The Next New Thing

A type of "new media" that I would suggest is a forum in which students in each class are able to interact with each other and post questions and suggestions to each other. The forum would consist of subjects such as accounting, finance, marketing, management, CIS, etc. Each one of these subjects would further break down into levels of each class like finance 3000, finance 3610, finance 3710, etc. And they would further break down into more sections based on which professor is teaching their class. By having this, students and instructors are able to interact informally and get help and advice from each other. Furthermore, students and instructors would be able to get feedback from their assignments and see which assignments are too easy, too difficult, or too confusing.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

For the class wiki, I have began researching into file sharing applications and torrents such as BitTorrent, the history, the legal issues of the file sharing applications and websites as well as the megaupload.com, which was shut down a couple years ago because of the legality of its services. Furthermore, I have been looking into certain online games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive to experience the gameplay and obtain a first hand experience in the game so that I can write more about it based on experience and research. I am also looking into World of Warcraft because of its multiple expansions and friends that have played that game. There are many topics that I can look into and hopefully find interest in from World of Warcraft.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the process in which files such as movies, television series, programs and information is exchanged between people. Often, the files shared are purchased or obtained illegally and then redistributed to other people, usually through the use of the internet. An example of this is P2P. P2P refers to the process of file sharing through sites and programs. The P2P stands for peer to peer meaning that peers share files with each other. An example of P2P is torrenting. Torrenting is the use of a program where peers are on a digital network and take turns downloading programs. While downloading programs, they are known as leechers. When they finish downloading, they become seeders, generally, the more seeders, the faster leechers are able to download. Because torrenting is free, it causes a huge problem for big companies because of the growing problem known as piracy. Piracy is the illegal redistribution of goods. In the New York Times article "Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios", the article talks about how the growing issue of piracy, P2P, file sharing and Torrenting has costed the businesses producing movies a lot of money. Sales for movies and DVD sales have dropped a lot and the 2008 Batman movie "The Dark Knight" was a perfect example of the growing issue of piracy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/business/media/05piracy.html?_r=0

Privacy & Confidentiality

When new media was still in it's infant ages, the internet was not used to the capacity that it is used to today. Before new media and the internet, interactions were simple. Interactions consisted of phone calls and face the face interactions. Everything was personal and there was very little that could be concealed. Today with new media, we have the internet where anything that is posted online becomes public. By posting photos and information on to social networking platforms such as Facebook, information becomes public. Furthermore, new media provides anonymity and privacy as well. While things that you share online become publicly accessible information, when interacting with others online while using false information or playing multiplayer games, your identity is usually kept a secret and you maintain your privacy from the other users.

Advice

Some suggestions I would make to Baruch College to improve it using new media would have to begin with the integration of blackboard, the school's wifi and the Baruch email. As of right now, it is quite tedious to have to sign in to the schools wifi every couple of minutes, or every time you move around school. Furthermore it is tedious that we have to log in to blackboard accounts and our Baruch email separately. It would be much more efficient if our devices were saved on to the school's wifi and we would not have to constantly log in. It would be much more useful to integrate blackboard and access to our email into our wifi accounts so that it would be more accessible and accessing our information would not be as difficult.

CREATIVITY

New Media fosters creativity in many ways because the access of information on the web that users access and are exposed to can trigger many thoughts in a their head. This can create ideas that they can act on such as the Brook Barnes' article on the New York Times "Disney Tolerates A Rap Parody Of Its Critters. But Why?" In this article Barnes talks about how the hit "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" video by Soulja Boy had a parody created that mimicked the music video using Disney's Winnie The Pooh characters. The question being why Disney would allow their characters to be used in a parody that is related to inappropriate topics, not suitable to their audience. This is an example of how an new media fosters creativity. A beloved child's cartoon was used to create a parody of a completely unrelated topic, which happened to be Soulja Boy's music video. The use of new media and the convenience of the web allowed a user to link the two with ease and create a completely new idea.

1. Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why? The New York Times, September 24, 2007; available athttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html

Creativity and New Media

Using South  Park's avatar creating site, I created an avatar to most closely resemble myself. Using video sharing sites and texting and talking to others, I was able to come across this site and make one for myself. Using this site I was able to create an avatar of myself where I was able to customize my face, my hair, my skin tone, my clothing as well as my accessories. Using this I am able to get a glimpse of how a character based on me would look in the South Park series. The link to this site is http://southpark.cc.com/avatar. Another example I will show below is another avatar I created for fun.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are online experiences where people can experience a life different from reality. These Virtual worlds exist online and can have many people interacting with each other through this virtual space. The uses of these virtual worlds can be used in any ways such as socializing, entertainment, informative purposes as well as for work purposes such as planning. In the article "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get A Reboot", the author states that one of the benefits that virtual worlds provides is that it allows users to be "alone together". The statement "alone together" is an oxymoron because it puts together two words with opposite meanings but it refers to the fact that we are able to interact with people in these virtual worlds that link us together, however users are alone in the sense that they are doing so using a computer where users are typically alone. One of the benefits of Virtual worlds can be the anonymity of the users because they interact through a computer which can allow people to act freely without actually giving away their location and identity. Users are able to act freely without the sense of judgement being traced back to them. However, because of this anonymity, people often abuse this aspect and issues such as cyberbullying and cyberterrorism occurs because often times, these activities are difficult or impossible to trace. In CNN's article "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot",  another possible benefit also suggesting the future of businesses is mentioned where using computers and video calling, a company is attempting to create a way for companies to gather for meetings using video calling which would not require people to actually be physically there. This could reduce travel time and improve efficiency. This is one of the ways Virtual Worlds will benefit the future of society. 

1. Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life, CNN.com: Nov 5, 2009http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html
2. After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get A Reboot. April 30, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/

Social Networking Sites

Facebook- One of the most popular if not the most popular social networking sites in the world. Profiles and pages of people that essential post information, hobbies and pictures of themselves. They are able to interact with others and search for people they know. They have friends on Facebook and they are able to stay in contact and stay updated on their friends and their lives.

Twitter- Twitter and its tweets is basically a live feed of people sharing updates about any topic they may want. This can be used for updates on celebrities, popular releases, news, or just random thoughts. This information is limited to 140 characters per tweet.

LinkedIn- One of the most useful sites for professionals looking to network and share references. Having friends on this site allows you to share your resume with everyone and have people back and vouch for your skills online. This site is extremely handy for employers and people looking to be employed because it opens up your opportunities and everyone is able to see your experience.

Instagram- Another popular social networking site. Essentially it is a photo sharing application for smartphones that allows uses to take pictures and share them with friends and followers, as well as like and comment photos that others post. Instagram is very useful for people who want to share new things in their lives. "A picture is worth a thousand words".

Blog About Twitter

Twitter discussions differ from inclass discussions and Blackboard discussions in many ways. For starters, Twitter uses a system of "tweets" which are messages that the public or their followers will see based on their privacy settings. These tweets are limited to 140 characters and can have a photo or a link attached. Other uses can "retweet" the tweet which is reposting it for their fan base to see, they can also support or reply and can add to trending topics using hashtags. Twitter often tends to be a conscience stream of a persons thoughts. Blackboard discussions on the other hand, does not limit the amount of characters you use, it allows the use of pictures, links and even allows you to comment on each others posts. The lack of a limit on the length allows users to go more in depth and elaborate into thoughts and opinions. Blackboard and in class discussions are usually closed off from the rest of the word and confined in an educational space. The seclusion from the rest of the world often results in a more personal and engaging discussion.

Social Net'g

Social networks have revolutionized the way we communicate as well as the way we live. In today's society, practically everything revolves around the internet: specifically social media and social networking. Using Social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, we are able to communicate with each other from any distance in an instant. We are able to transfer information and data with the click of the finger. Corporations can use social networks to do research on individuals they are interested in hiring and to keep tabs on current employees. Using Social networks, these corporations can learn a tremendous amount of information about an individual by simply conducting a google search on their name and looking through their Facebook profile. While this seems like corporations have the advantage, individuals can benefit greatly from social networks as well. They can share references and have their information they would want others to see, such as their resume. Using a site like LinkedIn would allow them to share their experience and abilities quite easily.

    "Maureen Crawford-Hentz recruits for Osram Sylvania, the global lighting company. She says the new tools               have changed her life.

"Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting — ever."

One of Crawford-Hentz's favorite sites is Linkedin, a network of 8 million professionals spread across the world. Linkedin says users include executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Typing keywords into a search engine, Crawford can scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates that she can't find elsewhere." (Frank Langfitt)

In this quote from Frank Langfitt's article "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", Maureen Crawford-Hentz is an individual who benefited from the use of social networks, specifically LinkedIn. She was able to use the site to find individuals who were perfect fits for her company. The ease of social networking allows her to search through over 8 million people for candidates that fit her criteria. Prior to social networking, this was an impossible task.

While there are many benefits to social media, there is certainly a "dark side". This "dark side" refers to many cons that comes with social networks.  An example of this "dark side" of social networks is that there is no privacy. No one actually has privacy online. Since the internet is connected and everyone has access to it, anything you post can and probably will be accessed by another individual at one point in the future. If you post something on Facebook, it is practically available for anyone to see. No one is safe from this, including the first family of Facebook. According to Rebecca Greenfield's article "Facebook Privacy is so Confusing, Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private", Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, posted a family photo which was then accessed by random individuals and republished to the web via Twitter. This shows that no one actually has privacy on Facebook, including the Zuckerbergs. This is a perfect of example of the lack of privacy on the internet.

While the internet and social networks are clearly extremely useful and efficient, we lack privacy. The overall benefit is undeniable but it comes at a price of privacy. Even so, the internet and social networks have revolutionized the way of life in today's society and there is a bright future for anyone who can capitalize on this relatively new technology. Social media will continue to play a huge role in society and because of these reasons, I believe that there will be some sort of future development that will help to increase privacy on the internet. By removing privacy, one of the biggest cons of using the internet and social networks, it would allow social media to evolve into a even bigger driving force.


"Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting".  NPR. NPR,  26 November 2006. Web.  13 October 2015.  
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf
"Facebook Privacy is so Confusing, Even the Zuckerberg Family Photo Isn't Private". The Wire. The Wire, 26 December 2012. Web 13 October 2015.  
http://www.thewire.com/technology/2012/12/facebook-privacy-so-confusing-even-zuckerberg-family-photo-isnt-private/60313/

Blog V Wiki

Blogs and wikis are generally sources of information in which an individual publishes to the internet. They can both be valuable resources of data and information, however the reliability on these sources of information is questionable. While they are both sources of information, they do not necessarily provide accurate information. According to "How to Use Wikis for Business" which explains what a wiki is, one of the main difference between these two sources of data is who has the ability to publish information. A blog's posts can only be published by the owner of the blog and tends to be similar to a diary or journal that others can view while a wiki can be edited or published by pretty much anyone. While they both have their pros and cons, they both are not reliable sources of information when looking for facts. A blog can be very opinionated while a wiki has multiple editors which can keep information factual. Although wikis have many contributors, they tend to police each other's work, allowing the information to stay fairly accurate.

The use of blogs assist us today in many ways that contribute to the networked society that we live in. The article " Link by Link - An Internal Wiki That's Not Classified" states the use of blogs and electronic storage saves a lot of paper that we would normally consume and it allows us to be a lot more efficient all around because we are all able to access information from our smartphones and our computers. It also allows us to filter out information that we deem irrelevant with functions such as the find function which allows us to find key words instead of skimming through large bodies of text. The use of wikis and blogs enables us to find the information we seek much quicker and therefore allows us to finish our work much more quickly. Convergence is key in today's society because it allows us to be more efficient and it helps to slow down the use of Earth's resources.

One new way wikis can be used is to use it as a public database similar to Facebook that would allow anyone to search you up and gather general information on you. This would allow people to screen each other before meeting in case a person may be suspicious or dangerous. This could also be used for academic purposes to further elaborate on professors. It could be similar to Rate My Professor except it would go more in depth about the professor, and it would allow users to add their own experiences into the page.


"How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005   http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

"Link by Link - An Internal Wiki That's Not Classified" Noam Cohen, New York Times, August 4, 2008  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04link.html

Social Networking: Better or worse than the real thing?

Social networking has become extremely popular in today's society. Practically every person uses a social network whether its Facebook, Myspace or LinkedIn. Everywhere you look, people are virtually interacting with each other with the use of their smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Social Networking has become the new platform in which all information is exchanged and all interactions occur. In this day and age, if you aren't using social media in some way, shape or form, you can consider yourself uninformed. With social networking, physical interactions are scarce and there is a huge debate on whether social networking can actually replace physical interaction and physical networking. The topic Social Networking: Better or worse than the real thing will try to identify the benefits of both sides and look at whether or not social networking is indeed, better than the real thing.