Life in the Network

I must say, I had a very interesting and educational experience signing on to Wikipedia.com. In one of our readings, Andrew Lih states “Wikipedia is an Internet-based, volunteer-contributed encyclopedia that has become a popular online reference in just three years of existence.� (3). Before reading this, I never realized that any individual had the ability to edit and/or change a definition within this particular website. You can just about search any topic and edit it to your likings, unless it is protected for administrator’s use only. I can see why it became such a hit in only three years time. However, my concern is how reliable is the information being posted on this site, if any plain Jane is able to post whatever they want about a topic? Andrew Lih states, “The wiki concept is somewhat counterintuitive because the technical implementation itself provides no gate keeping function to ensure quality material is being contributed.� (4).

I was clueless as to what article topic I wanted to choose for this particular assignment. Being the multi-tasker I am, I have a tendency to watch TV and work on homework at the same time. During my time spent on this homework piece I was watching I Love New York, which is a reality show on VH1. Hence, it gave me the idea that I wanted to edit an article on Flavor Flav. My roommates and I got hooked into watching Flavor of Love seasons 1 and 2, and sadly to admit I’ve probably seen every episode 2-3 times. It is a great show to watch, simply for comical relief. Anyway, here is the link to the page I edited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Flav - .27.27Flavor_of_Love.27.27.

I simply added more information under the section titled Flavor of Love. The information added, was more in depth description as to what happens in Season 2. There was much more information posted about season 1, when I first entered the site, and very little pertaining to Season 2, under this section. The process itself, I would say, went very smoothly. It was easier than I thought it would be. Overall it is a pretty neutral page. However, if you want to watch any of the series, you should do so prior to logging onto these sites, because they have a tendency to give away the endings. There could be some marketing schemes involved to hype up Flavor Flav’s music album, but wasn’t distracting to the reader at all.

The “Subservient Chicken� marketing idea by Burger King was very different. I had never been to the website before nor heard of it prior to this module. I personally don’t think by playing around with this website, that is would make me want to go to Burger King anymore than if I had not visited this site. It definitely is a unique way of marketing. According to Mae Anderson, “…sales had steadily increased an average of 9% per week.� Marketing is all about creating and implementing the best idea(s) to attract a bigger and broader audience. Hence, companies are going to try new methods of approaching their customers, and since technology has become so developed over the past few years, it’s only give marketing people more to work with.