I had so much fun with this assignment. Before I start explaining what I exactly did, here are my avatars:

My avatar is flying here:

I made my avatar fly over the ocean:

My SECOND avatar: =]

My Second Avatar:

When I read this assignment I honestly did not know where to begin.  I looked at what my classmates did and some made YouTube videos and some made avatars. I did not want to make a YouTube video because I did not have a camera handy. I decided to make an avatar because I have never done that before. I first downloaded Second Life and then made an account. This process was fairly easy. When I logged into the program I was so excited. I wanted to make more than one avatar. The first avatar was a brown man. I made him fly, jump in water, go on the slide, etc… I also changed my avatars appearance around, but had trouble finding shorts for him because I teleported him to the beach. I decided to make another avatar because I was bored looking at him. So I decided to become an Indian woman. I thought this was pretty funny. I made her go to a romantic island.  I think I will be using Second Life when I am bored because it is so much fun!!



Creativity!

Youtube is a prime example of how new media is fostering creativity. Not only is Youtube allowing you to view millions of videos around the world but it allows one to show their own creativity. For example, Youtube has various contents on its website such as music videos and cartoon scenes.  According to the article “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?” published in the New York times, a Youtube member published a video of Soulja Boy’s song “Crank That” with clips of Nickelodeon’s “Spongebob SquarePants” which got around 7 million views.  Such videos are called Mash-ups, they are made by editing together music with either animated clips or T.V Shows.  Youtube, a new media, fosters creativity in a sense of allowing one to publish/post their creativity on the internet allowing one to share it with millions of people around the world with just a click away. This encourages individuals to show their hidden creativity.  Youtube allows you to become a self-publisher without the hassle or money of getting your creative material out there.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds could be used to do virtually everything one can do in the real world. A virtual world is an online community where users can meet people, communicate, learn, and interact with others within in the virtual space. Virtual worlds are also used for professional reasons. Some people use virtual worlds to get away from reality and enjoy themselves by fantasizing about things they cannot have. Eric Spangenberg mentions in his article, “No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You,” that a virtual world is “the newest manifestation of how people live…If I can’t afford a Bentley, my avatar can.”

PROs:

Virtual worlds allow people to show their creativity. People have the freedom to express themselves through virtual worlds. Virtual worlds allow you to connect with people and make new business contacts. Mark Tutton, “Going to the virtual office in Second Life,” writes that “Virtual community Second Life is seeking to tap into that market by creating a new tool that allows businesses to have virtual meetings on their own computer networks.”

Office meetings can be held on virtual worlds, and all the employees can participate and communicate with other colleagues. Employers can train their new employees by using virtual training programs. This will decrease the cost of labor and make things easier for the employer.

CONS:

Virtual worlds are addicting and may lead to users losing their friends and family because virtual worlds are so time consuming and people reduce the face to face interaction. A major disadvantage of virtual worlds is loss of privacy. Someone can put information that you don’t want exposed on the internet for everyone to see. Virtual worlds can also make people like the “real” world less and less and like the virtual world More because people might feel like they accomplish more things in the virtual world than the real world.

 How to virtual worlds foster creativity? What do you think the future of virtual worlds will look like?

Virtual worlds foster creativity by competition. Because people are able to express themselves, people will compete each other to make their virtual world than others. People can also recreate situations that they saw in real life. Because of competition and the need to make the virtual worlds better, I think in the future virtual worlds will be very REALISTIC. I think the virtual world will feel more like reality than actual life. We might be living in the world of fantasy in no time.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook: Facebook is among the most famous and widely social networking website among people of all age. I have been using Facebook since high school and I think it’s great site because it allows to me to keep in touch with my friends. I can add friends, upload pictures, play games, send links, etc… I love playing poker on Facebook because I can play with my friends who are online at the moment on Facebook. The best part of Facebook is getting invited to events. I think that is the best feature about Facebook. If I want to invite someone to a party, all I have to do is create an event and send out the invitations. Facebook is great!
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a more professional social networking website. I only use this to network with recruiters and employers. It is a great site to look for job opportunities. You have to keep this site clean of any personal things that you have on Facebook but don’t want your employer seeing (for ex/ pictures!) Also, I feel that since it is more professional, the use of internet slang should not be used here.
MySpace: MySpace is another social networking website where you can make new friends and share your pictures, music and videos. The biggest difference between Facebook and myspace is that you can customize your own webpage and add any type of animation you want. It was very popular back in high school but I did not use it much. I am more of a Facebook person.
Twitter: My twitter life just started last week when I created the account. So far I think twitter is okay. I know I will not be using it much after this semester because I don’t think I have the time to update my tweets every 2-3 minutes. But I like to read what people are tweeting about. It’s actually good entertainment. Twitter is good for “light reading.” I have not learned how to do anything fancy on twitter yet (add tags) but I will learn gradually.

Twitter :Discussion

Twitter is a very fast way of interacting with others, and it is definitely faster than the Blackboard/on line discussion. Twitter is fun as compared to boring blackboard. The bad things about tweets are the limited character space for each tweet. You have to keep your tweet nice and short. On blackboard you can right paragraphs. I think that’s very boring because no one likes to read long messages. Tweets are interesting to read and also fun to comment on other peoples tweets. Blackboard is more formal that twitter.  Although I am not a tweeter, I think it would be fun once I get started. I think twitter is great for your personal life but not for class discussions. I don’t think it’s appropriate to tweet to your professor if you have a serious question. I feel like new media is going to take over and soon we will have all our classes on Skype or msn messenger.

Social Networking

There are lots of social networking sites on the web that give opportunities to connect and share with friends. Some social networking sites are Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. These websites are very popular among workplace, high schools, universities, in business to business marketing, to look for an employment and much more.  There are many advantages to social networking sites. You can make friends, stay in contact with your friends and family, and also meet people online. There are online dating sites where you can start a relationship with a significant other. Social networking sites are a great way to advertise your business. According to an article by Frank Langfitt, “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting,” there are many opportunities to find jobs on social networking sites. A lot of companies use LinkedIn.com and network online with potential clients. Even twitter is helpful tool to your career.  As it was stated in one of the reading,” Tweeting your way to a job” how the Pepsi advertised that they were looking for journalist and students to tweet for them. This could be a nice career start for students who are interested in social media and so on.
The dark side of networking is that there can be loss of privacy. Your personal information can be revealed to anyone without you knowing. According to Marc Parry, "Who cares about Facebook Privacy? Students do." many Facebook users are modifying thier privacy settings to protect themselves.I think in the future, social networking sites will change drastically. Some changes might be the way we shop.Everything will be digitized.

 

Blogs v. Wiki's

A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. Blogs are personal and they are a way to share ideas with readers. According to Melissa Gerry, “Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media”, people are able to write about topics that interest them and comment freely on what is going on in their lives and in the world around them. People talk about the news, personal stories, etc… Blogs can be used in a collaborative way also; Readers can interact with the blogger by posting comments on the blog. A Wiki is like an open source document which the user uses to provide specific or useful information to users.  Wikipedia.com is a good example of wiki; it serves as a great means to meaningful information. Wiki’s are a collaborative effort, because multiples users add and edit content on the web page. A blog is just a website that maintains ongoing posts, which are frequently updated chronologically. Both Wiki’s and Blogs are forms of new media that enables the users to share meaningful information. A few differences are: A blog is maintained by one user while Wiki can have multiple or more than one authors. A new use of wiki can be website of students posting up class notes. This would be great because if you lost your notes, you can refer to the online class notes!