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.