Creativity

Digital media is allow people to be connected from all over the world without being in the same room. The advantage of this is that people with similar interest can end up meeting each other on a common site and they can end up coming up with something incredible. For example I have a friend who likes singing and playing the guitar. He sometimes logs onto a live chat room where people log onto share their music and listen to each other. My friend was one day playing a song while a random person was listening and happened to have liked the song. The person asked my friend for permission to record the live session because he wanted to play around with the song and add a different beat onto the background. A couple of days later this kid had remixed the song my friend has being singing and changed it from a slow rock song to a hip party song. This is an easy example of how two people with different talents can be brought together via the internet and create something new and different.

This is a similar story to the one of "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" where people are meshing sounds to certain clips of cartoons which gives the appearance that the Disney cartoon characters are dancing to the music that is playing in the background. All though most of those videos are simply done for pleasure, the news report of  Antoine Dodson who was being interviewed after someone trying to break into his house is a special case. The interview was seen as comical to many people and when the video went viral many people leaped the opportunity to edit the video with auto-tune making it seem that Antoine was singing. This lead to applications being made for the apple market as well as androids. Antoine was the beneficiary of the creativity of these videos and earn himself a couple of millions as he became a mini celebrity.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

With better computers, faster internet connections and better graphics, it is only the beginning of the virtual world. There are many website's out there that you can log into create an avatar and walk around interacting with different people. It started with video games like The Sims and has evolved into a live interaction with real people. What people choose to do with this power is totally up to them. According to the article "At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide" congress is afraid of people using these virtual worlds to launder money, and drugs. How exactly they would do that I am not sure myself, but criminals are very intelligent and if there is a will they will find a way. Others hope to use the virtual world to help people with special needs interact with each other. The CNN report by Nicole Saidi discusses how "Naughty Auties" hopes to put people with autism interact with each other over the virtual world allowed them to communicate easier since they can do this in a comfortable setting instead of having to go meet new people in a random place.

Is interacting with an avatar over a virtual world overrated or is it worth trying? Many people find it difficult to go out into the real world and meet new people, or sometimes they simply don't like to physically leave their home. For these people the virtual world is a great place to go. Others would find it ludicrous to want to meet people via an avatar instead of having a physical interaction. We are social creatures who naturally want to be around others, but as technology gives us the opportunity to be around others in different manners. Whether you think that virtual worlds are crazy, or are fine with the idea of using them, the only thing for certain is that the internet is here to stay and as technology advances we will be using it more to interact with people. A few years ago online dating seemed frowned upon because you seemed desperate, while now match.com has become a multi-million dollar company. So the chances are that we are headed for  a more virtual world, where people will be more connected to the internet and will be interacting with people all over the world on their phones, or computers and less time interacting with the people around them.

Social Networking Sites

The fact of the matter is that all these outlets pretty much do same thing, which is share information through the world wide web and make it personalized for the individual. Lets be honest though not all social media sites are made equally. We can all agree that Facebook pretty much has the edge on its competition and I feel it has to do with the way they entered the scene. Myspace was the number one social media site at the time and Everyone had an account! The easy to make and use account was fantastic for the user back then. It almost felt a necessity to have a Myspace. Facebook in the other hand required a school email which almost brought a level of exclusivity to the front. The only people one was allowed to communicate with where users affiliated with college and to hit such a young demographic only boosted my thoughts on Facebook at the time. I almost felt that i was more safe using Facebook compared to Myspace. I don't even actually think i know anyone that uses Myspace anymore. 

Now with twitter I feel that its fantastic way to keep up with the world and their thoughts. As young adults we find out more about ourselves and develop interests that we may not have not known that we may have had. So when it comes to politics the arts and sciences there a plethora of experts in their fields that have thoughts that we love to hear or may sometimes love to ridicule. Google plus on the other hand keeps me up to date with people that I need to be in touch with, people that are gonna effect my life more directly. Its a great way for close ones to keep in touch as well as business partners. Google plus saves time and effort, makes transactions a lot more easier and is more than likely here to stay.  Social media has come a long way from the Myspace days and there are so many avenues in which one may take. 

Social Net'g

When Myspace first came out, i was still in high school, and it was the cool thing to have. Posting all sorts of pictures of yourself, and keeping up with your friends as you posted on their page. Then it began evolving into a more personal page where you could choose a certain amount of friends( your favorite people) who would be displayed on your home page, and you could edit the background to make it your own. Then it quickly went down hill and in came Facebook. At first it was a tool that colleges were using to allow students to meet each other and create a better college community. You would friend people who you knew or who went to your school, and read their posting and comment on them. Then it got opened to the rest of the public and from there on it seems like it turned into one giant marketing scheme for companies.

Where time you visit a website they always have an area where they want you to like them on Facebook, or to follow them on Twitter. The evolution of these websites has allowed for companies to  market their products for free on peoples websites, and will sometimes offer a discount if you show them some recognition on your social media website. Now where do these companies take it from here? According to the article "Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars" it seems like companies will now try and sell you tangible products on Facebook. The idea seems brilliant if it is executed correctly. Sure not every one will do it, but things like candy and flowers would be great to be able to send to a loved one on their birthday, valentines days, or when they are sick. It would be convenient if you log on to Facebook and you see that your anniversary is coming up, to just click on a link with out leaving the website to have flowers sent to your loved one. 

But social media was created for communicating with other people, whether it be people you already know, or meeting new people. For this reason companies like IBM have created their own social media site "Beehive" to encourage their employees to connect with each other and increase team work and communication (IS Myspace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum). Companies know that among different departments their could be a lack of communication even though they are suppose to work together because they share common goals, and by implementing a social website, they hope to bridge the gap among their employees and have an increase in collaboration. 

Although social media websites are headed in the right direction with helping people connected and allowing a strong sense of community to build at work, at home, and with your friends, their is a downside to it. Censorship is a difficult aspect to control on websites such as Facebook and Twitter. If you are a high school student it can be very easy to fall into when is known as cyber bullying. Leaving school you to mean that you didn't have to be around the classmates that you may not have liked, but it is difficult to avoid people now when they can just log on and bother you online as well. Another challenge with social media is that people have taken a huge trust on what they read on blogs, or on Facebook with out doing any real research. Some people think that because they see things on a website that it is a fact. Any one can publish anything on the internet and knowing your source is a very important thing. Many people forget that wikipedia.org can be edited by any one, so not everything on that website is one hundred percent accurate. 

Blog vs Wiki

Blogs are like articles on a news paper where you can post your opinions of many things. The only difference is that you do not need to be hired by a company and are not paid for it. It is an individual person posting articles of their choice, and any one on the web can find it an read it if they choose to do so. People who would like to comment on someones blog can do so, but they cannot edit the actual blog posting.

Wikis on the other hand are used more to share and gather information by a group of people or companies. In other to edit a wiki page you must be invited into the group. The idea here is to be able to gather the best information possible by allowing multiple people to contribute. Unlike a blog anyone can edit any part of wiki at any given time. Wikis have become popular in companies who are working on group projects and can not be together most of the time.

Blogs and Wikis are similar in the sense that they can be found on the internet and are not created not edited by professionals. They are owned by regular people who want to share or gather information on a specific topic. Both of these tools can create a sense of community among people who share common interest. My only concern with both of these tools is the lack of censorship that they may contain since they are only controlled by the people who create them.

Term paper description

 For my final term paper I have decided to write about social networking and the various effects it has on society. Socially, economically and politically; social networking is changing the way people communicate with each other. Not only personally, but through professional interactions and different advertising strategies, social networking has evolved from a way to communicate with friends, to a way for businesses to attract more consumers and for politicians to push their own agenda. As more people continue to log on to the internet and the bridge of the digital divide is lessened social network will continue to grow and evolve.