Ten Years After Napster

3 observations made while overlooking pew internet

1) Even after Napster was shut down for free file shairng, file sharing still increased and album sales dropped. This is going on because kids want free music, they might just want one song off the album so they aren't going to buy the album they're going to look online for that one track.

2) Album sales dropped from just under 700 million in 2004 to just above 400 million in 2008. People don't need the album when they only want a few songs off of it they know they can go online and find the tracks somewhere.

3) File sharing has polluted the sales of album because people want the quickest and cheapest way to get new music.

Teens and Distracted Driving

Five observations made while overlooking pewinternet research on distravted teens driving.
1) Almost every age group on this chart is over 50% for being in a car while the driver was texting except for all teens 12-17 which is close to 50% with 48%. Texters ages 16-17 is the highest with 73%, this doesn't surprise me cause teens now think they'll get pulled over for talking on the phone and not texting.

2) I would have thought texters ages 16-17 that said they texted while driving would be higher than 34% because texting has become so popular and teens are worried about getting a ticket for driving and talking on their cell phone so they text under the dashboard where it can't be seen.

3) I would have thought all the texting while driving would have been higher in every group. I would have felt it was around 50% not in the mid to low thirties.

4) Talking while driving in every age group is nearly the same, around 50%, this makes sense to me because some states its illegal to talk and drive so it has probably decreased over the last few years.

5) I have been in all of these situations and have been guilty of talking and driving and texting and driving, but I have been talking less and texting more while driving because of the new laws, which is why I feel texting percentages would be higher and talking would be lower.

Alan Khazei is running for Kennedy's recently vacated seat in Senate. His mother was a nurse and father was a doctor so he has lots of concerns towards health care and the U.S. plans for health care. He has good points as to why we should have national healthcare much like Canada but it doesn't necessarily mean it is the right approach for our economy. This is a very arguable topic with good points from both sides of the argument. Only time will be able to tell what choice is made and if it was the right choice to make.

picture from http://www.alanforsenate.com/

Teens Online

This Chart is from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/Teens-and-Technology/03-Basic-Demographics-of-Online-Teens-and-Their-Families/3-Most-teens-have-logged-on-by-the-7th-grade.aspx?r=1

3 Observations I Made

1) The biggest jump of teens online is from 6th grade to 7th grade. 6th graders use of online is just under 60% and jumps up to 82% for 7th graders. This is probably because of social networks, more of them are connecting through facebook or other websites like that.

2) 6th grade boys are the reason for the low percentage of online users in their grade. 44% of 6th grade boys use online compared to 79% of 6th grade girls using it. This is probably because they aren't interested in online activities, not really interested in girls yet, just want to play sports and be outside.

3) Online use levels out in 11th and 12th grade at 94% because if they aren't using online by then it is more of a personal choice.

Generations use of Internet

This chart comes from... http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/Generations-Online-in-2009/Generational-Differences-in-Online-Activities/2-Internet-use-and-email.aspx

3 observations I made while overlooking this site and chart.

1) The Age Group 70-75 has had the largest increase in online users out of any age gropu from 2005 to 2008; jumping from 26% to 45%.

2) The age group 12-17 leads all age groups in online use at just over 90%, this is probably because they have more in class courses they help them increase their knowledge on the internet compared to the older groups.

3) Email is the most popular online activity, 74% of the people surveyed over 64 said they used email. However, email popularity has decreased amongst teens, 89% said they used it in 2004 and now only 73% say they use email. This is probably because of all the new social networks such as facebook, myspace, and twitter.

Global Warming

According to http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

Americans belief in Global Warming has declind dramatically. From April 2008 to April 2009 the percentage of people who felt there was solid evidence of Global Warming decreased from 71% to 57%. Even those who felt it to be a threat dropped more then 10% from 2008 to 2009.

Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33237202/ns/politics-white_house?GT1=43001 - article

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/33238168#33238168 - video

Obama wasn't the only one surprised by him being honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama said in msnbc article, "I am both surprised and deeply humbled." The thing that shocks me about this is he is only the third president to be awarded the prize and it is so early in his term of service. I do understand their efforts to push Obama's new policies.... Hopefully it works.

News Sites from politicsone.com

3 Sites I looked over on http://www.politicsone.com/news.htm were:

1) http://www.thedailyshow.com/
On this site you can watch clips from the Daily Show With Jon Stewart. There are videos of his on show interviews. The reason I like this site is because I watch the show and Jon Stewart actually has a good grasp on what is going on in U.S. politics and internationally but uses humor as well (infotainment).

2) http://www.theonion.com/content/index
The Onion is a news source that is very opinionated and takes the harsher side of a story and adds humor to it. I like this site because they have the wackiest stories, and it's easier for me to read along with something if I'm laughing with it.

3) http://www.thesmokinggun.com/
The smoking gun is a website with celebrity mugshots. The homepage as a featured document and mug shot of the week which involves a funny and weird case. I like this site because it is pretty funny to see celbrity mug shots and what they got in trouble for.

Degrees of Access

5 Observations I made while overlooking the slideshow:

1) The percentages between those who use the internet or email is not much different from owning the cell phone( College grads: 92% internet or email use, 89% own a cell phone).

2) English-Speaking Hispanics led all ethnicitys in internet and email use with 80% (whites next closest woith 75%).

3) People with no high school degree was at 44%. It was probably so low because those people don't necessarilly have the funds or the technical know how to use the internet or email.

4) I thought men would be a little higher then women in internet in email use, they were both at 73%. The information I went over last time from pewinternet showed that men used it more.

5) I would have thought College Graduates would have been higher in both internet and email use and ownership of a cell phone (Internet and email use-91%, Ownership of cell phone- 89%), because they are the age group that tends to try and stay in touch with old college and high school friends.

Degrees of Access (May 2008 data)

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Degrees of Access (May 2008 data)

View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center.

How Men And Women Use The Internet

6 Observations I Made While Overlooking http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/How-Women-and-Men-Use-the-Internet.aspx


1) I would have thought women used the internet in America more then men, however according to pewinternet.org women still fall behind men. Even though women under the age of 30 are infront of their male peers. It Is because of the older women that they trail. I would have thought the older women were even with their male age group.


2) It doesn't surprise me that men are more interested in the latest technologies and more apt to learning about them because it makes them look and feel smarter and more up to date with the rest of the world, probably comes down to trying to be more attractive to women in a sense.


3) It does not surprise me women use email, instant messaging, and other social networks more then men. That contributed to the reason as to why I thought women used the internet more then men, social networks could be a form of word of mouth for some internet activities.


4) Men use the internet more for fantasy football and sports news or hobbies which isn't surprising to me because I myself use the internet for all three of those things mentioned by pewinternet.org.

5) I would have thought women would have utilized online information more then men, but pewinternet.org found that men look for info on a wider variety of topics then women do. I would have thought women would have been higher because men tend to be lazier and don't soak up as much info.

6) It doesn't surprise me men use online transactions more then women because like I said in my last observation men tend to be lazier and online transactions are just easier and quicker.

3 Bridging Sites

1) http://www.lazer993.com/ is my first example of a bridging site because not only does it envolve the music it plays on its station but has links to sports web pages, golf courses web page, concert tickets, weather, and traffic reports.

2) http://dell.msn.com/ is another example of a bridging site because it has news from all over the world which everyone has access to. Someone could be on that website and link into news, sports, religion, music, etc.

3) http://www.youtube.com/ is my last example of a bridging site because it attracts people with different interests to their videos and clips.

3 Bonding Sites

1) http://www.nfl.com is one example of a bonding site because it connects people with similar interests (Football) and keeps them all updated on the new news in the league, and even have connections to their twitter page and facebook page, and international leagues.

2) http://sports.yahoo.com/fantasy is another example of bonding because it is a site fore fantasy sports fanatics and it can connect them to all their sports news they need access to.

3) http://www.partypoker.com/ is my last example of a bonding site because it brings people together with a similar interest in playing poker and gambling.

Internet Neutrality

Julius Genachowski the FCC chairman plans to propose new rules that would prohibit Internet service providers from interfering with the free flow of information and certain applications over their networks. This is in direct effect to one of Barack Obamas proposals, Internet Neutrality- The equal treatment of internet traffic. While this might make information more accesible Internet Providers should be able to and need to have some control over their networks to make sure applications that take up a lot of space don't slow down the internet access to its users. But that is just my opinion apparantly Obama and the FCC don't feel the same.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/20/MNGS19PLLQ.DTL#ixzz0RkytAKTJ

Chinas dominance over internet usage in Asia

According to internetworldstats.com China has 338 Million internet users and the next closest was Japan with only 94 Million internet users. This kind of surprised me because of the restrictions China has on their internet, I'd expect them to be ahead but not but such a large margin.

Asia's internet use

Asia almost accounts for half of the internet users in the world according to internetworldstats.com. They have 704,213,930 internet users while the rest of the world has 964,656,478 totaling up at 1,668,870,408. The large population and their dependency on technology is probably the reason for these numbers.

Internet User Growth in the Americas

The user growth from 2000-2009 in the Caribbean was 1,534%(internetworldstats.com). This is probably so high because they are becoming more up to date with their technology.

more stats from internetworldstats.com

More from internetworldstats.com that surprises me is the penetration rate in all the Americas. North America wasn't surprisng with a 73.1% penetration rate. It's the other countries low percentages that shocks me. South America is at 33%, The Caribbean is at 22.%, and Central America is at 19%. I thought they would have been higher because of the progression most of these countries are making in their economy.

Internet World Stats

Something that surprised me while overlooking internetworldstats.com internet usage statistics for the Americas was that even though South America has over 50 Million more people than North America (S.A.-392,597,416 to N.A.-340,831,831), North America still has more than 100 Million more internet users. I feel that it is probably this way because South America has a higher poverty rate than North America does.