The Next New Media

This is a real tough one. Especially because I feel like I have left this topic alone, as in it’s something I have not thought about ever. The topic I am leaning toward for the next big thing, or next new media, would have to be research.

Google and other search engines provide search results but you can’t sort them in any other way than to have them set up by clicks. More so, some search engines have been selling off spots on the earlier pages of search to the high bidders and advertisers.

I would like a way to organize search results by their date, to help narrow down relevant searches from the less relevant. Although you will end up with a lot more clutter, I think when doing solid research, it can be extremely helpful. Research papers and assignments on things not-so-obsolete would be the key beneficiary here and because that group is so large (students, research assistants, research and design departments, etc.), this is something that can seriously help.

People ask the most basic and simple questions to Google and instantly get their answer and get off (I believe something like this is why technology like Siri has been created; to answer simple questions–questions with one answer). And for these questions, the way search engines are currently set up works perfect, but Google has begun selling more and more space to advertisers and that means less space for useful information.

For those times we aren’t looking for just a few answers to questions, this new media feature can help in great ways.

I also believe academic searches we have access to as students (via the Newman Library), should be public. Less work would hit these public channels, but there is a lot of information and scholastic and academically approved work available there which can help tons of people.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Wiki So Far

I have yet to contribute to the class New Media wiki as of yet, but my idea is to target some of the categories with very small amounts of content.

It’s weird to see that Marketing has so much information and pictures (and good ones, at that) but Advertising has very little. I will try to target what I know as well, perhaps down the lines of Sports, Real Estate.

I’d also like to add on things I’ve gotten to learn more about through class readings and assignments, like Microblogging and P2P, for instance.

I hope to get started soon.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

P2P File Sharing

Peer-to-Peer networking, often abbreviated as P2P, is a network of special contributors and techies who’s specific goal is to create and reproduce content (be it music, movies, or files) to be readily available for anyone on the network. P2P networks and P2P files are credited as the end of Napster and partly the end of the likes of Blockbuster (although Netflix and Hulu helped destroy Blockbuster).

P2P File sharing is the bigger picture here. P2P File sharing is the product of these networks, where the audio, video, files, books, and games are reproduced and distributed through P2P software applications like PirateBay, UTorrent, TorrentFreak, BitTorrent and many others.

Movies have become the biggest hit for P2P sharers. And those who are subjecting themselves to these illegal acts (“digital theft”) are usually the younger generation, who choose to watch a movie at home whenever they have the time, rather than when the theaters dictate. Furthermore, because it is so easy and the idea that everyone does it (let’s be honest, no one pays for every song on their iTunes library) makes the sharers all the more comfortable to do it over, and over, and over.

Warner Brothers had tried to prevent the “digital theft” of the amazingly well-produced “The Dark Knight” Batman movie. They failed. They tried to keep track of every original, digital copy of the movie but failed and within weeks of the release realized their failure.

As the New York Times article wrote: “People have swapped illegal copies of songs, television shows and movies on the Internet for years… Now, users do not even have to download. Using a search engine, anyone can find free copies of movies, still in theaters, in a matter of minutes.”

It seems there’s only been one major service that was able to bank on this criminal activity, and that is Netflix. Netflix has recently been valued at around the value of CBS Network (both very close to the $30 Billion range). Netflix has been giving people an out from their illegal activity by paying $8 a month, as long as you’re willing to restrict your options and have strong patience to wait til TV show seasons end. Risk pirating charges to watch the last season of How I Met Your Mother or pay $8/month to watch the disappointment legally.

The big question is then how is $.99 a lot for an app or a song? In which the answer is that those cents add up. Having an average sized music library would consist of 300, which is just short is costing $300 (a one time cost for music forever). But still way too much, thus, the younger generation will continue to pirate their music, and movies.. and textbooks.

Works Cited:

Stelter, Brian and Brad Stone. “Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios.” The New York Times. 4 February 2009. Web. 12 November 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/business/media/05piracy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1415832821-AnzqWzqbKtRqjkOUh1GSSQ >

---

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Advice

If Baruch’s Computing department were to, suddenly, hire me to work for them specifically to upgrade their media standing and help them modernize (or even go into the future), I would probably try to create a way for people to have an online way of gathering. Virtual meetings, almost.

You create a network to have all the students connected with the other students in their class. Much like on Blackboard, any student can search the emails of the students in the same class.

The students can create online groups to study and/or collaborate when working on group assignments (or individual assignments where one needs help). The professor should also have the right to jump into any of the rooms whenever, just so that the students aren’t all plotting to cheat on an exam in some way or something radical like that.

I don’t know what this would be called exactly, and I’m sure in this day and age, it would have to be created as an app or else some of the students would never utilize it.

Then the study rooms we have at Baruch can be turned into something more useful, perhaps. Or it could be used by the “old school” people.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy is and will continue to be the consumer’s biggest problem with trusting the internet. Everything requires log-in credentials and passwords, confirmations by email and text and it continues to worry the consumers.

Buying products off Amazon, making orders on Dominos, using Facebook messenger and others have all changed the way things used to be simply done. But now they monitor locations and keep track of your orders and interests. Amazon does this the best (which is scary good). You can look to buy something on Amazon and whether or not you do, three or four days later when you’re on Facebook, their ads will concern that item you were purchasing. Scary good.

But when you’re doing things that need to be done online, how much can you trust those specific websites? And what exactly is the level of confidentiality that you need?

Obamacare needs you to register online. Colleges take a lot less time applying online. Registering children for Pre-K in New York City. All of these, and many, many more, require that you provide all of your identifying information online through a website you’re not completely sure will not monitor and scrape data from you and your device.

These are all the risks people take, and privacy accounts for a majority of worries for those who are actively using the worldwide web.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Creativity and New Media

Now here is something I haven’t got to touch on upon yet… MOVING PICTURES. And no, not quite video, and not Vine either, I’m talking about Gifs. Animated gifs. Twitter has only recently caught on with users being allowed to post gifs, but the original gif makers all come from Tumblr, though on neither of those websites can you actually create gifs. I went on to GifYo to create this gif, and turns out GifYo is a site much like Instagram but only in gifs.

Now watch me spin a basketball on my finger with all my concentration.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Creativity

Creativity is a great tool for companies looking to “get in” with the people they service. Different ways to look at things and different ways to do things, ultimately, are the deciding factors of if you want to stay with the service or not. Lack of creativity is a deadly tool that takes several players out of the game. Well, let’s not go ahead and say players… let’s say something more creatively needed, perhaps. Lack of creativity can take a writer out of work, or an artist, and definitely a musician. How many songs can you write about that one break-up you had [looking at you, Taylor Swift].

But encouraging creativity and branching out and keeping an open mind are what help guide many innovations. The very popular iPhones are all coming out with different kinks and tools than those before them, all due to the creativity from the developers, designers and such.

Twitter does a fantastic job incorporating ideas for innovation it receives. Twitter employees keep tabs on certain hashtags and phrases used to filter these ideas given by normal folk on Twitter (sometimes called Tweeps). Some parts of the article make me question where Twitter would have been without the monetary resources they had. They had to buy-out Summize before introducing a search bar on Twitter, which begs the question: Why was Twitter not actively creating a search bar seeing its success on Google and Facebook?

New Media fostering creativity is shown best by regular people on Twitter mentioning improvements they would like to see by the next app update and because it is so well monitored and that it actually has lead to many changes (mainly improvements, although I guarantee there were some swings and misses) is the best way to realize and see that new media, and new media outlets, garner and foster creativity.

Works Cited:

Miller, Claire Cain. “Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers.” The New York Times. 25 October 2009. Web. 21 October 2014.

---

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

The virtual world is something on the rise and, for a long time, I wasn’t quite sure why. Some of the readings I chose opened my eyes to some of the features and the future of this world. There is almost nothing to lose by committing to a virtual world, which asks the question: are there any serious cons?

The pros are overwhelming. I started my readings with the article on “Naughty Auties” which is a virtual world to connect those with autism and their family members. The virtual world helps those suffering from autism to learn to communicate more effectively and at a pace they simply weren’t learning at, before being introduced to the site. The article about “Second Life” was another great article (both were from CNN) about bringing the office space into a virtual world. Having meetings on the spot, and auditoriums and platforms to present material to people you may not be in the same state as.

The major con is on the side of cyberbullying and phishing and “troll account” as I see them. Cyberbullying is much more likely to happen online than in person, because you are already given a mask of sorts, as no one knows who you really are.

Virtual worlds definitely do foster creativity. For those in technology and development who want to see what they can provide to the virtual world building and for those who are utilizing these programs to progress. For the Naughty Auties and teenagers (who are the dominant demographic in virtual worlds), the strengthening of communicative skills is amazing. Public speaking is the #1 fear of people in the United States (as my speech professor kept reminding us that semester), and in the virtual world, the users are learning to develop stronger communicative skills and it is great, absolutely terrific.

The future of the virtual worlds are in the hands of the developers. But I have read into the future of the virtual world to better answer this question and there are technologies being created right now that will help people see animals in shelters before they would like to adopt them, and I believe those commercials where people are paying “just 25 cents a day, sends [____] to school” could also strongly use something of this nature. More people would see what they are actually accomplishing by giving a quarter a day and hopefully more people would be driven to the cause.

The business in the virtual world can use some more developing as well, I believe. Maybe more can be done to create an online office to keep track of those working at home, something down those lines seems like it could be put into play and work for supervisors keeping their workers on-pace, but the question of security will draw a dark cloud over this one.

Works Cited:

Saidi, Nicole. “iReport: ‘Naughty Auties’ battle autism with virtual interaction.” CNN Health. CNN. 28 March 2008. Web. 14 October 2014. <http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/sl.autism.irpt/index.html#cnnSTCText >

Tutton, Mark. “Going to the virtual office in Second Life.” CNN. 9 November 2009. Web. 14 October 2014. < http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html >

---

Signed,

Sheik Islam

About Twitter

Twitter is a great tool for connecting with people who want to see and read things similar to you, but in comparison to Blackboard, it lacks a couple components.

On Blackboard, only a certain number of people are even allowed to see what you’ve posted (whether or not they choose to is up to them). On Twitter, the whole Twitterverse can see what you are writing. Even if someone googled the words you were writing about they would be able to find it… maybe on the 35th page on Google, but still. So there’s lack of a closed environment on Twitter.

The next thing is that you are limited by characters in a response. 140 characters can come up to a sentence if you use enough normal-sized words. I, myself, had to write two tweets to fully express my opinion on the readings for Twitter. On Blackboard, we are character limited but at a much higher number, somewhere in the 500-600 range for most posts.

The one thing that Twitter does a good job in, that discussion boards do not is the search. On Blackboard, I cannot search for a term I am looking for, unless I go through each post already made and manually CTRL+F the word. Whereas on Twitter, one search of the term or more specifically the #hashtag will reveal anything anyone has ever tweeted about the term.

Comparing to an in-class discussion, I think it is always easier for people to write what they want to say online and through discussion boards than it would ever be in a classroom. The one thing you may risk by going to a discussion board, however, is uniqueness/individuality. And forgery and cheating come into play a little.

Signed,

Sheik Islam

Social Networking Sites

For reference, I will be using sites I already have a registered account for: Facebook, Instagram, Myspace and Twitter.

Myspace was the original major social network, because Xanga didn’t really have a platform for pictures and audio, etc. Myspace (which I used in my early teen years) was great for connecting to the people you knew. It was also very easy for people to see who you were talking to the most and also what you were doing (through status updates). Myspace has gone downhill since Facebook stole all of its members, and then Tom from Myspace sold out to a media company that turned it into a “social media network with a strong emphasis on music” as its Wikipedia page reads.

Facebook was the next big thing, and based on the amount of members registered, it still is! Facebook had the photo sharing, video sharing, link sharing, status updates and even a poke-system where you could poke your crush to let them know. And thus, every Myspacer switched over to Facebook. Facebook is great because it is mobile, something Myspace never had the chance to do. You are able to see status updates from people around the world and their search bar has been the greatest tool. You can search people, news, links, groups and pages (fan pages) all through a common search bar.

Twitter changed social media by limiting people to 140 characters. Twitter became popular as soon as companies began joining. The same companies that were on Facebook, but now the condensed form of responding attracted companies. Celebrities, like companies, are much more likely to respond on Twitter than any other platform. Another plus for twitter is that you can run a Facebook and Twitter at the same time, whereas if you joined Facebook from Myspace, you had to dump Myspace. Twitter is also great for buzzwords and search words. You can search a phrase or a #hashtag and find every 140 character or less tweet about that particular search, more conveniently, you can even sort those tweets by popularity or most recent. Twitter is a great news outlet, as NYTimes has over 13M followers and BBC World with over 7M, and relay of information and news is the biggest strong point with twitter. The Arab Spring and other revolutionary events were constantly updated on Twitter as “regular media” was having trouble getting to the areas. Ferguson had media disallowed into the area, which led to reporters and residents sharing news and events onto Twitter.

Instagram is a more limited social network, but one that is growing very quickly. Instagram was based on photos, and photos only, until recently when videos joined the app. Instagram became a big thing just how Twitter did, with celebrities and companies joining. Instagram is a good way to keep up with your friends and family, and your favorite eateries even because, as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. People believe in this too! It is a lot easier (and better) to see snow falling for the first time in the year than to read about it on Facebook. #Hashtags are a big player on Instagram, as well, you can filter the entire photo source with a few words.

Myspace is long gone except for up and coming artists, and Facebook remains strong after years and years of improvements and even going public. Twitter is only going to get better and more useful as more people join. Instagram did well to incorporate videos but their ceiling doesn’t seem so high, now that they’re at a developmental apex.

Signed,

Sheik Islam