Angry at Ticketmaster!

So my first experience about a month ago was a pretty good one for the most part, I had no problems and everything went smoothly. Well one of the bands (the main band) that we saw at the last concert (Fall Out Boy) is also performing in another concert along with Blink 182 and also Panic! At the Disco and a couple of other bands. We thought we'd try to get tickets for this up coming concert in August and they were supposed to go on sale today at like 10:00 a.m. and so my friend calls me at like 10:30 a.m. and she mentioned that we couldn't get any good seats. So I go online and check it out. To my dismay, the set-up of the site and accessibility to get tickets at all isn't even set up like the first time I got tickets on Ticketmaster. I click on the area near us to get the tickets and all of a sudden, it takes me to another site entitled "LiveNation" and I could not access anything quickly or easily and it was redirecting me all these places and wouldn't let me even look at tickets. It was very frustrating! I have little experience with these types of sites, and so that doesn't help. I remember last term, Winter term, having talked about issues regarding Ticketmaster and its sister-sites that you are directed to to buy tickets and pay more. Honestly, it was a while ago, but we talked about how there have been many lawsuits and legality issues involving such ticketing sites that you are redirected to from Ticketmaster. I just wanted to express my anger at the ridiculousness of these sites. Seriously, is that really necessary? All I want is to see some great bands. Sorry I would like to get out. It's sad that people are lame.

"Grassroots Citizen Journalism" and 6/1 Class

Today in class we talked about sites like Chicago Indy Media, First Monday, and Oh My News and the whole idea of "amateur" journalists. There have been several sites, according to Professor Macek, like these who had been started across the country and around the world that were found to contain falsely reported news. These sites often develop from activist groups that want to post their message and have their ideas read and known. It is amazing to me that people would do anything to put out what they believe. I can easily see how different groups have attached themselves to the internet as their source to reach others who may stumble upon it or be looking for it. There are so many different "topics" out there that have activists out writing and posting and in of course, in some cases, caused problems with false or over-opinionated material.

I think that this is an interesting use of the internet. I also think that everyone is entitled to their opinion. This type of reporting is good for "entertainment" I think, but tells me little about real problems in the corruption of government and the juicy stuff I would rather read about. Maybe this is also a huge part of the future of news and the way it is ditributed. I would just hope that we can still find truth and have a stable place for our news still existent.