Final Post – Where do I go from here?

Well then, final post for this module. I’m not too sure on what to put so we shall see how I go.

Before starting the module I was already an active member on the internet, I now know, that I seem to be addicted from my result which I got when we did the ‘Internet Addiction’ test (I didn’t mention in my blogs but other students have done). Though from recent life experiences and events I think I will continue to be this way for a while, maybe even my entire lifetime?

One question I know can be asked to myself is, will I continue to blog? So far from browsing other student’s profiles I have noticed that the majority will not continue in blogging. I, on the other hand will. This sense of online journal has changed my views of what the internet is, whether that was the intentions of my tutors forcing me upon the changes over the years, I personally don’t know. However I thank them for it as it has most defiantly being my personally favourite module for the first semester of my final year. I am sad to leave it as the seminars we had were great fun, and somehow it bought my confidence up. Sadly though my confidence went straight back down due to personal reasons of which are mentioned within my posts below.

The things we have learnt: from how to become millionaires by blogging, swapping general things and ending up with a house for a pen (it’s a great one, I’ll make sure I post it in my future blogs) to advertising yourself to potential employers through the aid of posting a blog which is actually your CV. On thing I have enjoyed is meeting the new people I would not have met on the discussion forum for COOL. I find myself now every time when reading posts or threads on forums everywhere that I keep referencing it to the Bails analysis we did. Though I don’t consider that a bad thing at all. Means it sunk in, which is what life is about … learning new things.

How to finish? Don’t like endings so I’m going to state this … in conclusion … an online community to me means a lot. I help run one, I join them and will continue to join them. Web2 even though experts don’t like it due to the significance to the .com boost in the early 90’s; I do. It’s a new way of life, let’s hope it continues it success because there are more good points than bad ones. As long as we have our own choice of what we view and do on the internet then we are the ones in control; not some business. Though we already have discussed that in one of my earlier posts, so thank you the readers and messengers that have left replies.

I would say something like... goodbye BUT because I’m going to start a new blog later on this month, I will give you an insight into what it will be based upon. I will be basing it on my life, the people that have helped me to get where I am today, as well as my experiences online and through university. Though I will be careful about the things that I post; now that I am aware of this ‘black hole’ that seems to learch around this virtual world. What a day to end as well on my birthday (even if this is late - sorry for that btw)

Related Web Sites & Online Activities

Well then, part of the criteria that I thought I would struggle with might not be so bad after all. Related web sites I will leave till last as I want to cover one main subject that I am personally involved with, and many other users. How many? How does over 1 billion internet users world wide sound? A lot huh!

Online gaming! Ever since the dawn of the internet, we had speeds which were extremely slow compared with today’s connections. With technology revolutionising every year, computers becoming an everyday use; both within the office at work and at home during leisure time, it wouldn’t be a surprise that you would expect such big numbers of users being involved in such a wide range and complex social network.

From strategy games, to first person shooters, every second of the day a few users across the world will be involved in an online game of some sort. I personally am hooked to two games. One being www.americasarmy.com and the other being my Virtual Airline activities (Flight Simulator, of which is a simulation game). Onwards from this, they can then create more communities online.

Using the examples above, the game Americas Army allowed for a new type of community; clans! What is a clan? Simple answer, it is a group of users who play a similar game who join together as a group to play that game. Some even get involved in competitions (making it a real world event at the same time as still being online). With Flight Simulator members came together on a social network called VATSIM. This allowed flight simulator enthusiasts to come together and fly like real plots do in the real world. It is solely based around trying to make it as real as real life; but you carry this experience out in virtual worlds with the aid of the game and other software. I have personally experiecenced this, if you wish to read how I got on then you can find it here.

Web sites I would relate to the module are the following:

http://www.eurolinkva.co.nr > this is my virtual airline community.

http://news.bbc.co.uk > BBC News has blogs on uploaded articles.

http://www.technewsworld.com > News about how the world of Web2

http://forum.justflight.com/forum > A forum I am a part of (active full time)

One more I came across recently which surprised me was the channel 4 forums for ER. I recently looked at this forum to find out when the new series was to start. When I joined I realised that there was only two men including myself (might be more), and the rest were all female. It would seem there are communities out there which only have one dominant sex; in this case the dominant sex would be female. This isn’t such a surprise to me but evidence that it is on the internet (kind of like groups forming). You can find the ER forum here:

http://community.channel4.com/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=162603557&f=9086031851

I will try and get my link for my post, but it was a while ago and may be archived. If you wish to search for it my name will be either ‘tall_guy_pete’ or ‘tallguypete’.

Online Privacy – A Reply!

I was going to put this as two parts but decided to keep it as one post so that it would flow.

After looking at certain contexts within the module scope, I thought I would go away and look at a fellow blogger’s post. I looked mainly at comments on my blogs and found that ‘Adrian’ made a post about ‘Online Privacy’.

He started off by linking us to an article on HEXUS by a Professor Nigel Smart. I found it an interesting read, and I found myself actually agreeing to about 85% of the article. I agreed with what he said regarding the matter of social networks (e.g. MySpace and FaceBook are the examples he gives). I wasn’t personally scared about this as with myself I am careful about what I put on my profiles and make sure that only my ‘added friends’ can view what I have put. One thing that caught my eye was when reading about the fact that potential employers could use the profiles to their advantage. In a sense there are many good and bad points, though for people like me who don’t know anyone in industry could be able to use this ‘power’ to their advantage and show off themselves (possibly even advertise themselves for future jobs that may interest them). This we did also discuss in one our tutorials and I remember the story that our tutor, Janet Finley. It was about a person who had put their CV on their blogs and they were contacted by a potential employer, the person ended up getting the job; proving that it can work.

Other places on the web which I believe use this context in a good sense, are dating services and web sites such as www.friendsreunited.co.uk . Here the members that sign up are providing information for all the right reasons, i.e. they want to meet someone with similar interests; or get in touch with people who have lost touch with them from childhood (schools and clubs).

What did scare me though was the section named ‘Irreversible damage’. Within this sub-section the sentence “Within minutes, chances are a search engine will crawl it …” (Kerrison, 2006). I as a member of social networks was unaware of search engines picking up this sort of information. I have never seen on any forum or web site state that this within their rules (or terms and conditions). The fact that I am unaware of this surely indicates that many other users; especially vulnerable users such as children are no doubt also unaware of this fact. The only piece of international law that I am aware of that would protect secure data (information stored about a member) would be the Data Protection Act (Crown, 1998). I only know this because when in the process of setting up our Virtual Airline, we had to oblige to certain legislation, by which members had to be above the age of 12 years old to join. We have considered lower age but refused the idea because of legal requirements stated internationally. You can find this here on my web site.

Onwards from the HEXUS article he also incorporated a YouTube video ‘Pedophile Alert … What are the DANGERS?’ (Renetto, 2006). This video intrigued me when I watched it. The title of the video seemed ambiguous and a little concerning, but it turned out to be based around the fact that members of YouTube had commented towards this guy releasing his private life on YouTube. My personal view on the matter is done through a comment on his post which can be viewed here (was unable to printout due to moderation and my timing of typing this post).

Crown (1998) Data Protection Act 1998 [Internet], Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2007].
Kerrison, S (2006) Social network users have ruined their privacy, forever [Internet], HEXUS. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2007].Renetto (2006) Pedophile Alert... What are the DANGERS? [Internet], YouTube. Available from: [Accessed 2nd January 2007].