Design is an important element in almost everything. From product labels on the market to the online world, it is crucial to have a well thought out design in order to be successful. “20 Fresh and New Designs”,  an article by Steven Snell on sixrevisions.com, lists the latest techniques, layouts, and trends from 20 new websites.

One particular website that caught my eye was Beautiful 2.0, showcasing the best web design, CSS, and Flash artistry. In the gallery, one website I particularly found to be interesting was jamesgarner.co.uk. This website is a portfolio site for an illustrater James Garner, and the best element I found in it was creativity. It is very artistic and illustrative, and I really haven’t been to a site this unique before. Another website I cam across was CSS Luxury, which posts websites in groups of colors or structures. On this website, I learned that color scheme is very important and using colors that go well together and that are eye catching are much more effective than using colors that don’t blend well together. Color is important in making your content aesthetically pleasing to the viewers.

For my personal hypertext project, I think one of the most important steps is simply finding inspiration. Looking through all of these web design pages helps bring ideas, color schemes, layouts, fonts, and a lot of different design elements together. Another thing I learned from browsing through these websites is that content is just as or even more important than design. If there is no quality content, then the viewers may never come back even if the site is well designed.

You can view different web design elements here

danah boyd, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research explains the social phenomenon of teenagers’ use of the Internet in her article “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites”. This article was written for MacArthur Foundation for Digital Learning, which reflects that boyd wrote this article for educational purposes, in order to inform her educated, adult audience.She explains how today’s teenagers are not children, yet still not considered adults. In this transition to adulthood, where they are trying become adults, they are not socially accepted. Because of this social exclusion and their limitations to public access, they find a way to become involved and active in their own way through the use of Internet social network sites, such as Myspace.

This teenage culture is a fairly recent innovation. In fact, a hundred years ago, teenagers did not exist. When the social structure began segregating different age groups, people that were not yet adults but no longer considered children fell into this teenage category. I think the creation of this category has led to a lot of issues, especially a harder transition into adulthood. It is upsetting to think that today’s teenagers have to go on the Internet to express themselves freely, without any parental controls. Other than the parent factor, I think there is a considerable amount of peer pressure involved. During the teenage stage, one is often stuck in a perfect world of their own, often shaped by the media. If one can’t physically conform to this image,he/she can create such an image and persona on the web. Although boyd considers the use of social sites as gaining access to a public life, I consider it to be a way in which teenagers shape their identities. They try to find themselves in a public sphere. Of course, this does not relate to all teenagers. It depends on a multitude of factors. It would be interesting to study how different factors affect social interactions on the Internet.

Read the study here

As I was reading Andrew Keen’s book ,The Cult of the Amateur, I found the argument to be quite unconvincing and hypocritical. Keen, a British-American entrepreneur and author fond of arguing against the Web 2.0 movement, writes about how a democratizing Internet culture’s cultivation of amateurs is ruining our true, well-educated culture. What I don’t understand is how he considers the media-based, Hollywood-run culture to be “well-educated” and true. From my point of view, I consider the Hollywood culture a much more deleterious and scandalized culture than I do the Internet. From young girls and preteens fantasizing of becoming grown-up versions of Miley Cyrus to news programs such as Fox News sensationalizing and brainwashing their viewers, the media itself is no less an amateur culture than the net. He claims that blogs and websites such as Wikipedia are full of false ideas and are run by uneducated, unprofessional people who have no life. I am really opposed to this idea of “educated.” I don’t believe that a person cannot be intelligent or professional just because they don’t have college degrees. In fact the people that have drastically changed the world of technology are drop-outs themselves. Just think of Albert Einstein and, recently, of Steve Jobs. These two figures, although from modern standards are considered uneducated, have done a lot more for the world than most “educated” people have. Keen also interviewed Walter Isaacson, Steve Job’s biographer and rather than debating the use of the Internet and Apple’s new technologies, he was stuck on talking about Steve Jobs as a person. I feel he does the same in his book where he constantly slanders the “uneducated” people behind the Internet rather than discuss what the issue really is.

I believe that to some extent both the Internet and media cultures are ruinous. But I also consider that both can play a positive role in culture too. I agree with Keen that there are many substance-less blogs and useless YouTube videos. But on the other end, there are also many informative and helpful blogs and videos.The same can be said about the media as well. I guess having a good balance between Lessig’s “Read Only” and “Read/Write” cultures is key to a successful harmony.

In his 2008 book, Remix, Lawrence Lessig describes a derivative culture based upon changing and improving copyrighted works in order to create a “remix” culture. The very basis of Lessig’s argument was recently challenged by the government, who issued a bill known as SOPA, the stop online piracy act, which targets any web-related content for the use of unauthorized, copyrighted material. Lessig, a researcher, Professor of Law at Stanford, and columnist for publications such as Wired and Red Herring, would most likely be utterly opposed to such an idea. Such an act would enforce a “Read Only” (RO), consumer based culture in which only a small elite would define the culture and the rest of us would look on and only “consume” the culture without altering it. SOPA clearly challenges the core value of democracy, what this country is all about. Lessig defines democracy as a “Read/Write” (RW) culture in which the public takes in the culture, tweaks it and remixes it into a culture of their own. We not only look at the culture from afar, but are a part of the making of it.

Would it be possible for the worlwide web to exist were this new act to be successful? According to Lessig, the web is a consortium of ideas, an integration of innovations. The Internet is a RW culture; it is a web weaved by global users building upon each other’s ideas. Just look at what 99% of the web consists of: blogs! The most used websites, such as YouTube and Facebook are built upon this very idea of interacting with the culture, not just overseeing it.If you really ponder about this recent bill, it seems a bit mindless to even consider passing it because, in reality, if you were to apply the essence of this act, the Internet should be shut down. Lessig purposely framed his argument for a Read/Write culture in a book given that his audience consists  of highly literate, educated individuals. A book reflects just that, a Read/Write culture in which his readers can read, absorb the argument, and play an active part in producing this culture. He also made it freely available online, again implementing the idea that our culture should not be consumer based; rather, our ideas should freely flow from one person to the next, yet remain connected.

I remember walking into every class on the first day of school only to hear the same plagiarism lecture monotonously repeated. This idea of stealing another’s idea is continuosly drilled into our minds to the point where we fear even looking up other’s thoughts to inspire our own. But, the truth is this plagiarism paranoia is a complete hoax. Every book we lay our hands on, any song we listen to, or any artwork we look upon contains some sort of plagiarism. Is this absurd? Or is our modern standard definition of plagiarism absurd?

The fact is that no form of art can exist without inspiration and inspiration cannot come out of thin air. We are inspired by that famous book we read curled up next to the fireplace, by that song we heard while driving to work, by that painting we saw at the museum. Jonathan Lethem,  a novelist, essayist, and short story writer wittingly addresses this issue of plagiarism, ironically in a plagiarized article he wrote for Harper’s magazine, a left-wing magazine based on literature, sciences, and the arts. In this aptly written piece, he argues that no quality piece of literature, or of art in general, can be written without some form of plagiarism. In order to prove his point, he mockingly plagiarizes his entire article. When you start reading this article, you find it very serious, convincing and well-written. By the end, when you find out that it’s all plagiarized, it kind of makes the whole thing a joke, but at the same time reflects his whole argument.

It makes sense that a writer is arguing about redefining plagiarism in a literature magazine. His satirical style mirrors the whole “left-wing” attitude towards conservatives, which further captures his liberally-minded audience. Now that I think about it, this notion of plagiarism that we are taught is a bit ridiculous. I don’t agree with copying entire essays or bluntly reiterating words that you find. But I do agree that one man’s junk can be another’s treasure.

Lethem’s article can be viewed at: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081387

The Huffington Post is an alternative news website which aggregates material from various blogs and allows commentary. A setup such as the Huffington Post allows the public to interact more actively with the media. The excerpt was published here because it is a relevant blog and relates well to the social/political activists that are the main audience of this site.  This excerpt was written by a blogger, Micah L. Sirfry, who is a co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. His interest and his works center around the idea on how technology is changing politics. This excerpt precisely addresses that,reflecting how WikiLeaks and such organizations are “cutting-edge” technology for this new political age.

Yes, WikiLeaks is a Wiki. It is a collaborative website created by multiple accredited users around the globe as stated on their website. The purpose of WikiLeaks is to get the truth to the public and it is important that the public be a part of this website in order
to reflect the true purpose.  Sirfry’s main point is that transparency in politics is very important as it allows the government to keep its power in check. He is appealing to the public to share true information and sources with organizations such as Wikileaks. He makes a pretty convincing case to the audience of this site, who are technology-based social and political activists.

I admire the whole concept of transparency that WikiLeaks has created. There is a great truth to the fact that the more power one has, the greater a need there is for transparency.  Televised media and much of the media on the net seem to be washed out, sensationalized news that people use for entertainment rather than knowledge nowadays. I completely agree with Sirfry’s argument and too hope that the truth emerges rather than being blinded by what the media is portraying. I agree that this should be the case politically, but it should also cover other news. However, I still believe that there should be some limitations to transparency. Assange framed it very well by stating that transparency should be proportional to power. The one thing I find ironic in all of this transparency talk, is that the “founder” of all of this, Assange, is described by Sirfry as a very mysterious, hidden persona. Overall, the argument was very well framed and convincing of its cause.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/wikileaks-assange-transparency_n_820348.html