I am Pinning!!! Or is it winning? Or am I really missing?

We all copyrighting is illegal and wrongful, I mean we see it every time we watch a movie, the FBI warning pops up and we read it in a mocking voice or at least I do in my head. However, people still illegally download or try to find loop holes to post videos of what they want where they want. I know for a fact I have not read terms of use for anything I use; I usually scroll done to the bottom mark that I understand and move on. I mean I feel as though you can use common sense when it comes to using technology so why bother reading all the fine print!

I was looking at some of the terms of use and I came to Pinterest because I love Pinterest!

Pinterest it is a great new social medium a lot of people are using. What was interesting about their terms of use is the fact they have these huge paragraphs with a lot of wording, but on the side they have these box called “More simply put.” In these boxes Pinterest gives the quick and dirty version of what the lengthy paragraphs say. This is just another way to allow people to barely read the terms and get the main point, but would they be missing anything?

I also, know that nothing in life is free and I wonder what I am giving up by using these social mediums. I know that MySpace took pictures in my account and put them online. I could not do anything about it because it is the Internet and once it is on there it is hard to get down.  So I know I give up rights and I am not sure why I do not think about it more. I guess it is because I want to be on the social mediums and do not really care about what it means I am giving up.

This relates to what Burgess says about “new networks of cultural production” because we are giving up our rights to be a part of an online cultural. If you do not have a Facebook or a Twitter or a Pinterest people look at you like you are an outsider. I remember someone I worked with did not have a Facebook because he believed it was a waste of time. When he announced this to my other co-workers they were shocked because this was how they planned on communicating. Even though they ended up using Facebook to communicate the one member was left out of all the inside jokes and funny posting because we had a new network and had creating a culture online. To this day I wonder if he had joined or if we had included him in another way somehow if he would have been closer to us.

Everything we do in a social medium has an effect on our cultural. However, like Burgess also said “the content and value of Web 2.0 is still not well understood.” I think we are finally realizing what the Web 2.0 means for the future and some are questioning its intent, but there needs to be more.  

Easy Bake Oven... Uh Oh

In McGraw’s article, why feminine technologies matter (make a link), she talks about certain artifacts being “feminine because they are either used by or predominantly associated with female people.” Well the artifact I chose to fit into this description is the Easy Bake Oven. In 1963 the first Easy Bake Oven was created by Kenner Products (which is now a part of Hasbro). This oven allows little girls to practice their measurement skills, mixing skills, and more obviously their baking skills. This is reinforcing the Victorian view of women stay home and bake.  

I admit I had an easy bake oven when I was younger and did not know what this reinforcing to me. The funny thing is they now make easy bake oven where you can cook food. Why I find this funny is because if I look back on it, the easy bake oven made me love baking, but I am a horrible cook! Maybe if they had that option when I was 10 I would have fallen in love with cooking or actually new how to cook.

If you compare this 1990 video (the one on the top) to this 2011 video (the one on the bottom) they are very similar points. The points made are that it is easy, fast, and fun! However, if you have ever made real bake goods it may be fun, but that is about it. This is the message they are trying to sell to girls. You will also notice that both commercials have little girls in them, completely leaving out boys who may like to use the product, but cannot because they fear they will be made of fun because it is labeled as a girl toy.

 

This can also be seen in this Google Adword (which is an advertisement on Google search engine). As you can read the ad is targeted towards girls with “Baking Games for Girls.” 

However, there may be some hope this article was released saying Hasbro will now be making a boy version of the easy bake oven. Click here to read more http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/hasbro-easy-bake-oven-girls-boys-article-1.1222592

The inspiration came from a 13-year-old girl who was sad that her 4-year-old brother felt he could not use the oven because it was made for girls. Although, this brings up another issue on how the gender binary is set-up so that by age 3 children know what gender they are and how it is wrong to use things that look like they are made for girls or made for boys. At least it is a step in the right directions.

As McGraw said technology is socially constructed which I tend to agree with. I mean it had to take a 13-year-old girl to get a massive company to see how they were discriminating against sex after developing their product more than 45 years ago. Now all we need is for the commercials to include boys and maybe we will see more changes in other products in years to come. 

Facebook is trying to tell me who I am... say what?

Social Media is now the most used way to communicate with everyone you know. While many different sites are becoming ever more popular, none of them compare to Facebook. Facebook is used by billions of people every day. Not only do people use it for personal use, but for business too. However, a statement in Gandy’s article explains, “social networking has an ideological character: its networking advances capitalist individualization, accumulation and legitimization.” This just means the business which social mediums, such as Facebook, to advance themselves in the consumer world.

 Now that Facebook insights allows for business to type in keywords to find on everyone’s profiles to show up on the sides of their news feeds, business are once again able to regain the customers they lost because of social media. What I mean is more and more people stop listening to or viewing commercials on the television or on the radio or in the newspaper. If you want to attract new customers you have to do it online. I have a perfect example of this. I have on my profile that I am catholic and I use to be single so the ads which would pop up on the side of my news feed were about Christian Mingle, a dating website for Christians. Now that I am in a relationship the ads have switch to engagement rings (I have only been in a relationship for 6 months). This is how business collect new customer, they get to type in keywords about their businesses and if they match with keywords on your profile you probably will see an ad about it sooner or later. This is another example; I am supposed to graduate in a few weeks and Facebook ads pop up stating “You’re almost an alum!” 

These ads just tell someone that the digital me should be getting married and is going to be a college graduate soon. The most recent way for advertising is how they now have the ad show up in your news feed. You are going along reading about how horrible or great someone’s life is and then suddenly you see this: 

How rude right? Then it is says your friends like this so we think you will too (this is a big assumption if I have ever seen one).This is just another way of getting us consumers to buy something by telling us who we are or who we should be. Sometimes I laugh at the ads listed for me, especially if they talk about babies or marriage, because I feel as though the Internet is trying to speed up my life and I am only 22 years old.