The Next New Thing

The next big new media craze will have to do with fingerprint authentication in order to create, make any modifications or deletion of accounts on social media sites. This will cut back on the fraud cases that have been rampant in the social media world. This will also serve a purpose for the usage on making payment over the internet to secure sites that have your digital fingerprint in their database. By curbing the ability of hackers to remotely make changes, the next step to authenticate physically will cut the hacker business for a lot of businesses and users of social sites. Payment for things such as electronics even at specific consumer stores would help get people in and out faster. The savings from cutting the cost of cash registers, employees would be substantial.

Making payments at the gas station can also be a benefit. Paying with your card and then as a second check, you scan your thumb as the confirmation measure. This form of new media is being used for computers in terms of authenticating who you are in order to login to the computer, but not to confirm who you are on the net.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I was planning on adding content, in regards to the wiki, that deal with the different ways businesses monitor their employees on a daily basis. By doing this we realize how much privacy continues to disappear more and more as the progression of new media in the business world chugs along. I'll be showing different ways that social media allows sites such as Facebook, to fork over our information to authority figures in the event they want to investigate for any reason.

Making sure that we understand what privacy policies that these sites offer to us and understanding what we are giving up by agreeing to view these site is important. I'm looking to also provide ways for employees to avoid giving up their privacy at work that could potentially cause them to lose their job or reprimanded for their words on any public social site. I'll be adding more information in regards to cases that have been affected by these issues in the last 3-4 years as well.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents, or electronic books. P2P file sharing is the usage of software to upload and download data from other users of the file sharing software. Software like Bearshare, Kazaa, Limewire and BitTorrent are just a few examples of software that allow you to share data with your peers. The use of software such as Bittorrent could be beneficial for those in need of vital information. In the article titled The BitTorrent Effect, by Clive Thompson, file sharing has both its ups and downs. With this software you can download movies at the speed of lightning allowing you to download music that you can't find in the stores. Now you can have it directly from a fellow member. The downside is that by the usage of BitTorrent, companies are not making as much money as they are use to do to the ever popularity of these programs.

Privacy and Confidentiality

With the advent of social media, the growing loss of privacy and confidentiality seems to be ballooning out of control. The way these sites handle your privacy is through not protecting you, the user, at all. Some sites privacy policy pages admit that by signing up with their site you will not be protected by the company. If at anytime they want to sell your email address or send your name to the government for an investigation into your past, they reserve that right to do so simply by you agreeing to join a their social media site.

Confidentiality is lost by transmission of information through one of these sites that can potentially be tapped into by someone looking to do something wrong to you or gain access to vital information. Even the controllers of the site could misuse your information for their own gain so you really need to understand what you are agreeing to before you use these sites.

Advice

I would start first with the recruitment process here at Baruch. I would allow potential High School graduates to attend a digital tour of the Baruch Campus through social media sign-up on say, a Facebook like Page. We would send out a message to those students who like the page, stating that a Digital tour of the campus is available now as your initial campus visit. This would open up a whole new way for people around the world to attend a viewing of Baruch College without having to leave their homes leading to new streams of revenue for Baruch. The tours would be live via Face-time usage.

I would also start a customer service chat page where students from Baruch can actually log in as themselves, open a chat session with a person who works in Bursar. The students would get answers to questions quickly online first through a search functionality of FAQ's based on their question. If the student is unable to get the answer from the FAQ page, they can then get the answer through an online chat session from a Bursar worker designated for the day to field these calls from students. This suggestion alone would free up much wasted time for students and for the Bursar.

Creativity and New Media

So I was able to gain access to new media today but wasn't sure what route I would take. I decided to take the Second Life path. The reason for this was to see just how the virtual world works and just how many people are in this world. I was able to create an account for my self and realized this world is much more developed than I imagined. First I has to pick an avatar:

Then I entered the 3D world and saw that there were many ways to flow through this world:

I hope to learn more with this new media by trying to interact with people in this world, listen to music, fly a plane, bungee jump and even drive a race car of my liking.

Creativity

Creativity is something that is generated in parallel with new media as we learn when reading all of the articles related to user generated ideas. With Twitter as a prime example, users are the ones who generate what gets applied for usage in new media. When you look at Twitter itself, it was a user generated site that evolved strictly from user demand. As depicted in the article "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER" the creation of the @ symbol when referring to another user in their tweets. It also allowed other users to view the profile of the person who has been mentioned in a specific Tweet.

Creativity is highly embraced when dealing with new media in that companies are allowing users to be the innovators for their sites progression. The # tag symbol was another user demanded advent on Twitter. Although management did not like the idea and figured it would not catch on, users showed that they were wrong an indeed this feature was a must have for the sites existence.

Disney also experienced creativity through new media when their characters were used in a style of new media called a mashup. In the article, Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why? The New York Times, September 24, 2007; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html,some famous rappers made a song/video that was on Youtube that was named "Crank That". They essentially remade the character movements into a clipped together in a reworked order that mimicked the songs and videos flow. Disney did embrace this change and never thought twice about this being an issue because it was a creative way of utilizing their product.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

With the invention of virtual worlds, people now have the ability to bring their wildest dreams to life, even if it isn't possible in our physical world. We know that with the implementation of anything there is always a good and bad perspective that can be taken on it. When virtual reality is in effect, the good side of it can be seen as exemplified in the article "In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again,” by Saki Knafo, we see that when you have a passion for something like restoring your memories and making it into your own twisted reality, you get the the reconstruction of the Chelsea Hotel pre-renovations. You also get the room with the blood splattered walls in which Sid Vicious killed his wife which gives the creator the added satisfaction of being creative.

Another positive spin that you get from VW's (Virtual World's) is the fact that you can now live a life you might not otherwise be able to live in the real world. In the video "A Second Life on Second Life", you get the narrator talking about him living the life of a normal person. Being a paraplegic, these things are not possible in the real world so the creation of happiness can be another benefit of VW's. His ability to walk through the park, swim with the fishes or even just dancing with a friend is now possible.

Being able to conduct and attend a meeting with other government officials seems to be a great benefit for all participants in the meeting. Literally not having to be in the room physically, yet still be able to attend is a real possibility as depicted in the article “No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You” by RUTH LA FERLA, the New York Times, Oct 22, 2009.

 Discussing the dark side of the VW world could lead to people meeting up with other avatars in these virtual worlds and possibly promote virtual stalking. Just like chat rooms, virtual 3D rooms could lead to those kinds of things where people can be enthralled with another user of the VW world and possibly try to meet up leading to possibly promote harm to these users. Gaining access to real life structures such as the Pentagon could possibly pose a huge security threat if a hacker gains access to a secured government virtual room and learn the floor plans and layout of the building.

If I had to guess I would say that virtual worlds will probably be placed more in the fore front of our business and personal lives then it is today. Being able to schedule a meeting with someone in Australia and actually being able to interact with them for business purposes will be an astronomical benefit for the work that we do for our business.

Socially, being able to interact with a family member who is at war in Afghanistan virtually will put you with your loved one. Sitting with them at the family welcome center or walking the streets of Kabul with your loved one to see what they have to live through everyday would make a lot more people happier in living their lives.

Social Networking Sites

When working with social networking sites I noticed a lot of similarities as well as distinct differences when using them on a daily basis. The similarities between Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIn was that immediately they require you to sign up with them in order to use there services. They also required information of some sort from you whether it be just your name, address and email. They all give you the ability to add a picture of yourself for reference purposes. The ability to invite new members via these sites is a big feature they use since way it is done is through email.

The differences on these sites are more refined uses of the similarities between the sites. On Facebook we can send invitations members for private events that arise. LinkedIn and Myspace have this feature capability but Twitter does not.  

Blog about Twitter

A Twitter discussions for forums such as a classroom when compared to an in class Blackboard Discussion page or even a blog discussion, seems to be a better fit for arenas of technical collaboration. In regards to the size of a classroom it could be of great benefit when you are dealing with a large number of students or participants of a twitter discussion. The best part is the fact that the responses are real time and can be seen immediately if necessary. Getting status updates on messages you have sent in the form of a "retweet" can clarify just exactly who is sending you a response to one of your status updates. 

With Blackboard we see that the responses are easy to understand but you don't know right away if someone has responded. You need to check to see if somene did in fact respond. The look of the page is very bland and sort of boring when dealing with a forum for discussion. A Blog works well for me in my opinion but it has its drawbacks in that as the owner of the blog you need to make your page readable to all people and not just some verified users of the blog world.  

If I had to use anyone of these discussion forums I would use Twitter because it would serve of the best form of marketing for my business in the long run which allows you to reach many at no real cost.

Social Networking


When dealing with social networks, corporations have the ability to improve in many ways. One of those ways could be the improved communication of information within a business. having a better pipeline of information flow can save hundreds of thousands of dollars for a company. Not having to pay for this information by hiring consultants or flying in consultants to present ways to help the business cut there cost on many fronts. As noted in the article Social Networking at IBM: Maclean's Feb 4, 2008 "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" vol 121, p. 42. http://ibm.rogersconsumerpublishing.com/macleans/downloads/social.pdf, collaboration between people of the same industry can create new ways for businesses to grow and a speedier rate.

With things being viewed as being good there is always a dark side to the social networking world as we know it. With the ability of users of social sites, hackers have access to users accounts which contain loads of information. Site pages such as twitter tend to channel bad information to the virtual world. We also see that as a result of social networking sites it allows first level viewing of our lives. The government uses this as a way to track us whether we would like to accept it or no. They even make it a known statement as it is noted in the article "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power," by David Carr, The New York Times. November 10, 2008; at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html
People will need to make sure that they do no wrong because they will be discovered as a result by big brother.


For the future of social networking sites I would say that they will play a big role in catching criminals all around the world. The medium of how television is now will become transitioned to the techno age via the internet. Social updates from the Facebook may place a notice to all Facebook members from the government about a criminal that is armed and dangerous and should not be approached.

I see new media having a big impact both positively and negatively on our society but the good shall prevail.

Blogs vs. Wikis

I tried using both a wiki and blog since its inception. I've noticed that they both serve a specific purpose. With Blogs you are able to voice your opinion without any editing by other users on the page. Even when you make errors to your post, your mistakes are made for the world to see without the ability of the post to be edited by a fellow visitor.  This is noted in the article "Stung by the Perfect Sting," By Maureen Dowd, The NY Times, Aug 25, 2009.

On the other hand with Wiki's it clearly understood that when a mistake is made by a contributor anyone on the wikipage is capable of editing this page. Seeing how this process works, this new media could have the most impact in the Management of Businesses. Having to create processes, editing policy and procedures or even having a virtual meeting on the wiki could potentially have significant benefits to the business. The article "How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005,http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331
notes "In the corporate environment, wikis are best implemented behind a firewall for a wholly internal user base."

Project topic

For my project I will be examining Social Networking and how the loss of privacy is eminent whether we like it or not. I will carefully examine the different social websites that exist and what the privacy policies are. How we agree to the terms of these sites but end up giving up a huge part of our privacy to do so. 

During my research I hope to uncover many positive and negatives aspects that affect us on a daily basis economically, socially and technologically. I also look to provide several ways to protect our privacy by taking certain precautions of our own.

1st blog of many

Just wanted to say hello to all of you in class. Not a big fan of blogging but I'll make the best of the situation. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and I wish you all continued success in this semester and beyond!