A Word of Wisdom

My last post was somewhat lengthy so I'll keep today's brief with just a word of wisdom.

If you haven't seen a person in at least a year, if not longer then don't go around talking about them negatively because of a negative experience you had with them 3 years ago. People change over long periods of time, sometimes in positive ways, so you don't know if that person is still the same or not. So don't speak about them in the present tense like they are still that way.

Thats all for today.
If you're confused, don't worry about it.

Facebook Will Not Die

Recently a friend of mine, John Underdown, wrote a facebook note titled "The Death of Facebook" in which he basically says that facebook is on its death-bed, and that soon it will die. He then outlines some reasons for this happening. Actually to save you some time, just go read the note and then come back and read the rest of this post.

As soon as I read this note I immediately disagreed with it. I held myself back from commenting on it on facebook because I knew my comment would be way too long. I knew that what I had to say would be most appropriate in the form of a blog post. So I waited a few days and then I read a blog post from my friend Joseph Dickens in which he agreed with John in some ways.

So let me just take this time to disagree with both of you. LOL. (Don't worry, I'm friends with both of them so they shouldn't take offense to that). And let me just preface this post by saying that I am very biased towards facebook, as you will see soon enough.

One of the big reasons that they both gave for the near death of facebook is all of the annoying fan pages that people have created, and dumb surveys that you can take. Consequently all of this stuff shows up in your newsfeed. I agree, this is annoying, but its not near enough to kill facebook. O, and by the way, if one of those dumb surveys shows up in your newsfeed all you have to do is click that little hide button, and it won't show that certain survey anymore. That is the nice thing about facebook, is that it has filters, so you don't have to see things that you don't want to see.

Also, it is not like anyone is forcing you to become a fan of "sleeping in" or any of those other ridiculous fan pages that have been created. If you don't want to become a fan, then don't. Its as simple as that.

Another reason that was mentioned was that facebook is always changing their "look" or UI (User Interface) or "design" to put it in laymen terms. And I'll agree that people have complained, and actually facebook has listened to some of those complaints and given the users what they want. And people might turn away from facebook for a couple days, or a week, or maybe even a month, but facebook has over 200 million users. Let me just say that again, 200 million users. Or maybe if I actually put in the real number form 200,000,000 users. I mean, maybe if a couple million stopped using facebook completely for good, that might put a dent in their user base, but even still, they're not too worried about it. They know that there is nothing else out there that can even come close to competing with them in the social networking world, so they know that those people will eventually come back to facebook. Why?
Because everyone they know is on facebook, and again, nothing can compete.

So I hardly think that the change of the design will contribute to facebook's death. After all, as the internet evolves people want information faster and faster, and they are just adapting to that change. And let's not forget about friendfeed that probably has the most real-time interface of all social networks right now. For those of you who don't know, it is a twitter-like service that actually updates real-time in your browser. Somewhat like the new real-time update in facebook except you don't have to click the "show 3 more posts" button, it just does it automatically. So that is the way that the internet world is headed and facebook is just adapting to that.

John also gives the reason of facebook having a constitution, or more properly a "Terms of Service" and people getting upset over the changing of those, therefore leading to people leaving facebook. And my response to that is basically what I just said about people leaving facebook. They will leave, but they will come back. And facebook has to have those Terms of Service, and people were rightly getting upset over the changing of those because I don't want facebook to have the right to do whatever they want with my photos or information...do you? I think that might be something worth getting upset about.

So those are the reasons that John gives that facebook is dying. He says, "We are killing facebook." And John, we most definitely have the ability to kill facebook, but to say that we are, I believe is false, and to say that we are going to is probably even false.

Why?

Because there is nothing out there that can compete with facebook. Myspace has its place in social networking but it will not kill facebook, Twitter has its place, but I believe even that will not kill facebook. Until something comes along that is...(I'm sitting here trying to think of a word that could describe a facebook killer)...amazingly awesome, facebook will not die, after all, there is too much investment in facebook as a company for Mark Zuckerberg (founder of facebook) to just let it die.

Joseph also wrote some other good points on his blog post about texting and twitter and such, but I won't address those right now. If you all have made it this far in the post then I should probably be paying you to read this because the length was enormous, but here's something just as good, whoever goes through and tells me how many times I mentioned the word "facebook" in this post will win a special prize, but you must follow me on twitter @jburno and then @reply me the answer. And if this wasn't the most biased post that you've ever read than I don't what is, because I'm very biased towards facebook, but only because there is nothing else out there that can compete.

So with that, hey, if you want to delete your facebook account for any sort of reason, go right ahead, I could care less, but don't give yourself enough credit to think that you are gonna "kill" the social networking giant we know as facebook.

To those who I have referenced in this post, I love you deeply even if I disagree with you.

What do you think?
I really do want to know. And I'm glad that John wrote that note because it initiates great discussion.

The Internet's Influence on Education Part 2

In the first part of this post series I talked about the large influence that I think the internet is having and is going to have on education. I talked specifically about the area of graphic/web design because that is what a couple of my friends have alot of experience in. My friends have had no formal education and training in this area and yet they have jobs in the "real world" in these areas.

Where did they learn everything?

The internet!

So what does this mean for us?

Well when I say "us" I'm referring to myself as a student who has 1 more year in college and then is going to be released into the "real world." So I guess I could better phrase that question, what does this mean for me? But you could apply the question to yourself.

For me I think it means that I must use the internet as a resource. Notice I said, resource, not the ultimate source. The internet offers a multitude of great things to be learned but sometimes it doesn't cut it. Sometimes a book is a great resource. But either way, I cannot ignore the fact that the internet is one of the biggest sources of information available.

Also, I think it means that I must remember the old adage "all things in moderation." The internet is a great thing, and I'll be the first to tell you that social media and social networking are very great things. But I have learned in the past year that social networking cannot and hopefully never will be a substitute for face2face interaction. I'm a huge advocate of facebook, twitter, blogging, etc. but it will always come down to getting away from your computer and meeting those people in person and sharing your passions and goals with them. (Sorry that was a bit of a social media tangent, but I think it applies here).

So I think for students in college or even high school and lower ages I would say this, learn everything you can from the internet. Figure out what your passions in life are and study whatever that is in college. If you have an opportunity to get a job that could be a career then go for it. Notice I'm not telling you to not go to college and not get a degree but sometimes or maybe alot of times you can learn more from researching the internet than you can from sitting in a classroom using outdated methods and outdated equipment. (I mean that last paragraph in the most positive way possible).

What does this mean for those who are teachers or professors?

Use the internet to your advantage. Use it for all the reasons that I just talked about. It is a great, FREE resource. And in many times there are people out there that know more than you might know about a certain subject or can give a different view on a subject that will help your students understand the subject better. I think this can be applied to every grade, every subject, every age. Our kids need to learn how to use the internet the right way because if we don't teach them they're gonna try to learn on their own and sometimes that may not be the best thing.

So I'm gonna go ahead and say it...

If you are planning on studying some type of graphic design, video editing, web design, photography or any other type of media then I'm gonna assume you already know alot about these things. So if you just wanna get your degree just for the sake of getting a job that you could already have then go to a small school because its gonna be easy for you but you're not gonna learn much. But if you want to learn more and really get good training then you should probably spend the money and go to a top-of-the-line school that uses good equipment, and up-to-date methods. This way you are learning alot and getting a degree.

This post was obviously focused around students, but also I hope that it helped out those who are teachers as well. There may be more posts to come in this series, I haven't quite decided yet, but I think this will do for now.

Also, a reader commented on my last post and said that the content of the post was more biased toward the internet rather than education, and I'll admit that yes I am very biased toward the internet, but I hope this post was a little more balanced.

What do you think?

Should we be teaching our kids how to use the internet?

Do we even need to teach them how to use the internet...?

...or should we just let them figure it out on their own?

The Unity of Sports

Well yesterday was a day filled with sports. Literally, every activity I participated in yesterday was centered around some type of sport. And yesterday I was reminded of why sports is such an important factor in our culture.

First was at 2:30pm the Champions League Final took place. Barcelona took on the powerhouse Manchester United. I watched this game with Jason Tucker at his house because we both love soccer and he has an awesome TV. Everyone was picking Manchester to win, but I was pulling for Barcelona, and Barcelona took everyone by surprise by winning the Championship 2-0. They scored a goal early in the game and then Manchester never really got into a rhythm.

While I was in the process of watching this game I got a call from my aunt who had 3 tickets to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game that was giving away. So I got those tickets and me, Jason, and Joseph Dickens went to that game after watching the Champions League Final. The Reds game was fun. We had great seats and we won 6-1, and Jay Bruce tore it up with 2 homeruns, and a triple to right field.

Then immediately following the game we went back to Jason's house and joined some other friends and watched the NBA Western Conference Finals in which the LA Lakers are playing against the Denver Nuggets. The Lakers won last night to put them ahead in the series 3-2. This was a great time to hang out with friends, friends who I haven't spent alot of time with lately due to being away at school.

So yesterday I was very much reminded of how much of a socializing tool sports can be.
I am reminded of how sports can bring a group of people together whether they have many common interests or not. It can foster relationships in the most diverse groups of people.
I am reminded of why I have devoted the past 3 years and the next year of my life to studying "sports ministry" and different ways to minister to people through sports.

Because sports unites people. People of different color, race, culture, ethnicity.

What experiences have you had with sports unifying those around you?