Lab+6+-+Discussion+on+Influence,+The+new+currency+of+Web+3.0+by+Rob+Dickens

Article: http://memeburn.com/2010/10/influence-the-new-currency-of-web-3-0/

With the continuous advancement in technology the Web has continued to evolve as well. More specifically, the influence on the Web has become very user-related. Meaning that more and more content found on the internet is from ‘us’, the users. Giving us more power through blogs, social networking websites and Etc. Dickens makes it a point to emphasize that more individuals are creating a brand identity for themselves through the internet. I believe this statement is true; I am personally an active user by participating through Facebook and Twitter. Mind you, I was very hesitant at first in participating in the two social networking websites. After joining them, I became addicted, in such a way that if I wasn’t on my laptop on these sites I was on my smartphone using these websites, waking up and on these websites, going to sleep and on these websites. It has been integrated into my everyday life. These social networking websites to me, metaphorically represent a playground where individuals meet new people, voice their ideas and opinions and as well document their lives. What I find scary is that all this information is posted on the internet about everyone for online market researchers to access and use. Nothing is confidential anymore.

Furthermore, based on what Dickens announced in his article, all these different activities taking place on the social networking websites build your brand identity. Based on what Dickens defines as brand identity, I would assume that my brand identity isn’t that strong because I have only joined Twitter 20 days ago, as for Facebook I have had it since 2008. I was curious about how I ranked in the so-called Twitter world. So I put twittergrader.com to the test. The results came out and I was a bit shocked, considering I had only joined Twitter recently. My Twitter grade was 44/100 and I ranked 4,449,517 out of 7,926,571 out of the users that joined Twitter at the same time I did. The results are based on various factors including your amount of followers and amount of individuals you follow, your participation on the website and many more. I wasn’t to sure how to view these results, if I should be happy I have a somewhat middle grade on twitter or possibly disturbed that I am putting in too much time on Twitter based on my ranking. After viewing my results I tested my friends’ Twitter grade, he joined Twitter in 2009 and his grade was 64/100 and ranked 2,457,171 out of 7,926,718. I think he might be spending a bit too much time on Twitter based on his ranking. In conclusion, I found Dickens article only reiterating something that individuals using social networking websites already know, but at the same time he introduced these unique brand identity measuring tools on the internet that I never knew existed. Furthermore, I found twittergrader.com very interesting and eye opening.