New Media helping save the planet one avatar at a time

I thought I'd write this blog in honor of Earth Day (which was yesterday). I was watching CNN on campus when they brouhg up a website called Earthday Network. The site helps people to think of new ways to help save the earth and informs about what activities are going on to support these ideas. One interesting thing on the site though is their Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator.
The calculator has you create an avatar, just like many games found online. After doing so you answer a series of questions including; how much meat per week do you eat? how often do you fly? how big is your house? do you carpool? etc. After answering all the questions the game calculates how many earth's would be needed if everyone on the planet lived exactly the same way you did.
After doing this myself I found that it would take 3-5 Earth's to have enough resources for everyone. After it gives you tips based on your answers at how you could better change your habits to help the environment.
I think it's really interesting how new media allows groups like Earthday Network to create an interactive game with avatars which allows people to feel like they are really involved. I think this is a great way to get a message across to people who would otherwise have ignored the site.
I think becoming a more eco-friendly country is an important thing to do. If sites like Earthday Network keep trying to find way to engage people in more ways than lectures, phamplets and boring reading materials I think more people would get involved. It's all about engaging the person and letting them realized just how big an impact they do have on the planet.
The site is: www.eathday.net/footprint/flash.html

Twitter Challenge Update

As if this lame challenge to see who is more popular wages on there are new stakes in it for the millionth twitter follower of Ashton Kutcher.
In a recent video seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI, EA has said that for the millionth follower of Kutcher they will turn that person into a SIM for Sim's 3 and give them everygame they make in 2009 for the system of their choice. Making this more of a sweepstakes win than an actual contest to see who can reach the goal of 1 million followers first. Which is a complete advertising scheme for EA.
But in the end Ashton Kutcher beat CNN having 1 million followers before they did.
Opera even talked with Kutcher via Skype about this whole thing. And now Oprah has created a Twitter account. Now as anyone knows once Oprah talks about anhything on her show whether it be a book, movie or beauty product that item's buyers or users numbers soar. So I expect more women will be signing up for Twitter in the next month or so than ever before thanks to Oprah who makes anything she touches turn to gold.
One interesting concept Kutcher brough up during his interview with Oprah was that "people are so out of place with the social media where one person's voice can be as powerful as an entire news network which is the power of the social web."
I think this is part of the reason for the rise in social networking sites because people want a voice and to be heard and feel like they have something to say that maybe the news isn't covering or are seeing things from a viewpoint that the media isn't looking at. Now I don't think the way he did by getting people to follow him to beat CNN isn't really anything worthwhile and is somewhat dumb. But he does have a valid point about what our society is turning into.

Twitter

I recently decided to investigate more about Twitter and create an account and see what all the fuss is about. And frankly, I'm not too impressed.
I believe Twitter started due to the growing idea of being a prosumer,a once consumer now wanting to be involved in producing material. They usually want to become involved because they feel like they have something to say or just the fact that they want other people to know what they are doing, that they exist in some form.
On Twitter, there is a small box near the top of the page which beside it asks the question, "What are you doing?". You then have 140 characters to write about, well whatever your doing.
Just like blogging you can follow other people's Tweets or messages they post. I chose to follow people like CNN, The New York Times, and President Obama. These Twitterers post tiny url links to articles that I find interesting and are more accessible than picking up the paper and carrying it around with me all day to classes. I can just go online and get the headlines and choose which to read more about. President Obama's Tweets are updated often about when he will speaking and on what topic or have url's so i can watch a video of the speech he gave. I think this is his way of making sure people are up to date on what is going on.
Many people however use it to post things like "going water skiing this weekend!" While that is truly fascinating and you may never have known your third cousin twice removed water skiers i beg the question of, who cares?! I am interested in what is going on in my friend's lives but I don't need to know when they are working, or at home watching TV with their cats or that they just broke up with their boyfriend of a week and they are devastated. I think instead of asking "What are you doing?" Twitter should ask "What is on your mind?" Asking that question leads to a more philosophical answer.
A recent tweet by The New York Times was all about the new dog the Obama family were getting my tweet that day was, "Why is it so important what type of dog the President owns? I just don't get it!" This tweet actually offers others to respond with their own comments on the topic, no one did cause I'm following about 5 people, but they could have. And with only 140 characters available to write it makes Twitter a mini-blog site where all you can really do is tweet about a topic and place a tiny url in it so that they can read the entire blog. It is very difficult to get out a lot of information in such few characters.
Some research I found suggests that not being able to write as much helps people to tighten their writing so that they cut the fluff out and just leave the facts. Which is great if your a writer for a newspaper where your stories need to be tight and fit a certain length. But for just twittering about your trip to new york I could see people writing more and it still being interesting. I have seen people twitter who purposly missspell words just so they can fit into the limit. "i h8 ppl who wrt lke ths."
Twitter has started to gain more of a fan base because many celebrities have started using twitter such as Brittney spears and Ashton Kutcher. In recent news Ashton realized he only had about 50 thousand less followers than CNN who was trying to reach 1 million. So he created the Twitter challenge asking everyone to start following him so he could beat CNN. Larry King replied to him saying "we will defeat you." Here are the links to the videos posted by both of them.
Ashton's Challenge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRyNWLZZmo
Larry King reply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDLLTSjPu-w

DVR and Advertising

I have personally never experienced DVRing and all it's glory but I daydream about being able to fast forward through boring commercials and get back to whatever mindless tv show I am watching.
After reading the article Adapting to DVRing by Rochelle Rodrigo made sense in that during tv commercials is when someone gets up to get a snack and they miss the commercials. And using a DVR is making skipping through content a person doesn't find interesting easier to do.
In an article on Adjab.com (I also found this topic on other numerous sites)by Chris Thilk he talks about how ABC executives have talked to DVR providers about eventually disabling the ad-skipping feature. Their reason for wanting this is obviously that they use these slots to sell advertising and if people aren't watching, advertising/money goes away. According to the article ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw says that he doesn't believe consumers would notice the no ad-skipping change. My question and the question this article asks is that isn't that the point of having a DVR, you can tape you shows to watch later and you can skip through the commercials.
Popular website Hulu.com which allows free tv show and movie showings online is not completely ad free. Each tv show starts with a short ad spot telling you the program was brought to you with limited commercial interruption. There is one at the begining, middle and end of the show. These commercials don't allow you to fast forward through them.
If networks are so worried about commercials they should keep them on there because some people still watch tv shows when they are on. But maybe they should have an optional dvr advertising spot like hulu.com where it is short and people are not able to skip through. Then they get their advertising out and we're not bothered by three minutes of repeditive commercials throughout the entire show.

Tired of Social Networking?

I opened the local newspaper Thursday and found an aritcle I found interesting and understandable.
Associated Press writer Martha Irvine's article "Tired of Social Networking?" talks about how people have started to shy away from websites like myspace, facebook and twitter.
One quote in the article by a man from Washington, D.C stood out to me when he said, "I'm less concerned with protecting my privacy, and more concerned at the ethics of a 'human zoo' where other's lives, and often serious problems, are treated as entertainment."
I think this quote is interesting in that isn't that the main focus of websites like these, took keep your "friends" updated on what's going on in your life? I can see his point though in that websites like facebook have turned into a human zoo where everyone can see what your doing on the website at all times. It would be easy to what I would call "cyber stalk" someone once they added you to their friends list. You can see who they are talking to, what they commented and basically track all their activity.
In a PEW survey they found that 7 percent of people of a medium age of 29 are constantly connected by using mobile devices but feel conflicted about always being so connected. The reseach called these people Ambivalent Networkers.
This is the perfect reason for becoming tired of social networking. Being connected 24/7, 365 days a year causes an overload to occur.
I think we all feel the stress of media overload especially if we are using the websites just to keep up with what everyone else is doing. I think we should all vow one day not to use our social networking accounts or to just turn off our phones. It'll allow us more time to be connected to the people standing right next to us and to just "get away" for a little while.

Facebook

Social networking sites have become the new way of connecting for many people. I personally have a Facebook account. From my experience with it i have found some ways that it allows for connections with people as well as offers useless things.
In Lisa Davis' article "Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?" she never comes to an actual conclusion but does touch on a few topics that I felt explained how my use of Facebook is beneficial to me.
Davis states that, "online sociability and offline silence probably have less to do with digital retreating than time management." I agree with this statement because I am a full-time student who works two part-time jobs and is planning a wedding. I don't have time to go online or talk on the phone until later in the evening when most people are sleeping. So Facebook allows me to update my friends and family on what I am doing by pictures and e-mail. This has been helpful in allowing me to keep in contact with my family back east about the wedding preparations since they aren't here to help. It allows me to get feedback from them when they have a chance to go online so we don't have to try and schedual a time to talk over the phone and allows them by using pictures to visually see what I'm discussing.
Davis also brings up that "although social networking sites typically encourage connections among strangers-Facebook is geared toward helping people maintain existing connections." I fall into the category of those who use Facebook to connect with those people I know in 'actual life.'My friends on Facebook range from family, to co-workers to high school and college friends. While I use the site this way there are many people who feel the need to have hundreds to thousands of friends. I think it becomes almost a game to them to see how many friends they can get.
Although I am obviously a fan of Facebook, I also find therer are many extra features Facebook offers that could go.
One feature the site offers is the ability to 'poke' your friends. This has evolved to not only virtually poking but also allows you to fight crime with your friend, throw a snowball and even fling a thong at them. I find this application quite annoying and a waste of my time and I often ignore them when a friend sends me one of these. The newest trend is to now use one of hundreds of applications that allow you to send gifts to your friends. The newest gift giving application is "Willy's Sweet Shop," which allows you to send virtual candy gifts to your friends. At times these applications can be annoying and useless. However this particular applications states,"Willy's Easter Sweet Shop is a fun new game that lets you share Easter sweets with your friends. The more you play the more Chocolate Eggs you can earn; one of which might contain a Golden Ticket!! Best of all, playing helps raise money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. You can see the money raised each week with Cause's 100% transparency on our "About" page."
Now I am a very skeptical person and I am not sure how much truth there is to the donation to the St. Jude's, but in my mind this is one application I would consider using and bothering others with if I knew for sure that donations were being made for my using the application.

Participatory Culture

The definition of participatory culture is that the public acts not only as consumers, but also as producers and contributors. In a reading by Henry Jenkins he stated that, "The emergence of new media technologies supports a democratic urge to allow more people to create and circulate the media."
I think this quote really gets at the base idea of participatory culture because new media technologies allows for access and availability for people to be able to participate. Non-profit group, Participatory Culture Foundation, makes available an open- source desktop video player which allows people to view videos or create their own. This video system removes gatekeepers which control the flow of information. The group says that their goal with this project is to make the mass media open and accessible to everyone. And to deepen engagement with culture and politics.
The positive thing about the idea of participatory culture is that since now computer programming skills are not required to create content on the Internet it is open to everyone. And because of this, there is more likely to be a diversity of ideas and content so people can be educated on all sides of an issue and draw their on conclusions or submit their own ideas on the topic. It allows not only those with "power" to be involved but everyone.
The main problem seen is again the idea of the digital divide or the gap between people with access and those with little or none at all. Those who don't have access to the Internet do not have the same opportunities to be involved because most of participatory culture in recent years is through blogging and other online means to express ones opinion. With lack of access they are being excluded from being able to do so.
The idea of participatory culture has leaked into the news media. During the inauguration of President Barack Obama those present were asked to take photos from where they stood and send them to CNN. After CNN created an almost 3d experience of being there as they compiled the pictures together to create one that allowed viewers to zoom in and out and move around the area and see what it would have been like to be at any place there. Also more news papers are creating online editions in addition to their papers. And to add viewer participation, they often have comment areas at the end of each article so readers can write their own comments on the article. This is almost doing away with letters to the editor because there is no limit to how many comments you can leave; with letters to the editor in the paper they can only publish someones letter once every two weeks.
Social networking sites which are mainly about participatory culture. I have a facebook page and I joined a group called "15,000,000 for lower gas prices." This group started out by having members sign a petition to lower gas prices. Group members then started to discuss alternative fuel ideas. Then a Fox News story about a man who created a tool that uses water to cut metal. Members of the group used this idea and created a tool for their cars that uses the same technology and water that goes through a filter to run their cars. So this example shows the way participatory culture can not only allow for online participation but also in real life.
Here is the news video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCwfUzJbZBg

Artificial connection

The internet has become a useful tool for workers, companies, students and society in general. It has allowed almost anyone, those with access, to find and post information. While this is a good thing, I find some problems with it.
Those who can see only benefits to the Internet claim that it is easier and beneficial to communicate with other people (Philip Brey pg.3). While I agree with this I argue that the connection between those people could be considered artificial. You don't see the person you are communicating with, therefore you would be unable to see any facial expressions. So it is artificial in the sense that by communicating through the Internet there is a loss of understanding because words can be perceived differently than intended. This goes back to the communication model; the sender sends the message and the receiver decodes it. If using the Internet the only message sent is typed words, the cues, physical emotions, are not perceived by the receiver. This happens less often in one-on-one conversations in person.
I find it difficult to make a real connection with someone or to really know someone until you met them. I recently had this experience when I was looking for a wedding photographer. After e-mailing for several weeks talking about his style of photography and the packages he offered we set up an appointment to meet. Upon meeting him, he was not the same person I'd been emailing all those weeks. He was unprofessional, came unprepared, and did not have an understanding of the typical timeline for a wedding; even though he claimed weddings were his specialty. So while it was great that I had the use of the Internet to find photographers in my area, it would have been different if I had gone to his studio to find information because I would have known right away not to use him.