Someone Else's Term Project Presentation

I choose to talk about Sanjay's presentation on how relationships are affected by new media because my life in the United States has everything to with the topic of his presentations. My mom met my stepfather online and the reason why I came to the United States was because my mom, who was never married to my biological father, wanted to marry my step father. (My life is a soap opera, I know!) Let's get back to his presentation...
Sanjay did not only prepared the materials but he also "set the mood" of his presentation by lowering the lights which was very cool because it related to the subject and it was appropriate for the presentation. I also like the way that he used the videos in the right places to keep up interest in his presentation through out.
The content of his presentation showed that Facebook, MySpace, eHarmony, chemestry.com have changed the way we view our relationships. Everyday millions of couples meet online either because they do not have time to look for someone in a bar for example, or do not want to date someone that they met in the workplace. Another reason why people turn to online sources for dating has to do with shyness and the inability of being able to talk to their special other in person. Online relationships also have their bad side because you never know who is really on the other side of the screen. For more about romance and new media visit his blog.

Summary of My Presentation

Everyone know about YouTube and has at least once checked out one video. Our lives just became intertwined with this brilliant website. Yet, what can we say about its impact in our lives? Every good technology comes with its withdraws and we must analyse both sides.

Positive.

• University Videos. YouTube today can be used by universities where can can post and share their work with other scholars and students all over the world can get education free of charge.
• Obama Campaign and Presidency. Obama used this device to promote himself during his campaign and after he got elected. This is so innovative that no president of the United States has used before and it made many rethink new media and politics.
• Free Advertising and Entrepreneurship. Many companies can have their commercials on YouTube and people can get money from YouTube because of their high popularity.
• Free Content. From TV shows to movies to compete with Hulu YouTube is searching new horizons. There is also music videos that help promote bands. (The band OK Go put themselves back in the market with this video)
• Social Networking. People can used YouTube to communicate with others. They can use different tools within the site to do that including friends, subscribers, comments, playlists, ratings and, the most popular, views. (yes, indeed, this is my best friend at a coffee shop in my town)

Negative.

• Cyber Bulling. There was a case in Palo Alto, CA where someone died because other kids were putting hate videos on YouTube. The question that we must ask is what is the role of school in situations like that?
• Copyright Infringements. There are many artists and corporations suing YouTube for illegal material uploaded in the website. Some of the most famous cases are Prince, Viacom and Grateful Dead.
• Religious Hatred. It comes usually from pro-Israel or anti-Semitic groups. There are both majorly at fault because both side have videos or comments insulting the other side and this is changing the way we try to prevent online hatred. Instead of only looking at websites, people have to look on YouTube and other social networking websites.
• Social Interactions. Specialists say that YouTube promotes the idea of broadcasting yourself very loosely and that instead of creating a dialog it creates a one way street.
• Viral Videos. This is the college procrastinator's nightmare. You cannot stop watching any of this videos and it harm their school performance.

Here are some must see viral videos while you are procrastinating:

David After the Dentist
Charlie The Unicorn
My New Haircut
Evolution of Dance
Charlie Bit my Finger
Muffins
Susan Boyel
Let's Get Some Shoes
Silence.. I'll Kill You!
Chocolate Rain
Daft Punk Hands
Numa Numa Song
Manamana

And after that you can check out all this YouTube celebrities in the video Porks & Beans by Weezer

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Advice to Baruch

I think that Baruch professor should use YouTube videos more in their lecture. This is would not only provide a environment where student would not want to fall asleep but they would be able to interact, and review a little of their lectures by going online and watching the video over and over.
Another way that Baruch could use new media is by using Twitter to communicate students about dangerous situations on campus, or school closings (not like we are ever closed), or about new seminars, or new workshops. I think Twitter will work better than just sending everyone e-mails because not everyone at Baruch actually check their school e-mail everyday. They could also Twitter when Blackboard is down so students would know to e-mail their professor for help.

Let's just say that there would be a whole lot of tweets going around!

Old vs. New

You must be wondering how to differentiate new media to old media. It is pretty simple. New media has the five C's and old media do not, let take a look at them:

• Communication. The communication part of new media are your blogs and wikis. In the past we communicated through letters and limited phone conversations. Today with new media we can communicate with people across the planet within a instant.
• Collaboration. With the invention of wikis, now we are capable of creating a document, a encyclopedia, a employee manual or plan a vacation with friends. Wikis are the best way to write or plan something because it is easier to create, erase or modify something in a document.
• Community. With the creation of social networks, we can always be in contact with friends, family members and even clients. It is not just a coincidence the fact that many corporations have Twitter accounts or the costumers can be fans of their favorite store on Facebook. It is a new way of people connecting with each other with out have to carry a bunch of business cards.
• Creativity. Nothing says more user generated content like YouTube, but we can be limited to that. Today there are mash-up which combine tools that we can use online with other tools we use online. An example of that is a mash-up with Google and Facebook that can locate on the map all your friends. Every day there is a new mash-up created by users like us and there is much more to come.
• Convergence. A great example of that is our fax, scanner, printer, phone, photo printer machines. There are other types of convergences such as: software (mash-ups), consumption (listening to a Internet radio station while reading the NY Times Online and syncing your ipod to your music library), roles (the user is also the developer which is also the web designer,...), media (websites like joost.com can mash everything your Facebook friends are watching on YouTube, what online TV show they are watching, what are they doing) and disciplines (bioinformatics, where we combine biology and technology to have computer created hearts so we could study them without having the real thing in front of us).