I have to be honest…I have never understood the purpose of blogging before this class. I never thought that I would have been able to come up with things to say that would be deemed interesting to my classmates. While I am sure that none of my blog posts were actually that interesting, I have learned that blogging is not just about “writing” blog posts but about the community experience that blogging creates. This community relationship is not just in this setting, where it is peers conversing through a blog, but in the business world as well.

As a consumer wouldn’t it be nice to feel like  a company cared enough to provide a way to interact with its consumers? Blogs can accomplish this, through blogging a company can communicate with its customers in a way that is easy to use and in a way that is easy to provie information through.  Not only would this blogging atmosphere be beneficial to consumers it would also be helpful to the company itself. Through a blog they can gather feedback on their products, if the company has established a healthy blogging relationship with their consumers – they might find that feedback via blogging might provide more response then through a survey sent through the mail.

Overall I am glad that through taking this class I am beginning to understand why blogging is such a valuable tool in the business world.

Woot.com is a fun website that urges it’s viewers to visit everyday through the idea of having one deal per day. You never know what you are going to find on Woot, they provide a variety of deals. Today they have a battery charger, last week they had a huge flat screen TV, the possibilities are endless. Each product gets reviewed and they try hard to make the reviews humerous and easy to read. From what I have seen the reviews are also honest about the quality of the products.

One of the best parts of Woot.com is that they offer a “Bag of Crap” a few times a year. A ”Bag of Crap” could have anything in it, IPODS, giftcards, televisions, it is always different.

So log onto Woot.com and start looking for your chance to get a “bag of crap.”

Academic institutions everywhere appear to all agree on one thing…Wikipedia cannot be trusted. I am sure that many can agree that they have heard the phrase “unreliable source” used in relation to Wikipedia numerous times throughout their academic career. Yet despite this warning to students, many still use Wikipedia to gather information for their projects. In a poll done by Escapist Magazine, 45% said that they use Wikipedia as a trustworthy source, 20% said no, and 34% said sometimes. So the majority appears to use Wikipedia at some point as a source in the academic world.

The founders of Wikipedia definently had a smart idea, one hated by teachers, but loved by students, that appears to be wildly popular. Even though in an article by Wired Campus the founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales appears to agree with academic teachers. He says in the article that Wikipedia is not reliable enough to use as a source. He is planning on putting together a fact sheet for professors so that they can teach their student how to use his website.

So, basically Wikipedia is to be used to gather information on subjects, not cited. Wales’s had one comment to make about college students who cite Wikipedia and get a bad grade. “I have no sympathy for their plight, for God’s sake you are in college, don’t cite the encyclopedia!!”

Kiva means Unity in Swahili, and the idea of unity is central to Kiva. Matt and Jessica Flannery started Kiva, because they felt like they had found a “call to action,” while in Africa. For many entrepreneurs in Africa the major problem with starting a business was that there was not enough access to capital. So to help fix this common problem, Kiva was born.

I has never heard of Kiva before my initial glance at this site. At first I actually was a little confused to see the word “loan” in the description. After doing some research on the company and its vision I was really impressed. An exceprt from an article in the L.A Times summed up Kiva’s idea perfectly; “Through Kiva, anyone with $25 and an e-mail address can make a loan to a small entrepreneur in a developing country.” How simple is that?

I know that to college students 25.00 can seem like a large amount of money, but I know that many students feel like they are not able to make an impact on the world outside of the bubble because of the hindrances of the college lifestyle. Through Kiva, even College students can make a difference with 25.00!

It would be great to see campus organizations, such as fraternities and sororities becoming involved with Kiva!

MapQuest was a huge hit when it started on the Internet in 1996. No longer did people have to use paper maps to figure out directions to their destinations, now all they had to do was  just type in the addresses and ta-da… instant directions. Genius.  MapQuest remained the leader in this type of industry until recently when Google introduced Google Maps.

This graph from the Internet shows that google maps appears to be giving MapQuest a difficult time. After looking at the two websites, it is not hard to understand why Google Maps appears to be so popular. First, they have amazing views of streets all across the world. I was able to “walk” right by my house and down the street on google. This is a great feature because, (not only can you now spy on your neighbors via the Internet) but you can find out how the area you are heading to looks so you do not get lost.  Another popular feature on Google is that you can manually change your route on the map by clicking and dragging. On MapQuest this is not an option, the directions that they give you are your only option.

I am sure that all of us have used MapQuest at some point, so we all understand how it works. In my opinion it could use some updating to keep up with the new technology at Google. Google appears to be taking over the Internet, now you can use Google for almost all your normal internet needs. People are fond of the Google name and trust it, this also may be a reason for Google Maps rise in popularity.