Blogged Review: Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing

This is a blogged review of Norbert's, Maris', Indrek's and Marek's wiki on Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing.

It's difficult to write a review about the work of your course-mates, even more so because I'm finding it hard to come up with many good points for criticism. So, basically, I'm nitpicking, but I'm forced to nitpick for a full couple of pages, so I hope I'm forgiven for that.

When I started reading about what defines social media, I was expecting it to be defined by a social structure. Norbert had defined its most common denominator as peer-to-peer production, which I think is fine. The only thing I can perhaps say is that the philosopher in me would have loved to have seen a clear and explicit description of the nature of social media summarized separately as a definition. As it stands, the definition of social media would be something in the lines of "media that is characterized by utilization of Web 2.0 technology, user generated content, and a virtual social community," which, however, is pretty self-evident from the structure of the corresponding section.

I would perhaps also have liked to read about the relationship between the terms Web 2.0 and social media a bit more, as a lot of people seem to be defining Web 2.0 through the term of social media. I get the hint from the paragraph provided that this would be somewhat inaccurate, but it would have been excellent, if this conception would have been addressed more in-depth.

There is a nice exhaustive list of examples of social media, which I like, and I even found some examples on there that I would never have thought of myself (Flock). Perhaps in the case of Skydrive I'm not particularly sure that it in itself is an example of social media - it seems to tick the virtual community box by integrating Windows Live features, but is essentially a cloud storage service. But that's a technicality rather than anything else.

As far as viral marketing is concerned, I was surprised to find Hotmail's strategy of adding bits of advertising to the footer of e-mails that offer free e-mail accounts included as an example. At least it clashes with my common understanding of what a piece of viral marketing is.

This was, however, in the context of 1997, so perhaps back then it corresponded to what Maris had nicely outlined about the characteristics of a viral: being unexpected and making people feel something, for instance...

I think we had this question in our ethics chat as well - I think it was Marek who asked about whether Google Wave invitations were a form of viral marketing and hinted that there was a debate about this within their team.

If it were up to me, I'm not sure I'd call these invitation and footer-based systems viral marketing, but perhaps something more in the lines of viral distribution or viral recruiting.

The fact that there is so much buzz around Google Wave is not because there is a system of invitations to get access. The system, much like the invitation system that used to be in Orkut, for example, is an architectural limitation imposed to have control over the amount of users in the Google Wave preview and the social network structure in Orkut. They were not designed to be marketing tools, even if there might be some psychological element to this, as you might feel left out when you don't have an invitation and feel motivated to obtain one. Or an element of the economics of scarcity, as Marek points out.

As far as the Hotmail example is concerned, it can be considered viral in terms of how the advertising replicates itself and spreads, but the advertising itself is completely standard. And it seems viral marketing is defined in the wiki as a non-standard form of advertising.

The reason why everybody is talking about Google Wave is because it's symbolic of a new form of digital collaboration or communication, and the reason why Hotmail could have been considered virally buzzing a decade ago could have been that it introduced the age of mainstream free e-mail. But the way they manage their advertising and user base has little to do with their viral qualities.

So I'd have to respectfully disagree on the Hotmail, as well as Google Wave and Orkut accounts. Other than that, however, I think the description of the elements of a viral marketing strategy and tips for creating a piece of viral marketing provided a great overview of this elusive concept.

As far as crowdsourcing is concerned, I might comment a bit about the outlined controversies and pitfalls. The basic controversy was defined as individuals profiting from crowdsourcing activity, but it remained unclear to me whether it is controversial in the sense that profiting individually from a collaborative, social effort is morally wrong or in the sense that the contributors are in some way exploited in this process.

Its straightforward enough to argue in the moral realm of ownership and merit, but it gets more complicated in terms of exploitation, as people seem to be significantly motivated by more than just economic standing. Yochai Benkler has touched on this subject in his "Wealth of Networks," which our team covered for our wiki assignment. I would like to have seen a more in-depth analysis of these issues in this section just out of personal interest.

From an organizational perspective this team gets top marks for being done on time. From a formal perspective this work is definitely to the point and useful. I would point out, however, that the formatting of citations is not consistent throughout the document and perhaps, since this wiki is on one page, the references could have all been rounded up to the bottom of the page.

Objectively I should deduce that not a lot of coordination has gone into this wiki, and should criticize accordingly, but I have no real moral high-ground for doing so considering the progress of my own team on that front.

All-in-all a lovely, useful read.

Week 11: The Uneasy Alliance: Free Software vs Open Source

Analyze both free software and open source approach in your blog. If you prefer one, provide your arguments!

As I understood it, the difference between open source and free software is that the former is more of a technical term for a way of presenting or making a piece of software, whereas the latter refers more to freedom in the sense of free speech.

If a company, for instance, chooses to release the source for its software, it might be doing so in purely economically calculated move, as open source software can perhaps better harness third party resources for the purpose of its development or it might be generally easier to gain bigger market share etc.

Free software, on the other hand, in addition to generally being open source, has also got ethical and social pretensions. The primary reason why a certain piece of software is made free is not necessarily that it will be useful to its development, but to guarantee the users the freedom to use, modify and distribute the software as they please, with the limitation that the same freedom be guaranteed to others.

If I have to pick one of these that I prefer, it would be free software, as it seems to be a clearer manifestation of a spirit of openness and inclusiveness that I really like in the hacker ethic. There is a certain amount of political agenda behind my choice, however, and I'm not sure how I'd argue for open source or free software solely in the context of software development at all.

I guess I would go for free software because I think it's more in the spirit of how I'd like the world to be.

Week 10: The Digital Enforcement

Write a short analysis about applicability of copying restrictions - whether you consider them useful, in which cases exceptions should be made etc.!

I do not consider copyright restrictions useful, as I'm sure most of my blog posts in the past have more than hinted at.

I especially don't consider DRM restrictions of any use to me as basically they are bloatware programs which will be cracked before the DRM-d software hits the shelves in the store and use up precious computer resources to drive the owner of the legal copy of a piece of software completely up the wall.

I've seen legal studio software cracked to bypass digital enforcement, as well as legal games to make them run better. That is not normal.

DRM, to me, is strange. It doesn't look like its really helping the companies bottom lines anyway. Who would buy DRM-d music with legal DRM free music available?, for instance? It's a reactionary response to a contemporary situation based on industrial-age thinking and the problem at hand is a purely technical issue with plenty of other more cheerful solutions that have been brought to the table to alleviate the same concerns.

Add to that the community backlash at the intrusive enforcement measures and you have a disaster on your hands as far as I'm concerned.

Week 10: One Microsoft Way: the World of Proprietary Software

What could the software licensing landscape look like in 2015? Write a short (blogged) predictive analysis!

I guess if I were to make any meaningful predictions about software licensing in 2015, they would have to be about the gaming landscape, because I don't have as much in depth knowledge about the general software industry as I might have about PC games.

And the future of gaming software, frankly, looks bleak.

There seem to be very strong indicators that games will remain commercial and proprietary in the coming years. And that's chiefly because of two factors:

First, the game developers, in my view, have actually been quite successful in making people buy their proprietary software by making games that are increasingly based on the online service. Effectively they are selling the experience of the game, which they are in control of with their online servers. Sure, there are workarounds to most of these server restrictions, but they often involve quite a lot of messing about even with the help of the most active modding scenes and they are further discouraged by the simple fact that usually most of the action, whether just the most amount of players or some sort of competitions, leagues etc., is with the proprietary servers.

This strategy has certainly worked with me, as I have purchased several games just to get online.

Second, and this is a trend that's been going on for quite a while now and I see no turning back on this one - the game developers are abandoning their PC platform fans in favor of consoles. This trend began when they started to release console versions of games months earlier than the PC versions and is painfully obvious with most recent games, which are essentially not only just ports from consoles with the console-style user interface and limited functionality, but also shamelessly poorly executed ports that are glitchy, buggy and resource inefficient.

And it looks as though some high-profile game series are likely to never see a release on the PC in the future at all.

This is worrying, because, on the one hand, it entails commercial proprietary software - a finished, working, but limited product with it's closed platform, which, in my view, sort of clashes with whole collaborative peer production economy that seems to be smoldering within the contemporary information society; and, on the other hand, it marks the end of the PC game modding scene.

Modding was one of the key things that made gaming so appealing to me during the past decade. I learned how to use Photoshop just for the purpose of making my own skins and textures for various games. I've tried my hand at level design and probably even learned how to use audio software because I wanted to modify engine and ambient sounds etc.

When gaming goes console, modding will be reduced to a fraction of what it used to be in it's glory days. All the map making, modeling, texturing, scripting, community patching, total conversion jobs for the hundreds or thousands of games that are out there - all that massive creative input perished.

Bleak.

Week 9: The Millennium Bug in the WIPO Model

Find a good example of the "science business" described above and analyze it as a potential factor in the Digital Divide discussed earlier. Is the proposed connection likely or not? Blog your opinion!

There is a company in the United States called Myriad Genetics which has become one of the focal points of outrage over intellectual property protection in biotech industries.

The company is said to hold patents over two genes that are associated with breast and ovarian cancer.

Now, to me, it is puzzling that genes can even be patented, as they are completely natural. It sounds about as mad as patenting the sea.

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) says that about 20 % of our genes are patented in the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), and that a gene patent holder has the right to prevent the studying and testing of a gene.

The patents seem to be specifically for chemical compositions. The reason why gene sequences can be patented is essentially because you can patent chemicals. The PTO does not allow for the patenting of raw natural materials, so the patent is for isolated and purified DNA.

The upshot is that there is a significant hindrance on research on that 20% on genes and a significant emphasis on raking in the profits.

It doesn't really lead to a digital divide, but it sure does lead to some kind of divide. Pharmaceutical companies, like any other companies, operate in the interest of their bottom lines and their shareholders. Consequently, whenever possible, the price of medication will be high regardless of the ethical implications of people who might not afford it and the nature of medicine itself will not necessarily be about curing diseases, but about facilitating the use of drugs.

Week 9: The Hacker Approach: Development of Free Licenses

Study the GNU GPL and write a short blog essay about it. You may use the SWOT analysis model (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)!

Strengths

The GNU GPL protects the freedom to modify and share licensed works. It is a "copyleft" as you are charged with the responsibility of respecting the freedom of others upon the modification. Because under the GPL everyone is free to modify and share within these limitations, you can engage a massive body of collaborative input. The upshot is more and better free works for society and the cultivation of a flourishing culture of participation.

Weaknesses

The GPL is a license based on copyright, which means that only the holder of the copyright can pursue legal action if the license is violated. Let's assume you modify a piece of code that is under the GPL, and someone else modifies your modified code to prevent further modifications, which is in violation of the GPL, you have to contact the original copyright holder and persuade him to cooperate if you want legal action to be taken against the offender.

There could also be a discussion about the nature of the freedom that the GPL allows, as its stated objective is to "guarantee the freedom to share and change all versions of a program," but it is restrictive in terms of not allowing for the possilibity of modifyers of licensed works to distribute them as non-free.

Opportunities

The most influential external factor that is conducive to the adoption of the GNU GPL is a strong culture of participation associated with the rise of the Internet. In the contemporary setting there is a huge amount of non-market producers and collaborators that have been empowered with accessible tools and information. Consequently it could be argued that there is a generally favorable attitude towards adopting copyleft as opposed to proprietary approaches.

There also appear to be legal precedents that validate the legitimacy of the GPL.

Threats

There are other permissive free licenses, like the BSD-style licenses, that have very limited restrictions on their use. As such they offer complete freedom of modification and sharing without the requirement to reciprocate. Developers may opt to use free-licensed code in order to be able to profit from their modifications.

Week 8: More WIPO: Contracts and Licenses

Contracts essentially need at least two sides. Typical software End User License Agreements (EULAs) are presented as contracts between the software vendor and the user ("If you use it, you agree to..."). Could this kind of contract be non-binding in some cases?

My first instinct with this is that perhaps it is possible to argue that since almost nobody actually ever reads any EULA-s before they click on "agree" when installing any given software onto their computers, the contract is non-binding.

I have no idea how to put this in correct legal terms, but let's say that if it is widely known that people do not read EULA-s, then slipping some stipulations into it which the users would probably never agree to if they were aware of them is not in good faith and could render the contract non-binding.

I remember reading about how Google changed its Chrome EULA after only a handful of users discovered that there was a provision included that gave Google the license to practically everything that the browser was used to create, which was argued to be equivalent to Microsoft claiming the right to anything written in Word.

I imagine if nobody had bothered to read the EULA, it would probably still have been possible to argue in court that the EULA is non-binding if there were any disputes over rights. I'm sure that's one of the reasons the EULA was modified.

Week 8: The Proprietary World: The WIPO Intellectual Property model

Study the Anglo-American and Continental European school of IP. Write a short comparative analysis to your blog (if you have clear preference for one over another, explain that, too)!

The Continental European school of intellectual property protection stems from French copyright law, which was created parallel with the copyright laws in the UK and was influential in developing international copyright regulations of the Berne Convention of 1886. In Britain, copyright disputes were settled under common law, until the statute of Anne came along in 1709.

Leaving aside a full analysis of all the historical developments that lead to differing intellectual property protection in different parts of the world, there are a couple of points with which you could express the differences between the two schools.

First of all, apparently, you could make a distinction in the philosophical approach to intellectual property. For instance, the Continental European school seems to argue more for the moral right of authors to hold copyrights, as opposed to emphasis on the economic arguments in the Anglo-American school.

What this means in practice remains obscure to me, but I imagine that these different principles have lead to a differing body of laws and rulings. It could be, and this is pure speculation now, that in the Anglo-American system you might be rewarded damages from copyright infringement based on the extent of possible inflicted economic damage, rather than prioritizing the moral damages from ignoring the natural right of the author in any given ruling.

They say that it could be one of the reasons why the Anglo-American school of IP protection is often more effective, as arguing on moral grounds is unquantifiable and much more complicated as compared to arguing on economic grounds.

The second difference used to be in how copyright was awarded. In the US in particular you used to have to adhere to some formalities before you were awarded copyright protection. There was a requirement for the manufacture of copyrighted works domestically and the requirement for registering your work at the Copyright Office. When the US finally decided to accept the Berne Convention terms in 1988, these requirements were abolished.

However, registering your copyright is still strongly recommended. It seems to be a common misconception that copyright protection in the US is obtained upon registration due to the fact that registration is required before you are permitted to enforce your copyright in court.

To be clear, copyright is still awarded automatically upon the author's creation of a work and noone is allowed to infringe on it - you just have to register to pursue legal action. You can register at any time during the life of a copyright, so it is more of a formality to help obtain a better database of works to ensure easier permission clearances. However, registering early gives you certain financial and legal benefits.

As to the question of which school I would prefer, I'd have to say I would argue for copyright on moral grounds, if at all. In a perfect world I would at best leave copyright laws in place to ensure crediting and some control over the presentation of intellectual works and use something other than the force of regulation to ensure economic profit.

Week 7: The Author Versus the Information Society

Read Chapter 3 "Against Intellectual Property" of Brian Martin's book. Write a blog review (especially, comment on his strategies for change)!

I've written a blog post about the chapter "Against Intellectual Property" in Martin's book in my Introduction to New Media blog.

However, just to give quick commentary on the strategies for change, I think what it all comes down to in the end can be categorized under "expose the costs."

And by that I don't just mean the statistics about disproportionate profits that IP right holders and handlers, who add minimal value, are netting from works compared to the actual authors. There is also the cost of the loss of ideas in the social realm, which I think is the most fundamental issue with intellectual property in general.

Yes, you can argue that the tremendous increase in creative non-market production fueled by pirated software is morally wrong. You can hold that principles of enterpreneurship are ultimately of a higher order to the principle of social caring in the case of patenting genomes and drugs. You can maintain that intellectual works produced in the isolation of property protection are superior to openly produced works. And you can hold profiting from intellectual works to be a moral issue rather than a technical one.

It is a matter of philosophical perspectives. I just hold that particular perspective to be way too cynical for my taste.

Week 6: Social Engineering in Social Networks

Blog about a good case of social engineering!

My personal experience with social engineering is limited to an MSN Messenger trojan.

I received messages from my contacts with completely out-of-character intros in a foreign language, like "lol, , check out this pic of me wrestling this giant shark," which were followed by links to third party web pages with login forms where you had to enter your MSN username and password to gain "access."

Many of my friends fell for it, which was indicated by a substantial increase in these messages that were forwarded to me.

These days they call this login the Windows Live ID, which enables access to a number of different things. I use it for my Messenger and some computer game accounts, but crucially it also provides access to Hotmail accounts. I imagine that would be the real prize, as you can obtain further access to all sorts of things using someone's e-mail.

Formulate some measures which can reduce the effectiveness of social engineering attempts!

In the same way as you have to develop a "crap-detector" in order to extract useful information from the wilds of the internet, you have to likewise develop an intelligence for identifying threats. In fact, I would classify that ability as crap-detection as well.

To help aid this development there should perhaps be more central online sites dedicated to providing information about all the scams, malware, viruses, worms etc.

It's not related to social engineering but, for instance, one of the tools I use quite frequently to identify processes that are running on my Windows machine is Processlibrary.com. I think such a thing should even be embedded into the OS, because I can't count how often I've found my peace of mind thanks to this site.

But imagine all of the information available from antivirus software companies, scambaiters, social engineering watchdogs and, perhaps more importantly, from user experience itself being gathered into one powerful environment that enables to check for any malicious intentions by simply pasting the nonsense you receive from your MSN friend into an application that identifies it and directs you to a fix that you can send back to him.

So I think knowledge, specifically the collective knowledge of fellow web surfers, is the greatest counter-measure.

Week 6: From Hacktivism to Cyberwar

Find and blog about an illustrative case of hacktivism!

It was this summer, during the aftermath of the Iranian presidential election, when there were DoS attacks towards sites belonging to Iranian news agencies, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The attacks took place in a context of what has been described as an Iranian cyberwar declared on itself, as the government embarked on a selective obliteration of communication ranging from blocking access to Facebook, YouTube and BBC websites to switching off internet routers, jamming satellite signals and possibly even sabotaging the power grid.

One of the tools used in the DoS attacks was Pagereboot.com, which has a simple interface where you can enter the URL of the website and the frequency of which you want the website to be refreshed once you visit it.

As other communication channels were cut off, Twitter remained open and it became clear just how powerful the multitude of social networking channels can be in organizing and coordinating large-scale protest actions.

The information tug of war arguably kept western news channels locked on the protests even after they had been going on for several days. Sadly nearly all coverage was dropped when news of Michael Jackson's death hit and the fiery protests retreated to smouldering embers beneath the vail of modern Iran.

Week 5: Different People, Digital World

Choose a minority group and describe how they can make use of Internet to reduce alienation and prejudice!

Apparently there is quite a market for online dating portals that cater specifically to tall people. I remember stumbling upon one a while back and I couldn't believe the choice I had when I googled "tall dating" to find it again:

http://www.tallpersonals.com/
http://www.talldating.org/
http://www.tallpassions.com/
http://www.tallwomendating.net/
http://www.thetalldatingsite.com/
http://www.tallsinglesdating.com/
http://www.tallfriends.com/
http://www.datingtall.com/

By the way, I don't think the one I was looking for is even on this list.

I'm not sure if you could really call tall people a minority either, but the Internet clearly seems to be of help when you are looking for a date with whom you could wear your stilettos with no problems what so ever. :)

Update: The site I was looking for was http://www.tallgather.com

Week 5: The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World

Browse the Jargon File. Write a small blog entry about a term/definition which was the most intriguing for you!

I chose the DoS attack as my term to write about, because it seems to be a piece of jargon that keeps escaping from the hacker realm and finding its way into news stories. In essence, this term refers to a "denial-of-service" attack in which, for instance, a website is overloaded with a huge amount of traffic, causing it to stop displaying.

I guess the reason why this terms makes it out of its realm so much is that it is a relatively simple type of attack to organize. There have been numerous cases of huge botnets being set up by worm programs (most recently the Conficker worm), in which infected computers are turned into zombies that connect to a certain website all at once and produce the DoS error.

Write a short blogged analysis about the hacker ethic found in today's world (is it there of not, how much of it etc)!

I would say that the warez scene can largely be considered to operate under the hacker ethic, because their stance on how the scene should work seems to be compatible with the list of principles outlined in the course wiki:

1. Access to computers

Not really directly relevant to the warez scene, but probably a quintessential premise for the livelyhood of the ripping community.

2. All information should be free

This seems to be a central idea in the warez community, as copyright laws are ignored for the benefit of providing everything free of charge. However, with software, you do usually see an ethical message in the accompanying .nfo or .txt file which encourages you to buy whatever you downloaded if you like it or if you are profiting from its use. For example, there is the H20 release group who have the motto "try before you buy" coded into their install application UIs (see list of major relase groups here).

3. Mistrust authority - promote decentralization

I guess if the authority in question is proprietary business practices and the authority of copyright laws, there is indeed a mistrust. However, it seems that the scene itself operates largely under authoritative guidance, as there are release rules that are set by the most prominent and respected release groups.

4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position

Releasers are judged by the quality of their releases, pure and simple. If a group produces a faulty TV show rip, for instance, there will likely be another group that steps in with a proper rip and a generous helping of gloating and trash talk to boot. :)

5. You can create art and beauty on a computer

The ASCII art in the .nfo files alone validates this point.

6. Computers can change your life for the better

I guess one of the underlying motivations behind the release scene is enhancing the lives of people, whatever the ethical implications. It's certainly a justification and I think a merited one, because, although there are issues with drawing the line in terms of theft, there is no doubt in my mind that pirated applications, films, music etc. have facilitated cultural and intellectual flourishing.

Week 4: The Digital Divide

Investigate and describe (in your blog) an illustrative case of a digital divide in your country!

I'm trying to think of an example in which there are real social repercussions to a digital divide and I think if you look at differences in terms of the age of people that are using the internet, you can see a really big contrast between the percentage of young people online and people that are in their fifties or older. Since businesses are increasingly using information technology and going online, you could have a situation where the elderly are at a serious disadvantage in terms of keeping their job or finding a new one. I imagine that, especially in this economic climate, if you don't have valuable experience or capital to bring to the table and you are technologically illiterate, you could easily be marginalized in the economy.

However, I had a look at the statistics for unemployment by gender and age group for 2008 and the numbers, unfortunately, do not back up my story. The largest unemployed age group was 15-24 by a huge margin.

Despite the statistics, however, I am going stand by my example of a digital divide, because if you cannot use the computer and the internet, or even if you are unproductive with these tools, the options for you on the job market are increasingly limited.

Analyze and describe (in your blog) Internet availability in your country. How big is the availability difference for urban and rural regions? Do you consider this a problem?

According to this web page, as of 2008, 69% of the population in Estonia uses the computer and 66% of the population uses the internet. These numbers have been steadily rising and they were above the EU average in 2007, but still trailing behind the leading EU countries by as much as 20%.

Estonia is average in terms of the percentage of broadband connections, although it ranks highest among new member states.

I checked out the Statistics Estonia database and searched for data on households with internet connections at home. Based on that I can bring the numbers in some basic regional divisions:

Estonian average 63%, highest percentage in Tallinn - 74,8%

Urban areas 65,9%
Rural areas 55,8%

North-Estonia 71,5%
Central-Estonia 60,9%
South-Estonia 60.4%
West-Estonia 58.1%
Northeast-Estonia 48,7%

The difference between urban and rural areas is 10%. I don't actually know whether this is good or bad. I think it could be okay, provided that this percentage is roughly equal everywhere. However, if you look at the regional break-down, you can see that there is a difference of over 20% between North and Northeast-Estonia, which I think is significant.

It's problematic in the sense that information technology seems to be accelerating development in one region and at the same time increasingly marginalizing other areas that are not as technologically advanced. This is a real manifestation of a digital divide, as education, business, e-services etc. are increasingly depending on a good IT infrastructure and the lack thereof can lead to long term problems with regard to the development of a region.

Week 4: Ubiquitous Computing

For Estonians: compare the current situation in Estonia to the four scenarios of "Estonia 2010". Which one is the closest to the reality?

I think it used to be the case that Estonia could have been classified as something in between "South-Finland" and "The Ferryman," but ever since the Bronze Soldier debacle there is less talk about Estonia being the prosperous transit country. The bizarre political tensions not only between Estonia and Russia, but also with other nations in the Russian sphere of interest seem to have pretty much cooled down any enthusiasm in terms of easterly trade in this region.

Having had a look at this piece on future scenarios for Estonia in 2010, I think we are in a position that most resembles the description of scenario D: South-Finland. They predicted that our economy, together with the economy of Latvia, would integrate into the economy of Scandinavia, which to some degree is true in terms of our stock markets and banking sector. In addition to that I can speak from my own experience that there is ample evidence of Estonian enterprises subcontracting to Scandinavia or generally surviving by offering products and services to Scandinavian markets.

I also think the regional development scenario is accurate, as it has predicted the wealthiest regions that are better off and the poor regions with limited opportunities correctly. It has also predicted the nature of urbanization quite well, although talk of the twin-city of Tallinn and Helsinki could be a bit exaggerated as it has not really happened - at least in the cultural sense. The regional development numbers might tell a different story, of course.

How important do you deem the social cohesiveness (or caring) in reaching ubicomp?

Extremely important. Caring, from this particular perspective, means inclusion, equal opportunity to participate, and a sense that nobody has been left out of ubicomp - that there is no digital divide.

When ubicomp will be achieved, it will not be just another "gadget" or a technological tool - we will be talking about a form of virtual reality, in a sense, because this system of computational environments will become a very real and authentic part of our lives in terms of culture, socialization, business etc. If you employ competetive principles, be it in business or in social life in general, to participate in this new environment, it will most likely create huge social differentiation and tension.

That's why it is important to "care," to make sure that everyone gets access to the means to participate in this new world.

Week 3: Rid the Fools of Their Money: The Online World of Crime and Fraud

There seems to be a very common e-mail scamming scheme where someone from an exotic country contacts you and explains that he is being politically persecuted and needs someone to whom he can hand over a large fortune to prevent it from ending up in the wrong hands.

Once the victim is on the hook with the prospect of getting huge financial gain, the relationship is further developed, information is exchanged and a series of transactions is claimed to make things look official.

The final stage, once the victims trust is earned, is to request a smaller handling fee or payment to cover some sort of costs that have to be made in order for the wire transfer to be made or a package to be delivered. The scammer collects and leaves the victim hanging once the payment is made.

This is a widely utilized scheme - I've had several e-mails of this type. And because it's so common it has also spawned a reaction - the scambaiters, who make fun of the scammers by setting up for a wild goose chase.

I checked out www.whatsthebloodypoint.com and I couldn't help but notice that not only is there e-mail correspondence in which people are wasting the scammers time, but they have actually been successful in counter-scamming money from the scammers. I see little wrong ethically with playing a trick on somebody who is trying to defraud you, but when you cross over to actually being the scammer and getting financial gain, I think you could argue that this is unethical.

To be clear, you can argue that almost anything is unethical - including lying to the scammer in addition to stealing from him. You could adopt a deontological position that the act of lying, stealing or even making fun of scammers is morally wrong. Or you could argue that scamming scammers is desirable.

My personal position is the following: making fun of scammers is ok, being defrauded greenlights lying back, and stealing from scammers is morally ambivalent.

Week 3: The Big Brother on Menwith Hill

After reading "Inside Echelon" I feel the need to put on my tin foil hat and embark on a rant about how my Skype chat logs are being monitored by "the man," how I'm somehow a small factor in a big equation for "the greater good" for those who operate in a sphere where there is a thin line between big government and big business.

By the way, I have actually had a funny experience with instant messaging, which sent waves of paranoia through the teenage skulls of myself and a friend of mine. We found a website about the "real" location of Area 51, which had some Google Maps pictures of the site and descriptions of what appeared to be some sort of US military installation. When I tried to pass a link to this site to my friend over MSN, it returned the "could not send message" error, and sometimes logged me out entirely. I passed the link to him through other channels and he was likewise unable to communicate it back.

Regardless of whether it really was Area 51 or it was just sensitive information because of the military facility, it was still proof that somehow, somewhere, someone is watching.

What can I say about the Echelon system - it might have struck me as slightly surprising that these systems are being used to gather economic intelligence, especially to secure contracts to big strategically important companies. It perhaps shouldn't have. It's unnerving to think that a group of people, acting in the name of national interests, but nevertheless ultimately out for their own survival, can have so much power that something like the Echelon project can even serve their agenda.

Week 2: Censors in Cyberspace

I tried Net Nanny as part of this week's exercise and I have to say right off the bat - I found it so uncanny to have such an intrusive piece of software on my treasured PC that I chickened out and uninstalled before I got to testing any of the political sites with it, but I did poke around long enough to give my opinion as to why I wouldn't recommend using this type censorship on your children.

First of all, I checked the network resource monitor while this program was installing. It has a code confirmation system for the 14-day trial so it communicates with the Net Nanny servers for confirmation. What I found peculiar was that it kept sending and receiving long after the confirmation step was completed - all the way until the installation forced a reboot. After the reboot I didn't notice any network activity from Net Nanny, but I'd still like for someone, who actually knows something about what's going on with this program, to explain what the communication was about.

Once the program was installed, it was straightforward enough to use. It had a master password, which you obviously do not want to lose, and you could make exceptions to the sites it blocks on the fly. Trouble is, I had little problems finding Estonian sites, that are about the drug culture, swinger club sites, and even web listings for escort services. Obvious porn sites were blocked, but provided that you are a bit more creative, you can still get your teenage fix for prohibited material.

I'd like to check out political sites, as I'm writing this now, but I'm hesitant to install it again. Perhaps I can sacrifice some other computer or use a sandbox for it somehow.

If I would set up any sort of filtering at home at all, I would probably find it better to set up a separate box to route and censor the internet and make different profiles for different users. That way everyone would have a clean PC without any bloatware.

However, I'd like to think my children would be sufficiently intelligent to outsmart any censors that allow for any practical use of the internet :).

Week 2: The Networked World

Non-market production is a topic especially dear to my heart because I'm part of what I'd like to call the laptop musician generation. Ever since the recording studio has been incrementally condensed to fit on a computer, there has been an accelerating explosion of bedroom producers, most of whom haven't been and never will be paid anything for their music.

In the olden days, I guess, if you were interested in music, you'd pick up an instrument, learn to play, and perhaps you'd find your way into a band and do a couple of gigs. If you didn't make the cut in terms of being marketable, your music would never see the light of day.

Times have changed. Just look at the sheer amount of Myspace artist accounts. And it isn't as though the internet has spawned a generation of bad musicians either - in fact I would argue the opposite. The best music today is made in some random basement in Paris, and the most ingenious musicians who've "made it" all have their roots in that fiery, passionate, flourishing movement that is in it for nothing more than the love for the art of music-making, self-fulfillment, and respect.

And there is a very good reason for non-market music being good - it's because you are utterly left to your own devices to make it happen. You have to know your tech, your sound design, your composition, your playing, you have to be your own voice coach, you have to come up with the concept behind your music - the lyrics, the image, the culture you are tapping into; you have to develop an ear for your mixes and learn how to be your own mastering engineer, and to top it off you have to be clever about your visibility and networking for it to ever be heard.

If you keep constantly at this list of activities, failing, learning by trial and error for years and years, you are simply bound to do something right at some point. There is a sea of millions of people who do, and music is better off because of it.

Week 1: Towards the Information Society

Study Theobald's question of 'mind-quake', find a real-life example and describe it!

I would say that digital ownership is in a state of a mind-quake right now. There was such a fast transition to digital media that most of the record labels, film studios and even software developers seem to be struggling to adjust to this new digital world. The RIAA and MPAA are still on the hunt for pirates. Digital goods are still treated as real goods, ignoring their unique properties on the market. Only recently have there been any meaningful and successful attempts to formulate new business models for digital works, for which there seems to be a significant audience.

Pick one of Handy's paradoxes, find a good real-life illustrative case and describe it!

A good example of a paradox of justice is employee bonuses. This topic has had a reasonable amount of press lately because of the economic crisis. The paradox is in the circumstance where employees work under the impression that bonuses are a natural part of their salary, yet people outside the organization hold this sort of compensation excessive, especially in troubled times. The employer is then in a situation where on the one hand he has people working for him, who have the expectation of "just" pay, as promised, and on the other hand he has public outrage about rewarding failure. If he doesn't give a bonus, he most likely loses valuable employees. If he does, he will be burnt in effigy by the public.

Pick one of Castells' features of network society and write a short analysis!

I picked political "horse racing" as one of Castells' features of network society to analyze. The basic claim is that a network society, with the emergence of what he calls "real virtuality" - virtual space becoming a fundamental dimension of reality - entails that media have become the natural habitat of politics. Because of the nature of media, the messages given by the politicians have to be condensed and effective. He claims that the simplest message is an image and the simplest individualized message is a person. He assumes that the most effective political weapon is a negative message - ergo politics is transformed into a circus of mudslinging. Also, since political marketing in media is work intensive, it is also expensive and therefore it is assumed that it institutionalizes systemic political corruption. Leaks and counter-leaks become the standard for political machinations and substance gives way to scandal on the political stage. Therefore, politics becomes something of a TV show of sex and violence, betrayal and greed.

I wonder, however, if this depiction of politics in the network society is way too melodramatic. On the face of it he seems to be right, because politics is definitely loaded with ad hominem attacks - just look at how many high profile sex scandals emerged during the course of the last year. But I don't think Castells gives anywhere near enough credit to the audience of this political show.

First of all, I somehow doubt that the most effective political weapons would be negative messages. I think my point was proven to some extent in the 2008 US presidential race, where John McCain got flak for merely seeming condescending towards Obama, and he also had to somehow juggle being both apologetic and non-excluding with regard to the right wing of his own party when they were making a point of Obama's middle name being Hussein, for example.

Of course, that was libelous at best and the circumstances were unique, but nevertheless I have more faith in the modern participant of the network society than to expect him to continually fall for the political horse race.

And another thing - it seems to me that when Castells talks about leaking information and putting out negative messages or increased corruption due to visibility on the different channels of media being costly, he is in a way implying that there are strong media powerhouses, that hold the full attention of the people and expect their wheels to be greased whenever there is a story that needs appear in a certain way to satisfy interested parties.

However, I can't help but wonder if, in the era of Youtube and Twitter, traditional media is actually losing power and the flow of information is being increasingly "reversed" - it's becoming more "from the ground up" instead of "from the top down." Hence at least some of the control over media visibility and agenda setting would be lost.

To be fair, this doesn't really contradict Castells' predictions about how expensive political marketing would become or how politicians would have to become increasingly more corrupt to stay sharp in this game, but I do think people are becoming more inquisitive and there is a lot more real information from real sources from people with real problems available to them with little limitations to the potential of its visibility. What I'm saying is I don't believe the people in a network society, given the tools they have at their disposal, are as gullible as Castells would like us to imagine.