A prize of many

Most people remember the shock and mixed opinions when President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize very early in his presidency. His stance on nuclear weapons, foreign policies, health care, and peace negotiations in the middle east had obviously made a statement to the committee.

2010: Among the nominee’s for this years Peace Price include Svetlana Gannushkina and her human rights group, Liu Xiaobo, a chinese human rights activist currently imprisoned for "inciting subversion of state power", and of course, the Internet.

The Internet, born in the 60’s under U.S. militaristic oppression, has grown in fame quickly since it’s birth. In the mid-90’s The Internet had reached international acclaim and quickly became a house hold name. The Internet began providing every culture and every person with a voice to be heard. With countless applications and communications services release by the internet, governments, and human rights advocates alike were able to quickly communicate. By the late 90’s the internet was a force to be reckoned, and had began efforts to bring the younger generations into it’s mix, providing every user the ability to use communication devices like Instant Messaging, E-Mail, and a new trend, blogging. It’s development of LiveJournal, a social network, was a big step in collecting the masses and would soon grow at an astounding rate. By 2010 the Internet has become unstoppable. Social networking services like Facebook and Twitter have been able to stop wars and provide data for relief organizations. The Internet was a huge player in the U.S. efforts in the Iran Election. While the Internet is directly responsible for opening up a new type of crime, cyber-warfare, it’s rather minor considering all the good, and the intent mind you, the internet has brought to the world in it’s short 50 years.

We, as in the collective human race, as well as governments and committee's founded by or elected by the human race, have obviously lost touch with reality entirely. At the beginning of this year, U.S. supreme court ruled that organizations should be allowed to provide unlimited resources and funding for “special interest” in U.S. government. This includes all domestic AND foreign organizations, and basically gives them the right to do whatever they please in government and elections, granting them similar power as if their were considered “persons”.

Now, only a short period of time after this completely outrageous decision, something as broad as “The Internet” gets a nomination for Nobel Peace Prize. Why the nominee didn’t consist of something a little more narrow like the founders of twitter/facebook, or the founders of Google, hell even Steve Jobs would be a better candidate, at least he can provide an acceptance speech.

Will you be looking forward to the internet’s gleeful cries if it wins the Nobel Peace Prize? How would you feel about The Internet co-hosting the Grammy’s with political figure Corporation aka “The Man” next year? Spot me your opinion, since mine is already tainted.

Social Networking – Evolution of Identity

Recently I found myself playing a few online games and noticed the API add-in for links to Facebook and Twitter. The concept was pretty basic, attach your login to Facebook to the game to instantly post game achievements to Facebook or Twitter. However this left me pondering the true scope of social networking.

Today, a friend asked me to help him with some basic information and setup on a social network. Without hesitation I began asking questions about needs and deterring from one network in favor of another, and listing a few pros and cons. That’s when it really hit me, social networking is no longer just some toy or fad. I’ve been reading a lot of articles surrounding social networks, the impacts they have, and the media attention some of the bigger name networks command. But it takes something like realizing you are somewhat of a pro when it comes to social network knowledge to really put it into perceptive.

Unlike a few others I know, I didn’t start my first profile until Myspace hit the market. I remember contemplating even joining, summing up the concept of a social network as nothing more than a waste of time and a pointless endeavor, but I joined it anyway realizing I truly didn’t have anything better to waste my time on (I was at work – graves). I began tweaking settings, adding and removing information, connecting with old and new friends and spending hours collecting information. For what? Well, at the time it was merely amusing. I was also getting into web development as a hobby and noticed that I could modify much of my Myspace profile with CSS. This led me to Photobucket and eventually Flickr, because I had to host my photo’s for my background somewhere.

Later came facebook, and facebook apps. Those wonderfully addicting games stole much of my time. I constantly see ads for Farmville, a popular facebook game. I still have my cell phone linked to facebook to get updates and comments directly texted to me wherever I go, with the ability to text in a reponse. Though I don’t use this feature as often as I once did.

Speaking of texting, next huge blocked buster was Twitter. Twitter has become so hugely popular and media effecting that the U.S. Government asked Twitter to reschedule it’s downtime last summer due to elections in Iran. President Obama sent his first “tweet” this year while pushing for relief funds for an earthquake in Haiti. Google has started displaying real-time twitter feeds in their search to help keep a constant, fresh, opinion on any matter you might be wanting to track, from politics to apple events.

Back to my original statement of connecting my game with facebook. I've been starting to see the “connect with facebook” everywhere now, from games to Digg. Usually associated is also Twitter, both performing ways to link your profile for a given site with your accounts on neither or both facebook and twitter.

Google Profiles, has recently launched and allows a user to connect facebook, along with many other social networks in order to use google to quickly search topics in the news and among friends and family. A truly scary and remarkable way social networks are influencing our internet and business experience daily. Jaron Lanier, recently published a book about how our lives are quickly becoming a blip in the net, and we’re becoming a collective hive. A very interesting, if not extreme theory. However with the advent and general push of social networks, that seems to be bringing the internet around to a very real, almost tangible feeling. Being able to not only put a face to an online persona, but also the ability to read about this person in many forms, from a simple facebook profile and friends listings to credit card purchases. I almost seems if we may be giving up TOO much of our personal information and connecting far too many of our daily habits to internet searchable media.

In a very sick and devilish way I’m almost looking forward to watching how the effect of social networks completely alter how the internet functions as the dynamic of reality and  the virtual world collide into one giant mess.

What’s your take? Do you actively engage in social networks? How do they effect you and do you see them as nothing more than a novelty, or a change of times?