Epilogue: What have you had to “unlearn” (i.e. that only phones are for having conversations) in the past 10 years due to technological change?
Answer: Although it is the example, a huge thing I did have to unlearn is that phones are only for having conversations. Now one’s phone is a portable computer, a map, an instant messaging machine, and a camera. Another thing I’ve had to unlearn is that you have to use a phonebook to find out the telephone number to a store, restaurant, or friend’s home. With technology, you can look these up on the computer, on your GPS, or do what I do which is text the store name to Google (466453) and have the number texted back to you by Google nearly immediately. Another is that you have to have a free hand talk on the phone – with Bluetooth and speaker phone this is not true. One big thing that technology has made me unlearn is that road trips have to be boring. Nowadays with tv screens, DVD players, video game console hookup ability, and satellite radio there is no reason for one not to be able to have fun in a long car ride with all of these things. You used to have to be unexcited about road trips and expect to look at the trees for hours, but now if you sit in the back seat you can look forward to watching a string of DVDs until you reach your destination. Finally, one large social thing that the past 10 years of technological changes have forced me to unlearn is the importance of face to face communication and meeting with people. With webcams, social network sites such as Facebook, the widespread use of e-mail, and text messaging, one no longer has to see another person, hear their voice, or even know where they are in order to get an important task accomplished.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Customer-Empowered Rating Systems
Chapter 11: Many online merchants today, such as eBay and Amazon, use rating systems empowered by its customers. Is this adequate for determining which products to buy, or which users to trust? Cite examples from these two merchants that support your opinion (whether it is good enough, or inadequate).
Answer: I believe that the customer-empowered rating systems on eBay and Amazon are absolutely adequate to determining the safety of people that you don’t know. For example, on eBay, you just know that if someone has a 99.9% satisfaction rating out of 20,000 total ratings and you read the positive comments that people have left about them after working with them over and over that you can trust their product. The reason I believe that this is adequate is that the people that leave these responses have worked with that person and, on eBay, can only leave feedback if they have either bought from or sold to that user. The people leaving feedback are people that were once in your shoes, and if they say that a vendor of textbooks shipped the book promptly and it was in good condition as described, and 5,000 people have also had this experience, you should have no reason to believe that that vendor will personally seek you out and screw you over when they have treated everyone else so well. This is really the only way to rate people as the customers are the only who experience each other on these websites, not the sites themselves, and you know that they will be honest because if they got screwed over they wouldn’t. The system also works as a deterrent against poor dealings. A vendor knows that if he takes someone’s money and either does not send out the product or sends one with less quality than bargained for that that person will rip into them verbally on the ratings and feedback system and then people in the future will see that and choose not to buy from that person.
Answer: I believe that the customer-empowered rating systems on eBay and Amazon are absolutely adequate to determining the safety of people that you don’t know. For example, on eBay, you just know that if someone has a 99.9% satisfaction rating out of 20,000 total ratings and you read the positive comments that people have left about them after working with them over and over that you can trust their product. The reason I believe that this is adequate is that the people that leave these responses have worked with that person and, on eBay, can only leave feedback if they have either bought from or sold to that user. The people leaving feedback are people that were once in your shoes, and if they say that a vendor of textbooks shipped the book promptly and it was in good condition as described, and 5,000 people have also had this experience, you should have no reason to believe that that vendor will personally seek you out and screw you over when they have treated everyone else so well. This is really the only way to rate people as the customers are the only who experience each other on these websites, not the sites themselves, and you know that they will be honest because if they got screwed over they wouldn’t. The system also works as a deterrent against poor dealings. A vendor knows that if he takes someone’s money and either does not send out the product or sends one with less quality than bargained for that that person will rip into them verbally on the ratings and feedback system and then people in the future will see that and choose not to buy from that person.
Finding Info from a Social Website
Chapter 11: James Surowiecki’s book mentioned in this chapter outlines four elements to create a so-called “wise crowd,” one that can make decisions better than experts. These include “diversity of opinion” and “independence.” Since social groups online seem to form crowds of many like-minded people, what caution would you give someone using information they find from a socialized website or resource?
Answer: When a social group online forms a crowd of many like-minded people, this breeds a problem that can cause incredibility of information and the spreading of often incorrect and biased information. A group of like-minded people will be biased towards one direction of a situation and may not give you the factual response that you desire. These groups of people can also experience groupthink. That is, if you search for information on a discussion board of a social learning or social website in general, the information may look as if it is agreed upon and appears to be absolutely valid when it really is just a group of people agreeing with each other without the desire to break from the norm opinion. The bottom line is that when you are searching for information and especially information that is debatable, you want the ability to see the situation from different viewpoints and perspectives in order to ultimately asses in your own mind the correct answer based on different points of info. When you pull information from a website that consists of all like-minded individuals, you do not have the ability to receive the information from different types of viewpoints and you therefore can not trust it. It can be too biased and therefore mislead you from the truth.
Answer: When a social group online forms a crowd of many like-minded people, this breeds a problem that can cause incredibility of information and the spreading of often incorrect and biased information. A group of like-minded people will be biased towards one direction of a situation and may not give you the factual response that you desire. These groups of people can also experience groupthink. That is, if you search for information on a discussion board of a social learning or social website in general, the information may look as if it is agreed upon and appears to be absolutely valid when it really is just a group of people agreeing with each other without the desire to break from the norm opinion. The bottom line is that when you are searching for information and especially information that is debatable, you want the ability to see the situation from different viewpoints and perspectives in order to ultimately asses in your own mind the correct answer based on different points of info. When you pull information from a website that consists of all like-minded individuals, you do not have the ability to receive the information from different types of viewpoints and you therefore can not trust it. It can be too biased and therefore mislead you from the truth.
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