Social Networking

Online social networking is becoming more and more popular each day. dating, job offers, information about old friends and much more anre pursues that people seek in websites like as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, firendster, orkut etc.

These kind of websites if they are well utilized can help each person in many ways because today everything is about networking. It can be very powerfull professionally because each person is creating a connectionwith his /her field or it can help to build a careerpath. A connection with the world that will help to achieve purposes in life.

In terms of Businesses, people are very diverse so networking and having access to information is a way to help businesses to identify and and be able to provide a better service because when they are informed about people's needs, this helps to generate a better interaction with the customer that will provide a better service which will keep themhappy and so this will mantain and secure a customer in a business so both parties will be benefited.

In terms of jobs impact its also a great option for employers to reach their own needs because they have the availability to research and find their own profile based on their own requirements and people have this easy access to find and look for different options that can give them the information and so they can have an idea about the kind of job they want and see if this job will fullfill their expectations. it is very convenient not just money wise but also geographically.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1W1RNWG_en&q=online%20social%20networks&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#

Research Project: :"New Media and News Coverage"

The daily media shape our society in many different aspects by the coverage of news, politics, weather, sports, enterntainment, important events and daily media.

Outside the media networks, independent news sources have developed reports on events which escape attention or underlie the major stories. Now a days different new media sources manipulate the experiences and perceptions of people.

Media coverage during the last few years decorated the use of new media and Internet social networking tools, including Twitter and Flickr, in spreading information about any topic observing that Internet coverage was often ahead of other traditional media sources and so this caused that the traditional media included Internet's information in their reports which they didn't even verify and relied on that information provided by the internet's different sources.

The news industry still have things to learn about how news becomes news and how that affect society in the present. Editors will always have responsibility helping or not readers to understand the importance and credibility of news reports but it is inevitable that today we all are in hands of others different than ours.

Blogs and Wikis

WIKIS

• It is a stage that is meant for anyone to update in real time.
• It is updated by many people around the world.
• When an article was published matters less, because articles are supposed to be updated as new information becomes available.
• Wiki articles represent consensus, but can have an associated discussion/talk page.
• A wiki is a superset of a blog.
• A wiki can host a blog.

BLOGS

• It is like a journal.
• It could be modified whenever the author needs it.
• It is owned by an individual
• Time line is more important.
• Blogs posts are usually one person's opinions, followed generally by other's comments.
• A blog cannot host a wiki.

Old Vs. New

We can distinguish old media from new media in a very easy way:

Do you want to read the newspaper? a magazine? listen to music? shop new clothes?...well everything is available for you just with a "click" in your computer. paperless, timeless, space less! That is New Media! Old media gave you practically the same but instead of clicking you needed to go to the store to buy your magazines and your newspaper. If you didn't have time during Christmas time to buy your gifts you needed to make the time no matter what because the availability to get the gifts in the commodity of your house after ordering online was not possible.

Times as things change constantly and so the way we communicate,k The advance and change in technology facilitates and helps to exchange information and learn new things everyday.

What is New Media?

New Media....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSP8xm_gaK4

It is a term for the many different forms of electronic communication that are made possible through the use of computer technology that emerged in the later part of the 20th Century. It is in relation to “old” media forms, such as print newspapers and magazines.

New media includes:

• Website
• Streaming audio and video
• Chat rooms
• E-mail
• Online communities
• Web advertising
• DVD and CD-ROM media
• Virtual reality environments
• Integration of digital data with the telephone, such as Internet telephony
• Digital cameras

There are five critical characteristics of the new media technologies: communication, collaboration, community, creativity, and convergence.

Facebook..

According to New York Times, Facebook, by some measurements the most popular social network with more than 200 million active users worldwide, is one of the fastest-growing and best-known sites on the Internet today.
The company, founded in 2004 by a Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, began life catering first to Harvard students and then to all high school and college students. It has since evolved into a broadly popular online destination used by both teenagers and adults of all ages.
Like other social networks, the site allows its users to create a profile page and forge online links with friends and acquaintances. It has distinguished itself from rivals, partly by imposing a spartan design ethos and limiting how users can change the appearance of their profile pages. That has cut down on visual clutter and threats like spam, which plague rival social networks. In May 2007, Facebook unveiled an initiative called Facebook Platform, inviting third-party software makers to create programs for the service and to make money on advertising alongside them. The announcement stimulated the creation of hundreds of new features or "social applications" on Facebook , from games to new music and photo sharing tools, which had the effect of further turbo-charging activity on the site.
In May 2009, a Russian investment firm, Digital Sky Technologies, invested $200 million in Facebook in return for a 1.96 percent stake. The investment values Facebook's preferred stock at $10 billion, a $5 billion drop from October 2007 when Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake. With the latest round of financing, Facebook has raised about $600 million since it was founded in 2004.
At the time of Microsoft's investment in 2007, Facebook's $15 billion valuation drew criticism for being unrealistically high and a sign of a bubble in social network investments. With the new valuation, Facebook is demonstrating to its critics that it is living up to its early promise.
Facebook's rise has been marked by several controversies. Three other Harvard students maintain that they came up with the original idea and that Mr. Zuckerberg, whom they had hired to write code for the site, stole the idea and surreptitiously created a rival company. Facebook has denied the allegations; a lawsuit is pending.
Another Harvard classmate, Aaron Greenspan, asserts that he created the underlying architecture for both companies, but has declined to enter the legal fray .
In November 2007, Facebook again created a storm when it announced a new advertising system called Beacon, in which users' purchases or activities on some 40 partner sites were broadcast to their Facebook friends. Some users claimed that they were not adequately warned about the feature, and the political activist group MoveOn.org organized a protest group on Facebook, which attracted more than 70,000 members.
In December, Facebook capitulated to a key demand of the protesters by offering users an easy way to decline to take part in Beacon.
In February 2009, when Facebook updated its terms, it deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire. Further, it added new language that said Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses after an account was terminated.
After a wave of protests from its users, Facebook said that it would withdraw changes to its terms of service. Mr. Zuckerberg said that Facebook’s next revision of terms would reflect “a new approach” and would be “a substantial revision from where we are now.”