Creativity and New Media

Back when I was in high school, online gaming was what I did everyday. Probably not the best idea, but once I get home from school, on turns my computer, on turns the game, and I play until I really need to do something else, like homework. One of the main games that we used to play was Counter-Strike. This game, very popular, was a first person shooter. A couple of my friends and I created a "clan" and played in online leagues. We met some cool people online while some not too cool, just hiding behind their computer screens and smack talking. However, it did give us a sense of community among gamers around the world.

I did make a video of some gameplay of Counter-Strike, however I did not get to finish the video as, well, we were actually not that good, and the clan disbanded soon after the video was attempted. But here is a "semi-finished" video of it. There is NO CONTENT after 1:10, unless you just want to listen to the song.

Another game that took over a big chunk of my high school career was the MMORPG Ragnarok. This game basically lets you create your own character. There are two levels that you need to level up, base level and job level. You start off as a Novice, once you reach a job level of 10, you are then allowed to chose your first "class". These classes range from a acolyte, thief, swordsman, archer, and much more. Depending on the server you play on, there can be a job changer NPC(Non playable character) that you can just talk to and you will be able to change your class or job instantly. Or in some servers, you have to do several quests in order to obtain that job change.

Every single "person" you see in this screenshot is actually controlled by a real person over the internet. It does get pretty crowded depending on the server you play on. I did however make a couple of friends in this game and we are still Facebook friends until this day. 

I also made for fun a stop motion video with two of my Gundam action figures. I took around 150 separate shots, each moving the figure a little. This was created using Windows Movie Maker.

 

I think the way games bring together the world is a pretty cool concept. There is a lot of negative opinions over these online games, like people getting so addicted to it that it is literally their life. But if you know how to balance real life and virtual life, I think there are many positive results that can be created. 

Creativity

One of the main ideas of new media is community. Community can be defined as the coming together of a group of people of a common cause. In the New York Times article "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?", they discuss a popular rap song (or you can say "dance") Crank That (Soulja Boy). This song was "mashed up" with several of the Disney characters to basically what looks like the characters singing and dancing to the song. The mash up became viral and many people around the world were able to view this video. That is what makes community, these people come together to view and talk about the video and the creativity the author possessed when they created it. Many viral videos are mash ups, and most mash ups need some kind of creativity involved. Either what two or more things to mash up, or where each one should start and end. I believe new media brings together people through a creativity process.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

     When the term "virtual world" arises, a majority of people may think of online gaming where gamers interact with each other in the same "world" or server. But these worlds actually started out as not gaming but just a place where people can create their own character and roam around the cities that were created by the programmers. One of the most popular examples of this is Second Life.
     Believe it or not, these Virtual Worlds are actually being used in the work place. According to the CNN article "Going to the virtual office in Second Life", companies now are using services like Second Life to host meetings with members that are not in the same geographic location. This idea "saved travel time" as well as create an "engaging environment" that led to more creative ideas.
     The pros for using these services, especially for companies, are mainly the money saved, time saved, and a fresh new idea that most people are probably interested in. However, cons also exist in using these services. In the same CNN article mentioned above, "Kahai says that lack of human contact can also lead to feelings of isolation". Workers can lose their face-to-face contact experience by using these services extensively.
     These Virtual Worlds foster creativity because every user has to create their own character or avatar. The users are allowed to either make it as close as a depiction to themselves as possible or maybe to something they want to be but cannot in real life. The NYT article "No Budget, No Boundaries: It’s the Real You", even though Vixie Rayna probably could not afford all the clothes that she wants in real life, she can obtain them inside a virtual world for free. This actually led to "an increase in spending during the recession" according to the chief executive of there.com.
    I think the future of virtual worlds is going to be in MMORPG gaming. I believe the non gaming worlds have decreased in popularity. One good example is the Playstation Home service. Users with a Playstation 3 can create their own avatar and roam around in the city Sony has created for them. However, this service is not something most people use everyday. MMORPG games, like World of Warcraft, however, there are many people all around the world using it right at this moment. There are the private servers where players play for free as well as the official servers that charge the players to play. In my opinion, these are much more interesting than something like Second Life where you just walk around a city.

Blog about Twitter

   After reading several comments made by students on the twitter discussion, I thought it was a pretty fun and fresh idea. It was definitely easy to read since it only contains 140 characters per tweet. However, I thought it was slightly disorganized with all the @'s and #'s. I am a twitter user but I probably never used the #'s thats why it feels a little confusing. The blackboard discussions may be a little more organized but I feel its a bit "boring". And compared to in-class discussions, twitter I think is a easy way for a, lets say, less outgoing student to bring up a point of theirs.

Social Networking Sites

    Upon viewing each social networking site (MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo), I can see many differences between each one.
    Twitter for example, is a very simple, clear-cut website compared to the other two. With only 140 characters per "tweet" or similar to a "status update", users have to get straight to the point. Of course there are services out there that gives you more characters but it actually gives a clickable link in order to view the whole "tweet". There also seems to have a lot of "bots" that follow you according to your tweets. For example, if you tweet something that has the word "technology" in it, a technology based twitter account may follow you.
    Facebook on the other hand is very different. There are many more options of what you can do on it. From games to fan pages, it is all on Facebook. You see many different advertisements of different companies on the website probably due to the large amount of users creating exposure to their businesses. Though there are so many things one can do on Facebook, the website it self seems very organized and everything is easy to find.
    Myspace, similar to Facebook, there are more things to do than Twitter. Myspace however, seems to be more music oriented with many advertisements of different artists in the music industry at the moment.
    And finally Bebo, not as popular as the other three, seems to have a combination of each. You still have a profile like Facebook and MySpace. But Bebo also has games, a mini feed that you can see right when you enter the page like Twitter, and the ability to upload media such as pictures.
    Though all of these sites has different attributes, their main goal is to connect people over the internet. Either friends, family, or even strangers, each one has a different way in doing it. Personally, I think Facebook does the best job out of the three from their easy to use website and large user base, you can almost be sure you can find the person you are looking for!

Social Networking

     When most of us think of Social Networking, the number one website that comes to mind will probably be Facebook. Though, originally created for college students, it currently has users of all age groups. "Older" people are beginning to become more internet savvy and are creating Facebook accounts. Some of you may know what I am talking about when you see one day a new friend request and it is from your parents. But is social networking just for "networking"? Can it be used in another fashion?
     Actually, they can. According to the news article "Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting", recruiters are finding social networking websites such as Facebook and a less popular one, Linkedin, to be very effective in finding the people they need and are interested in. Of course this can be the other way around. "Such sites also help job hunters market themselves online by setting up profiles, listing work history and specific skills." By creating an account, these employers will be able to find you.
     Another benefit, other than employers being able to find you for a position in their company, is the improved organization of a existing company. Twitter was originally created for employees of a company to communicate with each other. Now, of course, everyone can join.
     With everything good, there has to be something that is bad. Many people have become "addicted" to these social networking sites without even them knowing it. In the article "Is MySpace Good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum", Steve Chazin writes, "As one who was bitten early by the Blackberry bug, I can attest that the pull of these wireless electronic leashes is often too strong to resist." People just cannot let go of their mobile devices, computers, and electronics for an extended period of time. Especially with the smartphones out now that makes it so easy for one to access these sites.
     In the future, I believe these sites will be integrated in our everyday life even further. With appliances that has options to access these websites. There are already cars out now, for example the Chevy Cruze, that the driver can command the car to "read" the latest Facebook status updates as you are driving, and televisions that have Twitter and Facebook access. I believe soon, things like refrigerators, mirrors, and even tables (like the Microsoft Surface) will be able to access these websites.

Blogs vs. Wikis

     New media, it can be defined to some people as all the different ways users like you and I communicate through the internet. Information gets to users faster and more efficiently than before. Blogs and Wikis are two examples where users like us can be informed as well as inform others of what is going on.
     In the news article, "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid", it says "Most neighborhoods in Brooklyn have at least one blog — and in some places, there seems to be one in every house, every bedroom". Blogs are extremely easy and useful to inform the people that view your blog. Anyone that wants to say something on the internet can have one. The owner of the blog is able to create new, edit, and review what they want to say to others. It can be used as sort of a public diary (but of course you have the option to set it to private). There are many different types of blogging. For example, a regular text blog is one like this, where you just input text, there are also video-blogging. "Vlogging" is the term for video-blogging and is mostly uploaded and viewed on YouTube.
     Wikis on the other hand, is not as "creative" or "opinionated" as a blog. One of the most well known wikis is Wikipedia. It is basically a user generated online encyclopedia. At first glance, one may think that since it is user generated, the information on the website will never be accurate. But actually, according to the news article "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People", Wikipedia is actually starting to review the information on the website to test the accuracy of it. There is still a chance that the information may be inaccurate, that is probably why most professors will not allow references from Wikipedia. However, there are references listed on the bottom of the Wikipedia page and you can probably use those instead.
     Both Wikis and Blogs create a user friendly and easy environment for people to gather and spread information quickly and effectively. A use for Wiki that has not been done yet may be organizing a company project. There will be different sections created in order to accomplish the project and each section will be needed to update their work at the end of the day on the wiki to let the others know how their end of the project is going. With the help of wikis, it will be much easier to communicate and stay on track of what you are doing.