The Next New Thing

New media - "Happy Town"

With the birth of many social networking sites that involve "friends," it is still equally as important to communicate with people within the same community. It is becoming increasingly evident that people tend to communicate less, for example with the people in the same building in which they live, and I sense an importance of doing so to increase safety and rapport with the people you live. This new media application will enable the exchange of information amongst the people in a specific city (e.g. Manhattan, Brooklyn). Online community is known to involve people in a similar interest group (e.g. cars, shopping, anime, etc.), however, this new media application "Happy Town" will allow people in the same city/town to freely exchange and communicate with others to exchange information that includes, but not limited to posting of jobs, lost belongings, shop/restaurant reviews, and sales. Though this community will exchange information anonymously using pseudonyms, users may opt to disclose their personal information. This application can be downloaded to one's personal computer, smartphones and will provide a general instant messaging forum, and personal messaging which can alleviate the sense of awkward banter. This gradually can nourish the sense of "community" that America once had and may foster a safer community.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I have been working on the topics: New Media Ethics and Law as a contributor and how the New Media are Used in business as an editor. I am researching on the books and articles about new media ethics and business to get more information regarding my topics. I am planning to write and edit about intellectual property, Business in the Face of New Media and examples of companies involved in social media.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the way of giving access to digital stored information including programs, photos, music, videos, documents and etc. This can be the private or public distributing of information in a computer network and make us possible to share any kind of digital files. Peer to peer is a type of architectural Internet network that creates a group of computer users with the same program to have direct access among users' hard drives. It does not require the central serves in Internet network for users so that all computers with applications can share files directly.

In order to use P2P file sharing, users are required to download and install the "peer to peer" networking programs. The examples of P2P applications are Gnutella, Kazaa and Bit Torrent. Bit Torrent have become famous and expanded its users greatly since the program provides fast downloading by ensuring that downloaders have to be uploaders. Therefore, the software provide more distributions of files by its users. In addition, Skype, one of the widely used internet phone software, uses P2P technology as well. These applications using P2P technology bring advantages on our lives and business fields.

However, the producers of publishing companies have been concerned regarding illegal sharing of copyrighted content by some P2P file sharing. According to the article, "Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios," Motion Picture Association of America estimates that media industries lose about 40 percent of its revenue by illegal P2P file sharing. Moreover, it may bring negative effects on individuals as well. When these companies are not able to earn enough profit from their products, they eventually stop producing or produce lower quality of products in the market. Therefore, we will not able to enjoy music, movie or book form the producers.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Even though new media makes our lives more convenient, it also creates privacy and confidentiality issues at the same time. We are allowed to change privacy settings that social sites provide. However, we still have possibility to open our personal information to everyone unintentionally on the Internet. It is because some people do not know how to set up their privacy setting properly and all our information is still on servers with privacy settings. The companies always have possibility to leak our personal information or some hackers can still break the security. In fact, Sony entertainment leaked its customer information of Play Station Network this year including credit card information and names. In order to keep our privacy, each of us has to be aware of privacy risks of new media and the providers must ensure confidentiality.

Advice to Baruch College

I researched on what kind of new media Baruch College uses to improve its functionality. The department of Baruch social media has already used many types of new media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, online TV, iTunes and blog so that students and alumni are able to access to any kind of notification such as upcoming events, career fairs, corporate presentations and etc. One of the forms that Baruch still does not use is a “virtual world.” It can bring advantages to students without having actual classroom. Baruch College can use virtual world for its existing online classes for students. Online class is suitable for many students who are willing to have time flexibility, but the problem is students cannot have actual student life. Having virtual classrooms, students can have more social interactions with classmates and professors. Therefore, I would like to suggest Baruch College to use digital class for its online classes as a new employee.

About My Term Research Paper

I have used library databases, Google scholar and Google search to research on my topic of the term paper: the advantages and disadvantages of social networking. I decided this topic because the means of communicating and connecting with others through social networking mediums have become a social staple and may continue to become an essential part of our lives. During my research, I have learned the several characteristics, which effects positively and negatively on our lives and businesses. In generally, social networking creates more communications and connections among individuals; however, it also causes the isolation of social interactions and the lack of humanity. As the advancement in social networking sites, the users have to be mindful of these advantages and disadvantages so that we can take more benefits from the services depending on how we use them like any technology.

Creativity and New Media

I decided to create an online bar using one of the Japanese virtual worlds called "My Bar". It is specialized for creating and operating virtual bars. I designed the interior of bar like furniture, wallpaper and ornament, and created a own menu and the uniform of employees.