The Next New Thing

One of the downfalls of all this new media is that it requires some sort of interface with an electronic device, portable or otherwise. But what if that was no longer the case? Following the trend of biochips that are increasingly implanted and used in people, imagine a new media that lives on a chip, in your body, that directly interfaces with it.

This chip can be used to get instant brain notifications from Facebook or Twitter, or even to communicate with hospitals should there be some emergency medical situation that it has sensed in your body. What about a log of your thoughts and emotions for your psychiatrist to access, for more intensive and accurate sessions with him/her? Perhaps it comes with a function that will allow your eye to act as a bar code scanner, allowing you to instantly place an order for an object in front of you. The possibilities are endless!

Our Class Wiki - So Far

As an editor for the page on how new media has affected business, I've been doing a lot of research over the past few months on this topic. My term paper was of course a more focused version of this (real estate specific), but I've also been adimently searching all the professional publications, newspapers, etc, for any interesting articles. There have been quite a few, needless to say.

I'm looking forward to seeing a more finalized page of content, for which I can use my research/acquired knowledge to edit and contribute to my classmates own knowledge and research on the topic.

About My Term Research Paper

I did my research paper on how new media has changed the way the real estate industry conducts business. As someone who works for a real estate company in midtown Manhattan, I've seen firsthand the shift to new media and how it impacts the industry as a whole.

I focused my paper on 2 main areas, real estate marketing and property management. I already had a good knowledge base to start with. Our marketing department receives many figures and professional articles/content on various aspects of digital marketing - from websites, to mobile apps, etc. Using that as my base, I continued my research via database searches on the Newman Library website. I did not realize until after all my research was complete just how much mobile and tablet devices have become the focus for many marketers. There were so many more digital marketing solutions than I had previously anticipated.

I am fortunate enough to work in the Residential Management dept of our company, which has afforded me many years of first-hand experience to the changes in property management technology. From my knowledge of service providers, I began searching professional magazines and journals online, and also via the Newman Library website/databases. In researching social media websites and solutions, I learned a great deal on how important it has become for residents. From my standpoint at work, I usually see it from the perspective of the building owner and manager. It was interesting to be able to see it from the resident perspective, and how much these residents have come to rely on such communication tools.

One of the most important results of new media on the industry is that it has helped level the playing field so to speak. Smaller companies can compete just as effectively as the large, with sophisticated, low-cost tools. Residents have also put themselves in a position of power by becoming more active and influential within their communities. The greatest effect of new media across all industries and areas of life is the wider audience and greater influence an average individual can affect.

Privacy & Confidentiality

New media poses numerous threats to a person's privacy and/or confidentiality. With new media allowing for such numerous user-generated content, it makes it difficult for someone to remain completely private. One such example (though horrible and resulting in a morbid consequence) is the Rutgers University student who was videotaped having sex without his permission. This video was then put on the internet for everyone to see. As a result of such easy video/web access, this was unfortunately broadcast much faster and to a much wider audience than old media has ever allowed.

Another aspect is easy access to various interactive websites and databases filled with user information. Facebook and other social media sites, including website dating services, are filled with user information that anyone can access. Someone can easily post your pictures or information without your knowledge, and it becomes instantly accessible across the web. Furthermore, now with such easy and constant internet presence that most people have, it is much easier for people to do Google searches or use services of internet background search providers for an in depth look at almost anyone. This includes credit checks and financial history.

While instant access and global reach is one of the greatest developments arising from New Media, it has definitely come at the cost of our privacy.

Advice to Baruch College

Baruch College, like many colleges and universities, is trying its best to stay on top of new media, and use that to foster education and community among its students. That's certainly no easy task.

Blackboard is certainly a useful tool for interactive and self-sufficient learning. Unfortunately, it's already outdated. It lacks the scaleability and modularity that many new media have. There are limited widgets and interaction with other types of services. Baruch needs to take Blackboard to the next level, or rather have Blackboard help them take it to the next level.

As an example, there is an enterprise CRM solution currently available for companies, called Salesforce. Now, this is not specifically tailored for the needs of education, but has the functionality and scaleability that I think a college would need moving forward (though it ultimately could easily be scaled for university use). It has adopted Facebook's messaging service into their Chatter feature, which looks and functions just like Facebook essentially. That is something we need to have within our online classrooms. Instead of having to manually add our classmates on our Twitter or blogs, etc., it'd be great if we could easily link the two.

Salesforce also integrates with Google apps and docs, to increase functionality. Taking advantage of the biggest, and low-cost or free providers of document and application solutions would be very beneficial to Baruch. Unfortunately, it seems Blackboard has limited capability, or at least takes a rather large investment of time and effort to allow such functionality.

Salesforce also runs a platform that allows for quick and easy deployment of custom solutions. It seems that Blackboard does not. I am not a programmer or database administrator, but yet even I was able to create custom solutions on the Salesforce platform for my work needs. Imagine the flexibility and efficiency that professors could have if they could easily deploy and customize templates/solutions for their classes, based on their specific needs. A social sciences class template, with customizable widgets, applications, etc. A different template and modules for the CIS classes, and so on and so on. Each of those templates can have Facebook and Twitter modules built in, Google Docs and Apps built in (like Google Scholar), and free modules or apps created from university users around the country (or globe) that other colleges and universities can easily use.

Finally, if we could take all that and make a mobile app that will work on iPhones, Blackberrys and Android marketplace, that would be ideal. Students on the go could easily check pertinent information on their classes while on the go.

Scaleability, easy customization, advanced functionality...all things that Baruch needs to address moving forward. Without it, it's IT systems will be in a constant (and expensive) cycle of trying to catch up with technology and the latest trends.

Twitter Discussion

For someone who vowed never to tweet too much, I found myself having fun discussing virtual worlds in our own virtual world (somewhat virtual).

While the Discussion Board on Blackboard can be helpful when talking among your classmates and professor, I found Twitter to be more useful. By adding tags, you can easily search topics that interest you, much more easily than with Blackboard. The notifications when someone replies to one of your tweets also helps you stay on top of the discussion as it progresses, and allows for more interaction as a result. However, it does not allow for such detailed discussion as on the Discussion Board, simply due to the character limit. Therefore, Twitter tends to be more helpful when sharing basic ideas/thoughts.

How does a Twitter discussion compare to a classroom discussion? Well, to be honest, I'm on the fence about that. On the one hand, being face-to-face for a discussion allows for much easier communication, especially if you're having a long, heated debate on a topic. Typing a 160 character response back and forth doesn't quite allow for such intellectual discourse. On the other hand, by allowing discussion to occur anywhere at any time, the discussion can continue on into different areas and ideas, as people are able to share them the minute it pops into their head - long after they leave the classroom or their computer (assuming you have a cell phone data plan).

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used in almost any capacity that we can think of (and I'm sure even more that we CAN'T think of at the moment). Anything from socialization, learning, training, disaster preparedness simulation, conferences, and even the military can use virtual worlds.

Increasingly, we find virtual worlds such as Second Life being used to create a virtual copy of social situations. This is the case with Naughty Auties, a virtual world for people with autism. As Simon Bignell from the University of Derby noted in a March 28, 2008 CNNhealth.com article entitled iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle Autism with virtual interaction, "For people who have social, emotional, communicational problems ... we can get them familiar with an environment before they actually try it out in real life."

Virtual worlds can also help medical students get more real-life training in simulated environments. As Dr. Ramloll noted in an April 13, 2010 Wall Street Journal article entitled Avatar II: The Hospital, "If nurse-avatars get lost trying to evacuate patients, it's clear the hospital needs better directional signs. If one hallway always gets clogged with virtual gurneys, perhaps administrators should rewrite the evacuation protocol to ease the bottleneck."

Virtual worlds can also cut costs for companies by allowing a more interactive conferencing or training experience, without the expensive costs of travel and accommodations. They can also provide a collaborative simulation for emergency situations within and outside of the government.

This of course does not mean that virtual worlds do not pose issues. This use of technology assumes that everyone has easy access to high-speed internet, which unfortunately is not the case. Additionally, having these virtual worlds now seems to be pointless for me. When we have the capability for TRUE 3D picture that actually places us in the world, walking through as a 1st person, instead of a 2nd person avatar model of ourselves, that is when we can really seek to reap the benefits of it.

We also have to be careful not to become too dependent on the outcomes or reactions in the virtual world in guiding us for how we behave in the real world. Whether situations that play out in a virtual world will unfold in the same manner in the real world will always be open to speculation. As technology becomes more interactive, our programming and modeling will become more and more prone to human error.

This of course won't keep us from "living it up" in the virtual world. Since we are not bound by real world rules, we can be as creative as we'd like. This includes everything from glamorous outfits and expensive cars, to just generally throwing out the rule book and living our virtual world the way we always wanted our real life to be. Perhaps we can all be our own Jackass characters in our virtual worlds.

As it turns out, my dad was on the right path when he said (mind you this was 8-9 years ago) that he'll only switch over to online grocery shopping when he can actually go through the aisles of the virtual supermarket and place them virtually into his shopping cart. Fresh Direct Second Life anyone?

Social Networking

Social networking sites have become a staple in both our personal and professional worlds. The uses of social networking media are endless, with great benefits, and of course risks as well.

It's a common jumping off point for dating and new relationships, even yours truly has a few ex boyfriends care of them (though I suppose their "ex" connotation doesn't fare well with my use and judgment in using it). For many people, it's a great "pre-screening" alternative to meeting a random person at a bar or nightclub. You can do some research on their activities, hobbies, network of friends, etc. At the same time, this may keep you from actually stepping outdoors and meeting new people by actually, you know, DOING something. So I suppose everything in moderation is the key.

Students use it to create their own mini network of students in their school. You can know/have a group of friends at school before ever stepping foot on campus! It's a great social support mechanism for students. However, having such easy access to a large number of students can make you more easily victimized by potential classmates. The recent tragedy at Rutgers University is a very harsh reminder of those risks.

Recruiters can peruse professional-focused websites like Linked In to find not just viable candidates, but better candidates than they could normally reach. It multiplies their network and candidate options exponentially. As LinkedIn founder Konstantin Guericke stated in a 2006 NPR article entitled Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting, "With social networking, I don't need to go to Bob directly to find out who Bob's friends are. Or Bob's friends' friends. So, effectively, I have a thousand contacts that could potentially lead me to 100,000, now I have 8,500 contacts that could potentially lead me to 4.5 million."

At the same time, both recruiters and companies can investigate potential new employees by exploring their Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, etc profiles, to get a more in-depth knowledge of these candidates. This is great for employers, but can be damaging to employment candidates. If you found yourself in a compromising photo, etc when you were 17/young and stupid, that photo can easily be lingering in social media somewhere, and permanently damaging to your reputation as a professional. Our "young and stupid" phase now has the potential for permanent consequences.

Companies use it to help employees within or across locations to discuss, collaborate, and help evolve the process of learning and decision-making. Coming up and implementing new strategies can now take a fraction of the time and effort, since they can pool together a very large network of employees. Companies can also use it to market products (we've seen countless Facebook profiles for products), get consumer feedback, etc.

Politicians, like Barack Obama, can use social media to reach a wider audience at a much lower cost, while at the same time allowing for a more interactive and up-to-date experience for followers and supporters. Instead of being fed information through quickly out-dated info, supporters find themselves getting up-to-the-minute info, being able to easily and widely voice opinions, participate and even plan events. It's the modern twist on grassroots politics. In an interesting NY Times article published Nov.9, 2008, entitled The Media Equation, How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power, Ranjit Mathoda astutely noted, "Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.”

It's hard to imagine any facet of our modern life that DOESN'T involve social media. Even government agencies have Facebook profiles/pages. So what does the future of these technologies hold for us? Perhaps one day, instead of turning on our usual, standard morning news shows before leaving for the office, we will turn on the TV for our personalized, customized, socially networked news show - content and layout completely tailored to the individual!

Check Out Social Networking Sites

Facebook, Myspace and Friendster are all great social networking sites. They have features like sending messages to friends/people, events, people you may know, friend requests, newsfeeds/status updates from friends, people in your network, etc.

Of course, Facebook is the most popular among these three sites. I feel this is in part to all the features that it pioneered. While Myspace and Friendster now has a lot of these features, Facebook set the pace for the sites.

It gained popularity by creating a truly emersive, fun, social website for people to converge and communicate with eachother. Features like chatting and games became popular with its members. Although Myspace and Friendster initially had games and applications, Facebook games tend to be more collaborative, where you can send these virtual items to friends, in many of these games/apps. Facebook also built on Myspace's status update feature by allowing members to post embedded video links (i.e. YouTube) and pictures into their status updates. Although all three allow members to control their privacy options, my Myspace profile turned into a marketing bullseye. This is why I eventually deleted my profile and just kept my Facebook profile - it was more controlled, and limited truly to just my friends.

But social networking isn't limited to just friends and your social life. Websites like Linked In help professionals network within and outside of their industry. There are standard features like those you would find in the other popular social networking sites; messages, invitations, People You May Know, Who's Viewed My Profile, and Your Network. However, there are features not found on the other sites, tailored specifically to the needs of professionals. Some of these interesting and helpful features include Jobs You May Be Interested In, Reading List by Amazon (which includes Your Reading List, Network Updates, Industry Updates) and Ads by Linked In Members. These features help professionals stay on top of important events, publishings, etc related to their field, by giving them a snapshot of what their peers in the industry (and outside of the industry) are currently doing.

Blogs vs. Wikis

In an ever more global environment, the need for remote collaboration continues to increase across all industries and organizations. With more sophisticated digital documents and media emerging in our every day and professional lives, most of us find ourselves in dire need of easy and effective collaboration tools. Both blogs and wikis serve an important role of helping people within and across various locations, groups, etc., converse, discuss, share and collaborate on any topic. Both allow for various people to discuss a topic, share documents, links and resources.

Blogs tend to be more limiting in that the layout, format and publishing is restricted to the owner(s) of a blog, and ultimately, they can claim ownership and censorship over material on the blog. Wikis allow people to edit/modify page layouts and contents more freely, and therefore allows for more versatility in terms of collaboration. This is way wikis are preferred over blogs in creating knowledge bases within a corporation or educational institution.

Both present problems within organizations in terms of controlling information, as they both allow for information to be easily and readily disseminated. Many institutions/organizations find themselves trying to balance the push towards collaboration against their current management and operational structure. As Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV stated in a Sept 8, 2009 NY Times Article entitled Pentagon Keeps Wary Watch as Troops Blog, "We as an institution still haven’t come to grips with how we want to use blogging."

Ultimately, blogs and wikis can be successful only if content is shared openly and freely. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales stated in a Harvard Business Review article, "If everyone’s afraid to modify a page on a wiki that was written or edited by senior management, what’s the point? Corporate wikis work best when management encourages everyone in the company to put forward ideas in good faith."

With organizations continuing to accept and adapt their communication and organizational structure to the needs of collaborative environments, it will be interesting to see the next wave of wiki use. We might even find ourselves using wikis to collaborate with our elected representatives in hammering out details of proposed congressional bills!

How New Media is Changing the Real Estate Industry

New Media has greatly affected the real estate industry. My project will take a particularly close look at how new media has changed the way real estate companies market and sell/rent residential properties. It will also focus on the ways in which new media help those in the industry to network quicker and more efficiently with each other, as well as helping them with easier access to educational seminars, classes, etc.

Describe New Media

Perhaps the best definition for new media can be attributed to Lev Manovich, in his article "New Media from Borges to HTML." In the article, he describes new media as, "the cultural objects which use digital computer technology for distribution and exhibition." This includes computer-generated video, websites, computer video games, CDs, DVDs, mobile phone apps, MP3s, etc.

Old media can generally be seen as forms media which previously were not reliant on computer technology. This includes magazines, newspapers, radio and TV. However video that is posted online, such as on YouTube, now become part of the new media realm, as it now available online due to computer technology.

Synagogue App on My Cousin's Phone

I sat around at the dinner table of my cousin's home yesterday in Ossining. I found myself pulled in a million different conversations, but couldn't help overhearing my 2nd cousin (who is 17) showing my great aunt (who is 82 years old) a new app she has on her phone. It's an app that helps her follow and understand Rosh Hashanah service at her synagogue.

Of course my great aunt had a hard time understanding how this works, as the whole app craze is beyond her current understanding of phones. But, I couldn't help but laugh as I thought about all the countless hours of Hebrew school and studying I had to do in order to understand all the prayers during service. Now, my 2nd cousin just has to follow along on her phone and can completely avoid any premeditated work.

I couldn't help but wonder though, did the Rabbi find this rude that she was fidgeting with her phone during his service?

Excited About This Class!

This is my first online class, so I'm very excited! This just furthers my beliefs (and complaints) each semester when I grumble, "why do I have to be here? I can do all of this online." Now, someone has heard me (thank God). I just wish Baruch had more online classes.

I am looking forward to this class. It should be rather interesting to gain some new perspective and education on our eculture.