The New Digital Divide

Title: The new digital divide. "Tune Out, Turn Off, Drop Offline"
Yawning gap between those comfortable with using technology and those not.

Themes :

1. What is the New Digital Divide?
2. How about the "old" Digital Divide. Have the "traditional" digital divide issues been solved?
3. Does globalisation accentuate the gulf between digital 'haves' and 'have-nots'?
4. Attempts at bridging the divide. What's being done about it?

Resources :

"The digital divide is not just about the haves and the have-nots. It's also about the yawning gap between those who are comfortable using technology and those who fear or despise it. "
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,58498,00.html

Internet not a necessity for some
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-997140.html?tag=cd_mh

SPAM

Title: Spam. Legitimate business practice or hateful nuisance?

Themes:

1. What is Spam. How does it work. Why do spammers operate in the way they do?
2. Growth of the spam 'industry' - influence of pornography. Effect on legitimate email delivery.
3. Anti-spam measures. Technical - server and client based. Legislative measures. Countermeasures used by spammers.
4. Prognosis for the future.

Resources :

Where spam comes from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2969783.stm

More email scandal
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/01/03/030106opwinman_1.html

Junkbusters
http://www.junkbusters.com/

Web Accessibility

Title : Usability & accessibility. Overblown hype or essential concept for the modern web site?

Themes:

1. What is accessibility and why does it matter on the web?
2. Why bother with usability? Who is this Nielsen bloke anyway?
3. Accessibility and the Law - which web sites *have* to be accessible?
4. Usability and web standards -
5. Whither the usability industry?

useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website - usability Guru extraordinaire
http://www.useit.com/

Human Factors International - How the problem of accessibility arose.
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/accessibility.asp

Two wrongs make a Nielsen
How to publish an accessibility report the inaccessible Nielsen way
http://www.contenu.nu/article.htm?id=1216

Digital Music

Title : Has Napster killed the CD or is the future in Digital Music?

Themes :

1. What was Napster and how did it fail? How did it work technically.
2. Rise of peer to peer music sharing. How does Kazaa work and why can it not be shut down like Napster.
3. Industry responses - RIAA, iTunes
4. What will teenagers be using in 10 years time?

Resources :

"I put Napster third on a list of uprisings of massive, uncoordinated civil disobedience in the last 100 years, after the 55 mph speed limit and Prohibition"
from Clay Shirky Explains Internet Evolution
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/1420210&mode=thread

"In an echo of Prohibition, Napster users have shown that they are
willing to break the law to escape the constraints of all-or-nothing
musical choices. This won't be changed by shutting down Napster. The
music industry is going to have to find some way to indulge its
customers in their newfound freedom."

Napster and the Death of the Album Format
http://www.shirky.com/writings/napster_nyt.html

Music Biz Buzzing Over ITunes
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58706,00.html

Privacy on the Web

Title: There could be a Big Brother watching you - Privacy on the Web.

Themes :

1. What are the issues regarding privacy on the Web. The business of selling your personal information.
2. Are "cookies" a threat to your privacy? What's a cookie. How it can be manipulated to reveal stuff about your web surfing habits.
3. Help - there's nowhere to hide - Google knows all about you.
4. Data Mining - how companies target you as a potential consumer of their product. How does it work and why is it a big deal.

Privacy Digest
http://www.privacydigest.com/

Don't Spy On.Us
http://www.dontspyon.us/jetbluescandal.html

http://www.junkbusters.com/cookies.html
"How Web servers' cookies can threaten your privacy"

MacWorld Intro to Cookies
http://www.macworld.com/netsmart/cookiestory.html

USA Today article: Activists charge DoubleClick double cross
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth211.htm

USA Today: How Sites know what they know. Should you really be paranoid?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth203.htm

Related issues:
Web profiling:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth203.htm
FTC studies Web site 'profiling'

CookieCentral covers cookies and other privacy issues:
http://www.cookiecentral.com/

Another good explaination of how cookies work.
http://www.cookiecentral.com/content.phtml?area=2&id=1

What you can do about cookies:
http://www.understandingprivacy.org/content/consumer/cookies.cfm

Making Money on the Web

Title: Making Money on the Web - business models that work

Themes :

1. Amazon.com. Real business success story or mass delusion liable to end in disaster? How did Amazon get to where it is today and is it making a profit yet?
2. On-line transactions. How your credit card information is protected from theft. How does the system work?
3. Problem of free information. Why are online magazines having so many problems making ends meet? Possible solutions - pros and cons of micropayments.
4. Advertising on the web - the Titanic has sunk! Web advertising (at least the hype surrounding it) sunk the stock market.
5. The future - where's the growth points and money to be made. Broadband?

http://www.shirky.com/writings/information_price.html

Wired Magazine.

the 'New Economy'

Title : the new Economy. Dangerous myth or the only future?

Themes :

• where did my .COM investment go? What actually happened with the .COM boom and bust?
• is the Internet really the engine of economic growth?
• AOL, Amazon, Dell - how did these tech giants fare during the 90s and what future for startups in this era of mega-corporations?

Resources:

The New Economy was a myth, right? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.07/Myth.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=

The Future of the Internet

Title : Future of the Internet. Anarchy or evolution?

Themes :

1. Virus alert! Will worms, viruses bring down the Internet as we know it now? Is the freedom of the net threatened by anarchy?

2. RSS. Will RSS take over as the favoured way to deliver changing content? What's the background to the RSS standards row?
3. Wireless, broadband, Wi-Fi, fiber? Which network access method will win out and why?
4. Will Voice over IP take off and kill the Bells? Tell me all about it.

Google

Title : Google - search engine supreme or evil empire?

Themes:

1. What's in a search engine? How did google come to such dominance?
2. The google effect - portals, domain names are now irrelevant. What matters is google's ranking.
3. Blogs and google - getting my site on the first google page.
4. Anti-google backlash. Grrr - we hate google.

Resources:

General References

C|Net News.com http://news.com.com great for techie stuff

Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com excellent for social issues with computers

Webreference http://www.webreference.com/ The Webreference Update is a good source of news (but hard to find on their site). Browse through the Archive and you'll find lots of juicy relevant news items. You may want to sign up for the email Newsletter too.

ZD Net (Where Technology Means Business) http://www.zdnet.com/ is another good place to look. Check out the News and White Papers sections. The Tech Update section is also cool.

Internet Tourbus http://www.tourbus.com/ 'Car Talk' for the Internet (or so they say). A bit poppy but you might find something useful.

Computers in Society edited by Kathryn Schellenberg.