The Next New Thing

This is probably the hardest post of the entire semester. Why? Simple, because if I had the next new thing I would be making millions and not be in school. lol But since I guess I'll have to borrow an idea from an old movie. I don't remember the idea, but it was about creating a $99 computer. The computer created had a 3D user interface and interactive in a way never before seen. While today's technology simply isn't there yet, I feel that this idea will become a reality in the near future. 3D has went from those corny blue and red glasses to Avatar and 3D TV in just a few years. With a completely interactive interface that users can touch and feel, New Media will be taken to heights that most people can't even comprehend without seeing it. Hopefully that computer will also cost $99. lol

Our Class Wiki - So Far

While I haven't added to much too much to wiki, I have been able add a little here and there. I have added a blog site to the music in New Media site. The blog sites posts links to download new mixtapes. This is the newest way new and established artists are promoting themselves and their music. I have also added a site to the Online TV section of New Media in Entertainment called SideReel.com. This site has links to every episode of hundreds of different TV shows. It's one of my favorite sites and I use it at least half a dozen times a week. My biggest contribution to the Baruch Wiki is the creation of the Internet Radio section of New Media in Music. We use Internet Radio everyday, so it was time for someone to shine some light on it. Internet radio has revolutionized the way people listen and discover new music. So go out and check it out!

About My Term Research Paper

As mentioned in my previous posts, my research project was about youtube. For once, I can actually say I got to enjoy writing a paper. I enjoyed doing research because it was on a site I use everyday and it gave me the opportunity to learn about youtube. The reason I chose this topic is because I figured it would be easy. I was always a big fan of youtube and have sacrificed countless hours of my life to watching mindless videos on the site. I guess this was my way of giving back to a site I use, or maybe abuse. I hope everybody else enjoyed doing their project. Thank you CIS for the opportunity to force me into learning something I'd be interested in, but would never do myself.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality is one of the most important things to people nowadays because of their high use of New Media. Identity theft is a serious problem in today's world. Everybody remembers those commercials with a sweet old lady sitting in a chair and instead of her talking, you hear the deep voice of a man talking about the awesome truck he just bought. Unfortunately, that represents something that happens everyday. Almost every site we use requires a username and a password in order to protect our information. However, most people have trouble remembering these passwords so they use something like PASS123 as a password. This is one of the most common passwords in the world and as a result people have fallen victim to countless amounts of criminals. Also in our highly connected world, we try to retain as much privacy as possible while still trying to keep up with our friends. This is why many users of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to private. But this isn't enough. One still needs to have secure online connection, virus-free computers, and good passwords to retain their privacy.

Advice to Baruch College

My advice for Baruch is to actually use the New Media resources that are available. While some professors use blogs, YouTube, etc. to teach and reach their students, most still don't. I have had numerous professors who haven't even touched the computer that's three feet away from them a single time for all 5 months of class. How can you teach Physics and not show some of the concepts visually? How can you teach WW2 history without showing a clip from the battles? I can go on forever. I've even had several professors that haven't used BlackBoard a SINGLE time? What is the point of having all of these resources that the school spends thousands of dollars on if you aren't using them. I understand some professors don't use these resources simply because they don't know how to. There's a solution to that as well. TRAIN THEM!!! It's time Baruch not just recommend that professors use these tools, but requires it and ENFORCES it. It's great that we have these expensive new laser projectors in each room, but now it's time to make sure they're put to use. Some things just can't be taught through words. WE DEMAND VISUALS! Not only will this get people to pay attention, but it well help students learn, get better grades, and will make the learning process a much more pleasant experience for all.

Twitter: Discussion

What a terrible site!!!! If it wasn't for this class, I would never use Twitter. I'm stumped at why it's so popular. The discussion is akward, weird, and not really a discussion. It sort of just screaming something out on a packed train and hoping someone hears. A blackboard discussion is better because you can easy go back and forth between one another and everything about the discussion is structured in ONE place. However, an in-class discussion is definitely the best type of discussion. When it's in-class, there's no wait time for somebody to respond. It's quicker and more detailed. There's something about talking in person that no technology can ever replace. But this is just my opinion. =)

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds have many different purposes these days and people are coming up with more and more ideas for them. Virtual worlds is a similar concept as the game ESims, but with a lot more customization and reality. A lot of people use virtual worlds as an escape from the real one. While somebody who is a librarian in the real world, that same person could be a tattoo artist in the virtual one. While some escape their problems, others try to solve their problems through virtual worlds. The CNN ireport, iReport: 'Naughty Auties' Battle Autism with Virtual Interaction, tells how a virtual world built specifically for people with autism. Autism is a disorder that makes social interaction difficult, but through the virtual world people are eased into interaction by the fact that it's not in-person. While these show that it can be a good tool for getting rid of daily stress and helping with disorder, virtual worlds can also have down sides. Virtual worlds can become addictions to some people. Just like drug and alcohol addicts, some people get so hooked they need to be on it. They refuse to return to real world. Another dark side is that there are a lot of illegal activity going on through virtual worlds. People are constantly being scammed and become victims of identity theft, while some fall victim to harassment in the one place they hope it wouldn't exist. Virtual worlds inspire creativity because people choose how they look, what they do, and more. The entire experience is based on their creative minds. I think future virtual worlds will actually become more realistic. They will have better graphics and have more things you can do in the real world. However, they will still be very unique and retain their ability for people to escape the real world.

Social Networking

Social networking sites have a lot more uses than simply keeping up with somebody you haven't seen in 10 years. As mentioned in the NY Times article, "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power", these sites can build campaigns for the politicians that are smart enough to use them. During the 2008 presidential elections, Barrack Obama was everywhere on Facebook. There were hundreds of groups dedicated to promoting him. Companies love social networking sites for several reason, the biggest one being the fact that it's the easiest way to reach millions of people. Anyone that uses Facebook or MySpace knows this because there are ads on every side of these sites. On Facebook, you can now become a fan of Coca-Cola, which sends a notification to all of your friends that you have become their fan. In other words, you just promoted the brand for absolutely no cost to them. Companies are also creating their own social networking sites such as the case with Nissan in "Why Is Nissan Mimicking MySpace?" This is a cheap and efficient way to build moral in the company and help bring ideas from everybody to the table. Another way companies use these sites is to check up on their potential and current employees. Everybody has heard of a story of how someone didn't get the job they wanted because the recruiter saw a picture on their profile of them smoking marijuana or someone getting fired because they called in sick and then their boss went on their profile and saw pictures from last night's crazy party. This would probably the dark side of these sites. Another dark side, is there are a lot of sexual abuse on these sites. MySpace is notorious for having people pose as somebody else by creating fake profiles and hitting on 15 year olds. I think social networking sites still have a lot of untapped potential for the future. I think a great way they can evolve is by combining themselves with retailers or auctioning sites, bringing a new way of shopping and promoting products to consumers.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites are probably one of the most popular past time activities found on the internet. There are hundreds of millions of users. The three biggest ones would have to be Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster. Another very popular social networking sites is Google's Orkut, which according to Wikipedia, has 90 million users. Facebook is the most popular one simply because it is very user friendly. It's very easy for first time users to navigate through the site. Facebook is build more on the notion of keeping up with all of your friends. As soon as a friend post something or comments on something, it is seen on your news feed. The ability to maintain relationships with people you haven't seen from the past, helped Facebook gain a lot of older users that other social networking sites didn't have. MySpace gained its popularity due to its easy navigation and complete customization. Nowadays it's all about individuality, so the ability to customize EVERYTHING about your profile made it extremely popular with teens. Also MySpace has a huge focus on the entertainment industry. Many artists post their new songs on the site, film studios post trailers of upcoming movies, and more. Friedster focuses a lot more on the relationship between you and your friends. Besides the classifieds section, which to my surprise was very impressive in size, Friendster doesn't offer anything else. Orkut is a typical Google site. It's easy to use and for those with a google account, easy to sign up for. Orkut is more of GChat addition. While you still have your typical profile where you can post pictures, videos, and status updates, the chat side of the site takes a lot of emphasis. So while all four have their own benefits, it all depends on what the individual is looking for to choose the social networking site that is right for them.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and wikis are probably the first things that people think of when they hear New Media. The reason for this is that blogs and wikis are hugely popular. Blogs and wikis are have a few things. For one thing, they are usually very specific to a certain topic. For example, there are blogs and wikis that concentrate only on entertainment such as Perez Hilton's blog that was mentioned in "Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media" by Melissa Gerry . Another thing that's common for the two fads is the fact that to create a blog or a wiki is usually free and anyone can do it. However, this is where the similarities end. Blogs are typically created and edited by an individual. This makes blogs extremely biased to that one person's views. People can only comment on a blog and that is it. A wiki on the other hand is a collaborative effort from multiple individuals. A blog is used to post news updates whenever an individual feels like it, while a wiki usually has all the information that pertains to that topic all at once and the info is updated once in a while. Convergence is extremely important in today networked world because in today's world, everyone needs to be able to multitask and stay connected to others. With 9 to 5 becoming a thing of the past, people are trying to stay connected to loved ones in between work, school, etc. while still handling everyday tasks. Without convergence of technology and media that is discussed in "The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research Framework" by Friedman, Linda Weiser and Friedman, Hershey H., this would be an impossible task. Blogs can be used for collaboration by posting links to online file hosting sites. This way the files are always there and since it's a blog, the files can be organized for easier access later.

Old vs. New

How do we distinguish “new media” from “old” media? Well that's a difficult question to answer because new media is constantly changing and evolving, so the definition is never the same for long. The best way to clarify if something is considered to be new media is if matches at least 3 out of the 5 C's in Communication, Collaboration, Community, Creativy, and Convergence. One of the best examples of new media versus old media are newspapers (old media) and e-papers (new media). Before the internet became the prime source for news, people used to heavily rely on newspapers. This was great for hundreds of years, but hardcopy print limited a wide discussion of the news itself. With e-papers, readers are able to read an article, comment on it, and discuss it with people all over the world. It also opens up creativity because the response to an article can inspire a response article. All of this helps to build the world-wide online community. Another example is film (old media) and youtube (new media). Film has been a very popular form of expression for about a century now, but before youtube it was very difficult for a director to get his or her material to a wide audience without a major company backing them up. Nowadays anyone with a videocamera can be a smash hit. Youtube has made hundreds of legends such as "Charlie bit me" and "The Numa Numa Guy". Viewers can respond not only with verbal comments but also with their own videos creating an incredible sense of community, creativity, and collaboration. The last example I will talk about is television (old media) and full TV episodes online (new media). Television has been around for decades and has become one of our favorite appliances, however, the internet is starting to steal its thunder. Nowadays, people can watch any TV show, movie, and etc. online. It might not always be legal, but that's a whole other issue. Again with online watching, people are able to respond and have full blown discussions about what they saw. Most shows have forums that post links to watch the show and then to have a discussion about that episode. This builds a very close online community where people are free to use their creativity as pleased.

What is New Media?

As the second proposition of Manovich's "New Media from Borges to HTML" states, a lot of different technologies qualify as New Media. Internet, Web sites, computer games, CD's/DVD's, movies, and much much MORE! This has to be updated quite often as new technologies take over older tech such as with DVD's taking over VHS and CD's taking over cassettes. The internet is, in my opinion, the most essential part of New Media because most things that involve new media and its lifespan starts off on a web and ends on the web. The NY Times article, "Why Television Still Shines in a World of Screens" talks about how in a time when newspaper and magazine readers have disappeared, but yet television viewers are still keeping this old media popular. However, I beg to differ. While a lot of people still watch television, a lot are switching to watching their favorite shows online. Sites like Hulu have more and more viewers everyday. So while television is putting up a good fight, ultimately it will lose and all shows will become online only shows.

The YouTube Revolution

The title of my project is "The YouTube Revolution". As stated in my previous post, I will be discussing how YouTube has changed world. I will be using multiple perspectives, including but not limited to (I will think of more as I work on the project) economic, sociological, moral, and educational perspectives. I will also give a brief history of the infamous site. This will give the reader a greater appreciation for the power of a single website and new media.

New Media Project: YouTube

I will be writing my paper on YouTube. We all use YouTube for everything from 2 minute comedic clips to educational how-to's. While we all use this amazing site, we probably never thought about it vast impact on our society. I will be focusing on the multiple perspectives that YouTube has impacted.