What Do You Think About UnThink?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/26/tech/social-media/unthink-social-network/index.html

New social media outlets are created at a fairly rapid rate. It seems almost impossible to keep up with them or be able to actively maintain and keep up with the platforms that you use. We all know it is important, for security reasons and other, to keep up though. Facebook especially seems to change their privacy and security settings fairly often, and like this article explains (and we all know) Facebook owns us – that is assuming you are a user. Unthink is positioning itself as the “anti-Facebook,” allowing users to own the content that they select to put on their profile.

Personally, I really like the concept of Unthink.  I find it creepy that Facebook and Google own my content. Although my emails and Facebook don’t include anything particularly inflammatory, I just find it a little creepy that after e-mailing back-and-forth with a friend about her new boyfriend, I am now getting advertisements on my gmail account about wedding registries and so on. And the same goes for Facebook, unfortunately. Unthink seems to be offering a great alternative in social networking. Since it is just being tested currently, it is difficult to be able to make an account, but I do think I will be giving it a try if and when it becomes available to the masses. Social media platforms come and go, but does Unthink have staying power? As many are becoming more and more disenchanted with large corporations and big business and more conscious of privacy rights, I think it is very possible that there will be an exodus from Facebook to Unthink. 

Week 10 Reading Reaction

Every time I get assigned work, I feel like the first instruction I get is that Wikipedia is not to be used as a source or reference for the assignment. I understand why it is not regarded as a valuable source or credible information yet, as Wikipedia still has improvements to make in order to prove themselves as a totally reliable source of information, but I am beginning to feel that Wikipedia is improving as a research tool.  In the past, I totally avoided using Wikipedia as a source of finding any information, academic or otherwise. However, more and more I do find myself accessing the site to find information about various different topics – from communication theories to rogue sharks in Australia. In my experience, I have found that the information is generally accepted as correct and accurate.

Although Wikipedia is a “wiki” and can be edited by anyone, there are rules and safeguarding practices that are in tact in order to ensure that information is accurate. With that being said, I think there is a greater amount of acceptance in the use of Wikipedia as a source of information currently. As a result there is more pressure on Wikipedia to ensure the information is accurate in order to protect their reputation. Do you think that Wikipedia is doing enough to ensure the information is accurate? If they were to do more, would it take away from the spirit of wikis? And lastly, Do you think that sooner than later students will be able to openly use Wikipedia as a source of information?