This blog post is a follow up of Nayar’s article »

I’ve been a long time member of Reddit, 4Chan, Imgur, and what I’ve come to learn is that communities which offer technology, but not imply focus form many different cyber cultures. For example, Reddit and 4Chan both embody various cyber cultures: from simple humor to interesting fetishes. Whatever one’s interest, Reddit fosters relevancy and user interaction through avatars and PM’s.  Nayar states that culture and technology are linked (5). Without ICT’s, it is quiet clear that much globalization would not occur. In fact, I’ve seen through out the years, the interaction of many cyber cultures increase through decreases in barriers: i.e. new messaging and chatting features that automatically live translate from one language to another. A great example is Phillip Rosedale’s Second Life which platforms a virtual world with avatars that imitates real-life encounters in an rendered simulation. While Nayar’s article is a little antiquated in stating that Amazon.com is perhaps the most successful web company today, Nayar does make a point of what companies tend to survive global bubbles: those that fit the mold of being able to identify with long-term globalization of capitalist orders and global trade. Nayar also brings up the barrier of technology itself however which as we learned in Comm-12 at Santa Clara is a prevalent issue of economic scale. While, the resources to interact with one another are becoming more easily accessible, the apparatuses to do so still remain with the haves, rather than the have nots. While the haves, have more access, the have nots remain further behind in terms of economic growth and opportunities as well as social opportunities. Nayar’s article continues to talk about disconnect of identity: however, I believe that this is also antiquated to three-to-four years ago. Nayar, of course, takes the standpoint that there isn’t a disconnect; however, the latest technologies try to use real identities as promotion for machine learning algorithms to provide recommendations, advertising, commerce, and communication. Overall, Nayar is succinct in stating that ICT’s and the disparity between the haves and have nots  is an important one to understand: however, I believe, that this is not a channel of disparity but rather an amplification of resources for both. I believe in the long run, that technologies such as AirTime, Spotify and Facebook, and Anybot are providing tools to interact in a virtual setting that best tries to replicate real-world interactions.