New Media 2012

Wikipedia is not a reliable source for professional researches.  Anyone can contribute and modify its articles. To be able to edit and change a Wikipedia article, you have to create an account. To create an account is easy it don’t require full personal information.

 I was searching for the page of any company that content accurate information. The Co-operative Insurance Tower’s profile shows its history, architecture and other information that seems accurate according to the original company website. I modified some of its data such as, date of creation, renovation, number of floors and also in the paragraphs data. I changed with extreme different dates and numbers. For example the original number of floors was 25 and I change for 125. The opening original date was 1962, and I change for 1860. I was looking how fast my changes could be modified. In less than 5 minutes, my changes were modified for the original data. However, at the second time that I changed the same data, it was not modified. It was because I changed from 1962 to 1961 and the number of floor of 25 to 20. This means if we don’t put radical change, the modified data will stay longer until someone else modifies it. Therefore, Wikipedia doesn’t have reliable source of information. Anyone can edit and change an article that could mislead our knowledge with no accurate data.

I also learned that Wikipedia have private user. There are many companies and people profile that are not open to the public editing, such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. So if we look for accurate information we should look at the account type of the profile or the link to public editing shouldn’t appear above of each paragraphs.

As the facilities of communication are improving worldwide, we have many forms that we can communicate with different people.  Lev Manovich in his article The Language of New Media argues that “One of the basic cases of variability principle is scalability, in which different versions of the same media object can be generated at various sizes or level of detail (38).” He says that we have diverse kinds or form of media object. If we realize how many ways of communication we access every day, we can find infinite ways of communication that people use to connect with their friends. We have variety of media technologies that allow us to interact and to network with each other.

One of the most developed forms of communication between people is social networking web services. There are varieties of social networks and each of them has their own customization for their target people and places. Moreover, this ways of communication doesn’t have geographical boundaries. This feature allows people to communicate freely and to know other people and cultures. It also makes easier, faster and cheaper to communicate. Before this form of communication became popular, our interactions with other people were more restricted because of the distance and accessibility. In years ago, there weren’t too many varieties of these network sites as we have now. Manovich also says “New media also allow us to create versions of the same object that differ from other in more substantial ways (39).” He refers that we have variety of the same media of communication. Using the networking sites we can find variety of them but each of them has their customizations and objectives. For example, Twitter refers to messages as tweets and they only allow users to write 140 characters in each tweet.  Other network site such as LinkedIn targets professional people. We can find many social networking sites and choose them based on our objectives.

Moreover, as new social networking sites are getting popular and more crowded, it motivates other entrepreneurs to crate other social network sites and target other not yet explored niche. Therefore, it just not only facilitates our communication but also bring social changes. These new social networking services can bring together people who could not communicate because they did not know about each other. Therefore they create more specialized interest groups that can communicate with each other in a new efficient way. One of the most recent spectacular social aspects of networking sites is how they can affect and influence public life. Current news and politics can be easily commented and debated over the internet, bringing people together to support their ideas and views. This great tool is becoming more important in our lives because can bring changes outside, to our “real” lives.

People not only are using social networking sites to connect with other people, but this network site also can be used as storage of our information. We can post photos or album on our site and share them with our friends. The way people share and store their information got easier, faster and cheaper. It is because there are many varieties of technologies that enable people to choose what is convenient for them. As technology is evolving there are different versions of the same programs, systems and hardware.

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Creating a blog is a way to build new connections with our friends and other people around the world. It allows us to communicate and learn about other cultures.

My first experience using a social networking site was when I created a Hi5 account in 2005. It was after I came to New York City.  In my country, Peru, there were not popular social networks at the time. Four months after I move, I was invited by friends from my country. I was so excited to be able to communicate with them and learn about their activities and achievements. Hi5 is a networking site that allows the users to post their pictures, videos, music, and comments. This networking site was great at the time because I was able to search for friends that I had lost contact with even when I was in my country. I believe that people need a site like that where we can post photos and videos that allow our friends and families to learn about our activities. I was able to find most of my friends and meet their friends.

However, after Facebook become popular most of my friend moved there.  I wanted to open an account, but, had the experience that using a social networking site is time consuming. I used to spend so much time commenting and watching pictures that at the end of the day I was not able to do my personal things. So, I decided not open any other social networking account and use my time in some activities that would benefit my daily life.  In my free time I try to catch up on my studies and spend some time with my family. I opened a twitter account just because it is a course requirement.

Also I didn’t want to visit other social networking sites because of privacy concern. I still wonder how all our information is used. I learned that Facebook sells all people’s information to many companies that ask for it and we don’t have control over this.

Having the block at Baruch is great because I am constructing a site where I can communicate with friends, classmates and professors from Baruch. 

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