How do you think social media will change in the future? Are they any specific technologies that you think will gain popularity or emerge?

As social media becomes more widely accepted as a communications channel, more and more individuals as well as businesses will find ways to use it. Some of them will innovate.

Social media today in my opinion is a pure mess: it has become a collection of countless features, tools, and applications fighting for a piece of the pie.

In the late 1990s, Internet became more popular, websites that allowed users to create and upload content began to appear. The first social network site (SixDegrees.com) appeared in 1997. From 2002 onward, a large number of social network sites were launched. Some – such as Friendster – enjoyed a surge of popularity, only to fade. By the late 2000s, social media had gained widespread acceptance. For example, Facebook has More than 500 million active users

·         50% of the active users log on to Facebook in any given day

·         Average user has 130 friends

·         People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

 And that is a big number, so how social media will change in the future? It already changed so much.

I think social media will have the power to change many things in the upcoming years. Privacy will not be an issue for most people as we are seeing now people post personal information about themselves with no hesitation. People will become more like robots, with no communication skills because all kind of communication will be done through social media.  Social media will change Politics and governments as we already have seen. Next generation or if we can call them the internet generation will lack many things that we have learned to do it manually without the assistance of the computer and Microsoft. I am not saying technology or social media is bad, but everything should be within limits.

 We walk on the streets and everyone is holding his/ her phone, or head down texting someone. Ear piece is on all the time listening to music. Two days ago I was on the bus and the bus driver stopped for a girl. She was looking in her wallet trying to find her pass and the ear piece was on, he saluted her and asked her where she would like to go about 5 times, he started laughing, because she was not responding, then when she looked at him she noticed he was talking to her and she removed the ear piece. If you are going somewhere before you go in to anyplace remove it or turn it off, I found it very annoying to have it on all the time with all due respect to the users. Enough about that, but what I meant to say, if this is happening now it will be worse tomorrow. Phones will be the technology that will lead the social media; probably it will be the new laptop.

For a growing number of Canadians, social media provide a way of keeping in touch with friends, relatives and communities. Social media also allow companies, organizations, governments and parliamentarians to reach large numbers of people. At the same time, social media are changing the ways in which people interact with others, although the full impact of these changes is not yet clear.

People will miss interacting with each other and have the experience to share whatever they want to share face to face, I do not like that. I will keep up with the technology and use it but for me it will not diminish the values of the real communication.

This video talks about How The Future of Social Media Will Change Your Business 

http://youtu.be/Uu6Suy96KmU

According to Malcom Gladwell social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other. Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?

According to Malcom Gladwell social media are built around weak ties and real social change can never come from loose networks of people that do not know each other. Do you think that social media has the potential to bring about real social change?

With all due respect to Malcom Gladwell I have to disagree with him on this subject. Social media is the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein also define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Businesses also refer to social media as consumer-generated media (CGM). A common thread running through all definitions of social media is a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value.

Best examples would be the recent Arab revolution. It started on social media. People all around Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and possibly another countries in the near future, agreed on specific dates to demonstrate against the rulers that have been misleading their own people for decades. It all started on twitter and face book and later on with videos on you tube. Although the regime tried to suppress all types of media from airing the truth to the world, the people managed to pick up the events on their cell phones and posting it on you tube a new way of delivering News through different Medias. The videos are showing what was happening on the streets from attacking and killing the demonstrators to destroying the infrastructure and the houses. It certainly got the world’s attention. Without the social media we wouldn’t be able to know everything. Just three days ago, a journalist from Aljazeera TV had been targeted and killed in Libya just because he is an honest journalist, telling what was exactly happening in the battle between the rebels and the regime supporters.
Another example of how the social media has the potential to bring about real social change is what has happened in Japan and the nuclear disaster that no one knows how it will end. The Japanese community was very concerned about their loved ones overseas as well as few Canadian families who found messages on twitter or face book from their family members or friends abroad trying to reassure them about their safety.

Amazing what social media is creating. It is definitely creating a new world of communication that won’t die and will still evolve to be more effective.

Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Social media has allowed everyday citizens to become authors, editors, and publishers of news and information. Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it

Traditional media tools is when we deliver a message for example, e-newsletter, even though it's Internet based, is a traditional communications tool because it's about  delivering a message  while social media If we were to take more or less the same content and throw it up on a blog, then we'd be in the realm of social media, assuming we had an active and vibrant community around our blog.
Not necessary that social media has increased the quality of news but perhabs it increased the ways we find the news ,whenever you open your internet browser, the News is there waiting for you, or you open your facebook, a friend of yours sent you a link for a video to watch or an article to read. No doubt that there are many ways to introduce the News using blogs, twitter, facebook, videos( you tube), articles etc... but the problem is that the content is not really different from a local news paper. The only difference is when you blog there is an opportunity for a response from a friend or comments. The new real thing that social media differnciate from the traditional media is the people sharing their own stories and experiences,whether its about weather,relationships,events, children, school ,jobs,or whatever story is out there you can reach and it is accountable because it is coming from people who experienced some kind of events.  There also might be some exaggerating in the news,I will give you an example;Today ,my friend called me to tell me to watch on you tube videos about a planet that will be hitting the earth on December,2011 and basically destroy three quarters of the earth or more. I responded that I will watch it later I have test tomorrow to prepare for. I am not sure whether to believe that or not I have to do my research and watch more credible sources than youtube.
So basically I think the news is still the same news its just the way we introduce it is different.

This is a link to a video called spam and it talks about What happens when you treat social media like communications media?

http://www.slideshare.net/jenomeara/spam-i-am-a-viral-marketing-story-suitable-for-bedtime
 

Blogging and Microblogging

Blogging and Microblogging

What is your perception of social media, do you think it is a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?

A fad is a trend, like a fashion trend. Will it die? My answer…. NO it won’t “die” and social media is no fad
Social media is here to stay but will evolve into things we haven't yet imagined! just look at what's happened in a year.

“The technology gets interesting when it gets boring,” commented Stephen Collins in response to a thought-provoking question by Craig Thomler. Hyping social media is a fad. Using social media is not. “At that point, we can start focusing on what we’re doing and with who.”

Thomler and Michael Rubin share statistics about a video making the rounds that illustrates why social media is the latest impetus for a technological revolution: This video is the same one that jordanne has on WebCT.

I'm truly amazed by the numbers of users of these social media tools if you'd like. The way the people are using them is unbelievable whereever I go for example when I'm on the bus, every one either texting or calling or listening to music. I do have a cell phone and mp3 but I'm not obsessed, I call when its necessary or text. I cannot listen to music when I'm studying. It's only me I guess. 

The tools are very important for the people to promote their businesses,important for feed back inorder to respond to customer inquiries, surveys, applying for jobs, and most importantly is to keep us connected with the rest of the world. Now adays the news come to us we dont search for the news anymore. we choose what we watch , we choose who do we wanna connect with.

But what doesn't let me get too involved or go too deep is the privacy aspect of it. for example, people can track your locations with one click on the facebook, It is the choice of a person but still too much information to share.

Brian Solis believes that “we are the last generation to know privacy as it was and from now on, it will have to be taught. We are entering a new era of publicness or publicy, where we are solely responsible for creating and defining our online persona.”

It is great to have such important social media resources but also we should know how to use them to our benefit.
you can watch this video I found on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLd9q88ohUs&feature=player_detailpage

New student

Hi everyone:
I registered in the course today. I'm just testing to see if everything I did is right, I have never blogged before so Im not really sure what I'm doing.