SOCIAL NETWORKING

Social Networking can be used for keeping in contact with friends and family and it allows you to meet new people through mutual friends or shared interests. You can interact with people who have shared music, movies, interests in organizations, or activities, etc. Social networking can also be used on a corporate level as a new way of advertisement, or gaining more public interest. It can also be a method of recruiting, or gaining information on potential employees.

The benefits of social networking are convenience and ease of contact. You don’t have to wait for an in person visit in order to catch up with a friend. From a corporate aspect, social networking can really aid in the recruiting process. According to Maureen Crawford-Hentz, a recruiter for Osram Sylvania, “Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting -- ever.” It allows recruiters to find talent that they probably wouldn’t find otherwise.

But along with benefits, there are downsides with social networking. It doesn’t always replace face to face contact and communication. Social networking can also work against you when it comes to companies. If you have inappropriate information or pictures, it may cost you an opportunity. So, social networking should be used with haste and caution.

MY NEW MEDIA CLASS - SO FAR

New Media needs technology in order to exist. New Media is used by people to connect with other people in a faster, more efficient way. Technology allows this to be done. You can submit information through wikis, blogs, etc. and other people can edit, comment, and share even more information right away through the technologies. You can connect with your friends/family across the country with a Facebook wall comment, and he or she can write back practically right away if they are on. There are also sites such as YouTube, FlickR, Secondlife that are New Media technologies- any site that allows you to connect with people from all over, directly, can pretty much be a part of New Media. An example of the rapid response in New Media technologies comes from the article "Clive Thompson on How YouTube Changes the Way We Think" A member, MadV, who created a video had inspired 2,000 replies which made it the "most-responded-to video in YouTube's history."

Internet is very important to New Media. It's what permits the connection between people using the various New Media Technologies. It permits ease, and provides efficient, and speedy results. It also is the factor which allows you to connect to people not generally in your circle. According to the article "Eight business technology trends to watch,"

"The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries."

New Media is enhancing old media because everything is faster, and reaches out to more people. People provide news and information on various sites, versus getting a daily newspaper. Word of mouth and new facts pertaining to news can be updated throughout the day. Having to schedule meetings and visits are changed through online meeting rooms and or instant chat services. For those people you know who live far away, you can easily stay in contact through social networking sites. New Media is the upgrade to old media, it makes things a lot easier and faster to stay connected with the world.

Some Social Networking Sites

At some point in time I have been a member of Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Xanga. I pretty much fell off of Friendster, and Xanga. Myspace I sign into maybe once every couple of months... maybe. I believe Xanga was my first taste of social networking. It's another blogging community site, and I had subsriptions to my cousins' and friends' xangas. We all tend to migrate to these social networking sites together. At the time, it was fun to be on. My layouts changed, I wrote about what's going on in my life, and I read about the goings on in other people's lives. I "connected" with people I never knew before. Comments were a big thing- you would log into your site the read the comments left on your new entry. Eventually, comments stop coming, and the writing of new entries got boring (unless there was something really interesting to talk about). That was the end of Xanga.

Friendster was my next stepping stone. It was cool for the fact that now we can upload and share pics. Eventually I did get tired of it too. Mostly because the layout was unchangeable and it just always looked the same. The comment feature was okay, but the interaction between me and my "friends" was limited. It was more effort to go leave a comment for some reason. Eventually Friendster faded out of the picture too.

Myspace is one of the most popular social networking sites out there. And of course I joined. My family and friends were on it, and I got to meet a good set of new cool people. One of the cooler features I thought Myspace has is the "top 8" friends (although I used a higher setting because I didn't want anyone feeling bad). Another cool feature is the billboard where friends can post updates and interesting tidbits, etc. I love the fact that we can put songs onto our pages and layouts were customizable. Myspace is still a fun site to use, I just fell off of it because I find it to be similar to Facebook and I couldn't keep up between the two sites. All the uploads I would do on one, I felt had to be done on the other. So eventually I focused practically all my time into Facebook.

Facebook I first appreciated because it was for college students. Then it opened its doors to the public. I minded at first, but not so much now. I was able to connect to even more family members, like my brother and sister in law from Georgia. I found people from years ago I never thought I would hear from again. The wall feature, the "notes" feature, and all the new applications that come out for Facebook keeps it interesting. I love the "events" option because I can see what's going on, and I can host my own event too. I like the fact that you can comment and tag people in your photos. And you can see the new pics your friends post without having to go to each person's page. The updates in your friends lives are on that first home page. So all in all, Myspace and Facebook are my top social networking sites- but Facebook is my number 1 (for now).

What Is New Media?

My interpretation of New Media coincided with a definition I found at: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/new_media.html

It states new media is, "A generic term for the many different forms of electronic communication that are made possible through the use of computer technology." I feel new media refers to all the technological forms of communication people have with one another via computers. This includes the online social networks, like Facebook and Myspace, the cell phone apps that allows you to locate yourself (like those for the iphone), the twitter application, etc. People are able to connect and make new friends through new media, they are able to share their insights, knowledge and experiences (ie., blogs). New media provides speed and ease in communicating. People are able to spread news more quickly through all the technology that makes up new media. People are able to make purchases, sell items, consult, and inform through new media. People are able to get the latest reviews, gossip, trends, information on hotspots, the goings on around town, etc. It's a way in which people can be connected to their world without having to travel far or waiting around for the information to get to them.

Online Consumers in the Age of New Media

For the term project I will be working with Annie Hiciano, and our topic will be "Online Consumers in the New Media Age." Our focus will be on online shopping which we believe is a part of new media because it's part of the new pop culture. Although online shopping has been around for a while, it's a lot more mainstream in that people now have access to shopping and purchasing items from various markets without leaving the comfort of their homes. As technology improves, the access to shopping without physically going to a store is increased. We will be providing a comparison between online shopping when it first began and what it is like today as well as what retailers are doing to adhere to this trend. We will also be talking about the pros (which would include great online selection of products, good deals through price comparison, and no need to travel) and the cons (such as having to wait for merchandise to arrive, paying shipping fees, and the inability to try things on).