The Next New Thing

In my opinion, the next new generation of New Media (The Next New Thing) will work around virtual reality because virtual reality let us explore different worlds at the same time in the same space and nowadays that’s what society is following. I believe that in some years everyone will have their own virtual reality glasses at home and there will exist the possibility of discovering new virtual worlds after work, creating new communities, having virtual spaces where you can just go from your coach, meeting people in these new worlds that can be representations of real places or a totally new place where people express their creativity. Moreover, in these new virtual communities people would be able to express themselves by writing, shearing files or just by exploring that world with others. Companies will have the opportunity to use those communities to sell, advertise and commercialize new products.

Every day I realized that the world for new media is constantly changing, for this reason all the companies that are related to that world should change every day in order to satisfy the need of the future society. Also, we can say that the new media have a close relation to technology and new ways to spread information, information available to anyone but each day more segmented according to the interests and lifestyle of each person.

P2P File Sharing

What is file sharing?

File sharing it is the action of sharing all kind of files, it is usually referring to the action of sharing computer data by providing access or distributing this specific digital media, for example computer programs, multimedia, documents, etc. The advantage of file shearing is that a user who wants to share a file is able to share it to a reduced or big number of people in a moment.

 

What is P2P File sharing?

In order to define P2P file sharing we need to understand what P2P is. P2P (Peer-to-Peer) it is a decentralized system, what means that it is not use a central server, that allows a communication between both peers using a network. Therefore a P2P file shearing is just a file sharing using this P2P structure

 

What are some examples of P2P file sharing?

A good and innovative example is the one that is state in the article Peers Find Less Pressure Borrowing From Each Other, this case is not just a good example of P2P file sharing it is also an innovative business model. Instead of using the classic methods to get a loan, people is getting these loans by using this P2P file shearing system, as we can see in the article the system works following the next schem: “Investors put up the money to fund the loans; typically they’ll have pieces of hundreds, even thousands of loans which are ranked according to risk. An investor’s rate of return will vary accordingly.”

The fact that people are better connected every day and without a need of supervision, guaranteed data security and accessibility around the world allows new business models to be developed to meet the new needs of society.

Wiki so far

In order to make my contribution to our wiki I have decided to edit some parts of the “Dance” subject because during my whole life I have received different dance classes and I think I can add some important information.

Also I am working on create a new subject “UAVs” which means unmanned aerial vehicle or better known as drone, I am a drone technology lover and I know that I can start giving some important information about this technology.

Privacy & Confidentiality

New media gives us the opportunity to talk and be connected with people and the world at any time we want, for this reason we are constantly shearing our experiences, what we like and what we don’t like, what we want, opinions, intentions to do something or participate in events, routines and life styles, etc. We are shearing our life, and as a company this is the biggest concern that they have, customer information. Some social networks have high levels of privacy settings, but that does not mean that what we post on our social media is 100% private and we have to be really careful with what kind of information we are posting. This is a big problem first because companies can use this information in order to control society, make them buy more or dislike another product, and even if is not a direct problem, the capacity to decide for ourselves should be important for all of us. Second because this information will be always in the network, and sometimes companies research future employees in order to know how they act in social media and what kind of people they are hiring.

Finally, the last factor to have into account is that sometimes people use the same password for all their social media accounts, and sometimes these passwords are not the safer ones. Also, some social networks let the users to connect their accounts, or use one to open another, as Facebook and Instagram, therefore is easier to lose the control of all of them.

Advice to the College

In my opinion Brooklyn College has the resources to implement a great new media management, it has a website and an account of all the most important social media as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Linkedin. Some of the social media accounts have been managed correctly, as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, by posting almost every day, varied content, and a direct relationship with the college. YouTube and Linkedin have less activity, YouTube for example does not have a new video from 4 months ago and the actual content is not interesting for students, it is too academic and this kind of content should not be in the YouTube site of Booklyn College, perhaps in an academic site. The Linkedin account, for example, has a correct content but it does not have the activity that it should have, they need to post more frequently.

On another hand, Brooklyn College website is outdated and messy, it has all the information students need but the way as they are presenting this information is not easy to follow, people do not want to look for information in that website, and the people that look for information spend a lot of time doing it.

My first advice is to change the web site, by selecting the real important information, the information which a current or future student want to find, and also changing the format for something more minimalistic, less letters and sub parts and more linked information. My second advice is to relate all their social media, posting YouTube links on Facebook, Facebook post on the website, or Instagram images on twitter, any relation would be good for the college new media. And finally, they should create a team of people which would develops these new media, a posting plan for each resource, and camping creation to increase the activity on their social networks.

Creativity and New Media

I am a recipe video fan, so I decided to make my own recipe video of mushroom risotto and prove that anyone can share with the world their cooking skills:

Creativity

As we know New Media is not just a way of new communications, it is also a tool that let users to control new realities and give them power over it. More over as technology increases the possibilities to explore and create also increase. Technology is breaking down the boundaries that don’t let us creating; nowadays those boundaries are money, space and the tools needed.

In social networks, nowadays you can have friends all around the world and now almost instantly what are they doing, what are they thinking and what are their future plans, we don’t have limits to know new people and maintain a relationship  with them.

In virtual realities, users find a whole new world to build their thoughts, to explore what they like, and to express they creativity. It doesn’t matter what kind of world you want to build, if you like something you can create it.

In addition, we can see how people is also able to create new things from something already created, as we can see in the article Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why? they create a parody of Disney characters.

Finally, we can say we are in the time of innovation with virtual worlds, no boundaries between people, acceptance and tolerance about new perspectives and technology going faster than ever.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used?

We define Virtual worlds as “a computer-based simulated environment populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities and communicate with others”. Nowadays people, especially kids, are using those worlds and they spend at least a couple of hours of their days to live the experience of others worlds.

These virtual worlds can be used in different ways, the most popular is gaming because the public attracted are kids, and they look for new interactive ways of entertainment. As we can see in the article After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot? other ways to use virtual worlds are “You can use virtual worlds in education, in delivery services, or as an advanced form of telehealthcare that offers so much more than videoconferencing. Virtual worlds can give us social connectivity, built-in support groups, and ways to avoid ever being alone again.”

 

What are the pros and cons? 

As any technology the virtual world has pros and cons. First, talking about pros we can see that this new worlds offer to users Social connectivity, is not the same classic social connectivity of 10 years ago, now they can play, chat or hang from their comfortable space at their homes, this fact is an advantage for people with problems to communicate or social problems. In the article iReport: ‘Naughty Auties’ battle autism with virtual interaction we can see how people with Asperger’s syndrome feel that this worlds let them socialize without pressure, as the creator of this virtual world said “So you’re not going out into the real world meeting people, you’re going meeting people online and in your own home, so you’re perfectly relaxed. It’s just a fantastic tool to use to bring people together.”

The real problem starts when people cannot differentiate between real life and virtual life, and they spend too many hours in a world that does not exist, they are trying to avoid being alone but at the end of the day in the real life they are alone because they isolate themselves.

 

How do virtual worlds foster creativity?

Another positive factor for virtual worlds is the possibility of express creativity. In the virtual world there are no barriers of money, space, or self-esteem, it is a world where people can be anything they want and create what they want, they can build everything from scratch without any limit. For this reason creativity for users in virtual worlds it is infinite.

 

What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

I believe that in the future virtual world will be mix with real world, like an augmented reality, because right now humans need to find new ways to express creativity, build new things, socialize, all that without missing real life.

BlackBoard vs Twitter discussion

Both tools are used to discuss a topic and/or start a debate about something; however both Twitter and BlackBoard have differences in the way how the users can operate.

As we know, both of them share some characteristics, you can transmit your opinion posting about a topic, beefing up it with images related to the topic or links of interested. They let people to share and read about other’s opinions therefore they create an online conversation or a debate.

One of the main differences between them is the amount of characters allowed to share in each post, in the case of Twitter a post cannot contain more than 140 characters, this issue forced the user to summarized their opinion, therefore the debate is more dynamic you lose less information and it seems more as a real conversation not an online conversation. In the case of BlackBoard there is also a limitation of characters but this is that wide that it does not even affects the user intent, for this reason here an user can explain better his/her opinion, giving details and examples for it.

Another factor to take in account is how the users can find and follow a specific debate or conversation, In the case of Twitter using a Hashtag (#) a user create an specific conversation, follow some topics or read about them. In the case of BlackBoard you can follow a conversation just if you are invited to it, or if you are part of a group that is involved.

Finally Twitter offers some more kind of management of those conversations. As a user you are able to share a post of another user that you like or just want to “retweet” it and a user can “like” a specific post of another user of him self’s. Also each post can be related to more than one conversation just by using the appropriate hashtag and also contain the name of a user with the aim that he is been notified about that post.

If we focused in an in-class discussion I believe that is better to use BlackBoard model because users can provide more information about their opinions and giving more details about it. Besides, in an in-class discussion users don’t need all the tools offered by twitter.

Social Networking Sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

In order to compare the impact on society of each social network the first factor we need to compare is how many active users has each network. Facebook is in the top with 1700 million active users per month, then we find Instagram with 500 million active users per month, in third place Twitter with 400 million active users, and finally LinkedIn with 100 million active users per month. As we can see, Facebook’ active users duplicate the second social network active users, and therefore we can imagine how important Facebook is nowadays, and its impact to social and business communication.

The second factor to analyze is how a user can create a network in each of these Social networks. The behavior of Facebook and LinkedIn is similar and the same for Instagram and Twitter. In Facebook and LinkedIn if you want to add a person to your list of contacts, you need their approval, and once you have their approval both contacts are connected, for example, if I want to add Maria to my list of contacts and see what she is posting and know her activity I send her a “friend request” she has the opportunity to approve or rejected that request, in the case that Maria accepts the requested both can see each other profile information and activity. On another hand, Instagram and Twitter users use a different methodology to create a network; a user can follow another user and there is not “friend request” in this case it is just a user that want to know about the activity of another user, this means that the second user, the one that is been followed, does not necessarily follow the first one, for example if I want to follow Sam, I can do it and I will receive news about all his activity but he won’t receive any of my activity unless he decided to follow me back.

The last factor that I want to analyze is the kind of information that you can find in each social network. Starting with Facebook because it seems to be the most popular one nowadays. This social network is used to share personal experiences, users can share those experiences using images, videos, and written posts, in all of them you can specify the people with you (others Facebook users), the place, and how that makes you feel. On another hand, Instagram required a picture or a video in each post, in this case the picture or the video is the principal element of the post, and the written part is just a complement of the post. Twitter use another posting process, in twitter the principal component of the post is what you write and how you are able to summarize the message in 140 characters giving the option to answer other users post creating a kind of conversation, for this reason Twitter users frequently share opinions about different topics. As we know, LinkedIn is a “business” social network, in this case users are not sharing personal experiences or personal opinions they share articles, news and documents and comment them using a high written record.