Soundclick.com article

This was the only one I could find. :-/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20070923/ai_n20518926

ebay summary

Unlike online communities such as facebook and myspace, ebay is an online community that is not solely for the purpose of communicating with friends, or sharing pictures and videos. Ebay is a way for people to buy products for a cheaper price than they would in a store since most things are sold through an individual. It also presents people with the opportunity to get rid of used items, and even sometimes make a profit. While this website seems like a good, foolproof way to buy and sell things, both the buyer and the seller are subject to fraud, as described in the articles from msnbc.com and smallbuniesscomputing.com.

The article entitled, “Man arrested in huge ebay fraud,” is about one of the biggest frauds that ebay has every experienced. Over 1,000 people sent big sums of money to a laptop company called Liquidation Universe through ebay; however they did not receive their laptops. What made them angrier was the fact that an ebay verification service, SquareTrade, had approved Liquidation Universe and therefore assured the buyers that they weren’t subject for fraud. The company started off with good reviews from it’s buyers for the first few months, and then people started complaining that they weren’t receiving their laptops. Due to this, it’s unclear to the people involved in this case whether this company started in order to scam people, or that business was so poor that they couldn’t send the buyers their laptops. The company ‘stole’ close to one million dollars.

In contrast to the first article, “Victimized! My First eBay Fraud,” is about a seller who doesn’t receive her money. What’s ironic about this article is that the author, Beth Cox, had written many articles on how to avoid online fraud, warning people to be careful when they make online transactions. She was informed by paypal that the buyer had a fraudulent account, and since she was not covered by paypal’s seller protection policy, she couldn’t get her money back. Unlike the first article, this scam was preventable, but the seller wasn’t careful. The email address of the buyer was not confirmed by paypal, but sellers are reluctant to ask customers to be confirmed by paypal in fear that they will lose business this way. As a result, Beth Cox lost $15. While this isn’t a lot of money, no matter how much money is lost, it’s still upsetting, whether it’s a buyer or seller.

Wikipedia article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/technology/05wikipedia.html?n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Wikipedia


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/education/21wikipedia.html?n=Top/News/Business/Companies/Wikipedia

The Outsourced Brain

Here's a link to the article we read in class today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/opinion/26brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

heroes website

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/virtual_community

Urbis class summary

The internet has made valuable connections since its birth many years ago. Of those connections, the most important are of the people at a worldwide level. These connections wouldn’t be as entertaining if it isn’t for the recent explosion of social networking sites. Many beckoned me into joining through popularity. We have heard of MySpace, Facebook, and Youtube, all luring us in. Yet, there was one social networking site that caught me hook, line and sinker!
Urbis.com is a site dedicated to those all around the world who are in love with reading and writing. Whereas most sites are focused on staying in communication with friends only, Urbis.com revolves around friends critiquing and giving advice to one another. With that being said, most users should have an idea of what they want from the site. Users may want a publisher’s attention or simply post their hobby for others to read. As discussed in the class, there are many advantages to using the site. First, there’s a freedom to write whatever you wish never being confined to a notebook. Secondly, scouts search for new talent in the site eager for fresh ideas and new styles of writing. Thirdly, some book groups held in the “real world” limit the number of people who can hear your work as well as only hearing a specific genre. On Urbis genres are continually added, you’re not limited to one, and users who are willing to hear you are in the thousands! Finally, the aforementioned writing groups are where Urbis draws its inspiration; Urbis is its’ future representation. In the more accessible, more digital times we live in it seems every activity has its own url.
I found the site as a very useful way to get wide variety opinions from different ages, backgrounds and areas all around the United States. I am thrilled at the class’s overall reaction; most agreed it was a very useful tool. It could be accessed as a way to perfect one’s homework assignment, an idea I couldn’t come to realize. In addition, the credit system encourages reviewers to leave in depth comments about the works you’ve written no matter their background. However, an issue over copyrights surface, anyone could copy your hard written work and you wouldn’t know. Urbis protects users from copying other users, but it could only do so much when it is out in the open on the web. Surprisingly, unlike many other social networking sites Urbis has zero advertising. This is something that most internet savvy users find very welcoming. It has also been brought to my attention in class that it is very hard to figure out how Urbis receives it’s funding. Perhaps, there is a site devoting itself to make the audience happy, with no corporate puppeteers behind the stage.

EBAY

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078461/
and
http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/emarketing/article.php/3079321
dont worry, they're not long!