Tiger Woods Should Hate New Media

Since we heard the news that Tiger Woods crashed his car on Thanksgiving it seems the gossip surrounding his infidelities has taken over the airwaves. However, the first news outlet to break the news about Tiger's affairs was not a newspaper, but instead a celebrity gossip website TMZ.com. TMZ has the same credentials as a blog, using "inside" or anonymous sources as there means for information.
However, this type of new media website allowed for these mistresses to have a forum in which the public could hear their side of the story. Through new media they were able to save text messages and emails and relay them to the public. Unfortunately for Tiger he forgot that things that were written down could always be brought back to light, and in his case destroy him.
I just thought that this was an interesting story to end the year on because it sums up so much of what we have been discussing throughout the year. Many of the problems with social network sites that we have discussed in the inability to retract your statements once you have written them online. Not only can it have an affect on you being hired by a company, but as we have seen with Tiger Woods it can also lead to your demise both in his career and as a public figure.

Wiki's and Wiki Answers

The other day I had a first hand problem with wiki's and the failure for them to be inherently democratic. On Tuesday rumors had been going around that Kanye West had passed away, and suddenly it spread like wildfire. Soon everyone had changed there status on Facebook to show their sympathy for the rapper. However, when I went to Google to determine whether the story was fake or not I found out that it was all just a hoax, and once again Kanye West went back to being one of my most hated people in the world.
However, I couldn't help but notice that when I Googled "Is Kanye West Dead" there was a link to WikiAnswers, whose response was yes. After I had officially known this was false I found it extremely funny. For those who relied on this website though this could have had a totally different effect. I just thought it was a great example of wiki's being dominated by the majority instead of the minority. It wasn't until five hours after the hoax started that the website was changed to finally tell the truth.

So Much for Chicago

The big news event of the day was the announcement of the site for the Summer Olympic Games in 2016. For the past couple of weeks this has been a growing news story, especially since President Barack Obama has gone to the Olympic committee to speak on the city's behalf.

This news came as a shock to me. Personally, I thought once Barack Obama went to the Olympic committee it was a sure thing for the city of Chicago. After all of the discussions about how much the Olympics could help restore not only America's image internationally but give a boost to our economy.

The city of Chicago was in a state of shock after believing that they were one of the favorites. However, not only did Chicago not win the bid. They came in dead last of the four finalists. I for one wanted to see the Olympics back here in the United States, but it doesn't look like that will happen until at least 2020.