The Next New Thing

What I would like developed for a new type of media is really a combination of two types of already existing products. It would be a online experience where multiple people could watch a movie or TV show over the web and be able to talk to somebody with VOIP technology. So what I am trying to say is that someone could watch a TV show with someone and talk with that person all in one program. This would be a combination of a couple of programs like Netflix or Hulu and Skype.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I have not added content to the wiki as of yet. One of the things I anticipate adding would be more information about virtual worlds like second life and things like that. I feel like that area of new media has a lot to be explored and I would like to learn more about it as well as sharing more information about it with my fellow classmates. That's all I have so far thanks!

BLOG: P2P

File sharing is the act of distributing or providing access to digitally stored items. Peer to peer sharing is someone uploading a file like an audio, video or text file onto the internet. Then people can download that file through torrents or similar ways. Some of the more known types of peer to peer file sharing is BitTorrent, Kazaa, LimeWire, bearshare and there are many more examples out there. Torrents usually have faster speeds as people seed the content they have already downloaded giving people faster download speeds. The only problem with peer to peer file sharing is that downloading is faster then uploading which was brought up in the article in Wired by Clive Thompson. The main reason stated in the article is because internet providers sell high download speeds but low upload speeds as their normal offerings. This problematic because it causes a bottleneck for people wanting to download certain things.

Privacy

Privacy is an important issue now that new media is around. More now than ever there are more websites that are useful that require people to log-in to use them. This is important as a key logger or virus on a computer could divulge everything that a person types into the computer making those accounts compromised. This also comes up with social networking as many people post a lot about their personal lives and do not have the correct security settings or do not have them at all. Some of these people may divulge when they are not going to be home at certain times which make that person very susceptible to being robbed when they are not home. Even more to the fact is that many people put their whole lives on these social media sites including what their phone number and other very private information that could be used against that person. Also many companies are having problems securing data that is used in everyday life. Many online banking and money exchanges like amazon payments or PayPal may not be secure enough which leads to people hacking into them and stealing money from people that did nothing wrong.

Advice

Some of the ways new media could improve Baruch College are vast. One way is to make all announcements known on social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). This is important as more people are buying smartphones and it is easy to set up social networks to give updates straight to your smartphone. Also it would be imperative to have one person dedicated to monitoring the social media feeds. Another thing that the college could do is to offer more online classes. A way they could do this is to set up a professor in an empty room with a camera or have students in a physical classroom with the professor and teach the class. After the class is over the technicians that were handling the camera could upload the video onto blackboard and students could view the lecture from anywhere. This could also be done in regular classes as it would give students something to look back on to improve their knowledge other than just the notes they took in class. Lastly there could be a blog of all the different types of events that are happening daily. Instead of flooding people’s inboxes with information they could just follow the blog and it would be easier for the people that want to look up the information at a later date as well.

Creativity in New Media

Some of the thing you can do with new media is quite fun. For my example i typed into "photo editor" into Google. I clicked the first site Befunky.com and uploaded a photo I took from Google Images and played around with the settings. It was very easy to play around with the options and get exactly what you would want your photo to come out like. At the end you can either upload to some social media sites if you so choose or you can download it back onto your computer. Also there are is an app for Befunky in the app store and google play. The finished product of image is below.

Before

After

BLOG: CREATIVTY

New media technologies such as social media foster users to come up with new ideas. One example of this as seen in the article by Claire Cain Miller in the New York Times states that companies have been monitoring twitter through their followers to come up with new products or improve their existing product or service, even twitter does this. In the article it states that an early twitter user by the name of Chris Messina came up with the hash tag symbol to mark conversations to have them linked to a certain topic. Twitter replied that many people would not understand it but it is now part of twitter and used by many users to tag certain posts for events that they are tweeting about. Ideas like Messina’s are creative and help the companies to better their products or services while using new media technology.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual communities can be used as alternate setting in which employees in expansive companies can get together and bounce ideas off themselves.  According to Mark Tutton in an article on CNN said that Second Life one of these virtual worlds give companies the abilities to create expansive environments such as auditoriums, social areas, parks and more.

There and many pros and cons that can be seen through these virtual worlds. Some of the pros include, ease of access to meet with people from around the world. Less expenses as you are not shuttling employees from different parts of the world to meet each other at a conference. Some cons include the ability for others to get your login information and then impersonate you. Also some people do not enjoy having to interact with people through a computer but would much rather convey their ideas through meeting a person face to face.

In the article in the Wall Street Journal by Stephanie Simon, she explains that some hospitals have created a virtual hospital. This is interesting as it give nurses and doctors a training ground in which they can have simulations of how to deal with emergency situations.  It also allows the hospital to be prepared for these situations at a lower cost than a life according to the article it costs $1,000 to buy the land and about $300 for programmers to maintain it. It then also may cost up to $150,000 to build a to scale virtual hospital. All these cost are less expensive then someone’s life. So for these reasons like being able to create virtual buildings and practice what would happen in an intense situation is very creative.

I hope these virtual worlds become less expensive to make so that these companies can continue to keep costs down while also delivering a superior product by using these virtual worlds to bounce off ideas with other employees. I also think these virtual worlds will also be used more in the future as they are less expensive then actually paying for flights for employees.

TWITR: Blog about Twitter

There are many comparisons between discussions through twitter, blackboard, or an in class discussion. One of the comparisons is that everybody is able to partake in the discussion if they so choose. Although a contrast is that the teacher cannot pick on any one student to answer a question on twitter or blackboard. Another comparison is that one person usually starts the conversation and you can have a back and forth conversation or the conversation can split into different sub groups. A comparison between blackboard and twitter discussions is that there is a sense of anonymity as you have never met this person face to face unless you actually set up a meeting or have a prior experience with this person.

BLOG: Social Networking Sites

My impressions of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn are that they are all social media sites. There are all social media sites but they are all different in what they are trying to promote. Facebook is a site in which you make a profile and talk to friends, post pictures. Facebook also allows people to interact with other people’s posts showing up on a news feed. Twitter is a place for people to interact with people they necessarily do not know personally. For twitter many celebrities use it to communicate with fans on a daily basis. The new MySpace is place for promoting music it seems. It gives artists a way to distribute their music and gain a fan following. All these sites are an important tool for many companies so they can issue non-formal statements, settle customer feedback in a way that is not expensive and not time consuming. Another social media site is LinkedIn; this site is mainly for professional people who are looking to make contacts in their desired field. With these contacts they can find jobs if they quit their current job or get fired. Basically what this site is so people can network themselves better and can find better opportunities for themselves without having to go to conventions or meet ups. These are my impressions of the social media websites Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Social Networking

Some of the ways that social networks are currently being used in the corporate sector is for the further advancement of relations between customers and companies, others are harvesting data in order to be used in suit the needs of the consumer in different products, and it also allows companies to collaborate on different issues in order to solve problems. Creating products based off their consumers’ needs is being explored by IBM which can be clearly shown in the article ‘What’s next? Your future in Social Networking”.  All of these are current uses for social networks that companies use in the corporate sector.

The benefits of these new technologies can be clearly seen in the article “Why is Nissan mimicking MySpace?” by Kenji Hall. In the article the author shows that Nissan was developing a social network for their employees. One of the beneficial points of the creating this tool was to be able to bypass certain restrictions between employees. It basically allowed employees to discuss ideas they had faster and more efficiently. By doing this new technology would be created faster and more cost effective. 

I feel there is dark side to social networks. Many people I know who are currently seeking a job are being requested to write down their link to their Facebook profile so that the company can look into their personal life. Many people including myself feel that this invades that person’s right to privacy. But the problem is that if you do not give up the information to your Facebook profile they won’t even give you an interview. Some companies I have heard even ask for your login details.

For me I hope these technologies develop to become better in the future. There are many occurrences right now about different social networks harvesting your data to sell to private companies. I would hope that this practice would stop. I hope that social networks spur growth in the economy.