Jamilah's Life in IST... Watch Me Work

The internet has changed many people’s lives. For people like my mother and grandmother, adjusting to life on the web was difficult. However, I was not that affected because it has always been a part of my life. Along with the vast list of advantages, the internet has brought many disadvantages to our world. I don’t know where I would be without it but, I could imagine. The internet has and still is shaping my life in positive and negative ways.
Although, the internet has made everything is easier and faster to access, it has also made things like human contact harder to come by. When my younger sister, Sahara, was sick, no one knew what she had because it was Saturday and the free clinic was closed. My mother wanted to catch three buses to go to a clinic in North Philadelphia because she wanted “a doctor” to diagnose Sahara. When we looked at the clinic’s website, they suggested that we could go to webmd.com, plug Sahara’s symptoms in, and find out what she has and how to treat it. In the end, we found that she had the flu and that she needed to get to the clinic as soon as it opened. Because of webmd.com, free clinics are only open during the week. They must feel that it is just as good as the real thing.
In elementary school, we were using dictionary.com to find the definitions of our weekly vocabulary words. This is both positive and negative because I was keeping up with technology but I was also dependent upon it. I didn’t know how to use a paper dictionary and didn’t care to learn. Why take a minuet with the paper dictionary, when it would take a couple seconds on the internet. This skill, or lack of, would come to haunt me in the future.
When I entered junior high school, I started exploring the internet. The cost of internet service had become cheaper; therefore, public schools, public libraries, and urban families had access along with the rest of America. I remember when I set up my first email account with Hotmail.com®. September 14, 2000 is the day I became a part of “cyber space”. At my junior high school, every student had to set up an email account and register with neopets.com. Neopets® was a very exciting way for me to learn how to the internet and some of its functions. I remember how I could make “pets” and use the search bar to find anything I needed for my pets (jobs, games, housing, etc.). I played classic games on Neopets.com such as Scrabble®, Monopoly®, and Tic-Tac-Toe with new characters. I am relieved that they started me with something as easy as Neopets®. As time went by, I learned about the more difficult parts of the internet.
During high school, I experienced the best and worst of the internet. I discovered the wonders of Ebay.com and horrors of pop-ups. Ebay.com really became my best friend. I brought so many things that I would have never found at Philadelphia’s Gallery Mall. Once, I brought a limited edition PUMA bag for $30, I was living the good life. However, I have also been a victim of the infamous pop-ups. For instance, I was browsing on MTV.com and as I was on my way to watch the latest Destiny’s Child video, my computer was attacked by 15 -25 little screens advertising everything from the lottery to penis enlargers. Thank God for the Pop-up blocker. I also experienced the “Facebook Friend” and the “MySpace Stalker”. In the 10th grade, I transferred schools and left countless friends behind. Through Facebook.com, I was able to build on the friendships I started and make many new ones. I really enjoyed networking on the internet; it is much easier than networking in person. Me being the inhibited soul that I was, I loved showing my true colors online. MySpace also helped me with this. However, MySpace was an entirely different place. Anyone could join and request friendship. Men my father’s age would request my friendship all the time. That really disgusted me and in the end, I deleted my profile and became a faithful Facebook user.
Earlier, I mentioned how I was dependent on the internet for simple things such as searching for word definitions and research. During my last year in high school, I enrolled in Advance Placement English 4 in which I had to use a “paper dictionary” to look up word definitions. I cannot begin to explain the difficultly I had the first couple of days. I was used to typing the word into dictionary.com and finding the definition within seconds. The paper dictionary took me three times as long. For my final project, I had to create a research paper using at least 10 books from the library. This was extremely difficult and time consuming. I actually had to go to the main library, stay there while I read through the books, and then try to take books home. It took me so long to get used to taking notes from these huge ancient books. It would have been easier and more efficient if I would have used the internet but I had to learn the traditional way of research some day. These are the times the internet is a disadvantage.
Presently, I use the internet to do everything in college. All my course homework is online. In some cases, this is easier than turning it in on paper. However, in Spanish 2 I rather have everything done in person. Traditionally, foreign language courses meet five days a week. Apparently, college doesn’t go by tradition. My Spanish class meets 2 times a week and everything else is done online including flash cards and practicing speech. This makes Spanish harder to learn. However, an advantage is that essays and papers and usually submitted online at midnight on Thursday of that week. This is much more convenient than rushing to turning a paper for the 9 a.m. class. I am allowed to take my time and get everything done right. With everything I do being done on the internet, is it no doubt a shaping my life.
Although, I have had problems with the internet throughout life, I predict that it will become an even bigger part of my life. After I graduate, I am going to apply to graduate school. I know the application will be online but by the year 2012, the interview may be online also. When I buy my first car, I will possibly be able to buy it online and have it shipped to my home. The internet is growing stronger and faster everyday; it is going to continue to change and shape lives the way it has changed and shaped mine.

My blog critic is on a blog from vox.com entitled "Stuff. just stuff. stuff is good."

It started on 9/10/06 and has 205 posts so far.

The author of this blog calls herself rotheche. She was a Vox.com Beta tester.
Through the postings, I realized that the author is an Australian female digital photographer. She is a 37 years old, obese (but was trying to loose weight), and has met many important people in her life through the internet such as her husband and best friend. She lives down the street from a couple who has 2 horses. She also reveals that she works at a radio station but not the name. She posted a picture of herself

There was a little harm to her postings (for someone who is really going to go through the trouble to find her). Although she never posted her name, she said she lives in Australia down the street from these 2 distinct horses. And she is a photographer, so if someone really wanted to find her they could pose as a model or something. Overall, her blog was safer than most blogs I have seen.

The purpose of the blog is that of a diary. She wants to release her thoughts, feelings, and experiences at the end of the day. She post something almost every other day or at least 2 times a week. Because she is a photographer, many of her posts are of pictures she has taken.
Her first posts were in response to the Question of the Day. She continued to answer those questrions but round Ocotober 2006 she was blogginf on her own.

She is a faithful tagger. She has a huge tag cloud. The most tags come from Photography, Animals, and Travel.

Confessions of a London Secretary (www.confessionsofalondonsecretart.blogspot.com)
Tatiana Plum Crumpet posts very personal information about her sexual affairs and drinking habits. At work, she fell in love with one of her co workers over the copy machine. They met at a party, where she discovered that he had been married for 20 years. Nevertheless, he is still interested in her. She uses a lot of British terminology such as arse, rogering and bloody. She uses the following tags: love, confusion, and dealing with the office bitch. Her language is very personal as if she is having a steamy conversation with her best friend. She posts a lot of personal thoughts but no information tells you how to find her or know exactly who she is.

Professional Assistant (www.professionalassistant.blogspot.com)

Richard Rinyai from Ontario, Canada posts tips and tricks on how to be an admin assistant such as how to write a good resume, how to be courteous in the workplace, and blogging at work. He writes professionally using proper grammar and punctuation. He uses the following tags: productivity, organization, and task. He posts his name, information about the town he lives in and his favorite movies. His blog is very neat and useful.

While reviewing various professional blogging policies, I noticed that many corporations have similar guidelines. For example, Yahoo! and IBM want their employees to keep confidential information concealed. Like every business, Yahoo! and IBM want to keep their company secrets from the public. If their secret were exposed, they could lose money and/or customers. Along with Yahoo! and IBM, Harvard Law School wants the blogger to respect the audience. That is refraining from using obscene, defamatory, threatening language. In Yahoo’s perspective, the person offended can pursue legal action against the blogger for such language. This rule is understandable because when John Doe from IBM says, “I hate Jews” on his blog, the company may then get a bad reputation. Harvard Law School and Yahoo! ask their bloggers to present truthful and correct information. When Harvard’s Janet Planet says, “The president of the United States in 1990 was George Washington” on her school blog, it may be the difference between 100 and 200 incoming students. When people read that they might feel like Harvard Law School is not the school for them. In the end, confidentiality, audience respect, and correct information were the rules most companies had in common.

Some companies had very different policies. For example, Yahoo’s “Provide Context to Your Argument” Policy is unique because it is telling the blogger that if they use free speech, they need to show a lot of support. No doubt, people are supposed to support their ideas and thoughts but I do not think it should be a rule. Some people blog to rant and many times rants do not have reasons. However, Yahoo! needs this policy because their bloggers have access to so much information that they should never have to be questioned about support. Yahoo! would not want to be known for providing little support. That would ruin the Yahoo! Answers section of their business where trained bloggers answer user’s questions. Another example is in IBM’s policy that states “Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them”. I think this is unnecessary only because I would not want to cite everyone who was writing on the same topic. Nevertheless, IBM needs this rule because it is such a large corporation. They do not want anyone to accuse their bloggers of plagiarism. The least common policy I came across was Harvard Law School’s Children policy. Bloggers cannot get or direct information towards children under the age of 13 without written permission. I am going to assume that an incident occurred involving Harvard and IBM or maybe Harvard does not want 22-30 year olds interacting with children in that age group. With everything that is going on in the world today, Harvard is just playing it safe. It would be especially horrible if a Harvard Law student was caught having intimate conversations with children. Every company has policies unique to their needs and there are good reasons behind them all.

After reviewing the different types of policies, I created a mock blogging policy for Matthews Computer Company.

Matthews Computer Co. Blogging Policy
http://www.matthewscomp.com/policy/blogs.html (Dead Link on Purpose)
• Be mindful of your audience – You never know who will read your blog and the opinions they make could affect you outside of cyberspace.
• Do not use the company name or logo – The thoughts on your blog must be your thoughts only; unless approved by your supervisor.
• Identify yourself – Unless you do not want to be acknowledged, you must have your name and company title somewhere on your blog.
• Use a disclaimer- If you post includes anything about the company or its employees, use a disclaimer stating that “I, John Doe, am completely responsible for decisions regarding my blog’s content. The views expressed in my blog are not necessarily those of Matthews Computer Company and Matthews Computer Company assumes no legal responsibility for any material appearing in my blog.”
• Keep confidential information confidential – Confidential information is not to be disclosed for any reason. If any confidential information is ever found on your blog, you will be immediately terminated from the company and you will hear from our lawyers.
• Do not blog while working –Unless approved by your supervisor, blogging is prohibited during paid hours. You can, however, blog during you lunch and breaks.
• Use common sense – If you are unsure about what to post, use common sense and your best judgment to decide what is appropriate. For example, posting about your love life or sexual history is not a good decision. Keep posts related to your job and current events.

By kuribo on Flickr

Resources
Yahoo! Personal Blog Guidelines
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf
• Be Respectful of Your Colleagues
o Be thoughtful and accurate in your posts, and be respectful of how other Yahoos may be affected. All Yahoo! employees can be viewed (correctly or incorrectly) as representative of the company, which can add significance to your public reflections on the organization (whether you intend to or not). Yahoos who identify themselves as Yahoo! employees in their blogs and comment on the company at any time, should notify their manager of the existence of their blog just to avoid any surprises. To be clear, you are not being asked to alert your manager of your posts, just to consider letting them know you have a blog where you may write about Yahoo!. Whether your manager chooses to occasionally read your blog or not, the courtesy head’s up is always appreciated.
• Get Your Facts Straight
o As a Yahoo! employee with intranet access, you have the opportunity to contact the Yahoos who are responsible for the products, services, or other initiatives that you may want to write about. To ensure you are not misrepresenting your fellow Yahoos or their work, consider reaching out to a member of the relevant team before posting. This courtesy will help you provide your readers with accurate insights, especially when you are blogging outside your area of expertise. If there is someone at Yahoo! who knows more about the topic than you, check with them to make sure you have your facts straight.
• Company Privileged Information
o Any confidential, proprietary, or trade secret information is obviously off-limits for your blog per the Proprietary Information Agreement you have signed with Yahoo!. To obtain a copy of your agreement, please contact your HR manager. The Yahoo! logo and trademarks are also off-limits per our brand guidelines. Anything related to Yahoo! policy, inventions, strategy, financials, products, etc. that has not been made public cannot appear in your blog under any circumstances. see Yahoo! Guides 2. Disclosing confidential or proprietary information can negatively impact our business and may result in regulatory violations for the company
• Provide Context to Your Argument
o Please be sure to provide enough support in your posting to help Yahoos understand your reasoning, be it positive or negative. We appreciate the value of multiple perspectives, so help us to understand yours by providing context to your opinion. Whether you are posting in praise or criticism of Yahoo!, you are encouraged to develop a thoughtful argument that extends well beyond “(insert) is cool” or “(insert) sucks”.
• Legal Liability
o When you choose to go public with your opinions via a blog, you are legally responsible for your commentary. Individual bloggers can be held personally liable for any commentary deemed to be defamatory, obscene (not swear words, but rather the legal definition of “obscene”), proprietary, or libelous (whether pertaining to Yahoo, individuals, or any other company for that matter). For these reasons, bloggers should exercise caution with regards to exaggeration, colorful language, guesswork, obscenity, copyrighted materials, legal conclusions, and derogatory remarks or characterizations. In essence, you blog (or post on the blogs of others) at your own risk. Outside parties actually can pursue legal action against you (not Yahoo!) for postings.
• Engage in Private Feedback
o Not everyone who is reading your blog will feel comfortable approaching you if they are concerned their feedback will become public. In order to maintain an open dialogue that everyone can comfortably engage in, Yahoo! bloggers are asked to welcome “off-blog” feedback from their colleagues who would like to privately respond, make suggestions, or report errors without having their comments appear your blog. Bloggers want to know what you think. If you have an opinion, correction or criticism regarding a posting, reach out for the blogger directly. Whether privately or on their blog, let the blogger know your thoughts. Law School.

Weblogs at Harvard Law School
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/terms-of-use
• We must reserve the right to remove certain content that you may post.
• You may post content freely to your blog and to those of others, so long as the content is not illegal, obscene, defamatory, threatening, infringing of intellectual property rights, invasive of privacy or otherwise injurious or objectionable.
• You may not use the Harvard name to endorse or promote any product, opinion, cause or political candidate.
• Representation of your personal opinions as institutionally endorsed by Harvard University or any of its Schools or organizations is strictly prohibited.
• By posting content to any blog, you warrant and represent that you either own or otherwise control all of the rights to that content, including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the content, or that your use of the content is a protected fair use.
• You agree that you will not knowingly and with intent to defraud provide material and misleading false information.
• You represent and warrant also that the content you supply does not violate these Terms, and that you will indemnify and hold Harvard harmless for any and all claims resulting from content you supply.
• You acknowledge that Harvard does not pre-screen or regularly review posted content, but that it shall have the right to remove in its sole discretion any content that it considers to violate these Terms or the terms of any other campus user agreements that may govern your use of the campus networks.
• You understand that all content posted to http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ is the sole responsibility of the individual who originally posted the content.
• You understand, also, that all opinions expressed by users of this site are expressed strictly in their individual capacities, and not as representatives of any Harvard institution.
• You agree that Harvard will not be liable, under any circumstances and in any way, for any errors or omissions, loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of use of any content posted on this site.
• You agree that you must evaluate and bear all risks associated with the use of any content, including any reliance on the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such content.
• Collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 is prohibited.
• No Content should be directed toward such children without the express written permission of the Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard

IBM Blogging Guidelines
http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
• Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
• Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time—protect your privacy.
• Identify yourself – name and, when relevant, role at IBM – when you blog about IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
• If you publish a blog or post to a blog outside of IBM and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with IBM, use a disclaimer such as this: “The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.”
• Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
• Don’t provide IBM’s or another’s confidential or other proprietary information. Ask permission to publish or report on conversations that are meant to be private or internal to IBM.
• Don't cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
• Respect your audience. Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for others' privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory – such as politics and religion.
• Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.
• Don't pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.
• Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective.

Personally, I am a faithful Chris Crocker fan. My younger sister and I used to watch his videos on MySpace.com all the time. A couple of weeks ago, he was featured in Vh1's Best Week Ever for his "Leave Brintty Alone" video (posted below). 4 BILLION people have downloaded this video, yes 4 billion. Now, make that 4 billion and 1.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Crocker_%28Internet_celebrity%29

Chris Crocker (born December 1987) is an openly gay[2] Tennessee-based[5] YouTube and MySpace[2] personality and self-described edutainer[3] who produces and acts in transgressive videos. According to Crocker, safety concerns over death threats he has received have forced him to keep his identity and exact location private.[1][6] Crocker is his stage name.[7] His work consists mainly of short-form self-directed "monologues about life" shot in his grandparents' home.[8] As of October 2007, Crocker's videos have received a combined 40.2 million plays on MySpace,[9] and his vlog channel on YouTube is the 15th most viewed of all time in all categories, with over 46.2 million views.[10]

Although he has produced dozens of videos, Crocker gained international notoriety from his viral video tearfully defending Britney Spears's "lackluster MTV comeback"[11] with over four million views in two days. The video received international media attention,[12][13][14][15] as well as generating death threats for the androgynous[16] teenager.[17]

Crocker's detractors and critics have accused him of melodramatics,[18] histrionics,[16] and using Spears' personal shortcomings to bolster his own fame.[19] Others have accused Crocker of acting in the "Leave Britney Alone" video,[20] although he insisted that it was a genuine "blog from the heart" on a September 20, 2007 appearance on the Maury Povich show.[21][6] Psychologist Kevin Leman noted in an interview that pointed to Crocker, that voyeuristic fascination with celebrity "says that we live in a morally corrupt society" and that younger people seeking fame, like Crocker, are hedonistic attention-seeking mongers.[22]

On September 18, 2007, Variety revealed that Crocker has signed a development deal with 44 Blue Productions to star in a documentary-style reality television show.[23]

This is Chris Crocker in person on the Maury Show from You Tube.