Social Networking

In this world of new media, social networking plays a big factor. Social networking has become really popular now and the wide range of ages who use social networking sites has increased greatly in the last ten years. Although social networking has many benefits, it also has its downsides.

Social networking allows many people to stay in touch with friends and family, as well as meet new people. My experiences with social networking sites has been good. Social networking has allowed me to be up to date with different information concerning my "friends" and "followers". Many people have stronger relationships because of social networking because it is so easy to just turn on a computer, go to a site like Facebook.com and post on a friend's wall.

Many corporations benefit a lot from social networking. In the article "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", Maureen Crawford-Hentz says "social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting--ever." For an example, many marketing companies love social networking because it allows them to get information on the consumer world and allows them to see what people like.

Even though social networking has became so popular in our generation, it still has its downsides. Privacy is a big issue when it comes to social networking. In the article titled, "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy" by Clive Thompson, he says, "browsing Facebook was like constantly poking your head into someone's room to see how she was doing." Many people refuse to get participate in social networking because they don't want their lives to become public. Also it is possible for companies to search the internet and find information about a possible candidate, making people cautious to what they post online.

I believe that social networking will only continue to evolve. As it evolves more it leave open the debate of privacy, but I'm sure these issues will be addressed. I believe that Facebook will eventually add a video chat option. This would be really beneficial because it will really differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

In our world today, it is so easy to stay in contact with your friends and family by using these social networking sites. I am currently an active Facebook and Twitter user. I used to use Myspace until I got tired of it and deleted my account because it became to childish to me. To me it seems most people now use Twitter and Facebook most often. A lot of the users who use Twitter and Facebook migrated over from Myspace. While on Twitter I actually saw Tom, the creator of Myspace, plead to Twitter users to come back to Myspace.

It seems like when these social networking sites first become popular they start at the college level, and as its popularity progresses, the user age level continues to become lower. For example, when I first joined Facebook, I was a freshman in college and was required to have a college email to join. Now I see they allow anyone to join. All these social networking sites are different in many ways. For an example, many music artists and television shows use Myspace as a way to market their works.

Facebook is different from the other social networking sites in that it allows you to install many applications and games to your page. This has been a big hit for Facebook because many people find themselves logging on to Facebook just to play a game such as Cafe World or one of the big hits Farmville.

Twitter is different in the sense that it is a much simpler form of interacting with other users. With twitter you can easily post new status updates and reply to other user's status updates. I really enjoy Twitter because it gives you the opportunity to "follow" celebrities and newspaper analysts. I enjoy this fact because I am allowed to get up to the minute information from the many sports analysts that I am "following".

Friendster is similar to Facebook to me in that it allows you to share links, videos, and music with your friends or anyone on your network. In my honest opinion I believe all these social networking sites do the same things, it's just that some do it better. I wouldn't see myself using Friendster because it doesn't seem to have anything significant for me to feel I need to be apart of the Friendster community.

Blogs vs. Wikis

When you think of new media and some of the reasons why it has become more and more popular, blogs and wikis has to be one of the reasons you think of. With these inventions, a user doesn't have to go through the process of writing an article and sending it in to the local newspaper. Blogs and wikis help to keep that creativity flowing in everyday citizens because anyone can create a blog or wiki.

Blogs are changing the game of how people can access news and ideas. “Celebrity Blogs: The Impact of New Media” says, "Through blogs, people are able to write about topics that interest them and comment freely on what is going on in their lives and the world around them." Although they may have entertainment sections in newspapers, many people now feel it’s more convenient to go on a celebrity blog to read information on what is going on in the celebrity world. Some examples of these blogs are mediatakeout.com and worldstarhiphop.com. Because people can comment freely on what is going on in the world around them, it makes things more interesting for readers. For an example, Kanye West has a blog and on occasions you may see him express his feelings a lot on his blog.

Wikis are similar to blogging but it involved people working together and gives access to others to edit, save and post information. Wikis can be really useful because it pushes synergy. In the article "How to Use Wikis for Business" by Ezra Goodnoe, it says, "Anyone who's worked on even one team project in an enterprise can tell you what a nightmare document management can be. E-mails follow divergent paths. Spreadsheets and Word documents get passed around, and nobody's quite sure who has the most recent version.” With Wikis this helps solve that problem because it allows you to communicate and collaborate better. If a user makes a mistake or posts wrong information on the wiki, another user can easily go on the wiki and make the necessary changes. This is the same for the biggest wiki, Wikipedia. Many times you will see someone edit and post some inappropriate or wrong information on Wikipedia, but someone else can go on after and fix that information.

With new media becoming a big part of our lives today, blogs and wikis will only gain more popularity. Both of these forms of new media allows for better communication and creativity.

Old vs. New

As our world becomes more and more advanced, the battle between new media vs old media will really look lopsided. We all use both new media and old media in our lives, but how can we distinguish between the two? Although our world is pushing towards new media, old media serves its purpose as the foundation. If you look at old media, you can see how much we have evolved in technology. Some examples of old media being newspapers, magazines, radios, etc. Now one doesn't have to have a newspaper delivered to one's house, one can just go online to a website such as nytimes.com and read the latest news. Other examples of new media being blogs, social networking, wikis, podcasts, etc.

New media serves its purpose as an easier way of communicating with a community. For an example, in the current generation social networking is really big. Many people use social networking to stay in touch with friends, family, and also to advertise their services and products. Also a website like craigslist.com, allows users to post ads for free; this being the alternative to having to pay newspaper fees to get it printed in the paper.

New media gives you the freedom to be creative. Old media is more screened, such as if you want to air something on television, it would have to meet the standards. On the other hand, with new media you can freely post a video on something such as Youtube, and don't have to worry about it being screened before hand. Although new media will only get even more popular, old media won't be going away. For an example, new media opened the opportunity to watch television shows online, but that doesn't mean people will do away with televisions.

Social Networking: Better or worse than the real thing?

Social networking has become a big part of our world today. This "new media" has helped to change the way we live our lives. For an example, social networking offers a easier way to meet new people because it gives you the chance to see what the person is about and you can chose to want to learn more about them by just contacting them on the social networking site. Another way social networking has changed our lives is advertisements. Now that this "new media" has become so big, it made way for advertisers to use this as a new way to show off their product. This term paper will discuss if this "new media" is better than the "old media", also giving positive and negatives for each and ultimately coming down to a decision.

What is New Media?

New media is the new age way of using computer technology as a way to make communication easier. There are many different things that fall into the "new media" category such as email, chat rooms, video streaming, digital cameras, web sites, and many others. As we push to a more technological world, the internet is becoming more important to our daily lives. If you look back to when you were in school and had to do some research, you would usually have to go to the library to look in encyclopedias for the information you needed. Now, this generation is so advanced in technology that a child can just turn on their computer and look up the information they need on the world wide web. It is at the point where the internet is needed in every home because teachers now assume internet access is common for 21st century children.

"New media" is replacing "old media" and a big part of this reason comes from the internet. In the article "Who Needs A TV? I'm Watching On My Laptop", by Laura M. Holson, Holson talks about the lack of need for a television. She says, "I don't need one: the major networks and many other broadcasters have made it easy to find their shows free online." Some people may see "new media" being good for all but there are some who may not like the evolution of technology. In the article "Old media hits the skids as new models roil the market", by Joyce Hanson, she brings up a great point about music labels. "The old media business suffering the most in the new media upheaval may be music labels. In 2007, companies were beset by plunging album sales and shrinking profit margins. While sales of single songs have been rising, sales of traditional albums had fallen a whopping 15% through Dec. 16, according to Nielsen SoundScan." With the emergence of iTunes, people are now leaning towards just buying the singles that they like instead of purchasing the whole album.

In our world today, "new media" plays a huge role. As the years go by, the role it plays will only get bigger. So that leaves us with the question, are we going to embrace the new technology, or are we going to be "Scrooges" and complain about the new way of communication. Either way, to survive in this new world, adaptation is key!