Energize Your Teaching..........with MySpace!!!

In reading the blog on "Erergize Your Teaching", a very
clear example was posted, that seems to be the future of social
networking: Facebook and MySpace. I would like to discuss MySpace, as
I have more familiarity to it and it is the largest social network in
the world. Although MySpace started out as a fun way to connect with
friends and even make new ones, it has grown so much larger than that.
It has created a whole new world of web developers, even out of people
who had never seen one line of HTML code and thought Javascript was
the coffee stain on thier shirts. It has created a relationship not
only amongst people, but with their computers. They control how teh
computer protrays them by creating fancy profiles complete with
images, music, and videos. They have begun to understand how a video
from YouTube can be embedded into my page on MySpace. It becomes a
computer version of a person's persona. You can create groups and post
messge and blogs with such ease, there is no reason any of your
"friends" cannot know exactly how you are feeling or what you are
thinking at any giving moment. I can even tell you personnally that if
I am wondering what kind of mood my girlfriend is in, I check her
MySpace page and it tells more accurately than if I asked her!

I believe AOL started this craze, with their revolutionary
"buddy list" and opening up chat with your friends that you could see
were online. To their detriment, they never realized the immeasurable
potential of this technology they implemented, and let it lie dormant.
They fell into Trap Two of the Pitfalls of Emerging Technology that
are discussed by Day and Shoemaker. MySapce is so expandeded now that
it can go to your mobile phone and alert you with updates of
information. If you search for a person on MySpace and they are not
there, it feels like they are not even living in the Information Age.
Socail networking is only going to grow and make a further impediment
on our personal lives. There lies an immense danger in this, as we
have seen with the child predators on MySpace and defamation that can
be posted about an indivisual, such as that teacher in Florida I
believe that was attacked and libeled by some upset students. There is
a lot of liability in social networking, but the potential in how
these threats are handled and the more poeple seems to not enjoy
meeting face-to-face anymore will create a market and a future that is
almost unfathomable.


Personally, I do not like social networking sites such as
MySpace, but to use that idea and contain the technology to more
individualized benefit would make me a believer. I would love to make
"friends" and communicate with people I have a common interest with,
and that thought in-link with the "Energize Your Teaching" topic makes
me think it would be cool if MBA students had a POPULAR site they
could freqeunt and make friends with and discuss topics important to
them....without the risk of getting "friend requests" every day from
solicitors who aren't even real people (you MySpace people know
exactly what I am talking about).