The Future of Social Media

I decided to look into more detail about the future of social media because in recent years it has been changing at an alarming rate. Grant Pardee reflects on this in his article 'The Future of Social Media According to VICE'. Social Media is now a dated tool in society. The communications it refers to has become cemented into our everyday existence. Users of social networking sites jumped from 9% to 49% between early 2005 and late 2006. According to Facebook, there are more than 1.35 billion active users. Now, social media feels as if its the backbone of society not just the internet.

The fastest growth is occurring on Tumblr, Snapchat and Instagram. Unfortunately, I am not that familiar with Tumblr but considering its active user base grew by over 120% this year, maybe I'd want to be. Instagram seems to mainly be popular with teenagers and Snapchat has gotten so popular, it rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook.

Its hard to predict what will happen to social media sites in the future as we can't predict their next moves, but I firmly believe Snapchat is becoming increasingly popular especially with its new updates. I feel there might also be another form of Whatsapp, which could be detrimental for Facebook's recent investment.

TED Talk - Jimmy Wales - The birth of WIkipedia

In week 11 I watched the Ted Talk by Jimmy Wales on 'the birth of Wikipedia'. He defines Wikipedia as a freely licensed encyclopedia written by thousands of volunteers all over the world in numerous languages. I was fascinated by this topic having previously learnt about user generated content in previous lectures. Anyone is entitles to edit and save content on Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales was the founder of Wikimedia Foundation who own Wikipedia, so listening to his talk on it was very credible and interesting.

Wikipedia, interestingly enough, doesn't cost a lot to run. They are funded by donations from the public and are more popular than the New York Times! Wikipedia do around 1.4 billion page views monthly with the total monthly cost of their bandwidth - $5,000!

When discussing quality control, yes there are people who vandalize Wikipedia pages in the sense of writing absolute rubbish but Wales states that this content is fixed very quickly due to the huge amount of users who have these pages on watch lists. There is also a 'delete' and 'keep' aspect to Wikipedia. However if 15 people say delete and 3 people say keep, sometimes the content will be kept if there is supporting evidence to back it up.

So it is important to understand the Wiki model is the way the company work it. Considering social methodology is the passion of the community Wikipedia are very flexible in the process they use to generate their content.

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Socialnomics

This reading provided me with an insight to understanding the implications of social media on our daily lives. It also provides an insight in how businesses these days are becoming more aware of social media and using this as a platform to increase sales, cut marketing costs and engage with their consumers directly.

"Socialnomics explores the impact social media is having on the way companies are developing and marketing products that reaches consumers directly and eliminates middleman waste". (Qualman 2012)

Erik Qualman conducted meetings with 75 Fortune companies, 50 colleges and universities and over 100 small businesses and non - profit organisations to understand further the power behind social media in business. I learnt the key to social media success is doing rather than deliberating.

Qualman states that due to online word of mouth, traditional marketing methods are becoming obsolete. This can aid companies who have a poor offline word of mouth and can strengthen companies even more who already have a strong online presence.

The advantage of social media is that word of mouth can lead to world of mouth in the sense that your message can go global. Barrack Obama even used social media tools to promote his presidency campaign.

In the last chapter, it focuses on putting PPC agencies out of business through a socialnomic model where search engines get paid for sales, not clicks, by advertisers.

Flickr

Flickr is a great way in helping people make their photos available to the people that matter to them. This social media tool allows users to capture their photos and videos and share them with viewers. Flickr allows you to to share these moments privately or publicly.

I learnt how to display my photos, taking them from the web and from my phone. It's fascinating at the amount of photos and videos you can upload, both on your profile and at a time.

Organizing your photos and videos can be collaborative. Permission can be granted to your friends and family to organize your stuff and not just to add comments on your media but they can add notes and tags.

Below shows my media on my Flickr.

TED Talk - Margaret Gold Stewart - "How YouTube thinks about copyright"

I decided to watch this TED Talk as I'm a regular user of YouTube and was fascinated to get a deeper insight into the topic of intellectual property and YouTube. Martha Gould Stewart delivers a compelling speech into this matter.

She gives an example of material that was copyrighted, the song 'Forever' by Chris Brown. When released, this song was a huge hit. One fan recorded it on her phone off the TV and uploaded it onto YouTube. However Sony Music had registered this video in their ID Content system and so gave Sony the choice of what they wanted to do next.

Most right owners, instead of blocking, will allow the copy to be published as they may benefit through the exposure, advertising and linked sales. Chris Brown's song 'Forever' received exposure 18 months after it had its day in the limelight. This was through a wedding video. The video went on to receive 40 million views. Sony allowed the upload and the song went back into the charts at number 4.

So it's important to register your videos to the ID Content system but also think carefully about policies you attach to that content as you may miss out on new audiences and new revenue streams.

Google Maps

<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=zC5lZSbmqvmE.k8KU3uS1TyYU" width="640" height="480"></iframe>

Above shows the the link to view my Google maps creation.
After following a number of steps, I feel comfortable working with Google maps now.

I imported data from two separate excel sheets. Next I chose columns to differentiate between the two Placemarks and changed the style (icon and colour) of the two different place marks so the difference could be easily identified.

This exercise was very useful to my understanding of the module as I have never created a map in google maps. Despite having used google maps to search places and the distance from one place to another, creating a map had never crossed my mind.

This elab tutorial really benefited me in relation to designing the app for the group assignment. It was an essential tool to use in our 'ATM Locator App' as we needed to create a google map outlining the different ATM's in the area. I had to style the Placemarks which I was familiar with and then colour coded them to identify which bank branch they were.

Screencast

Above shows a screen grab of my first recording using Screen-o-matic and an image taken from my assignment in creating an app.

As I was in the library at the time of recording, I couldn't speak so I just let the recording run for 21 seconds.Upon adding the audio to my screencast I uploaded the Screen-o-matic and screen grabbed it as requested.

This tool was very handy when describing how to use our app. We used this tool to provide a clear way in how the app works which I feel is very beneficial instead of typing words upon words on our prezi.

In the prezi, we showed a step by step process in how to use our app, displaying clear images. Through working with this social media tool, I learnt how to demonstrate and teach viewers the use of our UCD ATM Locator App.

Prezi

This is my first experience working with prezi. As complicated as it may appear, it is actually very easy to work with. I used such features as changing themes, adding YouTube clips and images and adding text. Prezi is not your typical slide based presentation tool. You start with a blank canvas and can add the features and can manipulate content anywhere on the page. Prezi enables you to display content in unique ways. Whats even better is that prezi is absolutely free to use. One of my favourite aspects of prezi is the ability to have movement involved in in the presentation. This aspect creates a visual link for the audience.

I now decide to work with prezi over Microsoft PowerPoint when presenting content to a group as I believe prezi is more eye catching to the audience. It is an effective tool and keeps the audience more engaged in the content you are delivering.

I decided to base my prezi on my 'favourite sports' as sports is such an integral part of my life.
I included rugby, football, tennis and UFC in my presentation and the prezi can be viewed in the link below. I hope you enjoy!






<iframe frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" width="550" height="400" src="http://prezi.com/embed/7wpi-d9rnkii/?bgcolor=ffffff&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;autohide_ctrls=0#"></iframe>

MIT App Inventor

This is a screenshot from using MIT App Inventor which we will be using to develop our app for our group project.

For the last two Friday's we have been participating in e-labs learning how to use the site.
So far it has been excellent as my knowledge of how to create and develop both sounds and images on the app inventor has increased and I look forward to using the site when the group project starts.

When using MIT App Inventor I was thankful I didn't have to know about coding. No knowledge of programming is required. You create the design by dragging stuff onto the screen and arranging them however you please. The logic of the app is determined by connecting puzzle pieces together. The website works very fast and only requires a lightweight install on your computer. The App Inventor is originally a creation by Google and includes GPS, SMS and databases.All in all, the app inventor is an easy and fun way to learn how apps work.

A couple months on, I come back to update this blog post to discuss my experience in using MIT App Inventor for our group assignment - the ATM Locator app. I was surprised at how easy it was to use considering when you go onto the site you literally haven't a notion of what to do. I was thankful we were provided with instructions and so that aided my group and I in the successful completion of our app. It was very handy for us as the App Inventor provides access to a GPS- location sensor and this is exactly what we needed for our app to enable users to find their nearest ATM machine.

24 hrs - No Social Media

To most people 24 hrs without social media would be easy enough. To me, not so much. The date I set to undertake this challenge was the 10th February 2015
Every hour of every day I use a social media site, whether its Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Snapchat or YouTube. I know there are many more social media sites out there but these select few are my choice of sites I use daily.

I restricted myself from these sites in the morning but when it came to the afternoon, every part of me was tempted to click on the whatsapp icon on my phone. The problem is I use whatsapp over texting and I know many of my friends are the same. So I wasn't bothered texting my friends to start a conversation because I know they rarely text so I decided to keep conversations to a minimum and turned off notifications on whatsapp. I wasn't that tempted to sign in on Facebook and Twitter as I learnt I only really use these sites out of boredom. I could see myself receiving notifications on snapchat but again I resisted.

So over the duration of the 24 hours, at times I was craving and other times I occupied myself by going for a run/gym going over to my friends house and going to college. I learnt from this experiment how big a part social media plays in my life and also how peoples form of communication arise from social media sites daily.

Team Work

Progress with the group assignment

With our group and team members being revealed, we stayed back after class on Friday 6th February to come up with ideas for our assignment. Ideas were thrown about and we've briefly agreed on either an app related to crime within the area or an app related to transport times for students to get to college. We are now also in the process of writing up our 50 words on blackboard letting Shane know of our progress. Our means of communication is through Facebook which has been very efficient and will also enable us to upload our work so every member can view it.

11 weeks on, I come back to write more about this topic. We are now in the final stage of completing our assignment and we settled on creating an app allowing students and other personnel to locate an ATM within close proximity to them. The app we designed is called the ATM Locator and we have worked with the Clonskeagh, Donnybrook, Stillorgan and Goatstown areas. I felt we collaborated effectively together throughout the duration of the 12 weeks. Weekly meetings were held and each person was designed there own task. If others were stuck on a part, we were all quick to assist each other.

Roles within the group included, designing the app via MIT App Inventor, creating the image for our app, making the prezi, keeping content up to date on blackboard through the group wiki and making the screen cast.

All in all, the group collaboration was a success and we enjoyed the assignment as it developed a new skill set for us all in working with new social media platforms.