Wiki So Far

I have not been able to add anything concrete to the class wiki thus far. However, I have done a decent amount of research and plan on adding to the economic's portion of the wiki page. Specifically, I want to address the current environment the United States.

I'm slowly learning how to effectively add to our Wiki page and I believe this information will be very beneficial because of the very unique phase our economy entered. We have been facing low growth, low inflation and low rate environment which is coupled with an overabundance of various commodities.

P2P

1) File sharing is when you transfer files from one person to another over the internet. 

2) P2P File sharing is the process of sharing and transferring digital files from computer to another. Each peer is an end-user's computer connected to the other peer through the internet. For this to work you need to download and install the P2P software programs and this is beneficially for people because it makes sharing large files easier. 

3) Some examples of P2P File sharing include napster, BitTorrent and even Skype. All of these different P2P File Sharing sites have various uses which all greatly benefit our society. 

It allows everyday people to download movies, albums of pictures, TV series, and of course the hottest songs for essentially no cost. The largest issue with P2P File Sharing is the legality of the various activities. A portion of the P2P File Sharing involve piracy and can lower the projects of many entertainment industries. An interesting point an article by Eric Pfanner from the NYT mentions the point of perspective in regards to piracy. Eric states "If you put 200 VCRs in your garage and start making and selling copies of films, you will get a visit from the police, If you do it from a Web site, everybody says, ‘Hey, freedom of information' ". 

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/technology/internet/13iht-piracy13.html?_r=0

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and Confidentiality are extremely important when looking at New Media because everything you do on the internet is essentially out there for the world to see and find. Therefore, when you signup for a new social networking platform you have to fill out a decent amount of personal information which can be vulnerable to cyber attacks. Maintaining privacy and confidentiality for all that sensitive information is getting increasingly hard and this is exemplified by all the news stories regarding loss of information because of a cyber attack. I think the biggest issue is that it is hard to erase something that is on the internet. I actually recently met and spoke with the CEO of Brand Yourself which helps everyday people bury something negative on the internet. It's an interesting process and in reality not too hard. The biggest problem with privacy and confidentiality is that although companies like Brand Yourself help bury negative things. It does not make them impossible to find or completely erased. With these concerns a lot of individuals, myself included are weary about putting too much information on new media platforms.

Advice

If I was hired to spearhead a New Media initiative I would suggest utilizing new media's various platforms in a multitude of ways to benefit the Baruch community. For example, we could establish a uniform system to help the process of recording lectures and classes. A platform which has all the videos uploaded on a specific channel and can be viewed by students who missed the class.

It would be really awesome if this extended to review sessions and also the SACC center which is a student run tutoring group. Although the SACC center is great it is sometimes hard for individuals with complex schedules to make specific meetings and with the use of new media we can provide another tool to those students that have more time restrictions.

This platform can be extended even further when thinking about the amazing events that organization's host on campus. You can learn a bunch listening to professionals or guest speakers talk about their experiences. I would definitely suggest video recordings of all of these things because Baruch is indeed a commuter school and I believe this form of new media can really provide students further access to the education they desire.

Creativity and New Media

Through New Media came the development of Virtual Worlds and video games. An extremely popular massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG) was something I played at a very young age. It took real world concepts and incorporated it into a fantasy type game that had a truly global footprint. It was a virtual world that enabled you to customize your character, gain skills to unlock new items and interact on a daily basis with people all over the world. 

I have not played in years but you can literally do anything from fishing, cooking, archery, trading as long as you have the time. 

Here are some screenshots of the game and its possibilities:

Creativity

New Media fosters creativity by opening up the opportunity for anyone in society to have an outlet and global footprint. In the reading “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of its Critters. But Why?” exemplifies the endless possibilities. Who would have thought a mash up including Disney’s famed characters and a popular song would be so popular. YouTube as a platform enables and promotes these forms of creativity, which opened up a new wave of entertainment.

This newfound platform for creativity can either be destructive or humorous. In regards to Disney’s iconic characters it can be seen as degrading which can affect its reputation. On the other hand it can promote a brand in a very unique way like how it did for SpongeBob. “Our audiences can creatively mash video from our content as much and as often as they like,” said Dan Martinsen, a Nickelodeon spokesman.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html?_r=0

Blogs: Virtual Worlds

I think virtual worlds are extremely interesting and that they can become a huge factor when it comes to the future of education. Virtual worlds can be used for educational purposes in a lot of entertaining ways. For examples there are games like Runescape and Minecraft which Diane Mehta mentioned in her Forbes article. These games can educate and teach real life theories and ideas in an interactive and appealing way. I learned the basics about the market and economy through these games and a lot about different natural resources. Another pro for these virtual worlds include the interconnected nature of these games. You can reach practically anyone around the world through these platforms which can offer exposure to a bunch of different experiences. Virtual worlds foster creativity by enabling you to literally create things from scratch. You can role play through these games and allow you to aspire to reach specific goals that interest you. I think the future of virtual worlds has an emphasis on collaboration. You want to focus on benefit of having everyone connected and the synergies that come along with that connection.

With these pros comes a lot of different cons. The first negative is that privacy and security is something that will keep skeptical people from trying. Technology can also lag where many people throughout society are slow to convert to more modern things. Despite these possible negatives I believe virtual worlds add a lot of value to our current society and will continue to gain popularity.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/11/05/second.life.virtual.collaboration/index.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dianemehta/2013/04/30/after-second-life-can-virtual-worlds-get-a-reboot/