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Slightly Off-Topic: Plagiarism

Soooo…I’m a dork.

I love words. I love etymology (as difficult as it might be to spell) and I love history. So, when a recent quest had me learning and writing about plagiarism, I naturally became inquisitive about where the word came from.

Thanks to the Internet, I am now a happy man:

“The Latin noun plaga referred to a hunting net or snare which was used for capturing game. The netting of such animals was termed plagium. By extension, this word was also used for the crime of kidnapping children or freemen and selling them as slaves, the kidnapper being called a plagiarius. It is believed that the poet Martial, who died about A.D. 103, was using plagiarius to refer to “a literary thief or plagiarist”. The Latin plagiarius became plagiary in seventeenth-century English and was used for “kidnapper” (a sense now obsolete), “plagiarist”, and “plagiarism”

Not a plaga.

Wow. Now that is an etymology.

As for my original quest to learn more about plagiarism, specifically on the Internet, I certainly have been exposed to how new technology is helping to off-set this problem. Tools all over the Internet are now in place to help teachers and professors enter in the body of an essay and see if the content is duplicated in any published work. The same goes  for professors who enter previous years’ essays to match other students work.

Regardless, technology is certainly helping to both curb and accelerate plagiarism on the net–much like the hunters used their plaga to capture game.

A Website with a Personality?

“We argue that websites share human and brand characteristics and subsequently have “personalities” that both attract and detract Internet users; however, websites also have characteristics not present in brands or humans that require measurement items unique to Web technology.”

- Qimei Chen of the University of Hawaii at Manoa

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/s_fV2tzVSwA&hl=en&fs=1″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/s_fV2tzVSwA&hl=en&fs=1” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

This is just creepy. I get that websites have unique characteristics and patterns of information-sharing, but “personalities”? The quote also addresses that with each personality also comes the idea that some personalities attract users and others turn them away.

I thought quite a bit about this and I began to think about certain website’s and whether or not I felt they had “welcoming” personalities or not.

Google:

Google.com

I guess one would have to consider Google’s personality as “inviting.” It is very simple and non-confrontational. There is very little hidden content and everything appears to be right on the table with Google. Additionally, the idea that your cursor begins in the Google search window also makes it seem like Google is just waiting for you and ready to serve you.

ESPN.com:

ESPN.com

I would say that ESPN.com’s personality is inviting, but also rather distracted. There is a tremendous amount of things going on within this page and the user must remain vigilant in getting through it all. Additionally, one could argue that because the site has so many bells and whistles, perhaps the personality of the site is very busy and constantly distracted.

Weather.com

Weather.com

Weather.com might be the most uniniviting of the websites here. Nothing about the site seems interactive or gives you many options. Certainly there are places to click and naviagate, but the color scheme, layout and interface dont exactly scream out for attention or use.

The point made by Ms. Chen in this quote is that websites have personalities and initially I thought she was a bit off-the-rocker, but the more I consider the concept, the more she might be right.

Iron Man 2: Favreau’s Tweets

There has been much discussion about corporate entities with CEO’s at the top who share their own personal stories on Twitter. Whether it be the well-known CEO’s like Bill Gates or the more introverted types, having a voice at the top of an organization on Twitter can be invaluable.

IronMan2

As today’s release of Iron Man 2 shows, that presence of a leader Tweeting about their product isn’t limited to traditional business ventures. On the day of the release of the film, Jon Favreau, the director of the Iron Man series, shared 7 tweets to his followers on Twitter about the movie. While 7 tweets might seem like just a few to you and I, consider the fact that Jon_Favreau on Twitter has 768,476 followers. So technically Favreau shared his 7 messages to each of his followers 5,379,332 times.

That’s a pretty viral message.

Now while Favreau certainly doesn’t symbolize the typical CEO type being an actor, while also being a director and seemingly being on the cutting edge of “hipness,” one has to realize the trend being set. If a business leader is looking to share his or her message and has a built in following on Twitter, the size of the message shared can be compounded by the number of followers already in place.

Ernie Harwell

As many of you know, I work in baseball covering the Washington Nationals baseball team. Yesterday in Detroit, long-time Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell died at age 92. While Harwell was certainly better know in Detroit circles, his Hall of Fame voice was synoymous with baseball in the Motor City and beyond. The reason I bring up Harwell’s name in this context is to address what his role would be in today’s media climate. I once heard the line, “Bob Woodward wouldn’t have been able to talk to Deepthroat today, because he’d be too preoccupied with updating his Twitter page.”

Ernie Harwell

The point of the quote and the relation to Harwell is in the reality that many of the voices that gained prominence in the 20th century were able to do so without competition from cyberspace. In Harwell’s case, his radio voice at night could be heard as far as Chicago and Indianapolis on a clear day in Detroit. He owned the radio waves. He didn’t have to compete with emerging media and Twitter feeds.

Now I’m not sitting here crying out for the radio halcyon days of the 1950′s, but rather illustrating the paradigm shift in the way information is now shared. Mr. Harwell would have been a legend in any generation with his professionalism, dignity and soothing voice, just perhaps not to the extent he’s remembered in today’s media climate.

Facebook’s Monetization

So apparently the Huffington Post, an edgy left wing website knows that I’m on Facebook and is recommending that I share stories with friends. At least I think. I also can share important stories that I find on HuffPost with them. I think. It is a confusing concept to say the least. Take a look at this screengrab below from what I’m talking about.

On the right side of the page you can see that a number of popular stories have been shared by Facebook users and the most-shared are prominently displayed. Along with that information is also information about which friends of mine have “joined” Huffington Post. I am unclear about exactly what “joining” is. Are they people who have “friended” or “like” Facebook? Or something else entirely. Furthermore, its not exactly clear what’s in it for me.

As the headline of this blog indicated, this effort by Facebook to become part of the Huffington Post model is all about monetization and figuring out ways to drive traffic to both sites. I would be fascinated to learn about the agreement these two firms have and how the revenue agreement works. Who is making money off this? Huffington Post gets more traffic and Facebook uses their technology to suggest a social media plugin. Its a win-win.

Alright, ChatRoulette

So this is about a viral as it gets.

In November 2009, a 17-year-old kid from Russia developed a website that pairs random strangers for webcam-based interactions. Aided by text, audio and video, the site has become an Internet sensation as people have flocked to the site to test it out. As many Internet phenomena have experienced, this one had been plagued by heavy pornographic and sexually-explicit content. What’s more amazing about the site is how quickly it’s become part of the media lexicon. Within the last week, NBC, CBS and Comedy Central have all picked up on the trend and have done news segments about the trend.

Even the New York Times has gotten in on the act.

As if Twitter and Facebook hadn’t proven the ability of young people to become business giants already, consider Andrey Ternovskiy, who created the site. The initial funding of the project was made by his parents (for $10,000) which he soon paid back. According to one report, Ternovskiy runs the site from his childhood bedroom. How more viral can you get?

The other issue raised by the emergence of this program is the access and privacy concerns. There is no software asking you for age identity and the only equipment you need is a webcam and a computer connection. Certainly there could be problems with this moving forward.