Jay's Expose

We all go on them: tangents. When we share stories, when we teach lessons, when we talk about the latest news, tangents are an integral part of daily life and flow of conversations. Someone was paying attention in economics class when they decided that it may be a good idea to use this same principle and apply it to a business model that encourages people to explore items they may be interested in based on something else they enjoyed. This ranges from music to movies to online shopping and more. Now, there are numerous companies reaping enormous profit from this concept. From our reading, we discovered that this genius idea has a name: the long tail. When you go onto Netflix and get “Recommendations For You” this is an example of the long tail at work. On Spotify, it’s the same thing with “Your Daily Mix” which gives you songs they personally think you’d enjoy based on what you’ve previously listened to and on Amazon this model is employed when you see “Items You May Like”. It is wild to see how the stored data that is collected on personal users is used to make personalized experiences for people when they interact with websites. Have you ever noticed that the ads on google always seem to be something that you might either be interested in or at some point or another have even searched for? It all comes back to data collection. This can be good in a lot of ways, but as is the nature of many things that sound too good to be true, it has its pitfalls. One major place where this personalized experience is a problem is when it comes to politics. In the most recent election, many people looked to social media to get their news and information. The problem with this was that sites, like Facebook, use algorithms that filtered the content that viewers saw on their walls so that people ended up seeing a lot of information and views that agreed with them and helped them to feel more correct in their own opinions. This wasn’t good because it polarized a lot of views that people held and resulted in a messy election season. Sometimes it is best for people to see opinions other than their own so that they can get a better understanding of how other people are thinking. This can help ease a lot of tensions and reduce the effects of the “echo chamber” that results from everyone hearing their own point of views strengthened by others.

The personalized experience of everything online has started to revolutionize the economy. When you are showed the things you want rather than the things that are most popular, more is sold and the implementation of this idea has driven many companies to more success as well as more low-key artists and vendor. The long tail concept has had a big influence on how we buy and look at things online today. The new music I listen to on Spotify, obscure movies and TV shows I see on Netflix, and random purchases I make on Amazon can all vouch for this.

Last month, I heard about bitcoin for the first time in my life. I was awestruck by the idea of a currency that was completely online and never passed the threshold into a physical currency that a person could hold in their hands. It was interesting to talk about how bitcoin works and how money is minted and then to also discuss how blockchain works. The way that I understood it is that blockchain is a way of trading things, but the item itself records what it has been traded for and leaves a trace of what transactions have occurred in order to keep its credibility. This is an interesting form of currency, cryptocurrency, that is gaining popularity day by day.

In one of the articles that we read, “Three Challenges for the web, according to its inventor”, it discussed how the world wide web began 28 years ago, and how in many ways it was living up to its purpose of being a place to share information and collaborate. It did raise a few points of improvement which I found intriguing and personally relatable. The main points were that we don’t have control of our personal data, misinformation spreads like wildfire on the web and lastly, that there needs to be some type of change in political advertising that doesn’t give users such one sided information. I can relate to the first point because I know that whenever I accept a hundreds long page of terms and conditions I am giving up some degree of privacy in terms of my data being shared. It’s not like I can decide what to share. Just as the idea of “all or none” suggests, I can either give up my privacy rights or not use the application at all. It is hard to give up the opportunity to use an application in the name of security, and most people don’t, but the option to do so would be nice. To the second point, the lack of true information that circulates the internet is so common that people commonly talk about it by saying, “Don’t trust everything you hear on the Internet.” Also, the concept of “Fake News” is very prevalent in society today. So many people have the power of publication in their hands and it changes everything. No longer is information that is put out there expected to be truthful. This makes it harder to know whether you’re getting good information or being lied to. Nowadays, when writing papers and finding sources, there are specific websites that check out the credibility of certain sources before students trustingly add them to their papers. Finally on the political front, a lot of people get their political information from social media, and now with so much polarization of information, voters tend to only see extremely polarized messages and it isn’t the best when it comes to helping voters to be educated about who and what issues they are voting for. I can see this in my life when talking to friends who are new voters and when I hear about some of the things they have heard in their news, it doesn’t always match up with what I’ve heard. These kind of discrepancies and campaigning online that twist stories to make a stronger point is not the best way to keep society educated and ready to vote on the important issues. Now that the basics of the Internet are well established, we can all set out to make the Internet a better place.

I used to think of emails as an old and outdated form of communication reserved for adults. Now that I am an adult, I realize that it is a super convenient way to get into contact with people in a professional format that also can be used more casually. They do say that all old trends come back around, or maybe I can finally appreciate emails because I am older than I was when I first thought of it as dinosaur tool (eek!). Talk about an iGeneration kid! I never understood how truly amazing it is and the history behind the creation and evolution of such a form of communication. The way that the whole system started was based on the thought that maybe computers should be able to do more than just process info. True to their name, and similar to the postal service we have today, email would be sent out a certain number of times a day “into the world.” To be able to instantly send out information to people that weren’t physically around within hours was unheard of. We now know that that was only the beginning.

In current news, the iPhone 8 and iPhone X came out earlier today! I am beyond excited to live in this world. To see where we came from and where we are today makes me stoked to see what the future of technology holds! 

The big deal about the iPhone 8 is the wrap around glass display and the iPhone X has facial recognition, which is not a new concept on the smartphone market, however it is for Apple. These fancy new editions will have your wallet significantly lighter with the iPhone X ringing up right around $1,000. Hopefully you signed up for a plan with free upgrades!

More to come next week on Jay’s Exposé!