Summary Blog

So, here we have the final blog post for the entrepreneurship project. The main thing I learned is mainly that my concept would have likely failed out in a real world environment since the concept in itself didn't have a strong enough premise. The main premise was a Facebook-esque social networking site that provided stronger outlets for social expression. But because this premise didn't provide a much wider, more practical use, that's why the features in following blog posts were kept from adding too much to the idea.
With all of the other blogs I commented on, the sites other people were developing didn't have this issue. One was a site focused entirely on movie and media as the focus of the site, giving it several different functions and a more unique purpose. Another was exclusively for music writers, players, and producers to give them an outlet for their music as well as a place for professional networking. The website I planned to produce didn't have a premise as strong as this, which would inevitably draw comparisons to Facebook.
If I were to rethink this concept, I would likely give it a much more focused outlook for expression. It could be targeted towards opinionated, outspoken individuals with very strong ideas on a variety of controversial issues such as politics, economy, current events, and give them an outlet for all of their views. Groups on the website would be organized into certain areas based on the issues they feel strongly about. There could also be sub-groups based on their views and perspectives on these areas. For example, in the Politics group there would be sub groups focused on certain candidates, views, ideologies, criticisms, and any other groups that can be created.
Another feature I think would fit well would be a debate function, where two users could debate, through text or video, about respective issues that are visible to friends and those in their groups. People could view them live or afterwards and continue the debate afterwards in the comments area. And if particularly strong points or views are shown, they could be highlighted for the groups to see afterwards. All the highlights from a user's chosen groups could be viewed in the same area to easily keep track of developments in what's occurring with their interests.
With this idea, the message board concept would fit well into this for those who are outspoken but may also be shy about their views, allowing for a more anonymous outlet.
This kind of concept would give my entrepreneurship idea a much stronger, conceptual focus. Instead of simply being a more expressive version of Facebook, it would more focused towards people who have strong opinions, knowledge, or passion for certain issues and give an outlet to express all of them.
So in conclusion, my initial idea would likely not have succeeded in the real world due to being a kind of Facebook knock-off. But giving it a more specific, practical purpose that would attract more specific people to use it would have helped solve this, since all the other students with similar blogs had stronger focus in what their ideas were. Had I started the project with my current idea of it being more of a "hot box" site, then it would have had a chance of succeeding as a real entrepreneur idea.

Also, here are my comment URLs:

http://cine-mate.blogspot.com/2011/09/in-beginning.html?showComment=1319673082659#c5566545368204269959

http://mymoodradio.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-mood-radio.html?showComment=1319673458704#c7097390911628808250

http://chloeguillemot.blogspot.com/2011/09/entrepreneurship-project-ist-195.html?showComment=1319673866362#c2376321939094038454

Professional Blog Post

For my post about a professional blog, I decided to make mine from the online site Mashable, which frequently has social media as it's main topic. The article provides a detailed infographic on how people in today's world are getting increasingly involved and addicted to Facebook. The link to it is here.

Some of the most startling facts are right in the beginning with many and how often people are often using Facebook. One in Thirteen people, or an entire 7.6% of the population, have a Facebook page. This may not seem like much, but with the world's population being around 7 billion right now, it comes to the big chunk of 500 million people. The fact that a social networking site has pulled in this many people puts it in a unique situation. Social Networking sites are never required for anything, since they're made for the enjoyment and interaction of the users. But with Facebook being such a huge staple now, this form of social networking has been MADE INTO a staple through the sheer number of those involved, and is now required for functioning in today's world without being an actual necessity of life.
This has spilled over to communication, according to the infographic. Over half of the people today talk to other people more than they talk to others online. So Facebook and other forms of social media have also become standards in communication as well, with people forming and making "connections" through Facebook increasingly. I say "connections" since having a communication standard in a distant online medium hasn't helped how we view other people and friendships. Just look at all the people who only friend others to appear more popular and not because they actually know the people.
Another factor, that over 70% of the US is on Facebook, especially changes how people in the US view it. The biggest change is probably seen in colleges, as the college demographic for Facebook grew the fastest out of any of them. You can see these changes pretty easily in the right areas: specific sections are set aside for social media, and even entire courses are devoted to Facebook and the impact it's had. It's currently impossible to enter any real career path without becoming involved in social media. Like I said before, it is now a necessity.

With all these impacts social media has had on the world, this articles fuels my wondering if it's good or bad. For every positive part of Facebook there's also a negative. For every inconvenience it brings to daily life it also bring a boost. Cheapening relationships, giving portals for self-expression, making people waste time, connecting efforts across the globe, the list could go for a while. Like all complex areas of the world, Facebook is infinitely gray; there is no definite right or wrong to it or all other kinds of social media.
For better and for worse, the infographic proves social media has been integrated into our lives. It makes me draw a parallel between how Otto Octavius's tentacle arms were so deeply ingrained into his spinal cord. Like with Facebook, the results are ambiguous. Octavius was able to pursue his dream of creating a machine that could produce energy as strong as the sun, but in pursuit of his great dream he nearly destroys all of Manhattan, and then dies. Despite the tragedy, his story is both a mix of good and bad.
So whether we want to change it or not, Facebook continues to pull us up and push us down. And with all the power social media already exerts, so much so it's truly intimidating when thought about, it makes me see that not only will more social networking sites like mine not be necessary, they should be AVOIDED.
A sad conclusion to come to, but I never fancied myself as much of an entrepreneur anyways.

Week 7 - Network Communications

As a social media site, there are several points about internet connection that will definitely come into play. As a site with a large amount of media available a few basic steps with how the network operates can be taken to make things flowing smoothly. More bandwidth given to the site will decrease latency, and also create less traffic in the internet so that packets will jump through less routers to avoid traffic so they take less time. Or internet traffic could also be avoided by having servers in multiple locations in a wide area so that packets being sent can simply travel to the closest one, spreading out traffic to also make communication travel faster.
Another area that comes into play is security. The largest area this would come into play with is the open message board, mainly with controversial or "hot" topics a user can explore such as politics or divided social issues. Any user going into one of these topics will specifically be told that 1) they should feel free to express all of their opinions and respond to other peoples, and 2) they cannot insult, defame, or devalue the views of anyone else in a harsh or impersonal manner. After being made aware of this, a SSL protocol will become active and the user will be notified of what this means they know they should feel completely safe in saying how they feel.
The SSL protocol will let users know no one other than the others users in the topic (who have accepted the same agreement) will be able to read what they post in the topic. This means they have no fear of people from outside the topic reading or quoting their views, and that the only people who can read them must be respectful or else they've be banned from the topic altogether. I believe this will help users have a safe space to express their opinions to others on topics they wouldn't normally be able to talk to others about, which will have them return to the message board area and hopefully explore other topics with the same SSL protocol.

Week 6 - Operating System + Utilities

For this week, I've been thinking mainly about adding large features that could differentiate this social network from Facebook, such as adding major features that would allow more user freedom and function. So when I saw the idea of multiple operating systems and 2 users running programs at once, I came up with an idea of two people working on the social media in a simultaneous, shared account. The shared account is only created once both users have agreed to it completely.
For this to work, the two users would have to both login on the same computer and agree to act in a shared account. Once this is done, all the usual activities like posts on profiles and message boards, pictures, and videos will be shown through their names paired together instead of only one of them. For example, a post on a friends' wall will be read as "(Person 1) and (Person 2)" as opposed to just one. There will be a separate profile with all their shared accounts activities, such as photos they're both identified in, and all the activity of their shared account. They can also write in about certain aspects of their relationship, including a description, shared interests, shared friends, and any posts through the message boards they've written together. This shared account option can also be expanded to include three people at the absolute most, with all the same functions only expanded to a third person.
In order for all this to work the site will need to be founded on a multiuser OS. As both users will need to be logged in simultaneously to use their shared account, managing available RAM will be especially important. So more space will be put towards having slightly more RAM in the OS and will be distributed accordingly to account activity. A user only on their own account will have all their RAM being utilized towards only that one account, while the two users sharing an account will need to divide the RAM between both their individual accounts and the shared account. When using a shared account, most of the RAM will be placed towards it while the rest is put in each individual account that's open; however, since the individual accounts can't be used at the same time, little RAM will be needed for each one. It will also need to coordinate tasks among all the accounts well; the account actively being used, individual or shared, will have their operations in priority while any operations ongoing in other accounts (such as uploading photos) is automatically put in a queue behind the prioritized account. For example, if someone is uploading photos while they activate their shared account, the uploading will be put on hold unless their are no actions taking place in the shared account that take priority.

Week 5 - Music

We didn't cover much at all this week, but I'll try to say as much as I can think of. For my social media concept one topic I could word into it would be the two types of music formats along with their advantages and disadvantages. I had mentioned in an earlier post about how people can play any music on their profile pages, so knowing the right format would be important in order to preserve the site's memory.
The default format for all the songs would definitely be mp3 since it takes the least amount of memory. However, the format the site accepts could be either mp3 or wav. The important difference is that if a wav file was used, the site would automatically convert it to an mp3 and use that version instead. This kind of program to be triggered automatically would likely take up a good amount of space in the website's memory as well, so it would also need a limit imposed on it for the length of wav files used. Any song longer than 4 minutes would likely be rejected due to how much space the music program would need to analyze and compress it.
This could theoretically be prevented if the music program could be written so that longer songs were split into two parts and then each half were compressed into an mp3 format one at a time. While this would make the program more complex it would still be a way to preserve some memory while allowing for longer songs. But if it was put into real practice, it would start with some kind of time limitation as well as needed to give credit for the original author of the song if needed.

Week 4 - Input/Output

For this week, I literally just came up with an idea that could utilize RFID chips with my social network concept. An RFID chip could be utilized to unable fast, quick connections between people while you're not even using it. The concept would be to have an RFID chip that you could connect to the site and fill with certain information: a picture and a quick greeting, some info about yourself, and a link to your personal profile. The chip could then be attached to your phone or carried around on your person in any kind of way.
This would work to connect people with others by detecting others with similar RFID chips that have been filled with the same kind of info from the site. Whenever two chips get close enough they quickly exchange info, storing into the chip your photo and small greeting from yourself. If the person doesn't care to know you further it can be dismissed. If they're curious then they can read some more about you and be linked to your profile page. Viola, new connections!
There are several areas of this that would have specifications, too. The biggest one would be a connection timer, probably the most vital for people to give it a shot. It would keep the info from another person's RFID from being sent to yours unless they're in close enough proximity for a certain amount of time. So passing by a random person doesn't send a message, but if you sit next to someone and have a nice conversation for several minutes, then that'll be what triggers the exchange of info; pretty much the higher you set the timer, the more you'd have to be near someone to swap info, which would be of great help for people not looking to meet total strangers. And if two people are using connection timers, they can't swap information unless both of them have been close enough to each other long enough for both clocks. If one is set at 5 seconds and the other is set at 20 minutes, nothing is exchanged with either until 20 minutes have passed.
You could also opt not to set a photo in case you felt that was too invasive, and also use active RFIDs to extend the range.

Week 3 - Identity Theft

Since the other topic this week involving hardware can't really be connected to an idea focused on social media, my post for this week will focus instead on identity theft. And like last week, with the great amount of personal info put into this idea keeping identities secure is more important than privacy. Most of the information or photos supplied won't focus on areas such as these, but any ones that can will need to be carefully monitored and controlled.
In the area focusing on spreading and exploring different ideas other people choose to contribute, any posts that request financial info such as PIN or SS numbers will be immediately be found and deleted. A word recognition software could be used to find these keywords such as "social security", "PIN", "or "ATM" to eliminate or prevent posts with these words from being used, or submit them for review to judge if they're an attempt to steal financial info or not. This would include direct attempts to ask, real or fake advertisements, or scams/tricks to get any vital info. For anyone adding posts, there would also be a reminder on the page where they write their post not to share any personal information.
For the profile page, despite it requiring a large, customizable amount of information to be shared, none of it will ever be personal info. The service will be free, similar to Facebook, and won't ever request any monetary or important identity information. There will also be a disclaimer in the beginning that says any page or person saying this kind of information is needed on the site is fake and should be reported immediately, in case there are people who try to trick people in revealing their info.
Lastly, any applications created or spread on the website related to areas like credit scores, social security, or bank statements claiming to be software to help manage private info will not be allowed, and immediately banned if located in use on the site. This is case users attempt to steal the information through creating or circulating fake applications.