The Next New Thing

Over the last few years we've been watching a trend of more and more people using social media sites. With the creation of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, and many more, there is a reliance and dependence of social media sites. I believe the next step would be a platform that combines all of these sites. From one website, I'll be able to access my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google, Email Accounts. This would simply the web and allow people to sign into one site and have access to all their other info. It would provide a simplicity that people are in need of.

Our Class Wiki So Far

For my wiki assignment I've taken on the role of layout editor. Additionally, I am hoping to add data on the usage of social media in education. After conducting a lot of research for my term paper I've unearthed much information regarding the usage of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites in education. I am hoping that the research I've conducted can be helpful data in building the class wiki.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is a method online users can use to share files online. There is a database full of information and users can share their files. A great example of a file sharing site is dropbox. Users use dropbox to store their data online and to share it with their friends.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) on the other hand, is file sharing 2.0. The files aren't stored on one particular computer. They are stored on many different computers and when you want to download a file you can access the data from a network of different computers. This allows the file to be transmitted faster and allows access to the file at all times. Some P2P sites include Kaaza, Limewire, Napster, and BitTorrent. According to the article "File Sharing Joins the Mainstream" BitTorrent is one of the most popular P2P sites. In fact it is responsible for 40-50% of all internet traffic. The question that remains is the legality of these sites and most of the files that are being transferred are illegal and pirated.

Privacy and Confidentiality

New media has opened the doors for Privacy and Confidentiality issues. Social media site store all of people's private information on a server. Even if you set your accounts to a privacy setting hackers can still get into it. A good hacker can break into Facebook's servers and access your private information. It is important to consider this when you post something online. Even if you delete it - will it ever truly be deleted? We should be aware of these issues online and be careful not post anything too personal online.

Advice to Baruch College

There are many ways Baruch can improve its usage of new media to foster a more creative and efficient learning environment. It would be helpful if Professors used group Facebook pages to communicate with students. It is a great place to have an open forum discussion and allow all students to collaborate together. Additionally, Twitter could be used to have class discussion and for students to ask their professors questions regarding the material. All in all, these forms of new media can be used to foster a better learning environment. We can use Facebook, Twitter, and even blogs as a more efficient and productive communication and learning environment compared to Blackboard.

My Term Paper: Facebook

I've noticed how much Facebook influences our daily lives. With over 800 million users, Facebook is the most visited site in the world. I thought it is important for us to understand how Facebook has shaped the world we live in. How does it interact with politics? How do businesses use it for their advantages? Does it affect students and their education? I went about doing research by searching these topics on Google, Google Scholar, Factiva, and Bearcat Search. I found a collection of studies and articles that were very enlightening.

One of the most interesting facts I discovered is: that people who are social in real-life tend to be more active and social on Facebook. I've always thought that it was the less sociable people who were more social on Facebook.

It was an interesting topic learning how Facebook interacts with each of our lives and changes the world.

Creativity and New Media

For this project, I used a website, Wordle, which creates word clouds from any text or web link you would like. You are able to play around with the layout, the fonts, and the colors used in the word cloud. The site allows you to save your work onto an online gallery to share with friends, family, and the world. I created a word cloud using the link to my blog, so the subject of my Wordle is new media and it incorporates many words that I've blogged about into a picture.