Wiki So Far

So far, I’ve edited the YouTube page by adding a section about YouTube Stars. I’ve been working on creating a brand new page specifically dedicated to online dating. I believe that’s a new aspect of new media that’s quickly gaining popularity and changing the landscape of love as we know it today. I’ve been researching the topic in full and even have my own personal anecdotes to add to the information I’ve gathered. The brand new page all catered to online dating should be up in a couple of weeks.

The Next New Thing

A new media that doesn’t currently exist is a virtual fitting room. Online shopping is rapidly gaining popularity. A person can shop for anything from furniture to electronics to food to clothes and shoes. One of the biggest downfall of making online purchases when it comes to clothing is that you’re never completely sure if it’ll be your size. A virtual fitting room would solve this problem. It’ll be accessible on a laptop or mobile phone. Perhaps it could be a 3D figure that represents your body shape and height like a life-size avatar of some sort. This figure would be able to try on the online clothes right in front of your eyes to show you how it fits, giving you a much more accurate fitting. This new media would only accelerate the popularity of online shopping and perhaps it can extend to items beyond clothing, too.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the exchange of files or information typically through the Internet. P2P file sharing is an exchange of files between peers, which is also typically done through the Internet. One common example of file sharing is the illegal music download sites like BitTorrent that allows users to upload and share music as well as other files such as books and podcasts for free. In the NPR article “Peers Find Less Pressure Borrowing From Each Other,” the author goes into detail about another type of P2P file sharing, which is P2P lending. P2P lending involves individual investors lending money to others outside of the traditional banking system.

P2P Lending

Privacy & Confidentiality

New media can create an avenue for new threats to arise, such as privacy issues. According to the article, “Survey Reveals Generation Gap in Attitudes about Security and Privacy” millennials aren’t taking the security of their online passwords seriously. They only periodically change it once a year, which unfortunately exposes them to risks. They conducted a survey that found out that a majority of those that fall under Generation X don’t use pass codes to lock their phones. The survey also notes that millennials don’t care much for protecting their work emails. It concludes that millennials will most likely pose a threat to their future employers cloud and computing services due to their negligence of privacy and confidentiality. These privacy concerns wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for new media like the Internet. The question is how do we ensure a more secure, safe, and private Internet?

Advice to the College

The educational institution can try to incorporate new media into the college experience by creating an app for students to engage in while in the classroom. The app could allow students to log in and do their classwork during class. It can automatically log students’ information as well as instantly provide them their scores on assignments. The class could be hybrid in the sense that students could discuss topics amongst each other in class while half of the class time can be devoted to their app participation. This may be an exciting and interesting new way to stir the stale, outdated school system. Students are attached to their phones thanks to all the apps they engage with on a daily basis; might as well take the opportunity to teach them using those very same gadgets. Schools should start learning to speak their language by adapting to the quickly advancing digital age.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Realities

Virtual worlds can be used in a variety of ways. According to the “Avatar II: The Hospital” article, health care facilities and professionals can use virtual worlds to practice medicine. There are no life-threatening mistakes or casualties when you’re practicing in the virtual world. The article “Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life,” explains how the virtual world can replace business meetings and conferences that require expensive traveling. The virtual world allows employees in different states and even countries to virtually meet with one another to discuss business. According to the article “I’ve been in that Club, Just Not in Real Life,” you can even use the virtual world to party and have fun. Virtual worlds can also be used to live a virtual life where you get to be whoever you want other than yourself. You can splurge, and do whatever you want knowing it’s not the real world. It can even be used in classrooms as well. Virtual worlds certainly has its pros. It can be beneficial for giving people a space to escape from the real world. It can help people from all over the world virtually meet. It can help health professionals practice medicine, and so much more. There are some cons to it too. In the article “At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide,” politicians question the virtual world’s safety by asking “Could Second Life be used as a place to launder money? Are children safe in online worlds?” The Internet has already proven that it can be unsafe when it comes to identity theft and pedophiles that prey on innocent, gullible children. There’s no telling what could happen in the virtual world. Also, according to the article “Virtual World May Impact Real ­World Behavior,” virtual worlds could affect the way people start to act in the real world, in a negative way. Their studies showed that those that took on violent characters in the virtual world, replicated their mean or inhumane actions in real life. Virtual worlds foster creativity by allowing the unimaginable or the unattainable in real life to happen in the virtual life. The future of virtual worlds is wary. As of right now, tech is entering virtual reality with VR headsets. Google’s Cardboard allows users to enter a cute virtual world with a simple cardboard box and your cellphone, and while in it you get a chance to fly, go fishing, amongst other actions. They’re releasing the Google Daydream VR headset that takes the virtual world to a completely new level. What does this mean exactly for the virtual world? What will we be able to accomplish with it? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Creativity

New media fosters creativity by making it possible to use the old and create something new, different, and ultimately creative. In the article “1+1+1=1” the author explains how DJs are taking unpopular pop music and mashing it up with their favorite music to create new music. Their “ripping” of the music results in melodic, beautiful mashups that even leave the sole owners of the music impressed. They’ve created a whole new avenue for music by blending different music together to get a different, and what most would argue, a better song. If it weren’t for the possibilities created by new media this mashup wouldn’t have been possible at all. These DJs were able to create the unique music by using just their computer and the Internet.There’s no telling what else can be birthed from new media.

Creativity and New Media

Black women tend to spend upwards of $120 at the hair salon when getting their hair done. YouTube has made it possible for us to now watch tutorials and recreate the hairstyles ourselves. I created a YouTube video for my audience of black women where I show them how to achieve a very popular hairstyle. I learned how to do the hairstyle myself through new media tools and decided to recreate my own version. I produced, shot, edited, and published the video myself.

Here’s the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ee2JNXMrnY

Blog About Twitter

Twitter and Blackboard discussions seem completely forced and unnatural. Nine times out of ten there is no real conversation or discussion that spurs out of it. Now, this could be due to the fact that the discussions on this platform are school and assignment based. However, if that were the only reason then it should be the same for in-class discussions since those are also school based, but it’s the total opposite. It could be due to the fact that when we have discussions in class it’s not tasked as an assignment. I think the main reason is because it’s easier to engage in a real conversation when you’re face to face to with someone. You can simply open your mouth and start adding to the convo whether that’s by offering an opinion, or agreeing and disagreeing with a classmate or professor. I find the discussions on Twitter to be a lot of “Yes, that’s true I agree with you.” There is no real conversation. I tried to add some spark to the fire by expressing my dislike for Twitter, and instead of getting responses, I got an unfollow- haha! In a classroom, a classmate would’ve swiftly thrown their hand up in opposition to passionately explain why they disagree with me. Oh well!

Social Networking Sites

I’ll be comparing four different social networking sites- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I’ve been a pretty avid user of Facebook since high school. I’d like to say I’ve been on the social platform for over 6 years now. I think the social networking site is great to keep in touch with old, current, and new friends. It has over a billion users tapped into its network. There’s not a single friend I can’t find on it, including friends from kindergarten! I do feel Facebook has lost some of its spark. It’s not as hot as it used to be back in the day, but I’ll chalk that up to no longer being the new kid on the block. Facebook is still standing due to the fact that it’s found various ways to innovate and adapt to the advancing technological era. Facebook allows you to do so much more than just connect with friends, I can join groups, find apartments, discover new music, and more. Facebook is actually my primary source of news other than my CNN app. Facebook keeps me on top of every single thing going in our world from the most serious of news to celebrity gossip. How else would we know about Kim Kardashian allegedly being robbed of millions of dollars? I find myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook at all times of the day looking for something that will catch my interest, which typically turn out to be funny videos by social media influencers I follow or a relatable video by Buzzfeed (so glad Facebook now allows us to see posts from certain pages/people first)!

Twitter, in my most honest opinion, is a dwindling social platform that’s days away from its extinction. I hate the platform now. It was so popular back in high school, but thanks to all the other social platforms like Instagram, Vine, and Snapchat, it no longer glimmers in my eyes. The only time I find Twitter useful is when it comes to hot topic hashtags that produce incredibly hilarious tweets, or when there’s a big TV show or event going on and everyone chimes in with their own opinion. I don’t care to log into the platform at all, and I’m able to find all the hilarious tweets thanks to Buzzfeed listicles that I come across while browsing Facebook, so there really is no need for me to ascertain any time to Twitter. I don’t care to know others’ thoughts every second of the day, while Facebook does sort of essentially do the same thing, it has so much more to offer as I mentioned above.

My favorite social networking site to date is Instagram. It’s the most popular social platform as of right now, with Snapchat steadily catching up to it. It’s no wonder Facebook acquired it. Facebook knew Instagram posed a huge threat to their success, as I, along with others I know, no longer dedicated as much time to Facebook when Instagram came on the scene. I love Instagram! Thanks to the platform I’ve been able to receive sponsorships and get paid for endorsing certain brands that want me to wear their products and essentially influence my audience to purchase from them. Instagram has created so many new opportunities for creative folks like me and it gives us a space to ignite a new love for perfect selfies, posed photo shoots, and just create a very aesthetic profile. In addition to making me money, it’s allowed me to make connections with people in completely different continents! Thanks to the fact that we follow each other, we were very in tuned to what the other person was doing, so our relationship naturally blossomed, especially thanks to the fact that we had certain things in common- makeup junkie, stylish, rock big hair, etc. I’ve met friends from London, Nigeria, and more! The platform beats out wack Twitter by thousands of miles in my eyes. I’d much rather see beautiful visuals than boring tweets that contain nothing more than people’s random thoughts *rolls eyes*.

The last social networking site that I’m slowly starting to gain a liking for is LinkedIn. I think it’s awesome that it’s dedicated strictly to professionals. It’s wonderful for all folks of life, from college students to experienced professionals to recruiters and more. It does give sort of a Facebook feel in the sense that you see updates, comments, articles and more, but it gives us the polished and professional version of it all. You dare not upload a picture of you in your bathing suit to it, or any crazy, ridiculous photos for that matter. It’s wonderful that we’re able to literally bring our resumes to the digital world. I think it’s a great way to go beyond a first meeting with someone you met at a networking mixer, or during an informational, etc. It’s also great for randomly reaching out to those that you think may beneficial in your job hunt, such as employees that work in a field at a company you’re interested in, or to recruiters to schedule an introduction. It goes both ways too! Recruiters reach out to all sorts of people who never expressed any interest in their company in the first place, but due to their persuasion they may just get a new, qualified candidate. They would’ve never been able to do this before without enlisting the help of a head hunter. LinkedIn is a completely different social platform than the rest, as it serves in the space of professionalism and caters to the niche of those looking for opportunities, candidates, and more.