HW Creativity

New media has become part of our lives whether we like it or not, and many people argue whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. As new media is constantly being interrupted with new trends and technologies, I believe new media is a great thing because it fosters creativity. While some people might blame new media to negatively affect creativity and reduce someone's ability to create new ideas, there are many advantages to using new media to foster creativity. 

People find that new media could be a source of inspiration as they start to support different types of media such as images, animated GIFs, videos, and soundtracks.These new features allows for artists and designers to explore new ideas and inspirations for their own projects. Without new media, people would have to go to the library and search through books for this type of information. Specific design information, however, could be found within seconds with the use of new media. With the use of social media, you could try and find your own source of inspiration with sites such as Facebook and Pinterest. 

Expanding on the previous point, improvements in information technologies has also had a great affect on creativity. With incredibly advance in information technology over the past couple of decades, it has been easier than ever before in distributing creative works via the internet. And while each person is able to view creative works more easily, it also presents more opportunities for people to respond to these creative works, and in turn, more opportunities for those people to attempt at something creative. "Not only did these advances make it easier to distribute the created work, but each one gave audiences the ability to respond to these works in their own ways, from written discussions to attempts to create their own art." (Bell 52) One example of this is Vimeo, a video social network that specializes in artistic and professional video footage. Designers, artists, and photographers are able to share their work and get feedback as well as appreciation. 

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

A virtual world is a technology-focused simulated environment that allows for more convenient human interaction. There are many different ways these virtual worlds can be used. Nowadays, more corporations and companies are starting to use virtual worlds and communities for conferences and remote meetings. "As travel budgets are squeezed and slashed in the recession, companies are seeking innovative ways of bringing employees together for conferences and meetings remotely." (Tutton 1) So rather than paying for a plane trip or hotel room, you can simply imitate a meeting or conference just with your desktop or laptop. A virtual world is great because it maintains the physical aspect of face to face communication. One example of a virtual community is Second Life, who is "seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks." (Tutton 1) Virtual worlds are great because it promotes the ability to collaborate effectively using virtual tools, a skill that is becoming increasingly important as technology offers more options. Not only that, virtual worlds also foster creativity. Take Minecraft for example; its digital LEGOs allow "space for kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others to also want to build and create things. And it's the biggest phenomenon today." (Mehta 2) In the future, I think virtual worlds will become increasingly sophisticated in that the physical aspect will be a game-changer, and the ways virtual worlds will be utilized includes education, and social connectivity.

Blog About Twitter

Twitter is very different from what CUNY students use, which is Blackboard. Twitter is an online news and social networking website on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets." However, Blackboard is an educational technology website that allows you to stay updated among classes you are taking. The biggest difference between the two platforms is that an individual would use Twitter for a less formal purpose, mostly staying up to date on their interests. Blackboard is used for an academic purpose of being able to communicate with their teacher or classmates through posts or navigating the website to find documents or announcements for their classes. For an in-class discussion, Blackboard would definitely be better because all the posts are in one place. Twitter's retweet function would make a discussion very messy among many different people.

Social Networking Sites

There are so many different types of social networking websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Here are my impressions on each of them:

Facebook: Facebook is incredible for people who are strongly addicted to staying connected with close friends or eager to make new acquaintances. It is especially great for reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. With the emergence of Facebook, people are using e-mails or any other instant messaging platform less to connect with friends. They use Facebook now to chat with friends, or image-sharing and videos. In my opinion, Facebook is the most powerful social networking platform.

Twitter: Unlike Facebook, Twitter lets people send short text messages (up to 140 characters) to their friends or followers. What's interesting about Twitter is that it is a real-time information network that lets you stay updated with current events. I like to use Twitter to follow MMA journalists and reporters for the most recent news and updates regarding the MMA scene, so I know first-hand how great it is in following the news for your favorites interests or hobbies! It's a great platform for pure communication. The only thing I dislike about it is the 140-character limit.

Instagram: In my opinion, Instagram is a very young social networking platform and still has a lot of room to evolve beyond its current limits. Instagram is great for picture or video sharing in order to keep your friends, family, and followers updated on your life! It's awesome to see people connecting through talking about pictures or videos. What I've noticed recently is celebrities and athletes using Instagram for a bigger purpose, whether that is sharing their political opinion or just sending a message to everyone overall. I really like that Instagram is taking steps to improve their platform by constantly putting our new innovative updates, such as longer video capabilities and sharing your story.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is by far the best professional social networking website. I personally use it very often, checking LinkedIn at least once a day. One thing I appreciate about it is that it is very professional, which is a great change from less formal platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It's a good opportunity to showcase your professionalism among people you respect in your interested industry. It is also great for finding jobs, which I think everyone appreciates. What I've noticed is that there isn't much room for LinkedIn to grow. I just don't see much more LinkedIn can do to really engage people.

Social Networking

Social networking has transformed the way we function as a society, especially in the corporate world. People have started to use social networking platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn to hunt job job candidates. As Maureen Crawford-Hentz says on NPR, "Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen in recruiting." (Langfitt 1) LinkedIn is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via mobile apps and website used for professional networking. The platform has a network of 8 million professionals spread across the world, some which include executives from Fortune 500 companies. Headhunters can use LinkedIn's search engine to scrape the entire network and dig out high quality candidates that she can't find anywhere else. Not only has social networking allowed for job recruiting to be more efficient, "such sites help job hunters market themselves online by setting up profiles, listing work history and specific skills." (Langfitt 1). But more importantly, social networking has made job recruiting a lot more efficient. Headhunters don't have to contact people over phones to find candidates, but rather they have thousands of qualified candidates right in front of them by using LinkedIn. And with LinkedIn, the process of filtering through these candidates has gotten a lot quicker. "Using LinkedIn, Steckerl says he can scout a group of job candidates in just half an hour." (Langfitt 1)

Although social networking has brought many benefits to society, it does have a "dark side" in which it has destroyed the privacy of the many people using its platforms. Just recently, Facebook was caught in Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook sold data about its consumers to marketing firms such as Cambridge Analytica. This issue has brought up the controversy in which we question whether or not social networking platforms such as Facebook should be more heavily regulated. The move on part of Facebook destroys the privacy of its users who have trusted Facebook with keeping their privacy confidential. Not only that, even Rachel Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook's founder, couldn't keep a family photo she posted private. The photo was reposted by Vox Media's marketing director Callie Schweitzer. This is very confusing because it brings up the question of how a stranger was able to get access to the Zuckerberg family photo without being friends with the person who posted it. "If Facebook's privacy settings are too confusing for a Zuckerberg, how are the rest of us ever supposed to post anything that's truly, completely private?" (Grifantini 1) In this case, we have to take the bad with the good.

Citations:
1. "Facebook Is Going for Some Twitter Sensibility" by Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, Sept 13, 2009. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/technology/internet/14facebook.html?_r=1&ref=business
2. Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf

Blog v Wiki

In this class, Principles of New Media, we utilize both wikis and blogs. It is essential to understand the similarities and differences between both outlets of new media. A wiki is a website that allows multiple users to create, modify, and organize web page content in a collaborative manner. On the other hand, a blog is an abbreviated version of a weblog, and is a frequently updated personal website that is similar to a diary or a journal. On a wiki, there are multiple authors that help to contribute to the content as opposed to a blog in which one person typically maintains control of the content. For this reason, a wiki is used to share knowledge to a wide reach of people as opposed to blogs where opinions are shared. Noam Cohen says, "the decision to embrace wikis is part of a changing ethic at the department, from a "need to know" culture to a "need to share" culture." (Cohen 1). This highlights how wikis are transforming how people use the information they have acquired and share it with the rest of the world. It is important to note that in some cases, blogs can be collaborative as well. A wiki usually consists of pages that are edited, changed, and added. In a blog, content, which includes posts, entries, comments on posts, and responses are all chronological. "They foster a community and conversation by allowing readers to comment on postings, thus becoming an author in turn, or by providing an e-mail address to dialog directly with the blogger." (Gill 3). The same cannot be said for Wiki. The structure in which these two forms of new media also differ. In a wiki, a group or team edits the page while in a blog, the author posts and users comment or respond.

While there are numerous differences between a wiki and a blog, there are also many similarities between the two. Both are accessible to anyone in the world and allow students to express their own ideas. As Kathy E. Gill says, "Bloggers write about topics that matter to them; their audience may be large or small." (Gill 3) Adding on, both forms of new media are easy to edit in your web browser and can link to other websites, media, and photos. They are a good way to stay connected to current events or fields and read about what others are doing. It is so essential for different streams of new media to be able to converge and operate in synergy due to information being critical to our everyday lives nowadays. Media convergence allows us to be able to absorb and react to information a lot more efficiently and effectively.

Citations:
1. How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? by Kathy E. Gill. Workshop on the Weblogging Ecosystem, May 2004. available from:http://faculty.washington.edu/kegill/pub/www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf www2004_blogosphere_gill.pdf
An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified by Noam Cohen. The New York Times, August 4, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/business/media/04link.html  An Internal Wiki That’s Not Classified - The New York Times.pdf