Check Out Social Networking Sites

Social networks is a virtual social structure that is made up of individuals, groups, and communities of people who are all connected to each other in some way or form. Social networking is a program that of which allows us to connect with others, such as keeping in touch with old friends and distant relatives. It is also a great place to meet new people and make new friends amongst them. Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Hi5, and several others are among some of the most used networks in the world.

Hi5 is a social network that is probably not as known as other social networks in the world but is popular in other countries, namely in Latin America. It is seen as very user-friendly that allows an individual to upload files, such as music and photos into the profile. Also, it allows one to join groups, meet people, and of course, connect with others.

Like Hi5, Friendster also allows members to enjoy the same privileges as Hi5 although it is mostly popular in some parts of Asia and many parts of Europe. Some of my cousins use this social network in order to get in touch with some of their friends from some parts of Asia and it functions the same way as other social networks. As of now, it is creating many updates in order to catch up to the rising popularity of both Myspace and Facebook, which is the two utmost popular social networks in the world. Now that it allows many to add games, create a blog, and applications into its site, it makes Friendster a place where people collaborate, play together, and help others know each other better in this virtual community. Friendster also permits its user to be creative and create their own website design via html in order to transform their webpage into something they are comfortable with and something with more personality.

Like Friendster, Myspace also have similar functions as sharing photographs, videos and music, uploading applications and games, designing their homepage, and many more. In order to differentiate Myspace from other social networks, many bands use Myspace in order to market their talents and in order to be discovered by music agents. Myspace is sort of, in a way, their stepping stone to stardom (well, for some, at least). It also allows you to add a gadget into your profile in order to help others know what one's mood of the day is. I actually used Myspace when I was still in high school and it was pretty fun until I got into college and was introduced into a more professional social network (Facebook). Also, the only setback with Myspace is that spams are easily spread out into the network, and Myspace is not very good in facilitating and preventing this from happening.

Having moved to Facebook, I actually enjoy the look of the uniform-like webpage. I like the professional look of it, because with other social networks that allow html, the designs can sometime make the page too convoluted and crowded with all the applications and other designs that are overlapping with each other. Facebook gives out a feeling of a more clearly-defined and organized profile. Other than allowing for html, it offers the same features as the previous social networks (from connecting to others, uploading pictures and videos, uploading applications, gadgets, and games, create quizes, notes, and blogs, joining groups and many more). Also, it totally filters out spams. Another pro about Facebook is that it connects you with friends via schools, which is a trend that other social networks are copying as well. Facebook is definitely user-friendly and encourage the importance of privacy, making it a safer social network than others. Because of what it offers, Facebook does deserve its esteemed and rising popularity throughout the world.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Compare and contrast blogs and wikis.

A wiki is a community in which users are able to create, edit, share, collaborate, and organize any information, which are subject to change with the use of a simplified marked-up language (edit, save, link). Wiki information is constantly changing through an on-going process through which different people find the time to add, change, and proofread information. This communication tool helps collaboration between communities of people possible with much flexibility and convenience. However, although much of wiki is beneficial to others, it also has its disadvantages. Since anybody and everybody can change and edit information in a wiki, information may be so manipulated and out of focus that the information content becomes obscured and unreliable.

A blog is the complete opposite of a wiki, in which it is a type of website that is maintained by a specific individual. ore importantly, unlike a wiki, a blog does not allow others to have access to edit or change the information provided in the blog. The entries of commentaries and the information shared in blogs are purely subjective upon an individual's perception, opinions, and experiences. It mostly protects the privacy of the blogger through which the blogger has the ability to control what can be seen by others, who are blocked, what to edit, delete and post, and whether or not others can read, comment, or access his/her blog. Only the blogger has the authority and no one else does, which is why blogs are usually seen as a more professional software also because professionals use blogs in order to comment and point out their ideas on certain present issues and controversies.

Comment on the importance of convergence in today's networked world.

The convergence of old media into new media has become an extraordinary factor in shaping the world we live in today. Convergence is the driving force behind the new media that creates a disturbance in old media, obliging old media to compete with new media in order to stay in the market. For example, television is competing with the internet, through which a surge of viewers go online to watch the shows they want to see or missed at the time when they are able to (Eg: Hulu, Tivo). This hurts the television industries, because the show ratings are being eaten up by the online entities that allow people to watch the shows that are aired in TV. Basically, although through convergence, the augmentation of old media into new media is made possible, it is seen, at present, how new media is eating up old media. Due to this, old media may have to plummet from pop culture and permit new media to ascend although the only harm that it does is morph old media into new media.

Because old media is usually a closed barrier to which only the ones with authorities are able to control what is being published, posted, and shared to the general public, here comes the new media that allows for the opposite. New media has permitted any and every individual to get their voice heard and to express themselves with the talent they are skilled in. Also, new media allows them to exhibit these skills to the world; hence, empowering the common people and enabling the community to converge, collaborate, create, and communicate as a community together. Together, a demographic of people are able to share what they have created to the world and make it available for everyone else. Members of these communities are able to lend a hand and contribute to the community while pursuing his/her interests. With the help of others, they are able to enjoy working on their hobbies and create something out of the ordinary and reap the fruits of their efforts and dedication. An example of this is Facebook, made by a group of students in Harvard to create a community inside their university and enable the students to communicate with others through this social networking site. Because Facebook rose to popularity, it expanded to other colleges and universities and soon, to everyone else in the world although the primary purpose of this social network is exclusively for the use of the students in Harvard only.

How can blogs be used for collaboration?

Blogs can be used for collaboration through user generated commentary, discussion or conversation on a topic and issue of a certain entry, and an available chat-box application in the blog home-page, to name a few. It would also be a great way to collaborate by subscribing to someone else's blog in order to receive blog updates from that individual and write up a response or comment about the present matter. One's blog can generate much popularity by linking that person's blog into your site so other people are able to see and read and comment on the the entries in that blog. An example through which a blog has been used for collaboration is Perez HIlton's Blog, which is viewed, commented, and discussed by a myriad of people around the world.

A New Use for Wikis

The article "How To Use Wikis for Business" illustrates how wikis have been so beneficial to businesses lately. Through a wiki, business colleagues working on a team project are able to organize how the information is presented, edit and add more details to build the project more. This makes it much more easier for professionals to edit errors and change information whereas with Word Documents and Spreadsheets, team members create changes while the others are correcting some information at the same time (sometimes overwriting the changes made by others). This, in turn, creates a chaotic team-work, in which the colleagues are unaware what is changed or not and who has the latest version of the file. Because this is so, the notion that wikis are unprofessional is blurred since businesses have used it in a way that makes it a professional software.

There have been numerous uses for wikis in various fields as business, education, and politics. Other possible uses for wikis may be to include the field of medicine and research, technology, and fitness in order to help share each others' ideas and knowledge into the database and help come up with better hypotheses and objectives through collaboration and interaction.

"How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005,http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331

Old vs. New

How do we distinguish “new media” from “old” media? List and explain several ways to do this.

In order to distinguish new media from old media, there are five factors that we must place importance to. These factors are the 5 C's: convergence, communication, collaboration, creativity, and community, all of which helped morph old media into new media. Old media used to only be provided by private and limited amount of companies, who control various information from being leaked into the public, but now, through the 5 C's, many including the public are able to share information with others via blogs, forums, wikis, and social network services (to list a few). Although new media has been seen to replace the old new media, it isn't so. All they do is transform old media into a better way of communicating with others through collaboration, creativity, and community by converging different types of new media. For example, old media as newspapers and television has been revolutionized by online newspapers and Tivo, through which many are able to comment on the specific show and article and also be able to read and watch past episodes and articles. This helps many people who are busy to go back in time through the internet and watch their favorite episodes and read their favorite newspapers, while conveniently fitting it into their schedule. In new media, everyone is included and counted in, along with their collaboration, contribution, and opinions. The big gap between these two distinct forms of media is how the information is shared, sent, and received and how fast the information gets reported and displayed to the public. Obviously, with the breakthrough in technology, new media has a greater advantage in distributing information to the general public, making it way too easy to share information with the single touch of a button than with old media and people's opinions and the information they contribute matter and are not ignored.

Examples of old media transforming into new media:

• Television - Tivo. Hulu
• Newspapers - Online Newspapers/Ezines
• Diary - Blogs
• CD Player - Mp3 Player
• Radio - Podcasts
• Books - Ebooks
• Face-to-face Interaction - Social Networking (through Facebook (etc.), Texting and Talking through the phone, and IMs)

Term Project Description

Social Networking: Better or Worse than the Real Thing?

Many social network services have been so prominent in our lives that they almost occupied much of our pastime with hours of unproductive idling. Although social networking aims to build online communities of people to help groups of people interact with others, this service does little to accommodate us with quality relationships. It is as if everything becomes superficial and quantity now overrides quality in terms of creating a relationship with others. As social network programs have been established and gained much popularity to date, a mass demographic of people have been so beguiled by this medium that many of us do not realize what a quality relationship is anymore. This is a huge social issue in our communities today that must be addressed in our generation. This setback can be reversed by replacing online networking with face-to-face networking although what social network services offer is convenience to busy people who cannot afford to meet with others many of the times. Such networking services include Facebook, Twitter, and many more, which I will be focusing on to examine the positive and negative impacts associated with social networks. Also, I hope to analyze and discuss whether social networks are indeed "better or worse than the real thing."

What is New Media?

According to Wikipedia, New Media is a "term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century." However, for many people, mediums are considered new technologies that allow people to communicate and interact with each other even in distances that set people apart. Having made this possible with advanced technologies, the 21st century has now stepped foot in a new era of a digital world, a world in which technology rapidly changes and proceeds into more breakthroughs in new media.

In the 21st century, new media plays a huge role in our lives; in fact, there might even be not one person touched or exposed by this digitized world we live in. This is how prominent technology is in our digital lifestyle. Because there is no official definition to what new media is, many describe it to be the latest innovative technology that allows us to network and socialize with others with a single touch of a button or a screen. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, del.icio.us, blogs, and texting as forms of convenient communication tools.

For example, when the telephone was first introduced in the 20th century, it was then when this first communication tool started to allow people to communicate with others far distant from them. Because new media was developed and improved, wireless cellular phones have now permitted individuals to communicate with their family or friends from anywhere and anytime, just as long as this device is present within their grasp. However, nowadays, cell phones have undergone such a complete make-up remodel in which no one can even imagine how advanced new media has become with this single communication tool. Cell phone then has permitted us to only communicate from others who are out of reach from where we are, at present, but now it has dramatically changed our lives by granting us the convenience of accessing new mediums as the internet, chatting with others, writing in our blogs, downloading applications (eg: games), playing music and watching shows or videos, and numerous others that this communication tool has made available and possible with technology. Because new media has captured our lives in a digital world, our generation becomes so dependent on it that even I cannot imagine having it absent, especially now that our lifestyles are based on the influences of new media. Cellphone has dramatically improved since it first was introduced into our world and because its development is unstoppable, many measures are being taken in order to intensify its services to us. According to the NYTimes, "the ChaCha is a new program that offers free services for cell phones by allowing an individual to inquire a question, which is answered via a text message by a person at the other end, who researched the subject to properly solicit the right information and to answer the inquiry." This shows how new media is offering new services, as a new and improved old media.

The Internet is a very important aspect of new media, where many people pool their sources of ideas, invent new communication tools as Facebook, share photographs, videos, and songs that others have created, collaborate with other people with the use of IMs and chat rooms, and create blogs about their ideas, interests, and how their day went. In effect, the internet satisfies all of the 5 C's (Communication, Collaboration, Community, Creativity, and Convergence). Although it may seem that new media is replacing the old media, it is not so. In actuality, new media is enhancing old media by creating more innovative and convenient tools to interact with others. Improvements in technology only augments old media, which transforms it into new media; therefore, not replacing old new media at all.

Pogue, David. "Yahoo's Answer to Speech Recognition for your Cellphone". NYtimes. September 14, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue-email.html.