Modernizing modernization.

(Please be prepared for this to not connect always to the readings because there were some things-microcontent, for example-that were FAR beyond my understanding of the internet. This is kind of what I got out of it and the gist of my thoughts about it. I think. I kind of looked like this):

Last night, I spent three hours looking for paid internships this summer (being an English major, it means I have thousands of options, yet somehow zero options all at once) and almost every place I looked was looking for students well-versed in internet lingo, code, and many of the tools O’Reilly listed in his article. The publishing and journalism places I was looking were also looking for those who have experience with writing on the internet-blogging especially. Some of the best paying internships were ones who were experienced with web-design, web-creation, and being able to manipulate the current site and updating it frequently. This indicated to me the necessity of Web 2.0 and people being fluent in it. I think it enhances the importance of classes like this. Knowing how to blog, how to make a video, how to “tweet”, how to do anything on the internet is vital to success. The terrible rapper 50 Cent’s last album in 2009 sold 600,000 copies (significantly less than his previous album which sold 2.5 million copies). By all intents of purposes, his career should be almost over. But I would dare say he is more popular than before, not because of his music, but because of his tweets. He tweets STUPID things and useless info about his day (do I have to know that you are all out of white undies? No. No I don’t) and he has maintained his relevance through the personal updating techniques used by 2.0. And I love tweeting some of my favorite music artists (Ingrid Michaelson has yet to respond, but she will one day. I can feel it) but that kind of access wasn’t available 5 years ago.

Now to play Devil’s Advocate: I think the biggest fall back to all this is the inflating of self-importance. I am writing this blog fully acknowledging that my ideas are the greatest things to ever be put forth for the public viewing because everyone can read it and comment to agree with me. Political battles have become more and more heated because if one of my friends put a status saying, “Rush Limbaugh’s view of feminism is spot on,” you can bet I am going to respond with a witty retort of why his opinion is incorrect. My strongest caution with Web 2.0 is Human Ego 2.0. I recognize that this is the point: the point is that almost anyone can share their ideas with almost anyone else, but maybe that isn’t always a good thing. Modernization with communication may want to take a second and think about this one before adding another way for me to share my always correct opinions and ideas.

But like all modern technology, now comes the tricky battle: what can I and can’t I borrow? How do I cite this? If I find a picture on the web, do I always have to cite back to the photographer? I also have a tumblr blog and one of my profile pictures was this awesome picture of a girl with paint on her face (it was deep and had a lot of meaning…I guess) and the photographer asked me (by e-mail) to either say “So and so took the picture” or take it down. There was no way for my to acknowledge her work, so I ended up changing it and there was no foul. This free web interface allows for the exchange and sharing of new and great things, but also for long and tense legal battles. But over what? Something you say and do may influence something I say and do, but do I really have to acknowledge it every time? Every cell phone company is suing another cell phone company for “stealing” ideas (like touch screens, internal antennas, sliding keyboards, T9 words-all common things used by most new phones) because the ideas were all shared and spread. It’s kind of overwhelming with what I can and can’t say and do. I hope it gets clearer as the technology expands.

And if you read that, way to go you. You deserve an award.