The Next New Thing

The internet movement toward live-streaming has brought forth Internet TV for the masses. It is my prediction that Live Internet channels will be an eventual form of new media. The increase ease of recording and streaming on the internet would allow for individuals or groups to form their own channel on the internet similar to a TV channel but it is controlled by smaller focus groups rather than large network corporations. For a quality internet broadcast, a good internet connection and a fairly decent computer is recommended. The advancements in computer hardware and internet connectivity can make this movement feasible. Television networks will expand into online broadcasting as well. Internet channels will allow for a wide variety of content for viewing. People will be able to look for content by other viewers more easily and not be limited to just television produced material. This can open up new opportunities such as web shows or establish a new medium for discussion and communication in place of other new media such as internet forums or boards.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I assigned myself to contribute to the New Media & MMORPG's wiki page. I paid careful attention over the past few months to news revolving MMORPGs to see important developments and how it has impacted new media. I updated the list of MMORPGs with some refined details and cleaned up some links. I also cleaned up some grammar errors throughout the page. Some additions to the page include an example for recent virtual crime in EVE online, and a case reference to show how valuable the virtual world can be in terms of virtual property value in Entropia Universe. MMORPGs generally are quite similar to each other and there hasn't been any dramatic new form of MMORPGs recently. MMORPGs play a significant role in New Media and it will continue to do so in the future.

About my Term Research Paper

This research paper was quite interesting. I used Google Scholar to search for my scholarly sources and I utilized several major technology websites to aid me with my paper. I felt I knew a great deal about present day lifecasting but I was able to learn more about the history of lifecasting as well as many other sites that play a major role in lifecasting. I personally chosen this research topic because I was fascinated by the online community of websites such as Justin.tv. To be able to see various broadcasts and how individuals lifecast made me want to learn more about how it started. After further research, I have learned how great of an impact it has made on old and other new media. It has impacted television, radio, social networking sites and more. Live-streaming casts will become more popular. Lifecasting is broadcasting style that will continue to evolve and grow in the future but I do question how deeply engrossed humans will be with the internet and lifecasting.

Privacy & Confidentiality

The complication of the internet is that data posted on the internet is written and will exist permanently online. It is virtually impossible to get rid of something once it is exposed online. This can create problems for individuals who post pictures, statements or more that may be addressed to only a select few but be leaked to the masses. It is quite difficult to make something online 'private' because the content is not in your hands but in the care of service you had uploaded the data to. For example, if an embarrassing video of you has been posted online, you cannot remove it and it may have already spread to several new sites or machines. This can also be an issue with the new generation that with to be more socially connected with others online. Posting a twitter update about exactly what you are doing can be comprising of privacy of your personal life and is by no means confidential. On the other hand, it can be easy to disguise as someone else online. The new media provides an outlet to be anonymous or pose as an avatar online or even in a virtual world. This can allow users to keep their identify confidential. New media does promote communication and communities, therefore it can be expected that privacy and confidentiality of yourself will need to be loosened to a certain extent.

Advice to Baruch College

Baruch College does apply technology to help aid students. I feel that in a more radical approach, new media can be applied as well, in a virtual classroom or more. There are several large lecture classes that are difficult for a professor to give all students full attention to. There are several ways to work around the detriments caused by absurdly large class sizes. Few professors record their lecture, which will allow for students to revisit the lecture held in class. In addition, a virtual online classroom of fewer students may permit to fuller attention and engage students more directly. Wikis can also be made for several different courses that can help provide additional resources when applicable. There are several ways to utilize the online connectivity to network the student with the class on the internet.

The Social Network: Spoiler Warning

I wasn't thrilled to see this film about how Facebook started when I heard this movie was released, however I was somewhat interested in how engaging the director could make a movie about the history Facebook and it's key players including Mark Zuckerberg. The opening cut-scene between the main character and a girl surprised me. The actor for Mark Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg did such an amazing job of portraying the director's vision of Zuckerberg being an 'ass'. I thought that the movie would not be able to keep me engaged from start to finish but the director was able to make the movie as concise as possible. The movie flowed quite well from one scene to another. There was minimal downtime from unnecessary scenes. The attention of the movie consistently stayed on track around how Facebook came to be and the stirring controversy between Mark Zuckerberg and the co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Napster cofounder founder Sean Parker, and the Winklevoss twins. Virtually all the characters in the movie were portrayed to have a unique personality, which helped keep the movie refreshing. I am turned off by the excessive overplay of college student stereotypes throughout the movie, that consists of students being drunk, stoned, and insane. I have no doubt that this film was created using the most interesting perspectives of the real life situation, but it makes me wonder how accurate everything is portrayed in the movie. When I reached the ending of the movie, I was surprised that the programmer of the Harvard Connection, working with the Winklevoss twins wasn't mentioned during the legal proceedings nor was there any mention what he got out of the lawsuit. Regardless of a few pet peeves, I found the movie rather enjoyable and an interesting watch. I would recommend this movie to others if they have any remote interest about The Social Network because the actors were great and the story was well written.

Twitter Discussion

This is my first time using twitter personally to send tweets to others. I have visited the site a few times for other uses such as information updates from major companies. The mass feed of twitter updates seemed very daunting to me. I'm quite used to participating in forums, and Twitter was a different feel. In comparison to using BB Discussion board, I feel more comfortable writing extended responses with more thought and detail. Twitter certainly makes sending some important messages clearly challenging. In addition, the mass of short messages can be quite uninformative at times but at times 140 characters is capable of putting the message through. The discussion board is probably easier to revisit in the future due to the organized structure but to engage in closer to real time, twitter certainly has the leg up compared to the forums or the discussion board. In terms of real-time, an in-class discussion is the best way to immediately and direct communicate with one another. The drawback is if everyone is trying to speak at once. The result would be a incomprehensible mess. The same situation would apply to all other mediums including Twitter and possibly even the discussion board. The in-class discussion can be moderated and therefore be the most effective way to communicate among a group. Twitter is definitely an interesting new experience, which I hope to make better use out of over time but I must avoid engrossing myself with excessive status updates.