Blog about Twitter

When having a discussion on twitter I feel like it is easier to let your ideas out then when being in a classroom and you are able to direct your thought to exactly who you want to respond to without it being up in the air for everyone to come for you all at once. Also while being in a classroom the spotlight is somewhat on you and if you are shy or afraid of public speaking you are more than likely not going to speak in front of the whole class. As far as a blackboard discussion, I feel like when you post on blackboard you have no idea if someone is going to look at what you posted or if someone will even respond. With Twitter you have a real response time and are able to go back and forth within a conversation.

Creativity and New Media

For me New Media is a great way to showcase my photography. For example I have a website where I am able to show all of the work I want to showcase. I also have a pinterest, Instagram and tumblr where I am able to interact with people who are interested in my work.  

The link to my website is divulgenyc.com and I am on all of the social network accounts mentioned above under the same name. 

Without new media I would not have a platform to show my digital photography at all. And for that I am very grateful. 

Creativity

New media allows anyone to be as creative as they want to be and bring whatever ideas they may have in their head to life. For example in "The new math of mashups from the New Yorker magazine", one person was able to mash up two songs together that no one would have thought of. If it wasn't for new media a lot of music artist would not be prominent today. You are able to take old music and create new music in the comfort of your own bedroom and I think that is whats so beautiful about it. You don't have to go far to create something new and exciting. 

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used to bridge community and creativity. It can be used to implement training programs for different professions. For example a surgeon can use virtual reality to practice on a hard surgery that they wouldn't be able to practice in real life. The pros to virtual worlds like mentioned in the article "Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds and Immersive Simulations" is the ability to support learning in new and innovative ways. The user is able to experience things that they would not have been able to experience before. The Cons for virtual worlds is the amount of time that it takes to create. And I feel like it distorts reality for individuals for example in the article "No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You" it speaks on a virtual reality world where people can basically make up this whole world of what they wish to be. I feel like this a real issue, because people literally spend time in these worlds which will more than likely never become a reality for them while neglecting the life that they have. As far as the future of virtual worlds I believe that as technology advances the cons of virtual worlds will lessen and it will come as close to reality as possible. 

Social Networking Sites

I am going to be comparing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. I feel like Facebook is definitely a lot more family oriented. Well for me at least. It is the most easiest way to interact with family and friends that you want to keep in touch with but don't necessarily want to be updated on all the time. Which brings me to the downside of Facebook, the way your page is displayed is based on the popularity of the post or who Facebook thinks you want to see, which I do not like. I feel like Instagram is good for promoting or showing something that you want to be seen in that instant of time. You post something up and you are able to use tags and users are able to view and like the post. The one thing I dislike about Instagram is that once you post something it stays in that spot so to speak. Its layout is gallery style, so if you posted something 3 years ago, you would have to do 3 years of scrolling to get back to that one post. It doesn't come alive again after its little instant shine. Tumblr is by far my favorite social networking site, because unlike Instagram it is a blog style, but people are able to reblog and like your posts. So if someone posts something 3 years and someone sees it and reblogs it onto their tumblr it becomes like new again. The only thing I do not like about tumblr is that it is very cliquey and people are very sensitive when it comes to opinions. As far as twitter goes I like that people are able to interact with someone in an instant and that it is limited to a certain number of characters. You are able to post your instantaneous thoughts in the palm of your hand and react to something quickly. 

Social Networking

The most important way, in my opinion, that social networking can be used for in the corporate world is for marketing. Creating a social media page allows a business to interact with its customers on a more personal level and on a larger scale. For example in the article "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power" , they used social networking for the Obama campaign and this allowed people to be updated on all things Obama. They were able to reach individuals all across the country without having to spend numerous amounts of money on paper materials because they had email. 

The benefits of social networking to society is the fact that it allows you to do things in real time. For example if you have family that live miles away, you are able to connect with them in an instant through a social networking site. 

There is definitely a dark side to social networking. To even sign up for a site so much of your personal info is being asked of you. Even for Facebook you are forced to use your real name in order to sign up, and if it is a made up name they will eventually make you switch it. In the article "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" it speaks how young adults most likely have their privacy settings up to date and do not have their profile public. This is probably due to the fact that you are able to google someone and if they are public you would be able to find out everything about them. 

I would hope that in the future privacy settings for all social networking sites would be greater. But I think the user interaction is the best thing and it is only getting better. 

Blog v Wiki

One of the main differences between a blog and a wiki is the fact that a blog is something that has contributions by one person, and that is the person who created the blog. In a wiki you can have many people contributing to the same thing. For example if you know that you are not a good writer you can post something up on a wiki and ask someone to edit it for you by being a contributor to the wiki. A blog can be used as a collaboration even though there may be one person in sole control of it. For example in the reading titled "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid", people were putting up posts about what was going on in their neighborhood and other people were posting comments on the blog about other things they noticed which eventually lead to a drug bust. I can't think of anything new to use for a wiki that hasn't been done yet. But much like in the article "The technology popularized by Wikipedia can help companies gather and manage their own collective knowledge. Here's how to get started", I can see it being useful for about any collaborative project.