Monday, October 18, 2010

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?

Monday, October 11, 2010

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.


Monday, October 4, 2010

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.