Theresa Senft and Clive Thompson first put out the idea of the microcelebrity a few years ago, an individual who is promote him or herself on the media and channels that are available to her or him and broadcasts that presentation to the general public and generally has an audience in the thousands. A microcelebrity …
Microblogging (Jaiku, Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, identi.ca, et al.) is considered a minimalist communication tool designed to fit the needs of an end-user. This channel allows the user to post information 140 characters at a time, which are called tweets. This configuration of characters could be as simple as textual information to a complex command line …
As we say goodbye to the old administration and the old technological initiatives are set by the wayside (remember the Internet is/are a bunch of tubes, classic, classic), it is important to look at President Obama’s technological policy point and see a possible road for the nation’s technical infrastructure. According to the White House website, it …
It seems that I’ve been focusing a lot on security and fraud on microblogging sites. However, there is more online than microblogging sites, despite my attraction to the concept. As a way of approaching cybersecurity, I finished reading the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency final report. It is …
I’ve wanted to go to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for quite some time. Since the show is the first part of the year, it was difficult to travel to Las Vegas. I’m generally at the National Association of Broadcasters annual show in April, and my travel budget doesn’t cover going to Vegas twice in one year. I was …
Scott Brown wrote a humorous article in Wired Magazine regarding how our generation would deal with depression the likes that have only been seen by our great-grandparents during the “Great Depression.” The question that comes from this half-hearted look into the future is what are we doing to prepare for the economic crash. The only …
It is a rare occurrence that I would stumble across a timely topic. However, it seems that my theoretical academic discussion has turned into a real-world threat. I’ve been working all day, and I finished eating dinner when I see the warning issued by Twitter. The questions that I asked from the last post seem …
Twitterkins lead me down another thought path when he tweeted me “who’d impersonate me when they’d gain nothing? Do identity thieves twitter? Like, to make it ‘look good?’” I really don’t have a good answer to this question. Also, I figured that this question deserved more than a simple 140 character answer. So, I figured I …
I was having a conversation with my wife about the Twilight Zone. Every year the Sci-Fi channel as a 24-hour marathon of most of the episodes. My wife was telling me about her favorite episode “The Changing of the Guard” and how it makes her cry everytime she sees it. During this talk, Paul F. …
I want to apologize for not posting in the past couple of weeks. It seems that my life as a retail superstar has interfered with my ability to act as an academic, let alone a public academic. So, I might as well attempt to write something before the end of the year. As my relatives …