New Media and Society

The effects of new media on society has literally changed the world as we know it. Before the emergence of the internet and new technologies the world was an extremely different place. Although 9/11 only happened 13 years ago, think about what would've happened if the attack on the World Trade Center happened today. Before going there, remember what it was like, being an individual living in the Tri-State area I remember it perfectly- no one knew what was going on, we accounted for our loved ones ensure that everyone was safe, and everyone heard a million different stories of what had actually happened. Now-fast-forward 13 years, what would it be like today. First off, if you search YouTube for World Trade Center 9/11, you will get approximately 350,000 results of tributes, video footage from that day from all angles, and interviews following the day from survivors and individuals who lost people. Now if it was today, there would be billions of videos on YouTube alone. Imagine the videos we would see? We live in a society where we are tied to our cellphone so imagine what the footage would be?- videos from people on the street from their phones, individuals running out from the building to try to save their life, and worse-video of individuals who unfortunately perished. The screams we would hear, the cries, and the silence of the aftermath of their untimely death. We would also would see billions of Tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts, which could have helped individuals locate their loved ones faster, we could have had a more unified grieving period where we would all be there for each other in another sense by speaking with eachother through social media and text messaging, and we could have a little more piece of mind when going to sleep that night. Sure, new media has given us many pros and cons however it has also revolutionizing the way in which we interact with eachother, the way in which we find news out, and more importantly, has given us a new way to live our life, in a more informed, more unified way.

Privacy and Confidentiality

As I spoke about in one of my previous posts, individuals in our modern day society have become obsessed with social media to the point that if they leave their house and forget their phone, an anxiety comes and they feel as if they are being left out and forgotten. With the new smartphones and social media sites, there are many points and times where the devices and applications ask for your personal information and it has been found that they are selling their personal data such as your email address, address book, and many other things which you at one point might have authorized without permission. In a recent article posted in the Atlantic, it was found that Facebook "access basic information and it now includes...passing your current address and mobile phone number to whichever application is trying to gain access from it." Scammers, he states, are impersonating real applications and are taking your information from Facebook and selling it to advertisers, spammers, and scammers. The only advice he offers is to simply disconnect yourself entirely from the site.

This unfortunately is just one aspect to a very controversial subject. For instance, recently it was found that AT&T employees were infringing on their costumers rights and were stealing their personal information including their social security numbers, addresses, and other personal data which should remain confidential and should not be even able to be accessed by any employee.
Although AT&T's hacking was indeed horrible, they are not the only one. Notable hackings of other networks include, Apple's iCloud, Sony's Network, Target and the stealing of credit cards and many many others.

By allowing such information to be so accessible are we thusly allowing ourselves to be so naive to think that there aren't a few bad apples who will hack the content and use it against us? The problem is that we'd like to think that companies and corporations are trustworthy enough not to expose our confidential information but unfortunately thats not the world we live in.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/07/att-data-breach_n_5943138.html

The Next New Thing

Since our culture has become so engulfed in pursuing different identities while online, I think a creation of a virtual reality where individuals were put in a real life situation and they had a decision to make that would alter the world in a better way. When I say a real life situation, I mean a current controversial issue that is going on currently, and that will help alter the way in which they judge what is going on. For instance, imagine putting someone who is so pro war in a situation where they are actually in the war and its done so well and real that it causes them to reexamine their beliefs on war and it literally puts them into the situation. By being able to have a software that allows one to live in another's shoes and experience a similar life to one they judge, maybe we could live in a country which their is less judgement and hatred.

Advice to Brooklyn College

If I were hired by Brooklyn College, there would be a number of things I would have them change.

1. Social Media- I would increase their presence on social media websites by about 9 billion percent. There is literally zero presence on any of the social media websites and if their is one, its unrelatable to the average student, impersonal, and lack any substance. If I were in charge I would constantly be interacting with students and having contests for specific prizes. One of the most important things about college if not THE most important parts is learning how to network and gaining a good connection with your school. At its core, that all social media sites aim to want. I would post on Twitter more than when there is only a snow-day or a program, I would Tweet to students, post different contests like a daily trivia question about the school wins a ten dollar gift card to Starbucks. In short, there are many ways to improve their presence.

2. Modernization of the use of texts within the school- Every time I go to the school I cannot believe the amount of paper they waste on syllabuses, texts, tests, and other handouts. Although I can honestly say I am not an environmentalist, I can say I am someone who believes its time for a modernization. We live in a time where you can send an email and receive it in less than a second, so why not use it? I would tell Brooklyn College to buy each student some tablet and have the teachers send all documents to that tablet. This will not only fare well for the environment but will save the school money in the long run.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

It's kind of creepy what has emerged since the rise of the internet. There have been many different websites that have shown how weird we all are as humans. Between virtual reality, social media, and other websites that allow us to escape our reality, we can see how that the internet has birthed a new reality, a reality in which individuals are able to become someone they aren't in real life. This can be seen on Facebook where more times than not individuals show a different side of themselves. Just look at the numbers- , Facebook is not only the largest social networking website but also has the second largest population in the world to China. As of July 2014, Facebook has an estimated 1.3 billion active users, has over 600 million users active through their mobile devices, and is now translated into 70 languages. Of all statistics, the most daunting is that which shows that collectively; users spend approximately 640 million minutes a month on Facebook.

Now, one can effectively ask what bearing does this have on ones own personal identity.According to Kathryn Brown’s “The Risk of taking Facebook at Face Value: Why Psychology of Social Networking Should Influence the Evidentiary Relevance of Facebook Photographs,” studies have found that users present both “online and offline identities.” More so, Brown cites another study, which states that users display only certain pictures which “presents user as attractive… shows user in a humorous shot… and shows off user’s romantic relationship.” This study suggests that individuals tend to present themselves only at their best to make it as if their lives and experiences are better than their peers.

Additionally, In Yin Zhang, Leo Shing-Tuan Tang, and Louis Leung’s recent study they tried to answer this exact claim. After conducting studies, which measured one’s self-esteem levels as well as other parts of the psyche, results showed that “users adopted Facebook to seek social information, get recognition and support from others, maintain and extend social connections.” The studies also showed that these user’s lives were affected both behaviorally and psychologically. These users would also feel out of touch or lost if they had not spent their usual time on Facebook updating and getting updated, suggesting a reliance and addictiveness to the site. Additionally, one could look at another study conducted by Junghyum Kim and Jong Eun Roselyn Lee which shows how Facebook contributes to psychological well-being and how the amount of Facebook friends and self-presentation can affect one’s subjective well being. Not surprisingly, these studies found that the number of Facebook friends one has at a given point will indeed affect one’s self esteem, self perception, and change the way they act . The affect which Facebook seems to have on ones own life seems daunting. Everyday millions upon millions log onto the site and escape into an alternate reality where they can act and show themselves to others in a different light. 

However, it seems like Facebook isn't the only platform in which we see how utterly strange we have become. In a recent NY Times article by Dave Itzkoff, he speaks about a new website called VLES which is a virtual reality of the Lower East Side. The site offers a "smurf village reduction of the Lower East Side, and yet instantly recognizable to anyone." We are all familiar with the Sims collects of games and although it was strange that one would actually play God, it was deemed acceptable since it wasn't a clear replica of the Lower East Side, it was a fictional area which was never misconstrued with real life. The problem is, individuals are getting stuck in this new reality thanks to VLES and it has caused them to ignore real life. Itzkoff shows this by stating that "despite knowing that its real-life inspiration exists right outside my door, I have spent the last few months making such visits to the Virtual Lower East Side (vles.com), a three-dimensional, Internet-based social network." 

These examples above further demonstrate the fact that these social networking sites have created a new reality and has masked itself to seem to individuals as if its the real reality. 

"Facebook Statistics." Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., 23 June 2013. Web. 1 November 2014.

<http://www.statisticbrain.com/facebook-statistics/>.

Social Networking

There are many ways to incorporate social networking in ones business.  One way can simply be by interacting with ones costumer base. For example, a couple years ago I worked by myself going business to business asking them about growing their social media presence. Many if not most had the same response, "what is that?" "why would I need to do that." My response was always this, "I'll give you one month free to prove myself and its value." 9/10 times, the business said they had nothing to loose and brought me on board as a consultant. Within that month, I used the site to post special contests daily, post many pictures of the products that were sold and specialized, and most importantly, interact with costumers. I would always comment on their posts, write to them, and start a relationship with the group itself. Within that month I was able to establish a bong between the costumers and business which never existed before thanks to social media. One can see the advantages listed in a recent article by Marguerite Reardon, where she speaks about how AT&T used Twitter as a means of communication with their costumers during a recent outage. Specifically, Reardon writes that "hundreds of messages were sent back and forth on Twitter throughout the day among angry customers looking for more information on what has been happening." At&T is not the first company to do this. I am currently employed by a family owned travel agency and American Airlines system was down and cancelled every flight. We had hundreds of passengers abandoned at the airport and the only way to communicate with them at the time was through Twitter. Through these means, I was able to stay in touch and get real time updates directly from the representatives at the airline rather than sitting around waiting and not having an answer for my costumers.  

Examining Social media sites

Ever since I can remember I have been a big fan of social media. It all started when I was nine and I started to use AIM profiles to write about me and write different things about myself that I wanted to share with your buddies. As the times evolved so did social networking and I remember my first experience with the newest type of channel, Myspace. I got a Myspace originally to promote my band but I later used to to socialize with friends, meet new people, and share my life with others. I remember feeling so impressed with the way the website looked and the speed in which you could browse through someones profile and messaging them. Then the world changed forever, Facebook emerged and stole everyone from Myspace. I got a Facebook in 2006 and since then I never quit. the first time I used Facebook I remember thinking that Myspace was so outdated and the website which once impressed me so greatly was now an antique. Although i never used Friendster, I was excited we were assigned to look at this site because I never heard of it and I was even more excited to see what Myspace had to offer since I hadn't been on the site since 2006.

The standard for social media websites for me is Facebook. Facebook has constantly evolved into what the times called for and always kept a fresh face. Every few months we here a large public outcry of individuals complaining because Facebook changed the way they view their news-feeds, or see their messages or many other small changes that people seem to love to make a big fuss over. Yet, everyone continues to go on the website.

Myspace- When I first went on the site I was so surprised how much they truly changed about the website. It took me a minute to find how to log in but once I found it, I logged on and was up and running.  Well not exactly, I had no clue how to access my old profile and once I did all my old pictures and messages were all deleted. The website was also really slow, was centered around music more then ever before, and it seemed like most of the active accounts were bots. Overall I see why I left the website to begin with, the site is boring, hard to navigate at times, and is EXTREMELY outdated.

Upon registering for Friendster I was left dizzy and confused. The website seems to be a hub for individuals who love to play games and incorporate social media. Ia m not one of those people other than if I am playing scrabble. Once registering (I felt like I was signing myself up for a virus), The website seemed hard to navigate at first and the odd mixture of colors made me a little dizzy and seizurish but I continued on. As I played a game and messed around with the websites, I got bored of the website very quickly by the amount of time it took to load content felt like I was getting nowhere with the website. I also felt like it wasn't as much of a social media website rather a gaming website where one was able to interact with another like the old website logo.

Overall it seems clear that Facebook continues to reign over all social media websites and it's obvious why they are so successful.

Wiki edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greyhound_routes#About

I added the about section

About[edit]

On its website, Greyhound defines itself as to be Founded in 1914, Greyhound Lines, Inc. is the largest provider of intercity bus transportation, serving more than 3,800 destinations across North America with a modern, environmentally friendly fleet. It has become an American icon, providing safe, enjoyable and affordable travel to nearly 18 million passengers each year in the United States and Canada. The Greyhound running dog is one of the most-recognized brands in the world.

While Greyhound is well known for its regularly scheduled passenger service, the company also provides a number of other services for its customers. Greyhound Package Express service offers value-priced same-day and early-next-day package delivery to thousands of destinations in North America. And the company also offers charter packages for businesses, conventions, schools and other groups at competitive rates.

Greyhound has additional operating entities: BoltBus, serving the Northeast and Western regions of the United States; and YO! Bus, which serves Chinatown markets in the Northeast. In 2010, the company launched its premium city-to-city service, Greyhound Express, and has since quickly expanded the popular service to more than 100 markets across North America. It also operates Greyhound Connect, a service that connects rural communities to larger Greyhound markets in the United States.

In addition, Greyhound has interline partnerships with a number of independent bus lines across the United States. These bus companies provide complementary service to Greyhound Lines' existing schedules and link to many of the smaller towns in Greyhound Lines' national route system.

Amtrak passengers use Greyhound to make connections to cities not served by rail on Amtrak Thruway service by purchasing a ticket for the bus connection from Amtrak in conjunction with the purchase of their rail ticket. Passengers may also buy a bus ticket directly from Greyhound.

Greyhound is owned by FirstGroup plc, the leading transport operator in the United Kingdom and North America. Its vision: to provide solutions in an increasingly congested world, keeping people moving and communities prospering. With revenues of more than £6.9 billion per annum and about 120,000 employees, the company transports more than 2.5 billion passengers every year.

Routes[edit]

Blogs Vs. Wikis

Both blogs and Wikis are important for regular individuals to get information from websites other than those of companies and website makers. Their are many similarities between the two. Firstly, they are both easy to set up, anyone can set it up in a matter of minutes without any sort of computer expertise. Secondly, they do not require any sort of .html for the basic look and are easily accessible for any device on the internet. They are also easy to edit and touch up and can be done so anywhere.

The difference however can be seen in many lights as well. On the one hand when Blogs can be centered around fiction writing, ones own personal ideas, and is highly subjective whereas blogs written are supposed to be centered around the truth and about some sort of day/event, a person, or something of factual substance. Secondly, anyone can edit wikipedia pages where as blogs are only able to edited by a person with permission to do so. The thing that blogs, such as the Huffington Post, offers versus Wikipedias, according to Virginia Heffernan's article Articles of Faith, is that it allows regular and up and coming individuals to post "curated news aggregation plus original reporting and opinion." Additionally, blogs can be used for collaboration in the sense that they can combine comments are articles and make the emergence of social media a vital part of articles that are updating by the second. The blog websites can also include allow individuals to submit articles to be published in order to lend a new perspective to individuals who choose to visit the blog.

To further the Wikipedia's, they can enable a comment section where people are able to add additional facts which would not be added to the normal page, such as unimportant topics regarding reviews, and other links to further ones research. Additionally, Wikipedia can track what users search for in an attempt to target them for specific advertisements.

Old vs. New

One of the main ways in which New Media is different from old media is the sense of distribution. Before the dawn of the internet, if someone wanted to send a check to another person they had to send it in the mail and wait a few days and then wait for it to clear. Now, with the internet and online banking, one is able to instantly send money from one account to the next and have it in the other persons back within minutes. For example, Chase.com offers individuals the opportunity to send other individuals who have a Chase account to send money and once approved by the other party, have it automatically applied to their account. Additionally, the sense of distribution applies to the fact that many companies who used to rely on various means of delivery have far less to worry about. Today, rather then relying on delivery boys and the printers, many online magazines and news outlets simply publish new articles and posts with the click of a button. The costs of maintaining a business is far less thanks to the emergence of new methods of distribution.

Secondly, the idea of ones ability to access any piece of information in less than a second is another huge change. One is literally able to type in any question in the world on google.com and have the answer within minutes. Before Google however, and before the internet, one needed to actually do some work to find answers like go to libraries and find the proper book to find the answer. The idea of instant access has revolutionized the idea of media in the sense that individuals have the ability to see whats happening in the world within seconds.

Describe New Media

Although on the daily New Media is constantly evolving, some of the most popular forms are: the internet, more specifically- podcast, YouTube,  social media sites,  search engines, ect.; cellular phones, computers, some forms of television. Its not to complicated to distinguish between new and old media. Before there was the internet, most people were only able to get their news from television and newspapers however now, one is able to within a split second access the internet in order to see what is going on before it even happens. ONe is now able to view television shows and live tv without ever leaving their computer. In Laura Holson's article Who Needs a TV? I'm Watching on a Laptop, she states that her 24 year old niece never owned a television and watches "America's next top model online."

What is New Media?

1       What kinds of technologies are part of the new media? There are many types of products within the “new media.” To list a few we can say that the internet as a whole is the biggest type of new media but to be more specific we can lists-websites, blogs, YouTube videos, applications, Twitter and other social media sites, vlogs and many more. Additionally, one is able to access channels through handheld devices as well as computers and tablets. Individuals are able to watch or read something at any time and can videochat with any person in the world.

2      

           How important is the internet to the new media?

Well just from the assignments alone we have seen one major part of the new media, the news media integrating all of their services online. The readings assigned were from various websites such as CNN.com, Yahoo.com and other various webpages. After the technological revolution, many of the print and even television stations had to change their business completely to integrate the internet into their business. Another way in which one can see how the internet is important is by looking at the role they play in streaming services. Take Netflix for example, the company started out as a business which allowed individuals to rent movies online and get the DVD in a matter of days, all that would have to be paid for is a small monthly fee. Now, a few years down the road, discs have been thrown out and the only service they offer are streaming services which can be seen through any channel practically which can access the internet. These businesses rely on the internet to function and if there was even the smallest outage, they would lose millions of dollars. Because of businesses like Netflix and Hulu (another streaming service), many cable networks have lost a lot of money and have had to merge with other companies in order to stay in business. Many Networks now even incorporate their shows to be streamed online, one such example, HBO, has an application called HBOGO that allows users to watch their shows up to an hour after it originally airs online. Another example can be seen in one of the articles assigned, “Who Needs a TV? I’m Watching on a Laptop” by Laura Holson, when she speaks about a friend of hers Louise who “uses a projector hooked up to her laptop to watch “Lost” on a white wall in her living room.” So essentially, without the internet, new media would be another form of old media. 

     

      Why and how are the new media replacing and/ or enhancing the old media?

As mentioned earlier, many old media forms- newspapers, magazines, and many other print forms- have gone out of business because they were unable to adjust when the internet had its first boom. These companies failed to comply with the new demands of the time and continued to print and circulate to costumers in an old fashioned way only and thusly got forgotten about. Many newspapers have even cut back on specific parts of their paper in an attempt to save money. For example, the New York Times stopped printing separate Sport Sections of their paper and have put it together with the Business section in an attempt to make it more economical and use less paper. The New York Times however has adjusted quite well and have made new platforms which can be used by all ages including easy to use applications, a smooth easy to navigate website, and a great search engine which allows you to find articles from literally over 100 years ago.

About Me

Hello Everyone!

My name is Saul Zalta and I am 23 years old. I was born and raised in New Jersey and after I graduated high school, I decided to move to New York and be closer to my then girlfriend. After a year a Kingsborough I transferred to Brooklyn College in hopes of attaining my degree with a major in Psychology. Ever since I could remember I always loved psychology- when I was younger I even started my own business giving people advice. Now, I am currently working at a family travel agency (office manager) where we create and assist corporate accounts in all their travel needs and as of January, I started my own company selling on Amazon at a high rate.  My store name on the site is Pockets of Savings and I am currently selling items with no particular continuity including- toys, dvds, video games, beauty products, and many many more.