The Next New Thing

We have different kinds of social networking sites. People like to use Facebook to share their experiences. My space has music, movies, games, and more functions for fun. People can use Skype for video chatting. Twitter provides most recent news. Some other social networks have large memory, high speed, and so forth.  However, those advantages don’t go together for one social network site. Each social network site’s system is set; the users can just design the look of it. I hope the next new media can allow the users to design the system by simply clicking the choices as those advantages above ,or more.  The users don’t need to have excellent computer skills. Each advantage is designed as a separate choice. The internet user can just add the advantages which they want into a social network site. For example, I can choose a system with video chatting, text messaging, music, movie, no commercials, virtual games, and high speed.  People can use more customized social network site in the future. 

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I am one of the contributors of How Business is Using Social Networking. I added two kinds of content already. For the Types of Social Networking Used in Business, I contributed how YouTube used in business. I described that YouTube is a web video type media.  It is accessible to everybody. People can upload, download, create, or recreate the videos. The process is easy, and with little or no cost. I used Coke cola, Home Depot, PWC, and Con Edison as examples to show how different types of business utilize YouTube. Most of those companies use YouTube to show their advertisings. Also, they can use YouTube to make visitors to know more about their companies, and attract potential workers. For the Disadvantages of the Social Networking Era, I contributed the negative effects of social networking to customers’ privacy. It happens when companies use consumer’s information for illegal purposes. For instances, companies sell their own customers personal information, such as name, phone number, address, to other companies. Companies disclose customers’ business transactions to others, such as embarrassing videos.  I will provide more contents, such as the social networking media itself as a company. Google and Yahoo, they are social media based companies. I will use them or more similar examples to show how social networking creates new business.

About My Term Research Paper

My term paper is New Media and Access for the Disabled – Boon or Bust? I chose this topic because I feel disabled people often don’t have equal opportunity as nondisabled people in various aspects of life. I think our society should put more attention on them, and try to eliminate barrier between disabled and nondisabled people. That was the first reason for me to choose this topic. Based on my understanding, new media and access are not assistive devices. Before, I only knew about how IT created assistive devices can help disabled people, such as, wheel chair, can, robot, and so forth. I had no idea about how new media and access can help disabled people before. I wanted to figure out it. This is my second reason for me to choose this topic. I focused on physical disabled people only, because they the majority of disabled people, and they have more restrictions.  After I chose my topic, I started my research. I used Google scholar for scholar articles. I also used our Baruch database, such as LexisNexis Academic, Factiva, FactFinder, and so on. They have both scholar and non-scholar resources. I also use information from Census Bureau for statistical data, and other presses which are more interesting, but less creditable than scholar ones. I focused on economic, educational, political, social, and shopping aspects of new media and access influence on physical disabled people on this term paper. I have found new media and access provide more benefits than disadvantages to physical disabled people. The main benefit is eliminating mobility problems. New media and access allow physical disabled people to work online at home, to make friends online, to take online courses, to vote online, and to purchase things online. They enable physical disabled people can do things which they can’t or have problem to perform before. I also found some disadvantages, such as less interaction between people, and less critical thinking.  What I have found through this research paper is that these disadvantages occur when physical disabled people totally give up moving outside.  If physical disabled people treat new media and access as complement of offline activities, the disadvantages will be eliminated.

Privacy and Confidentiality

The scope of privacy and confidentiality is large.  They cover property, embarrassing events, salary, bank account, marriage status, sexual activity, financial performance, health condition and so forth. New media make our life convenient; it also increases privacy and confidentiality invasions.

People can use their cell phones, digital cameras, and video cameras to take picture or record anything interest them.  The thing can be someone does something embarrassing. Without the person’s permission, people who record or take pictures can post it online. The video or picture can be viewed by people in world wide. People may criticize the person, laugh at the person, and leave comments. The person in the picture or video loses privacy.

  The monitoring of work issue is all over work place now .We use computers to complete our tasks. Employers may monitor employees’ email and performance by detecting the computers. Employer argues that the monitoring is for ensuring employees’ obligations to the company; but employees argue that the monitoring is violating their privacy known as personal knowledge.

Consumer privacy is also a big issue. The sellers own our information in online database when we purchase things online.  They usually use the information for legal business purposes, such as mailing the product, billing, and other customer services. However, sellers may also use our private information for some illegal purposes, such as disclosing customer’s information, and selling the information to other companies.  The information includes consumers’ address, phone number, social security number and so forth. If there is no protection to the privacy of information by company; consumer may receive junk mail, disrupting phone call, theft of identity, and so forth. Also, such purchasing online activity may make customer lose identity and credit card account information when they get hacking by others.

The privacy of essential body knowledge, it means the knowledge of the professions .In an organization, there are different kind of professions perform different jobs in different departments. There may have competition between departments, and inaccessible information between them. If the knowledge or information is accessed by unauthorized people, there would be fraud, manipulation, stealing of information for their personal interests. Such actions can be done by virus, hacking, and worm.  The privacy of profession is not only necessary for the professions to keep their security roles, data, and knowledge; but also necessary for eliminating illegal actions in the organization.  

Advice

We have e-book on e-reserve of our Newman Library. However, we don’t have all the books which are on shelf on e-reserve. We always see students are waiting in front of the reference desk for borrowing books. There is only one quantity of one kind of book on shelf; students need to wait two hours for borrowing the returned book. If our library can scan all books on e-reserve, books will be more accessible to students.

Currently, students and professors are using Baruchmail which is Hotmail. I recommend using Gmail which has larger storage than Hotmail. The speed of search is also faster. We can tag emails with Gmail, but not with Hotmail. I can set Gmail in iPhone and iPod touch directly; and I need to enter the website and log in for Hotmail. I can also use Gmail account to make phone calls which is free to U.S. and Canada.  

The follwing two suggestions are for better utilizing the existing new media in Baruch.Our Baruch students should take at least one course about using database. Our Baruch database has very comprehensive accesses to different websites, such as ABI/INFORMS Global, JSTOR, American Accounting Association, Business Source Complete, CIAO, Credo Reference, and etc.  Those websites provide business, scientific, international policy, news and all other scholar or non-scholar information to students. Most of those databases are not free if we access them off campus. Therefore, it is better for students to learn how to use those databases . It makes us to utilize the exsting new media better.

We have standing computers on almost every floor of the Vertical Campus, and some are outside of Library cafeteria. There are no many people using them. People rather go to the third floor of library or computer labs for using computers which takes longer time to wait, and need to go further. The big difference between the standing computers and others is their keyboards. The keyboard is hard for typing, sometimes they stuck. It is also hard to use the ball mouse; the direction of the arrow is hard to control. It is easy to click wrong link with the ball mouse. The keyboards make the standing computers useless.  If I am hired by Baruch, I would like to change the keyboards to regular ones; I think the use of standing computers will be more effectively and efficiently. Even though keyboard is not new media, but it helps us to access new media better.

Compare Twitter discussion to BB discussion board to in-class discussion

Compare Twitter discussion to BB discussion

                Both of them can be used for collaborating between professors and classmates.  We can post questions, opinions, and comments on them. We can also read, visit, and leave comments on some else’s postings. The contents of both of them can be viewed online. We can search particular person’s posting by typing his or her name on the search engines of them. The contents of them can be also viewed in the chronological order.  The steps of posting and replying are easy for both of them.

                The differences of Twitter and BB discussions are followings. The BB discussion can only be accessed by the professor and the classmate in the same class. The Twitter discussion can be accessed by anybody search for it online or anybody who use Twitter.  The number of characters to post on the BB is not limited; the contents can be very long or short. The number of characters to post on the Twitter is limited to 140 which are really short. We can delete the posting on Twitter, but we can’t delete the posting in the BB discussion. We can organize the posting on the BB by date, Ascending, or descending orders by clicking the button. The order of the posting on the Twitter is organized chronological order automatically.

Compare the Twitter discussion to the in-class discussion.

                The in-class discussion can only take time during the class hour, and take place in the class room. The Twitter discussion can take time in anytime people available to use the internet, and any place people can connect their computers, cell phones to the internet.  For the in- class discussion, students can ask questions and get responds right away. For the Twitter discussion, people need to wait for the responds when people have free time to post their opinions. For the in-class discussion, students who are too shy to speak up, or feel afraid to answer wrong may feel uncomfortable, and less likely to share their opinions.  The students who are shy can post their opinion on Twitter which is much easier for them.

                 

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

What are different ways these virtual worlds can be used?

A game for kids

                Children can play games in cartoon world for fun and interacting with other players.

                Examples: Virtual Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Toontown.

Creating music mixes

                People can create music mixes in their favorite ways. The music can be rated and purchased by   others.

                Example: Coke Studios

New media entertainment

                Customize audios, videos, TV shows, and websites of entertainment.

                Example: Muse, Worlds.com,

Romance

                Online dating and romance life

                Example: Virtual Ibiza, Moove,

Building and architecture

                Build things in the virtual world

                Example: Active Worlds, Cybertown,

Medical care

                Practice the medical process in virtual world for preparing to do the process in real world.

                Example: World of War

What are the pros and cons?

Pro

                It enabled the connection between people who have the same interest; even they live in different places.

                People can have fun when they are playing games.

                People can create the more desirable world.

                People can improve their skills, such as making music, writing, creating games, designing things, and so on.

                People can feel free when they communicate online in virtual world.

Con 

              People reduce the face to face interactions.

                People like the real world less and less.

                They like themselves in the virtual world better because they get better accomplishments in the virtual world.

                They do less daily activities in the real world, and spend major of time in the virtual world.

Be specific. How do virtual worlds foster creativity?

The creativities are various. “In fact pretty much all of the virtual world itself, from building to objects to fashion, is created, distributed, and consumed by the users themselves.” (Eytan Bakshy,Brian Karre,& Lada Adamic, 2010)

3D expression of the virtual environment is created by presenting characters, clothing, building, and objects with 3-dimension.

The virtual world and games help children to enhance creative imaginations when they create their own strategies for the games.

There are many readings are about virtual life; the writers and authors use their knowledge of virtual life to create more textual contents.

Artists can utilize virtual world to show their creations instead of showing real creations to the public.

The architect can visualize their designs of building by using virtual life.

People can create or recreate music in their favorite way.

What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

People spent more and more time online, the real world and the virtual world will be seamless.  Some activities will be hard to be defined whether as virtual activities or real activities. People will utilize the virtual world more for performing the activities in the real world better, such as to show the structure and change of DNA by using the 3-D expression of the virtual world in a class room. This kind activity will be very general in the future.

Citation:

Eytan Bakshy, Brian Karrer, and Lada A. Adamic,(2010),Social Influence and the Diffusion of User-Created Content . Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce, July 6-10, Stanford, CA. Retrieved 10/18/2010 from Baruch Newmedia