The Next New Thing

The next new media will be strictly psychologically-purposed. More and more, people are being diagnosed with depression, ADHD, and other well-known issues. People want to know what is causing them to feel a certain way and want solutions for it. We are more and more becoming very self-aware. I think the next new media will be positioned to offer you a strictly positive experience, or whatever emotion you choose to set in your Settings. A focused experience (for those with ADHD), a nostalgic experience (for those with poor memories), and so on. New media will be used to influence our emotions. There was recently a study conducted by Facebook, without users' knowledge (this is legal because of the contracts we agree to when setting up our profiles), to see whether Facebook could influence emotion through allowing only certain types of post content to show in certain users' timelines. Users who received all positive content responded with all positive content. Users who received all negative content responded with negative content. I feel that the next new media will capitalize on this study.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing:

Uploading or providing digitally-stored data such as movies, music, eBooks, video games and so on through a computer network is considering file sharing.

P2P file sharing:

P2P file sharing is a new type of file sharing in which data is shared over a peer to peer network, without a central server, which was needed prior to this. Users can share any type of file. This can cause some issues in security, as files that aren't meant to be shared sometimes are by accident. P2P file sharing is common, though, because it is quick and easy.

Examples of P2P file sharing:

A lot of P2P file sharing occurs via BitTorrent, which makes up about 30-50% of all internet traffic, according to Chris Nuttall's "File sharing joins the mainstream." Files are broken into smaller pieces when shared over BitTorrent, making them quicker to download. BitTorrent and the like make it easy to acquire copyrighted materials without paying, which is illegal. Companies, unable to fight the widespread use of P2P file sharing effectively, instead look for ways to capitalize on P2P file sharing. The P2P file sharer Azureus partnered with BBS and Showtime to upload high def videos to their website using P2P.

Privacy

New media, though not written on paper, is a documentation of information. When you post to new media, it stays in the network forever, regardless of whether you delete it. It has been added to the long files of documentation involved in the coding. Even the newer ephemeral new medias, like Snapchat, do not truly disappear when you think they do. They exist forever in the cloud. When you submit yourself to new media, you sacrifice your privacy and confidentiality. Every email you send is accessible to whoever tries hard enough to access it. Every Facebook post adds to the chronicle of who you are, and can be accessed by those who pay, regardless of whether they're your Facebook Friend— employers, the government, etc. It sounds like paranoia, but it's the hard truth. New media exists within the internet, and nothing on the internet will ever be as protectable as a physical belonging. If you wrote something in your diary, you could hide it and you would only be hiding it from those who have access to your home. If you write something on Google Docs, all someone has to do is figure out your password from afar, and log right in from across the world. Of course, you're only as at risk as you are important to someone or some group. If you're writing love poems about the boy who sits in front of you in class, chances are that one boy isn't going to find his way into your blog drafts (if you post them to your blog, not as drafts, you're only asking for someone to find that, though). If you're threatening the U.S. government, they're going to get all of your information in a split second. Privacy varies in weight. For most people today, the privacy that they are sacrificing through their use of new media isn't enough of a risk or worry to prevent them from doing so. It's important for people to be aware of the weight of their own privacy. Many young people go overboard in throwing away their privacy, and post information to new media that land them in great trouble, though. It's a matter of remaining aware.

Creativity and New Media

This is a screenshot of a Tinychat I was involved in. Tinychat is an online video chat community. Anyone can join a video chat session if they go to the link that it is being hosted at. While video chatting, you can also type messages in a group chat. Although some people join chats with random strangers, I have a network of friends throughout the world that I've known through writing poetry and fiction, and we tend to stick to Tinychatting each other. Sometimes people will sit silently on camera and not be very involved, and other times people will chat a lot, talk on camera with their mics on, or play music through the mic. Tinychat, a platform of new media, allows us to be creative when we are bored or don't feel like going outside to socialize.

Creativity

New media provides a platform to receive and share information. The cycle of receive and share, receive and share, receive and share promotes the ability to learn, adapt, and inspire. Creativity depends upon these opportunities. The idea of brainstorming embodies the fact that more brains, more information, more ideas, sharing, and collaboration will produce excellence. New media provides the platforms for all of this and fosters an extremely creative environment. Disney, who has been strict over the ability to adapt any of their material, has shifted its focus more toward wholesale piracy, versus parodies such as this one. That is due, most likely, to a realization that parodies are an expression of creativity and not an attack per say, whereas piracy is theft. All media is a factor in new media at this point, and Disney must realize that although their characters may have been created before Youtube, if they want their characters to remain a part of culture, they will be entered into the world of new media, a place of adaptation and creativity.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds exist without preconceptions. This means less inhibitions and, therefore, easier expression and a more comfortable experience. Places that only suit certain types of people can expand their reach by creating virtual realities of themselves, inviting a wider range of types to experience what it has to offer. A concert in a virtual Lower East Side invites a person who might not enjoy visiting the Lower East Side or joining a sweaty crowd to experience music. It sets the focus on whatever a person wants to focus on, by opening a world that is theirs to interpret and use. A con in this situation might be that people could become antisocial and lose abilities to interact in some healthy ways. Pros, though, are that it provides a space for creativity— for the mind to expand toward things that aren't necessarily as possible in the physical world. Instead of buying an expensive pair of shoes in the physical world, someone might build an entire world of virtual goods, creating a second existence that allows them to express themselves in ways they can't every day in the physical world. Included in the opportunity to exist without boundaries like budgets is the opportunity to focus thoughts elsewhere, perhaps on inventing something new or discovering a dream you've never realized. The virtuality lifts the weights of the regular world but keeps you thinking in terms of the best life you can imagine for yourself. Virtual worlds will someday become more interactive, I imagine. I'm thinking along the lines of the movie "Her", which portrays a man becoming so invested in his virtual ventures that he changes everything about his physical life as well.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook: Over the years, Facebook has drastically changed. Looking at it today, it is visually complicated, by our eyes are trained to it, and as the changes and complexity have been added gradually over time. We know today's Facebook as the Timeline, where posts appear as boxes, with large images and some lines of text. New posts are automatically added to the live stream of posts and the information you see is actually filtered to show you posts you are more likely to be interested in, based on your clicks and interactions. Facebook is coded to know you. Advertisements tailored to you, based on the pages you like, the links you click, and so on, show on the right side of the page, with a chat bar on the further right. The left side is the bar of internal links to other Facebook pages, apps, and so on. The Search bar has become one of the most prominent parts of Facebook, allowing you to find not only internal links to people's personal timelines (originally called their 'walls'), but links to events, external news sources, and so on. Facebook has everything in one place, to keep you on their site for as long as possible.


Twitter: This is happening in real time. The most recent tweets of anyone you follow are at the top. If you don't check Twitter for a few days, and then come back to it, you may have missed thousands of tweets, and you're likely not going to scroll back through all of them. Twitter's stream of posts is more straightforward than Facebook's. Tweets are lined up one after the other, simply divided by lines. Recently, Twitter started displaying attached photos or videos within that stream, without users having to click on a tweet in order to open it to see the attachment. Twitter also started displaying the number of favs and retweets on each tweet within the stream, without users having to click to view those. In order to filter tweets in the way that Facebook automatically does, Twitter allows you to create lists of people you follow to view separately from the homepage stream, and you can also search by hashtag to view tweets all regarding a certain keyword. Twitter is also a lot more public about popularity- prominently displaying how many people you follow and how many follow you.


Myspace: There's a reason that Myspace lost its popularity, and it's sort of suprising: customizability. Twitter and Facebook let you customize your profile, but only so much, and really, if we think about it, not much at all. You generally know what you're getting when you go to someone's Facebook or Twitter. Back in the day, a Myspace page might have started blasting a ridiculous song from your speakers as soon as the page opened. This customizability took too much time, caused issues, and generally alienated a large population. After a long time away from looking at Myspace, I've just glanced at it, and it seems to be taking on the same layout as Spotify. This makes sense, because Myspace has generally become a space for bands and musicians to network and host their music online.


Tumblr: The word "blogging" is starting to sound like an ancient act, but blogging has only grown in popularity over time. The reason we might hear "blog" and think "middle aged mom who writes about her kids online" is because we don't tend to call much of the blogging that is occurring at present "blogging" anymore. We call it "tumbling" or maybe more commonly "posting to... [Tumblr] [Facebook] [Pinterest]" or "tweeting." Tumblr is blogging. It's also reblogging, Asking, <3ing/liking. It makes it easier than normal, or older, blog platforms to follow other bloggers, because when the Tumblrs you follow make new posts, they fall into your Dashboard. When someone you follow reblogs another Tumblr, that reblog shows up in your Dashboard. You can also follow tags to see any new posts regarding a certain topic you might be interested in. You may never even have to visit a person's Tumblr, as you would have to visit someone's blog to read it, in order to be following everything they write, posts, reblog, etc.

Social Networking

Social networks can be used to communicate with those you already know, to build relationships, to express a distinct view or voice, to share information (a news source), to promote a brand/product/company/person, to maintain a space for a group to easily function, to express oneself artistically or emotionally, and so on. It is a blank slate of sorts-- a new way to communicate above all else. Today, the uses of the different networks is becoming blended, as well, showing that the networks are versatile and constantly changing in purpose. "The line between professional networking on a site such as LinkedIn", an originally "professional network", "and social networking on sites such as Facebook, has become become very thin" according to Lance Hoffman, a GWU computer science professor.

The benefits are a convergence of ideas, the ease of networking for the better of one's professional and social circles, platforms to more effectively communicate with the younger generation, an opportunity for more efficient target marketing, an environmental shift away further away from paper, and so forth. The New York Times published a piece discussing Obama's positive use of social media in his campaigning. Social networks allowed him to "create an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote" as well as instantly engage millions of supporters. The "dark side" of social networking is a lack of privacy, an increase in recklessness and sharing too much personal information which can open us up to more dangers, an immobile society who sits at computers for too much of the day, an abandonment of traditional socializing which in turn will detract from society's ability to interact face-to-face, the ability for personalized manipulation through marketing, an increase in internet bullying, and so forth. On the topic of privacy and recklessness, as noted in a speech at Wharton, those on social networks are increasingly "casually posting accounts of their lives for their friends — and the world — to see." These networks create records and a new sort of fingerprint.

This issue-- of long-term documentation of our every personal move-- is being examined, and the examining of this issue is being capitalized on as we speak-- by companies like Frankly and then the better-known Snapchat. These companies are producing products that offer ephemeral socialization-- messages that disappear after seen. This is meant to erase the fingerprint. Google is allowing users to remove their pasts from the search engine as well. Ephemerality is where social networking is headed. This is beneficial to us in some ways, but probably not quite as beneficial as most think-- the messages aren't disappearing 100%, and the platforms will soon move toward increased hosting of advertisements. It's yet to come to a magical resolution, and probably never will. But, for now, we have to keep playing their game in order to stay in the overall game-- in which we must maintain our social lives and maintain aptitude for the demands of our jobs.

Blog v Wiki

Blogs and wikis have come to be known quite differently. Imagine we were arguing, I made a statement, and you said "how do you know that for sure?" Then imagine I said "I read it on a blog." You might laugh at that and the argument would continue. But imagine I said "it says it on the wiki!" You'd probably trust that. That's because you know of a well-known wiki (Wikipedia), and are aware that it is edited by literally thousands of people, and is constantly being updated to fix incorrect information. A wiki is an open source, which can be edited by a number of users, and has no distinct leader, which leads us to believe that it is not biased. On Wikipedia, it says of Wikipedia that "during the month of September 2013, Wikipedia was ranked as the 9th most popular site on the internet for desktop & mobile platforms with 116,835,000 visitors. Of these, about one out of 15,000 contribute five or more edits (you can too!), and of those, a stable 10% contribute more than 100 edits each month."

A blog, on the other hand, is edited, most often, by one person, or possibly a few friends or employees, if the password is shared. In this way a blog can be collaborative, as well as through comments, but it still has a distinct leadership. This leadership can make the information less trustworthy, if you don't know who is running the blog or don't feel that the person is intelligent. Blogs incorporate passion and a voice, which wikis most often do not, as noted in How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?. A blog can also be very trustworthy, though, if you know and trust the person. This should be more trustworthy than Wikipedia, actually, considering what we read in Wikipedia Looks Hard at Its Culture. It is noted through quotes by Jimmy Wales that Wikipedia contributors are "more than 80 percent male, more than 65 percent single, more than 85 percent without children, around 70 percent under the age of 30." Wikipedia, though a public project, is skewed, and meanwhile is viewed as factual information. Over the years, Wikipedia has placed more weight on male issues and male history, provided primarily through the male perspective.  An acquaintance of mine actually hosts events where technically inclined women spend hours editing Wikipedia with women's history. Wiki can be seen as a project in this way- bringing together people who are not often given equality of attention to transform information for a better, truer, representative result. It can be used for peaceful revolution.

Project Description: Snapchat Begins Age of Newer Media

I will be researching and analyzing Snapchat as an example of the progression of new media towards newer media. I'll talk about how Snapchat tapped into a growing desire for ephemeral communication— how the world with new media created a space of documented history in which most of the general public is included, how a lack of privacy has become an issue for so many within the domains of new media, and how despite this issue people continue to share their information in these domains because they are necessary to our functioning in a society that has fully adapted itself around new media. In order to achieve a greater sense of privacy while still keeping up with life's requirements via new media, newer media had to be created, and Snapchat fulfilled this challenge. I will examine this in depth. I will also examine the role Snapchat and the new era of ephemeral media will play in business and advertising.