Theirs a saying that's been around for sometime now, "The Best Things in Life Are Free." The quote is supported by MasterCard and other corporations that want to draw people's attention to things they want. I love free things, I'll bet the person next to me loves free things. We all love free things!!!
What would the world be like today if people were to give out more physical free economic gifts? Well, it would be awesome at first, but eventually I believe that our economy would plummet and humanity would restore its primal instincts and we would all start taking things from one another. THAT'S NOT THE POINT THOUGH!
However... What if people could access other things, but in a different state of manner?
Oh Wait their is! The Internet! Of course the World Wide Web as a butt load of information, multi-media channels, and enough photos and profiles to sink a battleship. But do people really give gifts over the Internet? What? That doesn't seem logically correct or even remarkably possible. Well my friends nothing is impossible nowadays, with the technological advancements society has made over the last fifty or so years.
Just to be curious about gift giving here a little something from yours truly just to show how much I love giving back to the community. I hope you enjoy the videos posted as you continue to read my blog....enjoy!....
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A gift economy is a social theory in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future quid pro quo (Wikipedia). This means that you give something for something else. It's kinda like paying it forward, only no kids die from this. Providing public goods poses two key challenges, however, the first of which is motivation. Getting individuals to contribute to the provision of a public good despite the temptation of free-ride. The second is one of coordination, being if a group of individuals are motivated to contribute towards a public good, they will need to coordinate their efforts and this will involve its own set of difficulties and costs.
People upload videos, post blogs, and open new profiles on Facebook or Myspace everyday. They contribute so much to the economy by sharing their lives, photos, and friends to your dismay. But... do you really have to upload a video, or even start a new profile? No Way! Just by typing in a few words in Google you are contributing to the online economy because you are accessing someone else's information that they posted. If you wanted to give back you could post a comment or start something new.
Could you image actually walking around in the World Wide Web? It would be like a Giant Mall filled with stores that you could play free games, watch free videos, and check out cool photos. To some perverts out there...Yes This means pornography too!
Online information has become so accessible and so easy to get that an infant can access political information. We tend, however, to overlook what we really have going for ourselves though. Over the last decade technology has advanced so far that we simply don't notice it anymore. I mean what the Internet has to offer society, considering all the web pages their are, the only things we really would have to do is eat and get up to go to the bathroom. Everything else can be transmitted through cyberspace right into our brains.
Websites have advance so much and information as reliable as finding a screw for a broken toy can be solved by asking a question online. Whether its blogging or just web surfing the information, odds are you are going to find that missing screw.
If you made it this far in my blog congratulations! Most of the people would have stopped two videos back and commented on the videos rather than the point I was trying to make. I really hope that you enjoyed the gift of laughter and this made your day so much better. Like good neighbors should people should always look out for one another--even though you may not know them or see them in your life, it's still good to give back to the Community...The World Wide Web Community that is.
Kollock, Peter (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Retrieved 16 September, 2008, from the University of California, Los Angeles Web site: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/economies.htm
Wikipedia Site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
Pinchot, Gifford. The Gift Economy. Retrieved on September 16th, 2008, Sourced from: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC41/PinchotG.htm
Barbook, Richard. (1998) The Hi-Tech Gift Economy. Retrieved on September 16th, 2008, Sourced from: http://firstmonday.org/issue/issue3_12/barbrook/
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