Social Networking

Sites such as Linkedin greatly expedite the recruiting process. Employers just search for keywords and find many possible candidates. They no longer need to call someone to find if they know any possible job matches. "Using Linkedin, Steckerl says he can scout a group of job candidates in just half an hour. But if he wants to develop a relationship with any of them, he says there is no substitute for a much older social networking tool: the telephone." So there are still things that such social networking sites don't replace. But for users of more social sites like Facebook, people don't really need to talk on the phone, they can have whole conversation on walls, comment sections, or through messages.

These technologies can change the way that we look for things online. Facebook wants to be the future of the internet. It has a different way of thinking than Google. If either wins, people will get used to their way of thinking and searching. Social networks make accessing people easy. Someone can find out a lot of things about someone on sites like Pipl.com. Everything a person has online; pictures, history, thoughts, etc, is accessed and brought together.

Facebook brings people together, but it also separates them. Some people live in social networks and do not use regular means of communication. Phone conversations might eventually cease to exist as all communication will be via computers or whatever new device comes out.

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Facebook has been getting more complicated all the time. Once you get used to the new format, something changes and the process begins again. The current format allows users to post updates which can include link or pictures. The feed is now a major aspect. It is a cumulative display of your friends' updates which are organized by either popularity or chronology.

Myspace has elements similar to Facebook such as the updates section. Although it does not seam to be a major part of the site experience. User's pages are customizable with codes. Many artists use myspace to advertise themselves.

Friendster is similar to Facebook but the layout is different. People have home, profile, pics, friends, classified (facebook marketplace), and fun tabs. I don't know how everything works since I have never used the service prior to now.

Twitter used the updates ability from Facebook and made it the whole concept of their service. People can post short bursts of thought and others can read them. Following people is similar to friending them, but you have the choice of the communication only going one way. Many famous people have Twitter account, such as Ashon Kutcher, and anyone can follow their twitter feeds.

Depending if people just want to know a little bit about a person or really get to know them, they could use either Facebook or Twitter. Ironically, it seems that facebook provides less personal info while Twitter is more personal.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Wikis are meant to be organized while blogs are chronological posts. A wiki is a somewhat like a table of contents; there is usually a list of topics and you can go to one you want without necessarily seeing the others. Blogs require you to browse through them, or use a search function via a keyword, to find what you want. But both allow people to come together and express their views. Wikis allow people to edit previous posts and add new things. Blogs have posts and comment sections so that the original poster know what others think. Whole conversations can be had in the comments sections in blogs, but cannot occur in wikis.

The article on corporate wikis said "obviously people are finding them useful, so that means there’s some need to collaborate that’s not being satisfied well enough by other tools." Wikis provide a more organized source of information than blogs. While blogs may be helpful for company stress relief, wikis can give the employees a sense of belonging if they contribute and are able to edit their co-worker's and boss's posts.

Blogs can be used to collaborate mainly by each person posting a new thing. Or they can comment on previous posts. But this may get confusing and sometimes may not be effective.

A wiki can be used for all kinds of things. Perhaps the medical field doesn't utilize wikis too much yet. They would be able to present their findings and data on specific research projects and experiments.

Old vs. New

I think that we distinguish new from old media by looking at the ways it is distributed.
-Old media is mostly printed and delivered to consumers. While new media is online and accessible to anyone who wants it.
-Old media did not have a way of people collaborating. They would get some information, be able to reply by mailing back something, and if lucky, would receive an answer published or also my mail. New media allows people to instantly post something and see someone else reply.
-With new media, people are able to find a place (blog, forum, etc) they are interested in, and always be connected to it (through rss feeds or setting up updates). Old media required you to schedule your time so you could catch the tv program or read the paper. This old media did not update as fast as new media.

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Why do we get this tech and they dont?

Their are several aspects to the digital divide; geographical, economical, social, and political. I will go into some depth on each of these areas and more explaining how they are some of the ways to look at the digital divide. What makes it ok for one nation of people to have all kinds of new tech while their neighbors get different variations or even non at all? Many times it is because of the countries standards, or lack of. As we saw during the recent disaster is Haiti, there is very limited infrastructure and thus very limited cell phone communication is possible. I would imagine that internet is also rare and if it does exist, it would be a form of dial-up. Are these conditions enough for the citizens to be able to participate in new media? Sometime yes and sometimes no.

What is New Media?

New media is the internet. Everything that happens on the internet can be a source of information. One of the biggest methods of sharing information is through blogs. Anyone can open an account and start blogging; all they need is a computer and an internet connection. Blogs can be a means of simply saying what you have to say, or it can be to communicate with others. In the article about the blog-encouraged drug bust, the pet shop owner "said a core group of seven people who met through the blog brought the case to the attention of the community board and met with the authorities." People from the streets came together to achieve a common goal-to get rid of annoying and dangerous people from their neighborhood.

Most blogs are probably started to let others know about something. Perez Hilton's blog led to the conclusion that "blogs about celebrities are becoming the new rage among celebrity gossip lovers." A blog can be about anything at all. Since you have a interest, it is likely that someone else will find it interesting as well.

Negative aspect of blogging is that bloggers don't always find proof that what they are talking about it true. People think that since it's "published" on the internet, it is true. However, professional bloggers most likely don't just make stuff up, they get proof to support whatever claim they are making. Since the medium is the internet, it is a lot easier to edit posts immediately and not have to print a retraction or edit on paper.

New media is using the good aspects of previous media and trying to not have any bad aspects itself. However that is not possible. Someone will still think that some blogs are too adult and should be blocked to kids, but kids will find a way around it if they want. With previous methods of media, parental control was more absolute (kids had to go out of their way to get access to things they weren't supposed to have). So I think that newspapers, magazines, and other hardcopy forms of media will remain in our lives until a new new media is developed.

4th post a no show

Minutes ago, the 4th post of the Olympic cauldron did not rise to the occasion. After some moments of sure insanity behind the scenes, only 3 posts rose to create the Olympic cauldron of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.