End of Fall 2010 Semester!!!

Fall semester has finally ended! i must say that i survive pretty well even though i took 6 classes! At times, it was hard to handle the work load, however it was manageable. Finals week was crazy because had 3 finals in one day back to back. And team papers were pretty interesting because for some i had an options to pick topic and some i didn't. Overall, my experience taking 6 classes were amazing. If i have to recommend fellow classmate or friends to weather take 6 classes in one semester or not, i would say DO NOT TAKE IT, unless you really really have to.

Ugh!

This semester needs to end already! Can't handle the work load now. Taking 6 classes per semester is not an easy especially when some of the professors are not good at teaching. Staying up every night to keep up with the work load is killing me but i guess its all worth it at the end. About a month more than done with the semester. let's see how it goes!

See ya!

update about my summer

So far, i have been enjoying my summer. Went to Poconos, dorney park, Washinton, west virginia, and Camping. Its been great. I am loving it just like McDonald. LOL . Weathers been okay, sometime its hot, sometime it rains and sometime its both but nothing can stops me from enjoying my summer.

Camping was fun for me. I finally had chance to spend time with all my friends. it was one hell of an time. It rained but we didnt let it ruin our vacation. Playing vollyball, basketball, football (vince broke the water thingy and the water was constantly coming, no way to stop it LOL. Swimming, taking bath in Delaware River. Hiking, few friends were left out because they left little bit early but...

Everyone cooking together was fun, seating near fire at night, playing crazy drinking games at night (it was fun for me because i don't drink and being only the sober one there watching all drunk people act weird is the most enjoying part).

In Poconos, went horse riding, gun shooting/shooting range, golf, camel beach, enjoyed 2 nights there. In Washington, visited all the Museums, and Monument ( All free, no fee for tickets). in Virginia, went to Krishna temple on mountain.

okay, I'll update rest later....

Grades are In.

So i have gotten my grades for both summer classes and i am very happy to see what i got. I got what i expected and it boosted my GPA.

Now its time to put books aside and ENJOY THE SUMMER!

Agenda for rest of the summer...West Virginia, Washington, dorney park, Hershey park, Poconos, Camping, Ohio, PA, Johns beach, rafting, boat ride, basketball mostly everyday at Vallie park and park drive, temple, shopping, eat, movies, and so on.

End of summer classes!

So today was my last day of classes. These 6 weeks went really fast. Even tho it was really short period of time, i learn totally new language (Spanish). I can now say basic things and communicate little bit in Spanish. Music has always been close to me. Its something that i enjoy a lot. i love to play instruments such as piano, flute, and drum therefore, taking music class was a lot fun for me. Learned little background and history about music and how different musical era influenced music.

earlier today i had final for both, Spanish and music. It went great. Now waiting for grades.....

Summer Session I

So currently im taking 2 summer classes: Spanish and Music! Both classes are going great and are having fun but just little too fast. Waking up at 5AM, 4 days a week in summer is not so enjoyable but its not bad. Spanish class is kind of hard for me because its a new language and to learn it in 6 weeks is not easy but its not bad. weather is really good, a bit of a humid but its not bad. Can't wait til im done with these classes and enjoy my summer.

End of Spring '10

So, today i officially ended my spring 2010 semester. It is 7:45 AM. I pulled my last all nighter today for this semester. Just finished writing paper for Management class. It feels good to be over but than again, i am not so far away from going back to school. Yeah that's right, SUMMER CLASS. Oh man, June 2nd, which is next Wednesday i start my summer class. I am taking 2 classes, Spanish and Music. I hope that goes well. So i have 1 good week to enjoy it before i bust my A$$ again...lol

By the way, i did really horrible in my Finance Final yesterday. It was really really bad, like i don't think the material we learned in class was on it. The questions were too long, was giving irrelevant information which confuses you like crazy and time consuming. anyways....

I am sleepy because i haven't slept whole night but yeah i don't wanna sleep because if i do than i am sure i won't be able to wake up til around 6-7PM which is bad because than i won't be able to sleep whole night and this cycle will continue so yeah, you got the point. lol

anyways, i just wanted to blog this since i haven't posted from last 2 weeks...

now off to park, run around little bit, come back, take shower, eat, and go outside?... C YA!

Someone's Else Project

I was very impressed by the presentation done by my fellow classmates and the topics they have picked. Three presentation that i personally liked a lot was:

1) "New Media and Teens" by Michael Chai
2) "Impact of New Media on Advertising" by Mobin Tariq
3) "Virtual Worlds" by Nadia Ayusheyeva

In Micheal's presentation, he discussed about how much media is exposed to teens and the causes of the uprising of new media in a teen's life. Teen spends great amount of time online about 8 hours a day by just looking at pictures, listening music, playing games, watching video and so on. About 24% time average teen between 8-18 year old, spend on SN and about 18% playing games. These impacts on their education, because these heavy user spends a great amount of time on SN and related work and does not focus on school work and therefore they do bad in school.

In Mobin's presentation, he discusses about the impact of new media on advertising. He discussed how before advertising was done in print publication such as newspaper, magazine and so on and still being done but because of increased in new media technology, it is more effective to advertise online. One of the reason is because it's inexpensive, increases revenues, you can directly connect to you market/consumer, and of course, global availability

In Nadia's presentation, she talked about the different perspectives of virtual worlds. She first discussed about the use of virtual world in educational field such as computer programing tutorials, colleges can have virtual libraries, they can have meeting spaces for online university courses, and can use for military training.

Than she moved on to discussed how businesses can use virtual world. Businesses can use virtual world for marketing, recruiting, meetings and collaboration, job training, and research and development.

Each presentation done by the students are very helpful. They each provides us unique information about how new media features are used today than in the past.

My Term Project Presentation

It feels great that its finally over, however i did not present the way i had expected and planned i guess because i was suppose to go on Tuesday but i decided to go today instead. Well there is always next time.

So my presentation was about the "Use of Social Networking in the Work Place". First i talked about the social networking in general and then talked about the five different types of social networking services used today, to determine whether or not allowing employees to take part in these social networking activities at work could create problems.

Also i talked about the risks and downfalls related to using SN at workplace such as, bandwidth, liability, malware, and of course productivity. However, for each of these negative one there seems to be positive reason to use it such as for some businesses, the increased audience, web traffic, and overall consumer participation outweighs these concerns. Therefore, as a business owner it is up to you to decide which one is right for you and your business purpose.

Than i talked about the 5 different types of social networking sites that are being used by businesses and gave brief overview of each.

• MySpace: Perhaps considered the pioneer of social networking and this network is one of the largest out there, and its use in business is questionable.
• Facebook: A major competitor of MySpace, this network, once open to students only, tried to target a niche, but soon realized the power was in a larger market. Maybe better suited for business than its MySpace predecessor, one can still question its benefits.
• Twitter: An entirely different style of social networking as compared to the previous two, this social networking website is more of a productivity killer than any, though it has its benefits.
• Linked In: A newer social networking site on the scene, this one has a primarily business focus, and therefore is one of the safer ones to allow. The business focus helps control the audience and downplays the disadvantages of social networking.
• Windows Live Spaces: Microsoft’s attempt to jump in on the social networking, offering a variety of services and features, may or may not be good for business.

After explaining each SN sites mentioned above, i talked about their use in businesses and how can you as a business owner can take advantages of it and decided which one is more beneficial to you.

Later, i explained the pros and cons of using this SN at work place.

Finally, i concluded my presentation by brief summarizing the main point. :)

The Next New Thing!

There should be some kind of technology that lies on its potential to connect the real world with the internet, and overlaying the information on the world itself. What I mean by this is that create a technology that recognizes the objects around you, displaying information automatically and letting you access it in any way you want, in the simplest way. For example, you are at the supermarket, thinking about what brand of soap is better. Or maybe what wine you should get for tonight's dinner. Just look at objects, hold them on your hands, and this newly created technology will show you if it's good or bad, or if it fits your preferences or not. Need to know the time? Draw a circle on your wrist and a watch will appear and so on. For better understand what I mean by this new kind of technology please watch this video and you will be surprised to see what this new technology brings.



Also I read in today’s newspaper that a guy named Norman Scherer created a new App for iPhone which basically tells the train/bus time. He created a App for MTA which provides trivia along bus routes. App users can wait for trains above-ground, because they’ll know exactly when their train is due. This is something that we see on “L” train line, a time that displays on station saying how long you as a passenger have to wait before the trains arrives. We need this kind of new technology because waiting for bus and trains are ridiculous.

Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg

Privacy & Confidentiality

Each time we surf on the internet, we are dealing with the Privacy & Confidentiality issues. Sometime we may or may not have control of the information flow. However it is very hard to keep privacy and confidentiality in this 21st century media world. Individual may not realize how valuable their information is, or how much is at stake if privacy is lost. Information about individuals is extremely valuable both in the private and public sector because these companies gather your personal data, your interests, to generate profit. One of the way they collect your personal information is from the social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and so on that we use every day and sell it to the marketing companies or advisers and that’s how we see those ads when we surf the social networking sites which is most suitable ads to the target audiences.

Also it is very important what you post, write, upload pictures on your social networking sites because when you apply for the new job, a lot of companies does background check for their future employers and they can access all your information you have on the internet. You might end up losing that job and there is nothing you can do about it because if inappropriate information.

Most social networking sites that we use these days gives you options to control the privacy by going privacy settings but we do not care and just ignore it. It is important not to write personal information such as phone number, SSN, DOB, and address on social networking sites because a hackers, sexual predators, and strangers can easily access your information and can use it in harmful way.

Protecting the personal privacy is not easy and is not likely to get easier. It is something you cannot avoid unless you stop using new media which is impossible because this is a 21st century, a New Media world.


Source:
http://www.nightcruiser.com.au/wa/perth/privacy1.jpg

Advice to Baruch College

There are few suggestions that I would make to Baruch regarding using new media to improve the College. First, Baruch needs a social networking site where all students and professors can interact with each others. Students do not have to create a new account for that; all they need is their Baruch user name and password to log in. Creating social networking sites for Baruch College is great because students can write any problems that they have such as registration, information about clubs, classes’ recommendation, and so on. And other students who have experienced similar problem can give feedback or even professors or advisor can directly answer it. It is also a great place to built network of friends since not everyone is staying in college after class or joins clubs and so on because of work schedule or other problems.

Second, every students and professors should have a twitter account. It is very useful. You can update the tweets regarding anything related to class, such as homework due, exams, read chapters, read additional articles that are related to class, if professor is going to be absent and so on. I know blackboard is there for this things but NOT everyone is checking their blackboard every day. If they had twitter, simply they can just get updates to their cell phones immediately and knows what’s going on.

Third, books are ridiculously expensive. My management book is 216 dollar. When professor said that every student in this class needs to buy a book, everybody was going crazy just because it was too expensive and couldn’t find used one because they updated the version. If they had eBooks, that would be much better than cheaper for students. They afford it and can print it for cheap. It is also easy to carry if its printable chapters, because most professors wants you to bring book to class.

Forth, I personally never had experienced with online class other than 3-4 times this semester in my New Media class. But I think, having online classes is great idea because not everyone can make it college because of their work schedule. If they have online classes, students can register according to their best schedule and experience the new way of learning.

Next, have a virtual library, campus, classroom where incoming students can check and see how college is. It gives students a better idea about the college.

Also, they need some kind of system where they can inform students about the upcoming events. I know Baruch does sent out emails but I sure many if not most students do not even read that email and just delete just like myself and ignore the important information such as job fairs, workshops, events, clubs, and so on.

Finally, Baruch needs to do something about the escalator and elevator. No matter how early you get to college, you will be late for class just because escalator and elevator are not working and the ones that do work are over packed and have to wait more than 10 minutes. I have been tired of waiting for elevators and getting late for class so I just use stairs everyday going all the way up to 12th floor which I get up way faster than that elevator.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

So far i haven't contributed to class wiki at all. All I did was just created a "HOW TO" page about blog roll in word press. But i am on the process of my research on "How New Media are Used in Business". How businesses are using different types social networking sites and how the marketing and advertising firms using new media to maximize the profit. To find all recent information, I am looking at different scholarly article from online, school library, and so on. The information that I am getting is not that much different from the students that has already contributed to wikis. However, it's more recent and more updated version. I am trying to find information about social networking sites that haven't mentioned in wiki, and if it did, trying to edit it to it with right sources.

My new media class - so far

My New Media class is going great so far. Every single week you write blog, tweet, work on your wikis, and so on. It’s a class where you learn bunch of new things about new technologies, how to work with it and etc. Once we had an online class which was basically read an article and tweet about it, which I personally though was a great idea. However, there were some students in class who never used twitter and for them might have been little confusing but I guess that was one of the reason why professor made us tweet about the article so students can get use to twitter. Also we work on our wikis and contribute to our favorite wikis as well. All required assignments are posted online and its all of the assignments are done online. The discussion that we have in class is great, student involvement, and the video professor uses from the show “OFFICE” as an example is the best. Overall this class is going great.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Second life is used beyond just gaming. Second life/virtual world are a place where you can basically do anything that you may not be able to do in real life. It is a place where can interact with people all over the world just like social networking sites but in virtual world you can fly if you want to just like we show in “Office Video” in class. You can dance, kiss, hook up with people, make house, and so on. In virtual world you can buy virtual goods such as buildings, vehicles, devices of all kinds, animations, clothing, skin, hair, jewelry etc. From personal experience, virtual world is pretty awesome and fun. It’s a great place to meet people and talk about it, built houses, invite friends to your house, have party and so on.

These are the different ways you can use virtual world:

You can use virtual world as a medical research or research tool in general to observe how people are acting, treating each other and so on.

You can use SL for virtual tourism where you can show around people about different things such as built model of NYC or museum, park, school, etc.

Businesses can use virtual world to promote their products as well. Also they can use Second Life to hold meetings, conduct training and prototype new technologies more efficiently just like they mentioned in IBM Learning Programs Get a ‘Second Life

You can use virtual world for education purpose where students can learn or share and take a part in activities that are sometime hard to do in classroom. Also you can use virtual world to show upcoming students libraries, Campuses, classroom, and so on.

Another way to use virtual world is for military training where you can recruit potential soldiers.

Cons of virtual world are sexual harassment, use of language because there is no control, security, gambling, strip clubs which might be not safe because kids can have access to it as well.

Pros of virtual world are meet people with similar interest, collaboration, creativity, alternative lifestyle, and so on.

Virtual world forest creativity because there is not limitation on what you create, the possibilities in the creation of an avatar are endless. In virtual world you can even try to be someone else for a while. Virtual world let you do anything.

Future of virtual worlds? Well the future of virtual worlds will increasingly function as centers of commerce, trade, and business. Businesses are already using second life to sell or advertise their product and making pretty good amount of money. For example, “In Second Life alone, transactions have reached a rate of 2.7 million US dollars per month”. Also more and more people will join virtual world and do things that they might not be able to do in real life.

Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html
http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=conWebDoc.3336
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/11/1117_secondlife/image/opener.jpg

Twitter Discussion

Discussion on Twitter is very different from the discussion that we can have it on either blackboard or in-class. Twitter is limited to only 140 letters which can be sometime hard to explain to others what you feel. Also if you are replying to someone after few days, it is better to re-tweet with short original tweet so that other person might know what you are tweeting about. I personally like twitter but sometime its difficult to go around and see who replied and tweeted if you have many followers or if you are following many people. Using twitter as a one of the discussion tool i believe is not good idea because not everyone can contribute to it, especially someone who is new.

Discussion on blackboard is very easy and pretty straight forward. Anyone can read and contribute to it without any problem unlike Twitter. One of the reason is because in blackboard, only you class members are able to see it and write it. There is no out side party/students are allowed other than your classmates. And you can write as much as you want unlike twitter.

In-classroom discussion is one of the best tool. One of the reason is because you can explain material in details without worrying about text limit. Also you can improve communication skills because you are involved directly face-to-face when you interact. Also not everyone is tech savvy person. There are students who do not consider communicating online just because they do not feel safe.

Social Networking

It is very important what you post, write, picture you upload in one of those social networking site of your. Because businesses these days would like to know what kind of employee they are hiring and one way to find out is that corporate they check if that individual have any social networking website and find out information about them/their background.

If you look at it from different prospective Social networking is a great tool to build your professional network. Also a lot of businesses are involved with social networking and one of the reasons is because of the billions of users.

Social networking has both positive and negative effects on society no doubt about that. As mentioned in the article “AT&T uses Twitter during service outage” by Marguerite Reardon talks about how AT&T uses twitter to inform their customer about the service outage due to any reason. It is one of the fastest ways to inform their customer. But I was wondering how did they inform their customer who lives in San Francisco about the service outage when they had no internet, phone service, nothing, than how?

According to the article “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting” by Frank Langfitt, says that recruiters have started using social networking technology to look for job candidates. Recruiters says "Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting -- ever" because with just a keywords they can find the potential candidates for the jobs that recruiters are looking for.

According to the article “How to Find Job Posts on Twitter” by C.G. Lynch talks about how many recruiters and employers have begun posting job openings on twitter. Simply employees can search for the job that they are looking for by putting the symbol “#” in front of the phrase such as #jobs, #career and so on.

Definitely there is a dark side of social networking sites. Most of the time you do not have control over the information flow. Plus teenagers these days spends tremendous amount of time on SN sites and waste time most of the time. It is very addictive and we tend to communicate more online than face-to-face, we missing out our real life communication. We tend to stay home a lot and miss out the different opportunity that’s out there in society.

No doubt these technologies will evolve in the future. SN has great potential to evolve in the business world. Businesses/corporate can have virtue meetings. Reduces time, improves speed, messages can be spread in a second. Employee can have job interview for someone who lives in different country and so on.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10216712-94.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf
http://www.cio.com/article/497918/Twitter_Tips_How_to_Find_Job_Posts_on_Twitter

Social Networking Sites

Social networkings sites are mainly use it to keep in touch with your friends and family members living aboard or in the same country. In 2007, I started using MySpace which was one of the most popular social networking website at that time. I joined MySpace because of my friends were talking about and so I joined as well. As time passed, I learned that MySpace had great features such as you can add comments, graphics, loop the music, add different design templates, you can take all different kind of survey and paste your result in your profile and so on.
However, after one year in 2008, few of my other friends recommended me Facebook and so I joined that social networking site as well. It came to my attention that Facebook is much better than MySpace because it has chatting options, you can tag your friends in picture, and main thing was that it was much easier to find you friends because your real name is used instead of made up name or something like you can do it MySpace. Also Facebook was much faster than MySpace. I believe it is because in MySpace you have so many graphics and applications in your or your friends profile which takes longer time to load the page and sometime it’s annoying. Unlike Facebook, it is very quick. However in Facebook, you do not have an option to change the template of your choice or loop music. Facebook looks much more professional than MySpace does. Security settings on Facebook about who can view your profile and who cannot is very good. You have control over everything mostly. Ads are not annoying either in Facebook.

Recently i started using Orkut which is mix of MySpace and Facebook. It allows you to chat, add graphics, allows you to control the profile and content in it, add application such as games, recommends groups to join, and so on. It is simple to use, easy to access it, easy to find friends, uses your real name just like facebook. You can also see recent visitors to your profile. It is basically just like other social networking sites.

I have started to like twitter from past few weeks. It is in a form of text message. You can write whatever you want with limited to 140 letters. And people who follow you can add comments to it and so on.


One of my most professional Social networking sites that I believe is LinkedIn. It is well organized, designed and great to use. It is very different from facebook or MySpace. In LinkedIn, all information about the individual is provided clear and neat. Their work experience, what they like, their educations are all listed there. Some individuals even have their resumes put up there. Nowadays a lot of companies use LinkedIn to hire employees. Therefore it is highly recommended to everyone to use LinkedIn and provide all kind of information regarding your work and education. You never know you might get a call from top companies and get a job.

picture sources:
http://www.flamemultimedia.com/images/online-social-networking-2.jpg

Blogs Vs. Wikis

Blogs and Wikis are almost same however each of this are slightly different and have several advantages over each other.

Blogs are like a personal online journal, one entry per day and it appear in sequence as they are written. Typically it is written by single author, opinion based, limited knowledge and it is only edited by the single person. Blogs grows slowly, basically one post at a time. Discussion in blogs are like in a comment forms and blogger have options to delete the comments. The setup for blogs depends on the chosen solution. Many solutions require regular security updates. Publishing very easy, some html knowledge useful.

Wikis are collaborative websites and it can be edited by anyone who has access to it. Wikis have many collaborators with different experiences. Knowledge comes from community of dozens or even thousands of topic experts. Wikis grows rapidly every hours of the day. The material are constantly updated with sources. Content is categorized and up to date. The setup for wikis ranges from easy to setup to very difficult, depending on chosen solution. Most of the solutions take care of themselves. Publishing very easy, no html needed on some platforms such as wetpaint.

Both, the blogs and wikis information organized is different. There purposes are somehow different. Their collaborators are different.

Comment on the importance of convergence in today's networked world:
Because of internet, people from all over the world share their opinions and views to achieve goals in life or to solve problems. Technologies performs major role in this to achieve certain goals in life. For example, Oovoo,or AIM, or Skype are the software/applications which allows us to stay in touch with people all around the world by just having internet.

How can blogs be used for collaboration?
Blogs can be used for collaboration where different individuals can post his or her ideas about a certain topics. Blogs are tend to be more personal and one entry per day where blogger can collaborate. Colleges can use blogs for collaboration between professors and students or group of students can use and collaborate about their finding on the research that they're doing. Students can create blogs about buying or selling old books in campus.


Can you think of a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet?
As we all know that wiki is one of the most powerful online tool used by people all around the world to access information. Colleges can use wiki for rules and regulations about colleges/universities, what programs their offers, give access to students to input their opinion about topics, teachers can use wikis for their class instead of blackboard because we know that blackboard is not reliable, businesses can use wikis for their employee. There are many more things that has not been done yet in wiki but these are the things that i believe can be a new use for wiki.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
http://wiki.wetpaint.com/page/Wiki+vs+Blog

Old Vs. New Media

Old media is disappearing quickly as a result of new media. Something which was new such as TV is now old media because the old style big televisions are replaces by the new LCD’s. However this is still part of our society. Also newspapers and magazines which was new form of media when it was introduced are now considered old media because of World Wide Web. Buying song CD’s are replaced by buying your favorite song online. Before we use to carry maps to go around, now GPS is our most reliable friend. Wireless keyboard or mouse, flash drive, Laptops, IPods, iPhone, podcasts, Second life, YouTube, blogs are all part of new media in which we somehow deal with it every day of our lives. There are certain benefits of new media over old media such as who can view the material, the price, space, speed of the information flow, and so on. For example, TMZ is a new form of new media. They were the first one to release Michael Jackson’s heart attack news on their web site. The information was spread worldwide in a second. Another example is when you place an ad in newspaper, it is only seen by local newsreaders and it is expensive to place ad. However, because of internet, your ad can be viewed by other internet users who lives oversee at cheap or no cost. However there are certain disadvantages of new media such as you sometime have no control over what others sees or what we sees such as review about product or service. Companies have no control over this. For companies/businesses, new media is sure a new form of revenue generator.

My Term Paper : Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking

My topic for the term project is Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Networking. Many if not for most of us, Social Networking has become part of our life. It is a new way of daily communication for young adults. One way or another, young adults spends enormous amount of time on internet than any other activates. No doubt new media makes our lives much easier, faster, we learn a lot everyday something new, we get to meet new people, great for business meetings, can join network of our interest, we get to express ourselves in much better way, and so on. However, is it safe to interact online? Many of us give out personal information on the web site without knowing if those information are protected or not, how will those information be used, who will use it and so on. Most of the time on social networking sites, we do not have control over information flow. Also sometime we give out false information on social networking sites like facebook, Friendster, hi5, and so on to protect ourselves or think that oh it will only viewed by friends, however nowadays most of the companies search for individuals record online to check their background and etc. This might cause you that job or might get fried. These are the few advantages and disadvantages of social networking that I will be talking about in my term paper.

What is New Media?

If someone asks you, What is New Media? Sometime its hard to answer some questions but the easiest way to answer this question is by just telling him/her Facebook, Wikis, Youtube, and Blogs. And I am sure they will understand what you meant. Well That's how i understood in easy way when my Professor told us this three things in class. However according to one of the website New Media is defined as an "interactive forms of communication that use the Internet, including podcasts, RSS feeds, social networks, text messaging, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and more". One of the greatest things about new media is how the public is able to get up-to-minute coverage about nearly anything in the world. In my New Media class i learned that New Media composes of 5 C's: Communication, Collaboration, Community, Creativity, and Convergence. As we all know that until late 90's the primary source of media was print newspapers and magazines, and radio which is also known as old media. However in past few years, we can see the transformation from old media to new media. To name few, New media includes: Web sites, streaming audio and video, chat rooms, e-mail, online communities, Web advertising, DVD and CD-ROM media, virtual reality environments, integration of digital data with the telephone, such as Internet telephony, digital cameras, and mobile computing. Most of this New Media is free if not it is really cheap, easy to access from anywhere in the world, relatively easy to communicate for any kind of reason and its fast. One of the article that i was reading for the class states that, people don't need cable nowadays because "the major networks and many other broadcasters have made it easy to find their shows free online". Another interesting thing that i read in that article and experienced was: "ABC.com demands viewers be engaged, requiring them to click a button to continue watching the program after an ad ends...I was forced to sit through a 30-second commercial — and click — to find out whether Mike Delfino actually died from smoke inhalation on “Desperate Housewives.” It’s only 30 seconds I figured (and I can watch the countdown) which kept me in my seat".

I personally felt that New Media is a new way of doing business too. Above example is the great way to explain this. People are forced to watch that 30 second commercial and in that 30 seconds you have to convince your customer to buy your product or service and not from your competitors. It is one of the best way for organization to maximize their profit and they are taking full advantages of new media. Placing ad's where ever they can such as social networking, chat rooms, watching shows online, e-mailing and so on.

New Media somehow makes our lives easier but we should also not forget the risk that are related to it.

Sources:

http://www.aids.gov/using-new-media/basics/what-is-new-media/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/technology/personaltech/04basics.html?_r=1&emc=eta1