Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Our Class Wiki

I've used the class Wiki to post the "about me" portion of this discussion and three post about.

Aside from that I have not posted any other content. Most of it has been here on my Blogger account due to its fluidity. The Wiki spaces does not seem as interactive as it wishes to be.

New Media and Society

The biggest affect on new media and society is the fact that social networking sites are considered part of the hiring process for some companies. Post the wrong picture on Facebook and you might not get the job. Employers are tapping into sites that are meant to showcase an individuals personal everyday life.

This aspect makes it easier for employers to pick and choose who they want based on short post or in the moment pictures. No one really knows the real story behind something you might post and read it incorrectly.

I understand that by joining these are.by choice, but personally it makes me nervous to think that I have to watch what I say everywhere. I think twice about everything in fear that it will bite me later.

Privacy and Confidentiality

New Media strikes this hurdle every time something advances. We are now at a point in time where the Internet is a digital database that allows access to pretty much anything you want to know. Even restricted material or extremely personal material could be found and traced by someone who has the right access.

The surface fear of it all is the notion that someone has access to your personal information so they might stalk you or take all of your money.

The ultimate fear in my eyes is the limit that has not been set. When is information and privacy capped when we have access to so much?

New media will always have this problem to some degree, the one thing that could prevent this medium to bite us back is the universal understanding of privacy that every individual craves. As long as we want it, it shall be achieved, so things like identity theft or blind date murders won't happen as much. People know and respect it, and if it stops is when things might become dangerous for everyone.

The Next New Thing

The next new media that doesn't exist yet would obviously be for me a fully battery powered car that can drive or hover (because flying would interrupt planes). This electric machine would work as a car and a smart phone for the user. This machine would allow full access of the content on a persons phone so that texting, calling and even writing emails could be all done by ones voice.

This car will also have the ability to drive or hover itself. Reducing the risk of drunk driving or falling sleeping at the wheel.

It would be able to smart park itself and know the parking rules of the day or area. It would restrict maximum speeds to reduce aggressive speeders and prevent accidents. It wouldn't be to a point of stupidity like only 10 miles more than the speed limit, but if someone is driving 100 on a 60 mile an hour highway, that can be a cause for concern. This car would also be smart enough to come to you by the press of a button, like inspector gadgets car. (LOL)

Advice to Brooklyn College

How would I use new media to better improve Brooklyn College?

An innovation I would put in place is a fully functional digital map that is in an application form for any smart phone. This would be a map of the campus that can viewed in 3D form for overview purposes. This app will allow the user to click on a building and it would unlock access to different departments within that building. The app will then provide room numbers, office hours and contact information for each department and professor within that department. (If you have an iPhone, it's the same as the maps application only for each school for within CUNY).

Access to the application would be through would student ID's and is location based so that if your on another campus you can access their information as well.

It's first benefit would be for incoming freshmen or anyone who does not know their way around campus.

Modeling Reality with Virtual World

Different ways that virtual worlds can be used are for entertainment and education medical purposes.

For entertainment values these virtual worlds brings together groups of individuals that work together to first build their own avatar. An avatar is a character that is human-like and is built from a teach by the user. Games like World of War Craft or Halo allow for the first person view of the world. They can travel through them and interact with other avatars.

For educational purposes, medical professionals have built a virtual reality that allows for nurses and doctors to test out different procedures to experiment with. The beauty of this form of experimentation is the lack of a human . Certain testing can be done while at the same time taking the middle man out completely. This ensure a 0% chance a harmful mistake could be made that might result in sickness or worse, death.

Creativity is completely fosters in these virtual worlds. Individuals build their characters, their worlds, weapons, accessories, etc. It is like giving a painter a blank canvas and telling them " do what you want and it's accepted, no exceptions".

I think if we continue on this path, virtual worlds could help us with certain innovations that may not have been obtainable in the past.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Social Networking

Social Networking can be described as a place where people form all over the world can sign-up or subscribe to different sites to post continent and interact with one another. One of the articles that I found interesting on this topics was "What's next? You're future in social networking" and how it describes how business use social networking to their advantage. The big take away from this is that businesses now spend less money on trying to reach the masses. A simple post on their Facebook or a tweet that will link their customers where they need to go can and now they can reach a very large group of people at one time.

Another take away from this topic was the article "Is MySpace good for society" and what I found interesting is that studies have shown that by joining an online sight to make friends with people you don't know has bridged the gap for college students to actually interact with their peers easily.

P2P File Sharing

P2P file sharing can be written out as peer-to-peer file sharing. This service allows for people to transfer very big files digitally without having to worry about file size restrictions. 

In the article "BitTorrent Effect" talks about this company called BitTorrent that does just this. It was presented in 2002 at a hackers event was was designed for the community of people who would like to share big files such as programs form computer to computer without the hassle of having to wait for it. The article then goes on to explain how instead of the community BitTorrent thought they were going to attract, in turn they got people who watch TV and movies on their computer. Companies like BitTorrent have made it easier to basically torrent or rip information onto ones own personal computer. 

My biggest negative for P2P sharing is that is allows copy written information to basically get stolen with no regard to the financial process that was behind.

Creativity

In the New York Times article "Twittter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers" author Claire Miller describes the basis of the social networking site Twitter and how it has set itself apart from other sight. Like everything on the internet, ideas come from its users and how they utilized the platform that they are given.

The founders of Twitter followed the same concept and has manage to set itself apart from its competitors. The article then goes on to describe how companies like this allow for virtual users use new media to foster their creativity.

People take the tools that they are given and add on features that the developers may not have thought of. The example given in the article is the "@" symbol used as a way to easily refer to other users so that they are linked to the message that was posted. Twitter then developed this by allowed the "@" symbol in front of a user to name to easily reference someone or easily find all the post they were tagged in.

New Media fosters creativity mainly because users want to make it easy to be apart of the virtual world that they are in.

Blogs vs. Wikis

A wiki is a place where the account administrator can post content of their liking to create communities. These communities consist of people who share the same interest and can use your wiki as a way to have a central place for this discussion.

Blogs are more for personal reasons and could really do without any followers or subscribers. A blog could be used as someone's personal online diary or could also be utilized like a wiki can and be a place of common interest.

Old vs. New

Old media vs. New Media

 New media is a media that goes with the times. What was considered new media in the time before the internet what news papers, magaziens and television. Now new media is considered the internet and can even go down to saying that blogs and social media sights are considered new media. 
One example from the reading is about how quick TMZ was able to report of Michael Jacksons death. They were the first website to say that he was found and being taken to the hospital. 
Andrew Savikas goes on to explain in his Forbes article, "Media: Don't Fear New Technologies" how media is going to change and that we should not fear this change but rather embrace it.

Old media is a form that was popular but that is barely or not even used anymore. When someone says to send them an email, other alternative communications could be made that are faster and more direct. For example instead of emailing one could send a text, or to be even faster a tweet.

Blog about Twitter

The biggest difference between a Blackboard Based discussion and a twitter discussion is the pace of each medium. On Blackboard, we all post a thread and have the freedom to come to this thread whenever we want to see its content. It can be replaced by new post but it always organized and easily to find. There is no character limit, nor is there any sense to constantly post content.

Twitter on the other hand has a character limit and is very face paced for the most part. The entertainment Twitters that I follow literally post new content up every 10-20 seconds. News and life is always going and Twitter is meant to keep up with this pace.

Social Networking Sites

The following sites I am going to talk about it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

Facebook- As mentioned in my previous post, Facebook is something I no longer uses because of the users not the actual abilities of the website. It was a place for my friends and I to connect. When I first started using it, it was to connect with friends that I have made from different schools and programs that I have been apart of. From there, advertising was available for business and I think that it was drove down its exclusivity. I hate that hackers can get in and post pictures about rare Jordan's and tag over 300 people on it. I also do not like the newsfeed feature. Twitter is a place for constant news feed because it is fast paced, there is no need for it on Facebook because it defeats the purpose of having to go to peoples profiles and looking at what they have posted.

Twitter- Twitter is a fast paced social site that limits me to express what I want to 140 characters. I enjoy twitter for news and entertainment information because I can basically get my news and information as it is happening. Other than that Twitter really has no place for me. I am not always on it so keeping up with all the information that is fed can sometimes be exhausting or too hard to follow.

Instagram- I enjoy Instagram a lot. When I first got my iPhone is was one of the first applications that I downloaded and something that I turned a lot of my friends on to. It was enjoyable to be apart of something that was very specific to my phone. I was not too trilled when Android had availability to it, but it didn't make anything about the application change. I had a MySpace and a Facebook for the pictures. I am a visual person, so seeing what happened rather than reading about it was more interesting to me.

Tumblr- Tumblr is something that is new to me, but I enjoy it because it is censor free. Anything could be posted on Tumblr without worrying about policies that the site host. I think as long as you don't threaten to kill someone for real Tumblr does not seem to mind. What I find on this site is that most of the interesting people I follow have a set theme or purpose for their tumblr. Some are dedicated to sex, or the zodiac, or just people who are either famous or not who post pivotal points of their day. My favorite person to follow is thugxwife.tumblr.com. She is a model with a lot of tattoos and a smart mouth. The responses that she puts up in response to the questions her followers ask her a bit hilarious.

Check out Social Networking Sites

The sites that I have visited for comparison are Facebook and MySpace. I have had both of these sites since their hype in popularity and have used them for a good time throughout their transitions.

Personally I do not use this these sights as often as I used to. One reason is that since Facebook was accessible to all college students, it was longer popular and is not used for interacting with people anymore. Now it is more of a music based sight. Most of the time I was on it, the home page was showing bands and their different concerts and tour dates.

Facebook on the other hand has pretty much kept its original layout where people can post information, pictures of links to different websites. What I have seen develop over time time are the features like begin able to "check in" to locations that you visit, or "geotagging" pictures or even the ability to tag faces for faster picture searching.

Describe New Media

New media is technologies that are most up to date to transfer or share information.

A great example of new media that is most up to date is Instagram. This website was mobile based and began with only iPhone users. From there the application allowed for those with Android phones to also join in. Then Facebook bought the company and now it is spreading faster. This form of "new media caters to though people who would rather post pictures of what ever they are doing. One can add a filter and make the picture look really good. There is a space to write a caption and the followers that you have on your profile can comment on your picture and "like" it.

The best way to distinguish old media from new media is simply by the technology. Old media consisted of something that was used in the past but is barely or no longer used. This includes news papers. With mobile tablets allowing people to read the news on their tablets, the physical piece of paper that is distributed every morning is starting to loose its edge.

What is New Media?

New media is what ever you want it to be, it is an ever-changing definition. The types of technologies that are apart of new media is first and foremost the internet. It is an interactive hub of information that can be easily accessed through search engines and any form of search. Other technologies are online news websites, social media networks such as Facebook or Blogspot.com. There can even be user based sites where the user is the controller of the world that they participate in virtually.

Internet plays a very big part in new media because without it we would not have access to the newest forms of media that is out there. Most media mediums are all web based. You can not go to a place called Facebook to do the same thing you do on its website. EVERYTHING is virtual and the internet is the home place for it all.

New media will always replace old media because as new sites, apps and forms of technologies are developed, information will only get spread faster and faster. Old media took time and needed to be presented in the style the the medium required, but with websites like Twitter there is no room to get fancy because you are limited to 140 characters.

Sound the alarm?

Hey all...don't be alarmed with the next few post, they're for school.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Hurricane Sandy

So my basement is flooded...we hope not.

My mother and I fled before they had to rescue the residents of our area. We live by the beach so the high tide wiped our area out.

My brothers baby pictures, my baby pictures, my mothers degrees and anything that is of importance was down there and it might be gone.

Here are some pictures of mine and my friend who lives around the block from me. Flood flood flood

Monday, October 29, 2012

Halloween

Part one of the Halloween celebration!! Went to AC to see Paul Van Dyke!!!

We all went HARD!!! Batman Villians baby!!!!!


Lets see if Hurricane Sandy will let us party more

Monday, October 22, 2012

Cake?

For the last month or so I've been making changes to my life so that I can be healthy young and skinny!

So far I've been going to LA fitness at least 3-4 times a week. I've been taking GNC's Active Woman's vitamin pack for 1. my vitamins (duh) 2. For energy boosting and 3. To burn fat. To make my hair and nails grow I'm also taking GNC's prenatal vitamins.

BUT my diet is a different story...soo far I've been making semi-good choices. Low fat this, grilled chicken that. I eat out a lot (ugh) I work at the mall and I am never actually home.

I need solutions, suggestions, something!!

😘😚😘😚 thank you so far for the support

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Lesbians...

CONGRATS TO MY AUNT AND HER PARTNER FOR BEING THE FIRST TO GET MARRIED IN THEIR CHURCH!!

Love them,
Leopard

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Monday, July 9, 2012

Lucy, and how I love her...

Lucy changed life for women on television forever, not only did she break race boundaries, she pushed television to spend more money to initiation syndication...blah blah blah blah blah...I LOVE HER!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Street Lights

I had to make a music video, so I chose street lights.


This was my first short that I did, I know its pretty literal but I had no inspiration at the time.




Kitchen Blues


Here is my (sorta) one minute reality show