January 18, 2012 will be best remembered for the “blacking out of the web” as several of the core business of the Internet have either decided to blackout the site (e.g. reddit.com) or black out their logo (e.g. google.com). The focus of the black out has been the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA, the Protect IP Act of 2011 or PIPA and the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act or OPEN. The problem with all of these bills comes down to one repeating issues associated with piracy. An action designed to prevent piracy does little to stop the textbook definitions of piracy and does more to harm the everyday customers.

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As the Association of Internet Researchers annual conference is just starting, it seems fair to offer a means and method to summarize or discuss some of the issues that were discussed during the conference. Therefore, the Center for Society and Cyberstudies will be creating the second digital journal from Association of Internet Researchers annual conference (#IR12). The format for the paper will be no more than 1,000 words discussing an current event that is impacted by the realm of the Internet. There must be an short abstract/introduction to the paper (no more than 100 words). We will review the submissions as a committee and pick no more than seven of the best piece that fit the call. The deadline for submission will be Decmber 31st. Submissions should be sent to shane183@gmail.com and should either be attached as a .doc or .rtf file. The subject line should be AoIR Journal. 

It is also important to note, the Center for Society and Cyberstudies is not directly affiliated with the Association of Internet Researchers or IR 12.0.

Today, Facebook rolled out some pretty dramatic changes to the front pages of the users. The gradual shift from a welcome portal to a centralized news feed has taken place over the past several months. From the most part, it is hard for the causal users of social networks to tell the functional differences between Facebook and Google Plus. Normally, these slight tweaks to the code have been primarily visual reorganization of data. Now, it seems the Facebook changes to the front page has fundamentally change the way the users of Facebook communicate with one another. While these changes will be described in the post, the point to note is that the changes to Facebook's user experience has been consistent with how the owner of social media properties look at their community and how those owners define their community.

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Google working within the realm of social networks is not a foreign concept. Google has attempted to purchase its way into the space with Orkut, attempted to redefine the space with services like Google Wave and Google Buzz & even provide support for connecting user between the different social network and the rest of the web with their support of the OpenID Inititave. However, this week Google attempted to carve their space within the online social network world with their introduction of Google Plus.

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One of the regional newspapers in Ohio wrote on Sunday about the ability of local residents to connect to high-speed Internet service. The argument that was presented in a follow-up article was that broadband connectivity was part of the overall business infrastructure planning of rural Ohio. The one point of concern presented in the follow-up article was the recent focus on reducing overall debt in the state budget would impact the development of broadband infrastructure within the local community. The point was raised that not having adequate connectivity could result in a lack of vital information being available to local business and services.

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