News Report #5

All-in-one Nettops resurrecting desktop market

By Erica Ogg

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/ptech/04/15/cnet.all.in.one.nettops/index.html?eref=rss_tech

4/15/09

There seems to be a new category of computer that all the name brand PC manufactures are competing in called All-in-one PC or "Nettops". These PC's are designed specifically with price in mind, with small screens usually fifteen to nineteen inches wide, And small inexpensive processors. Most experts didn’t think that the “Nettops” would start to impede on the Notebook market, but that seems to be what is happening. Ever since the stock market plunged no one can afford to by a Fifteen hundred dollar Apple iMac. That is why they believe that these new kinds of all-in-one PC’s will sell very well in stores like Target, Wal-mart and Costco, because they are all in one box and have no need to buy expensive accessories.
The reason I picked this news article was that I believed that it was relevant to the lecture we had the other day on the digital divide. This new type of PC seems to be more affordable than previous years. With these PC’s being priced at three to four hundred dollars, rather than in the thousands, I feel that It breaks down the digital divide significantly. Now all someone has to do is figure out a way to provide inexpensive internet access to lower income families. This is definitely one big step closer to bringing down the digital divide.

News Report #4

Facebook Takes a Dive: Why Social Networks Are Bad Businesses

By 24/7 Wall St.


Social networking giants, Myspace and Facebook may not be living up to what the advertising sector was hoping. Reports are that these two sites are not generating the advertising revenue that predicted. Myspace a few years back was purchased by newscorps in a attempt to make a huge profit off of the 100 million users that current use it to communicate with their friends. It was not anticipated that while these users were socializing with friends that they would not be interested in things being advertised. It is unlike a site that specifies in one kind of product, like “shoes”. Where an advertiser would know that the person is their to specifically look for shoes.
There have been many financial roomers spreading throughout Facebook that I have experienced in first person. One has to deal with how Facebook had recently changed its user policy so that all content that users put on the site would be the property of Face book, with which they could do what they want with it. This opens the door for Facebook to sell the information that the users post on the site to a 3rd party company that in turn would sell it to advertisers. There was a huge out rage to this throughout the Facebook community, mostly because they had changed the user policy without letting its users directly know. In my opinion it is really sad to see these small fun sites turn into advertising giants, it seems to happen to a lot of them.