The Next New Thing

I guess most of you had experience of borrowing textbooks and making copies from them in school library.  Since school only has a few copies of each textbook, if other students borrowed them out, you might need to wait until they returned the book. If school has all the textbooks in E-book version, then we can borrow them anytime while school library is opened. That sounds convenient for everyone of us because we do not need to wait at the long line or afraid of the book is out. Another advantage for E-book is that we do not need waste time on flipping over the book page by page while making copies. We can just print the pages we want from the computer.

In order to prevent violating the intellectual property, every student should have their log on to borrow the E-books. When the two hours time limit is over, the E-book should not be available for the borrower. Also, E-book can only read in school's computer and can not be save as a file. If our school library has this option for student, we can save a lot of time on waiting and copying the textbooks. Especially some professors only use partial of the textbook, no one would like to spend extra money on expensive books. School should consider this option for us.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

In our class wiki, I chose to contribute on New Media in Healthcare with an interesting topic – Weight Loss. Maintaining a good weight is very important because that means a lot to our health. Over weighted people tend to easier to get obesity and diabetes. Therefore, we need to keep fit in order to be healthy. Many people are serious about it. The best and healthiest way to lose weight is to eat right and do exercises. How do new media help us to maintain a healthy weight? It is easy, by a calorie calculator.

People used to calculate calories by writing down what they eat for each supper and follow the nutrition label to see how many calories they had. For exercise, people record how long did they work then calculate how many calories they have burned. Those are old ways to might not be as accurate as we use a calorie calculator.  It has most of the foods and exercise in the system. When you enter any foods in, the calories will show up on the calculator. On the other hand, when you input an exercise, it is a negative number appear as how many calories did you burn through that exercise. Isn’t that convenient compare to those old ways? I am going to do more research on this topic and share some interesting thing about New Media in Healthcare.  

However, I did not contribute anything from my project to wiki. My topic was E-book and I got so much information about it. I think I should start to work on that, too.

About my term paper

For my term research paper I chose the topic of Books Versus E-books. We as students have to interact with books everyday. Traditional books are bulky and heavy, E-books as a new media resolved that problem. That was the main reason I chose this topic. As I did my research I learned a lot about both books and e-books. Books were used to record data and most of these information will pass down for generations. With the new media of e-books, we are able to store these data in a digital form. Before I started my research I was more bias towards e-books. After the research I learned that books and e-books have their unique identities.
E-book as a new media enabled people to do things in a different way. E-books also changed how libraries operate. The invention of e-books technologically helped our society leap a big step, however e-books can not entirely replace traditional books.

My technique for this research paper was first to find as much information as I can. After that I organized these data and start my outline. As I was doing my outline I added notes of what citation I should be using in each part of the essay. After I finish my outline I reviewed the outline to make sure the sequence of the outline makes sense. Finally I started writing my research paper base on the sequence I did on my outline.

Extra Credit: "The Social Network"

Before I watched the movie "The Social Network", I thought it must be so boring based on its title. I did some research online and came out with a surprising result. The rating of the movie by the critics on Yahoo is an A, which is an interesting movie to watch. Therefore, I decided to go to watch this movie and it did not disappointed me at all.

Mark Zuckerberg is the main character in the movie and he is a genius computer programing student in Harvard University. At the beginning of the movie, Mark broke up with his girlfriend and he was so upset about it. So he released his anger by creating a website (www.facemash.com) and putting all girls' image there for others to compare who is the better looking one between the two. Students started rating on that website and it became famous in just a very short period of time. However, this website seemed like violating others' privacy and intellectual property.  Later on, Mark came up with an idea of making a website for people to connect each other inside of their social network by voluntarily providing self information and inviting friends to join, which is known as facebook. The website was first for Harvard students only then expanded to other college students as well. Mark's intention to the website was not for profit. Instead, he motivation is to make facebook the most famous social networking site.

"The Social Network" is a movie involving love, friendship, and money. Even though Mark became the youngest billionaire in history, but he lost his lover and friends. In my opinion, I think the ending of the movie is kind of sad. Mark has money, but he is lonely. He does not have anyone to share his happiness with. Maybe Mark is a genius about computer programming, but he is not good at relationship and friendship. Money is not everything in our life; it can not buy real friends and true love.

Privacy & Confidentiality

The social networking sites are the places where people can discover others' privacy. For example, many people are big fans of facebook. They like to post pictures, update status and make new friends through facebook. By doing so, do you know that you are displaying your privacy to other people? Even thought some people might already setup the privacy protection like only friends are allowed to read what you post, but there are still some risks. In your friends' list, there might be some people you do not know very well or just know them by faces. They can get your information from your facebook like where do you go to school, where do you live and when is your birthday. In my opinion, birthday is a very important privacy information and therefore, I suggest people should not to post it on their facebook or any social networking page. Many security questions must contain a question related to your date of birth. Also, many people setup their password like a combination of their birthday and your name, is that true for you? If yes, then more likely than not, people can access to any of your accounts easily by guessing your password. On the other hand, there is a "check me in" function on facebook where people can share where they are and what they are doing to their friends. This app might be fun to share some good stuffs with friends, but it is also dangerous to do so. Why? When some people know that you are not home, some of your "bad friends" can do anything that you can't imagine. Therefore, having the security protection on your social network is not enough. You must know what you can share and what you can not. Privacy is not easy to protect, so everyone must be careful when you launch to any social network.

Besides social networking sites, e-commerce also gives us a big headache on our privacy and confidential protection. When you make a purchase online, you must enter some of your personal information like e-mail, phone number, credit card information and home address. Some credit card information might get stolen from the web that way. I had personal experience about that. Someone used my credit card purchased a few hundreds merchandise. It took me two months to get those money disputed. However, it did not stop me to shop online because it is really convenient to do so (save time and energy). But I would choose some websites with a security logos on the page in order to lower my risk. On the other hand, every website would have a database about you once you make a purchase from there, such as what size you are wearing, your sex, your age, your favorite colors and etc. Next time when you go back to their site, they can post some items that you might interested on the first page. But if it is not your personal computer, it takes even longer to find what you want to buy. Also, the seller can sell their customers' database to other vendors so the vendors can send you e-mails or spams and advertise their products. Those kind of information should be confidential and not to be shared with others. Next time when you need to make a purchase online, make sure you check the "opt out" box of junk mail and things like that.

Privacy and confidentiality is a big issue on the Internet. People have to be careful about sharing their personal information on the web. Hopefully, we will have some better ways to solve this problem.

Advise to Baruch College

As everyone knows, Baruch College is a top rank college in the United States. There are many people from other places want to know more about our college. Even though we already have our school website, but I think it is not enough for others to know more about our college. If they are interested and wanted to transfer to our college, they might want to see how the campus looks like, how people behave and what the comments are about the school. Our official website does not provide enough information like that. If we have a website can tell the transfer students more about our college, that would be more convenient. People can ask basic questions, leave comments and post news about our school. Every student and faculty have his/her own login names and guess would have his/hers as well. That way, people can communicate from different places through the website. People can also make friends from our school's  website.

When people complete the transfer to our college, they would not afraid of the new environment in our college because they already got some useful information from current students. I was a transferred student and I was nervous when I came to this school. I did not know anything about the school, like where is the classrooms, cafeteria, bookstore and all that. If we have a website for students to interact each other, that would be great. We can share some secrets about the school like where we can find the best food or a quiet place to study during club hours. Isn't it fun?

On the other hand, almost everyone is holding a cell phone. I think we can contact our professors and classmates not only by e-mail, but also by SMS. We can log on to the Internet with WiFi and send messages for free using our cell phones. Many people do not use school e-mail or always for get to check it. Therefore, they always miss some important announcements. Baruch College is always overwhelming by students everywhere. Sometimes you can't even find a seat in the afternoon or during final week. If we can't get a computer to use, there is no way to access our e-mail. So, we can get our first hand information through a text message, I think it would be a better and easier tool than e-mail.

Hopefully, a digital notebook will be available for professors and students soon. So we do not need to bring all the physical books with a heavy book bag to school. All the study materials are stored to our digital notebook and we can write our notes on the digital notebook. We can save papers and ink. Professors also can connect their digital notebooks to the computer and give out notes that way, so we do not have problems seeing some professor's difficult and unreadable handwriting. I think it is a little bit too expensive to do so now. Eventually, as the technologies are improving, the new media is going to replace the old media soon (It might not be completely, but it should be a in big range).

Twitter: Discussion

It is my first time using twitter and I am still a little bit confused about it. Twitter seems like Facebook's status updates with a short message and plenty replies from friends. My problem with Twitter is the tweets are moving too fast and I can't even see who replied my tweet. However, if I install the Twitter file to my iPhone and turn on the "Push" option, I can see my tweets immediately. I did and I found Twitter was fun. It is not like Black Board's discussion board which is tradition, slow and boring. When we use BB discussing a same topic, we need to click into each post in order to reply  to one person. With Twitter, we can reply multiple people by just @ them.
I think Twitter is very convenient to use. It limits with 140 characters for a tweet which makes the user try to make it nice and neat. Sometimes reading a long post is time consuming and boring. With Twitter, it is more like a up to the point discussion and we can post a tweet fast and reply tweet soon. Doesn't it sound good?

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

A virtual world can be anything anyone can imagine. If you can imagine it then it is possible to model a virtual world base on your imagery. As of today’s virtual world, the biggest difference between it and reality is that in virtual world you can only visualize the scenery while in reality you will be able to use your sense to feel and observe the scenery. According to the article “I’ve Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life” written by Dave Itzkoff, he mention “one can wander its streets with abandon without the risk of getting hit by the MUD Coffee truck,” this is definitely a pro to the virtual world because you are doing what you want and seeing what you want to see and at the same time you are not endangering your life in anyway. In reality you can be walking down the street minding your own business and a fallen object can just hurt you. At the same time it is also a con of the virtual world. Due to the fact that you are not sensing your surrounding you can only visualize what is going on.
As I had stated before, if you can imagine it then it is possible to create a virtual world base on your imagery. The possibility of virtual world is endless. You can bring back extinct species, imaginary characters, anything you can think of because virtual world is an idea of someone or some group that had put it into life. According the the article “Chelsea—In Room 100, a Second Life for Sid and Nancy” bought someone’s dream into life. In my opinion the future virtual world will expand to sales. I will use Macys.com for example, imagine creating a virtual world just like the Macy’s department store. You get to virtually select the clothes, the furniture, jewelry and others then you can make a purchase and it will be shipped to your home? Won’t that be better than just looking at Macys.com?

Social Networking

Social networking is a very good place to share some news and stories with friends and classmates. People have a lot of interactions through Facebook, Twitter, Blog and many different types of networking site. I am a facebooker. I realized that there are many different companies and organizations have their own facebook account, such as clothing companies, TV shows, and even colleges. They are using facebook as an advertisement tool for their companies and organizations. We can see the most updated promotions and news about them. As Jeff Young said in Wired Campus, "Many colleges have recently set up official pages on Facebook. I think schools would be very smart to just incorporate in there because it doesn't cost them anything". Not only to colleges, to many other companies is wise to have a facebook account then advertise for free.  Social networking makes people's life easier. People can share their news and thoughts through social networking site. At the same time, we can read others post when we are free to do so. Isn't it sound very convenient? When we are following some of our favorite companies and organizations, we can get our first-hand information from our networking site. As a user, we save our time to do any research about our interested companies. On the other hand, those companies also save a lot of money in advertisement. However, these social networking sites also become targets to those companies to  make more money.  How? These companies get users' information from social networking sites, like your address, e-mail and phone number, so they can sent their post cards or spams e-mail to our contact location. The users seem like losing privacy through networking site. One important thing is that most of the social networking site's information seems to be our real information, because it for connection with our friends and classmates. But if we lose our privacy that way, how many people are still want to share their personal related to any social networking site? According to Fred Vogelstein, there are a lot of facebook "users see the site as sanctified space, a place to engage in intimate conversations with friends—not to be laser-beamed by weirdly personal advertising" in Wired Magazine. If the users are not interesting in those advertising, then they become garbage to us.  This is a real issue that the social networking users need to focus on. Otherwise, social networking (new media) is going to replace letters and phone calls (old media) soon.

Check out social networking sites

There are many different kinds of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Myspace, Friendster and Sina. I have accounts with all these networking sites. I use Facebook the most because a lot of my friends are using it. According to the name of Facebook, it makes me think of seeing different people's face through this site. The users can upload pictures, update status, inbox messages, live chats and create events on Facebook. People also can tag their friends in the pictures and status. By doing so, their friends will receive notification from the people who tag them and leave comments over there. There are also many online games you can play with friends on Facebook and they are fun. The layout of facebook is very clear and easy to use. It does not require a background or page setup, everything is instant. Therefore, Facebook  is perfect for those lazy people like me. I did not use Myspace and Friendster for a long time because my friends stopped using them. Myspace is like a diary book to me. People can share their news and stories on their own web page. I think Myspace is very similar to Blogger. The users can create a new post and let others leave comments on there. Also, people can design how the page looks like. Friendster is a place for people to share pictures and recent activities. The users can design the layouts and button colors according to their own preference. Since not many of my friends use it, I did not use it any more. Occasionally,  I still receive E-mail from Friendster and reminding me some of my friends birthday are coming soon which makes me appreciated. Sina is a relatively  new networking site in China. Since China can not use Facebook due to some publishing problems, Sina becomes very popular. It might be new to you guys, so I would like to share my Sina blog with you here. It categorizes by friends, fans and blogs. When you are friends with someone, you will see their newest updates on your homepage. If you are fans of someone like a super star, you can see his/her most recent activities on your site. You also can write your diary on your blog and share some pictures with your diary entry or link them to others' Sina site. I use Sina to keep in touch with my friends in China. I like Sina because it is like a combination of Facebook, Friendster and Myspace.

Blogs vs. Wikis

In our New Media course, everyone has a blog and a wiki. The layout and design of the blogs are base on our own preference. When we visit each others' blogs, we can see different looks and feel on the pages. There is only one editor for the blog - yourself. We can share personal news, feelings and many different things on our blogs. People also can leave comments about your post after reading it. In "How can we measure the influence of blogosphere?" by  Kathy E. Gill, she mentions people blogging as Journalism. It is not like newspaper or magazine, but as the words of James W. Carey, "It can be practiced 'virtually anywhere and under almost any circumstances... To make experience memorable so it won’t be lost and forgotten is the task of journalism'".Writing a blog is like writing a diary. Nobody can controls what you want to write on your blog. Visitors can join to your blog as followers and have interaction with you like leaving messages or posting comments. Blogs can provide the latest posts, comments and opinions to the readers and writers. Therefore, this is the best way to make friends inside or outside of your network. On the other hand, wiki is different. Although both blogs and wikis are sharing information to the public, but all users in wikis can be editors and the page is no longer personal. Besides editing the page, wiki users also can create a new page while other users can add or delete things. Many companies would like to use wiki as an collaboration tool. According to Wikipedia, " A study of corporate wiki users found that they could be divided into 'synthesizers' and 'adders' of content. Synthesizers' frequency of contribution was affected more by their impact on other wiki users, while adders' contribution frequency was affected more by being able to accomplish their immediate work". A company's managers and stakeholders can make changes easily through wiki. It is a common used tool for project planning and management. If there is a option to leave feedback like blogs, people will enjoy it more because they can still have their opinions on wiki even though it might not be acceptable. As we can see, people can get information from blogs and wikis, but they are just playing different roles as visitors (blogs) and editors (wikis).

E-books vs. Books

Average College students spend hundreds of dollars for books every semester. In order to save money on textbooks, some students choose to buy used books while others choose to get the online version which is known as e-books. Students can save up to 30% buying an e-book than a regular text book. There are also some students who share their e-book with their classmates and friends for a low cost or even for free. File sharing is very easy and convenient, it became a common practice. File sharing will benefit the consumers but it will harm the producers. When the publishers are consistently losing profits, they will eventually go out of business and there won't be any text book nor e-book left. In another word, sharing e-books might benefit consumers in the short run but in the long run it will harm both the consumer and the producer.

Describe New Media

There are many examples that can be classify as new media. E-book, e-mail, digital camera, 3G network cell phone, Voice Over IP, and the blogs are all examples of new medias. All these new medias have direct and indirect relationship with a computer or Internet. There isn't a correct definition for new media, because as technology changes new media updates itself. According to the lecture notes from Prof. Alder in "What is New Media?", there are 5C's unique characteristics about new media (communication, collaboration, community, creativity and convergence). A new media might not have all of these characteristics, but it must contain more than two. Many companies started to do business online, also known as e-commerce. This way, the company can have more interaction with their customers through comments and reviews of their products. According to the business journal of McKinsey & Company's "8 Business Technology Trend to Watch", many companies are using consumers as innovators to their company. After the company review consumers' opinion, they can immediately make some changes if needed. Many companies prefer advertisement online through websites instead of newspapers, magazines or TV (old media). Having advertisement over the Internet is more cost efficient because everything is virtual. As people are going "green", they do not favor the "old media" because most of the time “old media” deals with a physical object. Like books, newspaper, and even music, you would need to have a compact disc in order to play it. Most of the time “old media” is an object. The advantage of the "old media" is that you can bring it to anywhere you want but it also can be a disadvantage. For example, you have an important document for the morning meeting. For some reasons, you forgot to bring it or it was stolen from someone, then you might get in trouble the next day because you didn’t have it during the meeting. Now, the "new media" comes into play. If you have a copy of the file in your e-mail or you saved it somewhere on the web, you still present the document during the meeting.

Something about me.

Hi, everyone.
My name is Yun Fei Huang. You can call me Faye. This is my first blog in blogger, but I think it is similar to Facebook and Xanga that I have. We can share news, information and our own feelings here. Hope we can have some fun through Blogger.
I am a transfer student from BMCC. I joined the Transfer Student Organization (TSO) last year and I have so much fun. I am an Accounting major and minor in Information Technology and Social Responsibility.
Media makes our life much easier. Computer is one of the important media tool. We almost need to use computer technology everywhere. Let's learn something new from this course.