A few weeks ago, before we left for Jamaica, I got to visit with a friend I hadn't seen since graduating from high school. Josh and I have both relocated to the East Coast and while we have been corresponding via email for the last year this was the first time we'd actually been able to meet up in person.

We had a fun evening enjoying dinner (Ryan too!) at the Rock Bottom Brewery, discussing theater life (he is on tour with The Producers), and doing our best to figure out why the group of 35 (or more) women at the very long tables next to us had gathered together.

Josh has almost convinced me to get a Myspace page just so I can look up other people from Kalispell. Apparently he has gotten in touch with several old friends from MT that way, so I don't know...maybe I'll do it. But maybe not. We'll see.

For someone studying technology integration, I'm a bit of an odd bird. I like to play things safe because I have been convinced by the writings of the late Neil Postman that technology of any kind (printing press, clocks, cell phones, computers) are a Faustian bargain. As he wrote, "technology giveth, and technology taketh away." No matter what the technology is, there is something that will be gained and something that will be lost. And, the thing that is lost may or may not be worth the gains.

In the case of Myspace, I may be gaining access to many old friends, but losing a bit of privacy to the marketing and strategy teams of Rupert Murdoch. Just the guy I want to learn about my likes and dislikes. In a July 2005 article from the BBC:
(Full article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4697671.stm)

"Myspace, News Corp says, could drive traffic to Fox Interactive Media.

And most importantly, Myspace has detailed logs of its users' preferences, online behaviour and personal information.

That could help the company tailor what it does to the ever-more-discerning market which Mr Murdoch believes he has identified."

Will I outsmart Myspace? I don't know just yet. Then again, it may be too late to worry much about privacy issues. After all, google owns blogspot now and there are criticisms about google's privacy policies, so I'm sure that I'm in a similar heap of trouble just because of *this* blog. Sigh. Technology taketh away.