The Next New Thing

I love to doodle. I love drawing little pictures all over my notes, and if you gave me a pen and paper i can do it for hours without a complaint. So that's why i'd like to create a social media site that allows you to share your doodles of art work with other doodlers. However, it would be completely digital. All the doodles would be drawn graphically. You can also draw on other people's doodles, only with their permission.  Comments and likes would exist as well, and I would call the social media site "sharedoodle".

Our Class Wiki - So Far

For my contributions for the Wiki page, I thought I'd dive into something I am interested in. I am majoring in marketing and advertising communications, so why not do some research in the advertising section of the Wiki page. What better way to get information than from the source itself. The snap-chat web page has a Ads section listed with facts and statistics about their advertisements.

I use snapchat alot, not just for connecting with my friends on social media, but for the news and posts from magazines and journals like DailyMail or FoodNetwork. When looking through their "stories" I also see advertisments for makeup or dance-wear as well as other clothing. I would really like to go into if those ads are costuized for you based on what stories you are subscribbed to or if they are completly random.

Snapchat Ads

P2P File Sharing

I'm very frugal when it comes to buying music to put on my phone or iPod, which is why i use file sharing to take some of my moms music off of her computer. File sharing is basically the act of moving or copying a file from one computer to another. However, with today's advanced technology, file sharing has come a long way and turned into P2P file sharing. With P2P file sharing, people are able to access media files using a specific program that allows them to share and connect with other P2P users. 

People use P2P sharing for many different day to day tasks. For example, some use this software to lend and borrow money, while avoiding the "middle man." This can be very helpful to borrowers who can't seem to catch a break, because they interest rate they need to pay is usually less then other loans. In an article written by Wendy Kaufman on NPR.org, Wendy discusses how google is teaming up with some of these peer-to-peer loaning sites. 

Privacy & Confidentiality

Have you ever spent a good amount of time looking into buying a product online, and then weeks late after you do not buy it, you see the EXACT same product in an advertisement in the corner of your screen when your on Facebook? That's no coincidence, that's data brokers at work. A data broker is someone who is in the business of collecting personal information about consumers and selling the information to other organizations. They usually sell this information to marketing companies, so they can know and understand almost everything about their consumers. However, their imposing a huge threat for online privacy. So while you think no one can see you shopping online for your dogs new outfit, you might have several people writing down just what outfit you were looking at.

Advice

I think Baruch would benefit greatly if the school were introduced to new ways to use new media, especially to help improve student's study habits. For example, lets say you know you have a macro economics test coming up, and you just don't understand anything about a chapter you're about to be tested on. This student would benefit from a social media study page. If Baruch had a social media website that allowed students to share there knowledge about a topic, students would be open to more ways of learning about a subject. There could be blogs and comments posted by students who have already taken the class or understand the subject really well. It would need to be organized by tags on each post for the subject, class number, and topic. This way, when you know exactly what you don't understand, you can search your classmates explanations through the tags. 

However, there is the problem of, "How are we going to get these students to share their knowledge?" Well, it could be offered as extra credit for the class they are in, and if they do it well and correctly, they shall receive full credit. 

Creativity and New Media

Does anyone remember playing an online game called "Webkinz" about 10 years ago? I do. I remember going out with my parents as a kid begging them to spend $30 on a stupid little plush toy just so I could get the code inside it. Then i would go home and type this code into the webkinz website and playing for hours with my virtual furry avatar. At that age I didn't realize that i was actually participating in a type of New Media online as I interacted with other webkinz user's by playing games and chatting with them through the web. 

I thought it might be interesting to go back onto this website and see how creative I can be through this type of media. With my new webkinz (or avatar), named Isaac, I was able to create my own virtual living space, friends, and play games to earn money. I had total control of my avatar and how i wanted him to appear. 

Creativity

For just about every music video created, you can find a parody for that video. And with today's technology, it's not hard for basic you tube users to create an elaborate parody. Just about every kid who has a Mac book has access to Apple's movie maker has the ability to make their own parody videos. For those who don't have Mac's, you can download a program for PC's that's just as easy to use. 

However, this type of creativity is taken to a new level when people can take and use clips from movies or other types of produced videos. For example, clips of common Disney character's were taken and put into a video with the song "Crank That" playing in the background. The creator's wanted the Disney characters to seem as if they were dancing to the music playing. 

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

"It’s a space for kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others to also want to build and create things." This is a quote from the article written by Diane Mehta as she tries to sell the virtual world to the rest of the world. 
For those of you who have no idea what I'm saying when i say "virtual world," a virtual world is an online social gaming site to be short. On there you can literally create your own world, your own avatar, and more. Some use it for the gaming, others for only the social part, and most of the time people love both of these aspects of the virtual world. Just like Mehta said, the great part about it is it's an outlet for those who wish to express their imagination and creativity. However, just as with any social networking site, there are some dangers behind children connecting with strangers on the internet. Kid's can be very gullible and believe that the avatar they play with online whom they are about to meet in person is also a child, when in fact they could be an adult planning to cause them harm.  
While these virtual worlds seem to be all make believe, there is a component believed to be reflected the avatar of the player. For example, if a villainous avatar causes harm to another avatar, it is believed by some that that action reflects the true behavior of the player. "People are prone to be unaware of the influence of their virtual representations on their behavioral responses," said Yoon and Vargas, who are researchers about this topic.
I can only assume that these virtual worlds will continue to grow despite the problems they have brought about with strangers and behavioral issues. I hope these issues can somehow be fixed in the future.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter is a great way for people to share their brief comments about an idea. However, what happens when you have more to say than only 140 characters? This is what make the Blackboard discussion board different from twitter. There is no limit to the amount of letters and words your type! Yet, some people prefer to respond in the heat of the moment without having their words documented  online regardless of how much or little they say, and this is why some prefer a discussion in person.
While some may like the short responses of twitter, or the organization of a blackboard discussion, there can not be one that is considered the best way to have a discussion. It truly all depends on the preferences of those who are discussing.

Social Networking

Social networks are used in many different ways by many different groups of people. Some may use it for job recruiting, such as the site "LinkedIn." In an article written by Frank Langfitt on NPR, he states, "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."
Others have used social media to stay connected to distant friends and family members.Social networking has made it easier for families, that are separated by oceans, to stay in touch with each other. However, this has created a laziness in people to no longer make the effort to go see your friend down the street. People don't even feel the need to converse with someone they consider themselves close to, because they all ready know about their lives by what they post on Facebook. Virginia Heffernan, from the New York Times Magazine in an article titled, "Facebook Exodus," was discussing Facebook with her friend when she said, "I felt fairly detached from my Facebook buddies, because I rarely directly contacted them."
So social networks have their positives and negatives, but hopefully in the future we will learn how to only use them for the positives. Perhaps Facebook will limit the amount of time you are allowed to be logged in. Or maybe you will only be allowed to "stalk" someone for so long until you no longer have access to their page for a certain amount time.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and Wiki's are two of today's main sources for society to contribute their thoughts and ideas to public media. While these two types of media have the same main goal, they are approached and submitted differently.
When creating a blog, you create your own personal page filled with your contributions. Others of course can comment and "re-blog" your posts, but the only one who can change your original post is you. For example, in Michael Wilson's article about a Brooklyn Blog that led to a drug raid, one blogger posted that he heard, “Fighting and drug deals going down in the driveway of this house.” Someone then replied to his post: “I’ve heard loud fighting for almost a year now but did not realize until recently that it’s a crack house.” Several comments confirmed the original post, and this collaboration led the detectives to this successful drug raid. This communication is what differs a blog from a wiki, as you can not "reply" to someone on a wiki. Also, someone would have been able to change the witnesses original post, and perhaps detectives would not have discovered the drug house in the area.
When it comes to wikis, anyone who creates an account can change and/or add anything to the page, regardless of it's accuracy. However, the concern for inaccuracies has been taken into account. John D. Sutter wrote about how Wikipedia has collected volunteer editors for the site to try to weed out the false statements. Perhaps wiki should require a credible source to accompany ever edit made to the page.

Social Networking: Better or worse than the real thing?

When was the last time you went out to dinner with either friends and or family and not one person checked their phone during the meal? We all do it, however, it becomes a serious problem when that is the only interaction someone has for their night out. Even if three words were exchanged, anything discussed probably had to do with what was on one's phone. It's sad to see a world in which we can no longer enjoy, let alone handle, conversations and interactions with other humans in person. Instead, we resort to typing messages over social media to express our opinions and feelings, since we no longer know how to do so in person. This is why i believe social media is ruining the way the we communicate.