The Next New Thing

The future of new media is going to be access and immediacy, that is what is really broadly available and what is in real time. For example, the future internet TV, it will not only be the one we use now, but will become fully immersive and interactive and on-demand. Your computer and TV will merge into one unit, which will enable you to watch anything you want at anytime and anyplace like a magic box; in addition, you will have lots of controls. It could be as big as one of your living-room walls, using far less energy of power. You won't need to search for the remote, instead, you'll have voice-activated access. No doubt, the picture will be 3-D. When you watch Super Bowl's, you can call up a screen to order pizza at half time. You won't need scheduled TV broadcasts, instead, you can watch TV shows at your most convenient time. You will be able to share with your friends immediately and easily, by calling him/her in another screen to invite him/her to join you in a networking game or ask him/her to watch the same show and chat together. Of the course, you can also participate a live show or live entertainment at home, no need to go to the studio. With internet connectivity and sharp solution, users will customize viewing experiences and experiment the feeling of belonging to the environment, being able to interact with it from any spatial direction. Another related example about internet communication will be regarding a challenge as to filtering. There will be a powerful centered tool of filtering to immediately publish to a large number of people and to immediately share contacts or content for a lot of people. The filter tool will combine all information, particularly various comments, ideas and thoughts in the popular websites, such as Twitter and Facebook. Although there is a big portion of people's boring mutter among those ideas and thoughts, there are definitely comments about current events, meals at a restaurant, experience in an online shopping, etc. The filter tool will filter and categorize all those tweets and comments and publish them immediately. By viewing those comments and thoughts easily in the internet TV, people can of the course choose their favorite restaurants or go shopping smartly.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

Initially, I've volunteered to add content in two places, "How Business is Using Social Networking" and "New Media in Food, Beverage & Hospitality Industry." I had thought there is no limitation of content length, so long as the contents are able to to state clearly what they are in order to give the audiences more understanding about what they view. Hence, I've added content to the place of "How Business is Using Social Networking." My content covers how business use social networking to realize marketing, customer service, product recalls and employee recruitment. But now I realize the content length shall be at least one page. This is somewhat like a research paper length to my understanding and it definitely requires more research. Since I've added content to "How Business is Using Social Networking," I'll continue to work on with it. To expand my original content, I need to reconsider the structure and I may include why, what and how. On top of the benefits of using social networking, I may also discuss the disadvantages. In addition, I hope I can add contents in two places, otherwise one is enough.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is making digitally stored information available for other individuals to download. The digitally stored information includes computer programs, documents, electronic books, images, music, videos and so on. P2P file sharing is users use P2P software to download files, such as music, videos, documents, electronic books and so on, not like the past when people had to connect to servers to read and download files. P2P means peer-to-peer. We meet every day or talk over telephone directly are vivid examples of P2P. Many services in the internet like instant message systems can also be examples of P2P. These include ICQ, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Pager and so on. They all allow users to directly communicate and exchange files. Through internet, a computer is connected to the other via P2P programs and thus enables file downloading. P2P connects people directly and makes communication in the internet more easier, direct and interactive without any intermediate links. The P2P software used by users to download "free" files include eMule, BitTornado, BitTorrent, Thunder and so on. These "free" files such as movie trailers or game demos are legal; however, those new songs or movies still in theaters are copyrighted material and not legal. When users download "free" files," their computers also becomes part of the network, which enables other individuals on the Internet to download files from their computers. Hence, people shall pay attention to and take responsibility of their actions. As stated by Eric Pfanner in the article of "Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access," legislative solutions of internet piracy won't be easy and new ways are always can be found to hide those piracy. Although there's a long way for piracy legislation, in reality there are also cases of piracy accusing and the compensation amount is huge, for example, the case of "Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs," in which, the Minnesota mom, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has been involved for a few years for this endless lawsuit. If you dare take risks, you may face the same situation like her. Thus, in general, users have to be careful for downloading and distributing material, particularly those copyrighted material.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Nowadays, it seems there is no absolute privacy and confidentiality. People are overcome by a burning desire to share gossip as soon as they hear it. Especially with the help of all kinds of new media, prying into private life of others becomes so easy. There are paparazzi to serve tabloid magazines to spread the private lives of celebrities and there are personal information salesperson to serve different intermediary agents to pass private information of ordinary being. In the blogs, there are anonymous prosecutors; in the mailbox, there are spammers; in the online games, there are public administrators and in the search engines, there are peepers. Even dressing rooms have electronic eyes and specific photographers use mobile phones for secret filming. Of the course, the peek and disturbance of private space make us at a loss and even to find different ways to protect ourselves. You'll have to be careful. When you check your emails or messages in the cells, you may open an email or a message from a stranger by accident, then perhaps a few days later, your email box will get a virus or you'll have an extra deduction of $5 in your cell. You may choose not to release any personal information in the website. However, you cannot guarantee you'll not leave information in any other agency, such as a clinic and real estate agent who will upload your information into the web or sell to others. Only with your name, it's so easy to search more information of you in the internet, such as your photo and even your financial information. Blogs may be private spaces for some people, but they are more like personal media for most of people. It's good that your blog can attract many audiences, but it will also bring scolding and even intimidating verbal abuse. The internet is filled with various photos snapshot by candid camera and the videos secretly filmed via mobile phones, which could enable you rise to fame overnight. A simple button operation could cause a bitter debate easily. The advanced technology not only has brought convenience, but also unavoidable troubles. When people are busy with gossip, who knows they will become objects of others some day.

Advice to Baruch College

Well, it's hard to say, because it's all based on how much I understand the new media are used in Baruch. I just surfed Baruch website to try to find something for improvements. It seems everything is going well now, especially there is a new website of Baruch Home created where I can go to the link of Zicklin School of Business quickly. It was a headache for me to find this link before this web page is created. Now if I want to say something, the only thing I experienced and may think there's an improvement is about borrowing a book in the library/across CUNY library. I tried to borrow a book from other CUNY colleges. When I logged in and it was glad to see there was an online chat. However, every time the chat person was always somebody from other CUNY college and he did not know Baruch library policy exactly. So he always asked me to wait and called someone in Baruch library, then answered my questions. This becomes inefficient/complicated when I have more questions to ask. It's also a little bit weird, because I am a Baruch student and why nobody from Baruch library chats with me directly. The most worst thing was that the person chat with me could not get right answers for me and therefore I had to go to Baruch library to line up there and ask someone...So, for Baruch student's benefit, it's good to set up an online library chat for Baruch students, particularly there are now so many people wanting to borrow books in the library. Likewise, it's also good to extend such online chat to other services as well, such as tuition payment, etc. because it's quite often that nobody picks up the phone when I call to ask questions. Also, I've never seen any newspaper about our college, student life, etc. Perhaps the form of e-paper can be considered.

About My Term Research Paper

I just finished my term paper, but has not yet submitted it. It's not an easy project, because this is the first time I wrote something for about 11 pages (including title page).  A long paper and a big project, anyway. The assignment about how to distinguish new media from old media gave me hints to choose "The Future of Old Media" as my term research paper topic. I wrote something about old media's future in the assignment, so of the course, I took this topic. In the following assignments, there were more topics about new media, such as social networking and modeling reality with virtual worlds, and all those gave me more ideas to my paper.

I have never thought a lot about the future of old media before I work on with it. It's great to make a review as to how media develop, from old to new. It's also good to know there are so many forums/organizations to discuss media, such as World Media Summit and World Association of Newspapers. I like to read something about current events and something related to business. My paper extends my knowledge to media industry, particularly newspaper. Also, I do not often browse English web and it's so amazed to see there are so many websites I can go to. That means internet has deep penetrated into people's daily life.

Compared to new media, old media just appear relatively early and do not have so many audiences as before. However, by comparison to its preceding media, old media are "new" instead. So the future of old media, on the other hand, may not only mean the future of print media, radio, television and so on, but also mean the future of current "new media" which may become "old" some day. Therefore, my paper discusses the future of any "new media" and it's one of components of the field of "new media."  

Creativity and New Media

Although "out of office" automatic reply email is helpful for any leave notice when you work, making a message card and putting on your desk is still polite and warm-hearted to any visitor, especially for a temporary leave.

I used Paint, PowerPoint, Publisher and Photoshop to make these cards. Card layout/dimension was created in Paint; wordings were processed in PowerPoint and Publisher and pictures were edited in Adobe Photoshop. Below, you can find my screenshots/card templates. Now, just click the picture and print it.

Creativity

The most obvious characteristic new media has is its interaction. Through new media, users can interact with each other easily. They can make comments and exchange opinions to a specific topic. This is just like brainstorming that can generate a large number of ideas. Users can come up with as many ideas as they can. Of the course, due to unlimited internet, users can share anything at any time and at any place. From this perspective, it of the course can inspire creativity. The powerful internet provides a great deal of information and it's so easy for user to search. More information a person gets can also help foster creativity.

There are so many easy access and easy to use tools/design applications, such as digital cameras and Adobe Photoshop, as well as lots of distribution choices, such as Youtube and blogging that users can be writers, designers and producers to upload their works online. With Photoshop and printers, users can do all the photo imaging they want and no need to go to a studio. Many music lovers also use music software to compose music easily and effectively. In the article of "Pop Music 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 The new math of mashups," Jeremy Brown isolated a song to create a new song. Apparently, different tool/software allows creativity.

From a business perspective, companies embrace user-generated innovation. Especially technology companies rely a lot on customers to help create new products or add new features. As described in the article of "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers," by listening to and monitoring online user experience/opinions, Twitter comes up with many features to meet customer demand. Many companies also have to find new ways to connect with customers. They invite users to experience their products in the new product introduction phase. They listen to and monitor user opinions online and modify/add features accordingly.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used?
The virtual worlds are built for gaming. In a gaming world, there's a fictional theme and different role play. You can build your own avatar there. Most of gaming are commercial gaming. In the article of "No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You," people in the commercial gaming can buy luxury clothes that they cannot afford in the reality. They can be invited to a party at the embassy which is impossible in the real world. People are attracted by the miracle/fantasy the gaming world has brought and they indulge in this. More and more commercial gaming are developed for this purpose. Virtual worlds are also used for socializing, i.e., online community based on different chat rooms. The online community is open-ended and allow you to speak out freely. In order to show yourself (to socialize with others), you can even  create and decorate a personal space such as a home or room. You can also host an activity and event. As described in "iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction," with such a socializing function, the virtual world can enable people with autism to "practice social interaction" to improve their treatment. Virtual worlds can also serve as forums for political expression and debate. I watched some TV play and understand that virtual worlds can be used to develop military training simulations. Some virtual worlds have been created for educational purposes. They include online university courses, computer programming tutorials, virtual libraries and so on.

What are the pros and cons?
Pros: It's a global world and people are linked together by similar interest without geographic border. There's also no border of age, culture and even linguistic form. People speak out freely online at any time and communication becomes more challenging, which may be more effective and productive. In addition, the virtual world is personal. You can do what you like there and speak what you want to and it encourages creativity.
Cons: People indulge in this virtual world, escaping from social life in reality, which may not be good to maintain an healthy interpersonal relationship in real world. People immersive in the fantasy world may lead to a feeling of worthless and low self-esteem. They won't pay attentions to their online behaviors since nobody can see them as in reality. Some people may extend their roles in the virtual world to the reality, which will bring destructive behaviors to society. Some people with ulterior motives may also use virtual worlds to commit crimes.

How do virtual worlds foster creativity?
The immersive virtual environment allows users to create the objects that fill the world. You can build the world so long as you can imagine it. Those fantasy you cannot build in reality can be built in the virtual worlds. In the virtual world, you can create and decorate a home, room or an apartment. The higher visiting rate to your decorated home may foster you to have more creative ideas/designs in order to attract more visitors. You may also try different role play in the virtual world, where you'll explore the role's characteristics and storylines. In education, some teachers extend the simulations into their classrooms, creating a virtual environment, engaging in open-ended activities in class. Some programs are developed to assist the development of creativity when students are encouraged to go beyond the program exercises to develop their own problems and situations that are based on the simulations. Providing students with a choice of activities to complete allows them to become more motivated and therefore creative in completing the tasks.

What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?
As described in the article of "I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life," the author says, "It’s a bet that the future of online interaction won’t be built on flat, static Web pages but rather in traversable 3-D spaces." In the future, all those in reality will be built in the computer world too. People don't need to go to a club to see a live performance, which can be viewed online at the same time. Furthermore, I think virtual world may be merged with the real world, which may become a totally seamless experience, but it all depends on technology development. It requires mature input and output technologies. Computers can simulate the imaginary world and those input/output technology can link the imaginary world with reality. So long as the science and technology are developed to a certain level, what we see in the science fictions/movies are possible.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter only allows 140 characters that it requires your sentences are precise to correctly express yourself. However, for word limits on Blackboard Discussion, I have no idea of exact word limits, but if Blackboard Discussion does have word counts, at least it's much more than 140 characters. There's an enough room for you to fully express your idea. In the Blackboard Discussion, which class and section you are from are pre-defined by the professor and you don't need to worry about your this identity. There's always a topic specified and you can create your own related sub-topic (thread). And it's easy just by clicking the "reply" button to make a response. But in the twitter, you have to follow specific rules for a group discussion. You need to put a remark to indicate which section and class you are in when you make tweets or replies each time in order for the professor and other students to recognize you. To response to a student on twitter, you have to use the @ symbol (the student's username you want to make a reply) to indicate you make a reply on his/her tweet. To re-post what someone had said on twitter if you don't reply right away, you can retweet, but you'll have to use RT @username< section you copied from the student's tweet that you want to make a reply >. You need to remember all these rules all the time, or your replies will be confused to the readers. Both Twitter discussion and Blackboard Discussion are made on the internet, a virtual world. Through words, sentences and tones, readers can imagine author's facial and body expressions, and then find out the original and correct meaning of the author. An in-class discussion, however, is a face-to-face environment. Nothing is more efficient than hearing a person's real voice and seeing his/her body language. If you misunderstand him/her or have questions, you can verify or ask right away and no need to guess the real meaning just by viewing a few sentences from the virtual discussion board, where there may be requiring more sentences to get the real answers. But then again, some people may prefer a virtual world, where they feel safer and can express more freely than in the reality.  

Social Networking Sites

Facebook is more about friends and family. Connecting with everyone around you in a user-friendly way through wall posts, pics, chats, messages, groups and even apps. It might appeal more to the youth, because it has many different games in its apps, which can be pretty much addicting. For the business sector, Facebook provides more context and sells a link a little more. In addition, you can control who can see your posts, pics, or whatever. You can limit your stuff to your friends or even include your friends’ friends, or you can just make it 100% private.

Twitter only allows 140 characters. The tweet gets to the point quicker. It is a great online platform where we can share and follow great thoughts and ideas. It would probably be more attractive to the business sector, because things get public and people can take a peek and comment. You can just connect to almost anywhere via Twitter, so it's also really incredible in its own way. Twitter is also a great place to make new friends, so those who really love to connect would probably love Twitter.

Myspace has more options for sharing information, posting pictures and slide shows, adding your own music and videos and much more. There are many layouts, custom skins, generators and other graphics that are set up in the Myspace environment. It also has music-plays-on-page capability. Compared to Facebook, Myspace does not have real-time updates from other users and live search results. If you do not make your settings private, Myspace has more information showing, and the problem with this is that people can be very surprised with the unwanted spam they will get.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site and it is mainly used for professional networking. And of the course, it does not have many features as other social networking sites, which includes custom backgrounds, customization of layout, music play on page capability, etc. To protect user privacy, there's also no public message posting. The networking features of instant messaging and private messages are also not embedded in LinkedIn environment.  

Social Networking

What ways social networking can be used by the corporate and otherwise: For a corporate, social network marketing can grow business marketing profits. It can adds human element to the business or product. Comparing with expensive ads, it also can create buzz around your product, service or brand while in a cheaper price. When social network marketing engages with customers directly while hanging  out online, it can create customer loyalty and trust. Social networking sites are online communities where friends can interact and share information with each other, which can make the business or product word-of-mouth. Social networking can also help corporations to hire people. As described in "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting" by Frank Langfitt, it's so easy just by typing keywords into a search engine that helps Crawford scrape the entire network to dig out high-quality candidates whom she can't find elsewhere. Social networking can be used for election campaign, organizing activities, events or groups to showcase issues and opinions and make a wider audience aware of them. In the article of "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power" By DAVID CARR, "by bolting together social networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then John McCain and the Republicans." Social networking can be used to hone debating and discussion skills to help users develop public ways of presenting themselves. Users are content creators, managers and distributors in social networking sites, which encourages and supports people's creativity, as well as their collaboration skills.

Benefits to society:
Social networking is the easiest way to stay connected with friends, co-works and bosses that helps create a harmony environment. It is a means of communication that friends and co-workers can share their up-to-date information. Social networking sites have certain topics and interests and therefore it can facilitate to make friends with similar interests and goals. With constant and updated news information, social networking sites allow readers to reach information quickly. Such efficiency can help drive social productivity. Social networking profiles allow users to post anything and can be seen by anybody, so it's a means of free advertising. People are more willing to "speak" in this virtual world and it encourages creative expression. Social networking massively decreases the size of the world. It creates a global exposure and this has made the flow of ideas and information an easier process. It also allows users to band together to create strong alliances to fight for a certain cause and therefore creates a positive impact on the world.

"Dark side" of social networking:
Young people indulging in the social networking sites may not concentrate on their study. In order to facilitate their social networking communication, they may ask their parents to purchase expensive handheld devices. If parents cannot satisfy them, they may seek for other negative solutions. For most of people who are not active in the social networking, their common concern is privacy issue. They know that the information in the network is spread so widely and spontaneously that their privacy may expose to everybody globally. In the "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" By Marc Parry, "The researchers, Danah Boyd and Eszter Hargittai, report that most Facebook users modified their privacy settings at least once in 2009 and that 'engagement with privacy settings increased significantly' between 2009 and 2010." Privacy disclosures not only bring troubles to users, but also may create potential crime issues. In the virtual world, free flow of information can be used for good, but it can also be used for ill. It may induce criminals and criminal behaviors. The Police, the intelligence services and industry have to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

The way these technologies might evolve in the future:
Smart phones become more ubiquitous. Software and webware companies know that if their products are not mobile-enabled, they will lose the battle. The web browser will get much smarter to fit handheld devices. Web marketing will continue to be consumer-centric and involve highly customer interaction. Social networking will become pervasive and privacy issues will continue to cause problems.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Compare and contrast blogs and wikis:
Blogs are online journals, points of view and personal disclosure with reverse-chronological organization, have at least one link per entry and allow visitors to leave comments. Wikis are online databases that allow open editing, even you can set up your own free wikispace or install your own wiki software on a server. Wikis are widely used as web-based project management tools that are low cost, simple and easy use and interface well with existing network infrastructures. According to "More on How to Build Your Own Wikipedia" by Margaret Locher, "a wiki is a software application that allows groups of users to create, edit and comment on online documents - so that each team member could contribute and access up-to-date information on the project." "By making it easier to gather and share information as well as record discussions about a subject, wikis can help people improve their processes and get projects done faster."

Blogs                                 Wikis
single author                             many authors
content is subjective                 content is objective due to open editing
reverse-chronological order      content and users determine the structure
contain external links                contain internal and external links as online databases
limited collaboration                  more flexibile collaboration compared to blogs

Importance of convergence in today's networked world: Voice, data and video now share resources and interact with each other. Text, audio and video material can be delivered over the same wired, wireless or fiber-optic connections, which urges the appearance of multimedia delivery of information. The coexistence of telephone, data and video communication in a single network offers convenience, flexibility and efficiency to all users (consumers, government agencies, business and educational institutions). Both consumers and organizations get benefits from texting, web surfing, VoIP (voice over IP), streaming media, videoconference applications, online gaming and e-commerce. Organizations rely heavily on the telephony and IP solutions for networking. Network convergence is done to reduce infrastructure costs and simplify and expedite the work process. Remote IP VPN (virtual private network) access to corporate networks as a mobile technology has a great impact on the productivity of the company's workforce. Wireless data applications, such as web browsing, e-mail, personal information management systems and instant messaging are being deployed in many organizations. It becomes obvious that network convergence is considered vital for organizations' growth and to achieve customer and employee satisfaction and increase in productivity.

How blogs can be used for collaboration:
Blog authors often make rich use of hypertext to connect to what others have written on a topic or to resources on the web. Blogs also allow comments from readers to write a reaction, which is then logged and linked with other comments. Blogs are easily linked each other to create on-line communities. Take example of the case in "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" By MICHAEL WILSON. Neighbors use blog to make comments of what they heard and saw about the suspicious drug deals in the community. They witness the conflicts and violence brought by drug dealers and the addicts. Knowing they may face abuse or even violence from those drug dealers and addicts, neighbors cannot speak out in reality, whereas, voice out in the blogs, where they form a combination to fight together and lead to a raid and the arrest of five people. As the coffee shop owner, Katherine Khatari says, "People don’t like to fight alone. There’s strength in numbers, you know? There’s more of us than them.” Some blogs have specific topics, which can be used in education, for example, there are blogs used to help student learn ESL and the blogs we create in CIS3810 class are the discussion forums to facilitate our study of Introduction to New Media course.

A new use for a wiki that has not been done:
I'd regard the undeveloped new use/function for a wiki as its current disadvantages. Once its problems are solved, wiki will have a new look. Right now wiki seems to have a gap on the size of uploads which has been problematic for uploading large PPT files. Although wiki allows multiple people to access the same material simultaneously, it has led to two different edits of the same material with only one of them being posted. Wiki also requires users to go to it. If there's any new or modified material, people either go to check wiki regularly or to be notified separately. So in my opinion, if wiki can solve all those problems, there is definitely a room for new use of a wiki.

The Future of Old Media

My research topic is "The future of old media." Our course is "Introduction to new media" and it no doubt relates to old media. Confronting so many new media brought by new technology, there are lots of debates around the new and old media, as well as the future of old media. In the previous discussion of "What's new media," in addition to the comparison between new and old media, I also made a few comments about the future of old media. Therefore, I think perhaps I can develop more. My research will tell what new media and old media are, their descriptions and relationships as they naturally occur. It will also cover the characteristics, the advantages and the differences between those two medias. Of the course, how old and new media occur and whether the new media will replace old media will be addressed as well. I'll conduct a literature review and my primary source of research will come from Newman library. As advised by the lecture, the City's Public Library system may be used.

Welcome~~~

Hello,

Welcome to my blog. This blog will provide a forum where you will find comments on our new media course. I also would like to go beyond this if I can. I love to eat, travel, watch movie and listen to music. I'm not an online guru, but I tend to read a number of blogs here regularly. Some of which are quite interesting.

Feel free to comment. I hope you enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them.

Will blog you soon!


Jing