Monday, April 28, 2014

The Next New Thing

A new type of "new media" can be dedicated animal adoptions. There are millions of stray dogs and dogs in shelters who are waiting for homes. Facebook is created for the connection of people, if a site is created for the connection of human and animals then it will be easier for people to adopt their next pet instead of buying, this new media can be called "Petbook". For this, there will be categories such as adoption separated by states so people are able to view animals closest to them. The best thing for people to post up are video, photos, and description of the animals they are so far that are under their care. I am aware that there are a lot of sites through out the internet from shelters, the bad thing about this is that not everyone is able to find websites by their names. Sometimes the shelter's names are very hard to make out. Petbook is organized through categories so it gives finder ease and it must be well designed like Facebook, Tumblr, and Youtube. Pet lovers can register accounts and do everything they can on Facebook, such as liking pictures, comment, and uploading their own pictures of their pets.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Our Class Wiki - So Far

So far I have worked around our wiki page trying to get a glimpse of how things work. I added to "Social Networking" that companies and organizations use social media to share their advertisements. There is also a Marketing page that has already been created by previous student. I have contributed the section about a company call Razer that produce gaming electronics. I feel that these are very relevant to the existing pages. I even posted up a picture.

I am planning to do more research and focus more on advertisement and how much companies have to pay in order to have a place on these social media websites.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is one of the most essential things in the media world. It is one of the most important aspect for a lot of people's entertainment needs. In the digital world, file sharing is referred to as P2P or peer-to-peer. There are many websites that allow file sharing such as BitTorrent or UTorrent. These servers are complete legal but it is the content that are uploaded and downloaded from that are illegal. These systems allow the users to "torrent" movies or music that other peers have uploaded. Programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Microsoft Office can be found and download for free. The internet is impeccable.

Citations:

1. The BitTorrent Effect by Clive Thompson, Wired, January 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Privacy and Confidentiality

Social media is a great tool to connect with people you already know but it can also put you in danger by exposing your information to strangers. Media websites such as Facebook makes it so easy for someone who may not know who you are to view your pictures, status, and check-ins. They can learn so much about the person you are, what you like, and where you go on a daily basis just by viewing your Facebook page. Sometimes people do not know how to work Facebook's privacy settings or they do not care who views their page. This is very dangerous regarding what the person who is viewing your profile's intentions are. Many rape and murder cases are based off of social media interactions. People who use social medias should be more cautious of what they are posting up because the whole world may be observing their actions.

Whatever you post up on social media websites do not belong to you anymore. Media sites such as Instagram, Snap Chat,  and Facebook have the rights to claim your photos because you have uploaded onto their site and it belongs to them. This is one of the biggest problem with social media right now. A lot of users are not aware that what ever they post up on these websites, they will lose ownership of it because Facebook has the rights to put ownership on it themselves. This gives them the right to use the pictures as advertisements or just keep them in their data base. Social media users should really be more careful of what they put up and not to expose their private life to the world.

Advice

You are hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the College. What are some suggestions you would make using new media?

I would tell Baruch to utilize social media sites such as Twitter. There are a lot of events, updates, and meetings all around Baruch but these information are not able to reach everyone. A lot of students miss out on important information such as when is the deadline to sign up for CUNY first or even the next big concert held by Hong Kong Club. Students go to school at a different time and most of the clubs or school staffs hand out fliers and pamphlets during club hours and day time.  If Baruch have a Twitter account students will be able to follow it and get updates right on their phone, instead of having a stack of paper handed out to them. This idea is better than e-mails because students tend to not check their emails or it may end up in the spam section.


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Creativity and New Media

Bitstrip is widely used by many of my friends on Facebook. It is supposed to be used as a picture status but a lot of people just use them as quirky posts on other's wall and some of Bit Strip's templates are so humorous. I finally gave it a go and actually amazed by how you can personalize your avatar and scenes. While I was going through the scenes I imagined myself and my friends going through the same sanarios but just more dramatic. Also, some scenes can allow you to be something else like you are in your own virtual world. I have created two below.


Creativity

With so many different accessible technology on the internet, this allows people to become creative and witty with their productions. There are a lot of material on YouTube that are mind blowing creative. Somethings you or your friends have never done but is shown on the internet. In the reading "Disney Tolerates Parody of It's Critters. But Why?" by Brooks Barnes speaks about rapper, Soulja Boy, music "Crank Dat" was paired with Disney's Winnie the Pooh as a parody video. There are many of these parody videos on the internet where people take one or two original products and combine them together. Disney is not happy about it but they will tolerate but Nickelodeon actually found the Spongebob and Crank Dat mash up funny.

Other examples of creativity on the internet are users such as NigaHiga who does parody of movies and summarizes them in under six minutes. WongFu Productions utilizes YouTube as a network to share their movies and short films without using money to actually publishing it on television. Another way that people show creativity is through this application call Instagram, where the users are able to take pictures and videos. These pictures and videos can be cut and edited to their personal liking then shared to the world. 

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

Monday, March 17, 2014

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds allow users to live in a dimension that their imagination create but with the help of the gaming companies of course. Gaming site such as Maple Story of Nexon helps many teenagers and pre-teens live in a 2D virtual world that allows them to dress up their character and level up their account to the point that they can afford all the expensive clothing. Many of my friends use this game to meet new people and "hang-out" during their free times. The game allow them to mask who they really are and portray and identity that they want to have. 

Other games such as Mindcraft, created by Mojang a Swedish company. "Minecraft, [a] digital LEGOs if you will, but it's a space for kids to excercis their imagination and to connect with others to also want to build and create things." This is very similar to what Maple Story has to offer, but Maple Story is more focusing on killing monsters and leveling up their accounts. Overall it is like a process of getting stronger to become more powerful. Server games such as Maple Story allows you create the character that you imagine and create virtually. You can have your very own personality online without anyone judging you. The virtual world is used for connecting with people around the world and creating the world that is different from reality.

The virtual world may seem awesome and fun but there are definitely cons. The cons relating to anything that is world wide web can be dangerous. Young children are talking and connecting with strangers who can be masking their actual identity such as age and gender in order to get close to the target they are aiming for. Another con is that when people spend a large amount of time in their virtual world, they disconnect from reality. I had a friend who was addicted to Maple Story, when Maple Story was still popular. She rather spend her day on that game instead of being around her friends in reality. Therefore, the virtual world has its way of disconnecting you from the actual world. 

I think the future of virtual world will be very limited, depending on which age segmentation you are speaking about. Pre-teens and teenagers will be the biggest part of the virtual world because they will be more interested in the world that they imagine but adults are more focused on building their life. Older generations spend their time going to college, working and preparing for their future. The virtual world, in my opinion will be very popular in the future. As gaming wise I think the virtual world will have more features and more realistic (graphic wise). 

1. After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Robot. April 30, 2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/

2. Social Influence and the Diffusion of User-Created Content by Eytan Bakshy, Brain Karrer, and Lada A. Adamic. Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Electronic commerce, July 6-10, Stanford CA. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ladamic/papers/SecondLife/SocialInfluenceEC.pdf

Monday, March 10, 2014

Blog About Twitter

A Twitter discussion is very fast past and to the point. There is nothing much needed since there is limit on how many letters you are able to insert in the box. Conversations are easily held and continued because nothing is being dragged out and lost comparing to a Black Board discussion. On Twitter you can have a discussion in multiple ways such has using the hashtag "#" or the at sign "@". The hashtag is used majorly for categorizing a topic and it allows people to find that topic easily when search. For example if you want to see post related to the Olympics 2014, you can put "#Olympic2014" or even, "#Sochi2014", when this is searched or if the link is clicked you are able to see thousands of other post about the same exact topic, if you post about the same thing you are able to contribute to the trending posts. This is one of the positive sides and use of Twitter, it is very similar to Instagram but Instagram is photos and Twitter is based on word post.

A Blackboard discussion is very similar to a blog post. The reason is because people would submit their post under the thread, or questions that the professor put up and students will answer. Each student can put down their fully written answer and other can reply. The post can be very big depending on how much each student writes. The second post can be pushed to the bottom depending on how many reply the first post get. Therefore it is very hard for students to reach each post. Also, it is hard to distinguish which post is a comment and which post is a reply to those comments. Blackboard discussion is good for those who are not willing to participate in class so it would benefit them by having an online discussion where you can reply to each student's post.

An in class discussion is most likely the most efficient one. The reason is because it is always easier to listen and respond at that point and time than to go home and read a bunch of post that your classmates post up in different times of the week. When you have a discussion in class it is easier to engage in the conversation. Students are able to absorb all the information given and understand each students in put easier. The downside of the Blackboard discussion is that a lot of students may have bad grammar or do not  put enough effort into their post to make it meaningful, I am guilty of both. Even though in class discussions are one of the best ways to have students to get involved with the lesson, not everyone is willing to participate. A lot of students are very shy and timid. Therefore they would much rather keep quiet. So a lot of students and their opinions are usually left unnoticed. This is where the difference of Twitter and Blackboard discussions comes into play and is better than in class discussions.

Social Networking Sites

Myspace is a classic, something that everybody has heard of, know of, or even used before. The Myspace era started in the early 2000s, when I was in middle school. It started as a trend for everybody to add each other on their "Top 8" friends list and post little comments on each other walls. I used Myspace mainly to write in the about me section and make it seem sophisticated and full of attitude. Other than that, there is always a feature that allow users to put in layouts and other things such as putting in a slide show of your pictures. This site has its benefits because it challenged in learning HTML and remembering all the codes. Since its been quite a while I have forgotten most of the things I have learned in the few months that I used Myspace.

Facebook is one of the most popular networking site around the world. I have been using Facebook since freshmen year of high school and I still find it quite entertaining. My first impression of Facebook is that it is very confusing since I've just grown out of the Myspace phase. There are a lot more features on Facebook than there is on Myspace, I guess Tom did not put enough work into Myspace (lol). The downside of Facebook is that we are not able to customize our homepage. With Myspace, as users we can put layouts and other HTML related customizable features. Instead on Facebook we can put information in our "About Me" and other categorized sections but Facebook is not about telling people information about us, directly but it is more about interacting with our friends and letting everybody on the internet know where we are going, and where we are at. I personally like Facebook because of it's ease to communicate and share things among friends through their walls and have group chats with 17+ people or making event pages to coordinate an event.

Twitter is most likely one of the most used social media around the world because everybody uses it to update each other and consumers about their business or life. This social media is so widely used that celebrities such as Ellen and business such as, Nike, uses Twitter. When I first used Twitter I found it so pointless because it is so bland. The layout and set up is very bland and boring in my opinion because I am more used to Facebook and Tumblr. I have never even considered using Twitter until I noticed how some companies used it to show release dates of the products. I found this very convenient because you do not have to refresh their homepage every ten minutes to find out news, instead you will get their tweet. I have learned to like Twitter more because it gives you a place to rant about your day and express your feelings. It is not recommended to post a status on Facebook sixteen times a day about what you are currently doing, it gets quite annoying.

Tumblr is one of my all time favorite. This is a blogging site that allows you to publish post and reblog other people's post too! It such an awesome trend in the social media world because it literally brings you to another world that you do not get to see when you are on Facebook or Twitter. On Tumblr you are able to see pictures, A LOT of pictures. You can follow blogs that are dedicated to certain things such as funny post, girly post or blogs dedicated to a celebrity. I love following funny post, girly post and traveling post. Overall, this site is very entertaining and can be used to pass time when you have nothing better to do. It also gives you the opportunity to customize your home page with layouts, just like Myspace did. It gives you a chance to make your Tumblr, yours.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Social: Net'g

Social networking has changed significantly since the Xanga and AOL Instant Messaging (AIM). During the early 2000, one of the most popular blog website is Xanga, a blog website where people use to post up entries about their days or random thoughts. Their friends and family are able to give "props" or "double props" to their entries, where it shows that they appreciate their writing. AIM like texting but with internet, when you pay your internet bills you are able to talk with your friends and family constantly. Everybody used this when we were in middle school or high school, it was quite popular. Now, fast forward a few years a few more social media websites have sprang up from the dust. Such as Myspace but the even more popular and recent ones such as Facebook which is mostly for communicating with friends and family. LinkedIn is a professional social media site for people who works in corporate companies and private companies.

Facebook is a place where people talk about what they are doing, where they are going and what they are eating. People make it very easy to show others where they are at the moment with their status updates. For example in the article "Being There: The Subtle Art of Facebook Updates" by Virginia Heffernan speaks about making a successful and popular Facebook update, this is the benefit of having a social media page. Popular updates can get over hundreds of likes and depending on what their privacy settings are, people who are not their friends get to see their status also. When corporations want to market their products it is easier for their advertisement to reach their consumers. Where it will show up on "friend's of friend's" news feeds or "everyone's." If you are not a corporation, a downside to this is privacy, strangers are able to see your every move if you put your every move onto Facebook.

LinkedIn has multiple advantages for those who sign up and actually use the features they have to offer for everyone. This site is used for finding internships and jobs, where your resume or CV are going to reach companies. In the article, "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" by Frank Langfitt talks about how LinkedIn benefits people who are searching for jobs. There are also features on LinkedIn where it allows you to be "endorsed" for skills that you may have. It allows the interviewers and companies to know what skills you are able to offer.

1. Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=ema

2. Being There: The subtle art of Facebook update, by Virginia Heffernan. The New York Times Magazine, Feb 15, 2009, p. 25. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15wwln-medium-thtml




Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Blogs v. Wiki

According to Marketing Terms, a blog is  "A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and web links." it can be used for anything personal to advertising for companies that sponsor you their products. A great way to utilize a blog is using it for your personal life and work. For example, Wendy from Singapore is a very famous blogger who has a blog widely for work. There you can see that not only is her work blog entries are written down, but she also uses it for her daily life. A blog is used for giving viewer's information about the blogger has to blog about. Written in the passage "How Can We Measure the Influence of The Blogosphere?" by Kathy E. Gill, that many bloggers can influence their followers with the contents that are written in their blog posts. In this case, Wendy has influenced a very large amount of her followers because she advertise the products that are sponsored to her by saying all the positives and negatives about the product. From there, the followers can either buy the products or stay away from it.

A wiki is a informative and formal passage of information about one topic. It will only contain information about that topic and it is available to anyone who is either doing researching for just reading for fun. According to Wiki, "A wiki is usually a web application which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in collaboration with others." Anyone who sign up for Wiki can edit any of the pages they want. Whether it is adding new information or taking out information. This makes Wiki a very unreliable source.

  1. Wikipedia on Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
  2. Blog, Marketing Terms: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/
  3. How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004. available from:http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Social Media and Advertising

Social media has benefited the advertising and marketing industry greatly. Not only it has a wide range of segmentation to choose from but it is also free of charge. Social media sites such as Facebook is a free of charge advertising site for the company where also all company that you know of will use this to interact with their customers and keeps them up dated with all the new promotions and sales. The more followers a company has the wider range of people they are able to reach out to and communicate with. Another social media website such and Youtube does great job advertising for companies because their advertisement plays during the beginning of each video. However, using Youtube as a source of advertisement is not free but may also cost a large sum of money. The benefit of Youtube for promotion and advertisement is that there are millions, if not billions of people on Youtube on a daily basis. Depending on which country you are advertising to or located in, over a million people may have watched the company’s advertisement. Overall, social media is a large stepping stone for advertising because it takes promotion of their products or services onto another level. 

Monday, February 3, 2014

First Post

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I hope you will enjoy reading my blog posts as the semester goes on ^-^ I could already tell this would be an interesting class because of the interesting topics and project we are going to do. Happy blogging.

Namate,
Joyce.