The Next New Thing

The Next New Thing

          As a proud Greek-American I always love staying connected with my heritage. I go to Greece every year and attend Greek events and interact with fellow Greek-Americans here in NY as well. 

          I would definitely create a social media platform that is for Greek people from Greece and Greeks living around the world. It would be a form of new media where people can meet fellow Greeks from the same areas of Greece or fellow Greeks who are living in their neighborhood or state around them. It would give people a chance to bond and possibly even meet up in Greece over the summer or throughout the year. There would be different pages, one for each city in Greece, that people can become members of. They can post status', comments, and even pictures of their adventures in that city. In addition, there would be a general page which everyone could be a member of and talk about anything they want. 

          I personally go to Greece every summer and I am constantly meeting other Greeks from around the world- even including people from New York that I didn't even know were from the same part of Greece as me. Last year I actually met one individual who was from the same neighborhood as me in NY and who knew so many mutual friends as me and we became really close. 

          This new media platform would serve as a great place where Greek people can meet, communicate, and become friends. This way people would always stay connected with their heritage and feel like they're apart of something big. 

Our Class Wiki - So Far

Our Class Wiki - So Far

          On our class wiki, students are able to selectively contribute their thoughts and findings on numerous topics. So far, I have contributed to two different topics of information: Privacy and Advertising and New Media in Social Networking. 

          In Privacy and Advertising, I took some information from my research paper that I believed was really interesting and important. I spoke about Target and how they gather intel on all of their customers and create an entire profile on them in order to keep track of their transactions and analyze their purchasing habits. This enables them to bombard them with advertisements of products Target believed that certain customer would be interested in buying. 

          In New Media in Social Networking, I talked about how new media fosters creativity in numerous ways. Many large corporations use new media in order to expand their companies and better their products. I spoke about how Twitter is one that uses its followers and their ideas in order to better their platform and engage more users to join.  

P2P File Sharing

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is defined as the public or private sharing of computer data through networks and the Internet. It creates an environment where the sharing of information, ideas, and data can be done easily and affectively. 

P2P file sharing is a type of file sharing that allows users to access online media files like books, music, and games by using a P2P program that searches for other P2P devices where this data and and content is located. 

Some examples of P2P file sharing are:

1. Bearshare (a leading file sharing program- also a free-music downloading software)

2. Freenet (a P2P platform for censorship-resistant communication and publishing)

3. LimeWire (free software which allows Internet users to search, share and download files from the Internet)

P2P file sharing continues to grow more and more popular each day. One major step in the growth of P2P sharing was Google's decision to team up with the nation's largest peer-to-peer lender. Google's actions resulted in a growing interest of P2P file sharing. Wendy Kaufman's article "Peers Find Less Pressure Borrowing From Each Other" gives the audience a great insight on how P2P file sharing can serve as a lot more than just a place to share music, movies, and games. It can also be used as a platform for peer-to-peer lending operations where funding can be a lot easier for investors and borrowers.

Advice to Baruch College

Advice to Baruch College

          New media is most frequently used to expand and innovate certain aspects of society. I think Baruch could greatly benefit from adapting new forms of new media into its atmosphere. My advice to them would aim to create new forms of media platforms that would make both the students and the faculties' lives a lot easier. For example, Baruch could create a certain website or blog for anyone who is interested. Students can use it to meet new friends, discuss class topics, or even share notes and study for exams together. Professors and other faculties can use these blogs as well. Whether it be professors of the same department discussing their teaching methods and sharing new ideas or actual individuals working in the office using a more organized way of communicating and getting the job done. There are so many different ideas that could be introduced to Baruch and it is slowly evolving into a technology based and new media environment already. 

Privacy & Confidentiality

PRIVACY & CONFIDENTIALITY

          Many can agree that one of the greatest innovations of the past decade has been the creation of social media. Yet, the advantages of social media and the Internet itself come with a price, our privacy. What a lot of people may not understand is that everything they do online is in some ways monitored and recorded into different databases and then later analyzed into pattern behavior profiles. Every time you search the web, send a message, share a video, or like a post you’re leaving behind cyber footprints that are being collected and used for research without you even knowing it. Private companies, large corporations, as well as advertising firms including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter are all stockpiling immense amounts of information and using it to their advantage.

        Nothing you do online is confidential anymore. Someone is always watching and  monitoring your every move, waiting to use this information against you and get what they want. Whether it be companies and corporations using this data to advertise products that they think you would buy in order to increase their revenues. Or individuals out their trying to steel your identity and take everything that is yours. 

        A lot of people fall victims to identity theft, scams, and harassment of all sorts. That is why privacy and confidentiality should be a main focus for users of the Internet. People should be aware of this lack of privacy and should cautiously limit the amount of information that they give out on certain sites and what types of posts they create and share. 

Blog: Creativity and New Media

Blog: Creativity and New Media 

          Creating online avatars is one of the many ways new media enables its users to be creative. It gives people a chance to use their imagination and create a character that they can then live through and do things they may not actually be able to do in real life. These avatars are usually characters in a virtual reality world (including children's games) or just in particular stimulations. It gives users the power to control their actions, their appearances, and their language. 

          I created an avatar in my old childhood game "Club Penguin." When I was younger I would constantly play this game because of how fun it was and how much power I had to control my Penguin. Creating this penguin avatar allows me to control its appearance, name, and movements. This platform allows its users to build igloos as homes, decorate them, buy pets, and actually play games throughout the town. This game can also be very educational considering there actually is a library where you can read books and other games where knowledge and pattern analysis are needed. This form of new media strongly enables its users to use creativity and imagination to enjoy and innovate the game itself. 

         In addition, to the club penguin account, I created a separate individual avatar in the perception that I would want to look like. Many times others who are not happy with the way they look or just want to see something new but are too scared to do it, often create these avatars and again live through them like it is them themselves. The biggest difference with my avatar is basically the color of my eyes, seeing as I wish I had blue eyes. 

BLOG: CREATIVITY

BLOG: CREATIVITY

       New media fosters creativity in numerous ways. Many large corporations and companies often use new media in order to expand their companies and better their products. Claire Cain Miller's article, " Twitter Serves Up Ideas From its Followers" gives its readers good in-site on how Twitter uses their consumers' ideas to innovate their platform. "Twitter, may rely on user-generated innovation more than any other company." Its producers basically sit on the sideline and watch the activity of its users and analyze that data to come up with new features that would benefit their platform. Aside from Twitter, many other companies use the same method because what better way to produce a product that customers will like, than getting the ideas from the customers themselves. New media most definitely fosters creativity and is a crucial part of the success of most products and social media platforms as a whole.