Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Second live is very popular these days for many people. I believe that people like to be or live on second live because there is no limitation. People can be whoever they wish to be or they can’t be in their real lives. That’s what I am assuming because I am not really big fun of second live.

Second live can be used for recruiting for employment or any meeting within the company, as we discussed it in the class. These are positive aspects of second live. For instance, somebody has a low self-esteem, and by having virtual second live, can build or boost it. Individual meets with other peers and communicate, however it is missing the emotional side. Moreover, I think that it should be viewed as funny socializing activity.

I must say that I see much more negative sides of it. People spend so much time that they don’t even know what real live is. It is also time consuming. For example, like the article mentions, it sounds little weird to me that people go to the club on second live instead of going there in their real present time. However, it can be fun for sometime.

I don’t want to offend anyone, but people who are close to be addicted to it are lacking social skills that are looking for in front of the screen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/arts/television/06itzk.html

Twitter Discussion

I would say that discussion on twitter is just too limited. It is hard to express yourself more deeply because of the letter limitation. However, if you like to chat about anything that interests you, it is very easy to do so. For example, I am at home not much to do, so I can simply log in and chat about any topics that I like.

Bb discussion board has one advantage that we can write unlimited characters unlike on Twitter, but I don’t like the lay out or to explain better the organization of board. I have to click so many times in order to see what others write.

Discussion in the class is the most valuable way to really discus anything seriously. However, there are so many people that rather have time to organize their thoughts before they say it. In any face to face discussions, people have no time to plan what they say. And it can end up that they say totally different opinion then they really meant it.

Social Networking

Social networking has so many purposes how they can be used in real live. The primary reason is to be closer to your friends, family or actually anybody you wish to. I have mentioned this earlier. It is very affordable and everybody has an access to it. The bright side of that was already said above and also in my previous posts.

The negative aspect of social networking is that sometimes it can be really annoying to be informed with anybody’s little thing that they do and then share it with others. Also, there are so many of these networking. It would be more organized for individuals to have just one where everybody follows.

Other dark side of it is that if you want to cancel the account, it might be a little problem, for instance, facebook still keeps some of your information after deleting. I had a bad experience with the network named HI5. When I wanted to cancel the account, it didn’t let me and kept sending me emails such as why do you wish to cancel or we will cancel it in 30 days, so I still have time to change my mind.

I would say that people might not want to see each other as much as now in the future because of social networking. It is sad but it can possibly happen. Moreover, it is hard to say how social networking will evolve in the future. If I knew it, I would try to pursue it and became rich.

This article shows the way how networking is used in a way I didn't mention.
Marketing yourself..............

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/fashion/21whiz.html

Social Networking sites

I would say that all three social networking are very similar. These social networking are here for the main reason to keep people connected. Now, we can keep in touch with our friends or family from all over the world so easily.

Facebook
This networking is my favorite. I use it a lot to keep in touch with my friends. It’s simple place to share pictures or music with others. For instance, my friend from Czech Republic went to Taiwan and took so many pictures. How could I see them? Sending to my email would take forever. So, he just uploaded them to facebook and we all his friends can see them and share his memories from the trip. Also, it is very easy to chat with everyone added as your friend. Moreover, if you don’t want to be a friend with someone, you just don’t accept his/her request and he/she won’t know that you denied it.

Myspace
My space was popular years ago. I used to have it. I stopped posting anything on it since the most of my friends signed up for facebook. I would say that myspace is not so popular in Europe. I remembered that it was working pretty much like facebook. However, there wasn’t live chat. There are some features such as customizing your page with color which I don’t think it is so handy.

Friendster
I had never used Friendster until today. I did not find any significant differences from others social networking.

Skype
Skype is the best networking to call over the internet. You can call anyone who is connected at this moment for free or buy a credit. I always use Skype to call on cell phones or home phones out of the US. It is the cheapest provider that I found so far. You can share pictures or music too. However, it is not as accessible as facebook. You have to send each picture or file at the time.

BLOGS vs. WIKIS

First, I would like to mention that I have experienced blogs for the first time in this CIS class. I never post anything on Wikis, so it means that I am not really familiar with them. However, blogs are for everyday use, anybody can set up for a blog and post any opinions or feelings towards their interests. They are easy to be operated. You can change your articles that were written before, also you can change lay out of the web site or insert pictures or videos. There is no one but you who would edit or erase anything from your blogs.

Wikis have their manager (supervisor) who filters informations that are posted by any users who have an access to the internet. I think that Wikis are more advanced in searching for the facts of your research. I have looked at the Wikipedia so many times when I was doing any school projects. It wouldn’t be possible on blogs as much as on Wikis because blogs are more likely to be subjective. For instance, this particular situation happens this way in my eye, so it is not the true story, it is just my feeling towards it. It is pretty normal to write a story like that on your blog, but on Wikis, there are managed to help to search for facts, not opinions.
Both Blogs and Wikis are great to collaborate and convergence with others. It is very simple to stay connected with people who have the same interests or just like to share funny stories. There are many reasons why people have their blogs. One reason can be just to pool pictures or songs or they want others to know what their thoughts are.

There is a web site that shows differences between blogs and Wikis in a simple way.

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

OLD vs. NEW

Old media is TV, radio, phone and news paper. New media is basically an internet that contains the applications such as blog, e-news, facebook, twitter, skype and so on. There are some differences between old and new, but not that easy to define because old and new media interact between each other.
New media are accessible and cheap. I would say that new media can be managed by anyone who has access to the Internet. It is simple way to share or distribute any news or stories online through those social networking. New media gives us the opportunity to be more involved in life around us. We can set blogs and discuss anything that we agree or disagree. That is what old media aren’t possible to do. We can just watch TV or read news paper, but we wouldn’t be able to share it with anybody.
New media provides us with easy way to communicate among each other. Many people use skype everyday. For example, I have read that some companies even use skype to communicate within the company. It is amusing that we can do so. Before we were so happy, we had at least home phone. Moreover, even before that, we did not have anything, just a paper and an ink. However, it took forever for the letter to be delivered.
New media is extremely fast, so even bigger files can be sent through the internet. We can share pictures, music and other files. Just setting up for the email account offers us the possibility to do so. Blogs are also very useful to share any documents.
We never know where something new called NEW MEDIA come again and boost or replace the current new media. The technology is so in advanced that new technologies keep appearing at all the time.

Project

My presentation will be about the impact of new media in sports. I will try to explain how new media helps you get more involved in sports. These days, everything is accessible, so we are able to find anything we are interested in online. Moreover, many famous players in any sport fields have their own blog. You can discuss or comment their performance with them on their blog. In addition to that, you get to know little more from their personal life. You can keep track of any players so easily these days because of the internet. With new media around us, we obtain so much more then we were used to in the past.