Weekly Roundup #1

Since this is the first weekly roundup, let me explain what is going to happen. First, I'm going to select a few stories that made an impact on me. Now these may be important or trivial or a mix of both. I plan on covering a range of topics from sports, politics, technology, social media and so on. So on any given week, you may find a topic that you are interested in.

As far as formatting of the weekly round up, I plan to have each topic be a separate page or permlink, but at this time it will be just a single post.

So I hope you enjoy.

Story One - Michael Jackson is still dead

Well unless you have been in a cave the last week, then I'm sure you are aware that Michael Jackson passed away. Now under normal circumstances this would be a sad story, but in the case of Michael Jackson, you have to almost feel sorry for the person.

After growing up with a reportedly abusive father, thrust into the spot light at a young age and then on to becoming "The King of Pop", it would take a completely grounded person to survive and still be able to function in reality. Well in the case of MJ, this did not occur. He went from fame to alleged child molester to a complete freak of society. There have be many stories over the years that covered all the details of his life and what has been happening since his death, but I'm not going to touch on that today. I'm going to focus on why we are still talking about focusing on his tragic death and not dealing with the gargoyle running North Korea, who by the way launched a few more test missiles today or talking about the election fallout in Iran or the mess in Honduras.

Well the reason we are not hearing more is because many Americans are focused on TMZ, People Magazine or Entertainment Tonight for their news stories. So this forces the main stream media to also cover the "entertainment" news just to get ratings. As I write this on the day America celebrates its Independence Day, I just feel for all those that do not understand the importance of what is happening in the world around us or what the 4th of July truly means, but are more focused on who a Jonas Brother may or may not be dating.

So at this point, I feel that we as Americans are in a world of hurt unless we change the way we look at the world and ourselves. So hopefully as time goes on, more people will realize the importance of real news and not something that is shows up in the grocery store checkout line.

Story Two - Rivals make nice on Twitter

As many know, Twitter has the power to spread the news, promote a product or just connect people of similar interests. Well this past week, a few stories started to surface regarding rivals in business that have now become followers of each other on twitter. With this, they have actually exchanged some nice pleasantries.

In business the overall company may be a rival of another company, but internal divisions may be partners with the rival. This has been the case for years, for example, Microsoft and Apple, IBM and Microsoft, IBM and Apple. It's just a part of doing business. So when I saw the stories about what is happening on Twitter, I was generally surprised because a Twitter account can represent the company as a whole.

First we had Coke and Pepsi. These classic rivals have come to the social media age and become friends. I'm not sure how much true interaction will take place, but it is nice to see how social media can bring such fierce rivals together. Personally I think they are doing it to keep an eye on each other.

Next we had Microsoft and Linux getting together. This one is actually a surprise. More so for the Microsoft side of things as they tend to come off as a "stuffy" company that really doesn't get it. As far a Linux is concerned, this fits right in with the openness of the platform. So when I read that they had become Twitter buddies, I could not wait to see where this was going. Much like the Coke and Pepsi friendship, I think this is more of a PR stunt by Microsoft than a true opening up.

Story Three - New FaceBook iPhone App

During the recent Facebook Privacy Conference, Facebook showed off what would be the next release of the iPhone application. This has been needed for a while, although as they state, push notifications will not be in this release. Based on what I have seen, this will greatly improve on the mobile access of Facebook for iPhone users.

As part of this update, users will now be able to handle events, upload videos, create photo albums, have a new news feed and more. Personally I hope the way requests are handled is improved. As it stands now, you can not accept a friend request and place them in a friends list. This in and of itself will improve the privacy settings that you have in place. The one item that will get a lot of use will be the mobile upload of videos. Since the release of the iPhone 3GS, sharing mobile videos has gone wild. Just have to look at the Google report on YouTube upload statistics.

Story Four - Palin calls it quits

Breaking on Friday was news that the former Vice President Candidate was hanging it up. She announced that she would be stepping down as the Governor of Alaska as of July 26th. At which time, she will hand over the reigns to the Lieutenant Governor.

Now as the day went on we started to find out some of the reasons behind her decision to step down. For me and many others, we feel that she is doing this to step out of the spotlight just long enough to be able to run for President in 2012. During the campaign, she was always described as a "Maverick" and unpredictable. Well she hold true to form with this move.

I'm sure there are many that hope she just fades away. Those being the Democrats and the media. Sure she made a good news story as she was the butt of many jokes, but she was so unpredictable, she scared the Dems and their counterparts in the media.

Personally, I didn't think she was a good enough candidate to run for Vice President or even President, but now that BO has set the precedent for being under qualified to become President, I think she would have a good shot at making it to the ballot in 2012. I hope she runs and does well, because I think in the end she can stir some good debates on a wide range of topics. If she holds true to what she said in her release and stays away from politics, I wish her the best.

Wrap up

I hope you enjoyed the Weekly Roundup and come back for more. Now that I have decided to go with this weekly post, I'm sure they will expand on more topics and go more in depth.

So until the next round, stay safe and think about what the 4th of July truly means. And if you see a member of our Armed Forces, stop and say thanks.