The Next New Thing

Suggest a new type of "new media" that doesn't currently exist. Describe it.

So-Cell Media

My idea of a new type of "new media" would be the merging of social media and blog sites like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, with cell phone material on a person's cell phone. Instead of having many different applications and media accounts, you would just have one. All of your information from all of the sites that you use as well as your contact information (for friends only). This way there will be a perfectly painted picture on who the person is and would make it easier to communicate across social media sites or other communication networks. One flaw that I can think of is that people may think that this application is too much of an invasion of privacy but I would include some sort of privacy option that would hopefully aid to that flaw.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

While I have not been able to contribute to our class wiki, I have had ideas about how to create a wiki that overviews and summarizes class content. The use of a wiki will allow me, as well as other users, to organize class content by lesson. The assignments that I have done can be put in a wiki section. For example, I can make a P2P section and upload or add my blog post and any other relevant information. After doing this for every class section, the wiki would provide a complete comprehensive collection of all of our class topics making it easy for new users to learn or already enrolled students to study.

P2P File Sharing

1.      File sharing is the process by which files can be transferred or sent from one computer user to another user or network.

2.      P2P, otherwise known as peer-to-peer sharing is file sharing between two users using a peer-to-peer software medium.

3.      An example of P2P file sharing as noted in “The Bittorent Effect” by Clive Thompson is Bittorrent, software which allows users to download movies and music to their computer. Another example is Limewire or Frostwire.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy & Confidentiality

In this post, discuss how the issues of privacy and confidentiality are related to new media.

 

There are many pros to the use of social media however, many skeptics have noted the various negative aspects of social media. Among them is an important concept; the issue of privacy and confidentiality. When someone puts up a blog or creates a Facebook or other social media page, they are putting their information in the large, dark world of the internet. If their information is not set to be private, other individuals can easily view their information. Malicious users can stalk other users as information is easily obtained on a social networking site, especially if ones page is not private. Users are also exposed to government and corporate intrusions which not all people like as it is a violation of privacy. When you search an item or click on an item, something called a ‘cookie’ remembers this and advertisements will be molded toward what you prefer to search or click on. These practices have occurred before social media but social media has only made new ways for these malicious users to strike unexpected users. Users can also be hacked and have their personal information stolen and even used in the black market. As more cases arise regarding privacy and confidentiality, more laws and practices will have to be developed to protect users from violations of privacy.

Advice to Baruch College

Advice to Baruch College

You are hired by Baruch College to use new media to improve the College. What are some suggestions you would make using new media?

            There are almost an infinite number of possibilities that I could suggest to Baruch College when it comes to using new media to improve the college. I would like to start out by talking about what Baruch College would be able to do using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Making pages on these sites for classes or departments may be a good way for Baruch College to link it’s faculty with it’s students. For instance, the Psychology department can make a Facebook page for all things psychology related. Professors can run the site and students can use the site to ask questions about the class structure or about psychology. Course links, sites, or other course related media can be uploaded to these sites and instead of downloading or searching for them, students can go right to the social media page and view the course-related material without worrying about downloading or scouring the web for information. Professors can even give important updates via social media sites along with whatever media or medium they choose to give updates with. They may find that many students check their Facebook before they check their email. Because new media is so prevalent, Baruch could even use blogs or wikis to be the medium by which course material or homework is organized and presented. Just like this class, assignments can be put into a blog and at the end of the semester, the student will have an organized site where all of their course material is listed perhaps making it easier to refer to notes or study.

Creativity and New Media

-Using Facebook to make money

                Instead of trying to use a website or a public venue like a yard/garage sale, door-to-door sale, or any other solicitation tactic, I was able to use Facebook to sell my school books and other school supplies to Baruch Students. Using the various Baruch related pages on Facebook, I was able to put up my page for all or most Baruch students to see. Using Facebook, I can also be more specific or vague with my criteria. For instance, I may also want to expand my Baruch Student sample and post my page to a Hunter College Facebook page. The ability to send or show my page to exactly what I want my target audience to be is one of the advantages that Facebook, a new media platform, has over things such as in-person solicitation.

P.S. I recently deleted my Facebook page and all related pages that were not for school so although I do not have my own example as I had deleted it, I do have an interesting example of another Baruch Facebook page which involves the trading rather than selling of books for Baruch students.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/535774686440556/

Creativity

In general, new media gives us new ways of doing things, whatever that thing may be. Therefore, creativity is an inherent characteristic of new media just because of the fact that it is new and we do not have many documented ways of doing things. New Media is quite dynamic so even if there is documented ways of doing things, we are often able to bypass them or do something different. From blogs to computer applications, users are constantly needing to provide creative solutions to problems that arise or just providing creativity for the fun of it. In the case of blogs or web pages, users can be creative with the layout and aesthetics of the page while someone like a programmer may have to be creative with the coding of the website to solve a certain logistical problem. Even before our era of technology, emerging technology has always provided a new medium or platform by which users or workers are supposed to work from. In the case of music, new media has changed the way we listen, but also create music. We used to use acoustic instruments and record them with a microphone, doing little to no post-production. A lot of the creative thought was put into the music that was being played before it was recorded. Today, new media allows us to also be creative on the post-production side. In the Article “1+1+1=1, The new math of mashups”, Sasha Frere-Jones shows how music is able to be taken from previously recorded songs and be put together to form a completely new song. Though the creator of the new song did not create the original songs or melodies, he has to be creative enough to think of putting the right songs together, showing that new media breeds a whole new type of creative process in music-making.