Friday, September 5, 2008

life follows capstone

A lot of the discussion in last spring's capstone class revolved around Facebook, mainly because senior Natasha Lindstrom was reporting on the potential of widgets (or applications) to not only wreak havoc with your computer, but -- worst case scenario -- steal your identity. A few days after Natasha turned in her piece, all 4000 words of it, the LA Times broke a story on that very topic.

But we also talked in class -- well, they talked. I ranted -- about the way Facebook can deliver highly targeted audiences to advertisers based on what appears on users' profiles. And again, life follows capstone. In Thursday's Washington Post, staffer Rachel Beckman writes that every time she logged onto her home page, she was bombarded with diet ads.

"Maybe it's my age, my sex or the fact that it knew I was engaged," Beckman writes, "but the site decided I was a gal who needed to drop a few pounds. And it wasn't shy about its tactics."

The old Facebook fear was that prospective employers (not to mention university officials) would have far too much information about what a particular user did on a Saturday night. Now it appears you not only have to worry about losing your identity -- but admen telling you that identity just doesn't measure up.

Natasha, by the way, is currently doing good work as a reporter at the Victorville Daily Press.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to let you know I bookmarked the new blog....and Megan, Jeremy and the other NYC capstoners are finally meeting up for a much-needed drink this week! We'll let you know what comes of it.

barbara kelley said...

wish i could be there with you -- so long as i didn't have to pick up the tab! i want updates from you all. cheers. bk

Lauren & Brendan said...
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Anonymous said...

BK, Im so proud of you for entering cyberspace! The key will be to keep it up. Wow, those capstones sure have come a far way. Facebook's a fascinating space - I signed up when Beacon launched cause I wanted to see what the deal was, and the funny part is is now I'm loving it and finding lots of old friends (many from SCU). Hope all else is well, and we should do a dinner soon!