P2P File Sharing

1. What is file sharing?
2. What is P2P File sharing?
3. What are some examples of P2P file sharing?

File sharing is when Internet users download files from each other. Usually there is one host and one recipient. Bandwidth is not shared.

Peer to peer file sharing is a more complex system of seeders and leechers where the bandwidth is divided. You upload and download at the same time. This type of filing sharing has been used both legally and illegally, the latter usually to download movies and music from other users. Record companies and movie production companies are outraged and are punishing those who violate copyrights such as the woman who was charged a $1.5 million fine for downloading 24 songs illegally.

More examples of P2P file sharing include users who want to exchange Linux software, taking a video of a movie in the theater and uploading it later on the Internet, swapping games, etc. It seems that most P2P file sharing involves more illegal activity than ever. A lot of people would rather take the risk to download content illegally than pay to get a legitimate copy. As we saw in the article I mentioned above, $1.5 million is not comparable to $15 or $20 for a CD or DVD. I would rather pay the lower price. 

The Next New Thing

It's kind of difficult to predict or create a form of new media that will actually be successful for a wide user base. As a consumer who cares about green energy, especially solar energy, I see people around me with their smartphones. They also tend to carry corded chargers with them due to the poor battery life of smartphones that have too many features in them that drain the battery. I personally do not own a smartphone but I can think of a solution to help the battery life issue. Instead of paying lots of money to buy a portable charger that is in the form of a phone case (AC powered), these portable chargers should be powered by solar panels and cells. Wouldn't that be more efficient and suitable for smartphone users? I don't  know if this sort of product already exists or not. I just think solar energy in the palm of your hand is a lot more convenient than carrying a cord everywhere.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality are related to new media for countless reasons. In the example of social media, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, everything you post is public regardless of what your user settings are. If it's published, anyone who has the means of seeing it will be able to. Nothing is every truly private on the Internet. Employers may find some "inappropriate" content on someone's page and decide not to hire him  or her. The problem here is that you don't know when they are accessing your information and what they are doing with it (maybe selling it to other people and organizations). A general guideline is: if you don't want it to be known to the world, don't post it.

Creativity and New Media

I made a Second Life avatar with the limited clothing options available that did not require real money. The avatar customization is rather extensive so this is what I could come up with. I'm still trying to get used to the whole system. I've seen other users with fabulous looking avatars but I am not sure if they paid for it or not.
This avatar suits my username "tabbycat05" more:

Creativity

New media fosters creativity because more user-generated content is allowed and encouraged to be uploaded to sites like Youtube. Companies like Disney for example, according to the article "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" by Brook Barnes, are not cracking down on videos made by regular people that use Disney characters to make fun of songs. By not removing this type of content, Disney is encouraging more people to freely depict Disney characters through humor and parodies. Creativity is able to flourish in this kind of open environment. Others can enjoy user-generated original content and appreciate it more. New media allows users to combine sound and video clips, images, etc. to create a new product. The Internet is the ultimate vehicle of creativity and users should be free to make new things to share with netizens around the globe. However, there is a gray area when taking content from a copyrighted source. Where is the line drawn? Should Youtube even be regulated for copyrighted content?

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can generally be used to communicate to other people with similar interests while still completely remaining geographically in one's own comfort zone. Because of the fact that users of virtual worlds are sitting in front of their computers, they can avoid awkward social situations that would normally arise in face to face meetings. Many people feel more open to communicate in a virtual world because they are shy in real life. They will say things that they would not dare in real life, like proposing to someone upon meeting them. In the article, "In Room 100, It’s Sid and Nancy All Over Again," by Saki Knafo, Second Life was used to recreate a piece of history, a famous murder to be exact. Art can also be recreated and shared with the world as long as there are people who want to do so. Virtual worlds produce virtual communities. In some cases, people will meet up with each other in real life after meeting someone through Second Life.

One of the setbacks of virtual worlds is that you only know other users through a computer. The interactions are artificial and, in my opinion, will never be the same or as satisfying as face to face communication. However, there are countless opportunities for virtual worlds from a health and business perspective. The article, "iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction," by Nicole Saidi talks about virtual worlds being capable of helping people with autism and to learn more about the conditions. People with autism can form a support group, learning about the things they have in common and giving advice to each other.

I think virtual worlds have the potential to become more mainstream as the Digital Age that we are in reinforces to the younger generations that digital interaction is more comfortable and convenient than traditional meetings. In this sense, there will probably be a great divide between the people who prefer face to face meetings and the people who prefer to be behind their computer screens. The best thing, in my opinion, is to be comfortable with both methods.

Social Networking Sites

I am still relatively new to Twitter but it is clear to me that most of my friends (people who I actually know and hang out with) prefer Facebook. For me, Twitter is way to keep up with celebrities and breaking news stories. Most of the people I follow are from reality TV shows like The Voice, The X Factor, and World Wrestling Entertainment (Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown). Twitter is mainly for expressing very brief messages or status updates, usually with shortened URLs with links to longer articles and pictures. The layout of Twitter's website is easy to navigate. What confuses me is how to make use of the various features like the hashtags and retweeting. Since I do not really tweet, but only read tweets, I have seen them being used but I have not explored it in my own usage.

Facebook is a much more familiar interface because I have had it for years. I know and have met all the people on my friends list. I feel like Facebook is more personal and it's sometimes okay to vent, complain, or even brag about something. I especially like the "like" and commenting functions. I think a reason why there isn't a "dislike" button is because it might cause more interpersonal conflicts, but that is just my hunch.

Myspace is outdated. Some musicians still use it to get their music out there for free. I never liked Myspace because I never knew who anybody was. The people who added me had nicknames with all types of fonts, uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers that made the whole experience confusing. The only thing I liked about Myspace was the fact that you could have your own layout. The "Top Friends" function was definitely a cause for friendship problems for many people. Why would anyone want to prioritize friends using a list, made in public? What if you thought you were important to someone and that person didn't put you in your Top 4 or Top 10 list? Hmm....

Another social network is the photo-sharing app Instagram. Even though I don't have a smartphone, I have seen many of my Facebook friends use it, posting up pictures with various types of filters. I personally don't like to use filters and prefer regular color pictures. Maybe it seems more artistic or creative. I guess I just like to keep things simple.

Social Networking

Both large corporations and small business can benefit from utilizing social networking in their business models. They can interact with their customers by receiving feedback, introduce new products in a cheaper way than traditional advertising campaigns, and target their customers more easily. Also, politicians can also use social networks like Facebook and Twitter as the article, "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power," talks about, to boost their campaigns, raise money, and let a wide audience know why they should vote for him. In personal usage, social networks allow people to keep in touch with their friends and family, share ideas and photos, and even to avoid certain people as well. Instead of obtaining news from traditional media outlets, social networking works at a much faster but is less specific in terms of content because there are character or word restrictions. This aspect encourages Twitter users, for example, to use shortened URLs instead of full length ones to share articles and images. 

One of the dark sides of social networking, in reference to the article, "Dictionary word of the year: 'Unfriend'," by Doug Gross, is that interaction between friends (or who used to be friends) becomes electronic and artificial. Misunderstandings may occur based on a Facebook status or a relationship status change. Friendships can be completely ruined because of the ambiguity that social networking offers. One of the most pressing problems of social networking is the idea of privacy and if it is possible to retain at all. I think a good rule of thumb to follow is to not post anything online that you wouldn't want the world to see because everything published online belongs to the public domain.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Compare and contrast blogs and wikis. Comment on the importance of convergence in today's networked world. How can blogs be used for collaboration? Can you think of a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet?

Blogs are useful for forming a community and getting feedback about a certain topic. They allow the blogger to express whatever it is they want to in terms of daily occurrences, opinions, current events, and countless other subjects that are of interest. Blogs can also be a relevant tool for all kinds of businesses. The article "Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write a Blunt and Unfiltered Blog," from the New York Times, focuses on the company's blog that permits merchants to review products. Another use of blogs is to bring a group of people together who live in the same neighborhood or area who have similar goals to collaborate on how to improve their community ("Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid" by Michael Wilson).

A wiki is usually a webpage or a set of webpages that inform people of factual information on a topic. Most wikis are open-source and can be edited by anybody. The ones that restrict access may belong to governmental agencies and other organizations that wish to share information in a closed environment, as in the example of Diplopedia, which is available to State Department employees.

Convergence is important in today's network world because all sorts of information is available and is dynamic. All the content on the Internet is susceptible to development and change. People from all around the world can communicate with each other, collaborate on the same blogs and wikis, and in turn, the Internet becomes a significant realm, or even universe, of knowledge. The Internet is its own global culture; everyone who has access to it can also make a difference by contributing to it.

It's challenging to think of a use for a wiki that doesn't already exist. Wikipedia by itself covers such a broad (understatement) range of topics but I will update this post if I do think of an example.

What Is New Media?

What kinds of technologies are part of the new media? How important is the Internet to the new media? Why and how are the new media replacing and / or enhancing the old media?

Examples of technologies that are part of new media include: smartphones, tablets, E-readers, user-generated content (Youtube, blogs, Wikipedia, and Instagram), and social networks (Twitter and Facebook). The Internet is crucial to new media because most, if not all, these new technologies depend on an internet connection to operate. The World Wide Web allows countless ideas and content (videos, publications, opinion pieces, images, etc.) to circulate around the world in a digital "cloud", which are accessible to anyone who may interested in looking for them. I would say that the Internet is the driving force of new media and, without it, the Digital Age would come to a standstill.

One reason new media are replacing old media is because devices such as tablets, smartphones, and E-Readers are capable of so much more than just delivering news. There are thousands of apps that can be downloaded, each of them serving their specific function, and adds convenience and productivity into the person who uses the device. Also, publishing news onto a website is cheaper and more easily updated than printing news by using a printing press. News companies can report breaking news via an article or even a headline on their websites. Many Facebook and Twitter users get their local or national news from status updates on the social networks, and may not even need to consult a more "credible" source sometimes.

In Andrew Savikas's article, "Don't Fear New Technologies," the author writes that "It's ironic that we're so bad at dealing with change, because it's something we face constantly--though arguably never before at the current rate." In essence, we have to embrace new media in order to keep up with the times. It is inevitable that technology will improve, maybe at a quicker pace than we can handle.

Project Description

My research topic is about Twitter and its positive and negative effects on society. Twitter's popularity has risen in the past few years. For my project, I plan to analyze the different ways (sociologically, politically,  and economically) that this form of new media impacts social interaction and make conclusions based on my research into how Twitter has been used to accomplish different goals. I will also look into the way Twitter users are segmented demographically and if certain means of using Twitter are more effective than others. Hopefully, my topic will be narrowed down a bit more before I commence my research.