Blog Assignment #5

1. An example of the Long Tail Theory can be seen in television. Programs that are viewed more and are more popular are available on any channel that you can find, but the more niche stuff that not a lot of people watch are only available through On Demand, pay-per-view, or through extra payment plans to get the extra channels making it only available for the specific audience that wants it.
2. I personally don't buy much online. I don't like to put out my debit card number on any sites. If I do purchase anything online it's usually over Christmas and on Amazon, and that's when I know I'm searching for a specific something for someone. So I guess my online consuming behavior would represent that of a routiner.

Privacy and Enhanced Personalization

       While reading Privacy and Enhanced Personalization, it was clear that you could either have more personalization and less privacy, or less personalization and more privacy. So really it’s up to what the user finds more important and what they think would be more convenient for them. I’m definitely skeptical about most information that some sites ask for and usually try to steer clear from it if I can. The presence of privacy guidelines and a layout of what the information is being used for would definitely be helpful and would persuade me more to give out some information, but even then not all of it. The web is a huge place and that information could get anywhere. What should determine what websites we put our trust in and which ones we don’t?

       One question that I propose about privacy is, are the guidelines and descriptions that some sites give about the information they receive really true, or is it just something they put in to try to persuade users to give up their information? It’s already hard to place trust in people we see day to day, why are we trusting these people without faces over the internet.