Final Essay – My New Media Ecology

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In a span of two days, I noted and observed my digital ecology. A component of an ecology is that its diversity makes it adaptive to its environment. This applies to new media since it can impact all aspects of a person’s life. New media influences the way I communicate with others. The way I behave in social media varies because there are different communities. Education is different now then it was years ago. My values and political views have changed. Also, the way I shop has become more digital than physically. New media has shaped my everyday life socially, educationally, politically, and economically.

Social media is a medium to communicate with others. I often use Tumblr, a blogging site, during my free time. It gives me an opportunity to express my thoughts, and see others’ opinions. I have made friends who have similar interests with me by following  them. I use YouTube which is essentially a video site, but it does have comments which allows me to hear about the opinions of others. I recently started using Twitter which allows me to micro-blog a message in 140 characters. I usually write about small things that happened during my day. Other than social media, I use email for school, and for personal reasons. Through email, I can chat with others, but it is not as synchronous as instant messaging.

My education has changed from communicating with my peers and professors to the way I study. Communicating with professors is more convenient. I can ask questions, or send essays to my professors through email without talking in person. Recently, I had to work on group projects. I owe a lot to Google docs because collaboration is much more easier. Based on the criteria in What is Collaboration Anyway?, Google Docs is an example for collaboration because it has a coordinating mechanism of keeping track of contributions in real-time. It is easily accessible for anyone to join because it uses email. Everyone in the group can put in their own contributions so we have a view of our work overall, and we can decide who presents what. As for studying or school work, cloud technology is useful. I use One Note to write down most of my notes. I can view those notes on my mobile device or any computer. Also, I use One Drive and Dropbox which come in handy to store documents in case I need to access them. Distance is more compressed than it ever was with collaboration and cloud technology.

Virtual communities are a way for many people in different locations to assemble in an online space which comes with different norms for a particular community. For example, in our class reading about A Teenager’s View on Social Media, a teen says that Facebook is that awkward dinner party with everyone you know, or Snapchat is pressure-free since there’s no likes or comments. I do agree with what he says. Twitter is a platform where I can write about anything that happens in my day, and that is fine. However, if I wrote all of that on Facebook constantly, people might get annoyed if they saw too much on their feed. Email has become the formal way to communicate with colleagues and coworkers. These communities do affect the way I should communicate, and it brings out different sides of my personality.

The communities I’m affiliated with online affect the way I see news on a daily basis. According to The Facebook Effect on the News, a “news” feed doesn’t actually show news; it depends on who you follow. As for me, I’m into video games so news about the newest games coming out is no surprise to me. Others who are not interested in that would not usually see that on their feed.   Sometimes I do see news I would typically see on television, but now a feed on social media is personalized to fit my tastes.

News about politics has become a big discussion on social media which influences the way I will vote in the upcoming election. This presidential campaign is known to be the first social media election. Politicians can write tweets or posts online in real-time. I’m more informed about who the candidates are, and what positions they support on issues. On Tumblr, many people support Bernie Sanders; he appeals to the younger audience. Seeing others blog about him, made me want to support him. Although social media can be biased based on who you follow because I see favorable posts of Sanders, and unfavorable posts of other candidates. However, an issue with social media in real-time is that information could be wrong. Misinformation can spread rapidly which can make a candidate lose potential votes. Candidates can gain votes if they have more media coverage. For example, Trump has supporters because of his presence in the media. Social media has made more involved in the political process. Other young voters who became more involved can actually make a difference in the upcoming election.

Besides politics, I’m more informed of problems going on in the world which changes my values and attitude. I feel compassion when I read about the problems of others around the world. I’m aware of the black lives matter movement. I may not be an active participator, but I can do small things such as spreading news through social media. I’ve learned to respect the cultures of other ethnicities and the LGBT community because I know better. I grew up with traditional parents. I did adopt their views a first, but now I feel free to have different opinions because I know there are others online who have the same opinion.

Likewise, I feel free to be creative in art and writing through new media. I see others produce creative art and videos which inspire me to not only be a consumer, but also a producer of content. I do like to draw and design. Now I can upload my art on social media and get feedback on it. Sometimes I write reviews on shows I watched, and I read other reviews. This is an example of a sharing economy because we all share content with each other.

The feedback and reviews I read on new media affect whether I will buy something or not. Lessig would call this a hybrid economy because this is a combination of a sharing and economic economy. When I buy clothes or video games, I am dependent on other reviews. I will only buy something if reviews are mostly positive. As for food, Yelp is useful when I want to choose which restaurant to eat at. I can view the menu, reviews, and other information about the restaurant.

Reviews are important, but the long tail influences what grabs my attention as a consumer. When I hear a song I like, I will search it up on YouTube. On the sidebar, I will click on related songs. YouTube profits off of ad revenue so they will provide recommendations on my homepage. These recommendations contain mainstream and unpopular music. I do get tired of mainstream music because I hear it all the time so I turn to unpopular songs since I don’t hear them often. The long tail helps me easily find things I would like through personalized recommendations.

My new media ecology shows how new media affects my communication, education, values, creativity, and consumption. Social media is a must-have in order to talk to someone else. Talking to professors is convenient, and collaborating with my class mates is possible with cloud technology. Distance feels more compressed because we are easily connected. There are different rules and norms in virtual communities so I follow them. News is more personalized for me. I am more involved in the political process and ongoing issues with social media. I can be a producer of content. My consumption is influenced by reviews and recommendations. From my new media ecology, I can conclude that new media has a big presence in all aspects of my life. It has made things more convenient, and I feel more interactive than passive.

Reading Summary 3: Virtual Reality

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Have you ever wanted to go anywhere in the world, but in the comfort of your living room? That’s right, virtual reality can do so. Virtual reality is a computer simulation of a 3D environment where one can interact with it like it were real. Virtual reality is still at its beginning phases. There is the Oculus Rift VR headset that allows a person to be “transported” in the virtual world. It’s capable of a 360 degree full view and motion sensor. Also, there’s Google cardboard that’s a viewer for mobile apps. My prediction for virtual reality in the future is that it will be more immersive in today’s society by changing our shopping experience, entertainment,  and how we behave.

The way we shop can be transformed by virtual reality. As for interior design, customers can use Decorilla to see a virtual simulation of a room redesign (Murphy). According to Three ways virtual reality will transform customer experience, customers can see how products will look on them using a try-on app. Glasses.com has an app that creates a 3D rendering version of a person’s face, and they can see how different glasses will look on them. The article also mentions a futuristic concept that customers may browse through a virtual representation of a store from their homes. Customers could browse through aisles, inspect products, make purchases, and talk with virtual store employees which could be bots or simulations of employees. I think that online shopping will include virtual reality components so we can see the products in 3D rather than still images, and perhaps a virtual store is possible in the future.

Some of the entertainment business of music and sports are starting to integrate virtual reality. An app called TheWave is considered to be a virtual concert. DJs can mix music in virtual reality, and listeners can jump to different virtual venues to find the DJ they like. As for sports, the Professional Golf Association is experimenting with virtual reality cameras so viewers can see a full view of the game. In this YouTube video, there is an option to move the camera around. Not only is this something new for sports, but I think it’s a new step for YouTube videos in general to incorporate VR cameras.

Virtual reality can change the way we behave towards others. CBS News’ article, How virtual reality can change how you act toward others describes virtual reality as an actual experience, not just a media experience. In virtual reality, someone can be another by changing their gender or race. This empathy can change how we act towards others. We can experience trauma first hand which can reduce prejudice. I believe that this virtual reality could be used for mental rehabilitation, or for psychological research. However, a problem that arises is that people may like their virtual reality self more than their actual self. It’s much more interactive, and it could be more addicting than video games.

In the future, I think virtual reality will be integrated more in our lives, ranging from shopping, entertainment, or mental rehabilitation. Although, I think that it’s not popular now. Virtual reality is mostly starting up from video games which is a small portion of the overall population. The singularity of virtual reality may happen slowly once more big companies join in from different aspects of life. Then someday it could be the norm that people use.

 

Pandora

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Pandora is a personalized internet radio. Users can search up a song, artist, or genre, and there will be a personalized station related to that song. Your personalized station can be modified by putting a thumbs up or a thumbs down on a song. In December 2013, Pandora made $489.34 million dollars from advertising revenue. What I found interesting is that Pandora is not global; it is only available in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. I like using Pandora because I find music by artists I’ve never heard of before. Also, I like that it includes not only music, but also comedians as well.

SoundCloud

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SoundCloud is a social music platform where anyone can upload and share music from anywhere. Sounds can easily be shared to other social media sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare. SoundCloud was originally founded in Sweden in August 2007 by sound designer Ljung and artist Wahlforss. Some interesting statistics about SoundCloud are that there are 175 million monthly listeners, 10 million music creators, and 100 million+ tracks. I like using SoundCloud because I can find related songs easily by creating a station of the song I like. Then it will have a playlist of similar songs. Also, I like that users can comment on certain part of the song and the comment can be viewed as the song progresses.

Reading Summary 2

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Recently, startup companies are competing in the market for being the “Uber for children.” Parents work full-time, and they need to find a way to get their children to school or back home during their busy schedules.

The article, “Ride-Hailing Start-Ups Compete in ‘Uber for Children’ Niche” by Eilene Zimmerman, discusses the different startup companies that have trusted drivers who will pick up children and bring them to their destination. Uber and Lyft don’t specify in picking up children or minors so there is an opening in the market. Niche markets for driving have been done before such as Lift Hero which provides rides to older customers. Children are the next newest trend. An example of this start-up is Zum. It provides babysitting and also rides for children ages 5 – 15. As of now it has funds of over $1 million and it provides 150 – 200 rides a day (Zimmerman). Another company is Kango which started as a carpool for parents and their children in neighborhoods. However, due to customer feedback, the company changed its model by providing non-shared rides and babysitting services.

On the other hand, “HopSkipDrive, The Uber For Kids, Picks Up $3.9 Million In Seed Funding” by Jordan Crook focuses on the success of the startup, HopSkipDrive. The company allows parents to set up scheduled pick up times for their children with trusted drivers. The children can identify their driver with a picture and a code word. Parents can track the ride in real-time using the app.

These articles relate to our class reading about start-up companies. According to “What is a Startup?“, “a startup is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed” (Robehmed). In this case, these companies that are the Uber for children are startup companies. The problem was that parents had difficulties with finding ways to drive their children to where they need to go because they are busy themselves. Having a driving service just for kids could be the answer. For HopSkipDrive, parents can trust the drivers because of thorough background checks. With the other company, Kango, success wasn’t guaranteed. Their carpool idea didn’t satisfy all their customers. So with customer feedback, they changed their business model. Startups are basically the beta testing phase where feedback is needed in order to improve and become profitable in the future. These are companies that are just starting out. They branched out from Uber’s concept and focused on a more specific market. Their revenue is around $1 million, but once they grow, they will no longer be a startup.

I think that unicorn companies are the role models that startup companies aspire to be. In both current event articles, Uber, a unicorn company, was mentioned multiple times. Even describing these companies, one would say they are the “Uber for kids.” The Economist’s article, “The Rise and Fall of the Unicorns,” said that unicorn companies are startup tech companies that are valued at $1 billion. It also mentions that Uber is one of the successful unicorn companies that will not have any trouble raising new money. This is a reason why startup companies such as Zum, Kango, and HopSkipDrive have begun operation. They see that Uber is successful so they want to be similar to Uber but differentiate themselves. The flaws that Uber have are that they don’t pick up minors alone and that it doesn’t appeal to parents. However, the new startup companies can be the solution to those problems.

 

HTML and CSS Experience

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I want to say that I learned HTML and CSS before this on my own and for another class. Both these coding languages got me interested in learning other languages such as JQuery, javascript, and C++. With my first experience with HTML I learned about the skeleton of how web pages work. Everything needs a tag such as paragraphs, links, and images so it could work. It is very importantly that they are closed properly so the code doesn’t mess up. Something new I learned is that other coding languages are embedded in HTML; I wasn’t sure how they connected before. CSS is what really makes the web page look appealing. Every element has their own div which can get a bit confusing if you want to style a div in another div.

Dropbox Current Events & Reading Summary 1

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The article I read was Fancy an Anti-Piracy Threat…. To Your Dropbox Email Address? It was about that an anti-piracy company called BREIN sent emails to people involved with sharing eBooks privately through Dropbox. BREIN obtained a court order against a man who granted access to his copyrighted eBooks on internet forums. His fine was 50,000 euros. BREIN found out who was involved since the Dropbox account of the man had their emails. So BREIN sent emails to those Dropbox users, saying that “your email is visible to third parties” and that they were downloading copyrighted content from an illegal source. These scary emails worked because sharing emails through the forums almost stopped.

Some of Manovich’s 8 principles of new media can apply to Dropbox. Manovich’s fourth principle was that new media is old cultural conventions mixed with software. The old cultural convention was to physically see a document or picture by giving it to someone. However, with Dropbox, that document can easily be accessed anywhere. Furthermore, emailing files back and forth was the old, but Dropbox allows a group of people to share a space for files that can be updated automatically. Another principle is the fifth one which says, “it will ‘destroy the natural relationship between humans and the world'” (Manovich: 5). Dropbox does eliminate the distance because anyone with internet can go on Dropbox and see their files. It’s cloud storage so it’s accessible all the time. Collaboration of editing files with people from different locations is possible.

Dropbox does have some of O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 characteristics. It uses collective intelligence because businesses and companies can share files. So having more users is who it’s mostly catered to. Although, it is fine to use Dropbox for yourself without sharing. Dropbox can be used on more than one device such as desktop application, going to the website, or using the app on a mobile device. It’s user-friendly since it’s easy to use. On desktop a user just needs to put files in the folder and it’s in the cloud.

Rozenweig and Castells mention ideas that contribute to the historical development of Dropbox. Rozenweig explained how ARPANET managed to connect computers together. Dropbox users can connect together by their email addresses. Now sharing and connecting with one another is so convenient. Castells said that technology was not a random occurrence; we make better technology to fix problems of the time. Co-founder of Dropbox, Drew Houston, repeatedly forgot his USB when studying at MIT which inspired him to solve this problem. He developed a cloud storage so he could access his files from anywhere.

Dropbox was built using Python as its primary coding language. The problem when building Dropbox was that each platform required different programming tools so the same code had to be written multiple times. However, Python allowed the code to be written once so it could run everywhere. Additionally, the engineering team tested Dropbox on platforms such as Windows, Macintosh, iPhone, and Android.

Dropbox has characteristics of social media. The generated content are the files a user uploads. As seen from the article, anyone can participate by providing their email address. The service is free and it is always online. It is highly interactive since most people go on to upload or download the content.

I think that Dropbox exemplifies the “eversion”. For example, my friend asked me to share my PDFs with him. I tried to upload it through email as an attachment, but the files were too large. So I immediately went to Dropbox because I knew it could hold large files. Dropbox has become the place we go to so we can send our files to someone else. Also, I see that Dropbox is integrated into other apps such as “PDF Expert.” I can edit my PDFs using my Dropbox account. Maybe Dropbox is involved with more third parties so it is becoming more present in our lives.

Castells is in favor of technological determinism which is that technology controls us. I think that Dropbox has some control, but not to the point where we are dependent on it. It makes life more convenient by providing an easily accessible cloud storage, but that doesn’t completely replace traditional methods like using a USB. It only replaces email when a file is too large. There are also competitors such as Google drive or Onedrive. Businesses and companies can be dependent on it because it’s a centralized space for their files.

Dropbox

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When and where was the company or tool created, developed, launched?
Dropbox was created in June 2007, but it officially launched in 2008 at TechCrunch50 which is an annual technology conference. It is headquartered in San Franciso, California.
https://www.quora.com/How-was-Dropbox-created

Who is responsible for creating it? If several people are vying for the title of inventor, explain this here.
Dropbox was co-founded by MIT students, Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. Houston repeatedly forgot his USB flash drive when he studied at MIT. He had experienced problems with internet lag and large files. Ferdowsi helped him start up the company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_(service)

What is the purpose of this tool/company? How is it used?
Dropbox is basically a cloud-storage service. Users can store files such as photos, videos, documents, and files. They can be retrieved and accessed through the site or the app on a mobile device.

Who uses it? How many consumers/users/subscribers? Demographics? Specific geographic areas?
Dropbox has about 200 million users and 4 million businesses. According to Geek.com, 32 percent of users are from the U.S. By platform, 66 percent of users are windows only users. According to Alexa.com, there are more female than male users, majority are college students, and browsing location is mostly from work.
http://www.geek.com/news/dropbox-reaches-4-million-users-shares-some-stats-1095172/
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/dropbox.com

How is this tool monetized? How do the owners make money?
Dropbox makes money with subscription services. It uses a freemium model which means that the basic service of 2 GB of space is free, but an upgrade for 100 GB of space costs money. For one user it costs $10 per a month. Up to five users can use Itan account which would cost $15 a month.
http://vator.tv/news/2014-01-23-how-does-dropbox-make-money

How have companies and organizations used it as a marketing tool?
Companies use Dropbox to share information within the company. Their data can be private and updated in real time. Small businesses use it as a tool to deal with customers and contractors.

If possible, cite an example of this tool used successfully for communication or marketing.
A company that was satisfied with using Dropbox was a fashion design company called BCB Max Azria Group, LLC. Before Dropbox, they had to share designs through physical paper which can get hefty. They were happy with using Dropbox because they could easily share their digital PDF designs through Dropbox. Large files can be shared to their clients.
Dropbox. (n.d.). Dropbox Business helps BCBGMAXAZRIA, LLC make couture style accessible every day. Retrieved from Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/business/customers/case-study-bcbg

What are this tools most important contributions to society? Why is it important?
Dropbox is important to share large files to those who are far away. It can be used as a backup to store files in case one loses their original files. It’s much easier to share information within a business. Users can access it from anywhere. Dropbox was one of the first companies to have cloud storage. So their contribution to society was to introduce a new way to share files.

What are the controversies surrounding or involving it?
Dropbox has controversies involving security. Some users were concerned that Dropbox would give away their information to law enforcement. Dropbox is aware of the concerns and they are trying to keep their customers’ data secure. Dropbox manages the encryption keys, but customers are free to manage it themselves. The problem is that if a customer loses their encryption key then Dropbox has no way of decryption. In other words, Dropbox can’t help the user recover their data.

Would you use this tool in the future? Would you recommend using it as a part of an organization or company’s social media efforts and under what conditions?
I would use Dropbox if I was involved with a company that used it. For a job it would be important to share files online with coworkers. I would not share personal information such as passwords, social security, etc. Personally, I would not use it to store my own files. I use Onedrive on MSN to store my files. So I don’t really see myself switching to a different cloud storage.