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.