The Next New Thing

I expect that the next new popular type of media will be the e-paper technology.  Thin, flexible, high-definition and low-powered e-paper displays will replace the old communication medium  -- paper.  Printed newspapers and magazines that we still see today, will be published on e-paper, instead of paper.  There will be no need to manually flip through dozens of pages in the magazine or newspaper to find what you're looking for.  The e-paper publications will come with a searchable table of contents right on their main page.  And most importantly, the e-paper newspapers will not stain the hands of their readers with black ink like many newspapers do today.  The future e-paper displays will revolutionize communication in the world.  They will be foldable, bendable, readable under a bright light and will not use any power to display information.  They will only use a low amount of power to change the information being displayed.  This will
be a huge advantage over the technology commonly used today.  The future e-paper technology might even completely replace printed books, something that today's e-book readers haven't been able to do yet, and the much talked about end of printed media will come.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the sharing of computer files whether they are copyrighted or not.  File sharing can be done through the internet, P2P or by sharing physical computer media containing the files.  P2P File Sharing is the sharing of computer files through personal computers.  In P2P File Sharing, computer programs are used to share a file with other computers, so that the computer that shares the file becomes a server and the other computers are clients that download the file from the server.

An example of P2P File Sharing is using a BitTorrent program to download files from the P2P File Sharing website The Pirate Bay.  In the article "Content producers should take advantage of P2P, not fear it", the documentary film "Steal This Film" was distributed using this method.  The producer of this film, argues that P2P File Sharing can help with the distrubution of movies and can help movie producers reach a large audience.  He also proposes a new voluntary payment system for the movies shared through  P2P as an alternative to the current system.  He believes that his new proposed system will be more successful than the current system.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

For our class wiki project, I have been working on the "New Media in Transportation" page.  I added new content and new sections to that page.  I expanded the section dealing with the new media use by the MTA.  I added information about the new MTA text-messaging program in which MTA LIRR and Metro-North railroad customers can check their train schedules online.  I also added a new section that discusses the use of new media technologies by the State Departments of Transportation in order to better communicate with their customers.

Advice to Baruch College

If I am hired by Baruch College, my first suggestion would be to convert more regular courses into online courses.  Online courses offer many conveniences to students, especially those who work and have a busy schedule.  In online courses students have more flexibility about when to study and do the assignments.  The technology has now also improved to the point where online classes can be as good as traditional classes.  Using Twitter, Blackboard, blogs and email, students and professors can communicate with each other.  Video lectures can be as good as traditional lectures and many people now have broadband internet access.
Another thing I would suggest is -- online course evaluations.  Instead of filling out paper forms in person at the end of each course, the students could do it by filling out a form online at the Baruch website.  It would save time for students, professors and would make it easier to compile statistical information that could be used to improve the courses such as how many students believed the course needs improvement vs. how many said it was OK the way it is.
Also, it should be a requirement for all courses to use some form of New Media or Blackboard for course material and communication because there are still some classes that don't use either one and unless you are always in class in-person and on-time, you will miss important information.

Privacy & Confidentiality in New Media

There isn't much privacy for the users of new media.  Since one of the purposes of the new media is to share information, some loss of privacy is to be expected for all who use it.  Most of the information on the internet can be very easily accessed by all internet users.  Information posted using new media tools such as Blogs or Twitter can be seen by virtually anyone.  Social networking sites such as Facebook track your every activity on their sites and post it for everyone to see.  These sites also contain a lot of personal information on their users.  You can see what's happening in their personal lives and pretty much everything else you want to know about a person.  Social networking sites have some privacy options but it is easy to go around them.  There are people who dont even use the privacy options or don't know that they're there.
In Facebook, for example, you can limit what others can see in your profile but once you become friends with them, they can see everything.  It is fairly easy to become friends with most people on Facebook and all of the information posted in your profile is certainly accessible to those who run Facebook.  The bottom line is, whatever is posted on the internet can be potentially seen by anyone and can be used by them for any purpose.

About My Term Research Paper

My research paper was about the Future of Old Media.  I chose this topic because I am interested in knowing how the old media will fare in the future.  In my research, I used search engines such as Google to find various news articles and scholarly sources online.  I also accessed some of the Baruch Library online databases such as ProQuest to find more sources for my paper.  From my research I learned that although the old media faces some serious challenges, it will not disappear in the near future.  It will converge with new media technologies.  The convergence of old media with the new media is already underway.  Many newspapers and magazines have online versions of their publications.  E-books are replacing printed books.  TV is converging with the web content and social media to become WebTV where content from the web can be displayed on your TV.  I concluded that in the future, the most successfull media companies will be the ones that are able to adapt themselves to the changing times and the changing needs of the consumers.

Creativity

New media fosters creativity because with the new media it is easy to create user-generated content such as mashups where original content is combined with some of the content that's not original.  Even though this is not considered piracy and some media creators will not mind if their content is used in mashups, others will frown upon it.  This is illustrated in the New York Times article "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" by Brooks Barnes.  In this article, Disney tolerates people using its cartoon characters in mashup music videos, where the cartoon characters sing rap songs.  Disney does not approve of this, like some other companies do but it understands that it might not be able to win a case against it in court.  Disney also has bigger issues to deal with, such as pirated material being posted on internet or sold in other places, so it tolerates mashups for now.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds can be used for people to virtually experience things they wouldn't otherwise in real life.  They can also be used to create environments that don't exist in real life.  Second Life is the most popular virtual world that is used today for creativity, communication and collaboration.

In The New York Times article "In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again," by Saki Knafo, Second Life is used to create a virtual replica of the Hotel Chelsea in NYC as it was before its renovation.  The replica was created so that others could experience the interior of the hotel at the time when bassist Sid Vicious from Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy stayed at the hotel.  The creator of the virtual hotel used the photographs he had taken of the real hotel to put together his replica.

The article "Going to the virtual office in Second Life" by Mark Tutton describes how companies are now using Second Life for virtual meetings.  Meeting in Second Life, helps companies save money on travel expenses and time if the employees live in locations far from each other.  Companies also use a tool called Enterprise for increased security during the meetings.  This tools uses the company's private network for the meetings, instead of the internet.  IBM has its own tool for virtual meetings; it is called Sametime 3D. 

Virtual meetings are also more productive but have some disadvantages.  They can't have spontaneous "water cooler" conversations that take place after real life meetings.  Virtual worlds foster creativity because anything can be created in the virtual world environment.  I believe the future of virtual worlds will be an immersive virtual reality simulator where with better graphics it will be almost indistinguishable from reality.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook is a very popular social networking site.  It lets people stay in touch with their friends and share with them a lot of personal information.  You can share with your friends pictures, videos, post messages on your page and their pages, and play online games with them.  Since its creation, Facebook use has expanded to many groups of our society.  It is not just kids having fun. 
Myspace is similar to Facebook, and once it was even more popular than Facebook. Myspace also lets its users share pictures, videos and personal information but in addition to that it lets users add music to their profile.  It is my impression that Myspace is for a younger user group than Facebook because it has more customization and its pages can look more flashy.  Both of these sites have options to limit the personal information being shared.
Another social networking website is LinkedIn.  It has similarities to both Facebook and Myspace but it is more business oriented.  It is a tool for staying in touch with colleagues and managers from the person's place of employment.  Like Facebook and Myspace it lets users post pictures, videos and messages to each other.
Twitter is different than other social networking sites. It only lets its users post short messages. My impression is that it is intended to simulate a conversation in which one person says one sentence, another one says another sentence, and so on.  It is like an online discussion.

Blog about Twitter

Twitter discussion is different from BlackBoard discussion because only short messages can be posted using Twitter.  It is obviously intended to be more similar to a conversation in which one person says one sentence and another one says another sentence.  This is not the case with Blackboard discussions where long posts can be created.  In fact BlackBoard discussions are more similar to a blog in that regard, except for the fact that the BlackBoard is managed by a website administrator instead of the post creator.  Twitter
discussions have some similarity with in-class discussions in that all Twitter users, like students in a classroom can talk to each other by making short comments, just without face-to-face contact.

Social Networking

Social Networking technologies can be used for people to connect with each other, to share pictures, videos, comments, and personal information that they wish to share with others.  In the corporate world, Social Networking can also be used for collaboration such as sharing common documents when working on a project or posting messages to one common message board similar to a blog.  The benefit of this technology is that anything that's posted on one of the Social Networking sites can be instantly viewed by all the users of those sites and potentially all of the internet users.  This feature of Social Networking can also be used against people, to post information, pictures and videos to harass them or to damage their reputation.

I believe that the use of this technology will continue to expand to all groups of society and it will be incorporated into all commonly used internet-enabled electronic devices.  In the Maclean's article Social Networking at IBM: "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking", the author tells us that companies such as IBM recognize the value and importance of Social Networks and are starting to use them in their business operations.  This illustrates the expansion of the use of Social Networking to other groups of society because when it started, it was just a way for friends to connect with each other.  Also, since its beginnings, the use of Social Networking expanded to politics.  Politicians use Social Networking sites to promote themselves.  In The New York Times article, "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power," by David Carr, the author writes that President Obama understood the power of Social Networking and it helped him win his campaign against other presidential candidates in the 2008 election. 

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs are a tool that individuals use to post their thoughts, commentaries, photos or videos.  Blogs are managed by its owner who can choose what to show in the blog or what not to show.  Other individuals can post comments on what's written or posted in the blog. However, they can not modify any other part of the blog, except for adding comments to it.  Blogs can be used for collaboration between individuals and can influence events in the real world.  This happened when the blog BayRidgeTalk.com helped clean up a Bay Ridge neighborhood in NYC from drug dealers and addicts.  In the online New York Times article, "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" by Michael Wilson, he writes that the people living in that neighborhood were concerned about the fighting and drug dealing that was going on near their houses and posted commentaries about it to their blog. The police then got involved and raided the houses with the drug dealers.

Wikis are online databases or encyclopedias that can be edited by anyone.  They are different from blogs because anyone can edit any part of the wiki or even create new wiki pages. Unlike a blog, no one person has complete control over the contents of a wiki.  It is a much more collaborative environment than a blog.
The InternetWeek article "How To Use Wikis For Business" by Ezra Goodnoe states that Wikis are also beginning to be used in the business world for collaboration. They can be a very useful tool for employees working together on a common project.  The Wikis would converge all of the project work into one place to which all employees would contribute. This would solve many problems such as passing around different version of the common documents by email.  Wikis are also simple to use because even a person without technical knowledge can edit or create new pages.

The future of old media

The old media is being replaced by the new media.  We are now starting to see the traditional old media being replaced by the internet.  Newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio need to have a presence on the internet if they are to keep up with the changes that are taking place in today's world.  Some of the old media are already adapting to the changes in the world; newspapers are opening up their own blogs and TV shows are being posted online.  Old media will need to converge with the new media or it will become obsolete and will disappear like so many other outdated technologies before it.