Creativity and New Media

Today for the first time I sign up to a virtual world. I went to the Second Life website and created my avatar. 

First, I google Second Life, the search engine returned 2,210,000,000 websites with Second Life being the first two websites. I went to the website and click sign up. Right away it sends you to a page where you selected your avatar. After selecting my avatar I created my account. It asked you to enter a username, your email address, date of birth, and password, then you can choose the type of membership. They offer a free account and a premium account for $6 per month.  I selected the free account. I was then send to the above page. In the menu you can choose your destination and interact with other players. It has a chat room. 

I got to experience snow in a hot summer afternoon. It's pretty cool indeed. It awakes the imagination and incites the creativity bug. 

Creativity

New media provides the user with tools that challenge one's imagination, innovation, and creativity. Let's take YouTube from example, people try to find ways to amaze and impress other users by creating innovative videos like the silence video by member MadV. His innovative idea is used by different companies to advertise their product. The latest company is allmusic.com TV's advertisement. In the past photography was an art for professionals and aficionados, but Websites like Flickr inspires users to develop beautiful and breathtaking pictures. Another example is the music industry. Now artist released their own material via social media like MySpace or other medium.  In the article The new math of mashups by Sasha Frere-Jones she writes, "Mark Vidler, known professionally as Go Home Productions, explained some other benefits of digital technology to me in London not long ago: “You don’t need a distributor, because your distribution is the Internet. You don’t need a record label, because it’s your bedroom, and you don’t need a recording studio, because that’s your computer. You do it all yourself"". People can develop their own musical beat, create amazing photos and innovative videos in ways they never had before.

Liz Ventura

Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds can be used in multiple ways by the private and public sector. In the medical field is used as a therapeutic solution for children whom lacked the necessary social skills to interact with others. In the private sector is used by architects to create a 3D model,  real state agencies for virtual open houses, universities offered virtual tours of their campus online. In the public sector is used by government agencies like NASA to prepare astronaut, or the air force to train pilots. Nicole saidi narrates in her article how virtual worlds are used to help children with autism. She states, "Savill has Asperger's syndrome and said he wanted Naughty Auties to serve those with autism spectrum disorders and their friends and family. Savill, who represents himself in the virtual world using an avatar named Dave Sparrow, said one benefit is that visitors can practice social interaction and find information about the condition. The graphical representations of real people create a "comfort zone" that can coax users out of their shells and get them communicating with others, he said". In my personal opinion virtual worlds fostered creativity. I have a daughter with social and developmental delays who has benefited from the game minecraft. The game allow her to see the world in a different dimension. It has enhanced her communication skills and awaked her imagination. One downside of virtual worlds is the chance of becoming addictive and sometimes the players can take their game to an extreme. Some people might even become withdrawn from reality. We can see an example on Dave Itzkoff article. There he states, "Despite knowing that its real-life inspiration exists right outside my door, I have spent the last few months making such visits to the Virtual Lower East Side (vles.com), a three-dimensional, Internet-based social network fastidiously modeled on a small but influential swath of Manhattan real estate". I think virtual worlds are here to stay. It will continue evolving and like social media it will become an intricate part of how society interact.

Liz Ventura

Social Networking Sites

   I was born in the 70s. I come from a generation where socializing was getting together with friends and family over the weekends. We would gather together at the dinner table or on a trip to the beach. As researchers have noted, People my age tends to resist changes. It's why is not a surprise I have to register to MySpace and Orkut in order to complete this assignment. I will start with my impressions of Facebook. At present time Facebook is in the social networking community what Michael Jackson was to the pop music community in the 90s. 

     I find the site is easy to navigate. You can find friends and long lost relatives using the site. You can freely update your status and effectively communicate with your friends, post photos and videos. 

     MySpace, like Facebook, is a social networking community in which you can get in contact with family and friends. You can post photos and videos, and also you can customize your page unlike Facebook.

     Orkut is popular in Brazil and India. I find the site less sophisticated than Facebook and Myspace. You can post videos and photos, and update your status like Facebook.

     On the other hand, I find Twitter effective but informal and incomplete. While Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut allowed unrestricted amount of characters to publicly communicate with others, Twitter only allows 140 characters.