Next New

There's currently a plethora of new media services out there that do everything from A-Z, so coming up with one is not easy.

Personally, I think a service that would benefit me the most would be a Digital Rolodex. A rolodex is a tool that someone would have on their desk that would contain the names of all their professional connections, service providers, family, and friends, coworkers, etc. This is something akin to LinkedIn, but not just strictly related to professional connectivity and networking.

This would be something along the lines of a database of people, tailored to you. The people you put in the database would have to be manually added there, and would be categorized by you: so family would have the "Family" tag, and your local plumber would have the services tag. Normally, it would be done in alphabetical order if it were physically on your desk, but this is digital, so you can sort it by any metric you want.

The database would be search-able via text box and filter-able as well. You'd also be able to search via SQL (a database is meant to be searched this way to begin with, and you can really narrow down the results quickly).

P2P File Sharing

P2P Sharing is the process of downloading a file while simultaneously uploading portions of the file to other users. The most simple way of explaining it is that you don't need to have a server or connection to a website to being downloading files. All you'd need in the connection to your friends computer, which would open a path directly from his/her machine to yours without a middleman.

The basic premise of P2P very simple. Let's say your friend has a 500mb file that he wishes to share with 10 people. He would start a torrent with himself uploading the file. The torrent client (BitTorrent is the most famous one, for example) would split the file into different parts and upload a different part to each persons machine. This is called Seeding. Then the other users, the ones who are trying to download the file, would simply download the different parts simultaneously from each other. This is called Leaching. Together, they form a comprehensive network that relies on one another to sustain itself. If one user falls through, the structure is broken unless original user is still seeding the file...then the torrent client would go and retrieve the lost portion. P2P Sharing isn't always the best form of getting a file from A to B: "If two peers try to swap a compressed copy of Meet the Fokkers – say, 700 megs – the recipient will receive at a speedy 1.5 megs a second, but the sender will be uploading at maybe one-tenth of that rate. Thus, one-to-one swapping online is inherently inefficient." (Thompson). This problem is largely non-existent in today's world as most ISPs do not throttle upload speeds when compared to download speeds. Generally speaking, you should be getting what you pay for and no less. For example, my family pays Verizon for 35mb/s download and 35 mb/s upload.

Most people use P2P to download and upload movies and music. Since there is no middleman, the sharing service is entirely up to the users who are doing the sharing. Those with a better internet connection get the most out of the service as they can download things the fasted. In return, they can also upload the files faster as well.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

My current contributions for the class wiki are as follows:

1.  To the Social Engineering page - All of the information that is currently there was written by and researched by me. Social Engineering is something that I was warned about at my previous job - we were told to be very careful about our interactions with all company related items as to not let any information leak outwards. 
2. Minor grammatical errors/typos fixed on other pages elsewhere.

Before the end of the semester, I'd like to make a significant contribution to another wiki page that is already established and researched.

Privacy in New Media

With the influx of new media usage over the years, questions about the privacy afforded to us by the tech companies have come about. Just to create an account, you usually need an email or sometimes a phone number which must be verified. More commonly, you'd need to give away your first and last name.

There are some sites that ask for much more information, although not mandatory. Facebook is the best example: it asks for you work information, address, birthday, relationships, friends, etc. There is very little information that Facebook won't accept, and it's raised concerns that the company has too much information on the general public. Leaks, hacks, or even Facebook willingly selling/sharing the information of it's users are common concerns.

As users, we can mitigate this risk by limiting the amount of information that we put on social media sites. If it isn't required, then don't input it.

Advice

Brooklyn College has made good use of new media over the last few years. Currently, they are using Facebook as their primary account, however they also have Twitter and Instagram accounts set up.

They make heavy use of Facebook, where they post news, pictures, and other information related to the college. However, scarce use of other forms of media are utilized. I personally feel that it's better if they use more forms of media to get the word out about BC. Not everyone has a Facebook account, or remembers to check the BC website for current events - so it makes sense to have more than one active account.

The BC Office of Communications is one of the most well funded offices at the college. I don't feel that it would be terribly difficult to spread out the social media accounts a little bit more.

How I use Creativity and New Media

One of the subtle ways that I used creativity to make my friends laugh and showcase my personality is my Facebook profile picture. For the longest time, I had it set to a fairly boring picture of myself. It wasn't a bad picture my any means, but it was typical.

To switch gears for a moment, I love Legos. I grew up with them and spent countless hours building and playing with them as a kid. I don't play with them as much as I used to of course, but I still collect some of the larger, more complex sets with thousands of pieces.

So I decided to update my profile picture to something a little bit more fitting....

The Original

The LEGO Daniel

The Halloween Special

I am not responsible for the actions of LEGO/Zombie Daniel.

Creativity

The surge of new media in the last few years has given rise to internet based creative content. New Media provides a fantastic outlet for the artistically inclined as it provides a blank canvas for the mind to run free.

One of the things that draws people to new media is the anonymity of the internet. You can choose to tell people who you are - or you can keep that to yourself. If you really wanted to, you could be someone that you aren't and no one would be able to tell the difference. It's this facelessness that lets people be free and open about what they write, draw, and create.

Something else that draws people to new media is the easy accessibility - all you need is an internet connection and you can start contributing. This means it's easy to add your content to the internet and get it out to all your friends, followers, etc.

Lastly, the internet is sort of like an unlimited canvas. You can add as much content as you want and (depending on the site you use) post it as many times as you want.