The Next New Thing

It's really hard trying to come up with a new media that does not exist yet. But if I can create anything without thinking about the reality constraints, I would definitely create something that automatically searches the internet for new articles, websites, updates and many more related to your personal likes. It could be called GoLink (a product of Google). It would searches the internet using Google's search engine for new concepts, updates and many more related to your personal likes. For example, you add an music artist like Usher to your personal likes. Google would inform you of any new songs, websites or updates that have the tag Usher in it and send you a email with a link to the website. So you can be informed of any new updates without having to check consistently.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I'm planning to update and improve the New Media & MMORPG section of our class's wiki. I haven't been able to add anything but I'll should be able to update it somewhat this weekend. I'm planning to update the current sections: History, MMORPGs Vs. Reality, Addiction, Business Opportunities, Gold Farming, and many more with new contents and my own perspective of the topic. I'm also going to add in a new section with information regarding Second Life since that's becoming a major hit in our society.

P2P File Sharing

File Sharing is when you distributes or allow access to electronic information such as software, music, multimedia documents and more. File sharing consists of many methods but P2P File sharing is one of the more common used method to file sharing. P2P File sharing is called Peer to Peer file sharing. P2P File sharing is where a user (peer) make a file available for download for other people. Some examples of P2P File sharing are BitTorrent, Limewire and more. While P2P File sharing is often used to distribute copyrighted materials, many creators and producers are dis-motivated to release their products since they know it will be hosted for download on P2P websites. According to this article "Content producers should take advantage of P2P, not fear it" by Jamie King, director, Steal This Film;s stealthisfilm.com, it motivate creators and producers to not fear P2P but take advantage of it to distributes their ideas and creations. They relate P2P file sharing to how producers and creators distributes their works on a p2p site The Pirate Bay.

Work used:
http://www.nma.co.uk/opinion/content-producers-should-take-advantage-of-p2p-not-fear-it/35925.article

Privacy & Confidentiality

As new media grow, the risk and dangers of privacy loss and confidentiality grow as well. In this case, I will use Facebook as a example of new media which involves the risk and dangers of privacy loss and confidentiality since there are a lot of information users have disclosed on this profile pages. This also linked to my term paper since there's a section of my paper that deal with Facebook and privacy which I will directly copy and paste from my paper.

Facebook indicated in their privacy policy that “Facebook can indeed share your information with other companies for advertising or other purposes.” (Jones 21). However Facebook only have access to information that Facebook’s users have disclosed. According to Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Network by Ralph Gross and Alessandro Acquisti:

In general, CMU users of Facebook provide an astonishing amount of information: 90.8% of profiles contain an image, 87.8% of users reveal their birth date, 39.9% list a phone number (including 28.8% of profiles that contain a cellphone number), and 50.8% list their current residence. The majority of users also disclose their dating preferences (male or female), current relationship status (single, married, or in a relationships), political views (from “very liberal” to “very conservative”), and various interests (including music, books, and movies). A large percentage of users (62.9%) that list a relationship status other than single even identify their partner by name and/or link to their Facebook profile. (Gross 75)

Facebook’s users have disclosed an shocking amount of personal information that are at risk from a security breach, hacker break-in and/or even daily Facebook’s users who have stumbled onto your Facebook profile page. At that instance, that individual who have stumbled onto your Facebook profile page would have all the basic information he/she need to build up their background database on you. The individual would know who you are, where you live, when you’re born, how to contact you, who you’re in a relationship in, what are your interests and more. The information Facebook’s users disclosed on their profile page can be at risk for potential stalkers in determining and locating where their victims are located.

Even strangers that you never met before can access your profile page and know where you're located, born, etc. according to the information you disclosed. So in my opinion, as new media grow, so does the lack of privacy and confidentiality. 

Advice to Baruch College

There are several ways to improve Baruch by using new media. One of these ways that I thought would be pretty cool to have is to implement something like Wikipedia/Facebook social network site which can be called BaruchBook where you can add yourself to class network with people who are taking the same class with you. The professors can post up class notes, assignment (something that Blackboard is currently used for), tests dates, and etc. Students can post up study group dates so they can get together and help each other pass the class. BaruchBook can be something like a mix of Wikipedia, Facebook, and BlackBoard.

About My Term Research Paper

My topic is Impact of Facebook from an Educational, Economic and Sociological Perspective. I changed my topic since I sorta went over the boundaries of my old topic regarding privacy. I basically did my research using Google Scholar and Google to search for scholarly and non-scholarly news articles such as new york times. I found several things that are interesting like how Facebook expose you to identity theft. You can easily find out a person first 5 digits of their ssn by knowing where they're born and when they are born. The first 3 digits can be identified by knowing your hometown since each location have their own specific set of ssn (First 3 digits.). The next 2 digits can be known when you give out your birthdate and the last 4 digits are usually used in people's id or passwords.

Creat ivity and New Media

I could say this is the hardest assignment in the whole class! Apparently I just found out trying to be creative is really hard when you don't know what to do. So I decided to go with the easy task and create an avatar on Second Life since I have been itching to do so ever since I heard about it.

To start this off, here's my avatar:

I noticed there really isn't a lot of customize options for you to pick such as changing your hairstyle, facial details, color, and etc. Since I used to play this rpg game called "PerfectWorld" where I can customize every feature of the avatar from the face to the body. PerfectWorld is a massive online role playing game where it is similar to WoW (World of Warcraft) but it's free to play.

My avatar in "WOLF MOUNTAIN SKI RESORT":

Another thing about the graphic that seemed so familiar to me is the fact that there's another RPG called "Runescape" which have similar graphic design to SecondLife.

So far from how I tried SecondLife, I couldn't see what's so popular with this game since visiting places you have never been is great. But I would rather go there in reality and experiences it for myself instead of looking at it through a computer screen.