MacBook Pro update/First FourSquare User to Check In At North Pole

First, I want to talk about how excited I am about the news Apple dropped this morning. They released the long awaited refresh of the MacBook Pro line. I know they are a lot people out there that are saying that it isn't that big of a change or difference between what was previously out. The only "real" upgrade was the 15/17 inch models now sport Intel's current i5/i7 processors instead of the outdated core 2 duo's and now there is an option to add a high res screen to the laptops. I know thats not a big deal to others but to me this is what I have been waiting for. If you guys remember I think I mentioned in my first post of the semester that my apartment was broken into and one of my prize possessions stolen was my MacBook Pro. Well I have purposely waited four months without jumping the gun and buying a new one because I knew a refresh would be coming soon and didn't want to pay the same amount of money on soon to be outdated hardware. Now I'm glad I have waited.

My feature story is about the 15 year old pictured above. His name is Parker Liautaud and for at least a little while, he is going to be known as a big deal. Why you ask? Well thanks to social media/networks becoming so big in todays world, Parker was achieve a feat that has not been attempted in the growing Foursquare universe.

Parker will go down as the very first person to check-in from the North Pole and the Last Degree Badge. Now I'm not too familiar with Foursquare but after reading up a little bit on it, it can be describe as almost a game of tag, using Google Latitude approach. You can see where your friends are and get little messages (Twitter Style) from them and also "Check-In" at all kinds of different locations around your area. Although I guess its pretty cool for this 15 year old to get his 15mins of fame from this, but it was a pretty dangerous way to spend your Spring Break. Hopefully he had more motivating factors to accomplish this other than "Checking In" on Four Square.

Story from Mashable

Social Media Hate

Social Networking Sites are usually thought of as just a fun way to connect with people. However, recently these sites have been being used to spread racism, and terror. The number of hate sites on Social sites such as MySpace and FaceBook increased twenty percent since last year. Does this mean that the number of people who hate has gone up? I do not think so. Social media sites just make it easier to hate because your true identity can be hidden.

When people feel they can say or do whatever they want and their true identity will be kept secret, they are more apt to do horrible things. People who hate have always hid behind some type of cover. Throughout the years these types of people have used whatever technology was available to them to spread their words of hate. Social media sites are just their newest choice.

So should these sites be censored because of a few who use them for hate? I do not think that any media should be censored. The best way to handle people who hate and hide themselves is just monitor their activities to make sure that they do not harm anyone. By making a big deal about what they are doing, their message is spread to more people and that is their goal. By just not accepting their message of hate, they lose.

Social Media Fights Crime In Mexico

The Mexican government along with U.S. forces has been fighting a drug war for the past year. Violence and death are just part of everyday life for the citizens who live in these war zones. The drug cartels maintain their control be limiting the amount of information that is getting out about their illegal activities. The people who witness these acts first hand are too scared to give the information to authorities. The one thing that the drug cartels did not count on was all the social networking sites available to people now.

People are more inclined to use technology to report information rather than doing in person. The social networking media allows a person to report on what is happening and not worry about the drug cartels finding out. The war that is going right now is going to be a defining moment for Mexico. They are in a very volatile situation and their government is in danger of collapse. Social networking sites may not fix the situation but they are helping it.

I always felt that social networking sites were only for entertainment purposes. It is hard to believe that these sites are helping to fight crime. There has been a lot of bad that has come from social networking sites. People stalked, harassed or even killed. It is good to hear about some good coming from them. Technology is supposed to be used to make people’s lives better and that seems to be the case here. I really hope Mexico can win this war and stabilize their government.

There is a great comparison of social media is made in this article on Lifehacker . The article has a great breakdown of Buzz, Twitter, and Facebook. I kind of missed Google’s Buzz when it first came out. I found this article while looking it up. From what I’ve heard buzz is suppose to contend with Facebook, I haven’t had the chance to use it much.

I found it odd that the author chose to put only these three in the chart. The author mentions others explaining that they are “generally too niche to be compared in the same aspects and categories.” I would argue that buzz is too new to not have a niche and twitter isn’t really comparable to Facebook or Buzz at all.

This article had some really great comments. One comment had the above picture from this site. The picture includes a breakdown of more social media sites. One of the best questions brought up in was in a different comment by cal82, “… What about the most important factor: which network your network uses?” This has to be the number one reason to use a social media site. Are the people that you want to be social with using the site?

Buzz has a step up on this process by automatically including people that I follow in Google Reader. I use social media mainly for looking at and sharing interesting things, either from friends and family’s lives, or something someone else found on the internet. I use Facebook for most of this and Google Reader for the latter. However reader can be a little overwhelming if you don’t check it often enough and would like something that offers a little more filtering options. I’m going to have to see what direction Buzz goes, and how many people adopt it.