YouCity

A new mash-up that might make it big is YouCity.com

Basically, it is a social networking site that lets you visualize all activity within a city or given area in 3D. It also allows its users to learn about the hotspots and events that are scheduled for the future.

In their own Words:

YouCity is a neighborhood-based social network site that helps you connect with local people sharing the same interests. It is a website where you discover on a fun 3D map the city hotspots and exciting local events through people like you.

YouCity combines real-life neighborhood context with social context to provide the first true integration of online social networks with local geography. It creates online neighborhoods that not only mirror every corner of the real world we live in but also change the real world and benefit people's everyday life through revolutionizing the way people creating and sharing local information and interacting with each other and places around them.

it is only available for New York and San Fransisco...

Robot humans, our future?

I saw this trailer("The Surrogates") this weekend and it made me think of elements of our discussion on Wednesday. This movie is about how technology evolves so much that humans don't even have to interact anymore, they live via surrogates. Web platforms such as Second Life scare me because they make me believe that we are headed towards a similar fate as that in the movie. Will humans cease to interact as soon as technology evolves and enables us to do so? Haven't we already seen evidence decreased/ strained person to person human interaction? is this bad? Will we let ourselves get lost in technology or will we find a limit?

Crime in Myspace

In class, one of the questions was about the legal and economic issues of produsage. A main legal issue that comes to my mind is the story of Megan Meier, who killed herself after a myspace hoax. This brings up the issue of legality in the social networking world. We can never really know if people are real or not because people constantly portray others and it is a difficult medium to control for age limits. This is one of the sad results of what the negative sides of social networking can do.

Here is a link to an article about the case: http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/11/19/teen-kills-herself-over-fake-myspace-boyfriend-created-by-adults.aspx

The Downside of Social Networking

In thinking about inter-connectivity it always seems that there is a downside to technological advances. Not to say that I dont love the things technology allows me to do, stay connected across continents, have almost any information that I would want to know at the tips of my fingers. But with the world becoming more connected it is also easier to spread around the bad aspects of our society. With technology allowing us to connect from our computers, we are becoming more isolated and desensitized from each other; and it is becoming easier for people to bully and pressure online. People say things online through social networking sites that they would never say in person, and this can lead to depression or even suicide.

Bridge Fall Girl, 15, felt pressure from social networking sites.


Besides peer pressure and bullying social networking sites can be deadly in other ways. With all of our information available on the internet there is never any way of knowing who is looking at our information or what they will do with it. Its a testament of how serious and extreme some people will take what happens in the cyber world and apply it to real life.

When Facebook relationship status turns deadly.

Being the first post I didnt want to leave it as a Debbie Downer, besides the downside of social networking, you can find some of the most interesting, funny things posted on these sites. I have one friend who is especially prolific with the things that he posts, which are thought provoking or comical, and I wanted to share a few that he posted this week. These examples are a great testament at how quickly things are passed around, changed, and even re-appropriated.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.