The Next New Thing

In the near future, I hope to see new media technology with the capability to transfer smells through the internet. While the concept of “smell-o-vision” is often only discussed as a source for humor, there have been real advancements in the development of the technology. The article “Smell the Superhero,” for example, describes how some Japanese movie theaters will be utilizing odor effects for showings of the third Iron Man movie.

What I am proposing, however, is a more ambitious vision. I would like to be able to ‘record’ smells and send them to people through some online medium, such as e-mail. The potential in such a technology is limitless. It could be used to ‘record’ pleasant smells to send to friends or unpleasant smells for enemies. I think if scents could really be shared this easily, it would add another facet to the way in which people interact with each other. The technology would also revolutionize the web browsing experience. Imagine, for example, being able to smell the finished product of an online food recipe before even making it.

I seriously consider this as a viable technology to receive investment because it is another means to stimulate the senses. At present, new media is focused on engaging the auditory and visual senses, but could provide a more life-like experience if it were able to engage more of the senses. Creating touch and taste based technologies seem more difficult and farther off so I reasoned that smell would be the most realistic way to achieve those ends.

Sources

Smell the Superhero by Amanda Kooser. CNET, Apr 17, 2013. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57580063-1/smell-the-superhero-iron-man-3-to-get-odor-effects-in-japan/

Our Class Wiki – So Far

I have created a new page about new media and its applications in crowd funding. To the best of ability, I tried to clearly describe what crowd funding is and explain why the emergence of new media has been essential to crowd funding’s current success and visibility. I also added a list of some crowdfunding websites to demonstrate that there are now a great number of crowd funding sites with diverse purposes. I concluded by writing briefly about Kickstarter since it is the most well known crowd funding platform. I thought it would be interesting to look at the Veronica Mars movie project that was funded through Kickstarter and used a screenshot as a picture. The project closed with $5.7 million of funding; it was at just $3.9 million on the date that I wrote the page.

In terms of editing, I made some grammatical corrections to the New Media and Micro blogging page. In my opinion, the content on the page is a lot easier to understand now.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing describes the distribution and sharing of computer files between individuals. Computer files refer broadly to any type of data that can be stored on or accessed with computers such as music, video or text documents. P2P, short for peer to peer, file sharing is the practice of sharing files through a peer to peer network. When an individual downloads a file through a peer to peer platform, the platform searches for peers that have the file and then transmits the data to the downloader. In that way, the file can be downloaded from peers rather than from an online server.

Examples of P2P programs include Napster, Kazaa, and BitTorrent. While P2P file sharing allows people to share their files with people around the world, there are legal issues surrounding the P2P framework as well. Many P2P users use it to share content that they are not authorized to share, particularly movies and music. Of course, media companies perceive themselves as losing potential revenue because of these networks and have attempted to curb this behavior by suing individuals that participate in P2P networks. In addition, these companies have tried to slow the spread of files in anyway possible. Their efforts, however, seem to be in vain. According to New York Times article “Digital Pirates Winning Battle with Studios,” Warner Brothers spent months devising a plan to combat piracy of its movie The Dark Knight. Unfortunately for the company, copies of the movie still ended up being downloaded millions of time. The article attributes the prevalence in piracy to broadband internet being readily available to those around the world as well as there being a great number of video streaming sites.

Sources

Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios by Brian Stelter and Brad Stone. The New York Times, Feb 5, 2009, p. A1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/business/media/05piracy.html

Advice

I would suggest that Baruch College make another Twitter account. Currently, it has just one that it uses for all purposes. The problem with this is that there can be information overload, especially with as many Tweets as it puts out. It communicates both school events and general New York City events. Personally, if I followed Baruch College’s Twitter, I would only want information directly related to the school. More specifically, I would want to see important information such as deadlines and news in case of disasters. I would be hesitant to sign up if I knew I would receive a ton of Tweets that I was uninterested in.

I think it might also be interesting to see if new media could be integrated into teaching. Instead of raising my hand or sending an e-mail, students should be able to communicate with professors through Twitter. I think it would add a new dimension to in-class participation. Moreover, it would force students to be concise. Professors might also respond more quickly through Twitter than through e-mail. On a side note, the professor for one of the classes I am taking now posts videos on YouTube going over key concepts. Personally, I find these useful and if I am ever confused about a subject, I can simply watch the video to get a better idea of the material.

Privacy

Often times, people have to provide information about themselves, such as gender, age, or name, to sign up for a website. While the process appears to be innocuous, companies can use that information for their own ends. For example, they can sell the information to advertisers to aid in the formulation of advertising strategy. Users, however, do not provide their information with this in mind. Rather, they give up their information on the belief that it is a prerequisite to using the site and do not consider what may be done with it.

The notion that some party has information about me that I had not directly provided to it is frightening. The issue of confidentiality is most relevant when discussing social networks. In addition to giving up information during registration, people usually also voluntarily add information about themselves to their profiles. All that data is valuable for social media companies because they can sell it or utilize it themselves to understand the demographics they serve.

Now the issue that is being discussed currently is what liberties new media companies have in using people’s information. Further, there needs to be a clear line established as to what legal responsibilities these companies have in relation to that information and whether their use of it may infringe on privacy rights. For new media users, however, I think it is most important that they recognize that their data may not be completely contained within the company’s database and take steps to guard their own data. Mainly, this can be achieved by either providing the bare minimum of information or simply providing false information, though I do not recommend this second method.

Creativity and New Media

For this assignment, I attempted to make an electronic song, which I have never done before. I had recently discovered a site called Audiotool, which is a digital interface that mimics an electronic music setup.

First, I had to choose the tools I wanted to use by dragging them to the main work area. Here is the setup I ended up using:

Initially, I was a little overwhelmed because I had no clue what anything did, but I went to Youtube and watched a few short tutorials and I was able to pick it up quickly. Then, I made a simple repeating eight measure baseline. After that, I dropped in audio samples and tried to create some semblance of a song. I think the most interesting part of this undertaking was how much control I had over the sounds I created. With the drum machines, for example, I could adjust the pitch, attack, and delay, among other things, by simply turning knobs.

That level of control definitely made it more difficult to make choices. Along the way to my finished product, there were many completely unbearable strings of noise. At the end of it all, I ended with a roughly 1 and a half minute “song.” You can listen to it here.

It links to SoundCloud, which is a platform through which people can share and listen to music. One of the more innovative features of SoundCloud is that people can leave comments at specific sections of time.

Creativity

Being that new media is a recent development, there is a lot of unexplored territory in using it. With that being the case, people are scrambling to find new uses for new media and innovate what they already use. Take the Youtube mash-up videos featuring SpongeBob SquarePants characters and the Soulja Boy song “Crank That.” According to Brooks Barnes in “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?,” the videos gained millions of views over the course of 2007. Nickelodeon, however, did not take down any of the videos or flag them over intellectual property issues. In fact, a Nickelodeon spokesman was quoted as saying “that [it] was a very nice edit job.”

Beyond new media users being hungry for innovation, there is also the fact that the internet allows easy communication between millions of people instantaneously. It has never been easier for any one person to get in contact with or communicate with someone halfway across the world. It is this very feature of the internet that Twitter developers are taking advantage of. According to “Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers” by Claire Cain Miller, they are tracking the ideas generated by Tweeters and then developing and implementing those that appear to be popular. For users of new media, they have an awareness that companies are listening to them. These ideas, if implemented, improve the quality of the experience for users and thus, they think creatively because it can directly lead to benefits for them.

Sources

1. Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why? The New York Times, September 24, 2007; available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html

2. Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers by CLAIRE CAIN MILLER, the New York Times, October 26, 2009. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are mostly used as a medium through which people can live virtual lives; this is evidenced by the popularity of Second Life, which is overwhelmingly what people will first think of when virtual worlds are mentioned. There are, however, many other uses for virtual worlds which are gaining traction today. In “Going to the virtual office in Second Life,” author Mark Tutton describes how Second Life is now being utilized for business purposes. Through Second Life, companies can “hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently,” he says.

The greatest benefit to using Second Life for these purposes is that it is relatively inexpensive. The capital requirement is low because there is no dedicated infrastructure to be set up. A company simply has to contact Second Life, which already offers more security for business communications. Here, I think companies would be prudent to be skeptical of security. For the most part, the average person is not highly knowledgeable in computer security. Corporations should ask themselves whether they could truly rely on another company’s promise of security and be wary of those on the internet that could maliciously use the information they transmit through virtual worlds. Another apparent con is that some may find it to be an inadequate replacement for face to face or phone communications. Furthermore, there may be those who find using it to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

On the other hand, virtual worlds are fantastic for fostering creativity. In the article “No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You,” Ruth La Ferla details the virtual life of one user of Second Life. She is able to shop for clothes to her heart’s content with Second Life’s currency, which she would not be able to do in the real world. The subject states that shopping in a virtual world is stress-free because clothes always fit and never get old. Through a virtual world, she is essentially able to live out her fantasies. Without limitations, people are free to be whatever they want and do whatever they want. Moreover, the relative anonymity of the internet further pushes people to behave without inhibition and truly express themselves.

In the future, I definitely expect virtual worlds to expand. I think growth will be fueled by the increasing levels of realism that will be achievable through improved technological capabilities. As time passes by, more people will become tech savvy and more willingly embrace virtual worlds as a medium to express oneself. For similar reasons, I believe there will be more corporations using virtual life for business uses. Generally, younger individuals tend to be more comfortable with technological advances; as more of them enter the workforce, there should be a shift towards more technological innovation.

Sources

1.No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You by RUTH LA FERLA, the New York Times, Oct 22, 2009 p. E1. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22Avatar.html

2.Going to the Virtual Office in Second Life, CNN.com: Nov 5, 2009 http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html

Social Networking Sites

Facebook

Overall, I find the layout of Facebook overwhelming. After logging in, I immediately notice that there are a lot of tabs on the left side of the homepage. I recall using 3 of them at most in my Facebook career. The middle portion consists of the various new updates of my Facebook friends. It can be a little difficult to follow because there can be so many new updates on any given day. This is doubly true for me because I do not use Facebook regularly so I find it difficult to remember where I last left off; if I tried to find that point, I would likely spend a lot of time scrolling before I got to the point where I last left off. To the right are upcoming events and a few unobtrusive advertisements. I cannot speak to their efficacy as I have never been spurred by any online advertisements to buy something.

 

Myspace

Myspace is now unrecognizable to me. I stopped using it many years ago and do not recall even visiting the website in the last three years. It seems to have morphed from a site in which friends keep in contact with another to one in which fans can connect with their preferred musicians. A music playing feature has been integrated into the layout of the site, making its purpose even more apparent. People can still post on Myspace and it has a Facebook-like updates feature, which displays the most recent updates made by connections.

 

Twitter

The first thing one sees upon logging in is a list of the most recent tweets made by connected acquaintances. There is also a list of trending words, which are generally preceded by a hashtag. Twitter suggest people to follow on the left hand side. I think its layout is cleaner than both Facebook and Myspace. One thing that is apparent is the lack of advertisements. For that reason, I find it much less overtly a marketing tool than Facebook. Of course, companies still sign up for accounts to communicate with their customers, but Twitter’s design makes it appear as if it is solely a means of communication between acquaintances.

 

LinkedIn

My experience with LinkedIn is that it is distinct from any of the three sites above. Obviously, it is used as a professional networking tool more so than a casual networking site. For that reason, all the updates are business-related; updates on LinkedIn consist of news concerning new positions taken on my connections, open position listings, general business news, and information about new connections my connections have made recently. Like all other sites, LinkedIn recommends people to connect to as well as groups I may be interested in joining. While there are advertisements on the front page, they are more subdued than Facebook’s. I feel that LinkedIn has all the information and news I may be curious about but does not overwhelm me with information. Further, I like that things such as my inbox, my profile, and jobs I may be interested in are easily accessible. At the same time, there is not overload of tabs and options like in Facebook.

Blog About Twitter

Contrary to my expectations, discussion through Twitter actually seems to have value. One benefit it has over BlackBoard is that feedback can be received instantaneously from multiple people. Moreover, many people can participate simultaneously unlike an in-class discussion where only one person can speak at a time. Personally, I like when there is discussion through text. It allows me to sit down, filter my thoughts, and articulate my thoughts more clearly. Twitter also provides a unique opportunity for shy people to contribute. Often, I find that those with outgoing personalities can dominate in-class discussions. Finally, tweets are more easily consumed than BlackBoard posts, in my opinion. The length of the average BlackBoard post makes it daunting to carefully read over them all whereas tweets can be read more quickly.

The most glaring drawback is the 140 character limit. In actuality, one must be prepared to use even less than that when tweeting a message to someone, using hashtags, or including a link. It is, however, a welcome challenge to me since it forces me to be succinct. It can also be difficult to keep up with discussions when are tweets are separated by a significant length of time. I could see it being confusing if someone responded to a tweet without retweeting the original contents. That problem is not present with the other two discussion mediums.