Creativity and New Media

No long ago, I created an account on Flickr, and I found out that there are lots of things that I can do here. On this site you can find fabulous photos!

For instance, you can upload your own photos online through the web, mobile device, and email; discover more photos by adding your friends; and share your photos with your friends through other social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and so on.

Once that you sign in, you can do more like changing profile, organizing and creating albums, adding more friends, joining in a group, and exploring more pictures.

Isn’t this a great innovation for everybody to share photos here?

Absolutely! This is creativity and the new media!

  

Above information and pictures are collected from Flickr.com.

Creativity

New ideas come from creativity; and new media helps these new ideas to spread out all around the world. Online users can share their creative ideas by making videos, photos, blogs, and post them through the social networking. For instance, Brooks Barnes’ article “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?” discuss that the rapper Soulja Boy posted a mash ups called “Crank That” on YouTube which became very popular over the summer in 2007.

Although new media brings a nice platform for user to show and share their creativities; however, there are some negative aspects raised related to it as well. On the same article, the author argues that piracy lawsuits can be brought by using other’s property. Therefore, users may be very careful when selecting materials to create their new ideas.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Nowadays, technology is expanding rapidly and huge. The virtual world is an imaginary environment, where people can create a second life. It’s a very creative site, which is a nice place for interaction. People can meet more people (worldwide) in there than in their real life; they are not afraid of doing anything there. They can gain more freedoms.  

The article “At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide” talks a little story about a real life hearing case was imitated in the virtual world, Second Life. The potentials of the online virtual world are discussed by the politicians and the witnesses.  

Pros: In there, people can get anything they want such as things that they can’t afford in real life to satisfy themselves; they can also do whatever they want like working, communicating, entertaining, learning, and so on. This is a very good place to relax, get rid of the stress from the actual life.

Mark Tutton explained that organizations and companies should take the advantage of using the online virtual worlds as a tool to grow their business and communication between employees and customers. “Going to the virtual office in Second Life”. 

Cons: In my personal opinion, I don’t really like the virtual world. The reason being is that people may get used to it a lot; and they will forget about the real world. This is just like game, as people play it a lot, they will be addicted. After all, it’s only the fate world; people will have to get back to the real world. In addition, the face to face communication will be declined as more people use the virtual world online. 

As the social networking is growing, the virtual worlds are going to grow as well. In the near future, the virtual worlds are going to become more and more affordable until everyone can use it like the internet.  

Social Networking Sites

Consider this comment: “MySpace is for little kids, and Facebook is for young teenagers.”

MySpace: is the first social media site that I created an account with, when I was in high school. During that time, almost everyone in school has MySpace account. This is the reason I opened my own, and now I don’t use it anymore. In MySpace, you are able to add friends, write comments, post blogs, upload pictures, and so on.  

Facebook: Soon after I opened MySpace account, I opened a Facebook account as well. I didn’t use it much at the beginning. Yet as I became college student, I start using more. The reason is that in college, people don’t use MySpace anymore, they use Facebook mostly. You can do a lot more in Facebook such as update status, add photos and videos, play games, create groups, add friends, and etc. 

Twitter: I have heard a lot about Twitter before; but I didn’t create an account until now, which I need to open one for the class purpose. I found Twitter quite interesting. You can follow anyone easily just by doing a click on “follow”, and start discussing fun stuff by creating short tweets. I just read an article, which you can even look for jobs through Twitter. Isn’t it fascinating?

Flickr: its main use is for photos and videos. Billions of photos can be found on this site, the page is colorful. You can share and save your pictures online, once an account is created. You can also find and add more friends through Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and other social media sites.  

TWITR: Blog About Twitter

Twitter discussion: is short and brief, it’s limited to 140 characters per tweet. It’s pretty similar to a conversation between people. You can easily and rapidly to create another tweet. The discussion can be directly set toward a specific person or group, simply using the symbol @. It can be set up for public or private.

Blackboard discussion: has enough space to write anything you want, not limit on words. It’s used mostly in schools. It’s pretty much like the email. A title or subject should be created, so people who read it have an idea of what the discussion is about. Anyone within the group can read and post the comments.  

In class discussion: is the traditional way to discuss an issue. It may not be so great, that you can say anything you want, but the time is limited. Not everyone within the class has a chance to speak, or someone may not fully finish his/her thought.