Next New

The next new media is something really hard to define. Like Steve Jobs said people don't know they want something until you've shown them. We have many social media sites that bring together all types of people. From dating sites to selling your items there are too many to count for various things.
A new media would have to be something that would bring at least a million people to the site with a common interest or bring those people together to work towards a common goal.

The new media could be a site for tenants of a building to talk to each other and post problems in their apartments. The site could also be used to rate the building in terms of whether or not the building or the surrounding area is good. It could also be used to help people move in or out of the building.

Another possible new media could be a site for business owners in the area to talk to each other and figure out ways to bring in more customers. It would benefit all of businesses in the area to work together so that they can all increase their profits and increase their range of business to other areas. The possibilities are endless and you can't really pinpoint something that will be successful until it is actually put into place

Wiki So Far

During the last few weeks I haven't contributed to the wiki yet but I have been researching Youtube Red which is this new form of viewing videos on YouTube. Along with some added bonuses such as ad-free videos and YouTube red exclusives there is a lot of talk about it and I think it would be really interesting to investigate further. There are also a few things that could be changed on youtube that many youtubers themselves have talked about such as their copyright system. They complain that the system is broken and that anyone can abuse the system easily which makes it harder for content creators to make a profit on youtube. Both topics are important because a lot of people use youtube to search up music and other things from content creators so it would be beneficial to look more into both the copyright system and the new YouTube Red and why should people pay to use it.

P2P

File sharing is when you distribute or share content over the internet.  P2P file sharing is similar where  a person shares their files over the internet and others can view and download the file. P2P sharing is like downloading a torrent from one of the torrenting sites. You visit the site and pick out what you want to download and when you click the link it connects you with someone already sharing the file. When both of you are connect it starts transferring the file and when its done it'll start the process of allowing your computer to share that file with other people who are also downloading that file. The more that people share the faster the download is and the more people who get to view it.

There are legal issues with this because media producers such as television and record companies view this as stealing their content. They want new people to buy their product because it makes them more money and they believe that other people are making money off their product. However in truth the act of sharing brings more attention to the content. In one case there was a musician who released an album for free for everyone to download and only asked people for donations if they wanted to. After some time the amount of money that was received was greater than the money they had made on their last album.

Another example would be with the film "Steal this film" which was made to be purposely distributed on P2P sites as an experiment to see whether or not using P2P sites would gain the film more attention. The film itself was downloaded two million times in eighteen months and more than three million viewers. The film received more exposure than it would have ever got and since it is still around people are still downloading and donating money because they enjoyed it. It is still illegal to use P2P sites to download media but in my opinion if they would use the sites to their advantage they have the potential to make more money than they would have.




Sources:

https://econsultancy.com/nma-archive/56421-content-producers-should-take-advantage-of-p2p-not-fear-it

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy has always been an issue for everyone since we don't want to air our dirty laundry in front of strangers. New media has given us an outlet to post things that have happened in our lives and share it with the people we know. Before social media we would hear about other people's lives by meeting with them and talking or through other people. Now we we hear about their lives on social media nearly instantly. Since social media as blown up we tend to overshare some details of our lives and it makes you wonder whether we have any privacy at all.

With better technology comes better security but in some cases people don't bother using these security measures. Everyone changes their passwords in order to stay secure however, how frequently do we change our passwords? A survey reveals that more than 40 percent of gen-X and millenials never change their password or change it when they are forced to. Which is a huge security problem when it comes to keeping your information safe. Things like bank statements and credit purchases are linked to your e-mail and if someone were to break into your email they could get away with your information very quickly.

We have to be careful with what we share online because most of the time the things we end up sharing online could come back to bite us. Anything from posting a pet name to your mother's name can affect how secure your accounts are. By posting more personal information that gives other people possible information they can use to break into your accounts and steal sensitive information that could really be used to hurt you.



Sources:

http://www.javaworld.com/article/2101287/java-security/survey-reveals-generation-gap-in-attitudes-about-security-and-privacy.html

Advice for Baruch

Using new media for Baruch offers many opportunities for the students and professors to brainstorm ideas on how to make the campus a better place. In the past the college expanded the campus by getting the plaza outside 25th street and it was something beneficial for all. Now there's a place to eat and hang out with friends outside of class that wasn't far from the college.

Using new media we can get opinions from students on what they would like to see changed and what they enjoy about their campus. Professors could also input ideas on how to run their classes smoother and things like that. Using new media is a very fast way to collect information and use that information to improve things in and around the college. After all the ones paying for the college should have a say in what changes should be going on.

Creativity and New Media

I decided to try Second-Life for a little bit to see why people enjoy it. The first few minutes were the tutorials and all of that and after wards they throw you into the world and let you explore. For the first thirty minutes or so I explored the island I was on and nothing else. After that i started to talk to people and few of them were foreign countries like Brazil and Peru and others were from Germany and France and other European countries. They were friendly and taught me how to customize some basic things. The rest of the time we were talking about anything that came up at the time. Overall the experience was decent like flying through trees and all that however, I didn't really see the appeal to continue to play this and spend money on clothes pets and other things. The avatar I made at the beginning was honestly enough for me and the rest of it just seemed like a waste of time and money.
Second life allows you to be creative with who you are and what you are online and I see why people like playing it but it just doesn't have the same appeal for me.

Creativity

New media allows people to share faster than before and because of that we see a huge influx of creativity. We share pictures and music in a couple of seconds and everyone we know gets to see it and comment and share it with others. Other people might like the photo or video and might want to make a change to make it funnier or more artistic. The great thing is that we share and add our own touch to content and in a way it makes us a part of the content.

If we look at the song "Frontin' on Debra" we see that its a mashup between two different songs from two different eras. DJ Reset took these two songs "Debra" and "Frontin'" and created a whole new song from them. New media allows people to contribute and change things so that in the end we have the original work and the new work. New media allows for much more creativity and rapid sharing of this new content which is a great thing in this day and age.

Sources:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/10/1-1-1-1

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds have been around for sometime now and one of the interesting features of these worlds are the ability to redefine who you are. We go about our daily lives going to work or school and then spending the rest of our time with friends and family who know who we are and how we act. Virtual worlds allow us the opportunity to create a persona and have them meet with other people around the world and communicate or play together most of the time in a carefree environment. Some of the biggest virtual worlds people could name are Second Life, Minecraft, and World of Warcraft.

These virtual worlds are helpful to some people with social anxiety because it allows them to interact with people in a stress free environment. If anything should go wrong for example in a virtual world the person could just log out or change servers. If something goes wrong in real life however the consequences are very real and could last a lifetime. It allows people to relieve stress and it helps them be more creative in some cases such as minecraft.

A good amount of users of these virtual worlds are children who like to explore and be creative without limitations. In many cases these kids can create almost anything if they can imagine it. These virtual worlds can also help a company hold meetings and get creative ideas out. These worlds allow the employees to save travel time and money and in addition these meetings can be held anywhere in the online world. Places such as a bar or ski resort can be used as a conference room where the employees feel more relaxed and they are more likely to engage more with their co-workers.

These virtual worlds can also be used for team building exercises. If we take a group of employees and divided them up, put them in teams and have them play against each other they have to learn how to work together. It allows people to build trust and companionship by pitting them against a common foe which in this case is the opposite team. These virtual worlds can be addicting in some cases where people get so involved in their online persona or their online game that it starts to take over their real life responsibilities.

With new technology coming out such as virtual reality glasses and things like that the most likely step forward would be plugging ourselves into the internet itself. In the future we might be able to actually become our online personas and live for a while online. It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel but the truth is that soon fiction might become reality



Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/#57945f3f143b

http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html

Blog about Twitter

Twitter is a quick way to open a discussion about the topic. The good thing about twitter is that anyone who uses twitter has a limit of characters so they make their points as concise as possible and the discussion benefits. However, the problem is that you can't really make a good argument within the limit and if you do it lacks information that could possibly help the discussion. Comparing it to blackboard or an in class discussion a twitter discussion leaves out information. The good thing about twitter is that it can include more people as opposed to a blackboard discussion which only allows students to post.

A blackboard discussion or an in class discussion has more depth and information to it than a twitter discussion and because of this twitter shouldn't be used to discuss a topic. An in class discussion is better because it allows everyone to get their ideas out and go in depth into why the think the way they do. A blackboard allows the same thing only difference is that one is online and the other isn't. However sometimes an in class discussion isn't always great because all the students might not be present. Twitter and blackboard allow all students to contribute even if they aren't physically in the classroom.

Social Networking Sites

Most people today have at least 2-3 social media accounts that include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,  Linkedin or any other site. Between these most people are connected to everyone in their lives and many more that decide to follow them on any of these accounts. Between these social media accounts in my opinion Facebook is probably the one I like the best.

If we look at each one individually we see there are similarities with all of them however, each one has a unique feature that sets it apart from one another. Facebook can be used for a variety of things from liking your favorite musicians to posting about your day. The good thing about Facebook is that it allows you to connect with people and see what they're up to and you can keep up to date with important events around you. The downside is that it can be addicting knowing what goes in our friends lives and the same goes true for the rest of the social media sites.

Twitter is a good way to send a quick message to whoever is following you. Celebrities can use this to inform their fans of upcoming events or upcoming projects that they're working on. The limit of characters on twitter makes it so that people get to their point within less than a paragraph. The downside of this is that most of what people post on twitter is usually useless nonsense like what they had for lunch.

Instagram is for people who like sharing pictures of whatever is around them. Its like an entry course to photography for people who use it. They take pictures of anything and its shared and liked and passed around so it circulates around quickly. This is a great way to share pictures of things you like or might be interested in. In my experience most of what is on Instagram is food. I can't count the number of times I've gone out to eat with a friend and the first thing they do with the food is take a picture of it. For them its like saying grace and its immensely annoying.

Linkedin is very similar to facebook but more professional. Linkedin is really good for finding jobs and networking with people in your field of work. The great part about Linkedin is that you can network with a person and then you can network with people they know and so on. It makes use of the six degrees of separation. Most people you network with can introduce you to even more people and it can be very easy to find contacts in your field just by creating a profile on Linkedin. Downside to this is that you have to be extremely careful on what you put on Linkedin. Some of the people you are talking to could be your boss and the worst thing to do is make a bad impression.

Overall I see the positive uses for social media as a whole however, it could never beat real interaction. Social media as a whole can be a great thing to keep in touch with people you know that you might not see everyday.

Social Net'g

The way we communicate has changed drastically since the introduction of social media. Before we would meet up and usually talk for half an hour or more about anything and we'd call it a day. Now we communicate for maybe less than ten minutes and in those ten minutes we get through a lot of conversation without ever meeting face to face. The great thing about this is that we can talk with people who are far away in a matter of seconds. We get news straight from people around the world in a few moments and its really changed how we see the world.

 The downside to all this communication is the lack of physical presence we have with one another. Apart from that most things we would usually share with our close friends such as a break up or a job opportunity is instantly shared with everyone we are associated with. The lack of privacy is in my opinion disturbing because now whoever you know whether they're a close friend or someone you just met has access to everything you have ever posted. This changes the way we make decisions or judgements because now we have all this information about a person that we didn't have before.

For corporations and companies this helps them with advertising and public relations. If someone has posted something negative about a product or service the company can address it directly or start working on the problem so that their customers are happy. Advertising has become so much easier in my opinion for companies because they have access to the information about their customers such as their life style. This helps them creates ads specifically designed to target their audience and help them grow their business.

The weird part about seeing what other people post is that it can be addicting. Why do we want to constantly know about everyone else at all times? Scientists have called this "ambient awareness" where we find the information of our friends interesting and sometimes addictive. The problem with this is that we don't really need to ever see a person to actually know what's going on in their life.
The amount of face to face conversation is slowly going down and because of that we are becoming more and more secluded. We can't convey the same emotions through a screen than we could face to face. For example if our friend's pet fish died then we would try to comfort them and make them feel better. Over social media that would look like a few lines of text and some emojis. That social interaction that we're missing is critical to our emotional well being. Through these interactions we learn to build trust and learn empathy towards others.

Personally I believe that all this sharing of information is too much to deal with. In the future we could just plug ourselves into the internet and just live online like some episode of futrama. I find it incredibly frustrating that people want to share all this information online without any physical interaction at all. I personally don't want to stay at home talking with someone over the internet when we could be outside talking or doing something else.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html

Blogs v Wikis

 One of the biggest differences between blogs and wikis is who is doing the writing. Another big difference between blogs and wikis is the discussion surrounding the topic at hand. On a blog we start off with the author of the blog talking about something and then expanding on their points and expressing their views on the subject. Once the author finishes, people are allowed to comment and respond to the author's views. Take for example the presidential candidates and their campaigns. One person on a blog might talk about why they are supporting one candidate over another and others can respond to their views in a comment section.

Wikis on the other hand are more informative than a blog. By that I mean that in a blog the author  writes with a bias and might leave out some information on purpose or by accident. They might cherry pick their information so it suits their point of view and in many cases this has happened. On wikis the information is unbiased and for the most part very accurate. Wikis are a collaboration between groups of people where it benefits all users to post relevant and accurate information about the topic. On a blog users can comment and discuss their points of view however they can't change or modify the author's post.

The best and worst part of wikis are that anyone can edit the page. This leads to huge amounts of contributions which can be a good thing in some cases. However there could always be misleading or inaccurate or even out-dated information on a wiki. Since anyone can change a wiki page there have been updates to the pages that are aimed at reducing false information. According to the NY times article wikipedia has added what they call "flagged revisions" which makes it so that an experienced contributor has to sign off on the contribution so that it goes through. It makes a big difference to how accurate the information is. It allows someone to double check the information before its posted.

In my opinion I don't think blogs can be used for collaborations however they are good for discussion and ways for people to see different points of views. For wikis I believe it encourages discussions by having accurate information so that others can use it to their benefit. For new ways to use wikis I can think of maybe two ways. For small businesses it could work to help work out any problems that they might have with an app or product. After they make a change to the product they could add that they fixed it as a footnote. Another way wikis could be useful would be for medical purposes. There would have to be a way that only doctors could access medical information about a patient such as logging in with their employee id or something to that effect to protect the information of the patient. Other than that I would say that even though blogs are more biased they still have their uses as compared to wikis


Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/technology/internet/25wikipedia.html?_r=2
http://www.informationweek.com/how-to-use-wikis-for-business/d/d-id/1034971?page_number=3

Social Networking v Interpersonal Networking

Finding a job in today's world is both more complex and simple than it was a decade or two ago. In the past we would look for jobs in the newspaper or go around passing out our resumes in hopes that we'll get called back for an interview. A critical part of finding a job has always been networking. In the past we would usually meet face to face with people and exchange information however, now we can communicate and network with people over social media. Which of these two do you think is superior? Does it depend on the job or is one ahead of the other? That important question can be the difference in getting an interview or getting tired of waiting for a call.