The Next New Thing

Technology is making a progress every day and to come up with a new media thing it's kind of like playing a scientist :) Improvements are necessary and without them, the world would stand in one place, so thanks to the creative people the world is changing into a better place. I have several idea for new media invention. One of them is eliminating cash. I think we are getting in the era where we already barely see cash. Electronic transfers, money wires, credit cards and checks make up for using cash these days. We see numbers on out bank account statement, but admiteddly how many of us carry cash? When I go out with my friends, they always use credits cards, to pay for dinner, a cab ride, drinks at a bar, grocery shopping etc. Another idea is to advnace banks technology so customer's wouldnt have to go to the bank to deposit checks or money orders. I know some banks are already implementing this new idea, but still not all of them. My company has several bank accounts and every other day the emplyees have to deposit plenty of checks and walk to many different banks, which is very inconvenient. If all the banks had internet based checks deposits, that problem would be solved, and the employees would have more time to work on more important tasks.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is sharing data via the web, like sending emails, videos, programs, documents and any types of information. File sharing is simply providing access to the stored information in our computer. Some file sharing is illegal, like copies of songs, Microsoft Office programs, decoding files etc. Brian Stelter and Brad Stone in the article “Digital Pirates Winning Battles with Studios” write “People have swapped illegal copies of songs, television shows and movies on the Internet for years. The slow download process, often using a peer-to-peer technology called BitTorrent, required patience and a modicum of sophistication by users. Now, users do not even have to download.” Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing means that people can use software that connects to peer-to-peer network to search for shared files and they can be acquired by many users. Peer to peer users use BitTorrent technology which, as Clive Thompson writes in “The Bit Torrent Effect” article: “quickly upload and download enormous amounts of data, files that are hundreds or thousands of times bigger than a single MP3. More than 20 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent application. If any one of them misses their favorite TV show, no worries. Surely someone has posted it as a "torrent."

Wiki-So Far

I have contributed to Wiki in “New Media Technologies in Business” adding a paragraph about how Amazon expended its business model to let other retailers use the logistics and distribution services. I also added that creative leaders can use new media technology to craft their strategies. Executives should reflect on which pattern reshape their markets. I’m also working on Media and Dating. Soon I will post my research on how New Media can help the single ones find their match and how effective it is. I am planning to research many famous websites and see the percentage of success. New Media is a very important aspect of our life. Pretty much everyone has a computer at home and sometimes for the shy ones especially it is better or easier to find love online.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy online is an issue that we’re constantly dealing with while browsing the web. Every site we visit leaved behind “cookies” in the computer’s memory that create pop ups and may cause privacy loss. It’s hard to distinguish which email is real and which one is “fishing”. The most paradoxical thing is that hacking is legal! Yes, it is. It is absolutely legal for a hacker to break into our computers as long as he doesn’t “touch” anything, means does not make any changes. The law cannot be changed because CIA and FBI is using this right for our own security. If they changed the law, they would have to change this for everyone. The best thing for us to do is to make sure we have a strong password, containing numbers and characters and to change it once in a while. But in order for us to memorize all these passwords for all different email accounts, bank, cable, phone etc. we would probably have to install a hard drive in our brain :) Writing it down on a piece of paper is not a good idea either, in case someone steals it or we’d accidently throw it out. Well, good luck memorizing :)

Advice to Baruch College

My advice for Baruch College would be to start using new media only, and do not send paper brochures about all kinds of academic events. I get them pretty often in the mail and unfortunately they all end up in the garbage. Facebook connects students so that would be a great idea to come up with a Facebook page to enter with Baruch user id only. It would be divided into certain majors so if a student has a problem for example with a math homework, he/she could post it on Math Baruch site and he would get the answer from others quickly and conveniently. There would be no need for paying for tutoring or getting frustrated  A lot of students have failed Precalculus final last semester (about 70%) so it would be very helpful if Baruch would be posting each departmental final after each semester and provide solutions. There is only five tests as of today that haven’t been updated in years! The final is getting harder, not easier  Same for other classes, like psychology or philosophy. I’m sure students would love to have discussions and learn simultaneously online. New media is a great opportunity for the College to expand the communication with students and professors as well. If they implemented my suggestions, I’m sure the entire College experience would be much more enjoyable.

Creativity & New Media

I created the avatar using www.voki.com. I have never done it before and i learned a lot from the tutorial page on voki.It was so much fun and I hope you will enjoy my photos from Spain as well :)

CReaTivity

   How many people can honestly admit that they do something creative? Many of us work, go to school, raise family and simply has not much spare time to do something creative. Fortunately, a website like youtube or google allows people to find what we need in a blink of an eye, and even for those individuals who don’t have time, it is an easy access to something for themselves. All they have to do is take a picture or a video of a funny situation that is happening in their lives with their cell phone camera and upload it to youtube. Creativity comes so much easier with the New Media technology that has developed nowadays.

    Twitter is another way to express our ideas. Claire Cain Miller in “Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers” writes: “Technology companies have been the most active in relying on others to innovate for them. This is in large part because the Internet lets people exchange ideas easily and rapidly with large groups, and computing tools let people design new products cheaply.” In other words, if not us, people, and our pitch into the network, New Media would not exist. It is our creativity, our new ideas and needs what allows the New Media to expand and design new creative technology. Miller in her article also writes: “You get a bunch of users interacting and it’s hard to predict what they’re going to do. We say, ‘Why are people using this and how could we make that better?” People also foster their creativity by writing on other people's blogs, and having intellectual conversations.They get inspired by others and develop their own unique ideas by that. New Media is very important in out lives and plays a significant role in forming our creativity.

MoDeLing ReaLiTy wiTh VirTuaL WoRLds

    Virtual World and social life is playing a very significant part in our lives. Some people put their lives on Facebook and update their status every hour or so. It’s hard for those people to distinguish the difference between the reality and virtual life. In the article “Social Influence and the Diffusion of User-Created Content”, the author states: “We identify and model social influence based on the change in adoption rate following the actions of one’s friends and find that the social network plays a significant role in the adoption of content.” He means that we as the society are influenced by virtual world and get manipulated by others. Later on the authors make a more detailed example to prove their point: “Social network information has successfully been used, for example, to predict whether a customer will sign up for a new calling plan once one of their phone contacts does the same [10]. The photos we view and the stories we “Digg”are often the ones we observed our friends consuming [13,14]. LiveJournal bloggers are more likely to join a group that many of their friends joined, especially if those friends belong to the same clique [2]. Blogs are likely to link to content that other blogs have linked to [27].” They are many advantages as well as disadvantages of that. First, in our busy lives sometimes we don’t have time to call or see our friends as often as we would like to, and by using social network, we can say “hi” and catch up with all of them in 5 minutes each day. It is also good for businesses to grow their networks and advertise through other “friends”. The bad thing is that we can get easily addicted and if that happens, that can be life consuming and energy taking experience.

          By using virtual worlds, we can enhance our creativity and get inspired. We can view galleries, shows, concerts, learn how to play guitar on the internet, etc. For those who are too busy to travel, we can visit any place in the world just by typing it in the “google” search engine. In Dave Itzkoff’s article: “I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life” he writes: “Despite knowing that its real-life inspiration exists right outside my door, I have spent the last few months making such visits to the Virtual Lower East Side (vles.com), a three-dimensional, Internet-based social network fastidiously modeled on a small but influential swath of Manhattan real estate.” We can create new ideas, and there are websites where we can plug in a photo of ourselves and imagine how we would look like for instance in different hair color or style. We can design our own shoes or play intellectual games online. There are so many interesting things to do online that it is very likely that in the future we will do almost everything online, without the necessity of leaving the house. Now, we can even make bank deposits over the phone with a snap of a picture. Society is merging into the direction where computers are playing such a significant role, that who knows if in ten years we will need human help anymore. I hope that won’t happen.

Blog about Twitter

I have never had a Twitter account before, because I never found it necessary, because I have Facebook. I do like it, but the words limit drives me crazy. 140 words is not even close to enough to what I want to Tweet about. For example; I wanted to write more about the article that I read and I couldn't. The good side of this however, is that it allowes people to express their feeling and complete the senetence in a short thought. Blackboard allowes us to view post more clearily and we can write longer essays, but on the other hand i Think Twitter can make an impact on the shy classmates who feel intimidated to ask a question on blackboard. There are also more feedbacks from others and the dicussion is free and more fun.

Social Networking Sites

Let's start from the most common name which is Facebook. This social network allows us to post pictures and comments, or even videos, links, events, etc. It allows people to be unites across the globe, wherever the internet access is available. Like for myslef, for instance, where the only way to communicate with my family in Poland is through the phone or Facebook. Comapring those two, phone cards are getting expensive and facebook is basically free, because there is a flat monthly cost in general. I can chat with my friends and family overseas as long and as many times as I want and view their updated pictures and events.

Twitter however, is slightly different from Facebook, because you cannot post a picture of an event, just a short up to 140 words sentence about what is happening in your life at the moment. There is a limited capacity on what you can post because of the words limit. If i'd want to post my favorite poem, i would have to break it into few parts.

My Space used to be number one social network before Facebook came along. What I liked about it was that I could assign a song to my profile, so when someone entered it, they could automatically hear the song. I thought that was a brilliant idea, that Facebook is lacking at the moment. Maybe they don't want to be a copycat :) On My Space users can design their profile space and customize it in the way they like.

Skype is a website where you can actually talk live with another person across the world. It is not as popular as Facebook but its popularity is growing tremendously and I believe someday people won't use calling cards anymore, but skype with  people and enjoy seeing one onother. Skype was an outstanding idea because it is like being "there" with your friends or family at that moment. Not only chatting or hearing their voice, but to be able to see and smile to them. That is priceless.

Social Networking

      Many serious companies use technology in order to promote their business. There are many benefits to that.

       First, it is a much cheaper way of advertising because Facebook ot Twitter is free. Facebook has miliions of users and if each "Friend" would "like" the business page and post it on their page, it would quickly spread throughout the society. This is exactly what happened to Facebook company in the beginning. First only local people knew about it, then more colleges and eventually it hit millions of users.

      Second reason for using technologies in businesses is because the company can improve their services/ production by reading the comments. We learn from criticism, so reading all the comments would definitely help the CEO to understand better what needs to be improved. Chuck Hamilton in "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" article writes:

    "Companies are using social networking today to connect with affinity groups. If you're in insurance, for example, you want to know what your customers are worried about. What do they need in the way of insurance services? Today you can reach out to that community and discuss those issues."     

    The biggest benefit to the society is that Technology also helps to find a job. Nowadays almost everything is online so the place to look for a job is the company's website. It is not limited, like in the local newspaper, but anyone from all over the US can apply.

      On the other hand, there could be a "dark side" to using technology irresponsibly. If too much information is posted, it can be used by the competition. They can use the ideas or the most creative comments and implement them for their own benefit. If the secutity system is not sufficient enough, they private data can be hacked. From the consumer point of view, technology can have a side effect on those who post way too much personal info than needed. The posts sometimes might be misunderstood and cause a lot of troubles, even losing the job. As Marc Parry reports in his article: "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" : "Most facebook users modified their privacy settings at least once in 2009 and that "engagement with privacy settings increased significantly" between 2009 and 2010."

      Technology progresses all the time, and there are constantly new products on the market. Who knows if in the future the technology will spread so much that we won't have to go out of our house to have a job interview, because everything will be through skype. Social networking will be widely spread and people will be able to do almost everything online. We're almost there already.

BLOG VS. WIKI

       Wiki and Blog are similar to each other, however there are few significant differences. In order to present it in an understandable way, we have to look into details of each, moreover look at the diffrence between them. At first it may be complicated but it really is not.

       Nowadays, anyone can start a blog and start a discussion about almost anything they wish to talk about. It can be a recent political issue, a new transit fare raise, some new technology invention, or simply a chat about what we like to eat the most during a superbowl. The topics are unlimited. A significant difference is that in Blog, nobody can edit what the blog owner has written. It has been a reason of discussion and criticism because if the person claims something that is incorrect and it is being read by many followers, it cannot be changed by anyone. Blog posts can be made each day, and viewed by anyone who knows about it.
        Michael Wilson in "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid " quotes a woman who found out about drugs problem in her neighborhood from the Blog:
"Katherine Khatari, 47, who owns a coffee shop in Bay Ridge, said she learned of the complaints about the houses on the blog. "You check and see what’s going on in the neighborhood," she said “People don’t like to fight alone. There’s strength in numbers, you know? There’s more of us than them.""

     Bloggers create their own blogospheres by posting comments and replying. The more followers it has, the more interesting it might be. Many people feel unnoticed in this world, but blog allows us to explore our feeling and/or thoughts for others to see. Wiki is a sort of a database that is made in the simplest way possible to access even for someone who doesn't have much computer skills. Wiki can be used largely in the business coroprations as well. As written by Ezra Goodnoe in "How to Use Wikis for Business":
"Wikis can centralize all types of corporate data, such as spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint slides, PDFs — anything that can be displayed in a browser. They can also embed standard communications media such as e-mail and IM. Heavy-duty PHP-based wikis can directly interface with company databases to bring in audio and picture files. A wiki's functionality is limited only by the programming skills of the person who implements it."

       Convergence is very important in todays world because it unites people. It is allowing collaboration and by contributing to people's blogs we keep our mind active. We learn from Wikis and continuosly search for new ideas and want to learn new things.

My New Media Research

Hi everyone!
First and foremost I'm very thrilled to be able to share my New Media observations with you. I look forward to having an amazing semester and outstanding discussions with all of you.

My New Media topic will be mostly focused on Social Networking and how significant in many people's life it is to have friends and to be noticed. I will be discussing the good and bad apects of Social Networking and will give you some psychoogical examples of how badly Facebook can influence your mood.

I look forward to have pleanty of interesting discussions with you guys.