myLot

http://www.mylot.com/

myLot is a blog site – people from around the world can blog on different topics.

There are different sections - top news headlines, most active news, sports, most active blogs, television, music, technology, life … The site is organized making it easy for one to choose where to put one’s blog posts up according to their interests.

American Towns

http://www.americantowns.com/

American Towns is a site that lists all the states and the towns. One can view the different events and meetings going around one’s home. One can even find special promotion classes such as yoga for only $10 or even for free at times. One can view apartments or any other real estate. There are different issues that are of importance to that town. It is a good site to know what’s going on around you.

Twitter Contest

Just recently I received an email for a contest on Twitter which I decided to enter. The contest proved to be quiet hard. Here is the link to it http://www.lollapalooza.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/11/phoenix-contest-2/. The contest basically asks its contestants to tweet the reason why they should be chosen to be flown to Chicago and get three passes including backstage passes to Lollapalooza. You must submit your reason via tweet including @lollapalooza and @wearephoenix in your tweet post to be eligible which means you only have 120 characters to write something clever and witty. To write something in 120 characters is really challenging. I think this is an excellent marketing tool for both Lollapalooza and the band Phoenix because not only has it sparked more interest in the band Phoenix for me, but it has inspired me to start following both of them on twitter.
I found it quit hilarious that they said "the most creative posting will win" considering every other posts says something like "I really want to go and meet Phoenix it would be so cool." Saying how much you want to meet Phoenix isn't creative. Of course you want to meet Phoenix, that's why you entered the contest. On top of the stupid postings people have entered, people have also submitted multiple entries when the site clearly says "post once". Hopefully I can win by default of the other contestants stupidity.

Facebook Rant, Again.

In one of my last posts, I ranted a bit about how Facebook is in my opinion, going in the wrong direction. Mark Zuckerberg recently gave a conference about the site's new policies, etc. And here is a link of an article by Ryan Singel who goes into more detail about how he believes Facebook is going "rogue."

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/

I just wanted to post this link for anyone who shares my sentiment and is getting more and more disgruntled with Facebook lately. It touches on a few things I mentioned: making everything of our interests, etc. into "Like" groups, which Singel discusses how they can never not be made public, how Facebook now is only starting to realize that "there's money and power in being the place where people define themselves." All this and much, much more.
Enjoy!

How to prevent studying for finals

www.mostawesomestthingever.com

As we witnessed in class, this website can be pretty enjoyable and funny. It'll allow you to avoid that paper or studying you need to do and instead keep you entertained.

citeulike.org

While browsing through the vast Internet, I found one scholarly site that spoke to me as a student. It was a social networking site, but also a scholarly article website. You're able to share articles with other peers and see whose reading the same articles as you as well. There are over 3 million articles and about 5,000 new ones published every day from a range of topics. I think they should categorize the site more, instead of having one massive search. This website would be useful to students because all you need is a user name and password and don't have to pay a fee.
Websites like Jstor through Fordham take a while to get to through Fordham access codes and most students have a limited amount of sources other than google to search on reliable information about a topic. I like that it automatically extracts citation details, as it did for my scholarly journal reference. It's basically one massive social bookmarking cite, but is useful for those more serious about what they are doing on the Internet such as scientists and students. I wish I found this cite earlier at Fordham, as it began in 2004, but will still most likely use it in the future, although I will be graduating in May. I also plan to tell current students about it.

http://www.citeulike.org/

Face to Face

http://www.facetofacehealth.com

This is a site where one can post their story on any health issues one might be going through or have gone through. One can find support or get advice from others who are dealing or who have dealth with similar or same health issues.

PureVolume

http://www.purevolume.com

This is a site for discoveries and promotion of new music and artists. Each artist has a profile that contains basic info updates, photos, shows, videos, and music for streaming. Some songs are free for download - it's up to the artist to make it available or not. Fans and listeners can make a profile too so they can interact and share music with each other as well as the artists.

Long Table

http://longtable.com

Longtable is a site where one can share and discover one's passion about food and drinks with friends and other people who enjoy eating and drinking - it has a friends table so friends can keep up with different foods and drinks to try and then there's a local table so one can meet other people around one's area.

This site is connected with facebook, and one can receive updates on one's phone too.

Open Fashion

http://www.openfashion.com

A social fashion network - a site where people can share their passion for fashion. One can receive and give advice, write on the blog, find good prices for shoes, handbags ..., help friends match their outfits as well as rate and comment it and upload and share photos.

NYTIMES

Two weeks ago Mariel and I had the pleasure of attending a lecture given by the head digital designer for The New York Times. He focused mostly on the emergence of the iPad and the steps they had to take with apple in creating an application for it. He discussed the difficulty in working with apple because they are so secretive so The New York Times could only send one person to actually see the device. Beyond the iPad application, which when finished was meant to look exactly like the print edition but on a screen, he talked about all of the other web platforms The New York Times has. Each one comes with its' own issues and was created for a different purpose but despite their technological differences he always focused on userability. Userability and the users experience was number one in importance at The New York Times.

He also discussed his personal blog that he started in the late 1990s. He showed a photo timeline of it throughout the year and how the digital and design aspects of the blogosphere has changed.

Unfortunately, I found this article from Gawker stating that The New York Times application was a let down: http://gawker.com/5530820/steve-jobs-big-new-york-times-letdown.

Submate

I found this website called submate.com which basically allows users to find other people who may possibly take the same subways, hence the "sub" in submate. It's supposed to be an easy way to "break the ice" while on the commute. It markets itself as a dating service for people with similar commutes. I read about the article in the New York Post. I still find it a little weird, but it is an interesting concept. Instead of a train where people stay reserved and to themselves, there may be more people interacting and developing relationships. This website was created about a week ago and it will be interesting to see if it gains any popularity.

Adnaucious

I recently have begun to develop my own blog. The internet is a progressive way to display your creative ideas. In my blog I have decided to write about the the aspect of of television that bothers me most, advertisement. Some companies have great advertisements, for instance, Old Spice, and the World Cup Commercials (links provided) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjPazSFQrwA. However most commercials are poorly thought out and make little sense, which is what I'm going to focus on in my blog. My blog is going to consist of fictional news stories, like The Onion and these fictional news stories are going to be based on what takes place after the advertisement. I will include a link to the original TV advertisement. I attend to post weekly and start next week.

POPURLS - "Genuine Agreggator"

I "stumbled upon" the website, POPURLS, just the other day and felt it was worth mentioning in the blog. The website is regarded as "the genuine news aggregator for the latest web buzz." The site lists a great number of social networking sites and general topics including, popular news, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Flickr, YouTube, Google Blogs, New York Times, Hulu, Fark, and many others. The site then lists the latest and most popular links from each site. I checked the site again this morning and the links had changed since the last time I checked. The website is constantly updating the links the ensure that the current, most viewed site from is posted. This is a great way to obtain news and become educated on the issues ongoing today or simply to find funny videos or blog posts. Regardless of your intentions on the site, POPURLS proves to be an intelligent site dedicated to bringing you the latest buzz.

Media Evolution

I recently found this year-by-year timeline that looks at the history of new media and online journalism from 1969 to 2010. It was compiled by David Shedden, Library Director of the Poynter Institute's Eugene Patterson Library (a largely online school dedicated to serving journalism in the interest of democracy). Interestingly, the timeline is presented it in two parts, with parallel sections on the "Technology/Services/Social" developments and "The Media" developments. The goal of the timeline is to preserve the history of new media and online journalism, "a history that actually isn't very new after all," according to the site.
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=75953&sid=26

I was specifically interested in what aspects of new media they date back to 1969. Turns out, the scene was very much being set for new media's introduction.

TECHNOLOGY: 1969

• An experimental network of four computers called ARPANET is commissioned by the U.S. government. The four computers are located at Stanford, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. The first tests are run at the UCLA facility in September 1969. In October, the second ARPANET node is connected at Stanford. UC Santa Barbara is connected in November and the University of Utah comes online in December. (ARPANET will evolve during the 1970s into a network of computer networks commonly known as the Internet.)
• The Bolt, Beranek and Newman company (BBN) modifies a group of Honeywell computers to act as interface message processors (IMPs) for the ARPANET network.
  
• The Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry systems company (MITS) is established. This small electronics hobby-kit company will eventually offer computer calculator kits, and in 1975 the Altair 8080, the first successful personal computer.
  
  
• "Part one of a 1969 British film about computers." Posted on YouTube. (See also: Part 2 and Part 3 of the film.)
  
• The Intel company, which was founded in 1968, produces a 1,024-bit RAM computer memory chip.
• October 17, 1969 -- Honeywell's $10,000 "Kitchen Computer" (H316 Pedestal model) is scheduled to be introduced on the NBC Today Show. However, the segment is replaced by a story about the New York Mets, who had just won the World Series.

THE MEDIA: 1969

• The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) tests a new interactive media format called videotex. This computerized, interactive system transmits text and graphics. The British system requires the use of a telephone, a modified television set and keyboard. The generic term videotex includes computer communications services such as teletext and viewdata. (During the 1970s and early 1980s videotex will develop into an unsuccessful new media and online journalism format. Although videotex will ultimately fail, it lays the foundation for new media ventures of the 1990s.)
  
• The CompuServe computer time-sharing service is founded. (CompuServe will play an important role in the development of online communication.)
  
• The New York Times Information Bank is created. Infobank is an electronic collection of New York Times story abstracts. (During the 1970s Infobank will grow into a full-text commercial online database service. It is from early newspaper database services like Infobank that online library archives will develop in the 1990s.)
  
• News Example:
  July 21, 1969 --
  "Men Walk on Moon,"
  New York Times.
  (Abstract available from
  the Infobank database service.)

"Life is Tweet" Article (New York Magazine)

Here is the link to the article about the new generation of technology entrepreneurs in New York City. In addition to profiling the start up sites (like Hot Potato, the live event micro-blogging site we looked at in class last week) it also discusses the role of these companies in relation to old media structures, specifically in New York.

http://nymag.com/news/media/65494/

Tumblr: Really The Next Big Thing?

I have to admit, that yes, I follow John Mayer on Twitter. He was one of the first celebrities to make it "cool" and was on it before everyone jumped on Twitter's bandwagon. Plus, I've kinda had a thing for him since 2002.
Mayer recently publicly stated how he believes that Twitter has reached its peak, and that he constantly struggles over whether or not to cancel his account. For him personally, this makes sense, as his current interviews have consistently gotten worse, allowing for more critcism to go his way.
But his remarks about Tumblr, another social media site I haven't payed much attention to sparked some interest in me. I'm sure we've talked about this site before in class, but I hadn't really gone further than looking at the site's homepage until now. By the way, here is a link of Mayer's remarks about Twitter, Tumblr and social media in general:

http://jhnmyr.tumblr.com/post/554610743/twitter-isnt-over-im-over-it

So after I saw his post, I decided to take a deeper look at Tumblr. And what I found so far is that it's an impressive blogging platform that ties together Twitter and Facebook's best aspects. You create your blog, which you can post anything to (text, video, audio, links, etc.). This is typical, but Tumblr takes things further than that. I'm still trying to get more familiar with the site, and created my own blog, which I hope to further utilize, but I do think so far that Mayer had a good point in saying it's taking a step further than Twitter because it ties together all of the best things about social media. When you have the ability to follow other users(like Twitter), incorporate anything onto yours and other peoples' blogs (kindof like ReTweeting), and where you can like other peoples' posts and they can like yours (like Facebook) there is much more interaction than we see on other platforms.
I think of all the new new media I've taken a look at during the course of this semester, this site shows a lot of potential (at least if I try to use it efficiently). So my summer goal is to try to give this site a go and see where it takes me.

EarthFrisk

http://earthfrisk.com/index.php

This is a site that has topics like politics, entertainment, business and humor. It is a social network and has different group options. One can vote on the different topic articles just like Digg. It also has a blog.

Second Life

I have heard but never tried using Second Life. Reading Chapter 9 of Levinson’s book just made me realize all the different possibilities Second Life offers to different people.

This New York Times article discusses how people who moved out from a hotel were able to go back and reminisce through Second Life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03virt.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=second%20life&st=cse

Being able to visit and tour the world through Second Life gives people the opportunity to visit certain places without spending the money. Also through Second Life, one can have the opportunity to become the person one wants to be and have a lifestyle that one always dreamed of. Everything one dreams of in the sense of fashion one can have. Here is another New York Times article discussing this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22Avatar.html?scp=10&sq=second%20life&st=cse

DIGG

I have never heard of this site before reading it in Levinson’s Chapter 5. After having gone to the site, it is somewhat interesting. To be able to read different article and being able to bury or dig it has an interesting concept to it. I like that the most popular articles are on the home page. Digg even has a Facebook connection so users from Digg can share their stories or interesting articles on their Facebook news feed or profile. Here is an article discussing the wonders of Digg.

http://techcrunch.com/2006/03/18/the-power-of-digg/