The Next New Thing

What is the next new thing ? It seems with so many options out on the market there are hardly any inventions that one can think of. When I was faced with the questions " What is the next new thing in new media ?" I couldn't really come up with anything on the spot. After getting my friends involved we came up with many different ideas. One of the ideas that really stood out was using application on the phone to scan the hotel rooms open . For example, when a person checks in at the hotel he is provided with the room key for a specific room number . Most of the time the cards are lost. A great idea would be to create an application that the hotel can send to the customer as a bar code with the room number. The room key "electronic bar code " will activate and deactivate according to the guest's stay at the hotel. This will be convenient to both the hotel guests and cost efficient to the hotels , since they won't have to buy new cards once the old ones are lost !

P2P File Sharing

What is file sharing? According to the definition from Wikipedia , file sharing is a practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways. One of the common methods of file sharing is P2P or peer-to-peer file sharing. It is a computer network in which each computer that is in the network acts as a client or a server . This allowes shared access to various files such as audio, electronic media , documents and etc. Some of the popular P2P networks is Napster , BitTorrent and Pirate Bay. Some of the advantages of P2P sharing is the amount of data available for free use. Peer-to-peer networking allows people to share different media on the web for free or a fraction of the cost than it would actually cost to buy the product. Although there are many advantages of P2P file sharing to it's customers , there is a also a huge problem with copy right laws. One of the examples is given in The New York Times article , Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios in which the "Dark Knight" movie leaked to the Internet and was shared amongst millions of P2P users all over the world. This resulted in huge profit loss to Warner Brothers . Movie industry is not the only one suffering from piracy, music industry is also struggling to prevent unwanted illegal copies that are shared on the daily basis between peers for free. Of course it is great to be able to download a popular song or movie at no cost but we have to also account to the profit loss of the companies who work hard to bring out entertainment media to society and it does not cost them cheap either. As of now , there is hardly any middle ground between the two and we would have to wait and see how the things unfold .

Privacy and Confidentiality

Unfortunately with a wide access to new media , the issue of privacy and confidentially arises. Many artists would love to promote their music to fans , but most of them would not like to do it for free. With a wide range of different websites that allow music and content downloads , privacy and confidentiality is becoming a big issue. It is also becoming hard to control the amount of users that can access the information without owner's permission. Copyright issues have been around for a long time and with the wide distribution of media through the access of phones, tablets and social networking websites it is even harder to control now. Companies like Warner Music Group have taken action by taking down videos that violated the copyrights on You Tube. But how can you track everyone who copies the information illegally and uses it without owner's permission. One may never even know that their content is being used by someone else ! It is a big problem in our society and unfortunately there is no solution to solve the problem yet , although companies and artists are doing their best to protect their rights around the world.

Hurricane Sandy and New Media

For this assignment I wanted to really test how powerful is the new media. After Hurricane Sandy New York suffered a great loss of homes and personal property. Some people lost everything.... When I tried to researching information for volunteering it was extremely difficult , I was surprised by how many questions I had to answer in order to sign up to volunteer. I was able to find a couple of good websites and encouraged all of my Facebook and Twitter friends to get together and help out with what ever they could. I got 10-15 responses , which I was happy about, what i didn't realize was the exposure of hurricane aftermath I provided. I had many people call me later on asking how they can help and I even saw people who are on my friend's list show up at the shelter to donate. So when you think that you are not being heard by many people because you are not receiving a lot of responses back , do not be disappointed, because once the message becomes public, everyone ( in this case my friends) has access to the information provided, and you never know how they can use it. Below is the small video that I created the week after Hurricane Sandy.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0t7xhp4238z2xhz/Hurricane%20sandy%202.mp4

Creativity

Creativity on the web has reached its new height . It is amazing how quickly websites respond to the user’s feedback and how much value they place on the feedback. What is amazing to see is that companies like Twitter encourage their users to come up with the design that they work on to implement. According to the article by Claire Cane Miller “Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers” , it has been a hit. Who is better to ask for the website design and tweaks than the actual users? It is surprising to see how many features on Twitter were actual suggestions by the users ! Who would have thought? I think it is a great approach to make the website better, it is always good to know that one’s feedback and suggestions are taken into account. It makes one feel connected to the “brand”. Don’t you wish all of the online websites took your idea into suggestion ?!?

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

After reading a couple of articles I was surprised by the popularity of virtual sites. It also changed my opinion about them. Before I thought that virtual websites are a waste of time that take people away from reality and actual interactions. Then I read an article by Nicole Saidi “ iReport “Naughty Auties’ battle autism with virtual interactions” and it changed my mind. I never thought that virtual world interactions can help people with autism, it is such a great idea ! Since the interactions and surrounding of the virtual world are very close to the actual thing , people with autism can prepare themselves to socialize in the real world and not get nervous.  It is amazing how accurate virtual worlds have become. The creativity behind creating a website that is so close to the real thing is amazing!

There are also cons to virtual world. The article by Dave Itzkoff “I’ve been in that club, just not in the real life” shows how close the virtual world is to the real one.  I don’t think it is a good way to live your life in the virtual world and not experience the real thing. I think that interacting online has side effects of becoming isolated. People do not want to go out into the real world anymore because they can do the same at the comfort of their home. I think it can be a problem…. Just like with anything virtual world have pros and cons, after reading the articles it did make me realize that virtual worlds are not bad all together and can benefit the society, I am just not sure if the benefits outweigh the negatives yet ….

Social Networking Sites

It was a different experience for me to visit Myspace.com after so many years of being on Facebook. It seems to me that Myspace gives its users more freedom to design their personal page. It is a great tool for artists to express themselves and stay connected to their fans . In my opinion myspace is targeted more towards younger crowd because i remember from experience that it takes a lot of time to bring ones page to life. Older generations do not have the time or patience. Facebook is similar to myspace but is more simplified. Facebook users tend to be a little bit older and therefore do not have a lot of time to personalize their page . This is when Facebook is ideal because it is easy to set up and maneuver. Twitter is the most simple program but that is when you learn the basics of it. To me, twitter is not as addicting because it has a lot of irrelevant information and random posts that do not make any sense, limit of 140 characters might be the reason. One of the other social networking websites that i really like is Instagram. I love to see pictures of my friends and i am connected to the people that i know. It is not cluttered and is very easy to use . I am a huge fan !