yikes...

So, I admit, I've been a little bit bad when it comes to blogging lately. Buuut, I'm making up for it right now by talking a little bit about last weeks reading along with this one.
An interesting fact I read said that the Internet continues to have an annual growth rate of 124%... wow. If the Internet continues to experience such growth there really is no limit as to where it could end. In fact the textbook also said that "Cyberspace has no known natural limits." I find this to be an extremely interesting idea that kind of connects to what we read about this week about who could possibly control such a giant amount of information. With the history of other innovations of our past eventually being controlled by the government or monopolies, it is very possible for such a thing to happen to the Internet. I don't think that this should be allowed though. Would it even be possible to control something with no range or end in sight? Copyright is one attempt to protect and control different parts of the Internet. The Internet allows anyone in the world with a connection to have a equal voice, meaning that everything we publish becomes a commodity. While I do believe that protection from unfair duplication is a good idea, I think that not everything on the Internet needs to be censored. The government definitely should not regulate the Internet, it was built with few barriers and it should stay that way.
Another interesting concept in last weeks reading was the idea of the Digital Divide. While this weeks reading talked about the possibility of us having to pay for services on the Internet, I thought that this was generally a bad idea. If there is already a digital divide between those with and those without Internet (probably because many cannot afford it), how can we start talking about making people pay for the simple things online? Even if everybody had the Internet, it still wouldn't mean that everyone would use it, it's simply not attractive to everyone... another reason why the Internet would be hard to regulate.
One thing I thought that was actually funny about the reading, and a little criticism I have came from chapter 21 which referenced Melrose Place as a show that young people watch in groups! Melrose Place was a show that was popular during the 90s! I think it's a little strange that we're learning about new social networking and media while reading a book that seems to already be so outdated. Did you know there are talks of a NEW Melrose Place (kind of like the new 90210)? This definitely makes it a little hard to relate to the text book, and I am curious to see what the authors of the chapters would say about their topics nowadays.

Listening to: Eve 6- Think Twice