and not the "sell fast" mentality seems to be what influenced Zuckerberg the most for planning Facebook's future. This approach is more risky because the company has to overcome many obstacles and establish a dominance, but the pay-off at the end is much bigger than the quicker approach. The fact that Viacom took an interest and wanted to merge Facebook with Mtv.com displays the endless possibilities and different roads the website could have went down. In the end, Zuckerberg goes with Accel and obviously the decision pays off for him. The rest of the chapters document the development of Facebook (which as a user I found awesome since I experienced these developments myself) and the development of Zuckerberg as a CEO. Interestingly enough, the struggle of trying to keep Facebook closed off to only students is something that I tend to forget ever existed. The eventual switch has made the website one of the main tools for family/friends keeping in touch no matter where they currently are in the world. Also, it was funny that pictures were not "unlimited" or even a big part of Facebook in the beginning since now that is why many people love the website so much.