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Let's just reveal everything about my regular online life, lol. I play a lot of 'virtual pet' sites, where you collect little creatures, but Aywas is one that stands out a lot. In the spirit of participatory media, it's a very different kind of participation from the usual kind of pet site. Aywas encourages users to create their own pets by colouring them in with sophisticated art programs (such as Photoshop) and submitting them. In turn, these pets are then eligible to be 'bred' with pets other users have made, and a site artist will mix and match the designs on both parent pets to create a new one. It's a very interesting concept and heavily user dependent for participation. If you're interested, shoot me a message at user ID #6429 and I can get you started!

When the SOPA bills were around, many sites chose to do a 'black out' of their pages in online social protest to the bill. Tumblr extended that protest by offering their users the means to actually call to Congress and express their displeasure. The entire SOPA incident was actually a very interesting time for online history, especially for a large collective mass of people to all fight for a singular cause.

Interviews with several popular tumblr users. While the people interviewed are interesting and unique, the questions they are asked are repetitive, and the article itself offers only a narrow view of the so-called "tumblr generation."

Introduction Diigo is a powerful information capturing, storing, recalling and sharing tool. Here are just a few of the possibilities with Diigo: Save important websites and access them on any computer. Categorize websites by titles, notes, keyword tags, lists and groups. Search through bookmarks to quickly find desired information.

This article talks about how 2013 was the years for podcasting. There are a number of factors that play in the rejuvenation of the podcasts popularity. Riismandel first says that the popularity came back when main stream comedians started use the podcast medium as a way to share their comedy with their audience. This brought back a big audience, but comedians can't be thanked alone. In order for podcasting to maintain this growth it needs to become sustainable, meaning people need to make profit from their podcasts. The launch of a podcast advertising agency did just that. This is good news for the future of podcasting because it is now a business instead of a hobby. Another point Riismandel makes is that the ease of accessibility to download podcasts via apps has helped with the growth it has seen in 2013. 

This article considers some of the challenges of using algorithms to identify copyright infringements in electronic media. So far this method has been successful especially on FaceBook, catching users posting material they do not have rights to yet claim their own. The downside of this method is that occasionally websites that are perfectly legitimate are taken down.

The article Fifty Shades of Copyright Protection discusses the online world, using FaceBook and Fifty Shades of Grey as a specific examples. The author cautions user to watch everything they post online because it is, de facto, forfeited to the public domain.

With online shopping numbers increasing exponentially, online users rarely think twice before giving out their information when they should.

A law that has been put in place by the Harper Government now allows internet service providers (ISPs) to track our online use and notify individual users when they are doing something illegal.

Every phone call, every email, every social media message in Sochi will be accessible, traceable by Russia's Federal Security Service - the FSB - the organization in charge of securing the Olympics.

Tips for social media users to reach and engage their target groups.

A really great video on what Reddit is and how you can use it. I think many people are intimidated by Reddit's interface and is confused by how to use it, but it is a great source of user-approved information that is constantly updated and relevant.

An article about software developed by MIT which allows people to practice interpersonal communication. The software is called MACH (short for My Automated Conversation coacH), uses a computer-generated onscreen face, along with facial, speech, and behavior analysis and synthesis software, to simulate face-to-face conversations. It then provides users with feedback on their interactions.