Social Networking

Due Date: 10/06/2011

Create a new post on your blog with the above title. In your post, answer the following questions.

What are some ways (corporate and otherwise) that these technologies can be used? What are the benefits of these technologies to society? Be specific. Is there a "dark side"? Make sure to include your opinion of the way these technologies might evolve in the future.

Cite at least 2 of the assigned readings.

Community: Social Networking

Being There: The subtle art of the Facebook update, by Virginia Heffernan. The New York Times Magazine, Feb 15, 2009, p. 25. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15wwln-medium-t.html Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum by Stephen J. Dubner. NYT Feb 15, 2008 http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/is-myspace-good-for-society-a-freakonomics-quorum/ Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting by Frank Langfitt, NPR, March 16, 2008. available from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6522523&sc=emaf Social Networking at IBM: Maclean's Feb 4, 2008 "What's Next? Your Future in Social Networking" vol 121, p. 42. http://ibm.rogersconsumerpublishing.com/macleans/downloads/social.pdf Why Is Nissan Mimicking MySpace? by Kenji Hall, Business Week, October 30, 2007. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071030_537362.htm . Also "Nissan Launches 'N-Square' for Staff", Strategic Communication Management, Dec 2007/ Jan 2008 vol 12, p. 9. Analysis: Real Facebook shop in virtual world breathes life into Mars. Marketing Week. Feb 21, 2008. p. 14. http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=59708&u=pg_dtl_art_news&m=pg_hdr_art Identifying user behavior in online social networks by Marcelo Maia, Jussara Almeida, and Virgílio Almeida, European Conference on Computer Systems, Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Social Network Systems, April, 2008. Available from a Baruch College computer at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1435498 "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power," by David Carr, The New York Times. November 10, 2008; at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html Amazon Says Error Removed Listings" By MOTOKO RICH, The New York Times, April 14, 2009, p. B1. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14amazon.html Knowledge@Wharton, "Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2262 Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network's Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out" by Fred Vogelstein, Wired, July 2009, p. 96=101+. Available at http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall Moguls of New Media" by John Jurgensen. Wall St. Journal July 29, 2006 http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB115412710465720901-Ah3MvEIHa4T2Ck8IgsXrr01znUw_20070728.html "Teens getting savvier about MySpace, especially girls" by Alex Zaharov-Reutt. IT Wire, Wednesday, 10 January 2007. Available at: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/8467/53/ "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy " by Clive Thompson, NY Times, Sept 7, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html "Facebook Exodus" by Virginia Heffernan, NY Times, August 26, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html?_r=2&ref=technology "They're Back, and They're Bad: Campus-Gossip Web Sites," by Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 4, 2009, p. A20+. Available at: http://chronicle.com/article/Theyre-BackTheyre-B/48220/ "Author Explores the Juicy Origins of Facebook," by Jeff Young, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Sept 4, 2009, p. A20. Available at: http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Author-Explores-the-Juicy-O/7583/. "Facebook Is Going for Some Twitter Sensibility" by Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, Sept 13, 2009. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/technology/internet/14facebook.html?_r=1&ref=business. Can you trust crowd wisdom? by Kristina Grifantini, MIT Technology Review, Sept 16, 2009. Available at: http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23477/?a=f. Dictionary word of the year: 'Unfriend' By Doug Gross, CNN Tech, November 17, 2009 . Available at: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/unfriend.word/index.html. Carnegie Mellon students to exploit social networks to predict success of Internet startups By Bob Brown, NetworkWorld Newsletters, 03/23/10 . Available at: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58866?source=NWWNLE_nlt_web_apps_2010-03-24. Antisocial Networking? by Hilary Stout, New York Times, May 2, 2010, p. ST1. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/fashion/02BEST.html "Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do" By Marc Parry, NY Times, July 29, 2010, Available at http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Who-Cares-About-Facebook/25877/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en "In India, Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers" By Heather Timmons, NY Times, August 1, 2010, Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/technology/02traffic.html?ref=business

What is New Media?

I want to start with few words- create, modify, share, simple. We can put these words together and say about new media- The idea that allows someone to create, modify and share content with friends, colleagues, relatives or even the whole world, using simple and inexpensive tools, as long as he/she has a computer or portable device with internet access.

To me new media is going over several books, while a reading single page a novel. It's like analyzing a poem for couple of hours vs. lots of blog pages on the same poem in a moment. But new media does lack emotions, attachments with the root.

In Friedmans' "The New Media Technologies: Overview and Research Framework" we find a details picture of New Media vs. Old Media. Old media – newspapers, magazines, radio, television – are communication delivery systems. The new media comes up with 5 C's: communication, collaboration, community, creativity, and convergence. These technologies distinguish new media from old media. Examples of new media are- blogs, wikis, online social networking, virtual worlds and other social media forms.

On the age of old media, we had to go over few books or some training to troubleshoot a technical problem. But now we just go surfing- wikis, blogs and specially, YouTube for hands-on tutorial. Clive Thomson's article can be noted here as reference.