New Form of Social Media

One form of new media that would exist could be an interactive storytelling mechanism which would be truly robust.  Whether based on complicated AI and simulations or based off of aggregated responses of lots of users/players, there would be a scenario created that players would then create events of their own design, rather then the common pre-chosen menu, to create a new situation.  There would then be responses from simulated characters who would advance the story, again within a robust rule set as created by the designers of this new form of media

Class Wiki Progress

I have yet to contribute to the class wiki as I have been incredibly sick this semester and am trying my best to keep up with assignments.  For the remainder of the semester though, I hope to add some interesting material on social media that I come across.

File Sharing

1.  File sharing is often viewed as when a view is made accessible from within a set 'network' that others then have access too.  It can be something posted online or accessed through the internet.

 2.  P2P file sharing stands for peer-to-peer file sharing which became to be known during the days of Napster and Morpheus.  The way it worked was a user could "share" a file, be it a movie, song, anything really.  You would then be able to download the song through the client and have it on your own computer.  It was deemed highly illegal and the source of numerous lawsuits.

3.  The most recent edition to the P2P file sharing area seems to be the "torrent" (Thompson 2005).  The way a torrent works is you find a file you'd like to download from a site such as PIrateBay which then is downloaded to a downloading client such as Transmission.  Transmission then parcels together thousands of pieces from thousands of users in order to re-create the file.  It's very similar to the Napster and Limewire of old except much harder to track down due to the way it downloads thousands of pieces from thousands of users rather then Napster which was strictly from one person to another.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality are often the first critiques pundits use when debating social media sites.  The internet is a scary place and with the recent celebrity phone hacking, there has never been more attention on privacy not just within social media but across the internet.  Each new social media service generally now offers users extremely customizable settings that fit the user’s own criteria for privacy and confidentiality.  On my Facebook account for example, I have it set up so that only my friends can view my photos.  I’m old-fashioned in the sense that I believe less is more when it comes to my usage of social media.  I don’t put out anything private, I don’t have any remotely scandalous photos but at the same time, I think what is considered “scandalous” has become an incredibly grey area.  Another interesting aspect to privacy and confidentiality are in the new social media “dating” applications such as Tinder or Hinge.  Both of which try to connect you to people who both parties want to match with and then are able to converse through a proprietary messaging platform within the application.  As the user’s populations for these applications swell, so do the complaints of harassment, often of sexual nature.  Social media is a dangerous world and one must take every precaution in order to maintain their privacy when it seems so vulnerable in this tech age

Baruch New Media Advice

If Baruch hired me to improve new media use at the school, my first idea would be to make a more efficient and quick way to communicate with classmates.  Blackboard makes it simple enough to email the class roster but a messaging client similar to that used in Facebook would be very useful. I would also heavily recommend that all classes switch to the dynamic syllabus class model used in this class.  This class is by far the most comprehensive in terms of viewing what we have to do, when we have to do it, and how to do it.  It really greatly enhances and improves upon the incredibly dull and antiquated version of a printed lifeless syllabus often handed out in the beginning of the semester.  Going back to the idea of a messenger client, I think a social network of sorts for each class could be fantastic.  At a school like Baruch, we are often running from place to place and don’t really have time to connect with fellow classmates.  Being able to socialize through a class-specific network could be an interesting idea.

New Media

In my view, one of the coolest parts about social media is the way that we can update old content and comment on it. Everything from Star Trek to Star Wars to G.I. Joe has been nitpicked endlessly on the Internet decades after those shows stopped their original run. It’s possible for people to make all sorts of content that pairs continuities or comments on what was always charming. The classic Star Trek had a lot of episodes that were fairly silly in their basis. “Roman planet”, “mobster planet”, “Nazi planet”… 60s and 70s sci-fi was willing to explore a silly premise if it meant commenting on an interesting or fun idea. The consequence, though, was that The Original Series only had a few episodes where it really felt like they were actually meeting new civilizations. I decided to make a play off of that concept. This kind of fandom and commentary often has a lot of sarcasm for things that they love. Just like the old playground wisdom that only I get to say something bad about my Momma, sometimes it’s the fans of a show that are exactly in the position to comment upon and appreciate the flaws.

Creativity

                  Powerful art often comes about as a result of collaboration. New media is almost entirely about collaboration: It facilitates nearly infinite dyads of cooperation, letting people work together in whole new way. YouTube mashups are a primitive example (Barnes, 2007). They let people blend together videos in order to create humorous effects or parodies. This is not new, of course. The Internet has always had such parodies in GIF, Flash or other forms. But what Youtube has allowed is the mass creation with ease of these kinds of mashups. With a simple video editor, one can make all sorts of content. In the future, this content will increase in complexity and artistic value. The present state of the remixed video is likely similar to the very beginnings of moving pictures. The Citizen Kane of YouTube is still probably around the corner.

Virtual World

                  Virtual worlds are fantastic areas for collaboration. Second Life is somewhat controversial due to the way it has been used (Mehta, 2013; Knafo, 2009). It is relatively simplistic, very user-oriented, and has become used in largely fetishistic ways. Some interesting things in Second Life have let people recreate spaces from history or from popular culture. But future virtual worlds are going to be much more complicated and much more like Minecraft, with much more robust physics and interactions tools that are going to require much less overhead on the part of participants.

            Virtual worlds have one major con: They aren’t reality. When they are confused with reality, they can be very harmful. People can become addicted to a safe virtual space and confuse progress in a virtual sense with real senses.

            However, virtual worlds have many advantages. They create alternative spaces that complement and modify the existing spaces in reality. They can be used for all sorts of collaborative enterprises, including fascinating art, explorations of interesting ideas like analog computing, and so forth.

            The future virtual worlds are likely going to be seamlessly integrated the way websites are. People will transfer from specialized spaces repeatedly. Education spaces, for example, could transfer instantly and seamlessly upon the completion of such spaces into areas designed for shared interaction.

            Virtual worlds are also likely to be integrated more with video gaming and electronic elements.

The Dark Side of Tech

            Virtually any technology has a “dark side”. Technologies are tools, and human beings use tools for both nefarious and salutary ends. People use hammers to kill, to build shelter and to create art. Social media tools have tremendous potential. They can be used to make human resources a far more active affair and link talented people looking for work with those managers who are looking for talented people, as LinkedIn does. They can be used to allow a corporation to interface directly with customers in ways that increase the intimacy of the relationship and increase the quality of service.

           

            Because any technology has a “dark side”, I view it as irrelevant when evaluating the worth of a technology. However, when the “dark side” can be solved with engineering, it becomes an issue. The Facebook privacy settings right now, for example, are not transparent and clear enough so that most people can use them, as the Greenfield piece from The Wire indicates. Meanwhile, WKBW's article on Facebook being used to gather information for phishing shows that Facebook is not properly sanitizing information.

            These technologies can change to increase our transparency, but they need to do so in a way that is controlled and trustworthy. That means being user-friendly and intuitive. I think these technologies will begin to emphasize such tools very soon.

Blog vs. Wiki

    Blogs and wikis are markedly distinct. Blogs are authorial: While a company can have a blog, the goal of any individual blog post is to be a commentary by one or more authors. Wikis, on the other hand, are collaborative and are means-oriented. The goal isn't to have an author speak, but to get the best and most neutral depiction of the information. However, wikis may have blog-like posts and blogs may be well-organized enough to come close to wikis in terms of information, indicating how convergence changes the technologies to be more related. In today's networked world, the convergence toward the Internet and toward technologies being more seamlessly integrated makes it easier and more intuitive for people to operate with a full toolbox instead of having to change gears so often.

            Blogs can be used collaboratively by being journals of processes. In a creative project, for example, everyone can blog about what they contributed during the day and where they're thinking about taking the project. Even more importantly, they can say why. At Wal-Mart, blogs by employees are used to improve the credibility that Wal-Mart has with customers by letting customers hear what employees think (Barbado, 2008).

            Wikis have been used for everything from collaborative storytelling to documenting fictional worlds to maintaining source control. However, I have never heard of someone using a wiki to allow people to participate in law enforcement. A law wiki could be used to keep track of individuals with public records and allow comment-type participation so that suspicious activities could be monitored in particular areas without needing to call the police.

            

Work Cited:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/03walmart.html?_r=0
http://www.cio.com/article/2436789/time-management-productivity/more-on-how-to-build-your-own-wikipedia.html

The Wiki Model

Topic Overview

                The wiki model is a complex tool. Thus far, it has tended to be used merely as a repository for information, mostly in the context of encyclopedic information, whether it be Wikipedia or Wikia pages on specialized topics. Businesses have used wikis in this fashion to maintain information about the company. However, there’s no reason the wiki model couldn’t be used for collaborative, creative and informational work of all kinds. This paper will examine the development of the wiki model thus far, focusing on innovative uses. It will then examine potential future trends for the wiki model.