Globalization


Globalization is one of the mostly mentioned words today. It is associated with positive and negative emotions at the same time. We should mention that globalization issues are variable and cover not only political or economic aspects but environmental, too.
Mostly touched topics are global temperature, as it is the cause of natural disasters. Together with air , water pollutions globalization causes problems concerning with the human resources, employment.

World leading forces see the threat and try to solve the problem. The result of this try is showed at the New Wall Street Journal ( Online)
Chief Executives of the nation’s largest Financial-service companies are concerned about the negative reaction of public against international trade. The backlash is caused by several reasons. Free trade has unfavorable impacts. Despite the fact that globalization has lifted millions of people from poverty, as each coin, it has it’s dark sides, too. Even looking at positive aspects of Globalization, it does not guarantee economic growth.

The Financial Service Forum aims to decrease the amount of job loses and other effects caused by free trade.

The only way out of this situation is to lower the barriers. That would work to advantage of those people who gained little from these processes.

Analysis of given situation makes the specialists and critics come to the conclusion over time. The speed of globalization and results of it effects society’s well being. There is no doubt that it has positive effects but it also weakened the positions of poorer people. The main problem is how to share the benefits globalization provides to all individuals. How to make workers be more competitive?

Ken Thompson, chairman and CEO of Wachovia Corp. and the forum's vice chairman, said in a statement, "Our open-trade and investment policies have significantly enhanced the economic well-being of American citizens, although not everyone has shared equally in the benefits of globalization. This report presents innovative ideas to broaden the reach of globalization's dividends and to keep the free-trade agenda moving forward." New Wall Street Journal

As in majority cases, the problem that big or small countries face, is lack of educated qualified staff. Improving the quality of highly professional people is one of the most successful tools. Education gives opportunity to gain most from globalization, and not only.

As Mr. Slaughter says in the article written by Deborah Solomon, “it has taken 60 years for the percentage of Americans with college degrees to grow to 30% from 6%.”

There is no doubt that small, developing countries have more difficulties concerning with the processes globalization resulted. It might be the cause of chosen way of leading economy or the situations mostly depended upon reasons impossible to control.

The difficulties and obstacles are resulted by spreading knowledge, developing of technology. Competition level raises. It is impossible to stop this process, the only way out is to gain most from it and work out policies that serve people’s well-being without limits.

The fact that CEO Group Suggests aids, tax cuts to defuse protectionist sentiment already shows that there is a need to make some positive changes that would be mutually beneficial for each of us, residents of small and big countries without distinction.
I love poker. Not that I'm a poker guru but I do enjoy playing it. The WSOP (World Series of Poker) is of course the greatest event in the world of poker. The number of participants in the WSOP has been growing almost every year and after the rookie Chris Moneymaker's winning of the main event the WSOP has experienced incredible growth. The first prize? Oh yes, in 2005 it was $7.5 million for the winner.

It's not a secret that smart players win and win a lot. After all, poker is more of a game of skill rather than game of chance. But what if you lack that very skill to rank even 5000th at the WSOP? Don't be disappointed. I'm going to tell you something that will help you win with poker even if you've just learnt that a Full House defeats a Flush.

Smart guys behind Wildstakes.com have created a website where you can back your favorite poker players. So how it works? Simpler than you can imagine. You just put money on your favorite player and if he/she wins, so do you. That's it.

The Wildstakes.com website is very easy to use. Players are put into categories. Along with a player's profile and statistics you can see how much you win if you back that particular player. You can wager as low as $2. Moreover, you can back as many players as you like.

Wildstakes.com is an exciting idea and a very good implementation of it. Did I mentioned that you can become a player too? Yes, that's an amazing opportunity too.

Check out Wildstakes.com - the coolest poker community out there, win money and enjoy poker.
Each of us is individual. We have our views, opinions and interests.
Statement -Act Independently and following this statement in life shows the abilities we have, emphasizes our values and responsibility to ourselves and to the society we serve or belong to. It is the best way of dealing with each field: education, business, or media.
One should be free of any private interest while serving society.

In majority cases professional independence is the guarantee of success.
Main reason I am going to comment on this issue, “Act Independently,” is the article “ABC Says It Was Outbid for Paris Hilton Interview”. The article covers issue on bidding for the interview, published at NYTimes.
I have no right and competence to discuss and evaluate this case, but the media response to this event is worth of paying attention.

New technology development and globalization made its effects nearly in each field. One of them is media. Competition is high; news values are different for different media sources. But for those who will read the article, it is clear that the main issue is that media should serve publics interest and should not pay for news. We have wide choice. There are events that need to be highlighted and one never needs to pay fot an interview.

But in this highly competitive world media sources compete and struggle for the exclusive interviews to enlarge the audience and have guaranteed advertisers that are the main sources of media profitability.

Regardless of the fact, not each way of dealing with problem is acceptable. Society of professional Journalists introduces code of ethics that you can find and read at SPJ.

Code of ethics says unambiguously that journalist should be free of any interest other than the publics right to know. The list provided in these codes of ethics emphasizes that journalist should be wary of sources offering information for favors or money; and should avoid bidding for news. That says what is the decision that should be made.

Nowadays when media became one of the important businesses in the world that serves society and not only, it is hard to say whether the news provided by the media channel comes out of the public interest or private. It is difficult to control. As far as each of us is individual by nature one needs to be highly professional to serve the society. Media is special field and needs special attitude to the work, it should be treat as seriously as possible.

Still the myth of media objectivity is under doubt. There is no person without subjective attitude towards an issue. There is no difference whether the issue is highlighted for media or not, individuals are subjective. Media should provide us with the information and with comments of professional experts on the event. That is the best way of covering issue.

Media should not only provide with the news but also educate society that is the main destination of it.

Today, media is in crisis especially in developing countries, there is no production of new programs, space is mostly filled with news that cover the same news several times during a day. It is called recycling. One can ask “What about CNN?” The answer is simple. CNN’s format is news oriented. It does not have borders and covers the world news not only local.

As for the developing and small countries there is no possibility to do that, no qualified staff, no such number of news as CNN has, and no so much money to provide this service to the society.

There is no ideal thing in the world but the best way to improve the quality of any product is using the system of benchmarking.
Best practices need special treatment. Even the best practice in one country might not be suitable for the other but researches and situation analysis will give professionals ability to make best choice.
The best phrase one can say at the end of the article is that: “Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.”

This post has been featured on www.mediapathblog.com
Taking pictures is a pleasure, transferring them to a PC for sharing or printing is a routine task. Because of this many pictures that I take are left on the memory card forever. They never get printed or shared.

Folks behind Eye-Fi have figured out that there are millions of people who have the same problem. What an elegant solution they've devised, you'd be amazed. Keep on reading.

According to the Eye-Fi website, "Eye-Fi provides the first and only effortless way to send images directly from your camera to a host of destinations, including a computer, and online photo and social networking sites for instant sharing."

When I first heard about Eye-Fi, I said "wow". But then I started thinking how that task would be accomplished. Well, Eye-Fi uses Wi-Fi to upload pictures. That's good, no doubt. Nowadays, Wi-Fi spots are almost everywhere but wait, my digital camera doesn't have a built-in Wi-Fi adapter. I bet neither does yours. But the beauty of Eye-Fi is that it doesn't rely on your camera's capabilities. It's the Eye-Fi SD cards that have built-in Wi-Fi support. Yes, yes, yes... the Eye-Fi SD cards double as Wi-Fi chips.

The Eye-Fi cards are supposed to hit the market this Fall at about $100 retail price and should support the most popular photo-sharing sites and social networks.

Unfortunately, how Eye-Fi will work is not clear to me. Okay, a Wi-Fi adapter in a SD card is a great thing but this is just a start. Then, there should be some sort of a program on the card, which connects to the supported websites and upload pictures. To run a program you'd need some sort of an OS (operating system). Thus, I imagine this Eye-Fi thing is a SD Card + Wi-Fi adapter + tiny OS with an application that uploads photos. And how they manage to put all those things in a tiny piece of plastic, I can't imagine.
Do you know what the first letters are that you write when a question arises? The answer is too simple. One just types www...

I even out about the first use of word “TV” at one of the www... addresses. http://www.tvhistory.tv/History%20of%20TV.htm
People today prefer to select what they want to watch on their own schedule, not on the schedule that TV broadcasting provides.

Different people use Internet for distinct reasons and functions – communicate with friends and family, communicate with strangers, get news and instrumental information, commerce, and entertainment. TV lacks the first two functions of Internet. (From: cs.cmu.edu/People/kraut/RKraut.site.files/articles/... Impact of Internet use on TV watching: How research details shape conclusions, by Irina Shklovski, Robert Kraut, Sara Kiesler, Bonka Boneva).

Still both channels of receiving and retrieving information, TV and Internet, are good sources for business. Together with this purpose they should serve society and educate people at the same time. In the majority of cases, the focus of business is on cost reduction and various opportunities that provided by the Internet.

Mostly the segments of Internet and TV users differ in age; younger people use more internet, but the main point here is that the difference in age will disappear soon. Development of new technologies gives us reason to think of a blending process between these two.

Nonetheless, nowadays media sources especially broadcasting media need to offer opportunities that unify both values of TV and Internet. The aim is to get the right audience for the right product. In contrast with other businesses, TV and Internet are specific and need extra effort to gain success and why? They double-sell the product.

First, owners of media should create the content to capture a large audience, and second, they need to obtain advertisers to sell the audience to them and gain profit. These complicated processes need extra effort.

On the edge of transferring from TV to Internet, NBC realizes the threat and now presents a network that declares an online stake intended to reach Advanced Placement high school courses – Immerse, Compete, Understand, and Excel.

The NBC initiative is a kind of signal that the mission of this undertaking is to involve teachers and students and also attract new generation attention, those who will become potential viewers of NBC in long term.

Launching a new site whose target audience is youth promises large revenues through subscription and advertising. An on-line version of different media sources is one proven way of enlarging the audience. Newspapers like The New York Times follow this practice. a newspaper-in-education program , http://www.nytimes.com/

It is obvious that teenagers mostly are informed through the Internet, where they have an opportunity to choose from numerous information sources the one that best suits their taste and demand. This is the main advantage of the Internet over TV, but one can never say definitely that a viewer should choose only one from these media.

Almost each broadcaster has its own web site. Most important in gaining success is to position the product so that it says what you are and where you are going. What are you providing to your audience? The public will make their choice individually. The choice depends on reliability, fairness, and quality of accountability to viewers, listeners, and readers. It is time that shows the results of our decisions.
Looks like reality shows are changing their battlefield and after fully conquering our TV screens they have started to enter the world of the Internet. Well, at least there is one and it’s called DATE: UNKNOWN. DATE: UNKNOWN is a New York City based Web 2.0 startup. DATE: UNKNOWN links couples who meet online and then documents their date, unscripted, real… full of love. And what’s good for us? Well, we can view the actual date and get pleasure, learn, well you know if nothing less this is very interesting and cool.

According to the website, most stuff is filmed in NYC, however occasionally some episodes are filmed in different states. Currently the website is updated every Monday at 6:00 AM EST with an episode. Well, not bad for beginning but frequent updates would be nicer. Anyhow, the owners say that they will soon offer daily updates. So, stay tuned, visit the DATE: UNKNOWN website frequently and enjoy the show!
A new and innovative Web 2.0 service hits the web. Meet RemoTV. RemoTV allows you to access your media anywhere with your cell phone. All you need to take advantage of the RemoTV service is a multimedia cell phone and a data connection service.

Currently RemoTV is in an early Beta phase and as its creators claim, more exciting and advanced features will be coming in the near future. Accessing your media from any browser, accessing your files when your PC is off just to name a couple.

What are you waiting for? Get your free RemoTV account right away!
It seems that Web 2.0 websites are emerging in every field, sector and industry. One of the last sectors to join the Web 2.0 euphoria is a legal sector. No matter how odd it may sound, a new law 2.0 web site Avvo.com has been launched recently.

To put it shortly, Avvo rates and profiles lawyers. Each lawyer is assigned a rank. Yes, Google comes to mind for sure. The Avvo users then can search through thousands of lawyers and choose the best one.

Avvo's ranking system is not less obscure than Google's Page Rank algorithm. However, we can still learn something about the ranking system from the Avvo's website.

The data that Avvo collects comes from multiple sources (state bar associations, court records, lawyer websites, and information lawyers provide to Avvo). Then, the data is fed into some sort of a mathematical model that calculates a score on a ten-point scale and assigns to each lawyer.

As the Avvo website claims, the ranking is unbiased, there is no favoritism (i.e. all lawyers are treated equally), the ranking is developed by legal experts and what is more important to the website users - the ranking is easy to understand.

It is no more a secret why Google has experienced a phenomenal success - Google's Page Rank is not easy (I'd say almost impossible) to manipulate. It looks like that Avvo is taking the same approach. The website claims that a single lawyer cannot adjust his/her ranking, which is good. The rank can be falsified by a lawyer by providing false data to Avvo but in this case the lawyer can lose his/her license. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that the information provided by the lawyers to Avvo will be correct.

A big difference between the Google's Page Rank and Avvo Rating is that the former is based on a strictly mathematical model and no matter how complicated the PR algorithm is, it is valid, because the inputs of the algorithm are easy to quantify (back links, keyword density checks, content relevancy, etc). The latter however is an attempt to quantify a lot of qualitative data, which is inherently tricky.

Another problem that Avvo may face and I'm sure the company will face is the legal issues with the (unhappy) lawyers. Moreover, Avvo has already been sued by a pair of Washington State attorneys on the grounds that the Avvo rating system is unfair and deceptive and thus violates the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

All in all, Avvo is an attempt to introduce a ranking system in a highly litigious community and a lost case can cost Avvo the whole game.

But more danger can come from unsatisfied users. Shall the Avvo rating system fail (e.g. a lawyer with a top rating turning out not to be that good at all), users will lose the confidence in the service and this can cause far greater damage to Avvo than a lost case to a lawyer.
iChat is one of the first Web 2.0 applications for iPhone. iChat is a chat application that allows you to log in to your AOL IM account.

iChat is a new application and as expected there are some limitations and known issues. It doesn't support groups, buddy icons and more than four simultaneous conversations. Another issue (which has quite surprised me) is that it works in Firefox and Safari but not in the Internet Explorer.

The only drawback of iChat is that the user data passes through the developer server. While the developer claims that no data is harvested, still it’s of a bit concern to provide your account details.

All in all, this is one of the earliest iPhone Web 2.0 applications and I believe we'll see many others as well.
India may stage an Indian Grand Prix in 2009. According to the Indian Olympic Association, the Association has signed a memorandum of understanding with the FIA. The very first Indian Grand Prix will become a reality if the Indian Olympic Association manages to build the track and the infrastructure by 2009.
"Dear Mr. Schmidt, You may be aware that Privacy International yesterday published its first privacy ranking of leading companies operating on the Internet. Google Inc performed very poorly, scoring lowest among the other major companies that we surveyed."

This is a beginning of an open letter sent by Privacy International's Director Simon Davies to the Google's CEO Mr. Eric Schmidt.Privacy International is a London based human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations alike.

Privacy International released a report on Saturday where Google has ranked at the bottom of the list containing 22 companies. According to Privacy International, other companies have problems with their privacy practices, however none of the 22 companies sunk to the Google's level.Google has certainly made a message that Privacy International's report was based on numerous inaccuracies and misunderstandings about Google's services.

According to Privacy International "Google has embarked on a smear campaign within the media to discredit both PI and the report".Well, research methodologies are not always 100% accurate. Even if we assume and agree on that Privacy International has no interest in placing Google at the bottom of the list, there is a chance that the survey had some inaccuracies and misunderstandings.

However, Privacy International is not alone. An independent European panel is already inquiring into Google's policies to make sure they conform to Europe's privacy rules. Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick Inc. has already alerted a number of consumer groups in the USA and the nation's regulators are under pressure to make Google change some of its privacy policies.

If you carefully think about the amount of data that Google gathers, matches and analyzes, it may sound fair to put the search giant at the bottom of the list. In my opinion no other company has such powerful facilities to collect, match and analyze the user data than Google has.

Deciding if this is good or bad is up to you. If the data collected will be used to improve the service and overall user experience, I have nothing against. If users won't benefit, that's another story.
On Saturday evening I was watching on TV how Hungarians broke a world record in simultaneous kissing. More than 6,400 couples joined lips for a few seconds at a party outside the country’s parliament, a nice and romantic place indeed :).

In 2004, 5,327 couples kissed in Manila and Filipinos broke the record. In 2005 a new record by Hungarians followed when in Budapest 6,124 couples kissed. This February brought the championship title back to Philippines thanks to the 6,124 kissing couples and now the Hungarians claimed the world record back.

Do you know why other nations don't participate in the simultaneous kissing "contest"? I don't. But who cares? All we have to do is to wait until Filipinos break the record again. I wonder how many couples will be kissing in Manila. By the way, do you know how they count all those couples with a pretty good precision? I don't know that either :)
I've never used the Safari browser on Mac but I had a Safari-based browser in my Nokia communicator. While I like the Opera browser in all its flavors (the Windows version, the mobile version), still the Nokia communicator's Safari based browser is the best browser I've ever used on a mobile device. In terms of rendering and performance, the Nokia's mobile browser was as fast as its desktop counterparts and now it is possible to use the Safari browser on Windows.

Safari 3 public beta is currently available as a free download at www.apple.com/safari, and is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time.

According to Apple, the final version of Safari 3 will be available in the upcoming Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard, and will be available as a free download to Mac OS X Tiger and Windows users in October.

Download Safari 3 and experience the blazing performance!

Web 2.0 applications running in our browsers is not a new story, however Web 2.0 apps in a mobile phone is definitely something new. Apple announced that their iPhone will be Web 2.0 enabled. Moreover, the company claims that the Web 2.0 applications created for iPhone will look and behave like built-in applications. Further, the Web 2.0 applications created for iPhone will have access to iPhone's internal services and all this will come at no cost of compromising the phone's reliability or security.

Think for a minute about all advantages that web applications have and now think about having the power of Web 2.0 apps in a mobile phone. Apple is offering something really innovative. We can safely assume that the only limit of iPhone applications will be the fantasy of a developer.
I've been a passionate Formula 1 fan for quite long for now and the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday was one of the most interesting and fascinating races I've ever watched. I believe no F1 fan would watch the race without excitement and yes without fear.

Eight drivers had to retire from the race and two drivers (Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella) have been disqualified. Accidents? The Canadian Grand Prix had pretty of them and BMW's Robert Kubica had a terrible one.

Nevertheless, Lewis Hamilton was the happiest man in the world. After five podiums in a row he finally managed to win the race. His magnificent victory followed his equally well qualification on Saturday, which brought him the pole position.

Despite the intense race full of accidents and restarts, Lewis was driving calm and he showed a nearly perfect driving.

Congratulations to Lewis and the McLaren team.
Ghazanchyan.com and Gorvard launched new website, TheITarticles.com with a Web 2.0 approach.

The website provides IT related articles from such fields as web technologies, programming, databases, computer networks and servers, SEO and Internet marketing. Articles vary from pure theoretical to highly practical including code examples and actual algorithms.

149 articles are submitted as of June 8, 2007. As expected, the website provides article tagging capabilities and the RSS feed. Article submission is allowed to the website administrators only.

Overall impression from the website is very good. The look of the website is clean, navigation is easy.

If you work in the field of Information Technology, don't forget to checkout the website when you have a chance.
The Guinness Book of World Records is going to list a 9 year old video game wunderkind Victor M. De Leon III as the world's youngest professional gamer.

The third grader, better known to cyber rivals and fans as Lil’ Poison, has been playing video games on the professional level since he was four.

Victor's father, Mr. De Leon, is a passionate video game player as well and so is Victor's uncle Gabriel.

A Major League Gaming Pro Circuit Event starts this Friday at the Meadowland in New Jersey. 2,500 competitors will be battling at the three-day event for titles like the titan on the Xbox game Halo 2. Prizes are up to $20,000. Victor will be among those 2,500 gamers as well.

Good luck Victor!

SOURCE: The New York Times

There is a possibility that we won't see the British Grand Prix in the Formula 1 calendar in 2010. Silverstone is old and needs to be reconstructed. Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that the British government covers the reconstruction costs, as well as pays the fees demanded by the F1 Group. No money means no British Grand Prix, which is sad indeed.

An estimated budget for the reconstruction is around $200 million. Not a cheap job, however, the amount is far less than that spent on the Olympcis by the British government.

From pure economic point of view, the Olympics is a one-time event (though lasting a couple of weeks, bringing in a steady stream of tourists and revenues), while a Formula 1 grand prix is an annual event. This means that in the long run, a Formula 1 grand prix can bring in higher revenue for a country than the Olympics can.
"The web was going to be the great educator, but the cult of the amateur is now devaluing knowledge", says net entrepreneur Andrew Keen.

It's not difficult to guess that Mr. Keen is speaking about Web 2.0. Indeed, the Web has changed rapidly. The pace of change has been higher than anyone could anticipate. Inherently a change can be to the better or to the worse. More often, every change brings good and bad. The web is not an exception.

Illegal downloads have destroyed the music business. TV and radio broadcasting companies suffer as well. Examples? There are many. Take the latest hit from FOX, Prison Break. Anyone could download and watch illegal recording. So, this is definitely a bad thing about Web 2.0. But illegal distribution of content (software, music, videos, etc) had been around long before Web 2.0's arrival. The most important change that Web 2.0 has brought is about content creation and distribution. Personal websites changed into blogs, user-edited reference websites (i.e. Wikipedia) are more popular than professional reference websites, news sections in websites are replaced with RSS feeds and so on.

Wikipedia is the 17th most visited website on the Web. Britannica.com is ranked 5,128. Wikipedia boasts 1.8 Million articles and is absolutely free. Britannica is a subscription based service, but has 100 Nobel prize-winning contributors and more than 4,000 experts. The problem with Britannica (and generally with other subscription based but professional quality reference services) is that it can never come close to Wikipedia in number of articles.

Have you ever noticed that from 10 searches in Google, the first page of roughly 7 queries contain a reference to Wikipedia page? That's it, the secret of Wikipedia's traffic miracle. Finding something in Wikipedia is quicker than pronouncing the word "Britannica". The concept of the "long tail" is what makes Web 2.0 going.

On another hand, when it comes to the quality and reliability, Web 2.0 has a clear disadvantage. If I had been given a dollar for every mistake that I found in Wikipedia's 1.8 million articles, I would be a millionaire. When it comes to a serious research or a need for a reliable reference, I do use Encarta Encyclopedia and never trust Wikipedia. No sensible person can trust a source that can be edited by anyone. However for tens or hundreds of quick daily lookups Wikipedia is quite ok. Wikipedia is a good source of trivia, but not an encyclopedia.

But what can be done with all this? The Web is free and it cannot and shall not be controlled. Web 2.0 is a natural evolution not an artificial. Web 2.0 sites are not gambling or porn websites and cannot be banned. After all, nobody urges us to use this or that website. It's totally up to us which websites we visit, which websites we use as a reference, which websites we trust, like or dislike.

A week has not passed since eBay's acquisition of StumbleUpon and we have another one - FeedBurner has been acquired by Google. FeedBurner, a privately-held Chicago company that syndicates more than 700,000 bloggers and podcasters has been acquired by the search giant and after a week of speculation and rumor it is a fact now.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed, however a rumoured amount is $100 million.

If in eBay's case it was not immediately clear how StumbleUpon would be integrated into eBay, in FeedBurner-Google duet the synergy it is crystal clear. By acquiring FeedBurner, Google will be able to track and place ads on feeds that are processed through the FeedBurner system - a perfect combination. Add to this Google Analytics along with the Blogger service and you have a full circle.
A new version of Guns N' Roses song "Better" have been played the last couple of days on the Texas-based radio station Q94.5Rocks. This is a dream come true for all Gunners. According to the station, the version played is not a demo or a leak.

Ever since the station started playing the new "Better" it's the most requested song.


The radio station web site is running an online poll with a question "From the following list, which band is your favorite?". The results? As of June 2, 2007, Guns n' Roses have a 69% of the votes (1298 votes) leaving far behind AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Aerosmith and many other rock bands and performers. In the picture you can see the looong red bar, which belongs to GNR of course!
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