Creativity and New Media

Creativity and New Media

 I decided to create photo collage with me and my dog, Bandit. As everyone can see, I created an artistic composition made of various pictures. Thanks new media, I was able to cut pictures into a few, the same shapes pieces. In addition, I added some stickers representing glasses, pirate's hat and bunny ears and I pasted them into my dog's pics. It made an image that my dog in real was wearing these items. Because of new media, these few photos created very special and funny atmosphere that each separate pic would not be able to create.

Creativity

Creativity

The Internet gives people ability to show their creativity. You can post your own videos, pictures and comments online. Also, you can post some stories, ideas, personal views or some chapters of your book on the blog. A lot of people are able to make beautiful pictures because of digital cameras that are available. It is much easier to show people your personality, talent, or skills. There is so many website on which you can post your work. For example, if you are a musician you can easily post your performance or song online to discover if other people will like it. You can also be an expert that creates its own website in which give advices to other people. The internet gives possibilities. Since people have access to all the information and posts online, companies must be very creative to sell their products. They must have very interesting ads and keep their products in very good quality in order to sell them. Because everyone has an access to new media, companies must distinguish themselves from others to attract customers’ attention. In the past everything was much more expensive, so not everyone had access to everything. According to the article Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers written by Claire Cain Miller, Twitter’s creativity appeared when company decided to learn from their users by observing them and notice which ideas catch on in order to use them, or improve them. Usually customers are those who can really tell you what they need especially when the Internet is the tool where people can easily and rapidly exchange their ideas. That’s how Twitter started use the symbol @ before the name what open a hyperlink to the profile.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

The virtual world is an online world that the user can create. User can create an avatar and put him in the 3D virtual world that can encounter. Person can create fantasy world, or real world. Virtual worlds can be used for fun, to meet users with common interest, but also it can teach other people. In his article Avatar II: The Hospital, Stephanie Simon states that virtual worlds help hospitals, medical schools and health foundations to train doctors, nurses, or students by transferring them into the environment  where they have make quick and under pressure decisions that can affect future patient’s life. Thanks virtual world, people can practice a proper behavior in the very rare situation and they can be better prepare for the future. Also, virtual worlds can treat illness people, or give them a safer way to interact with people if they cannot leave hospitals or homes. According to the article iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction written by Nicole Saidi, thanks virtual worlds people with autism can practice social interactions and get them communicating with others. They can feel save because they are relaxed in their own space, but still they can communicate with people, but without stress. For people who have difficulties in social interactions or have other illnesses that unable them to meet with  people, virtual worlds can really help.

There are also negative aspects of virtual world. Those medical trainings do not have the same results as those in reality. Users are aware that it is not real and their attitude might be different than if it would be in real. Another negative might be that people would become less willing to communicate with other in really life. People might prefer to stay home rather than go outside to the people. Also, it is very expensive to build virtual world even if it's functionality still need to be improve.  

            For sure, virtual world stimulate creativity. Users have to design the world and avatar that they want to use. They have to create and modify the world and avatar. They have to make decisions that later on will affect their avatar or business. They have work on the problems that might appear. Managers might work on the business problem-solving.

            In the future, virtual world will much more effective look like reality because the technology will be better. People would be able to better experience virtual world because the graphic will be improved. Everything will be look like real. With time playing in 3D environment will be cheaper and more people will be able to access them. In result, there will be more users that will become a part of the society.  

Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites

In MySpace the most important is the network connection. If you invite a new friend, your network will expand because your friend has also friends. It is pretty easy to find old friends, too. There are also groups that you can join. It is a good site to meet new people because a lot of people have account on MySpace. You can read people’s posts and send comments. I also noticed that you can upload videos and music for free. You can create your slideshow, add avatars and graphics to your pictures to make them more funny. You can edit your pictures like changing colors. There is also blog on the site. I like the fact that you can listen to the radio and choose what kind of music you want listen to.

On Facebook, you can invite old friends and meet the new one. You can post pictures, comments and create photo albums. In your profile you can post as much personal information as you want. You can also create a group of people with the same interest. You have friend’s list where you can highlight that some people are your family. You can check “like” under someone’s picture. It is very good that you can control who can see your photos whether only you friends, or friend’s friends, or everyone. You can send messages to your friends and post a map where you actually are located and with whom. On the right side you have a list of friends who are currently log in, so you can chat with them right away. I do not like the fact that on Facebook there are a lot of ads located all around your profile. If you post the picture you can link it to the person who is on it. 

Twitter’s goal is to communicate and stay connected with friends, family or others by posting frequently messages. People usually post short updates. All of these posts will be viewed on your profile and can be read by your friends, but also by the strangers if your profile is public. You can also follow someone, so you can see any information that the person will post every time. It is very easy to search for your old friends. It is very good that you are able to see who is following you. You can also send direct messages to someone, so no one also would be able to see it. The bad thing is that you cannot edit the post that you already sent. However, you can delete it. You can also re-post on someone’s tweet. As like on Facebook and MySpace, you can also post pictures. 

LinkedIn is more professional site. As other social networking sites, it is free, but there are not a lot of advertising. You can create your professional profile, but you have to keep it in a serious way. It is not a place to post funny or cute pics. You can add profile picture, brief summary about yourself, include your resume, or post links to your blog. You can also create connections which is the main point because you create a network with professional people. Later on, these connections can give you recommendations or help you find a job. You can also get links of the potential employers, search available job postings that are placed on website, create online resume and groups of people that have similar interest  and participate in discussions. I am sure it is very good way to look for a new job through the connections. You can benefit from this social networking site.

Social Networking

Social Networking

            Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace are used by millions of people around the world. Some benefits to society are that people can keep in touch with family and friends much easier even if they live abroad. These days, people live in rush, so they can easily and for free connect with friends at any time. Online community is very diverse. You can learn from others people, share ideas and opinions that are not familiar to you. Also, kids can benefit from social networking sites. They can become more familiar with technology what can be useful later on at school and they can become more confident in social relation since they can get to know more people online. Social networking becomes very important in school because most of the time teachers communicate online with students or they have online discussion where everyone is force to post ideas.  Students can create blogs, discussion forums and collaborate with teachers and classmates. However, there is also the dark side of this technology. People have to learn how to protect themselves from the strangers because information that you post can be used against you. Every post, blog, picture, or status update can be stored online forever. In the article Leaving ‘Friendprints’: How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security we can find information that people post which are combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data,  and it can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. “The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators.” Companies track what websites you check and build your characteristic based on your interest. I think in the future because of social networking we will completely loss our privacy. Internet users are unaware if the information that they provide online are used ethically. People who use social networking sites are targeted by marketing ads. Marketing companies track social networking pages, they check their status change (for example having upcoming birthday) to deliver advertising targeted to their interest. In addition, our social networking profiles are checking not only by our friends, but also by potential employers.  Potential employers know that by viewing someone’s profile they can see the truth character of the recruiter. People often think that only friends have access to profile, so they post inappropriate pictures for instance when they are drunk, or some offensive opinions. Potential employers can see what kind of person you really are. But there is also a positive side. According to the article Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting written by Frank Langfit, professional recruiters start to search for a potential job candidates using social networking sites. One of the sites is called LinkedIn. If you use this site, it is easier to send your resume to the companies, but also some firms can search you without any problem. I think in the future, more and more people will be involved in social networking sites. Also, the social networking sites will change for the new one like was in the case when MySpace was the most popular, but later one Facebook took its place.

Blog vs Wiki

Blog is a personal website on which a particular person can post their opinions, links to other sites, etc.  Posts are usually regular dated and reverse chronological format. People most of the time have discussions on their blogs with other bloggers. Visitors can leave comments and other messages. In result, bloggers through those comments build a relationship with their readers. Moreover, subjects not necessary have to be posted by single author; posts written by the group of authors become popular, too. Blogs become used by newspapers, media, universities, and some professionals like lawyers or doctors.

            Web application called wiki allows everyone to add, modify, or delete some information in collaboration with others. It differ from the blog that contents written in wiki do not have any particular owner or leader. Wiki is more likely to be anonymous. Both of the websites can be used by everyone in the world. People in both websites can post their opinions, comments other people's contributions, or collaborate in the group. Also, wiki is very often used in the variety of business fields because it simplifies collaboration between people. In the article How to use Wikis for Business, Ezra Goodnoes explains that in some way wiki helps in collaboration between team members. She says that Wikis can centralize all types of corporate data, such as spreadsheets, Word documents, PowerPoint slides, or PDFs. It is easier and cheaper way to improve functionally, security and durability in the company.

            The most popular wiki is Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia from the contribution of the volunteers. With the time, wiki also wants to include some changes. According to the article Wikipedia to limit changes to articles on people written by Noam Cohen, in order to do changes, an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go leave. Until the change is approved, it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia’s servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version. Some changes are required because 60 million Americans visit Wikipedia every month; some changes are a must to make a website more credible. I think that wiki is the website that is enough easy to use. There should not be done any changes because it would become more difficult for the users.  There is no need to add any new use for wiki because it already fulfills its role.

It is very important that the websites like wiki and blog allow all people from any place in the world share their ideas, opinions and thoughts. Because of it, people can learn from each other and get to know each other better. It provides more ways to communicate. People have better access to services and are more aware of what service providers they can use. Thanks of convergence; people are allowed to use different ways to transmit voice, video signal and data to homes and business.

            In order to increase collaboration in the blog, we have to introduce ourselves. We have to be more familiar for the readers, so they would be willing to post some comments. We also have to replay for the comments in order to show that we respect someone’s opinion.