After reviewing the book New New Media by Paul Levinson it states many useful social media tools:
Blogging
“Bloggers are often referred to as citizen journalists, to underline the fact that a blogger need not to be a professional journalist to write and publish about news.” One of the reasons why I enjoy blogging is the fact of not being a professional. We all make mistakes and it only seems fair to let those practical errors occur in a blog. I wouldn’t mind reading a blog full of errors if the author has little experience in writing. I can understand the difficulties of writing. I would expect professionalism in professionals.
YouTube
“This used to be called “word of mouth.” But “viral” is something more, because digital word of mouth can reach anyone, anywhere in the world, and millions of people, instantly, in contrast to old-fashioned spoken word of mouth, which can only reach the person right next to you or, in the days of just landline telephone, the other end of your phone connection.” To me I think viral YouTube videos only get “viral” by just one interested person. All it takes is one popular kid to share with all his/her friends his interest in a YouTube video. The same goes for one powerful businessperson, share a video with co-workers and achieve YouTuber status. “Oh yeah Bob over there is our YouTuber, he finds interesting YouTube videos to watch and share.” In my retrospect I’m not powerful or popular; I’m just an observer. I like to observe the videos that become viral and wonder how I can become powerful and popular. Believe me an attempt has been made with the “My Name is Oscar” YouTube video, May 8, 2012 it has 100 views. That’s pretty viral to me!
Wikipedia
“…”exclusionists” or deletionists want to limit the entries on Wikipedia, while “inclusionists” want to keep and expand them.” I would choose to be an “inclusionist” I want to expand and keep in mind information. I don’t like the idea, that entries on Wikipedia could be deleted. I would rather know than not know. If someone with a terminal illness finds a cure for cancer, but doesn’t know any languages known to man. This person only speaks and writes jibberish. If an exclusionist saw this entry I’m sure would delete it, thinking it was a mistake or test to posting to Wikipedia. I would like to think inclusionists would want to expand, keep and research the means of such a peculiar entry.
Digg
“…an index for all news published on the Web, and it serves as an instantly updating digest of news, or an online newspaper of newspapers.” I didn’t find this to be of much interest. I mean instantly digest of news that seems cool. I guess we have no need for newspapers anymore. If we have the technology why do we still have physical forms of communication, like newspapers, magazines, letters, books, encyclopaedias, dictionaries etc? Could the physicality of these objects be the case? Does physically turning the page interest some people? I would want to read a physical book from a library and own a digital book to prevent clutter. I don’t carry a bookshelf everywhere I go.
MySpace
“MySpace’s “music pages” are especially revolutionary.” Back in the day when I had a MySpace account I would play with customizing my page by adding music for viewers to listen to. In some MySpace pages I found this feature to work well, in others I thought it was plain old annoying and distracting.
“Facebook’s origins as a way for college students to “meet” each other- see what they look like, what their interest’s are- without having to physically meet has shaped the growth of its online communities.” I became aware of Facebook around the time college started in 2007. I didn’t use it to meet other college students really more or less I used it to connect with students from high school and if the opportunity of friendship arose in college then yeah I would see what they looked like and take a look at their interests. Facebook to me now is like a playground full of sharing.
“Interpersonal communication consists of one person sending a message to another person, in which the second person can easily switch from being a receiver to a sender…Mass communication consists of one person or source sending a message to many people at the same time, with these many receivers not having the capacity to become senders.” I started Twitter 2012 and have learned so much about other people that use Twitter. I’m a person that likes to observe and finding out information. I like seeing people’s reactions to current events, games, movies, everyday activities etc. It’s the human things we do that make you interesting. I plan on using Twitter to promote my art. I also plan to start up conversations with fellow humans.
Second Life
“You can pause a video on YouTube, stop editing on Wikipedia, leave your profile page on the screen and grab a bit to eat without missing too much on Facebook or MySpace, but to leave the screen when you are connected to Second Life is, literally, to leave your avatar frozen or sleeping- this is what you through your avatar will look like to all the other avatars in your vicinity- and, of course, your avatar will neither see nor hear anything they say or do.” Having an avatar is like having a second you. A clone placed in the virtual world if you would like it to look exactly like your physical form. Second Life is full of opportunities in business, super hero (flying), dating, talking. I found this virtual world to be an opportunity to opening up and trying new things. Let’s go to the Sexy Nude Beach! “My dragon penis is enormous!” Oh the memories I’ve obtained from playing around with Second Life, what a joyous experience.
Podcasting
“You need a microphone and a sound-recording program to produce a podcast.” At first I thought podcasting was like screen casting. The more I read the more it talked about radios and audio. It seems that podcasting is mainly audio-based, not technically visual. I thought wrong whenever someone would talk about podcasting I would expect like a visual. I found out it was like a music player used in MySpace, where you have to click the play button to activate and listen. This is great for people that can’t see.
Dark Side
“Online gossiping hardens into cyberbullying when the nasty messages are directed at a target, so the target sees them, and the people sending the messages work intentionally or unintentionally not as disparate individuals but as a group.” After reading this chapter I found it sad how far people were willing to go to hurt one another. I will admit that I cried when I heard a victim of cyberbullying hung herself. I would think to myself, isn’t there something someone could have done? Can’t they prevent people from saying a nasty combination of words?
Election of 2008
“President Obama successfully struggles against the forces of legal caution an inertia to keep his Blackberry, his staff discovered upon moving into the White House that its telecom was stuck in a “technological dark ages”, with no Facebook or Twitter, not even Gmail.” I’m not much into politics but when I read this I couldn’t believe how dark the White House was in the technology world. I mean no Facebook, Twitter or Gmail that would be torturous. I check my Facebook and Twitter almost daily.
Hardware
“…”the wireless, portable evolution of media should continue to the point of providing any individual with access to all the information of the planet, from any place on the planet, indoors and outdoors, and, of course, even beyond the planet itself as communication extends into the solar system and cosmos beyond.”” I found mobile media to be interesting because it’s being used more and more around me. I see that my friends all have a phone that has access to the Internet, where they can check their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other social media tools. I remember back in the day when I had a honking clunking phone that didn’t really have Internet access. Its amazing how sleek and these phones are these days.
After reviewing the book The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison it states many useful guidelines:
Intro Networked Nonprofits
“Social media tools integral to nonprofits fall into three general categories of use:
- Conversation starters like blogs, YouTube and Twitter
- Collaboration tools including wikis and Google Groups
- Network builders like social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter”
Nonprofit Challenges and Trends
“Millennials, are young people born approximately between the years 1978 and 1992, with their passion for causes and fluency with social media, are also a part of a powerful new force for social change called free agents.”
Understanding Social Networks
“Social networks come in many shapes and sizes:
- Personal social networks that include family and friends, neighbourhood’s members, fellow congregants and hobbyists.
- Professional networks of colleagues within organizations, plus people who work at collegial agencies, funders, government agencies, associations, and more.
- Self-organized networks of individuals on sites such as Facebook where people voluntarily “friend” one another.
- Networks of people created by specific nonprofit organizations. This means in essence, pulling members out of their databases and connecting them to one another through online social networks that organizations like charity: water are hosting on their Web sites.”
Creating a Social Culture
“Social culture strikes at the heart of what organizations value and how they operate. Organizations with social cultures:
- Use social media to engage in two-way conversations about the work of the organization with people inside and outside of the organization
- Embrace mistakes and take calculated risks
- Reward learning and reflection
- Use a “try it and fix it as we go” approach that emphasizes failing fast
- Overcome organizational inertia through open and robust discussions
- Understand and appreciate that informality and individuality do not indicate a lack of caring, professionalism, or quality
- Trust staff to make decisions and respond rapidly to situations, rather than crawl through endless check-off and approval processes”
Listening, Engaging, and Building Relationships
“Organizations need to be patient, resilient, and resourceful in building relationships with many people in many different ways. And they need to appreciate these efforts honestly, sincerely, and publicly.”
Building Trust Through Transparency
“Organizations are transparent when
- Leadership is straightforward when talking to various audiences.
- Employees are available to reinforce the public view of the organization and to help people when appropriate.
- Their values are easily seen and understood.
- Their culture and operations are apparent to everyone inside and out.
- They communicate all results, good and bad.
Making Nonprofit Organizations Simpler
“Simplicity clarifies organizations and forces them to focus their energy on what they do best, while leveraging the resources of their ecosystem for the rest.”
Working with Crowds
“Crowdsourcing can be classified into four categories
- Collective intelligence or crowd wisdom
- Crowd creation
- Crowd voting
- Crowd funding
Learning Loops
“Learning loops unwind over the course of multiple efforts. Monitoring helps organizations adjust sagging efforts immediately. Stronger programs and processes increase online supporters’ engagement. Organizations can see significant financial return from a well-executed campaign.”
From Friending to Funding
“…successful fundraising efforts using social media include the following:
- Credibility
- Simple, compelling messages
- Urgency
- Spread out the giving
- Donor recognition
- Storytelling lives on
Governing Through Networks
”…governing boards can act more like social networks:
- Create a private social network
- Join public online social network
- Create an open invitation to board meetings
- Post draft agendas online
- Train board members in social media and network weaving
- Meet somewhere new
- Share information and data”
Social Media Terms
Social Media- The peer-to-peer communication and user-generated content made possible through the advent of participatory “Web 2.0” tools such as blogs, online social networks, multimedia sites, and text messaging:
- Blogs– Web log, a platform that allows an author to publish content online.
- Chat Room- Allows multiple people to communicate through real-time messages.
- Listserv– An electronic mailing list that distributes messages to subscribers via email.
- Message Board– An online community hosted in a series of topical discussion forums. Participants can post new topics via discussion threads and others can reply via comment.
- Microblog– A form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them.
- Multimedia– Nontext-based digital content, from mp3s to video to photos, that can be published, shared and tagged online.
- Review Sites- Web sites that enable sharing, ratings, and reviews.
- Social Networks– Online communities of individuals (nodes) who are connected to each other via ties. Social networks form through many types of social media platform, including blog networks, listservs, and Google Groups. Larger social networks, such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, serve a wide variety of interests and geographic areas.
- Social News Sites– Web sites such as Digg that enables people to submit and rank news stories, listing the most popular stories first.
- Virtual World– A computer-simulated environment that enables users to interact with each other and manipulate the digital ecosystem via their personalized avatars.
- Wiki– A Web site easily edited by many people simultaneously, allowing them to think together, strategize, share documents and create plans together.
Web 1.0– The first era of the Internet, which began in the early 1990s with the advent of the World Wide Web and e-mail.
Web 2.0– The second era of the internet, starting in the late 1990s, through which online information became inexpensively storable, shareable, and participatory through the advent of social media tools.
I will keep in mind everything that I’ve learned through these two books. I will use these new tools and apply them to my life and connect with the world. I would recommend using both of these books again. Although I favour The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine over New New Media by Paul Levinson. I still learned something from both of them. I learned from New New Media: about different social media tools, advantages and disadvantages to chatting online, taking risks in life are definitely worth it and to have fun when communication with others. I learned from The Networked Nonprofit: about nonprofit organizations, that transparency is important, to keep it simple, to apply guidelines from book to actuality, that I’m a Millennial born 1989, theirs just so many things I learned from this book. The guidelines above are what I’ve taken away from that book. It was definitely fun apply knowledge to actuality. Wasn’t having fun a goal? I for sure had fun experimenting with social media tools and find it extremely useful for my Visual Arts major. I plan on creating art for art’s sake by creating an account where the viewer can’t see who the creator is. I think having the anonymous character will help the viewer focus more on the art instead of the artist. I think it would be interesting to create numerous unknown characters and see if viewers can follow my artistic fingerprint. That would be something I would continue to research in as well as observe the people and surroundings around me. Sharing is a good thing, no matter the amount.
Artist Imagination 