Creativity and New Media

This is a photo of the house i created in the video game called Minecraft. This house was created by many blocks that are of different materials. I constructed this house with materials such as glass, wood, and cobblestone. In order to get these resources I had to mine them then craft them into usable material. For example for the parts of the house that is made of wood, I had to cut trees to get raw wood, then craft them into wooden planks so that they can be used to build the house.

In this game you are free to trade and share resources with other users in the game. You also interact with the other users in real time. In order to build this house I had to watch video tutorials on YouTube to learn, where I needed to go for the materials, how much I needed, and what combination of materials gave me what I needed to construct my house. Even though YouTube helped me learn the basic concept of building the house I had to use my own creativity to design the house and make it the way i wanted it to be. This is just one example of how new media such as Minecraft can foster creativity in it's users by allowing them the freedom to build anything their imagination can come up with and share it with other users in this virtual world.

Creativity

Through the use of new media creativity is at an all time high. The use of new media fosters creativity because new media gives the user many new windows to exercise their creativity. One example of new media fostering creativity can be shown through the many mash-ups that are on the video sharing network called YouTube. YouTube consists of videos that are user uploaded for mass viewing.

One of the mash-ups that are on YouTube is a mash-up featuring video snippets from "Winnie the Pooh" and audio from the song "Crank That" by Soulja Boy. This video shows how users are able to combine different video and audio content into an creative work, called a mash-up. Even though new media can inspire creativity it can also create other legal and copyright issues.

In the article titled, "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?", by Brooks Barnes, she addresses the issue of   the legally and copyrights to the creative content uploaded by users. Barnes notes that Nickelodeon has a $1 billion piracy lawsuit pending against Google, the owner of YouTube, because of a mash-up that was uploaded featuring characters from Nickelodeon's TV shows. Barnes also goes on to elaborate that, "Disney’s view is starkly different: any unauthorized use of Disney property is stealing"

Even though new media such as YouTube can foster creativity in the user, there are some things that need to be looked at more carefully, such as this issue on copyrights and content piracy. My beliefs are that if the uploaded content is worked on by the user,and uses the content strictly as a platform to show their creativity then there shouldn't be a problem.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

There are many possibilities of how virtual worlds can be used. Some different ways that virtual worlds have been used are for entertainment, telehealthcare, and replicating real world environments. 

One way that virtual worlds are being used for entertainment is through the video game called "Minecraft." Minecraft is a virtual world that is built by blocks like LEGOS. This game is extremely popular with children and as described by Diane Metha in her article titled "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?" children get to roam around this virtual world without boundaries. In her article she mentioned that children in the 1950's played with other children on their block but in today's world the "roaming radius" of children has shrunk to less than one block. These virtual worlds such as Minecraft give children the ability to roam free and explore. 

One way virtual worlds are used in telehealthcare is by Jacki Morie. In an interview with Metha, Morie describes how he has constructed a virtual world for veterans which he calls a "psychological healing space." One example that Morie uses is an Iraqi village with artificial intelligent characters that interact with the solider's character. The environment is constructed from pictures of real life environments and the objects in the virtual world are built and scripted for interaction with the solider. 

Replicating real places is also popular in virtual worlds. In the article by Saki Knafo titled " In room 100, its Sid and Nancy All Over Again" Saki talks about how Michael Brown reconstructed the Chelsea hotel on SecondLife. Brown created this virtual replica because the management for the hotel changed and some of his favorite features of the hotel were removed. He took it in his own hands to build the hotel virtually the way he remembered it and then contacted Ed Hamilton,a resident of the hotel, who put a description of the virtual hotel on his blog. Brown's replica of the hotel contains the artwork from the hotel, and even added a little twist to Room 100. 

Virtual worlds comes with many pros and cons. One of the pros that can be seen is the telehealthcare benefits. Virtual worlds can help returning soldiers overcome PTSD. Virtual worlds can be used to replicate what actually happened to the soldiers in action and pinpoint exactly what is causing the PTSD. Also virtual worlds can help children build creativity and communication skills. Through games such as minecraft children can work together with other children can collaborate and learn teamwork skills. This can help children improve their leadership skills and creativity. 

Some cons of virtual worlds that i can think of are that they can be used for the wrong purposes. Criminals can model structures and run training operations virtually on how to get into certain buildings. Another con of virtual worlds are that it can cause children to stay at home all the time. This can lead to a lack of exercise and increase in obesity rates. 

Virtual worlds foster creativity because everything that needs to go into the virtual world must be created by the creator. The creator has to incorporate how the objects in this world will act with the user and also they must draw from their imagination and creativity how these objects will look like. Also in the game Minecraft all the resources that are available are in the form of blocks. In order to make items such as doors or torches or swords, the player must mine the proper resources and then craft these items in a crafting block. For example in order to make a torch, they must mine coal for the fire and they must harvest wood for the handle.  

I think the future of virtual worlds will be very similar to what the real world looks like. With the technological breakthroughs in graphic rendering, objects in virtual worlds can be made three dimensional and also life like. Programmers will be able to create neighborhoods and even cities to replicate real neighborhoods and cities to exact detail. 

Blog About Twitter

A discussion on twitter is more lively and interactive than any discussion I've seen on blackboard or in-class. Since everything is in real-time on twitter you get a response right away after you post something. It's also easy to see the dialogue that is exchanged during the discussion because you tag the person you're responding to with @. Also it makes talking about different topics easier because you can differentiate topics by simply using a hash tag.

Twitter makes discussions more organized and easy to follow. Everything is timestamped and we know who is responding to who with the tags. It also allows you to re-tweet each others tweets and share multimedia such as links and photos. Also having your answers be limited to 140 characters really challenges the responder to condense their responses and make a strong point without adding any useless information. This makes for a more sustainable and efficient discussions.

Social Networking Sites

After visiting Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Linkedin its pretty easy to differentiate between them.  Of the four Myspace has the most different feel. On their homepage there is a video playing in the background of the login box. They also have a music player right on the homepage. It seems that myspace is more geared towards artists of musicians and its a hub for them to explore and discover music.

Facebook and Twitter kind of have the same feel to it. Its just a place for you to find out what your friends are up to and let your friends know what you're up to. The thing i found fun about twitter is the way you use @ to tag people and the way you use # to group and tag tweets. Both these social media websites encourage sharing experiences, and creating similarities for their users.

Linkedin on the other hand seems like strictly business. As soon as you go onto their website you can see that they pride themselves in being the worlds largest professional network. No videos, or animations or any of that fun stuff. No gimmicks, strictly business. I guess this is a good tone to set for the kind of users they are trying to get. Linkedin is definitely for a different audience than twitter, myspace, or facebook.

Social Net'g

Social media has grown to becoming a large platform for advertisement. Nowadays you will probably see a facebook icon or a twitter icon on every single ad you see. Another way social media can be used was demonstrated by the Obama campaign. In the article "

How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power" by David Carr of the New York Times, Carr describes Obama's campaign having a database of all his supporters and that enabled him to contact them all via email. Carr also discusses the advantages of using social media versus the the use of old technologies like phone banks and voters lists. By using social media the Obama campaign saved on having to mail voters brochures and having people call numbers from the phone bank.

Another way to put it social media is a great way to get the word out. The benefits being that it is affordable and it is quick. Since social networking and social media is so quick and information gets relayed around so fast it can sometimes create a problem in our youth. In the article "Antisocial Networking" by Hilarary Stout of the New York Times, Stout discusses how a large number of our youth are communicating more on social networks than they are in life. One argument that was argued was that because children are missing out on these interactions they need to develop trust. This can be viewed as the dark side of social networking i guess. Having so much online communication cuts into the time you spend actually interacting with each other.

I believe that social networking is going to evolve into something that can promote real life interactions. Social media and social networking can spark the interactions between millions of people and then bring them together for actually interactions. Maybe things like rallies, or book clubs and community service events.

Blog V Wiki

     Blogs and wikis are two very powerful tools for the purpose of collaborative work between corporations, within corporations, and also personal use. Blogs and Wikis are similar due to the fact that they both incorporate the input of multiple users. For blogs the input is made as comments following an initial post by the blogger. A prime example of the blogger and commenter relationship can be seen in the New York Times article by Michael Wilson called "Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead Drug Raid." In this article it was said that one blogger made a post about drug deals and loud noises coming from a certain house, and later commenters replied saying that they've also heard loud fighting noises. Another comment that drew attention to the house was the comment about multiple deaths in the vicinity of the house. Eventually police the bloggers and they're comments were enough to get the attention of the police. As Wilson puts it "peering turned to blogging, and blogging turned to action, as neighbors started filing complaints with the 68th Precinct station house and attending Community Board 10 meetings and generally making noise until a narcotics investigation began, leading to the arrests."
      The way users interact on a wiki is a little different than that of a blog. In a wiki users collectively work on one piece of information. Everyone is capable of adding to it, editing it, viewing it, and updating it. Having  a wiki allows all information to be up to date and accessible to everyone. As state by Margaret Locher in her article "More on How to Build Your Own Wiki," "Almost half of those who use wikis said they employ them primarily as a collaboration tool." In her article she talks about companies that took advantage of wikis as a tool for their employees to keep in touch and work on projects together. This system of collaborative work is very efficient in the sense that all the users work and improve on each others work. This makes less room for error and more bang for the buck for the corporation.
     I think that one new way wikis can used is by programmers. Talented programmers can write up to a certain number of lines of code every hour without any mistakes. If you were to have a team of programmers writing lines of code and updating the wiki, the next programmer could possible have already finished the next line and therefore speed up the programing process. Also this allows other programmers to view and edit errors in the lines of code.
     Wikis and blogs can be used by everyone. Through collaboration and teamwork every task at hand should and will become easier, faster and more efficient.