The Next New Thing

I grew up in the 90's and was always watching T.V shows on Nickelodeon. Many of them included: "Doug", "Hey Arnold", "Kenan and Kel" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". It is very challenging to think and come up with innovative products or ideas that do not exist in today's tech-savvy era. However, what if we were able to use teleportation? Like Sabrina the teenage witch used to do  by simply stepping into her closet and "boom" she would instantly be at another place. Teleportation has not been yet implemented or tested, however i would not be surprised to see it in future years. It would be brilliant and extremely cool if we were able to use teleportation.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing refers to distributing or providing access to digital stored information such as images, videos, audio, computer programs, electronic books and documents. P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing is a form of file sharing between different people who are connected to a network. When users find files that they want they can easily download them directly from other users on the network. Usually large files are broken down into chunks when downloaded. Some examples of common P2P applications include: Limewire, Ares, KaZaa, eDonkey and Gnutella. P2P is not considered illegal, what is considered illegal is the sharing of copyright material. "Media companies say that piracy — some prefer to call it “digital theft” to emphasize the criminal nature of the act — is an increasingly mainstream pursuit". (Brian Stelter and Brad Stone, "Digital Pirates Battle With Studios").  

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy & Confidentiality are highly related to new media. Whether you are a user or non-user, you are impacted and exposed by the amount of privacy and personal information that is shared through social networks. Even if you do not participate or have an active profile in social sites, many of your friends do and will upload information about your life such as pictures, your interests and other personal information. Thousands of people constantly update the entire virtual world of what they are doing, how they feel, and where they are. Many people see social networks as a place to reconnect with old friends, connect with need ones or simply for entertainment purposes. What most of them ignore is the amount of personal information which they consider "private" is mainly shared and sold to third party companies for advertising and marketing purposes. Moreover, there is a notion of "shadow profiles" these are mainly related to profiles created on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Such profiles are built on unwanted information that users no longer wish to share or display. Things like pictures, comments, likes on pages, etc. Research shows that these profiles do exist and are kept in databases. An good example related to the idea of shadow profiles can be the fact that Facebook for instance, does not give you the option to close your account completely. Instead they provide you the option to "deactivate", with this you can no longer be found, or searched in Facebook. However, where does all your previous information goes? That is something to be aware and concerned about...

Another issue that goes in hand with this topic it is privacy policies. The majority of times social sites will require you to share as much personal information as you can. For example Facebook requires you to set up an account only if you provide a current email, your age and student status. Additionally, private policies are mostly perceived as misleading, unclear and hard to read. Many times people ignore those polices as well as the terms & agreements and simply click on the box to agree to all terms. What they do not know is that by not informing themselves about such policies, they are exposing all their private information and giving up their rights to being violated by social media companies.

Creativity and New Media

So this is how i look like with the use of myWebFace...

Who knew this would be time consuming! I tried second-life 3D but did not come out that much like me...
I think she needs a little bit longer hair with high-lights and the skin color a tiny bit darker and she would be perfect. I enjoyed working on this assignment although i was confused at first, i am not familiar with virtual worlds. Usually i am not familiar with video games or computer apps. Also i was skeptical of downloading the program, i was afraid of catching a virus on my laptop. I guess it was a good learning experience. I wonder what was the purpose of this assignment besides exploring virtual worlds?

Creativity

In today's highly tech-user era youngsters are growing up with the use of technology, something that seems so natural to them just like breathing. Media literacy has become extremely popular with the use of out-of-the-box projects which foster creativity, enhance learning skills, and increases communication as well as critical thinking in children. New media has evolved and highly focuses on stimulation and hands on techniques which can benefit its users. However, individuals are also using new media to express their political beliefs, concerns and portray their creative works.

 A popular example used today is the creation of videos called mash-ups. Brook Barnes in her article "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" explains mash-ups "are made by editing together snippets of animated movies and TV shows.The finished products look like music videos in which the cartoon characters do the singing."
Many individuals are using this medium as a form of criticism or with the intention to create a comic or ridicule effect. A popular example is "Crank That " (Soulja boy) video on YouTube which is a cartoon parody featuring Winnie the Pooh and some friends.

Virtual Worlds

According to virtual worlds review a virtual world also known as "digital world" "is an interactive stimulated environment accessed by multiple users through an online interface." There six common virtual worlds. 1)Shared Space: the world allows many users to participate at once. 2) Graphical User Interface: the world depicts space visually, ranging in style from 2D "cartoon" imagery to more immersive 3D environments. 3) Immediacy: interaction takes place in real time. 4) Interactivity: the world allows users to alter, develop, build, or submit customized content. 5) Persistence: the world's existence continues regardless of whether individual users are logged in. 6) Socialization/Community: the world allows and encourages the formation of in-world social groups like teams, guilds, clubs, cliques, housemates, neighborhoods, etc.

Virtual worlds were created for many different reasons, such as enhancing learning skills, increasing social networking and competing in social markets. In the article "iReport: Naughty Auties' Battles Autism With Virtual Interaction" by Nicole Saidi, she explains how virtual worlds have helped people with autism to increase their social and communication skills. She gives the example of David Savill he says how avatars in 3D-worlds are "the graphical representations of real people create a "comfort zone" that can coax users out of their shells and get them communicating with others".

On the other hand, Dave Itzkoff's article "I've Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life" he believes one of the main goals of digital worlds is to compete in the social networking industry, "For more than two years the channel has been building a collection of Second Life-style virtual reality Web sites with the goal of competing with popular two-dimensional social networks like MySpace and Facebook".

Some of the pros of virtual worlds include: they enhance communication and promote effective learning, learning can become enjoyable and productive. Virtual worlds allow users to expose themselves to the use of 3D environments, enables them to experience sight, sounds and touch in digital realms. Additionally, virtual worlds help patients with illnesses such as autism, cancer, strokes and phobias.

Some cons of virtual worlds are: the high cost, how they decrease real human interaction, and how they can increase a desire in people to escape real life.

I agree that virtual worlds foster creativity because they are out-of -the-box approaches that increase stimulation and learning skills impacting kids especially. They highly connect people socially. I assume that these virtual worlds will be more realistic in the future meaning you will be able to fully immerse in these worlds through the use of high technology, giving you a more complete experience.

  

Social Networking Sites

So its been ages since i logged into MySpace, i couldn't even remember my password! I actually thought my account was closed. The last time i was highly engaged in MySpace was during my high school days. Back then (way before Facebook) MySpace was the bomb! But before that it was Sconex, who remebers this site? Lol. With MySpace I used to have all these cool background pictures, different layouts and colors in my profile and had the best feature, my "top friends" haha. I was also able to listen to music and connect with with friends and family. Today, MySpace looks more modern in terms of how the profile is laid out, also MySpace has shifted its purpose of connecting with friends to interacting with the public. For instance, they highly focus on music; giving people the opportunity to follow their favorite musical artists.

Now Facebook is a whole different level. Facebook enables me to connect with my friends and family (mainly with those back home in Colombia). It also has many features such as uploading photos, a status, a check-in option (for pretty much every place), a like option and tag a friend (for pictures, comments, status, check-in), you can also chat through Facebook as well as send messages privately or do video calls. With Facebook you can create events or pages so other people can like or join them. It also gives you notifications of peoples' birthdays and updates and allows you to play games. I really enjoy FB because it entertains me and allows me to stay in touch with close friends in other parts of the world. I remember when i was in high school and FB was only for college students and you needed to provide a college email in order to register an account. What people did not expect was the Facebook was going to take over, becoming the most popular social networking website in the world.

Another social site that i like to use is Linkedin. This one is a more different than FB & MySpace. Linkedin allows people connect for business purposes. With this site i am able to expand my professional network, gain letters of recommendation from previous employers or colleagues. Linkedin also helps me put my name out there for future job openings. I am able to post or create my resume (which can later be viewed by potential recruiters) or i can endorse and be endorsed by people for my areas of expertise. I see Linkedin as FB for serious and grown up people.

The last website i logged into was Twitter (not my fave). Twitter to me is like the FB status section. This websites allows people to engage in real-time sharing, it only allows you to post something up to 140 characters. With Twitter you can share or link photos, videos, interesting news, and follow other people. The reason i might dislike Twitter is that i find this site complicated to use. In comparison to the other social sites i see Twitter as not a user-friendly site and i also find it a bit boring. Perhaps because the other sites provide me with more features i enjoy them more. I enjoy Instagram better than Twitter (which to me is almost the same concept except you are posting pictures).    

Social Networking

Today, Social Networking has become extremely popular. No matter the age, ethnicity, gender or profession, people have quickly integrated the idea of staying connecting and building relationships with others through websites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Linkedin. The main purpose of social networking is staying in touch with friends and family. However, today social networking comes with many benefits such as expanding your professional network, getting in touch with key people that can help you in the future with a job recommendation, get you a job or provide you with advice. An example is seen in Frank Langfitt's article "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting”, “what really makes Linkedin helpful is that it allows users to share their online Rolodexes. Shally Steckerl used to hunt talent for Microsoft and is a leader in online recruiting. With Linkedin, he can find people faster using a vastly increased network of contacts.” With Linkedin people are able to share all their professional experience and academic activities to potential employers.

Moreover, social networking has served as a channel of communication with the entire world to express beliefs, concerns and interests. Frank Langfitt's says "Social networking can also be used in a non-work related way to display your thoughts and opinions". People use social media as a method of entertainment. But today not only individuals are using social networking, many businesses are taking advantage of it to increase brand loyalty and become more innovative. They create social profiles for their companies where they give updates of products, provide a comment box for clients to provide feedback and also advertise their products or services through their profiles and advertise special events they might have in the future. Companies have also used social networking in the workplace in order to enhance and promote collaboration and diversity among employees. The article "Is Myspace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum" by Stephen J. Dubner, he gives the example of IBM creating a social network for employees to provide better channels of communication and collaboration " IBM, for instance, has created an internal social network site, “Beehive,” to encourage more collaboration and communication across teams".

Unfortunately, almost every good thing has its negative effect. The dark side of social networking has significantly impacted our society and enabled those that are evil to do more evil on others. Many aspects include: Cyberbullying, child pornography, employers having access to inappropriate activities or pictures you may have causing employment rejection, identity theft (it has become very popular and easy through social networking). Hackers are now able to steal your information (most of it you display yourself on these websites) making easier for people to guess or steal your personal information.  Another issue is stalking people since they post pictures of where they are or check in to places letting other people know everywhere they go. This makes extremely easier for them to harass or follow other with the intentions of doing bad to them.


In my opinion, social networking can be good only to a certain extent, you as a user should control the amount of information you display online. Think twice before you post, because once it goes viral it will be there forever. Also the less personal information you post the better. You should only take advantage to post you achievements, professional experience, academic activities, etc. This will highlight your intellectual abilities and attract future employers. Social networking is good because it lets you connect with people from around the world, make sure to use that to your advantage in becoming successful but remember to be always cautious.

Blog v Wiki

According to blogger.com "A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world". A blog is a websites that serves individuals or groups to record their opinions on a regular basis. Blogs are viewed as solo sport in where one person shares their point of view with the rest of the world. What people may not know is that blogs can be very useful for when it comes to sharing, shaping and even creating business value to organizations internally as well as externally. Blogs are a great tool in organizations for marketing purposes because it enables them to get readers back to their website, provides industry trends to readers and provides additional product or service information. Moreover blogs enable customer engagement and establishes customer retention and creates brand loyalty as well as long-term customer relationships.

A wiki is a website developed collaboratively by a community of users in which they can each add, modify or delete content via a web browser usually using a simplified "markup language" or "rich-text editor". A wiki uses specialized software and can be used by community websites and intranets. Moreover wikis have become very popular today. According to Noam Cohen's article "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People" says that about "60 million Americans visit Wikipedia every month. It is the first reference point for many Web inquiries — not least because its pages often lead the search results on Google, Yahoo and Bing". A wiki can serve the purpose of enabling knowledge management or note taking. Ward Cunningham (creator of wiki) describes wiki as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". It is not surprising that the Hawaiian word "wiki" means fast or quick.

Margaret Locher's article "How to build your own wiki" describes how "diverse organizations, including businesses, schools and government agencies, are waking up to the benefits of wikis" and how "it makes it easier to gather and share information as well as record discussions about a subject, wikis (familiar as the software behind online encyclopedia Wikipedia) can help people improve their processes and get projects done faster. 

Convergence is vital in today's networking world since it gathers information together from different people allowing them to be informed on updates, be able to make corrections of things they were wrong and educate people on topics that they may not have much expertise on.

Blogs can be used for collaboration internally and externally. Blogs can indirectly stimulate collaboration by educating others about your area of expertise and gets people to contribute by commenting their opinions or beliefs on their topics of interests. It allows people to virtually support each other and it enables fast and convenient channels of communication.

Project Topic- Social Networking: A purposeful loss of privacy

Social networking has become extremely popular, people use social networking to connect with friends and family. Social networking keeps us up to date with what are friends are doing without having to pick up the phone and call them. Pretty convenient, right? What some people are NOT aware is that today, many employers (especially big companies) are checking social networking websites like Facebook or Myspace to find any information about you. Things like inappropriate pictures, comments and content that can cause a negative impact on your persona. Employers will find inappropriate pictures that can influence negatively in the chance of you getting hired. They may think that if you live a wild or crazy life, you might not be a responsible employee and your performance might not be outstanding. Important issues about social networking can include: loss of privacy, identity theft (for those that have their full birthdays, home address, phone number, work address, etc.), also people stalking or harassing others (for those that check-in places such as restaurants, clubs, etc.). Social network is good to a certain extent and for the purposes or reconnecting with others and for entertainment purposes but individuals should be careful with the content they display on their profiles, you never know who will see it!