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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.
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
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!
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).
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.
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.
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.
