The Gender Digital Divide

Bruno Mori
October 12, 2005

The Gender Digital Divide

Today, technology is everywhere, at home, work and of course on our “third place”. Many things changed a very short time, most people were not ready. Then gaps on the Digital Divide starting to appear; they may get smaller later. But still there is a big difference. One aspect that affects the Digital Divide is the differences between male and female, the Gender Digital Divide.There isn’t a better TV series that describes stereo types like “Leave to Beaver”. It creates the idea of women as a housewife and the husband that works at a good place with children, the perfect American family. With the rapidly development of technology women stayed behind in technological knowledge. Still when I was in technical high school, there were no girls on the computer major. It looks that women didn’t want to be left behind, so today women like Shirley Turkle is one of the best to talk about technology.I think that the Tech-Savvy article is valid because even though many women have a broad knowledge of technology, overall men is still way ahead. It doesn’t madder, girls will always want to play with their dolls and boys will like to play with videogames. When I first started to use computers I was about 7. During my childhood it was boy’s things. I can’t remember any girl that was interested in playing computer games with me. Little girls today, have interesting things to do on the computer that usually are not only the “Barbie Dressing Game”.Children become teenagers that become adults. It is the base that is important in today’s generation. However, some people like professors or workers had to develop knowledge very fast to keep up with technology. Then still the Gender Digital Divide takes place. At MSU, most professors like to use Power Point presentations and some still use just the regular projector. Besides Math, all other classes that I have taken at MSU professors used some kind of PowerPoint or regular projector presentations.Blackboard is a thing of the past. The Telecommunications professors have to be into all these basic requirements. The Digital Divide in teaching a class is smaller between technology professors at MSU. However, the Gender Digital Divide appears clearly in the number of male and female professors on the department. I had only three female Telecommunications professors on my core classes. All three were using the power of technology to emit their message to the students as a male would do. On the Telecommunications department at MSU there is not a digital divide between professors, but the number of professor of each sex gives all the statistics needed.The Gender Digital Divide may go away soon. Technology develops very fast; we need it there is no way you can escape from it. If people don’t start to think technology and live technology they will be left behind. Do you remember those days of the typewriters?

Works Cited

Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age
<http://www.aauw.org/member_center/publications/TechSavvy/TechSavvy.pdf>

The Economics and Marketing Strategies of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Bruno Fucci Mori
06/20/2005

The Economics and Marketing Strategies of Massively Multiplayer Online Games


Starting with the old Arcades and continuing with games like Space Invaders and Pac Man, the economics of videogames and its marketing strategies have improved for the better. The capitalist world wants to make a profit out of it. In Arcades, the idea is to have the largest quantity of quarters or tokens inside the machines. The game industry’s main objective is to sell as many games as possible. On other games also the idea is to sell and extract until the last line of programming from the affectionate gamers. New marketing and economic strategies in sales, advertising and promotion are the answer for the online game industry today.
In 1985, there was a market crash for the videogame industry. As a result, many games were not able to make a profit. Fortunately, the market is almost fully recovered. But, this recovery pales in comparison to the videogame’s “Golden Years”. Since I heard that Japan didn’t have enough coins to supply the Arcades, I realized the power of many today’s companies can never be compared to Atari. Like most things, games can be a big hit or a big sink. In the past, most game companies couldn’t fix their ships. As a result, they went to the button of the sea at the end of 1985.
Many games still use the produce and sell strategy, especially games that don’t have a multiplayer feature in it. This is strategy is not a bad thing. Lots of profits can be made using this strategy. A number of console games use this strategy and are very successful. In my opinion, this isn’t the best way to sell a game. But, it is the easiest and fastest. If it works with groceries and other common goods, it should work with games as well.
Today with the immense power of the Internet, PC game companies’ marketing strategies are turning to the Internet. When you have something online you always have to beware of hackers and cheaters. Cheating is a really big issue for all online gamers. As a result, games and servers have to always be updated.
The most common way to get a profit on online games is simple. Banner ads can be put anywhere, starting from the game’s website continuing beyond its chat rooms. The problem is that banner ads aren’t that profitable as compared to other strategies that game companies can use. In many games, like Warcraft III from Blizzard, banner ads are on their chat rooms. While players are waiting for a game, they can watch the banner ads and sometimes gamers may click on them. On games that reach more people banner ads may be very profitable because banners are priced by its page views or hits. These banners can even be a promotion for other games from the same company as well as other related gamming goods like fast DPI mouses on first person shooters websites.
The advantage of banner ads on game’s related places is that, companies can target the public very well. They know who is playing the game or what they want and need. The demographics of a specific game are easy to describe. However, there was a change that was made not so long ago that caused some problems in this area.
Ratings were created for videogames. The market of videogames was really harmed because of it. For example, a game like Grand Thief Auto cannot be sold for audiences under the age of 17. As in movies, the higher the rating, the harder it is for the young public to get access to it. Companies are always trying to get their ratings as low as possible. But, it is hard since laws that protect children are always being put in first place. Even though, the possibility of a “big brother/friend” buying games for an underage person is high. Games sales are really harmed by when the ratings are too high (ESRB).
Advertising may still be the best answer for marketers in the game industry. Sports games may use banner ads placed inside the Stadiums or on the team’s jersey. The main problems that companies face from banners is that they are annoying to people. Not only gamers, but all Internet users are tired of banners and pop-up ads. But the good thing about these banners on sports games is that they are not annoying. They are placed on the same places that other ads would normally be placed on, just like during a real sports match.
If banner ads don’t obstruct the flow of the game, they can be placed anywhere. Today, game companies’ slogans always talk about reality inside a screen. Real life is full of ads and brand names. If they have placed a coke can instead of an Acme branded soft drink it wouldn’t influence the flow of the game and it would make it more real. Since Dragon’s Lair, many games are more like a movie than a game. Playing a game is like watching a movie. Game companies should use the same advertising strategies that movies used to put brand names on the big screen.
Sponsorships for game teams or tourneys are also a good way that game companies can promote their games. Large tourneys like the CPL and WCG can become international with heavy purses that are not less than thousands of dollars. Game companies can promote their products placing ads around the “game arena” by sponsoring the tourney with computers or prizes. Also, they can have booths at these tourneys where direct marketing can be made. The public can be targeted very well. If it is a Counter-Strike tourney, promoting first person shooters only, would be a good strategy.
Besides advertising and promoting, there are some new strategies that can be used to extract the very last penny from gamers. Some games like World of Warcraft also created by Blizzard, requires that all its players pay a monthly fee. The advantage of a monthly fee is the guarantee of a good service. World of Warcraft is always updated to get rid of cheats and bugs. Also, included are updates with new items and features. The server’s latency is also good. The problem with this strategy is that some people don’t want to pay two times for one game. Players will have to pay the monthly fee plus the game it self which is $26.88 for two months and $49.99 for the game (Blizzard). Also, World of Warcraft reached a record of 2.000.000 subscribers on June 2005 (Blizzard). But, the monthly fee will create monetary barriers for low income gamers. Also, common gamers may not want to pay for it. If a different strategy was used for this game, I am sure that a new record would be easily achieved if all players on pirate servers were added to the official server.
Pirate servers may emerge when monthly fees are applied. These servers usually have fewer players than the main server. But adding all the pirate servers can create a high percentage of the main server. Of course, the quality of the pirate servers are not the same as the main one, but still some people that doesn’t want to pay a monthly fee will want to move to a free server. My friend, who plays on the main server is always telling me to buy World of Warcraft, but I don’t like to spend any money besides the game’s CD itself. Therefore, I would definitely go for the pirate server. RPGs are games that I like to play from time to time. World of Warcraft is one of the best RPGs ever made, but the monthly fee makes World of Warcraft just another game in my CD case. On the consumer side, pirate servers are terrible. Pirate servers may have rollbacks which are a reset of the server. This means that all characters may be erased. Imagine that you worked on a character to reach a high level one day and the next day, it is gone.
While discussing about erased accounts in RPGs games, violence in games should be mentioned. There was a case that a young boy committed suicide because his hardcore character on Diablo II Lord of Destruction died. Hardcore characters cannot be resurrected and all items as also lost when the character dies. I think it is a big loss for someone that spent hours and days playing the game. So, will an increase in profits for companies result in an increase of violence in videogames? Some other games like The Sims Online also required a monthly fee. The Sims Online was the biggest mistake that Maxis, today EA Games have ever made. Nobody was playing the game.
Another strategy that game companies like to use is the virtual money idea. There are many good games like Gunbound that are freeware online games. The graphics and game play are pretty good, as compared too many paid games. If the companies wanted, these games can be easily sold in stores as other games, but the marketing strategy of those companies are different. Softnyx the company that developed Gunbound is growing everyday. The company has franchisees in many different countries including Singapore, Korea, Brazil, Thailand and the U.S., with many players in each of them. Of course being a free game with quality, everyone will want to play.
Softnyx can profit from advertisements on championships and events. But most of its profit comes from “Cash” sales. Cash is a system that allows players to buy with real money items from the game. In the beginning, nobody wanted to spend money with Cash, but today, about 75% of the players have at least bought cash once (Softnyx). Cash also allows players to buy a “Power User Card”. This card allows card holders to have their game on the top of the list, more gold in each game and unlimited kicks. Because, there are many players online at the same time everyday, having your game at the top of the created game list will result in you not having to wait long time to play a single game (Softnyx).
People usually spend Cash on “Power User Cards” that needed to be revalidated when expired because the maximum time you can buy it is for a month. These cards work as a hidden monthly fee that players pay. Given an advantage over other players, this hidden monthly fee works in a different way from World of Warcraft Because of the amount of cheaters and bugs in the game is large, the game is a freeware. However, Gunbound has just released a new version of the game Gunbound WC (World Champion) that has better graphics and new features. The new version fixed lots of bugs and hacks, but there are still ways to hack into the game (Softnyx). The good thing is that players forget about the problems because they know that a real monthly fee may be applied if Softnyx invest lots of money to improve the service.
Also, I played a game called HoverBoard ASDF. It was a race of Hoverboard (futuristic skateboards), it looked like that they were planning to use the same strategy that Softnyx is using right now, but before the strategy was placed, they went out of business. The company didn’t actually tell the customers the reason that the server was closed. I am pretty sure that they thought nobody would like to buy their “Cash” because the game was not good enough. No matter what strategy you use, if the game’s quality isn’t good, it will sink. After all, I think this is a good marketing strategy for online games especially because piracy is one of the biggest problems.
One joke that I like telling to people is “Q: What is the thing that everyone has in common? A: The Office’s serial number”. Getting away from piracy is the biggest priority of game companies. Laws that enforce piracy of games and software are not enforced so much. The number of things that are pirated is huge. From MP3s to Windows XP, home users always have at least one pirate file on their computer. This is one of the reasons that I think that the “Cash” strategy may revolutionize the online game market. But, the problem is that this system may not apply to all game genres. Due to the large number of pirate games, the number of games sold comparing to the number of players online in the server may not be equivalent because many people download the game from a Per-to-Per server or burned from a friend’s CD. Also, it is very cheap to buy a pirate game in many countries (Software). For instance, Brazilian black-market pirate games CD retail around prices as low as $15.00.Even though the charges for pirating a game are high, people still take a risk because enforcing companies usually targets the businesses first.
In the future, I think that this Cash idea may be the most used in spite of the lack of companies using this strategy. Banner ads can be also a solution for companies, but they cannot be annoying and they have to be effective for game companies. There were some games that had monthly fees like the one time famous Ultima Online, and the still popular, World of Warcraft that were a big hits. However, I think that monthly fees are something that will not be used after a while. The regular way of selling games with the produce and sell strategy will always be in the market especially for non-online games.




Blizzard Entitlement Inc. June 2005. 18 June 2005

ESRB Entertainment Software Rating Board. 2005. 18 June 2005
<http://www.esrb.org/esrbratings_guide.asp>

Softnyx.net. 2005. 18 June 2005
www.softnyx.net


Software & Information Industry Association. 2005. 19 June 2005
www.spa.org/piracy

Yahoo!: The Internet Way of Advertising

Bruno Mori


The Internet Way of Advertising

One of the biggest mass media today is the Internet. I still remember the first time that I used it. Everything was online for me wherever I wanted and whenever I wanted. There was no waiting time for a specific topic I was looking for. The Internet made a revolution in telecommunications also because there are no regions on the Internet you can travel from America to Asia in the madder of seconds. This is one of the reasons that we can find anything because we can “ask” other people in many places in the world. One of the biggest sites on the Internet is Yahoo.com or as an acronym “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”. Portal websites like Yahoo.com can bring us a variety of information for all ages and demographic aspects of the people.
Founded in 1994 Yahoo.com is one of the biggest portals online today. Also it is the leader in adverting and public, reaching over 345 million unique users in 25 countries and 13 languages. Having 2.4 billion pageviews per day Yahoo can find you if you can’t find the information at yahoo. It was one of the first portals and search engine provider. “Yahoo The Only Place Anyone Needs To Go Find Anything, Communicate With Anyone, Or Buy Anything”.
Sometimes I like to think that Websites are the same as pay-per-view you watch whatever you want whenever you want. Different from TV or Cable schedules in the Internet do not worry about dayparting. The way that websites are made is based on the tree concept. You have the home which shows all the main topics of the portal. It is followed by other pages that make every topic more specific until you find what you are really looking for. It looks like a restaurant’s menu.
The cover of the site or the index is the most important page of it. It is the place where it is the first viewed and where advertisers pay the most. Yahoo’s index page contains information about the most used related topic on the site of the topics that the main target is looking towards. As most portals News is one of the biggest items; therefore, it the latest news are placed in the index. Having the main public is the young adults, music and movies have to shown with frequency and updated all the time and they are also placed in the index page. Even though music and movies attracts young adults the most, survival news covers a large part of the front page as well.
The cover page also shows links for other pages in the site. Therefore, from the index page the public goes down the tree to the pages and sub-pages of the site. This is the point where the Yahoo sees divides its public. The Kids part of the tree for instance has its information guided for the young audience, so the text and pictures are suited for that audience on the other hand Stock Market section has more complex text and words which sometimes only that audience would understand. This can be compared to Industry sources and Public mass media sourcing.
A portal tree of pages can become complex after the user clicked too many times so many sites created the solution. The ability to search within the website can help users to find a specific topic in the broad variety of the portal. Not as most people uses Yahoo as a search engine, Yahoo can has a search engine that looks for information inside its portal only. Also these engines can be found inside branches of the tree as well. This can make a research faster and efficient.
In all the places where people sees, access or watch, advertises want to go. As everyone knows, the Internet is the mass media source that has the most ads in it. Yahoo don’t want to be left with out it; therefore, banners, pop-up ads, skyscrapers and microsites can be found everywhere on the portal. Pop-up and microsites ads are not one of the biggest Yahoo’s ways to advertise. Banners on the other hand are placed on the top of most pages of the site as well as in other specific parts. Skyscrapers are put mainly on the index page of the side giving promotions and sale of products from the advertiser’s website.
The good thing for advertisers on the Internet is that when someone is accessing the automobile part of the site, they are only interested on the cars. This makes very easy for them to want to buy one, and banner on the top of this page make this person attracted to buy a product. Another good thing of advertising on the Internet is the ability of direct marketing which creates the benefit of buying right away, in contrast with Television and Billboards that only create the needs and wants for the product.
Another way that Yahoo! differenciate from other competitors is the idea of "Sponsored Results" or "Yahoo! Search Marketing". These results will appear in first on searches made on Yahoo. The interesting point of this system is that advertisers can bid on a particular word/phrase. For instace, advertisers can bid on the word "Table" the higher the bid the better the advertisement will be positioned on the search result. The bids correspond to the price per click on the advertisement link. Some words may have surprising prices that can go from $0.10 to the maximum the company feels the click could cost.
On the Internet scheduling is different from television, specialists still couldn’t find a very good way to make it work right as television, but they are working hard on it. The boom of the dotcoms came to an end lots of companies went bankrupt because they didn’t know how to administrate they scheduling; on the other hand some companies are becoming more powerful then television stations. Yahoo.com is one of the greatest sites on the Internet today. Due to its amazing strategies in marketing, scheduling, promotion and advertising of it content it can get lots of visits and pageviews everyday.


Works Cited
Yahoo!

The United States communication and I

BRUNO MORI
Feb, 01 2004

The United States communication and I
Brazil is the country which I was born, and lived for 18 years. When I was in the first year of high school, my father suggested the idea of studying in the United States. I was very young; I was scared of new things and goals. I wanted to stay in Brazil with my friends and my everyday routine which I was adapted. After high school I realized how easier would be for me to find a job with an American university certificate. Therefore, I came to my father and asked if I still could come to America, he said yes. Communication barriers started to appear since this day. One of the biggest problems that I had in my first year of United States is the challenge of communicating with people.
My personal experiences can prove that the first year living in a country with a different language is hard. Brazil was just the past for me. My Brazilian friends and family were left behind; my routine would have to change even the Brazilian high school that I used to hate wasn’t there anymore. A new life had appeared for me. I had to learn how to walk and especially talk again.
It was hard to keep a conversation flowing with someone in English, therefore; I had no friends during this period. The approach to start a conversation for me was always non-verbal. This is interesting because I had to find another way to communicate with people; asking for a coke and asking for a McDonald’s number 1 were the same expression. In a way this helped me to improve my non-verbal communication; my eye contacts and moves could talk to the world.
On the other hand, I had two barriers that were bothering me. The first one is the Decoding Barrier which happens when the listener can’t understand the message that is being told. The cable TV company must have been happy with me because I paid for fifty channels, but I was only watching cartoons because some cartoons don’t speak so much. When I just arrived here I was taking some English classes; however, the break time was sometimes more helpful then that actual classes. During the class I couldn’t understand almost anything what my Instructor was trying to say.
I was always trying to talk with someone who was usually an International student with the same skill in English as me. After a while I started to decode some what American people were saying, but before I only understood what the Instructor was writing on the blackboard.
The second barrier is the Encoding. My encoding skills were developing slower than my encoding barrier. This means that the speaker is not expressing the message in a right way. After a while I could understand the message but sometimes I couldn’t reply. I am not a very shy person, so I always had lots of friends and always tried to start a conversation with almost anyone. The problems were not start, but keep the conversation going. My encoding was very slow, so while I was trying to encode a message from Portuguese to English the conversation had already changed the topic; I was always lost in a conversation. If more than one person was talking to me I couldn’t say a word because it was too hard for me to encode and decode lots of thing at the same time. Finally my problem was gone it was a miracle I went to sleep and dreamed that I was in United States and everyone and I were speaking English. This is an experience that cannot be explained in short paragraphs something amazing for me. When I woke up I realized a technique to encode and decode faster, the trick was that I needed to learn how to listen and speak English without thinking in Portuguese and translating. My skills improved a lot from the night to the day.
My dream didn’t last forever; encoding created a Social-psychological context barrier that also prejudiced my life in United States. Social-psychological context happens when communication cannot be done because the listener and speaker have social or psychological issues between them. This barrier was very visible on me, as a child in the fist day of school I was scared of American people. As I said all my friends and family I had left in Brazil there was only me and the United States. I had to find new friends having as an advantage that my English skills had improved. I already had some friends who were International students from my English class; also I had some Brazilian friends. However, I wanted more I wanted to hang out with American people learn what they need to teach me and teach what I have to teach about Brazil. I knew it was going to be hard to communicate with Americans, I still couldn’t understand everything that my Instructors were speaking, but talk with an American friend is harder than listen to a lecture. One of my first encounters was in the Smoking area, I talked with an American guy I barely could understand what he was saying, but I tried anyway. I was a little shy when talking with this guy because I was always asking him to repeat, but I think he understood that I was trying to be nice, so he was nice to me. This conversation encouraged me try harder to find some American friends. Therefore, I always asked if my International students’ friends had American friends that I could meet. After this time took me to friends I have today.
Even though I had corrected and prevented my three main barriers one more barrier had appeared I started to talk with American people everyday, so that I felt how different I was from them. My culture is very different the Cultural Context Barrier popped-up. The differences in culture between the people who are communicating can cause barriers that will cause a ”noise” in the message. It is not easy to find someone that knows about the places Brazil, so everywhere that I went someone asked me if I lived in The Amazon Forest. Well, no one instead of Native Brazilians live in there. I live in Sao Paulo a city which is big as New York or L.A., I felt sad about that. Even worse they asked me if I lived in the top a tree. Sounds funny for me today, but during that time of depression and barriers everywhere was terrible. The way that I could separate this problem was that I started making jokes about it that I was really from the jungle and I was very nice to live with the monkeys. Another cultural problem happened because Americans usually don’t use very polite words for instructors and older people. In Brazil it’s even worse. Almost no one calls an Instructor using Mr. or Ms. in the beginning. This caused a problem because someone people thought that I wasn’t being polite to them because most people don’t know about my culture. Sometimes people felt insulted with that.
Today, after three years of American life I adapted myself to the American way to communicate and act. I fell that I belong in Brazil and United States the same time. Sometimes communicating barriers appear to bother me, but I know how to make them leave.

Pop-up Ads a Bad Way of Advertising

Bruno Mori

Pop-up Ads a Bad Way of Advertising
The Internet is a good way to advertise products because the Internet became a place where many people go to research or play. Advertisements are one of the ways that people is getting profit on the Internet. Since the Internet was created many companies developed strategies and plans to have some profit over it. Elenice Fucci a media director from an advertisement company said that “Everyone goes to the Internet for many different needs today; the media can target on the Internet any kind of public as television and radio.” The Internet became another way which companies in every country are using to advertise their product. The Internet has a very broad variety of information in any area. Therefore, it is a good tool for any kind of people.
There are four ways that companies are primarily advertising on the Internet. One of the ways is the Web Portals. Web Portals are sites that have lots of information about almost everything from news to sex. The customers have to sign up for the site or sign up for some kind service that the site provides like Internet support to have the access for the information. Sponsorships are the second way of advertisement, these sites works like a phone book. Companies pay for them to have their information like address and phone number included on the site. The best way of advertising on the Internet is the banner. Banners are advertisements usually put on the top of a site. The public can click on a banner to enter to a company’s site. The worse way to advertise on the Internet is the pop-up. As the name say pop-up ads pop-up when you enter a site in a different window. Pop-up ads are not a good way to advertise a company on the Internet because customers do not like the way it is presented.
Customers don like pop-up ads because they fell that pop-up ads are annoying. Pop-up ads make the Internet and computer speed slower while surfing. Even though many people already have cable or DSL high speed connection, some people still have dial-up connections that are really affected by every pop-up that appears. It usually opens when the customer does not want. It appears from the no where over the site that the customer is looking, so the customer has to take it out of the way. Most pop-up ads are irrelevant with non-important information that the customer does not need. Pop-up ads make people angry while using the Internet. Studies concluded that 78% of the Internet users think that pop-up ads are annoying and unnecessary (Stambler par.3).
Pop-ups are usually located on a place that is not suited for the product that is being advertised. Especially free web servers where anyone can have a personal website for free have pop-up ads on the personal websites. After a person creates a website a pop-up ad is inserted automatically on the site. A personal website usually has the person’s interests that changes from person to person. The free web servers do not know what the site will be about, so pop-up ads are randomly added on the site. This way companies could advertise computers on a soccer related site for instance. Usually people leave the site due to the pop-ups. Surveys in 1999 found out that the annoyance of the pop-ups makes 18% of the users think twice before revisiting a site that has pop-ups, but a survey in 2002 this percentage increased to 41% (Benitez par.3). Pop-ads that do not relate to the sites which are being visit make people lose the interest of the site.
Pop-up ads annoy people so much that people become scared by the pop-ups. Some people are scared that a virus can be attached to a pop-up, so they would not click on any of them. According to computer experts, pop-ups can crash your browser especially on low speed computers ending an Internet surfing and sometimes it the problems caused can be even worse (Calishain par.6). It is true that virus can be put on pop-up ads but the user would have to download something to have the virus on their computer; however, most users do not have knowledge about computers; thus, they would download with out knowing it. The viruses that are usually included in pop-up ads are the Trojans. Trojans would make someone’s computer a pop-up receiver which means that the computer would have pop-up ads all over the place. Pop-ups would start to show even though nobody is using the Internet. This is one of the biggest problems with pop-up ads. Some companies would include their pop-up on these Trojans making the customers crazy. They would lose their customer for sure in these circumstances. Other dangers of pop-up ads are fake information. Some information can be easily transformed. Advertisements like travel packages can be shown as a marvelous deal, but it would turn in as a bad deal. The fear of pop-ups is greater when the knowledge for computers a person has is lower. Also pop-up ads become ugly when porn sites start to appear everywhere. Children could access porn sites while looking for something else. Pop-up ads are not only annoying but they can bring problems.
The opposition argues that generally people do not like advertisements of any kind including the advertisements during television programs, so bad reactions may appear anyway (Moorey par.9). However, this type of advertisement on the Internet usually has information that is not useful when a person is researching about a specific topic. When someone is researching on the Internet this person is concentrated on the topic; advertisements can make people lose their thoughts. Especially pop-up ads which open in a new window of the browser makes people confused about that advertisement and the topic that is being researched. After many hours of research with no good results, pop-up ads would make someone angry because they would have to think about closing the pop-ups every time a new site is opening. Moreover, today people do not have much time during the day, so pop-up ads would be another way that someone would lose some precious time. Pop-up ads are worse for the customer when an important research is being done on the Internet.
There is a dispute between many companies because of pop-up ads because some companies want to advertise using pop-ups and other companies want to block the pop-up advertisements. Internet providers like AOL advertises their service saying that they have software that blocks pop-up ads. Customers that are welling to have Internet providers would want to have the AOL service because of the pop-up block that is provided. Other companies develop pop-up blockers to be sold. On the other hand, companies around the world that want to have their name on the Internet are creating new pop-up ads to the Internet. The pop-ups are winning the dispute; there are more pop-ups added than being blocked. Statistics show an increase in the number of pop-ups by 24% between 2002 and 2003 (Stambler par.2). This dispute between these companies is happening everyday, so that the customers are lots in the middle of the cycle.
The Internet is being polluted by this kind of advertisement. Customers are getting angry and annoyed by pop-ups, conflicts between companies are happening everyday and computers are having problems due to pop-ups. It is only the way to advertise that make a company successful on the Internet. Companies that are still advertising with pop-ups are not getting the profit expected with the advertisement; even though, statistics say that 40.6% of the United States population is online (Kayne 10). Other ways to advertise a product on the Internet should be chosen, so that a company can become well known. Sometimes it is better to choose a more expensive and more effective method than a cheaper and useless.



Works Cited

Benitez, Tina. “Television Pop-ups fizzle in a flash; disruptive advertisement grabs Internet users’ attention and gets a brand’s name out there, but it doesn’t keep consumers coming back for more.” Incentive Nov. 2002. Info Trac Web: Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 22 Oct 2003.

Calishain, Tara. “Pop-ups flop up.” Searcher Apr. 2003. Info Trac Web: Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 23 Oct 2003.

Stambler, Sarah. “Putting pop ups in perspective.” The E-Tactics Letter 30 Sept. 2003. Info Trac Web: Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 22 Oct 2003.

Moorey, Suzane. “Pop-up advertising isn’t always bad news.” New Media Age 19 June. 2003. Info Trac Web: Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 21 Oct 2003.
Kayne, Barbara and Norman J. Medoff. Just a Click Away , 1st ed. Massachusetts: Needham Heights, 2001.
Fucci, Elenice. Personal interview. 25 Oct. 2003.

Internet Shopping

Bruno Mori
02 September 2003

Internet Shopping
Have you ever bought something on the internet? Did you receive the product as expected? Today anyone can find any product on the Web. Most people have already bought something on the Internet, or signed up for some kind of magazine, service. However, people wonder if their identity or credit card is secure on an Online Store. I personally buy products on the Internet, but I know that there are always risks to take when buying something Online. My credit card had been cloned three times, and I think that it happened because of the Internet. However, the products that I bought never came with problems. After all, I feel lucky because I could find it out before thousands of dollars were spent. Some Online Stores are not registered by the government, so the transactions don’t have an everyday check by the authorities. According to CyberSource Corp 50% of the credit cards frauds are done over the Internet (Alexander). The Internet is a very good tool for everybody today; however improvements have to be made to make Internet Shopping perfect.
The biggest Internet stores invest lots of money on security due to the large number of hackers and frauds. Security systems can save lots of customers. One of them is the eFalcon, “which currently protects more than 260 million credit cards worldwide and collectively saved credit card issuers more than $250 million in 1998” (HNC Launches). These stores are the safest ones on a customer’s view, “Consumers appreciate the extra protection” (HNC Launches). However, the eFalcon as other security systems cost lots of money; therefore, investing in technology makes an increase in prices. If prices increase too much the demand for that store may decrease.
The problem with the Internet Shopping is the lack of identity. As a 15-year-old can enter on a porn site anybody can use someone else’s credit card. Every time one pays a restaurant or a regular store with a credit card the waiter or clerk will know one’s credit card number. Even though it is hard to happen; the possibility of having one’s credit card number stolen is still open. With the lack of identity this waiter/clerk can go to an Internet site and signup to a games site for instance. The bill will come to one’s mail box, and there is almost nothing one can do to refund the money. Money is not the most important part of the issue. Child pornography sites are increasing on the Internet. If someone uses your credit card number on these pederasts’ sites you can be accused of being a child molester without knowing it. Any customer can be a target for those frauds.
Frauds can happen anywhere in the world. We call the world’s computer network Internet. The word world on the sentence is another problem of Internet Shopping because someone can easily make a fraud in a different country using an American store and credit card. It is a fact that some stores don’t accept international credit cards, but in some cases the IP addresses of the customers were identified from Ukraine, Indonesia and Yugoslavia using an American credit card for example (Alexander). Even though these Internet thieves can be detected, the security of the site is almost impossible to be a “rock”. Therefore, some of these transactions can be completed.
Auctions are not on the old style anymore, today Online Auctions provides us the benefits of biting in a product without standing up. Many entrepreneurs came with this idea, making online auctions a common way of buying items. This is the most dangerous way of online shopping provided. The customer doesn’t have a total contact with the actual site. In only one auction site, 300 bidders were defrauded of $857,776 in computer equipment only in one month (Kirshner). The site only helps the customers to bid and the sellers to open an auction of a product, opening a bridge for this two people. The rules of an online auction are clear, if one wins the auction one have to buy the product. Looking this way frauds are very easy to happen because the customer can’t actually see the product they are buying. The sellers only put two or three pictures of the product on the site creating a virtual idea of the product. In this circumstance, fake products like expensive brand clothing or equipment can’t be detected by the customer. According to Federal Trade Commission, the numbers of unsatisfied customers is increasing “In 2002, the agency received 51,000 online auction complaints, up from roughly 20,000 the previous year” (Kirshner). On some auction sites the customer can check if the seller have “honor” on the site. The site provides the quantity of customers that bought something from this seller and the percentage of happy customers. However, there is not total guarantee of the product anyway.
Internet shopping is not safe; it will take lots of development in technology and business strategies to make the Internet shopping not only easy but secure. This “mall” is too big to be controlled by the police or the store owners. The “mall” is not totally explored by the people yet. New stores are being open everyday and some of them the authorities don’t know. And the biggest problem is that nobody can ask for an ID online.



Works Cited
Alexander, Marie. “Location, location, geolocation: mapping new e-commerce strategies.
with web geography.” Retail Merchandiser. Nov. 2002. Info Trac Web: Expanded
ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 01 Sep. 2003.

“HNC Launches eFalcon Fraud Protection Service for E-Commerce; Complete Solution
Detects, Manages the risk of Internet Credit Card Fraud.” Business Wire. 10 May
1999. Info Trac Web: Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 01 Sep.
2003.
Kirshner, Jodie. “Bitten bidders.” U.S. News & World Report 16 Jun. 2003. Info Trac Web:
Expanded ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 01 Sep. 2003.

Pornography Online

Bruno Mori
09/24/02

Pornography Online
I remember when I was in junior high. Kids used to bring a Playboy magazine to school and the whole class was fighting to see the magazine. It was crazy. Today, my brother's friends don't need to bring a Playboy to the class because everybody can see it at home whenever they want. The Internet changed how children see pornography, so parents, government and schools have problems trying to stop them.
Fake Identification Cards or older brothers used to help children buying porn magazines or videos. Nobody ask for your ID in a porn site. A nine year-old child can enter with innocent intentions; the other hand some children will enter to see the girls. A text in the first page of the site says that you must be over 21 to enter; however a “click” of the mouse on the button "Enter", you can be a 21 year-old child.
"The unanimous by a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia found the Children's Internet Protection Act unconstitutional" (The Buffalo News), so a law says that all libraries in Philadelphia must install a Internet Access Filter was approved. In public places the situation is easier to be controlled; however, parents have to control their child at home. Children would sit in front of a computer and watch these porn sites if they are not supervised. Parents get upset and surprised getting home and see their child in these sites. America Online server has many levels of blocks that can help parents to control their child; however this is not enough.
Porn sites are all over the Internet. Thousands of new sites are added everyday, so filters are starting to become not useful anymore. They have to be updated every five minutes to work perfectly; of course this is not possible. Advertisements of porn site can be found all over the Internet too. Searching about a different topic a porn site can pop-up. "Then all of a sudden I saw a picture of a strange man come on to my screen, and he was performing an obscene sexual act" Ms. Fischer said The Cincinnati Post. A child could “click”, and enter in the porn site.
The main problems are the chat rooms. They seem to be just a chat you can talk and have fun behind your computer with all security of your home. However predators enter these chat rooms, and try to talk with children obscene ideas. Sometimes they invite them to go somewhere telling they are just a young girl/boy. These predators go somewhere to have sex relationships with the children or abuse of them. “While there have been few reported cases of Internet stalkers in most areas, there may be more cases that are not reported”, said Police Officer Pete Kersey The Cincinnati Post.
Solutions for these problems couldn’t be found yet. However parents can monitor the children while they are using the Internet. Children won’t go to porn sites all the time if supervised. Advise children not to send address, phone number or real name in the chat rooms. Schools should give lectures about Internet security, and the computer labs must have monitors to check the children. Filters also are a good idea; they could help a little. Children want to learn new things and try to learn about everything especially sex “the forbidden world”, so they will not stop trying to see porn sites or a girl’s underwear.


Works Cited
“Internet filters and security.” The Buffalo News 13 Sep 2001.
Marc Dadigan Scripps. “Net protection parents are taking responsibility for keeping their kids surfing safe.” The Cincinnati Post. 19 Apr 2002.

Television Influence on Children

Bruno Mori
14 October 2003
Television Influence on Children

Two generations ago children had never watched TV in their childhood. Children played outside more often. Today grandparents tell their grandchildren about their little cars made with bottle caps and a shoe box. Today’s generation of children is developed on technology. Historians say that individuals born “brainless” then society creates their character. One of the things that affect children today is the Television. The TV provides lots of information to the world’s population, some of them are good for a child development; on the other hand, some of them are really prejudice a child’s growth. The Television can generate a bad influence in a child development that contradicts with the education given by the parents.
The point that makes all the harms to appear is the number of channels. In the United States most people have cable TV. Cable TV means lots of channels 24 hours a day playing many different TV programs. There are channels that the targeted audience is children or teenagers such as Noggin and Nick Junior that have a good influence on children. Most channels do not have the same audience target; these channels will not be playing child’s shows the whole day. Usually parents would tune in a specific channel when their children want to watch TV. However, some children change the channel to another. The chance of having a channel in fifty or one-hundred TV channels playing a not recommended for children show is very broad.
Even cartoons’ influence on children can be harm in some ways. Many cartoons have a educative part of it. However many cartoon companies have as a funny part of the show a piano falling on a character or characters being hit by a train; the “superman myth” is caused by these cartoons because cartoons do not die. Moreover, cartoons show characters hitting each other. Most cartoons have violence with a humorous context which means that the person that is watching should laugh at it. Violence is not funny the humor idea over violence in cartoons harms children more than the piano on cartoon characters. Statistics say that only 4% of the shows try to promote an anti-violence theme (Cantor par.5). The change in behavior because of cartoons is common in many children.
Children want to be or do something like their favorite characters do. The violence in the television is identified and justified as a need. The hero is usually as violent as the evil, but he is always rewarded and never punished. Violence is shown as a daily task for the characters of the show creating a reason for it even though there is no real reason for their actions. All this factors influence a children behavior in the society. This can be also danger because these influences create a distortion of reality on children.
In these conditions, television influences people’s perceptions of the real world. “Entertainment violence feeds a perception that the world is a violent and mean place.” (Torr Par.11). The fear that violence is everywhere occurs because of the excess of information about violence that the television provides. Children become confused between real and virtual worlds. Sometimes this can be good because children would be aware that not everybody is friendly, but it will also avoid the friendly because of the fear.
There are many TV shows during afternoon and morning that are not appropriate for children. During this time most children is at home which means that shows have the peak on the viewers of children. Some of these programs really have a bad influence like Jerry Springer that plays in Lansing at 11:00am. Also other shows like Cops that also can bring some bad influences for children are playing the whole day. Some channels have a schedule with many educative shows that are good for the children, but some children would not stick to that channel all the time. According to an analysis TV increases the violent behavior on children regardless the age having a harmer effect on the preschool age (Child Adolec Psychiatry). These shows usually have a warning in the beginning saying that it is not recommended for children and parent supervision is required. However, most children are not supervised by an adult the whole time. The child’s mother would be cooking and the father at work for instance. The contact with this kind of violence on television is in a straight line with violent actions (Chatfield Par.2).
Researches on surveys concluded that “… the average children would see 10.000 acts of violence per year, with 61% of violent acts viewed on TV” (Child Adolec Pyschiatry). The future of society is controlled by the youth. Children are the ones who decide if society will develop or not if the children population has a good influence society would grow. The television does not help society most of the time; the violence rate in society would tend to increase in the long term because the children are becoming more aggressive. Dangerous behaviors may happen due to the television. These influences can cause an increase in teenage smoking, drinking and driving which is illegal by laws. Some statistics about violence and TV are really impressing. If the television was never invented the number of crimes would decrease; “There would be 10,000 fewer homicides in the United States each year, 70,000 fewer rapes, and 700,000 fewer injurious assaults.” (Child Adolec. Psychiatry).
The television makes a child addicted like a videogame. The obsession for TV is common especially on the United States. Today’s children that have this obsession for TV would not develop in other activities. The addiction for television happens mainly because TVs are everywhere. According to the Survey of Parents and Children 40.7% of the kids in the United States have a TV on their bedrooms (Jost par.13). The bedroom is usually the place of a house where a child would stay most of the time. This would increase the obsession. This addiction may be good sometimes because of the educative part of the TV also close captions can help a child on reading skills. However, the TV may be turned on the whole day, and the child may have access for the remote control changing to a non-recommended channel or show.
Advertisements also prejudice a child’s growth. Most advertisements that target children really can change their minds in many aspects. Toy companies want to sell their product as any other company; therefore, advertisements are created to attract the customers. It is easy for advertisement companies to change the mind of a child. Thus, children would have a need and desires that would not exist with out the media. These needs and desires can frustrate children if parents can’t afford the toy or product.
Violent shows with adult content are requested to say in the beginning of the show “Parental Discretions Advised” or “Viewer Discretion Advised”. Do children understand what these messages are trying to say? Statistics of the National Television Violence Study shows that between the ages of 5 to 14 years old only 52% of the children are aware of the warnings, also there is a difference in 5% between the two warnings. (National Television). The difference in percentage of child perception between these two warnings proves that children understand better if an easier language is used. The language used to communicate with the viewers on these warnings is too difficult for children. Shows that have are really not suited for children have a more difficult way to describe these warnings; it looks like made to impress the viewers with difficult vocabulary and long warnings. Television shows must change these warnings to a friendlier message like “This program is not good for children under the age of 18.” something easy that child would understand. Some warnings show only a text; however, these warnings must be narrated by someone for children that cannot read.
Most TV shows have at least some violence sometimes it is hidden somewhere in the show. According to a study, overall 57% of the TV shows on American television contains violence (National Television p.47). The Television is one of the best information systems that the man has ever created. However, it is hard to know where and when to play some kinds of TV shows. The world has many kinds of people with different ages and ideas that can be changed if some additional information is given. Some of these changes can be really dangerous for individuals and society.


Works Cited
Cantor, Joanne. “Television Contributes to Violent Behavior in Children” Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Expanded Academic ASAP. Lansing Community College Lib. 06 Oct. 2003 <http://cygnus.lcc.edu:2061/servlet/OVRC;$sessionid$JCC2UKAAAFJ1BJOBNJQQAAA?locID=lom_lansingcc>
Chatfield, Joanne. “Influence of Media Violence on Children” American Academy of Physicians. Nov. 2002. Info Trac Web: Expanded
ASAP. Lansing Community Coll. Lib. 05 Oct. 2003.
<http://cygnus.lcc.edu:2071/itw/infomark/350/464/38355209w5/purl=rc1_ITOF_0_A9482220&dyn=9!xrn_1_0_A94872220?sw_aep=lom_lansingcc>
Jost, Kenneth. “Will the new regulations make it better?” CQ Researcher. 15 Aug, 2003. CQ Researcher: Expanded Academic ASAP. Lansing Community College Lib. 6 Oct. 2003. <http://cygnus.lcc.edu:2090/cqresearcher>
National Television Violence Study. (1997). (Vol. 1). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Productions, Inc
Toor, James. “Media Violence Harms Children” Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center: Expanded Academic ASAP. Lansing Community College Lib. 06 Oct. 2003 <http://cygnus.lcc.edu:2061/servlet/OVRC;$sessionid$JCC2UKAAAFJ1BJOBNJQQAAA?locID=lom_lansingcc>
Villani, Susan. (Apr 2001). Child & Adolecent Psychiatry. Impact of Media and Adolescents. 392-399