How could mashups serve international governance? Would mashups serve to make government more effective?

Now before answering the question, let's first define the meaning of a "mash-up."
A mash-up is a web page or application that contains and combines multiple-external resources to form a new service. It is also a form of Web 2.0 application.

As we all know, the internet is a massive communication tool and can be very difficult to monitor all activities. This is why the internet is still under governance and not a government. The internet is large and the government itself cannot control and enforce everything. However, with the use of mash-up websites and applications monitoring it can help achieve better internet governance. Instead of monitoring multiple web sites which would require more effort and resources, mash-ups allows the government to simply monitor this single mash-up web site which contains multiple sources. Mash-ups in a way sort of make the internet seem smaller which would allow the government a more effective surveillance. This is truly more effective since it enables the government to better expand the surveillance and enforcement of the internet. These mash-ups tend to contain sources that have major activities which can help serve sources that require better attention for surveillance by the government. Also, mash-ups contain sources that are similar to a certain degree. If a government wanted to monitor certain types of sources, hitting a mash-up would lead to many other type of sources they seek to monitor. With mash-ups, it is like hitting two birds with one stone.



Here are some mash-up links

http://www.mibazaar.com/top100celebrities/
http://www.mibazaar.com/education/business_school.html

What does global civil society look like? Where are the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forces located, and how do they achieve their ends?

A global civil society is a society managed by non-government Structures and it is the "people" or elites that make the decisions rather than an authority government. This society attempts to eliminate the gap between government and people.
These forces good or bad are located in many type of forms. One type of form are institutional frameworks which included legal frameworks, human rights provisions and non government organizations (NGO). The second type of form are pressure groups that usually initiate social movements. Last type of form are subjectivity which are cultures that attempt to create a social identity and personal expression.

Such forms such as NGOs tend to achieve their goals such as achieving social injustice through Information Communication Technology (ICT). ICT provides a large flow of information which NG0s use to their advantage. ICTs makes internal administration more effective and efficient, support project implementation, political mobilization and enhance external communications such as the media.
With ICTs communication between people and government improve and helps eliminate the gap between them and brings one step closer towards a Global civil society.

Although ICT is very powerful, sometimes it may not be powerful enough for a NGO to meet their goals. NG0s also communicate and interact with once another in order to support each other. The more support will make this NG0 more powerful and thus easier to achieve its goals. NG0s appear in multitudes to become stronger and more influential organizations. The greater interaction and cooperation with these organization will bring us closer to a global civil society.




http://www.mapbuilder.net/Map.Code.php?Action=Preview

Does internet democratise the consumer? Is privacy a concern?

Under the growing influence of the internet and technology, I find it difficult to state it does not democratize the consumer. Today, most countries are under the influence of democratic and capitalistic leadership especially in the United States which is the most powerful and influential country in the world of the century. With the help of the most powerful communication tool of the internet, these democratic countries will spread their democratic values to other consumers from other countries. The internet may not even need to democratize the consumer at all, since majority of consumers of the internet live in a democratic society and are already democratized. However, it is no doubt internet can easily spread information and globalize the democratic values across consumers. Naturally animals will seldom travel alone in the wilderness and prefer to follow the herd, how can we not say countries themselves will not do the same thing? Democracy is the growing powerful form of government and is clearly the "herd" of this wilderness with the United States on its side. In China and North Korea, they control the amount of media that gets presented to the public in order to preserve their government. I believe this is mainly because they fear that the internet may democratize China's internet consumers and cause a rebellion against the government since it is not a fully or at all a democratic government.

I believe privacy is a concern because if the internet can spread democratic values with ease than it can spread privacy invasion as well. With the constant activities occurring on the internet, some of these activities and information will attract attention. Many people these days include many valuable information such as credit cards and account numbers to perform online transactions. Quite often, people will attempt to obtain these private information by posing as a representative of the credit card company or bank. Also, there has been issue about government or organizations monitoring the internet and infringing the privacy rights of the consumers. Internet may have its benefits and but it has its misfortunes too.

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Here are some photos of my adventure in exploring Itune applications!





I accessed the application store easily since I have an Ipod and the application itself. They offer a range of application and put them in a list of free and payable sections. It doesn't really surprise me that the top applications downloaded mainly consist of games. :D