Godfather Collage

To create this collage, I used Adobe Photoshop. I Google Image searched “Godfather Baptism Scene” and “The Godfather Violence” and found these photos. The links are listed below. I started by collecting many imaged from these two searches and filing them into a folder. I then narrowed down the photos, so that when put in the appropriate order, would tell a story. I then added a title and text underneath each image (or pair of images) to explain each step of Michael’s development. To make it look even better, I added stroke and drop shadow layer styles to all of the layers on the document. I think that this final product effectively explains my point, and makes my theme less complicated.

http://www.brendanmckillip.com/uploaded_images/godfather_baptism-760381.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3032/3051270458_da2429a92d_o.jpg
http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/the_godfather_pacino.jpg
http://www.masculinity-movies.com/wp-content/gallery/the-godfather/godfather2.jpg
http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2011-01-30/FhtCziAvtaigfpEqvoEylcemAxfeeyHmrqAGJnqJFCntssjhvwbyfAcheEow/godfather.jpg.scaled500.jpg
http://content6.flixster.com/question/48/52/95/4852952_std.jpg
http://www.flixster.com/quizzes/the-godfather-part-i-quiz-756186

Facebook, The Social Powerhouse

Facebook, a cultural phenomenon that has spread like wildfire, now hosts 600 million users (active in January 2011). Not only is the amount of users impressive, but the company is valued at $40+ billion, with $2 billion of revenue in 2010 alone! For Facebook to be worth that much, there much be more than just the value to the user. Facebook is like Google, because it can sell advertisement to market to a large group of people. Facebook has the upper hand, however, because companies can use users personal data to taylor marketing campaigns to their target audience.
Beyond Facebook’s obvious monetary power, the social networking site has changed social interactions drastically. When cell phones came out, many people saw that as a big change in social interaction. Now looking at Facebook, physical social networks have been digitized within this website. People’s Facebook profiles become their “social hub” and representation of themselves.
I personally find Facebook useful and scary. Feeling like a FBI agent, users can search details about random people or keep tabs on friends and family. It is also scary because if Facebook were to become “hacked,” all of our personal data could be shared with spammers from all over the world, and 600 million people would be exposed to risks like identity theft or worse.
I have personally gone through stages of rejecting Facebook by deleting my account, but always found myself “needing” to use it. In such a short span of time a simple site has become so vital to the social interactions of a whole generation.