The New Digg is the king of Social Bookmarking!

       What is the key to finding the best Social Bookmarking sites? BEING SOCIAL! So I went and asked on my social networks which ones people recommended I try out and which ones were a waste of time. So many of my comments came from strangers that said to me that it really depends on what you want your results to be. Didn't really understand those replies at first so I did some snooping around all of the major social bookmarking sites to see how different the content could be. In the end they all offered the same content but what I found was that only Digg had real informative content that interested me ranked very high and very easily to find instead of pop culture content that you find blanketing news sites like scandals or useless celeb news. Of all of the social bookmarking sites that offer user generated content, allow you to recommend and share media and rate that material for other users, what makes the content that find on Digg that much better than Stumbleupon, Buzzfeed, reddit or any of the other sites?

     
        I found that some sites, like Buzzfeed for example, may have a voting system like all of the others but what really drives the traffic to the content you find is the optimizers they employ that scour the web for content most likely to go viral. Sorry guys that not how social networks are supposed to work! Other sites like Reddit, my second favorite for a few reasons, is far more democratic but the content most high ranked is generally a little geeky even for me but the site remains completely unbiased to the content and that is what socially promoted content is all about.

     
         The new Digg takes it to a level that Reddit once mastered, making the content comment system more like a forum than just people dropping their two cents as they swing by keeping the user involved. They allow likes and links and comments on comments users can link to comments to further discussion or to rebuke the garbledeegook that people post that have no idea what they are talking about. The overall usability to far more attractive than Reddit though I really don't see Reddit staying far behind for too much longer.The jury is still out on Stumbleupon, my favorite think about Stumbleupon is that you literally tell it what kind of content you like and it finds stuff it thinks will interest you! Sounds awesome but the system needs a little tuning. I found two or three articles that interested me very quickly and then I was gone. It wont be too long until they realize they can use the articles I choose to further narrow the search and constantly provide the user with newer content.When they figure that out, they will be my new number one!

Myspace just can't get it right! or can they?

      You almost feel sorry for Myspace, my how they have fallen! Once valued at 12 BILLION, Singer turned actor turned wannabe media mogul purchased a controlling interest back in June/2011 for 35 Million. Even with Timberlake at the helm, say what you want the man is very smart (Jessica Beale-Timberlake need I say more?), they are sinking like a rock!  Alexa.com, a site that measure web traffic says even in the last 3 months it has lost almost 17% of its users and though every review I see seems to say the same thing Myspace doesn't learn. They all see the potential but the site is so incredibly flawed it could never be realized and so unfortunately Myspace will fold, completely and permanently in the next 2 years without a VERY serious overhaul!

       They did remove the rediculous eyesore of advertisements littered across the home page a few months ago so they can learn, but will they take the necessary steps to salvage their sinking ship in time for a revival? All of their users are screaming that the site is slow and unresponsive but there is no change. The homepage is XML but on other pages they appear to be clinging to the ancient HTML format in which today seems so ancient they might as well add a tile background and get it over with. It appears what originally made myspace so incredibly popular, the ability to embed your own HTML to change the appearance of your profile, will eventually be its downfall. I created a profile and attempted several times to log in and tour the sit and at first I literally almost gave up.

Generic HTML login page on MySpace.com

 
        Had to have been 15-20 times I would try to login and I kept finding myself on this generic login site, which I could have just chalked it up to maintenance or something but even here the code didn't work!  Click Login all you want and the page does nothing. After a continuous battle of web browsers and deleting cookies eventually I got lucky and made my way in! It wasn't until I used firefox that I was actually able to access my page, and BTW the first time I heard the media playing on the homepage. This is just the tip of the ice burg but how could they let this happen? I really couldn't answer that for you. I would imagine they would have engineers and testers constantly checking the functionality across all of the major browsers, maybe they are off today?

        I also recognize the potential for myspace but its inability to advance with the times will be its downfall. The band site pages are primitive at best, any media you access opens up a new window, the video player appears to imitate YouTube to a T and the search and navigation is horrendous!!! It took me way to long to actually start finding content that interested me and I only stuck with it so long for the assignment I writing this post for, otherwise would have given up.

         If myspace had A LOT more interest in the user than the content it sells they would have so much of an impact on the social scene! Facebook rules the social market now but they are on the decline though their numbers would tell you otherwise. The constant changes to the site, limits on content, invasion of the news feed with advertisements all demonstrate the same ineptitude. Both of these sites used to be strictly about the user... do they really think we won't notice or will simply just go along letting them shove their content down our throat? They both have the power of traffic and buzz now to turn it around but will they do it before the next social network comes?

        Facebook is public and owes to much to the shareholders to maximize profits so it's really not possible unless they magically come up with another way to pay their dividends. Myspace absolutely has the potential to do it but it won't be easy. I know MySpace has always been about the bands, but the music is for the audience so I think that should be the primary focus of the site. What is the point of promoting thousands of bands if the user that would be interested in them can't EASILY find them? How hard could it really be to require the user to answer a few simple questions here and there to keep a hold on their changing interests and offer content specific to them? Incorporate the original customization that made MySpace so awesome but it has to be controlled, offer it in variation of templates and an extensive way to manipulate and customize it so the user has more control and down goes Facebook like a shot in the gut!
       
       Think about it, music has always been a unifying force since the beginning of time!  Imagine you can create your own channel like youtube, with a social feed like facebook, be able to share photos like pinterest, get media suggestions based on your interests like NetFlix and be constantly up to date with the latest trending music based on your interests. The possibilities are limitless, but it has to be a complete overhaul, ONE THAT WILL BY ITSELF MAKE HEADLINES! Hey JT gimme a call and I'll show you the how to!

The Metaphysics of Cyberspace!

     So many would lead you to believe that they must actually convince us of cyberspace being an actual reality; almost innately any one who interacts in an online environment already recognizes this but almost none can tell us why. What is reality? Who is really qualified to define reality? What is real? In physics everything is relative so with that being said if I can interact with with this pen and paper just the same as I can interact with the keyboard and monitor what makes it any less real? Common sense indicates reality is what can be interacted with using our 5 senses, right? Oh well that's it then, I can't smell what is being typed so it can't be real. The fact is, that is absolutely not a valid description of what is real and what is not? You can't smell energy and you can't see the molecules that make up the air, why are they more real? Fordham Professor Lance Strate has done a fantastic job disseminating the taxonomy of cyberspace in order to better establish and define this "Virtual reality" that we have come to accept as Cyberspace.

Strate's Mapping of the Cyberspace Territory 

       Professor Strate defines Cyberspace as the diverse experiences of space associated with computing and related technologies but goes on to break down the 3 Orders of Cyberspace which are then broken down into 6 more specific types of "space". The initial order is called the Zero Order Cyberspace which refers directly to the ontological status of cyberspace and includes the concepts of paraspace (a fake space or simulation of space) and cyber space time (totality of events between the computers themselves and the computer and the user). The next order is called the First Order Cyberspace which breaks down the building blocks of space (and cyberspace alike): the physical (computers, modems, wires, users, etc), the conceptual (the sense of space generated within the mind as we interact with the computer) and the perceptual (the sense of space generated by the computer-user interface, through one or a combination of our senses). Then the last being the Second Order Cyberspace which specifically references the Cybermedia Space (the sense of space generated through the user's communication with and through the computer).

       I find the most inclusive of the 3 Orders of Cyberspace being the First Order and it is this I feel represents the true nature and ontology of the cyberspace environment. It is this order that encompasses the true physics of the real world relative with those of cyberspace. It explains the physical cyberspace in which it is easy to comprehend through comparison; the material base of the computer itself as well as the wires, network and other physical components is similar to the nerve structure of the human body. The impulses sent through the superhighway of nerves in our body is the simply the most efficient analogy; what makes the transfer of information interpreted by our brains any less real than the information interpreted and presented to us by our monitors? What better describes the conceptual space than to say it is simply a product of ideas or an idealistic space that allows us to physically demonstrate the theories or ideas we imagine through our mind's eye, our individual perceptual space. 

        Through the realization and acceptance of our "real" reality can we truly utilize the "cyberspace" reality as an expansion on our own. The Zero Order of Cyberspace explains this theory best when you define it as a paraspace or nonspace. As a fictional or seemingly paradoxical space that is not a space at all but a fake space or simulation is very much similar to that of our individual imaginations. 

"Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the "real country, all of "real" America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conseal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its baal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disney is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation." Baudrillard (1983, p.25)

       Understanding the Zero Order of Cyberspace is a little more difficult to understand in the space of cyberspacetime unless you understand at least in definition the theory of spacetime. In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as existing in three dimensions and time playing the role of a fourth dimension therefor can not exist independently (Einstein, 1954). Strate defines Cyberspacetime as the totality of events involving relationships between humans and computers, between humans and computers and between computers themselves. In other words the physical time that passes in the time you spend reading this blog is real and not only temporal.