The Next New Thing

For a type of “new media” that doesn’t exist yet I was thinking of a website or downloadable application where you can create your own movie and then share it on that site. It can be said that the Sims and SecondLife can be used for this purpose but Sims is geared towards people who want to play games, and SecondLife is where people can have a social life without leaving home. I feel like an application like the one I suggest should have different options for sets (ones that are realistic, and others that are cartoony), lighting, options for different voices, and a wide array of characters to choose from (it would be awesome if you can use yourself as a character, but that would obviously involve some advanced technology). I feel like this would be very popular!

 

Our Class Wiki – So Far

I plan to work mostly on the Art page with some contributions to other pages when relevant information comes across in my research. I intend to use websites like Pinterest and Deviantart as examples in the art section. I also researched some information about the benefits as well as the drawbacks of new media on love/romance.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is self explanatory and is basically giving everyone access to files that people share online. P2P file sharing stands for Peer-to-Peer which is when users can search online for content that can be on someone else’s computer .
Some examples are Skype and the most successful is BitTorrent. It’s widely used and allows users to upload large files quickly. Torrents have become the new way for everyone to watch TV shows, movies, and download games. The way BitTorrent works is a very efficient way to allow users to upload the content quickly since they will technically only be uploading small pieces of the file at a time, which goes around Broadband providers limits of upload speeds.

1. Thomspon, Clive. “The BitTorrent Effect.” WIRED. N.p., Jan. 2005. Web. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html&gt;.

Advice to Baruch College

Although Baruch College is already using new media, the use can be increased. Twitter can be used to improve the Ticker. People can tweet suggestions about articles that they would like to see. They could also write short 140 character articles and those tweets can be included as a part of the paper. That would make the Ticker more diverse in terms of writing and possibly more  popular. It would also be great if all professors were required to have a Twitter and post class updates using that, for example if class is cancelled on short notice, more people are likely to look at their twitter feeds than their Baruch emails.

Privacy & Confidentiality

With the growth of new media, we also see a decrease in privacy. What people used to write in diaries, they now tend to share in blog posts and status updates. So now invading someones privacy is easier than going into their home and taking their diary. Now all anyone has to do is find their profile or link to their blog. Although many people put their Facebook and Twitter accounts on private, some people can hack into them with ease.  

Creativity and New Media

I planned on using a Sims avatar for this post, but I haven’t played in the longest time and had no room for it on my computer, so Second Life was my other option. This was my second time going on Second Life and again after logging in I felt lost. I kind of walked into the ocean and just kept walking underwater which entertained me for a bit. Then I flew around, and figured out that I could go to other locations so I ended up transporting myself to some party. It felt kind of childish to be on there, mostly because I don’t play video games anymore so this felt like I was going back to those days. The party wasn’t my scene, so I flew over to Russia. The program itself is kind of laggy and takes a while for all the elements to render. Moscow was nice though, I got to walk around and explore since I haven’t been there in a while.

 

 

Just hanging out in Moscow. 

Creativity

New media gives people a wider range of access to different sources that they can use for their . Projects like the one mentioned in the article are becoming more and more widespread. Jeremy Brown who mixed down a bunch of tracks to create “Frontin’ on Debra”, a track that was later made available for purchase on iTunes. These mash-ups are becoming very common and people are using new media as libraries for tunes, songs, people’s voices, as well as other forms of art (images and photographs). New media is also being used as a way for anyone to share their projects and make them popular. This is also for people who want to make their material available for mash-ups of this sort. Like the vocals that people record to databases for anyone’s personal or commercial use, and artwork that people put onto Deviantart so others can use it for collaging and projects of that nature.

Frere-Jones, Sasha. “1 + 1 + 1 = 1 The New Math of Mashups.” NY Times. N.p., 10 Jan. 2005. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Other than being used for socializing as discussed in “I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life”, they can also surprisingly be used for work. According to “Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life” the “creators of Second Life, more than 1,400 organizations — including large companies, educational institutions, government agencies and even the U.S. military — use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently”. That’s one of the major pros. Another would be that people who usually don’t feel comfortable interacting with others, now have a chance to work on their people skills. Virtual worlds like Second life also allow users to express their creativity in terms of building houses/clubs/parks, designing art and all of this can be done online without spending a dime. The cons are obviously the fact that these virtual worlds hinder live human interaction and promote sitting at home all day while still giving the feeling of a fulfilled life. Virtual worlds are relatively new to us and because of that they will probably continue to expand and become more widespread. As mentioned in the Virtual Office article, IBM has Sametime 3D and other companies are also working on virtual world projects.

1. Itzkoff, Dave. “Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life.” NY Times. N.p., 6 Jan. 2008. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.
2. Tutton, Mark. “Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life.” CNN. N.p., 9 Nov. 2009. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

Social Networking Sites

In addition to Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, I also chose to visit Pinterest. Out of these 4, Pinterest happens to be my favorite, and Myspace my least favorite.

Facebook and Myspace both go along the same lines of what they have to offer and why people use them. Myspace has changed a lot since the last time I used it (6-8 years ago). It used to be this flashy site where people tried to “outbling” each others pages and get more friends than anyone else. Now it became more like Facebook, but still a little flashier and complex than I would like. The ads are a bit off-putting.  Facebook on the other hand is very simple. You add people you know, and you see their photos, statuses and comments in your news feed. It has now gotten to be a bit annoying since the reason many people go on is just so they could rant in their statuses. Facebook also makes it easy to share articles, photos, or funny videos since a Facebook share link is embedded on almost every website.

Twitter is a very simple site that makes it easy to follow a certain topic and get all the different views on it. It makes it easy to follow your friends as well as celebrities and even different news sources. It’s a quick way to get caught up on the most recent news in the morning without having to grab a newspaper. It’s also great because everything you read is compact and made to be understandable by anyone. People refrain from using difficult language.

Pinterest is a great site that’s as easy to navigate as Twitter. Basically you follow people who have the same interests as you and when they “pin” something that they find interesting, it shows up in your feed. Each person can create different boards to pin something to. For example a person can have a Cooking board and then a Home Projects board and they will then organize their pins by putting then on the respective board. That makes it easy to navigate through a bunch of different cooking boards if you’re trying to find a new recipe, or art boards if you’re thinking of starting an art project.

Blog about Twitter

A Twitter discussion is straight to the point as opposed to an in-class discussion that will go around in circles and where people will try to phrase their idea in different ways all while being repetitive and time consuming . The 140 character limit on Twitter is in some ways a good aspect and in some ways kind of annoying. It is great because it doesn’t allow people to go on and on about one thing. It’s annoying because you have to formulate your thoughts and make them very concise. You also have to consider how many different hashtags you want to use because all that also uses up the character limit. Now in comparison to a Blackboard discussion, a Twitter one is easier to navigate. Blackboard is clearly not made for discussions, whereas Twitter allows users to follow tweets about a certain topic, quickly respond to users, or just retweet something because they want it on their page where their followers can see.