Tuesday, April 28

Social Networking

Social Networking is very important in our society. Yet we must realize that all aspects of our lives have drawbacks. Social networking can help us in the business world connecting alumni of a school, making connections and even exposing your work so others can see. Linked In is the most famous social networking website that links people that have jobs with people that want jobs. Linked In is known for connecting people what want to work for small start ups according to the title on Time magazine entitled "The New Internet Start-Up Boom: Get Rich Slow" by Josh Qinttner.
Other ways in which this technology on the side of the costumers is by helping them talk about problems occurred with a certain product, such as Starbucks had. According to the article entitled "Finding Utility in the Jumbled of Tweeted Thoughts" a suggestion box is something that the company can throw out the window, costumers can just twitter about their suggestions or complains on the networking website.

Tuesday, April 21

BLOGS vs. WIKIS

The main difference between a blog and a wiki is the way you can collaborate with other internet users. In a blog one or more people are posting on the page like this one. On a wiki, people can change, switch, write and edit someone else's work or people can just write something new. On a blog, you can communicate through comments. On a wiki, you can just communicate your changes by just changing it yourself or creating a new page to discuss the issue. A wiki is your instrument of choice when the ideas are always changing and new things are coming up and changing very rapidly, a blog it is more steady and the ideas are more permanent.
Common examples of the influence of blogs are celebrity blogs. They are changing the way entertainment news are broadcasted. News about your favorite celebrity can be seen much sooner with blogs, as fast as you can click your mouse. According to the Article "Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media" by Melissa Gerry, new photos of celebrities can be seen in the blogs moments after they are taken.
One way to use wikis in our daily lives is to use it for business. When trying to put a single document together through emailing is hard to keep track of the latest version and it can turn out to be a nightmare. Wikis can solve this problem by using mutual corporation and keeping a record of all changes. Wikis can also help on the display and preparation of large documents, such as employee manuals for example. According to the article written by Ezra Goodnoe entitled "How to Used Wikis for Business" about 73 companies are using wiki technology, most of them are small businesses.
For more on blogs, check out this video. For more on wikis, check out this video.

Checking Out Some Social Networking Sites

At this day and age social networking websites are everywhere. Most people I know and I have contact with know or have a profile in either Facebook, Myspace, Friendster among many others including Orkut.
Facebook is the most popular now. It was created mainly for college students but it has grown to many more older people. Today the group age in which is the most growing it is women over 50 years old. Facebook hooks you with many applications and groups. Facebook also has a feed on the home page where you can see what your friends are doing. Facebook has a status that works similar to Twitter, some people upload them daily or at least weekly.
Myspace is very music oriented, from the music list in your profile to the millions of bands that you can "Add as Friend." A very nice feature in Myspce is that you can change the layout in your profile to match your personality. Myspace also has a feed feature that shows changes in status and changes is the profiles of your friends. You can also post YouTube videos in your profile. The draw back is that your profile is public even to people who are not on Myspace.
Friendster is a little less popular than Facebook and Myspace but it is also one of the main social networking websites in the market today. It is a very dry in the layout and the color scheme is very pale. There is many applications you can add to your profile, including one that you can display your avatar. There are groups that you can join. Friendster also features a "I'm a fan of..." tab where you can select things you like and talk with people that have the same interest as you in that subject.
Another social networking website is Orkut. This one is powered by Google and it is very common in Brazil. The main feature that differentiates Orkut is that friends can leave you testimonies about you on your page and that stays right in the front for everyone to see.People can also rate you on three categories: cool, trustworthy and sexy. You can also post video and pictures and similar to many other website you can tag pictures of your friends.
In general, social networking websites are very good for people to find old classmates, long lost friends, black mail your friends when tagging funny pictures of them, applications that make you spend hours to find out "What Friends character you are?" and for most of the population it is very entertaining. In a other way they can expose many facets of a person that work related people might not want to see when hiring new employees.
With every good there is always some bad.

Saturday, April 18

My New Media Class... So Far

New media technologies includes any mean that is used to communicate between people.For example, blogs, wikis, telephones, computers, television, second life, among many others, The internet plays a great role in new media because it broads the spectrum, connecting people from all over the world together. From the most remote places in Africa to great metropolises in China, the internet facilitates the communication in a way that we never thought it would be possible. It also brings culture to people who could not afford to travel. A clear example of the is the website artmuseum.net where photographs and culture can be seen by anyone who stumbles through this web page. Another way that the internet is helping people is through community blogs that can display a new restaurant in town or help fight crime like the one feature on New York Times in the article entitled "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" by Micheal Wilson.

New media is replacing old media all the time. In the pass people watch television and waited for VHS to come out to be able to watch their favorite TV shows. Now there are many websites like Hulu.com where you can watch your favorite shows the next day if you missed it or even watch the same episode if you like in a few hours after it was broadcast in national television. This is changing the way people what their favorite television series.