Question 2

Different social media sites have been increasing in the past few years. Without a doubt the largest of these sites is Facebook. According to an article that I read it was not until 1997 that the Internet reached fifty million users in the United States. Between January 2009 to January 2010 Facebook gained over 100 million users. In a sense it is almost scary to think of how fast social media sites are taking over the Internet. I believe that in a way these different sites are allowing people to expand or identities and in a way even be someone that we are not. This can be both good and bad though. Someone can pretend to be a nice beautiful your girl, when they are really a fifty year old pedophile. People can learn more about someone through their facebook page then they could maybe even learn through meeting them in person. I tend to feel that many people can act very differently in person then they do on facebook. Facebook does not allow for certain things such as sarcasms or certain emotions.

     In the same article mentioned earlier I found a list of questions to ask yourself when signing up for the many social media sites out there. Some of these questions included; What am I using this site for? Whose attention am I trying to get?  When signing up for a facebook or a twitter account one must be very careful to think who is going to be seeing my personal information. You personally information is now in the open and people can see it and comment about it. This leads to a lack of not having personal space. So many people will often post what they are doing as their status. For example as status could reading, “Going to the movies tonight” or “Getting drunk tonight with my besties”. The simplest way to keep some of your personally space is to not post statuses such as those I just listed. Personally I will occasionally put up a status that describes what I am doing or maybe how I am feeling, but also I will post a status of maybe a music lyric that I like, or something that made me happy that day.

     I am not trying to say that I do not like facebook and that I do not like my personal information being out there I just don’t like that there is indeed a sense of no privacy. I could post a status and a minute later it could multiple “likes”. I do however believe that some of this “invasion of privacy” is necessary to be able to use these sites and be the media- obsessed race that we have become. I think what many people don’t realize is that lives can be changed a result of these social media websites. As it showed in the video many couples have met over the internet even if it is indeed not facebook it could be something such as World of Warcraft, which is also another huge online game where u can enjoy the fun of a game and socialize with people across the country and the same time. If I had the opportunity to meet my future wife on the internet and meet some of my new best friends on the internet they I would gladly give up some of my personal indentity.

    

http://www.inc.com/guides/using-social-networking-sites_pagen_2.html 

Social Media Web 2.0 and Transparency in Social Media Questions

1. I personally don't that professional advertisements will continue to drop. Advertising is still such a large part of the media and there will be always advertising. Though i do think advertisement will continue to decrease i do think professional production will remain a large part of advertising. I fell that "homegrown" advertisements contains many flaws and sometime only appeals to a certain group. Professional are trained specifically to advertise and therefore know how to appeal more to all groups.

2. The social media site that i use the most is now a days is by far Facebook. Facebook i feel is the most convenient and the easiest networking site to use. For a long time i was an avid user of myspace, but as Facebook slowly began to creep up in popularity i realized how much better, more efficient, and more secure facebook is. Facebook has allowed me to keep up with my current college friends as well as reestablish contact with kids i went to grammar school with. Everything from the facebook chat to the news feed make keeping in touch with friends easier then it ever has been. Though myspace does have all of these features now facebook was the first to develop them. Now a days most of my friend don't even check their myspace, if they even have one. I personally only use myspace to check out and keep up with bands as i am a huge fan of music. Facebook is  and i feel will remain the largest network sight for quite sometime.

3. Transparency is a major issue in the media i think. Transparency can lead to misinterpretation of certain issues as well as even fraud. There is so much more of a margin for error. When things such as audits and finacial disclosures are done over the internet i always feel that it can lead to bad things happening such as the stealing of funds and tamporing with information. Transparency also i feel can distort the perception of something and make is sound so much better then it is. Advertising companies will use tactics like this all the time. They will try and hype up their product and often times the product will not be as good as it shows in the advertisement. People are blind to all the faults that come with methods like this.

McLuhan Photoshop Final Post

     Since the dawn of the age of the smartphone people can do some much more on there for then ever thought before. I believe that these smart phone have become so popular that in a few years "old school" phones like this would be a dead technology. The content of the iphone would be: apps, text, phone, internet, and more. I believe the message that McLuhan would say is that since the development of the iphone and other smart phones everything revolves around apps. There are apps for everything. There are even apps for different bands and things just as flashlight.  There is no longer such thing as a cord phone with the large number buttons. 

     What I was trying to get with this image is that phones have evolved greatly. The Iphone can contain multiple different apps that can make it easier to communicate. For this I decided to swap the numbers on a normal phone for different apps that are often seen on the iphone. These apps include: Itunes, Texting, Facebook, a camera, Youtube, Safari (Internet Browser), calculator, schedule, maps, clock, weather, and settings. In addition i also added the logo for Apple to make it easier for the people to se that this is suppose to represent the Iphone. 

McLuhan Photoshop rough draft

   I was able to finish most of this project last  night so therefore this and my final copy might look very similar, if anything there might only be a few adjustments nothing major.

New Mediums

1. Snapfish

Content: Photographs, text, some html.

Message: I think the whole purpose of this website is a cheap and easy way to develop and share photos. I have not personally used this website, but my mom uses it religiously. This website allows you also email certain photos to people. Once pictures are uploaded you can view each picture and check which ones that you want to order. You can also create slideshows that you can send to people so they can view all your pics without having to search through them.


2. Itunes

Content: Music, Movies, TV shows,  Apps, Podcasts, Audiobooks, Social networking. 

Message: The message of Itunes I feel at first was to give people an easy way to organize their music and  occasionally purchase songs. Since developing it has evolved tremendously. It is no longer just a easy way to organize music. It is a way to buy music, and not just music but other forms of media. Togather with ipods and other mp3 players, Torrent sights and mediafire CDs are old technology. 

3. Google

Content: Text, HTML, Links, Pictures, Books, News.

Message: I feel Google is one of those websites that has completely changed the internet. People can easily go on Google search anything and instantly there can be billions of hits. You can search images on Google. For example to find the logo for Google I typed in "Google logo" into Google images and was able to find a picture of the logo. You can find new articles, exerts from books, you can even view a map of a certain city on Google.