Social Media and Web 2.0 and Transparency in Social Media

1. Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional prodution values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY??

I don't think that production value will continue to drop. I think that all there will always be some amateur user-generated content used in production but there will always be professional and high quality production content. In terms of television and commercials I think that some things will call for a more personal or amateur look due to the content. Almost as though the content was caught accidentally, as in a The Sonic commercial or Paranormal Activity movie, these are real people in a realistic situation. But this does not mean that all content will need to emulate this amateur look. Professionally produced content will always remain in the lead though and dominate the production business. Although some media will try to emulate amateur content often seen on the web I do not think that this will take over the industry. Amateur user-generated content is not the norm in production and I do not think that it will become the norm in the future.

Sonic commercial ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjY9VGEUdGs )
Paranormal Activity Trailer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDNjFJUyUz4 )

2. Find a news article and write down tags you would use to define what the article is about. Now goto Digg or another tagging site and see how others have tagged it. What did you learn from the differences or similarities in tagging?

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/02/22/general-toyota-recall_7375159.html?boxes=Homepagetopnews

My Tags:
Toyota
Recall
Subpoena
President Akio Toyoda
auto industry
safety issues

Digg Tagged:
criminal investigation
automobile
Securities and Exchange Commission
Los Angeles
House of Representatives
Wayne State University
management consultant
conference
fine line
Tokyo Stock Exchange


I had the main concepts as tags and I figured that some of the more important names, such as the president and themes throughout the article would be tags but I learned that this is not necessarily true. The more well known and important names and topics were tagged as opposed to main themes. There were also a couple of tags that I would not have picked out as one of the main themes or ideas throughout the article.

3. Why is transparency such an important concept in the Social Media world? Is it MORE or LESS important in the offline world? Why?

I think that now because Facebook and Twitter are so popular that transparency has become even more of an important issue in the social media world. The internet allows for all kinds of transparency issues, someone can pretend to be anyone or anything else through sites such as these. This causes all kinds of accountability issues and honesty issues. Companies can be reflected negatively and it is completely out of their control but it is important to maintain control over their information and content through these websites. It is far easier to read someone when face to face than through the internet. There is no way to check out someones accountability through the internet and far harder to find the direct source of the information. I'd say that in the offline world it is easier to deal with transparency than in the online world.