Bridging and Bonding Sites

UCC.ORG: The United Church of Christ is a network for different religious sects to interact and talk about their faith, find upcoming events, and news articles relating to faith and religion. The only real restriction to be part of the UCC is having a Christian faith. UCC.ORG is a bonding and bridging site because it links people from all over the world together for the common goal of sharing, reading, and learning more about the Christian faith and local and national programs.

Facebook.com: Facebook is a bonding site because you can access friends, colleagues, family, and classmates quickly. With the message wall feature, it's easy to drop a quick note in a shorter time that it would take to make a phone call or even type a text message.

Twitter.com: Twitter is the internet's newest, and debatably most bizarre, social network site. With people migrating over from other social network sites, and celebrities creating their own to keep their fans in the know about future projects, concerts, and filming on a movie or television series, it's become a great bridging network but it also serves as a bonding site because people are able to quickly send notes to one another regarding a post or just a random thought.

Amazon.com: Amazon is one of the best bridging sites because it offers just about everything and it would be almost impossible not to find something of interest. Books, movies, dvds, electronics, posters, clothing, etc. are all on that site with easy access.

eBay.com: e-Bay is one of the older bridging sites that seems to be fading out in favor of other, more secure sites, but e-Bay is another site that has more things for sale than you would ever think of buying. Things on e-Bay range from the practical (a new DVD set that would be much more expensive in the store, textbooks for a fraction of the price, etc.) to the bizarre (napkins that people claim are touched by certain celebrities, food in the shape of the Virgin Mary, etc.) but it's a site that's so diverse that everyone can find something of interest.

Craigslist.org: Craigslist is one part MySpace, two parts e-Bay, and one part uncanny. You can advertise to sell just about everything on Craigslist from a couch and a television to looking up someone's personal ad. It's not as easy to navigate through as e-Bay or Amazon sometimes but it's much more entertaining and sometimes the advertisements are actually humorous (check http://craigslist.org/about/best/den/1188385012).

Net-Neutrality

The FCC is trying to pass regulation regarding net-neutrality which will keep the internet free, accessible, and open to all users. What private sectors and high-yielding companies want to do is limit the sites that users can access and the loading time of sites to sway individuals away from certain sites. The FCC has taken a strong stance against this.

Chairman Julius Genachowski stated, "The FCC must be a smart cop on the beat pressuring a free and open internet. It is vital that the internet continue to be an engine of innovation, economic growth, competition, and democratic engagement."

Internet companies such as Google are also concerned about this potential threat against net-neutrality. Google VP Vinton Cerf said, "Allowing a handful of broadband carriers to determine what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the features that have made the internet such a success."

To limit internet access by slowing down the loading time of sites, forcing users to pay additional fees to read information on certain websites, and to promote a "class system" of internet users, it provides an argument against the First Amendment. To limit internet access because of an individual's ability to pay the additional fees limits their ability to free speech, access to the media and press, as well as their personal interests.

President Obama said on May 29th that he was "firmly committed" to the neutrality clause. He was also quoted saying, "we can keep the internet as it should be; open and free." On the opposing side, the Bush's Administration said these new rules weren't needed and refused to adopt a Democratic net-neutrality proposal in '06.

It is very important to protect the fundamental rights of every American. Passing legislation for net-neutrality helps to promote the First Amendment by making sure all internet users are capable of viewing and accessing all of the same websites regardless of all other circumstances.

All information taken from Bloomberg.Com

Five Observations from www.internetworldstats.com:

1. I'm surprised that Australia has such a low percentage (20.8 million, compared to Asia which has the highest population with 704.2 million) of internet users compared to the rest of the world. With cities like Sydney, I thought they would be higher on the list.

2. Out of the Amerias, North America has 73.9% of the internet users but only 36.7% of the population.

3. The North America region has 246.8 million internet users. South America has about half with 128.7.

4. I'm surprised that Germany has more internet users (55.2 million) compared to England which only has 43.8. I thought that England would lead in Europe.

5. I thought South Africa would have a high percentage of internet users but they are fourth in Africa (after Egypt, Nigeria, and Moraco) with 4.6 million internet users.