week 6 - monday 2 may
Communities
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GNU & Market Networking
When I first read these two articles I was confused to say the least, and I didn't quite get the connection between the two. However, upon thinking about it for a while longer I realized that both articles seemed to be geared toward making our technology work best for us and our markets more personal and individualized...like trying to help us help ourselves if we so choose to, instead of relying blindly on software engineers to create things for us or big companies to sell things to us. In the end, who knows more about us, and our immediate networks for that matter, more than us?
It is important to study, from the communications perspective, because it would change the way all business is done. An entirely new way of marketing would have to emerge, since things would no longer be advertisement driven. A whole different approach would be forced to develop, and we would have to discover new and different ways to reach and affect people. Also, people would be freer to express themselves, resulting in even more of a variety of information being available, with no boundaries set by controlling forces.
I had never heard of this particular software before, but I thought that the idea was great. At the same time though, I can't imagine its use is very widespread, especially within corporations or with major networks, since I have never heard of it...
WiFi
In a world that is so large, technologies like this almost erase our sense of distance. When we are able to have instant communication with people that are miles away the debilitating distance is overcome.
As WiFi begins to spread across rural areas, and even in metropolitan areas city-wide, the opportunity to develop community networks increases more and more. As communities network themselves together, there will form new types of relationships people have with machines and with each other through machines.
Wi fi can eventually effectively delete the differences between com networks throughout the world. There will no longer be small isolated communities to provide case studies; our world will become a global village, connecting all.
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General comments on Assignment 1
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Questions about
Assignment 2 (pdf)?
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Discussion Leaders : Group 5
(readings for today's session)
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Lab : Deliverable - due today by 5pm
Progress report and schedule of work for remaining
four weeks of the quarter (two reports: one from Pioneers and one from
Bloggers) -- be sure to include individual student roles
assignments
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Mid-term report on individual project due by 5 pm Friday - please post as a blog entry (save my mailbox!)
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Reading for the next class :
(1) "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends of Friends of Friends" from Fortune by David Kirkpatrick (30 September 2003) [eReserve - 2 May] and (2) "The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head" from The Berkman Center for Internet & Society by James F. Moore (31 March 2003)
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blog post due by 9.30 am Wed 4 May :
Do you see any relationship between the ideas in these readings and the open source software movement?
Why or why not?
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