Death on Facebook and Other New Media Ramblings

With this past few classes being in regards to death on Facebook, I figured i jump on board and talk about the subject, as well.  I had the misfortune of a close friend of mine who passed away in the past year.  In the few days immediately after his passing and subsequent funeral, his Facebook exploded with friends and family members posting either videos and pictures of past experiences with him.  It was quite heartbreaking to see just how many lives my friend touched and how dearly he was cared for.  His profile was never memorialized; I don't believe his parents really cared for it.  Of course as time has passed since the event, the posts have calmed down, however, every now and then I'll check back on his page and there will always be new pictures or videos posted of my friend.  That's the thing that shocks me the most, the fact that people still keep his legacy going through the continual postings.

On a lighter note, this past weekend I saw The Social Network.  I thought it was an excellent film.  Just how truthful it was, I'm not sure.  The typical comment about the film, from my knowledge, is that people couldn't believe how much of an asshole Mark Zuckerberg was.  Truthfully, I don't believe what he did was all that bad.  What did he do, exactly?  According to the film, he was asked to join three other people who had an idea for what was essentially a dating site at Harvard.  He took that idea and expanded in a way that no one else could have imagined.  I don't see anything that's too too bad about that.  I mean look at Bill Gates.  However, the one thing he did, that I believe was dick was what he did to his once best friend, Eduardo Saverin, the first real investor and CFO of Facebook.  Recently, Saverin came out public and blogged a post on CNBC.  He doesn't discuss much about the film's validity or his relationship now with Zuckerbeg.  He does, however, discuss the importance of entrepreneurship in today's society.  He raises multiple important points that seem to resonate.

Finally, I want to discuss a topic that was brought up in class yesterday and that is the introduction of the iPad to Verizon.  Starting as soon as October 28th, the iPad will be made available at over 20,000 Verizon stores.   There will be three different types of bundle packages for the iPad ranging in different amounts of GB.  On the Verizon network, there will be a monthly charge of $20 per 1GB of data.  It will also not be the 3G model sold by AT&T.  This progression in relationship between Verizon and Apple will surely spur the rumors of a Verizon iPhone for sure, however, just how much could it really mean?  It seems as though every year there is a new date for the announcement of a Verizon iPhone and each year that date comes and goes with no announcement from either group.  IMHO, I don't see the iPhone coming to Verizon until Verizon releases their little-known new network, LTE.