Jason Nelson's Lecture - Week 9

Jason spoke about the .com crash. There was a lot of money pumped into the internet and then these investors realised they were not making any money. After 2000 these people began to rethink things. Jason highlighted some companies that had done well and made it through and this included Amazon.com. Discussion began about when yahoo was big before Google came along. This led to more talk about - there is always going to be the next best thing. First there was MySpace and then everyone jumped to Facebook and then twitter. Apparently, Google is bringing the next thing out and it is going to be called Google-wave?? I wonder if everyone will jump on board. Google seems to have their hand in everything that happens on the internet. We learnt that Bill Gates/Microsoft is trying to buy yahoo... Though, at the moment Google is still the flavor of the month.

Jason mentioned Cyber Utopia - I gathered this to mean things are constantly changing in the cyber world. This is evident in what was discussed earlier. In a business sense this is bad. Companies don't want to build cyber entities or buildings, as such, then keep knocking them down and starting again. It must be frustrating for these business minded people trying to make a dollar. Some have succeeded and some have failed. Some have done both... Jason described the net as an experimental space. There are brands rising and falling continually. Personally, being a consumer of the goings on in cyberspace, I can't say that I will only commit to one thing/site/company/brand. If something better comes out and all my friends are using that, well I will use it too.

Jason showed us the Wayback Machine found at archive.org - This machine stores information of websites that may not be in use anymore. He took us to the old Griffith site from 1996. Let us just say things have changed for the better.
Now on to some Internet usage stats: Most people only visit up to 6 websites on the internet. These are the sites that people are accustomed to using. This led into discussion about more specific focus of tailoring to people’s needs on the internet. For example, the vampire.net or whatever it was. It was tailored to people into vampires or the elf.com or net that was specifically for people with an elf fetish. These types of sites are showing their success because they can last. The sites that are attempting to get the attention of the masses soon crumble because they cannot sustain the momentum. People generally get bored and move on the something else. Jason said the web works most effectively when individuals consistently updating information run sites. This is rather than big corporations running the show.