Social Network- The movie

I saw this movie in the first week that it came out, but have just never got a chance to actually make the blog about it. I wanted to watch it because i heard great reviews about it and was really interested in the Facebook history and see how they put it together.

When i saw it i was very pleased with the actual movie, it was very entertaining from beginning to end, and quite informational the whole time. I learned a few things i didn’t know before, and they included such things as that they started Facebook in Harvard literally in one of the dorm rooms. IT was taken from the idea of some other Harvard students but tweaked a little to become the actual facebook it is today. It is still amazing how such one person can create such a concept as facebook and even facemash. It took a lot of computer knowledge by the creator to make the concept work and it was interesting to see how it spread from only a Harvard site to being such a universal thing. It was also very interesting to see how it helped evolve in a financial way to become the multi billion dollar company it is today.  Also i learned that the creater of NApster was also part of the origins of Facebook, that was something i didn’t know.

Some of the things i didn’t really like where the ways they portrayed MArk Zuckerberg. They made him seem like an antisocial nerd who had no people skills, and i don’t believe that he was that way in real life. I saw videos of him speak in real life and he didn’t seem that distanced from the real world as the movie made it seem.  Something else that surprised me was the way friendships end so easily just for money, it was very shocking that a best friend would do that to another best friend and basically make him having from 30% ownership to basically nothing.

OVerall, it was a great movie and i would suggest it to anybody. It not only was entertaining on a cinematic way but also was very informative to anybody who was interested in Facebook and its history.

The Next New Thing

ITs kind of hard to predict the next new thing in new media because if it where possible we would all be the next Mark Zukenbergs(Sp?). If i had to predict where the next new thing would be would be in integration of everything that exists already. IT seems that everything has already been created with the ideas of virtual world, social networking, blogs etc.. The only thing that could be next would be possibly to integrate everything into one thing in the form of a virtual social network. Where everything is within arms reach and nobody would ever have to leave it. Something along the line of surrogates or avatar. This would require some new technology to be invented, but with the recent inventions and advances in technology i don’t see this being a problem. Regardless of this minor set back i am very excited to see what in fact will be the next new thing.

Our Class Wiki – So Far

My part of the class wiki will be the food section and how different food is portrayed through the use of new media. I havent really contributed much to the actual wiki yet and havent done too much research because i was focusing on the paper. But i was always interested in the cooking world. I have watched the food network for a couple of years now and like to cook in my spare time. I find it to be a very relaxing activity that takes away from the stress associated with school and work. The new media outlet for the food industry can be seen through different blogs of people and their recipes. Tweets of what people cook, and even wiki on different kind of foods. Once i do more research i am sure i will be able to find a lot to contribute to the class wiki under the food section.

About My Term Research Paper

This was probably one of my favorite reasearch projects i had to do thus far in my college career because of the simple fact that i got to choose the topic. When i found out that we had to choose a topic relating to new media my first thought was to do something involving ebay.

I choose eBay because i was always interested in the concept of eBay, and all throughout highschool i bought and sold things. It became a hobby for me and would be able to sit on eBay for hours. The trick was finding a way to relate eBay the auction site to new media. This proved to be a tougher task then i thought because when i made my outline it seemed as if i just wrote about eBay the auction site and didnt mention eBay the new media outlet at all.

Once i started to conduct research it was evident that eBay was very involved in web 2.0 as well as implementing the 5 cs into their site. IT was hard to get scholarly articles regarding eBay but i did my best to find credible sources so it would actually be a real research paper.

I learned that eBay has had many web 2.0 applications that it launched in 2006 but for some reason most of them didn’t survive and instead have been integrated into the community section of their site. IT seems to be a perfect matching of web 2.0 applications and the online auctioning service that eBay provides.

Overall, i learned a little bit about the history of eBay, and how it is constantly trying to keep up with recent trends whether it be web 2.0 or now moving onto mobile applications and uses. It will be around for a very long time and should be looked at.

Privacy & Confidentiality

With all of the new media available people focus mostly on all of the great new things they can do and see, and sometimes forget about the importance of PRivacy and Condifedntiality. These could be two of the most important things that should be associated with new media. One of the worst things that can happen on new media in today’s world is identity theft, and unfortunately it seems to have become even more popular. With all of these new media outlets people feel comfortable and seem to think everybody is their friends, so they seem like they are doing you a good deed but in fact they are just trying to get your personal information. Ebay is a prime example of a new media source which people try to get personal information, it comes in the form of email spam which takes you to a mirror site which looks like a legit site but in fact it is just a site to steal your personal information.

The problem with confidentiality on new media, is that you never really know who is on the other side, while you may think you’re talking to person your age in fact it is a 60 year old man, this can be very traumatizing to younger kids and because of this the privacy settings must be set so kids can’t talk to stranger. Another problem with privacy and confidentiality, is that people choose very easy passwords that certain people can crack.

People nowadays try to keep all of their personal information private on social networking sites such as Facebook and mysapce. This is a good start to protect private information, but people also need to be aware of scams that some of these sites have, aswell as have a good anti-virus and spyware software, and finally just keep their eyes open to strange things .This will help make the new media a safe and fun place.

Advice to Baruch College

My advice for baruch college regarding New media would ot basically just use more of it. There are so many available resources out there that kids could follow their professors and the class. For example, if the professor had a twitter account for each class he could post where he left off, or of any interesting reads the students could do in their spare time, or even if he is running late. In addition, they could use you-tube and even record their lectures or parts of the lecture. Then post it on YouTube, this would defeneitly help the kids who want to go back and look at their lecture before the tests. Moreover, some professors dont even use any technology at all for their classes, for example my tax class. The professor does not post a single thing online and doesnt even use blackboard. This makes it impossible to get practice problems or even some sort of power point slides. Thus making it harder for the student to do well. Some students need to see visual examples instead of just hearing words, there are projectors in each class it is time that the professors have to use them > If for some reason they dont know how, they should train them! Overall, i just think if we were to utilize the new media in the right ways instead of killing time the students would be able to do better.

Twitter: Discussion

So today, we had to make a few tweets and respond to somebody elses tweets regarding the reading. IT was a new experience for me since i have never used twitter before. I personally didnt care for it too much, i would rather there be an option to leave a comment directly instead of doing the whole @ thing. OVerall it was fun because it was new and will most likely use it at some point in my life again.

This differes from a blackboard discussion board because there isnt the option to find which classmate posted something and click reply or something, it is much more direct way of replying to somebody, and in addition you have as much space as you want to make a reply. As for twitter you have to go post on you own page and use the @ button. This was a litte confusing for me, and again only limited to 140 characters which is basically nothing. It makes you think of way to condense your ideas.

As for a class discussion, i feel like that would be the best way to have a discussion because this way you have the body language that goes along with conversations to help guide the discussion. You have everything you need and no limitations, and having the actual person besides you is just an added bonus. Call me old fashion, but i prefer the face to face discussion over online discussion any day.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

The virtual world is a place where regular people go away to live in their own imagination. While in the real world they might be a boring accountant, in the virtual world they might be some sort of club promoter or what not. It might seem like a great idea, but at the same time it can get a little over whelming. A recent example of virtual worlds was Avatar, as well Surrogates. Especially in surrogates with Bruce Willis, the mail characters went away into their own virtual worlds where they could basically do whatever they pleased and never really aged or had real consequences. IT enabled them to get away from their real life disabilities or problems and go have fun in a virtual world. However, the negative aspect of this was that it took away from their human side and wasn’t a real life.

In the NYtimes article “live Been in that club, Just not in real life”, they describe how some people meet up with each other plan out a place to go and hang out, but instead of actually going to that club in real life they go into their homes and online into the virtual world and go to the same club virtually.  In the article the people go visit the virtual lower east side and they just go to all the hotspots without actually leaving their doors. They say that it is a lot cleaner and less expensive to do such a thing. However, I believe that this takes away from possibly meeting new people and really developing social skills that so many people these days are missing.

Some of the negatives of Virtual worlds are that people get addicted to them and just go visit those sites all day, instead of actual real interactions with people. In addition there are a lot of scams in these virtual worlds, because people assume the person on the other side is trying to be their friends, when in reality they are just trying to scam them.

As for the future, I see virtual worlds getting better graphics and having more options for people to really interact with one another. In addition, they will able to have more real life things to do so in some ways make it more like real life, but at same time still not be. Thus will probably make it even more addictive.

 

 

Social Networking

 

Some of the ways that corporations have started to incorporate social networking sites would be the use of facebook, linkedin or even twitter. Most recruiters in today’s world will certainly Google you before they hire you and one of the first places they will look would be facebook. Here they will check to see if you have any inappropriate activities as well as your bio and just an overall opinion about you. Because of this it is very important to make sure you always have a good representation of you whether it be on your facebook, twitter. As for linkedin it is more networking tool so you can make connections in the corporate world and work your way through. Corporation use this site to get a better idea of your education as well as your experience. From here they can get a better understanding of what potential you have for their position.

According to the article “Twitter Tips: how to Find Job Posts on Twitter”. Companies are starting to even use social networking sites such as twitter to post job openings. In the article they mention that you must search through hashtags on twitter to find the best jobs, but still this process isn’t the best because there are so many tweets everyday. It is hard to find the reliable job offerings, as well being the first to respond. It seems as if this way of doing it will only get better with time.

Some of the benefits of using social networks to find job opportunities is that they get to reach a wider audience then if it was the old way of going to job recruitment centers. They get a much larger selection of possible candidates and get to choose the best and brightest. The downside to this is for the actual person looking for the job, he will have a harder time because he will have to compete with more people.

In the future I believe that these technologies would involve and basically not even require an in person interview. everything will be done online, and make the process even more simplistic for the employer, however this might not be the best for the employee if they don’t come out as well over the internet as they would in person. Either way I feel that this technology has a long way to go until corporations fully integrate it into their system.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Social Networking sites are probably one of the most visited sites in today’s world. people of all ages visit these sites to communicate with their friends/ peers. It is a great way to kill some time and to get away from the real world for a little bit. I usually visit a few myself and they include MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I have not really used any of the other ones but for the purpose of this class i have registered and browsed the sites a little bit.

Facebook is probably the most visited social networking site. I personally like the convienence of the layout as well as the chat option. It is a great way to stay in contact with friends aswell as to see what people are doing that night/weekend. it is very easy to navigate and to use all of the upload features. They also have a bunch of games for people who would like to do that sort of thing.

As for MySpace i don’t think it is as popular since Facebook has come along. I personally havent used it since college began but it is quite similar to Facebook. IT is lacking some of the features such as chat/games/ and marketplace. However, it is a great place for bands or musicians to post up their songs so people can listen. I’m sure many bands have been signed because of the popularity of their pages. It is also pretty easy to navigate and to use. Once you create an account it is relatively easy to upload some pictures and find your friends. However, they are not always labeled under their real names so sometimes it might be hard.

Friendster focuses a lot more on the relationship between you and your friends. Besides the classifieds section, which to my surprise was very impressive in size, Friendster doesn’t offer anything else and that is really why i personally never have used it. Nothing really appeals to me about it and maybe that’s why it has never gotten to the same levels as MySpace or Facebook.

As for LinkedIn it is a much more business oriented social networking site. It is mostly designed to help you network with other professionals and to set up a business contact. Once you create your account you tell people about where you work and about your education. From there you are allowed to add friends who are in your network and send messages. However, to get more of the real interesting features you have to become a premier member and pay some sort of fee. That is my personal reason for never getting more involved with that site, i didn’t feel the need to pay to network.

Overall all of these social networking sites are great ways to either network, keep up with friends, or possibly make new ones, but im personal opinion it is still vital to keep relationships outside of the internet. It is very important to still actually physically meet up and talk to people.