The Social Network

These days, when you think the term ‘Facebook’, it is likely that even your grandparents are engaged in the global phenomenon. The Social Network has enlightened many generations of people and has failed to deter any further usage of today’s most popular social medium. Although critically acclaimed, has the product of director David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin become the sole depiction of the Facebook chronology?

A dramatic movie with famed Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake as infamous Napster founder Sean Parker and a market full of people whom wish to unravel the history behind their most frequented website is an equation set for a cornucopia of success. Halfway through the movie and we forget that the story is allegedly true. We become so engaged in the merciless portrayal of Zuckerberg that at the end of the movie, we question his actual demeanor and seek desperately for answers; that is, until we receive a new notification on Facebook… all else fails when instant gratification ensues.

The Next New Thing

I believe the next new thing would have to deal with accessing the cyberworld with a virtual avatar of yourself in which you can deal with real life technical issues while being in said cyberworld. Your actions in the cyberworld affect what will happen physically happen to a machine for example. If it needs fixing you would go into this cyberworld and fix it through the cyberworld. We would connect to the cyberworld through glasses that have a wire which can attach to any electromechanical appliance. Your thoughts would be the driver to what your avatar would do.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

For the class wiki I have been updating topics that have had some new news and updates. I have also replaced and added a few pictures. I have been working on the Sports and New media as well as Mmorpgs and new media wikis. Examples of things i have added is updating outdated information such as games that were labeled as P2P games are now F2P games.

About My Term Research Paper

My project is affects of new media on sports and to research this topic I went through different websites to see how players, leagues, and fans are using different types of new media. I found that as everyone was getting more used to using new media, it became a more accepted and used. I chose this topic because I thought it would be interesting since I watch different sports but never thought about what they do on their websites was a form of new media. With access to new media, sports can easily expand their fan-base at little to no cost using free websites such as twitter, facebook, and blogs for their marketing strategies. Also, the use of new media was banned for players in sports before,during and after games which was an interesting rule change. The integration was of new media was more than I expected it to be. I think that my paper can contribute to new media because it shows how large organizations as big as national sports can be easily integrated with new media.

Privacy and Confidentiality

With the use of new media what do we sacrifice? We sacrifice privacy and confidentiality not only to the public, but your boss, and even your friends. With sites like facebook, there is information we submit that is stored. Hackers can possibly be studying your habits and steal your facebook account. Even application companies on facebook are taking advantage of your information. Recently Zynga and other companies sold off facebook information from subscribers outside sources. Another incident recently is where a school teacher blogged about being a prostitute before getting a job as a teacher and being suspended by the school she was working at. There has been an increase of cyber bullying and it leads to many issues at home.

Advice to Baruch College

 There are many things that can be done to improve the college experience and the addition of new media is a good idea. For starters, Baruch College has facebook pages for various things such as bursars which questions can be answered without being there. One thing I dislike about the school is the lack of connectivity to internet when I borrow the laptops from the library. When I do get a connection it is slow. Often times I would go to my classroom only to find out it was canceled without any email or prior notice and it frustrates me so I would suggest professors to use maybe twitter or something the moment they cannot make a class. Many of the textbooks we get have ebooks but not all, it would be nice if all books could provide an ebook which would help greatly with the use of new technologies such as the e-readers. They could possible do a test run for a class which could be done through the internet with video conferencing.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are a couple ways the virtual world can be used. In the article I read "Going t the virtual office in Second Life" it was used for virtual conferences to connect international members, working in group projects, and even file sharing. I would even guess people create their alter egos and create a life they wished they had inside the virtual worlds.

Pros - I think that some pros to virtual worlds is convenience. It saves money for companies that need to talk to people across country and even overseas. The file sharing was a great pro when involved in a project. On a personal level, some might feel more comfortable being able to talk in virtual worlds better than face to face.

Cons- I think that the alter egos might be a little awkward to see sometimes, especially if someone knows you. The fact that it is hosted online means possible hacking opportunities as well as impersonations. Files could be stolen and important company project info might be at risk.

The fact that you can create an avatar that doesn't look like you is creative in itself. But it also stated in the article that even though some companies have used it, they started to create their own versions. The use of virtual world promotes creativity towards technological innovations.

The future of virtual worlds is a coin toss. It can lead to both good and bad things. It will probably end up being more and more realistic as time goes on.