How could mashups serve international governance? Would mashups serve to make government more effective?

According to Wiki, a mashup is a web page or application that uses or combines data or functionality from two or many more external sources to create a new service. Mashup web page is a useful and effective infrastructure for government and citizens which are usually provided by third party sites. They would usually contain different sources together that normally a site would not provide. It is considered convenient to use because the users can absorb diversified information off these different sources from a single website.

Mashups could serve the government with more effectiveness due to the ease of usage of the application that enhances the information gathering and information providing by the government to the citizens. It could also serve as an effective tool for the NGOs where NGOs could apply it on executing their tasks and projects across countries. I think mashups plays an important role in international governance since it retrieves information easily and make things easier. In addition, Mashups allow the government to obtain information through e-governance. E-governance could help the government connect with the citizens. For example, the president Obama video we saw in class showed how president Obama interact with the people and how people can acquire useful information or file complains by the White House website.
Overall, mashups makes government more effective. It makes the society more civilized and therefore, this will however benefit both government and the citizens.

http://dailymashup.com/

http://local.alkemis.com/local/index.htm

What does global civil society look like? Where are the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forces located, and how do they achieve their ends?

What does global civil society look like? Where are the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forces located, and how do they achieve their ends?

A global civil society is basically a non government organizations (NGOs) or intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and political actors that share the common interest and value. Global civil society is unlike the markets that earn profit which allow people to exchange goods and services or the government that is non-for-profit organizations which applies law and regulations. It is a non-for-profit but a private informal gathering of people that create effective influence toward governments on issues regarding to citizens. They bring the message across to earn their rights and freedom for the citizens usually with the help of information communication technology, the ICT, and internet which include the social networking sites like the Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, so forth.

The good forces may be located at places with citizens that are unsatisfied with their government and gather forces to rebel with protests. However, the bad forces may be applying to governments that show propaganda of false promises to the citizens and gain advantage of their election popularity. The global civil society is the society we live in today; it gathers power and protects people with a more liberal and democratized way.

www.mapbuilder.net/users/thomas77lin/84846

Does Internet Democratize the Consumer? Is privacy a concern?

Yes, I think Internet does democratize the consumers.  With the development of Internet, it has transformed our lives from a traditional market into a democratized society with enhanced market of varieties.  Nowadays, internet takes an essential part of our lives.  The convenience of internet allows seller able to promote products and advertise efficiently.  Since majority of people use internet today, companies and businessmen all take advantage of this way of media advertisement.  With the massive variety of choices there are on internet for consumers in modern days, it is extremely dissimilar to how the markets are like back in the days.  Back in the days, there were not many choices of products to select from.  They were actually limited by the lack of promotions and advertisement.  However, having to have diversity of choices when consuming is not always a good thing either.  Since the internet supply consumers with information to products with variety, our expectation rises which leads to less satisfaction after buying the goods.  I believe this is the marketing era that we live in today which the market tries to satisfy customers’ need by supplying possibly more choices for the consumers with the help of internet.  Therefore, it leads to democratize of the consumers and it will eventually result in disappointment to consumers. 

Privacy has always been a great concern to people on the web.  People are aware of personal information leakage when accessing to websites, where websites makes people to fill in their information in order to apply for accounts or when purchasing items online.  However, I personally think that it all depends on the popularity and feedbacks of the site.  When a site is well known, usually they are guaranteed on protecting their customers’ personal information in order to maintain their reputation.  Anyhow, since anything can be hacked on the internet, I think everyone should still be aware of their private information when they put them on the web.