My topic for this Observe is an email that I got from YouTube. Here’s a screenshot:

So basically, YT is telling me that it’s going to get rid of some of my subscriptions–only that sounds bad, so instead those subscriptions “will soon move.” The last sentence of the main paragraph is a better summary of what’s really going on: “Your current secondary artist channel subscriptions will become inactive.” But don’t worry, YouTube user! YT is doing this for your sake! Deleting your subscriptions without your permission isn’t a violation of your freedom as a user, it’s just to make it “easier for you to keep up with your favorite artists and their music!”

I realize that I’m making this sound pretty dramatic, when in fact, this probably is going to make things easier for users. But it sure does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

For this week’s observe I am analyzing a message that popped up on my computer last week. One day I opened my computer and a message immediately popped up when connecting to the internet, that said “Another device on the network is using your computer’s IP address”, with further instructions about what to do next. I didn’t think much of it and honestly just ignored it like the lazy person I am, but a couple days later it popped up again.
This worried me because this message (from what i understand) means that there is another device that has access to my computers “signature”; I’m not exactly sure how severe that is or what could come from that but I know the results are not exactly good. While it could be another one of my own devices, it very well could be someone else’s. Following the second message I followed the instructions and am waiting for the next message to pop-up. Receiving this message, while it was not directly harmful, made me rethink what information I am putting out into the internet, and where exactly I am giving out the information. I’m sure I have given out unnecessary information on the web many times before, but this made me stop and wonder when was the last time I did that and did I even stop and think before hand? It also made me think about the fact that if i’m giving out information easily and not realizing it, who else is? My parents who aren’t too technologically experienced have probably fallen victim to this many times, too.

For my observe I decided to focus on a new app/service that i recently discovered. “Earn bitcoin” is a service that essentially pays people to take surveys based upon their personal network connections. It also allows popular companies with big executives to connect with people who are interested in their opinions/advice, all while being compensated; you can select an amount from $1-$20 per question, and if you are not a company executive, you can money by taking surveys that pay $1 (give or take) each. You fill out questionnaires based upon your knowledge and interests, and from there you are selected to complete surveys.
What i find most interesting about this service is that in order to create an account, you must connect with LinkedIn; I assume this is so that the service can analyze your contacts and history to select surveys for you. In addition, in order to connect with company executives, you must connect your gmail account as well. These interesting guidelines can definitely affect the desirability of signing up for such a service, especially if you don’t have either of the accounts. While I understand why these are put in place, it always makes me a little suspicious when services ask for your other personal accounts or info – I myself have yet to connect my gmail account to this service because when I initially tried, it obtained all my email contacts and wanted to send out emails to all of them – and that definitely scared me away. While I have taken online surveys for money in the past, the twist with this service is it pays you in bitcoin; this gives your money the potential to increase without you doing any extra work. While this is an incredibly enticing idea, it also means you can lose your money at any second. That being said, I am not entirely sure if I will go through with the whole registration process, especially if I put my time into this serice and then all my money is lost. A nice twist, however, is that it gives you an option during registration where you can pick 1 of 4 charities to donate to.

Has anyone ever even heard of Google News? Is it one of those many Google services that they offer, but no one uses, like Google plus? I discovered this by seeing what would happen if I simply typed “news” into google. The first couple links were articles from verified news sites, but the first text link was to Google News. When you click on it, the above interface comes up. It has the stark design that is typical of most google products, but at the same time none of the articles are very eye-catching. This is probably the reason no one uses google news.

Facebook perhaps has one of the worst tagging systems I have ever encountered.  Currently I am still coming up with problems when I try to tag people who I am not friends with.  I want people who are in my pictures to be able to tag themselves.  For some reason permissions for that is not allowed, however not only is it not allowed for other people, I can’t do it either.  How in the world is it that a person can’t edit nor tag their own album?  How do I not have permission to tag my own album?  At first, I was thinking perhaps it has to deal with the permissions of other peoples accounts, however they were able to do it with other photos.  Thus, I checked under account and settings and timeline and tagging where a lot of people are saying to turn off review tags.  Well my review tags has always been turned off though.  This is seriously just so frustrating to me.  Not only do I have issues with this but I had issues earlier with simply uploading the photos as facebook as I was initially trying to upload the album onto the page I was sharing it with but it was only uploading small amounts of the photos in my album, it only worked once I decided to upload it on my own account and share it to the page.  I assume perhaps that’s where the problem lies, but this button stating you don’t have permission to add tags on to your own album should not exist.  If it’s your album and you are logged in to your account you should always have permissions to change it.  Meanwhile, I can upload all of this on flickr in very little time and be able to easily edit in tags and share to other people.

When clicking through all of my subscriptions to clear the little number that’s usually to the left on YouTube, I ended up on Markiplier’s channel and saw he uploaded a video about his dog. I literally only clicked the video because it was about dogs, and I was super surprised to see that it was trending. Even more surprising to me was at the time of me watching this video, the video had been uploaded 4 days ago and it was still somehow trending. The whole thing, even though it wasn’t a big deal, made me think about how YouTube works and what videos YouTube cares about. Markiplier has a lot of subscribers so it’s more likely he would be trending, but the trending videos I normally see are music videos or movie trailers so I still thought it was strange. I thought maybe because the video was about a cute animal it might get it more views to push it into trending. Even then, I wonder how well the video did prior to me watching it. Had it been trending for the enitre 4 days? How does trending work? I also think the whole thing is funny because his dog was in the video less than half of the time, and the rest of the video was him recommending other videos that she was in to the viewers to go watch. I’m not trying to like call Markiplier out on promoting himself or anything, especially because the video isn’t that long so of course he’s just gonna say what he has to say, but it’s still weird how this video ended up trending when it’s supposed to be about the dog but the video itself is mostly telling viewers to watch other videos about the dog.

So for this week, I experienced something that I never have experienced before in my life: I was unable to access something on the internet because it wasn’t available in my country. Maybe that says something about how America-centric my world view is, but I think It is also interesting that the idea of country specific access is still a thing in this day and age. I know that some countries have some websites blocked for political reasons; for example many American websites are blocked in China because they don’t want their people to admire the western lifestyle, they want them to focus solely on nationalistic and communistic ideals. But for more democratic countries in the world, why are things not available in every country that is able to access the website itself? I think of the internet as being this “locationless medium”, it exists in cyberspace and shouldn’t be limited by any physical location. The world wide web extends across the world, so why can’t I access all the things on it? Is it a technical limitation that may be solved in the coming years? Or is it an exclusivity thing, limiting some access only to IP addresses from certain countries? I don’t know myself, but it would be interesting to find out.

I was looking for graduation dresses on a website called LuLu’s, and after looking at 1 dress, a bunch of suggested dresses popped up at the bottom of my screen.

Personally, I didn’t like any of the suggested dresses but I think its funny to see how LuLus algorithm immediately starts to target it’s users. In some cases,I think this asset is convenient because if you see a suggested dress that you like it saves you time from scrolling through all the options. But I also feel annoyed with this algorithm because I didn’t like any of the suggested dresses so it makes me feel like I have bad taste!  

This week I’m writing about how I think Instagram constructs me as a user. Since the newer updates in the passed few months I get this notification very often.. almost every time I open the app. Instagram really wants me to turn on my notifications. I think that Instagram is trying to change the way the users consume the material. Instagram used to be a platform where you would upload cool images, it was a photography app. With that in mind, it was an application where you would check it every day or so at MOST and see what was new. Now with instagram it has turned into a platform for memes, eye candy, sports highlights, news, “public figures,” and other advertising or eye candy posts. So now that Instagram has succesfully incorporated most apps into one, they want you to check it very often. With notifications on, I would get alerts probably  once or twice an hour reminding me to go back on. And by putting the option to turn on my notications in my face whenever I open the app I am definitely more inclined to do it. Instagram wants me to check up on it all day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxkrdLI6e6M

This week I was inspired by a nerdwriter video on “How Dark Patterns Trick You Online”  In the video he goes over various ways dark patterns on places like buttons encourage users to click on something they may otherwise not have clicked.  The absence of such patterns also discourages users from clicking there (think of a yes/no do you want to continue question where yes has a dark color button and no has none).  He also went over how difficult it is to unsubscribe or delete certain accounts, like Amazon, and how websites place deactiviation in places most users would not expect to look (for example amazon’s is not under “your account”  but rather you have to go to the end of the page and look for help and click numerous other buttons before finally getting to a delete account page).

I came across a 2-for-1 in my usual pursuits of personal-screen-space offenses and bizarre personal-performance-capitalism. This PC mag article (a lame one) had one of those subscription pop-ups, but unlike the usual ones there was no way to exit out of it at first. My initial response was to refresh the page because I didn’t want to deal with it, and then I realized that I should document it for this. So I scrolled around until it came back (noticing part 2 of this), and I’m not sure if my empty-space email entering prompted the X in the top-right corner, or if there was some kind of automatic time-out. Anyways, sites seem to be getting bolder and/or more desperate with the hijacking of user space-time. The second thing happening here (illustrated by the gif at the bottom) is the redundant progress bar (do some people not have a scroll bar indicator? maybe it’s different on mobile?) across the top of the screen, running horizontally. It’s bold and red and maybe theoretically gives the same satisfaction of a loading bar going to completion, I imagine a certain type of person would really want to scroll/read until they made it all the way.

As many people know, online surveys for pay are mostly scam operations. Labor and consumer information for very little to no compensation. They do not make you money. I repeat! No Money!!!

So I was thrown by the grossness of being served this lovely advert on youtube while watching a vice documentary:

Vice voices is a survey service you can sign up for and “earn rewards.” So I registered to see if this waste of time led to any different content. The short answer is that it did not. The only way I could be offered more surveys was if I lied about my income and claimed I owned a boat and tennis rackets. These surveys quickly turned into consumer bullshit again.

Though the initial vice survey did ask me for my opinions on different vice content channels. I was able to ask “why are all your journalists hot?” and comment: “I don’t need them to be hot! I just want vetted content.”

This is where things get gross again: Vice is a corporate entity. All corporations are about growing profits first even if they produce news content. The secondary company hosting the surveys was: 

Apparently this large private company has a lot of bad reviews for paying out it’s promised rewards:

Also I thought this was a beautiful article with the “Vice Voices” survey program advertised on the same page. With everything we’ve learned from Cambridge Analytica, surveys feel like a pretty dated and legal way to get consumer information. I would love to read more statistics on this subject but I have not found a lot of long form journalism on the subject.

For the previous project, project 6, one of my ideas was to do something with google earth. But what I discovered was that I could no longer access google earth in my preferred browser, which is Firefox. I could download it as a program for my computer, but it was now only accessible on browser through google chrome. I feel like this isn’t an accident, seeing as how google owns both chrome and google earth. I wonder what they did to google earth that made it so firefox could no longer access it. Did they improve the user experience or something; making it like a virtual reality experience? I can’t be bothered to actually download it, so I suppose I won’t find out.

For this week’s observe I was inspired by our discussion in class about analyzing followers on social media. I decided to analyze my own followers on instagram for one main reason: I made an instagram account back when the application didnt have many users, before any celebrities really used it (their usage made the application pretty popular at the middle/end of 2011), and though most people think this fact is stupid and also a lie, it has affected my social media following on instagram. Instagram was launched in October 2010, and I made my account back in March 2011. At the time I was in eighth grade, had gotten my first iphone, (early, i know), and was just discovering my love for photography. I didn’t know much about it but I was intrigued by filters and I decided to download a bunch of filter apps and see which ones I liked. I made an instagram account and didn’t think much of it. On instagram, to save an edited photo to your camera roll, you have to post it to your account. So, I took random photos and edited them and posted them so i could have them on my phone. I didn’t pay attention to my profile for months because I was only uploading to save the photos to my phone, it never once occurred to me that other people might find and look at them (keep in mind, i think it’s safe to say social media was much less prominent in 2011, back before iPhones took over blackberry and many other cultural references I could name). A couple months go by, I’ve posted about 20 photos, (all since deleted because they are ugly and the photos from the mid of an eighth grader), and I have a few hundred followers. Random people, and I had no idea what followers were. A couple more months go by and I have almost 2000 followers.
When I say this to most people they think I sound like an idiot, like some girl who wants to make some statement by saying she caught onto a fad before it was cool. However, I only say this because in the last year I have had many people ask me why I have double the amount of followers vs. people I am following, yet compared to others I “don’t nearly get as many likes”. I’ve thought about it too, and so I went back and looked at my followers. From the pictures I provided, you can see that multiple accounts of these random people that followed me years ago, when instagram was just starting up, are either inactive, fake accounts, fan accounts for celebrities, people who follow just to get follow backs, accounts who give “shout outs”, and accounts of brands/bands. Theres around 500 of those followers(give or take), and around 200 people who followed me between 2011-2013 that are random and I’ve never met or interacted with, but continue to follow me. It just goes to show that many accounts are fake, or bots, or unused, but it will still look like more people care about your personal life than they actually do.

For my observe I wanted to analyze hulu’s welcome page. I chose this to analyze, firstly because I have noticed that my hulu usage has increased dramatically in the last 6 months. Last year at this time, I hardly used hulu at all. I believe my usage has increased for 2 reasons; firstly, because in the last year, netflix has increased the amount of shows that are being take down, which was not as common for tv shows last year as it was for netflix’s extensive list of movies. Secondly, aside from hulu having access to many of the shows that netflix took down (i.e family guy, american dad, bob’s burgers, etc) hulu has added many shows that air on live tv to their lineup, available right after the show airs. This year, they released a partnership with spotify, which also probably helped their revenue and contributed to the increase in tv show options.
All these things considered, when you go to hulu’s homepage on a computer or smartphone, it gives you many options on how to sign up or obtain an account with hulu; the top of the main page has two areas that allow you to access a free trial, and when scrolling down, it shows you payment plan options, and ultimately ends with another designated area for which users can start their free trial (I wonder what they want me to take away from their homepage..maybe that there is a… free trial option?) (just kidding, that was sarcasm).
They are definitely playing to a certain audience here, but what’s interesting to me is that you actually have to search for where to log in. There is a menu-looking button in the top right corner that some people would interpret as a menu, but others may just think it is a design choice. You must click it, and when the menu drops down, there are two options: log in, and, say it with me now, start your free trial! I found this interesting because clearly it is doing many things to try to persuade people into signing up for hulu, but it doesn’t do much to encourage existing users to keep coming back, at least on the main/home page. Of course companies want to advertise to potential new customers, but maybe they should play to the likes of existing users too, ya know?

http://knight-0f-rhyme.tumblr.com/post/172472429892/tumblcoin-introducing-tumblcoin-tumblr-is

I forgot it was April Fools today, and most websites I use interact with their audience by creating a new feature for the day as their prank. Since it’s currently 1 in the morning, I was surprised to find that tumblr already added their prank. This year they introduced “tumblcoin,” which is a bitcoin that you get for interacting with and making posts.

The user can look at the tumblcoin they have earned by clicking an image placed to the right of their dashboard. In this menu, the user can also buy items with their tumblcoin. I always think the april fools pranks on websites are really fun so I’ve already been messing with this and i bought myself a pet horse (bottom left) which was from a different year for april fools. This also could be a way to get people to post more or reblog more if they really want to see what everything does, and just for fun I want to try and “buy” everything in this menu.

I almost never use twitter. And apparently twitter has noticed this, because this morning I received this message in an email:

This is confusing for many reasons.

1. Since when is Twitter’s theme color orange?
2. I made a twitter account under the username @TheGreaterBelow?
3. Apparently, all I used the account for was to retweet subpar memes and stuff about Nine Inch Nails?
4. Also, it looks like–for some reason–I used my real name? What??
5. If I can barely even remember making this account, it has to be at least kind of old, so why am I only getting an email about it now?
6. I understand the social media strategy of luring in users by proclaiming that they have “notifications” (the true meaning of which is a topic for another time). If I looked at my tumblr account and it said “Look! You have 20 notifications!”, that would be one thing. But to send me an email just to tell me I have one notification? As well as calling it the one notification–as if to make absolutely sure that I know there’s only one. That’s just bad marketing; no one wants to use an app that goes out of its way to tell you you’re not very popular.

So why did twitter do this?

My only guess is that the email was sent to all users who had been inactive for a certain amount of time, its creators making the assumption that, since the users been inactive, they’d probably have lots of notifications to look through. If that’s the case, I think that in most instances, the email was probably successful; it would read to users as “look at all the cool stuff you missed! Come check it out!” However, when I received this email someone who generally Does Not Use Twitter, it was saying something more along the lines of “literally one thing happened while you were gone. That’s it.”

If my theory is correct, all I can think to take away from this is that apparently my lack of online social connection is beyond the comprehension of both man and machine. Sorry?