Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Creativity and New Media

Virtual world is your world, and your imagination. Second Life is a free 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using free voice and text chat to communicate. In there, we can experience endless surprises and unexpected delights that is created by us, and do something we might not able to do or achieve in real life.

Creativity

As already mention in last post, virtual worlds foster creativity. The real world is already how it is; it is hard to change anything. However, in the virtual world, we can put our imaginations together, and create the world we want it to be. "'Our audiences can creatively mash video from our content as much and as often as they like,' said Dan Martinsen, a Nickelodeon spokesman" in  Brooks Barnes's article, "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" Because virtual world is unlimited, it has full of potential to be creative, and to actually make it work the way we want it to work. It is the power and beauty of the virtual world.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds


            Virtual is used to describe something that can be done or seen using a computer. "Second Life is a multiuser virtual environment, a computer program that lets online users construct settings and hang out in them, using video-game-like characters called avatars. “ Says by Saki Knafo. A virtual world is an online community, in another word, the form of a computer-based simulated environment. Users can interact with one another through virtual world, it can be anything, exist in real world or not. As Internet is commonly used in today's world, virtual worlds are becoming one of the most important features for kids, teenagers, and adults.
            Virtual worlds have pros and cons. The pros are that people can spend their free time on it when they are bored. Also, it is easier to meet other people online.  More important is that it creates a world that we can’t experience in real world, which is filled with imaginations. Other than pros, it comes cons.  Often people get too addicted to virtual world, and forgot about the real world. Virtual world is not real; sometimes people get confused about it and real world. People sometimes fell into the virtual world, and won’t want to get out of it, thus making their real life ruined. "So you're not going out into the real world meeting people, you're going meeting people online and in your own home, so you're perfectly relaxed. It's just a fantastic tool to use to bring people together." Says Savill, reported by Nicole Saidi. That’s what a virtual going to bring us, we meet people in virtual world, not real world, and it can be bad sometimes.
            Moreover, virtual worlds foster creativity. In the real world, it is how it is already; it is hard to change anything. However, in the virtual world, we can put our imaginations together, and create the world we want it to be. It is the power and beauty of the virtual world.
            The future of virtual worlds will be much brighter. As technology is keep improving, we can do and build much more stuffs into the virtual world in the near future. Technology is what changes the world, making it different, better and convenient. 
            

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. are really popular nowadays. All of them share common characteristics - status posting, sharing information, pictures, music, videos, etc. with others. However, they still have differences. 

MySpace was really popular back then, much more popular than Facebook, and its popularity had dropped rapidly since late 2008. Now, not many people are still using MySpace, it’s almost out of sight already. Just like other sites, it is featuring in picture, music, etc. sharing. 

Facebook is the most popular social networking site right now. Its popularity grew rapidly since 2008. Besides anything else, it’s a really successful social networking site. It has great features such as pictures, music, videos, status posting, instant messages, etc. 

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites. It’s a little different than MySpace and Facebook, it’s featuring in status posting, and information sharing, such as news. 

Tumblr is another popular social networking site. Similar to Facebook and MySpace, it allows users to post multimedia and other contents like pictures and music sharing, etc. It has 108 million blogs and 50.8 billion posts in total as of May 19, 2013, and its popularity is still increasing.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Social Networking

In this technological era, social networking is so popular, and it is an important tool for us to use to communicate and share information. It is also becoming one of most used technology among all ages. As social networking is considered as a platform, it can be reached from a computer, smart phone, tablet, and many other devices, that make it easier to use. Everything has more than one side; almost nothing is perfect as it is, with no downsides of it. Just like everything else, social networking tools/sites make our life easier, but in the mean while, it has its dark sides.

Social networking technologies such as Facebook, twitter, MySpace, Google+, etc, is indeed making our life easier and better. You can chat with others easily, sending out the information you want to send to public easily, and so on, within a few clicks. Isn't it convenient? “I believe the benefits provided by social network sites such as Facebook have made us better off as a society and as individuals, and that, as they continue to be adopted by more diverse populations, we will see an increase in their utility.” Says by Nicole Ellison, assistant professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University. Social networking is part of our life now, it makes our life easier, and it is hard to live without it in nowadays.

Other than the good side and benefits of social networking, there are dark sides of social networking. People get too addicted to it, thus couldn't focus on other important things. For example, I have heard from a lot of peers and teenagers, they when have Internet or phone with them, they couldn't focus on their homework, they must go on Facebook and other social networking sites for update and talk to friends every few minutes. For teenagers and children, their brain is not fully grown, sometimes it is difficult to tell what’s right and wrong. When they see something online, most often they get influenced/affected, or receive the wrong message; it can be very serious, sometimes they even attend to commit suicide because of that. “Social networking technologies are doubtless changing society. But like anything — apart from motherhood and apple pie — whether this is good or bad depends upon what kind of society you value.” Says by William Reader, professor of psychology at Sheffield Hallam University and social networking site researcher. It is indeed correct that it really depends on how you value it, but again, even an adult couldn't make right decisions all the time, how could children or teenagers make right decision and not get influenced by the social networking when they receive wrong message?

Monday, June 17, 2013

Blog v Wiki

Blog and wiki have many similarities and differences. In term of similarities, they both are public for all to read, sharing information with others. For blog, it is more of dairy type, usually stories or tutorials by one author, from one person’s opinion, and with other random people’s comments/discussions. It can be anything that author wants to say, not necessary needs to be true. “Port contends that if Cohen hadn’t sued, hardly anyone would have seen the blog. (If a skank falls in the forest and no one hears it ... ?)” Says by by Maureen Down, as there are millions of blogs hosted by different people, sometimes it is hard for others to see someone’s blog. On the other hand, wiki is more about keywords, it has multiple authors/editors, it is usually updated frequently if there’s any updates/changes, and it is more of a reference to anything you want to know. In fact, wiki can post things blogs post, but not blogs. “He chose a wiki—a software application that allows groups of users to create, edit and comment on online documents—so that each team member could contribute and access up-to-date information on the project.” Says By Margaret Locher, and how he describe the wiki as.
About the importance of convergence in today's networked world, it is in fact very important. It is hard for one person to know everything; even the smartest person in the world won’t know everything. Therefore, convergence is important as it pools people’s information together, makes others know about it.  
Blogs can be use for collaboration, as others can post their comments; therefore it gives reader a reference as they read the comments - things said by the author are true or not, other readers agreed or not.
A new way of using wiki would be adding more pictures and videos, as wiki most often doesn’t use many pictures/videos. Sometimes a picture tells more than hundred words can describe. Also, if the information provided on wiki is not sure, or not true, it should be noted; therefore it would make a wiki more trustful site for all. It is also a great idea to add a function like blog, for readers to comment/discuss.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Social Networking Analysis - Good or Bad
Social networking makes our life easier and better. It is easy to contact our old friends and meet new people. Time gets passed really fast by social networking; therefore it is also a good way to kill our time by social networking when we are bored. However, social networking has negative effects as well; many people addicted to it, thus they can’t focus on other things. Also, social networking is mixed with real and fake information send out by other people. Sometimes, people gets confused, especially children and teenagers, because they are not fully grown. So, is social networking a good or bad thing? Is it better or worse than the real thing? It will be discussed and being analyzed.