Ben Klein CIS 3810 Blog

New Media can foster new creativity in many ways. For example, according to the New York Times article titled, "Disney Tolerates a Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" we see that the internet has been used in ways such as Youtube to make parodies of famous content. Another way is mashups, where people copy famous songs and put them in a video with some sort of cartoon, song or other form of content. While some might argue that these parodies could be copyright infringement, some also argue that they are fair use. For example, Disney is more guarded with how they manage copyright infringement, but Nickelodeon has been more open about letting these parodies be on the internet, saying that some of these parodies are fair use of their content.

For my creative post, I decided to upload a short video to YouTube. I was on my way to Baruch, when I decided to record some of the sights and sounds of the NYC Subway system. Link: https://youtu.be/NUY7Ro7-5O8

Virtual Worlds are an interesting concept. They offer a new route of creativity. One way that this is true is that you can experience an almost exact replica of the world you live in, and you don't even need to leave your own home. According to the New York Times article, " I've Been in That Club, Just Not in Real Life", the example of VLES is talked about. VLES stands for Virtual Lower East Side. It recreates details of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, such as a Katz's Delicatessen with neon lights and someone's apartment on Avenue A. Another route of creativity is using virtual worlds in schools. According to the article, "The virtual world moves into the classroom", schools have been using virtual worlds to do things like take virtual field trips to places and creating virtual reality products. These uses of virtual reality have been considered to be the future. "This is the technology that is taking off... in our world right now," Ma...

When you look at ways to have class discussions, the three methods of Twitter, Blackboard and in-class are all very interesting methods to use. The Twitter discussion is the newest form of discussion, but I don't believe it's the most effective in getting your message across. You only have 280 characters to say something, and not everyone could be using Twitter daily. Therefore, they might not see your message or they might not understand a general description of it. Blackboard is better because it's more detailed, and there's more of a direct place to go and see people's posts on what they think about a certain topic. In-class discussion, however, might be the best form because everyone is gathered together in the same place and is able to explain their own opinions. People can have an open and honest discussion by directly listening and talking to each other.

Social networking sites have their own unique characteristics. Between Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, there are many qualities that make each site/app unique. Facebook organizes its options on a menu that's on the left of the user's screen. Compared to Instagram, there is no menu of options. It is only pictures, a search bar and people's stories. Snapchat has stories as well, but the whole social network is accessible by phone. Whereas Instagram gives you multiple platforms to check your pictures and stories. Twitter is very similar to Facebook, with a central newsfeed, a small menu at the top of the screen including notifications and a list of what's trending on the side of the user's screen (Twitter has its list on the left, Facebook on the right). Each network (except for Snapchat) is accessible by webpage and application. It's interesting to note all the details that make up each social network to see why people like them. 

Social networking has been one of the most revolutionary inventions of the 21st century. It has provided many benefits, but also many negatives.  Among the positives are that these networks provide voices to people. Anybody can log onto sites like Facebook and Twitter and then express their own opinions. This has helped with organizations such as political campaigns. According to an article from the New York Times titled, "How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks' Power",  former president Barack Obama effectively used social networking during his initial run for president in 2007. He used the power of social networking to bring millions of people together to vote for him in the 2008 presidential election. One of the negative effects of social media networks is privacy. According to the Wharton Business School article, "Leaving 'friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security", social network sites have made a huge i...

Blogs and Wikis both serve important purposes in today's society. Wikis have started to become more of a factor in the concept of "Web 2.0". Wikis are used by companies such EMC, according to the article, "More On How to Build Your Own Wikipedia". EMC is an information technology company that claims that Wikis have had an impact on how their company functions. For example, one team within the company chose a wiki so that each team member could add the most up-to-date information on one of their projects. This increased how quickly the team could complete the project, and they applied the wiki format to other projects 3 years later. Blogs, like Wikis, have proven to be very influential. Several blogs were launched at the beginning of the 21st Century, and today, they continue to be among the most influential ones out there. Some of these blogs, according to the article, "How Can We Measure The Blogosphere?" include  Boing Boing , Talking Points Memo ,...