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Vieweg, S., Hughes, A., Starbird, K & Palen, L. (2010). Microblogging During Two Natural Hazards Events: What Twitter May Contribute to Situational Awareness. Retrieved 15 March 2012 from http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~palen/vieweg_1700_chi2010.pdf Individuals affected by the emergency events of the Red River Floods and the Oklahoma Grassfires in North America during the Spring of 2009, posted information about their respective situations via the microblogging service, Twitter. In this study, the authors analyse "situational update" information tweeted by individuals experiencing these hazards 'on the ground' to see how these people used the tweets to inform and develop an awareness of the current situation within their community. Twitter is seen as a commonly used social tool increasingly used for emergency communications "because of its growing ubiquity, communication rapidity, and cross platform accessibility", and are "a place for "harvesting" information during a crisis event to determine what is happening on the ground". From the analysis of collected data, coding was allocated by geo-location, location referencing and situational update information. Findings indicated Tweeters broadcasted similar types of information in both emergency situations, and tweets of high Tweeterers during emergencies were 'content rich' and displayed 'big picture situational awareness', with retweets indicating important updates. This study confirms how individuals facing a crisis rely on social media for their own safety and use the tool for altruistic purposes by providing current awareness of the crisis. In addition, the authors developed a Microblog-Enhanced Situational Features for Emergency outline of information categories for use in emergency response. They suggest this outline be used to assist with the development of system s

This article relates to the article by Sutton (2010) because it talks about how micro-blogging in the time of disasters is one of the easiest ways for individuals to retrieve, produce and spread information through social networking sites such as Twitter. Sutton (2010) states that Twitter can bring people together in disasters which not only prompts micro-blogging but also can involve micro-volunteering as well. Online communities such as Twitter are decentralized which brings about self-organization and mobilization of information. The two articles are linked in that they both discuss how micro-blogging during disasters is about how information such as warnings, evacuations and peoples locations is shared online by different individuals in the community. Both articles had images implemented to show the readers where the location was that they were discussing as well as graphs to compare the data that is being focused. This made it very reliable to the topic and the range of references also showed how different perspectives were used in this research. I found the article relevant in showing how Twitter had an impact in disaster management and how micro-blogging can actually make a huge effect on how people communicate during a crisis. The graphs and images in the article were very useful because that provided evidence which complemented the text. The article is very valuable for this project because it shows how Twitter is evolving from being used for just a social medium to disaster management. References: Sutton, N. J. (2010). Twittering Tennessee: Distributed Networks and Collaboration Following a Technological Disaster. Proceedings of the 7th International ISCRAM Conference. Retrieved from http://www.jeannettesutton.com/uploads/Twittering_Tennessee_FINAL.pdf (Accessed 16/03/2012)

Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com The More, The Wikier is an article published on Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science, which explores the secret behind the quality of Wikipedia entries when anyone, anywhere has the ability to write and edit content. The article looks at three groups of researchers who "claim to have untangled the process by which many Wikipedia entries achieve their impressive accuracy". Wikipedia is an organisation in which users collaborate their knowledge to create an encyclopedia of information. "The percentage of edits made by the Wikipedia 'élite' of administrators" is steadily declining and "Wikipedia is now dominated by users who are much more numerous than the elite but individually less active." "The wisdom of the crowds" principle suggests that the combined knowledge of a large and diverse group is superior to the knowledge of a few experts. Ball explains that content accuracy and quality of Wikipedia articles is related to a high number of edits by a large number of users. For example, articles that deal with very topical issues receive a higher level of attention from a large and diverse audience and therefore are of higher quality than articles that are not as topical and thus do not attract the same attention. The three research groups referenced in the article are: Dennis Wilkinson and Bernardo Huberman of Hewlett Packard's research laboratories who studied how a high number of edits by a large number of users create the 'best' Wikipedia articles, Aniket Kittur of the University of California, and co-workers who explored how the Wiki community has evolved from a small governing group to a democracy, and Ofer Arazy and colleagues at the University of Alberta who discuss the importance of this diversification of Wikipedia contributors to the overall success of its articles.

This article takes a look at the crowd sourcing idea that Wikipedia thrives on. 'Lots of edits by lots of people'. Crowd sourcing makes use of the knowledge of crowds. The more people you have contributing information to an article the more information the article will contain. This is however affected when fewer people begin to contribute to the writing and collaboration process. A person contributing to the Wikipedia page may only be making a change as small as a simple grammatical correction but it means quite a lot to the overall aesthetic of the page. People are far less likely to believe the information presented by an article filled with errors and punctuation problems. It might seem like a small issue but this is how many hands make light work. Wikipedia's reliability comes from its ability to be edited by many people with small alterations. It is strange however that in your other article regarding Wikipedia being its own worst enemy you have points made there of why Wikipedia is leaning towards extinction. These mainly are concerned with the decreasing number of people editing. So is Wikipedia going to stay strong or will it slowly become just another encyclopedia?

Ball's article highlights the successful nature of Wikipedia's open source network and how quality of information is achieved. He suggests that the 'secret' to Wikipedia's credibility is the increasing number of contributors and the 'diversification' it brings to the platform through collective knowledge (Ball, 2007). I can relate Ball's article to Surowiecki's (2004) article Wisdom of the Crowds because it reinforces the notion that people must be unrelated, independent, and have diversity of mind from one another to form good opinions. The architecture of the collaborative platform Wikipedia harnesses the 'power of the crowds' in such a way that encourages diverse participation, as opposed to a group-think scenario, and thus produces 'wisdom' through quality information (Surowiecki, 2004, p5). Ball observes that Wikipedia's structure allows for an above average quality of information on more topical articles. This occurs because popular topics create more traffic, which in turn enables more contributors to edit an article and therefore creating more 'diverse' and 'reliable' information (Ball, 2007). This reinforces the quality of an article through diversification and mass collaboration. This notion of 'quality' can be applied to the Kony 2012 campaign page on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kony_2012), which has been edited over 500 times and has been viewed 1,227,982 times since 6 March 2012, when the Kony 2012 campaign was first launched (Wikipedia Article Page Statistics, 2012). However, it is at this point that the similarities between Ball and Surowiecki cease. According to Ball, the Kony 2012 Wikipedia article is a prime example of a topical issue. The statistics reinforce his observations about Wikipedia's crowds and how they are able to create credible and reliable information due to diversification brought into the article by 1,227,98

This is an extremely interesting article as it focuses on the ways in which wikis have excelled in enticing people into contributing and exciting them about making contributions. Businesses and organizations can learn a lot from this article as it also illustrates ways in which a wiki can be used to increase the rate, amount and quality of contribution. The precise nature of Wikipedia is one of the greatest advantages it has over other information sources. People looking for information find their topic and the information provided is in a formatted style that is maintained throughout the site. The limited security measures on Wikipedia allow people to contribute what they wish with minimal restrictions. The question is however can a wiki such as Wikipedia be used effectively to add value and increase collaboration within a business environment? Wikipedia does allow users to contribute information and remove the barriers and restrictions of both geographic and social status. This can allow bias or ill-informed information to be present in articles. Within a business structure there is little to no chance of purposely misleading information being presented to the articles. This does remove one of the major problems that Wikipedia faces as the integrity of information is assured. So with this in mind does a wiki remain a great resource for collaboration within a business environment?

Overall, this article provides a nice summary of how businesses and corporations can employ wikis in their knowledge production, highlighting some of the advantages and disadvantages and discussing some troubleshooting problems. Yeo (2010) notes that an added benefit of using wikis in businesses is that multiple people can work on a document at once, allowing multiple editors to work on different sections of the wiki at the same time. However where companies may struggle is with the layout and formatting of the page. Hasan and Pfaff (2006) note that IBM, the Disney Corporation, and British Telecommunications are just some of the major corporations that have successfully implemented the use of wikis into their business structure. The Shell Corporation is yet another business that has successfully employed the use of wikis in their organisation (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008). Similarly, the revision history and ability to track editing changes made to pages is a common advantage running across all of these studies. Although this article offers a nice description of how wikis can be used in businesses, it does not delve into the world of knowledge management and using wikis as a knowledge sharing platform, as discussed by Hasan and Pfatt (2006). They also fail to provide strategies to motivate employees to make use of the wiki and participate in knowledge contribution, as mentioned by Hendrix and Johannsen (2008). Nevertheless, the article makes us aware about wikis and how they can be incorporated in businesses, noting some of the advantages and limitations. Additional References: Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees' interaction with corporate knowledge. OZCHI. 11(24-26). Pp377-380. Retrieved 19th March 2012 from http://www.ozchi.org/proceedings/2006/sessions/short-papers/social/hasan-p377.pdf Hendrix, D., & Johannsen, G. (May 16th, 2008). A knowledge sharing and collaboration platform. Inside Knowledg

This article related to my topic discussed about how Wikipedia as one of the popular online collaborative encyclopedias allows everyone to write and read its article for free and there are large numbers of businesses all around the world who edit and publish its articles (Yeo, 2010). According to my own studies, Wikipedia will be good for small businesses? Wikipedia as a popular online community can help small businesses to have an article there. Of course, everyone can make a page in Wikipedia, but, having a page for businesses can bring more customers for them, for example, Zip's Drive-In has article in Wikipedia which gives information to people about its fast foods. Tekserve, sales Apple products in New York, has a Wikipedia article to gives beneficial information about their new products and absorb them on their own blog. Or even "Hollywood-based Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles" has article in Wikipedia (Mcgee, 2009). But why businesses want to have an article in Wikipedia? They can have great exposure of their new products: when a company has article in Wikipedia that means more people all over the world can read their information that brings them more exposure. They can manage their information and their through Wikipedia and people know Wikipedia as a trustable resource. Moreover, Wikipedia gives permission to businesses to update their articles, and with the help of Talk page they can read customers wishes and suggestion (Mcgee, 2009). However, businesses must aware there in Wikipedia there will be some angry customers and they may edit their articles, so, businesses should aware to correct any untruthful information which added by others and it is a truth that monitoring can be very time-consuming for them (Mcgee, 2009). Mcgee, M. (17 september 2009). Should a small business have a Wikipedia article? Available online at: http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/should-small-business-have-wikipedia-article/2311/

Hasan, H., & Pfaff, C.C. (2006). The wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees' interaction with corporate knowledge. OZCHI. 11(24-26). Pp377-380. Retrieved 19th March 2012 from http://www.ozchi.org/proceedings/2006/sessions/short-papers/social/hasan-p377.pdf This article focuses on collaborative social software, such as wikis, being used by members to communicate and collaborate electronically within corporate organisations. The authors use the term Knowledge Management (KM) to describe the ways in which wikis can be used within these organisations to share knowledge, create content, distribute documents and edit files. The advantages of using wikis within corporate organisations are that knowledge can be shared quickly and efficiently, allowing editing of pages to be recorded and information to be kept up-to-date. New pages are able to be created and old ones deleted. Editing of pages and knowledge contribution is relatively easy when employing a wiki, even for the novice user. Overall the "wiki takes advantage of the collaborative efforts of all members of the organisation to create an effective library of knowledge" (p.378). Major corporations such as IBM, the Disney Corporation, and British Telecommunications, are three major organisations that have been noted to employ wikis to assist with KM amongst workers. However, some corporate organisations choose not to employ wikis to organise KM for a number of reasons. Wikis may appear to change the organisational structure within companies such that "senior executives may be reluctant to share power with their subordinates" (p.379). There are issues surrounding intellectual property and quality control of information. Privacy concerns also come into play, and conflict may arise if workers are contributing more information or less information to the wiki than other employees. However the authors note that through offering corporate incentives, implementing revision control, and employing u

Corporate knowledge pertains to the inside information that companies need to operate. Internal wikis allow companies to coordinate and collaborate their internal information to streamline the normal business processes. This also allows businesses to spread their business network across many areas and still work cohesively on a common task. Wikipedia can be considered one enormous organization that serves the single purpose of supplying information to the entire globe through the detailed and yet at the same time brief articles. Global networks like this are true representations of collaboration and how steps can be taken in an effort to allow and access the knowledge of crowds. The knowledge of crowds is an idea that there is a bank of information that can be attained by taking the small pieces that each person in the crowd holds. Can corporations use wikis effectively to store information? Who holds the power? With any type of wiki it is important to remember that someone must be in charge of moderating and filtering the information. Or if a wiki is used inside a corporation does that remove the need for a person in charge of filtering? Either way a wiki can be an effective tool in allowing businesses to collaborate without the need to be in the same geographic location.

Lotan, G., Graeff, E., Ananny, M., Gaffney, D., Pearce, I., & boyd, d. (2011). The Revolutions Were Tweeted: Information Flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. International Journal of Communications, 5, 1375-1405. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/1246/643 This article investigates how information was disseminated via Twitter during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. It is clear that there were advantages in relying upon Twitter and social media during this time, because these sites provided real-time updates that mainstream media could not convey, due to the limitations of the platform, or censorship (Grossman, 2009; p.1399). The use of hashtags or key words assisted in the organisation of information, such as #sidibouzid and #Tunisia (p. 1376; p. 1395). However, the constant and rapid flow of content made it difficult to determine what is false and what is legitimate information - Twitter's strength and weakness in this situation. It is essential to understand how information can be organised and filtered through the positions of 'actor types' (classification of users in this study), making this article valuable to the study of political protests. There were many different actors mentioned but the most important contributors to the dissemination of content were journalists, bloggers, and activists. These actors had a tendency to retweet information from the same actor type or amongst the three aforementioned categories, to essentially create a sense of reliable organisation to the Twitter chaos (p. 1393). The study also concluded that individuals, rather than organisations, were considered more reliable during the uprising (p. 1398). This appears to demonstrate the scepticism associated with mainstream media in a society that no longer wishes to be talked 'at', but rather invo

This article relates my topic in its discussion of Twitter usage in online activism. The online activist group Anonymous (my topic of choice) also performed activist activities surrounding Egypt and Tunisia. Much of Anonymous' activities were organised through the use of Twitter making this article quite relevant. As suggested in the article, Anonymous did appear to have certain high powered actors who highlighted information of particular relevance to the operations, affecting the flow of information through the Twitter network. The article is published in a peer-reviewed journal making it a highly reliable source. It is also quite recent, written in 2011, which is a huge asset given the rate at which social networking technology progresses. The article is also perfectly relevant to the discussion of Twitter usage in political protests. The way that information flows and is determined critical or irrelevant through various actors' retweets is an important topic. I found the article quite useful as the topic is closely related to the online activism performed by the Anonymous group. This article contributes a great deal of value to this collaborative resource development project on a whole, as it is a reliable source, is very recent and it is highly relevant, dealing with Twitter as a collaboration and organisation tool.

I have centered my approach to the main theme of Mobile Phones and Crowd Sourcing on both the Radio and Retail industries. With the acknowledgment that Mobile Phones, Crowd Sourcing and Social Media are all connected through the creation and distribution of information, this article further explores the individual adoptions or resistance to associated practices relating to the main theme. The article 'Public Radios Social Media Experiments' (Levenshus, 2007) proves itself very useful in its ability to pin point relevant conclusions regarding the role of the audience, the nature of online communities, the use of associated tools and reasons of reluctance towards industry integration. Although this article responds directly to Radio the points of analysis can also be applied to the Retail industry. These conclusions referred to the transformation of listeners/consumers into potential sources of information and the ability of audiences/consumers to contribute and reveal an unexpected wealth of knowledge. It is here that the connection to information obtained by crowd sourcing on social media platforms is supported and the seamless integrated of mobile devices into this process could be assumed. The article also surmises that social media and crowd sourcing strategies are essential to the future of public broadcasting. This should also be considered with reference to Retail. There are explanations as to why resistance to social media opportunities may occur. For example, resistance is due to the lack of knowledge, resource allocation and institutional culture (Levenshus, 2007). But above all the article describes online communities as organic, dynamic and having lives of their own (2007), giving us a valuable base with which to analyse the role of mobile devices in sourcing information. The provisions of such analytical conclusions help to develop a better understanding of the overall affects to industries such as Radio and Retail as they reconsider busi

Thanks for the heads up Dean - the link loads fine in a new tab for me... Have I done something wrong in my post do you think?

I have been a big fan of listening to podcasts for years from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/ . I subscribe to them in Facebook. So I have seen how they have slowly improved how they engage with the public. So your example I think is a good one for an industry that previously just has synchronous communication and now because of Social Media has A Synchronous to leverage its value. What has happened for radio has good lessons for those business owners that think business has got tougher. Radio previously had an audience/users that was "out there" and many other businesses have an audience that is "in here." Regardless of how the audience/client is connected/contacted then this touch point can be leveraged and value added by social media. The Curtin University Gym has users that are "in here" and whilst people are in the gym using the equipment they can see TV's that include advertisements for Physiotherapy etc. This is a basic form of social media interaction, The user arrives and the TV delivers. The Gym also has a Facebook page that they seek to have users or all of Curtin University to like. Maybe they also make use of Flickr and other social mediums that all adds up to adding value to the business through indirect advertising and awareness creation. So the point I am trying to make is that if you have "in here" users then you ought to connect with them whilst they are in the gym with as much social media as is acceptable. Can the Endomodo App be given a Curtin University Brand/Logo so that the many users can utilise? If not then the Curtin Gym can make use of Endomodo Groups so that the elderly classes can better network and collaborate etc. The more connected a business is with its client base then the more value it can deliver to them and the more revenue that business can collect from advertisers in the case of a radio station. A supply busines

Freeman, M. (2011). Fire, Wind and Water: Social Networks in Natural Disasters. Journal of Cases on Information Technology,13 (2), p.69 -79. A study of the increasing adoption of social networking tools (SNTs) as a channel for critical communication during disasters in Australia, is the platform used by the author to look into how society is accepting the use of SNTs as a whole for emergency management. Using recent natural disasters, the use of SNT's is traced from their limited use during the Victorian Bushfires in 2009 to their increased use and the reliance on SNTs by authorities and individuals, during the Queensland Floods of 2010/2011 and Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2011 (February). During the fires of 2009, Twitter was used by the ABC radio station 774 Melbourne to provide as much coverage of the fires as possible. Followers increased from 250 to 1200 indicating the popularity of this form of communication, and offering an sight for future use. Two years later, the Queensland Police Service used Twitter and Facebook extensively to broadcast accurate information to those affected by the floods and correct misinformation. The same tactics were employed for Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Technologies are discussed as a medium of communication for accurate and timely information during disasters and for the sharing of knowledge, increasingly coming from the bottom up, but also utilised appropriately from the top down when required. Although this article was easy to understand, the author's discussion of the disasters and technologies, the extensive discussion of qualitative research, followed by a presentation of the case, lead to a repetition of information about the disasters. A more succinct and structured presentation of the results of this triangulated approach to research would have made it easier to appreciate the benefits of SNTs to communities.

This article looks at the value of social media as a knowledge management platform for managing emergency responses by organisations to disasters, based on a case study of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. The US was a major stakeholder in coordinating the emergency response to this humanitarian crisis and had, prior to this event, relied on manually intensive and centralised knowledge management systems. This was the first time the U.S. Government "relied on social media to coordinate knowledge and action between cooperating agencies" (p. 7). Data was gathered by one of the participating authors assigned to AFCAT (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff's Crisis Action Team) to configure social media tools. SharePoint, newly introduced to the organisation, provided a new basis for knowledge sharing. Previously, the only opportunity for staff to find out what others were doing was during information briefings. The SharePoint platform supported mechanisms for knowledge sharing within the team, and Haiti specific wiki pages were developed by participating agencies using a common government MediaWiki platform. Together, these social media tools increased the flow and form of knowledge as they allowed knowledge to be: o shared - it was now visible and accessible within and between agencies o reused as new knowledge o verified and usefulness rated o removed duplication of effort o facilitated collaboration and cooperation between groups Conversely, this study found that the uncontrolled uploading of information to wikis required organisations to put systems in place to manage and monitor the content of wikis. Accuracy of information for emergency response by organisations is critical. This peer reviewed article provided a theoretical framework for social media as it applies to disaster management. I found it took several readings to absorb the content and it was difficult to work out what social media tools were actually created beside wikis.

The poster child of collaboration? A bold statement but is it that far off the truth? Every day Wikipedia helps people around the world find information that is both detailed and related to the topic they have searched. The modern internet is filled with incorrect and purposely misleading information that users can freely access. The user has no idea that the information they are receiving is incorrect so it is quite often trusted. Wikipedia's system of article moderators allows the information to be supplied by anyone but filtered by people considered to be well educated in that chosen field. This means that the information is not as random as other information available throughout World Wide Web. The progression in the Web 2.0 era has been at an exponential rate and Wikipedia has been at the fore front of the revolution as it allows users of the World Wide Web to contribute which is what separates Web 1.0 and web 2.0. So I don't completely agree with the idea that Wikipedia is the poster child of collaboration, however I would suggest that it is the poster child of the Web 2.0 era as it encompasses all that makes the new era so exciting.

I found this article was an interesting read as it discusses Wikipedia's journey in becoming a successful and reliable encyclopedia. While I do consider myself a Wikipedia supporter I did find the article to be incredibly bias in favour of Wikipedia as it speaks extensively with Sue Gardner the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. The article does briefly touch on some negative points about Wikipedia in hearing from Robert McHenry, author and former Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia Britannica (Wikipedia's largest competitor) but soon turns back in favour of Wikipedia explaining that its scientific articles are of similar accuracy to that of Encyclopedia Britannica (Solon, 2011). As this article suggests, Wikipedia is evermore becoming a reliable source of information however people still seem to question Wikipedia's reliability. Here are somethings that I found in my own research that can suggest people's lack of confidence in Wikipedia's reliability: * Wikipedia articles that cover obscure and unusual topics tend to present more inaccuracies and errors than those covering mainstream topics - this is because obscure topics receive less traffic and therefore there is less likelihood of errors being corrected (Ball, 2007). * Wikipedia is not an accurate representation of a vast and diverse crowd, in fact "the encyclopedia is missing the voices of people in developing countries, women and experts in various specialties that have traditionally been divorced from tech" (Manjoo, 2009). * Wikipedia has in the past been subject to vandalism with hoax and defamatory article updates (Ball, 2007). Reference: Ball, P. (2007, February 27). The more, the wikier. Nature: International weekly journal of Science. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com Manjoo, F. (2009, September 28). Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success? Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine Solon, O. (2011, January 11). A Decade of Wikipedia, Th

This article provides quite an interesting overview of Wikipedia and how it started off as a "dirty little secret" for some in the earlier years, with its use progressing to be an "accepted part of daily life in the developed world" ten years after its launch. In addition, higher education facilities (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) are beginning to discover the advantages of employing wikis in their respective institutions. We are beginning to see that the 'wisdom of the crowds' and 'knowledge management' are important factors in larger organisations. Thus what once started out as an online encyclopaedia and a "dirty little secret" is now branching out and weaving its way into larger businesses, organisations, and educational institutions. Although Wikipedia has suffered its fair share of editing glitches and is not completely error free, as mentioned in this article, Wikipedia has come a long way since its introduction into the Web 2.0 world and is becoming a more commonly used tool. In addition, it has shown us the effects of the 'wisdom of the crowds' and how collaboration can be so important. Speakers at the New Media in Education Conference (CCNMTL, 2008) note that wikis provide such a valuable communication and collaboration platform that they essentially create a virtual classroom- an interactive platform where students can share ideas, edit documents, and collaborate on group projects. Inevitably I do agree with the title of this paper and think that Wikipedia is "The Poster Child for Collaboration", with Wikipedia and wikis weaving their way into educational institutions (Grossek, 2009; CCNMTL, 2008) and companies (Hendrix & Johannsen, 2008; Hasan & Pfaff, 2006) who use them as a collaborative tool. Additional References: CCNMTL (Nov 3rd, 2008). Promoting Collaborative Learning using Wikis. [YouTube Video]. Retrieved 22nd March 2012 from http://www.yout

In this article there are real world examples of how mobile technologies are being used within the four walls of a bricks and mortar retail store. The article interviews two different people and investigates their use of Smartphone technologies while shopping for retail goods. It proves valuable not only because of its direct reference to mobile technologies in the hands of consumers, but for the first time we can begin to see the evolution in mobile device information sourcing. Although both the consumer and producer are slowly realizing these capabilities, it is fair to say that the ongoing process of experimentation reflects mobile device adolescence. There are connections between reoccurring themes such as changing business models, changing consumer behavior and the evolving development of mobile applications that are best understood when put into practice. More specifically just how could information be used and integrated into the everyday conditioning of mobile devices? One example as illustrated in the main focus of this article, are applications that are used in store by Smartphone owners in order to compare prices on stocked items. However depending on Smartphone user location settings retailers can push additional information to shoppers already sourcing product information from competitive brands. This reference to retailers also utilizing mobile technologies and information distribution is equally as valuable and shows a shift in business practice that surpasses traditional discount models. Bustillo, M., Zimmerman, A.(2010, December 15) Phone-Wielding Shoppers Strike Fear Into Retailers. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.retailgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/2010_1215_Phone-WieldingShoppersStrikeFearIntoRetailers.pdf

Yeah a good article pointing to a great opportunity for retailers. The big insightful learning from e commerce prior to this trend was that you did not have to be the lowest priced or the best quality. You just had to be most accessible with a good website, good shopping process, and let people pay. The early adopters were willing to sacrifice price and quality to get convenience. With the trend in this paper pointing towards the vast majority joining the automated shopping process now retailers will be able to more easily offload all their dead stock and the need for genuine end of season sales will be reduced. The retailers with good sales skills will make bigger profits. I see a trend here were businesses that do not keep up with online opportunities will go out of business. Is it possible for the immigrant bakery that has a competitive advantaged based on good quality and hard work to survive? With no website and a cultural belief that hard work wins business possibly they can survive when there is a local community that does not consult a phone to make a choice. Right now supermarket price dumping on bread is doing more damage to private bakeries than any social media app. When other varaiables come in that add to a drain on cash flow like increased rent, more mouths to feed, increased competition, etc then I see this brings increasing reasons to force people to start using social media to seek more business. Just like domain names. You buy one or two you will use for your business and then you buy 5 or 10 for defensive reasons. The last thing you want is to put a great effort in to developing your online position to then have someone buy a similar domain name and pour money at SEO and capture your market. www.carlislebakery.com.au as a prime web address could be undermined by www.carlisebakery.com if you do not buy them both. So the same is with social media. You might not be motivated to get more business but you are forced to the table to protect y

This article isn't about the common definition of mobile crowd-sourcing where data from crowds is aggregated. Instead, Bustillo and Zimmerman describe how mobile technology has brought about a shift in the consumer-retailer relationship which is "threatening to upend the business models of the biggest store chains in America." The article describes how in the past, American retailers (and I'll be bold enough to say retailers in other developed nations as well) could get away with selling items at inflated prices because consumers had no easy way to determine whether those prices were reasonable. Now, the article explains, the ability to compare prices with a smartphone has ushered in a "new era of price transparency". The article paints a bleak picture for the future of retailers who can't or won't make their prices more competitive. Articles like this highlight the fact that our increasing use of smartphones is heralding some fundamental changes in the way we live. And despite not fitting the normal discussion on mobile crowd-sourcing, changes in market dynamics like those described in this article are entirely due to the behaviour of crowds. After all, retailers depend on a crowd of consumers to buy their products, so when technology enables that crowd to shop smarter, it's no surprise the retailers feel a little anxious. The article doesn't mention any effort on the part of the retailers to aggregate data from online consumers in order to better market their products, however with web analysis software this is easy enough to do, and I suspect it's happening. So the transparency works both ways: the consumer has newfound clarity on prices, whilst the retailer gains clarity on consumer behaviour. This article, along with the Wisdom of Crowds Wikipedia article, has me considering mobile crowd-sourcing as a powerful means of market regulation. This could be a theme of my essay for module two.

Matt Brian, mobile editor for The Next Web, discusses the popularity of pastebin.com among hacking (or perhaps more accurately 'cracking') groups. Brain notes that Pastebin is a tool originally designed for collaboratively editing code, but has since gained popularity among malicious security crackers as a method of releasing stolen data to the public. While there are numerous spinoffs of the simple text-sharing concept, pastebin.com remains the most popular. Searching the pastebin.com website for 'anonymous' or their (now disbanded and arrested) spinoff group 'Lulzsec' reveals a considerable level of Pastebin usage by Anonymous. Manifestos and anouncment seem to be a popular use of Pastebin by Anonymous. For example searching '#opegypt' reveals a list of sites taken down by Anonymous - perhaps it was collaboratively updated while the operation took place? The Anonymous group link to Pastebin.com pastes (or other equivalent websites) through blogs and twitter accounts associated with the Anonymous movement. Brain notes its utility in escaping the 140 character limitation of twitter, whilst still retaining anonymity with minimum fuss. If illegal material was posted on Anonymous blogs such as anonops.blogspot.com, youranonnews.tumblr.com or anonnews.org it would likely violate terms of service and result in blogs being closed. Pastebin.com therefore, provides a suitably nebulous zone for posting illegal content. Brain makes extensive note of the use of Pastebin.com to release sensitive, stolen information to the web. Although the hacking groups mentioned are not always directly related to Anonymous, it highlights the usage of Pastebin.com as a tool for sharing information. Hacker groups could potentially be working on releases or manifestos collaboratively with their peers, although this in not discernible in the final Pastebin product. Brian, Matt. 2011, June 5. "Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout." The Next Web: Social M

This article provides an interesting (if somewhat brief) account of the Anonymous movement, and associated (as well as un-associated) hacktivist networks, using a relatively simple internet tool and altering the intended usage to suit the purposes of the movement. The article focuses mainly on the usage of Pastebin by an offshoot of the Anonymous movement called LulzSec, and how the group was able to use Pastebin to greatly aid their hacktivism efforts (Brian, 2011). Although now disbanded and with most of its members arrested (Apps, 2012), LulzSec very successfully utilised Pastebin for various leaks and links to their efforts of retrieving data from a number of high-profile organizations. This article touches on another example of the confrontational tactics for raising media awareness outlined by Andrews and Caren (2010), and thus the two articles may provide relevant references for discussions relating to the reactions to hacktivist groups such as LulzSec, as well as providing information regarding another tool used by such movements. In terms of my focus on the Anonymous movement, the article may not provide a direct reference to the divides between individuals within the movement based on motivation for activities under the Anonymous movement. The article does however provide a relevant secondary source for additional discussion relating to the way in which particular offshoots of the Anonymous movement operate. Andrews, K., & N. Caren. (2010) Making the News: Movement Organisations, Media Attention, and the Public Agenda. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/pqdweb?did=2527572391&sid=1&Fmt=6&clientId=22212&RQT=309&VName=PQD Apps, P. (2012). LulzSec Arrests Hurt Hacker Groups, Anonymous Movement Hard To Kill. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/lulzsec-arrests-anonymous_n_1331982.html Brian, M. (July 5th, 2011). Pastebin: How a popular code-sharing site became the ultimate hacker hangout. Retrieved fr