All About Working

If you found yourself unable to access Twitter or Facebook yesterday, you were not alone. Twitter went down between 9:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EST on Thursday morning, August 6. Service was spotty afterward with network timeouts. By evening, things seemed to have improved. Reason given for the problem, Denial of Service.

Denial of Service occurs when hackers overload a web site with server requests and prevent legitimate users from using the site.

Facebook appears to have encountered similar issues but not as severe as Twitter.

This writer was a bit surprised to learn how dependent she had become on these two sites for instant information, especially concerning an event taking place that day. It was quite a revelation to learn how quickly new technology had a part of my planning process!

This was just too good to let it pass without a mention. It seems as though Bryan Benilous, a historical newspaper specialist at the digital-archive company Proquest, said he and his colleagues came across a Boston Daily Globe article from August 24, 1902, titled, “Face Book The New Fad,” describing a party game where revelers sketch out cartoony caricatures for fun.

“I think it is interesting to note the similarities with this first iteration of Face Book as a shared social experience,” said Mr. Benilous. “It’s almost like having friends write on your wall in a much less tech-savvy way.”

According to Ellen Gruber Garvey, a professor at New Jersey City University:

Drawing games and versions of the Surrealist parlor game Exquisite Corpse were popular activities. . . . it was common for Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries to keep guestbooks in which visitors and friends could scribble thoughts or jokes -– not unlike a MySpace or Facebook profile page. One notable version was kept by Amy Matilda Cassey, an abolitionist from Philadelphia.

Mr. Benilous and his group also discovered what appears to be an emoticon in a transcript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln, they’ve uncovered a 1942 Washington Post article titled “Think Before You Twitter” about gossiping and a 1903 article referring to the first “pocket telephone.”

Goes to show, there is nothing new under the sun!

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly! And you just knew it was going to happen someday. Somehow, some way, a study would be done to show that all that time you are spending watching YouTube selections and checking your Facebook page would pay off! Well, maybe you didn’t, but here’s the data:

MELBOURNE (Reuters Life!) – Caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? It’ll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity.

The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive that those who do not.

Study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, said “workplace Internet leisure browsing,” or WILB, helped to sharpened workers’ concentration.

“People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration,” Coker said on the university’s website (www.unimelb.edu.au/)

“Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity,” he said.

According to the study of 300 workers, 70 percent of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB.

Among the most popular WILB activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites, playing online games and watching videos on YouTube.

Coker also said Coker said the study looked at people who browsed in moderation, or were on the Internet for less than 20 percent of their total time in the office.

“Those who behave with Internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without,” he said.

So perhaps companies need to update their policies on blocking certain Internet sites and reevaluate their use.

This article came from reuters.