YouTube Nation!

It’s hard to imagine a life without YouTube. This simple concept of a website entered the screens of our computers only 5 years ago and we’re already addicted. What started out as a place to upload your personal home videos to share with friends and family quickly turned into an outlet for rising stars to showcase their talent.

I don’t think anyone anticipated how fast YouTube’s popularity would grow. Now if I ask anyone what their favorite YouTube video is I would hear a wide variety of answers. Some people spend hours on end searching YouTube for funny video to share with their friends or for their own personal amusement. Everything from watching babies like “Charlie bit me”, funny series like Liam Kyle Sullivan’s “Shoes”, to somewhat crazed Britney Spears’ fans, everyone goes on YouTube to watch the latest video with the most hits.

It wasn’t until recently though that YouTube has become the starting point for many up and coming performing artists. Many unknown artists now find themselves with record deals, worldwide tours, and TV appearances. A perfect example to this is the now teen heartthrob Justin Bieber. Bieber starting posting home videos on YouTube of him singing covers of his famous R&B songs starting in 2007. Nearly one year later he was discovered by his now manager Scooter Braun. Braun flew young 13 year old Bieber to Atlanta to meet Usher to sing for him. Yada yada yada he is signed and now tweens everywhere have someone new to drool all over. Dreams do come true! Ellen Degeneres even launched a record label in order to sign her favorite YouTube artists. Greyson Chance who was made famous by his Lady Gaga cover is now one of the first to be signed by Ellen’s label.

YouTube recently upped their video length from 10 minutes to 15. According to a New York Times article by Clair Cain Miller, to market the new feature, YouTube is running a contest called “15 Minutes of Fame.” People are encouraged to make videos showing what they want the world to know about them in just 15 minutes, and winners will get a chance at fame in the form of placement on YouTube’s homepage.” YouTube truly has become the new breeding ground for celebrities.

Listen, I’m all for the success of YouTube. There are plenty of talented people out there who deserve to be heard and watched and watched over again. I must confess that I wasted many an hour on the old Tube watching missed TV shows, music videos, and the occasional adorable baby animal doing something funny. Britney Spears had Star Search, Kelly Clarkson had American Idol, and Justin Bieber has YouTube. As long as you give people the opportunity to broadcast themselves over the internet you are bound to get some talent.

Does YouTube give aspiring artists a chance at stardom? Or is it still as hard as ever to become famous overnight? What do you think? Whether we like it or not we live in a YouTube nation.

Ask Ashley

The Online Dating Game

In today’s tech savvy world, it seems more and more people are choosing to find their mate online rather than in person. With online dating sites such as match.com, eharmony.com, and chemistry.com popping up everyday, the somewhat tedious way of meeting your “soul mate” is not left up to chance. But can online dating really work and help people find love? Or are people taking the easy way out of meeting people the old fashioned way…in person.

Before the internet people had to go out in the world and search for their significant other. Whether it was in school, the workplace, or at karaoke night at the local bar, finding that perfect match was an exciting and exhilarating experience and happened naturally. Unfortunately not everyone was finding success in the love department that easily. After so many miserable blind dates or the speed dating night from hell people were fed up and tired of the love game. Online dating seemed to be the answer to their prayers. Chat rooms were the first sign of this growing industry of meeting over the internet. Now online dating is a $976 million annual industry in the United States.

Remember the days of matchmakers? Once upon a time our parents were in charge of arranging our marriages. So is it that weird that we now put our fate of finding our mates in the internet?

I’m still not sure I buy this whole online dating thing. Can a 258-question personality test find potential partners? Studies say they might. According to an article by John Tierney, eharmony.com estimates, based on a national Harris survey it commissioned, that its matchmaking was responsible for about 2 percent of the marriages in America last year, nearly 120 weddings a day. EHarmony says more than 19 million people have filled out its questionnaire.

So maybe online dating can be the answer to finding a long term relationship. But should we just throw in the towel on building real life relationships ourselves? Call me old fashioned but I still think people should take the time to go out and date before we resort to the computer. What do you think?


Ask Ashley

Do Not Disturb

Have you ever tried to Google yourself? I recently did and was surprised by what I found. Activities I participated in during high school, YouTube videos, and my MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter accounts were starring me in the face as I searched for my results. It never occurred to me how much of me is easily accessible to anyone on the web. Today it seems privacy settings aren’t enough to protect yourself online.

We hardly think twice before snapping a bunch of pictures of our friends and ourselves when we are out having a good time. When we see those pictures a week later on Facebook we may want to untag our self out of the picture just in case a future employer finds it. But is that enough? Everything that is posted on the internet leaves a cyber footprint until it is erased off of the computer. Just because you untag doesn’t mean it is gone forever. It isn’t until recently that we’ve started to monitor our online activity more closely.

I was reading an article in the New York Times by Jeffery Rosen the other day about “the costs of an age in which so much of what we say, and of what others say about us, goes into our permanent — and public — digital files.” This got me to think more about what future employers may find when they enter my name into a search engine. According to a recent survey by Microsoft, “75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants — including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online, like photos and discussion-board conversations and membership in controversial groups.”This is a scary thing for our generation of cyberholoics.

We spend so much time online posting status updates, pictures, commenting on blogs, and just signing up for various accounts that is hard to keep track of our online activity. For all the Twitter users out there, the Library of Congress recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006. Have you written something on Twitter that you may not want the government to have and possibly use against you?
Before the internet, if you went out to a night club and took pictures we would just have to worry about the physical evident of the photo getting out. Now we are dealing with a totally different monster. Our reputation, future job opportunities, and our right to privacy may all be at stake if we don’t take measures now to control our personal online activity.

Some people can care less about what they put on the internet. In an age of where celebrities are born from YouTube and blog posting, some people dream of being discovered online. Those groups of people would love to have a million followers on Twitter watching their every move. For the other group that would like to be kept out of the spotlight I suggesting researching what information is out their and what you can still erase before it is too late. You may be surprised by what you find.

I wish it was as easy as putting up a Do Not Disturb sign on your door when you want to be left alone. Now even with that notice of privacy anyone can get in.

Do you think the world has got a little too lax about what they put online? Should employers base their decision on whether to hire or fire you based on what they find online? What do you think!?

Ask Ashley

No need for a landline?

When was the last time you answered your home phone? It seems like just yesterday I was begging my mom for my own phone line so all my friends could call me at home and I wouldn’t have to worry about my parents being on the line. Now, whenever I am filling out any kind of paperwork or school forms I normally leave the line that says “home phone” blank. The home phone is gradually becoming obsolete.

Remember address books? All of those hours spent memorizing my friends and family phone numbers feel like such a burden now that I can just type it in my cell and never have to look at it again. I kind of miss knowing my friends phone numbers. Now I’m lucky if I can still remember my home phone and my mom’s cell phone number. At college it is rare to find student apartments or houses that have a landline. Students here feel it is a waste of money since they have their cell phones. When I am home I don’t even bother to answer the home phone anymore because it seems like it is only telemarketers that call anyway, everyone else calls my cell phone.

According to the Associated Press, as of late 2007, 16 percent of U.S. households had no landline whatsoever, compared to just 5 percent in 2004. If that rapid trend of ditching landlines continues, half of the U.S. could be without one in about 10 years.

Is abandoning the landline for the cell phone the right thing to do? After all the landline never did anything to us. It was always there for us whenever we needed it and never gave us reception problems. Can pushing the landline out the door cause more than just sentimental consequences? As we drift farther away from the household phone we drift farther into a society based on the individual. When we lose the home phone we lose the opportunity to communicate with the whole family. Instead of checking in with a group of people we have to call each one individually and have separate conversations.

The question of the day today is how will the loss of the home phone affect you? Is the landline an important part of building a community or will the cell phone culture that is taking over be sufficient enough to satisfy our calling needs?

I say YAY to cell phones but call me crazy but I still don’t want to give up my home phone. What can I say, I want it all!
Ask Ashley

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

Hello! And welcome to my blog. This is Ask Ashley and I will be commenting on the ever changing, ever fascinating world of technology. I will be focusing on technology that enhances our day to day lives and also discussing what is “in” and what is “out” in today’s tech savvy society. At the end of each post I will ask a question of the day, and since this blog is set up for a class I really appreciate all of the feedback  Thanks and hope you enjoy!

A poll was given in my Mass Media and Society class last semester on how many students read the newspaper. It may not be surprising that less than half of the class raised their hand that they read it. What may be a little more shocking is the answer to Dr. Rany’s follow-up question: How many of you read the print version? Not a single hand was raised.
I can still remember the old movies and T.V shows where the paper boy would wake up at the crack of dawn to deliver his route to anxiously awaiting families ready to read the day’s headlines. It seems those days are few and far between. Instead of getting deliveries many people opt to read their newspaper online. I am including in this statistic.

I would love to say that I start out each morning reading the paper while eating cereal but in today’s fast paced lifestyle, I find myself with little time to enjoy the paper. Instead I resort to NYTimes.com or other online news sites to get my daily dose of news. Sometimes I don’t even check the online paper from my computer. With technology today, it is more convenient and easier to check the news from my phone. If you have a Smartphone it is almost easier to read the news on your way to work or when you have down time without even opening up the laptop. Judging from the drastic decline in news print sales I’m guess I’m not the only one who finds getting their news online fits Americans’ lifestyle today.

In the Pew Research Center's 2008 news media consumption survey, 39% of people that were polled said they read a newspaper yesterday -- either print or online -- down from 43% in 2006. The proportion reporting that they read just the print version of a newspaper fell by roughly a quarter, from 34% to 25% over the two-year period. And 14% of Americans said they read a newspaper online yesterday, up from 9% in 2006. So it is clear that Americans are reading the newspaper less and if they read it at all more prefer to read online.

Since the purpose of writing this blog is to talk about the different ways in which technology enhances our day to day lives I’d like to see for myself if all of this research is true for my own age group: the college aged group. The question of the day today is this: Does access to newspapers online increase your chance of reading it? If so how?

I would hope that however we choose to read the paper, whether it is online or not, the point is that we are reading it. So I say YAY for technology as long as it proves beneficial.
Ask Ashley