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.