9-1 Multimedia Tools

            In present day, what we call media continues to advance daily, whether its technology to the old fashion way of doing things, books, magazines and newspapers, the way we communicate through multimedia has enhanced our connections with others around the world. With tools based around multimedia platforms such as computer programs, websites and social media communities we are able to take advantage of these tools when communicating throughout society. Tools such as, Garageband, iMovie, PowerPoint, Windows Moviemaker and other countless computer programs help us establish a foundation for transmitting messages to others, along with online tools like email, video players and podcasts assist us in sending out mass messages. Social media platforms have made it even easier to send out messages to others by connecting us to the communities we chose to establish ourselves with in, enabling us to compose messages and to transmit these messages by using many options of multimedia tools inside of these social media communities.

            It is known that the tablet and the smart phone both have made a major impact on the way we communicate, but it is the multimedia tools within these devices that have made the bigger impact. An app like iBook for example has embedded a new way of reading throughout society. IBook has made it easier for authors to develop books for its reader digitally, not only are we able to obtain books in iBook but we are able to explore magazines and school textbooks. This multimedia tool is a complete game changer and has enhanced our message transmitting to others in an enlightening way. Another multimedia tool such as Youtube has also contributed to enhancing our messages that we transmit to others. Youtube allows its users to upload video or audio files to an online video playback platform that creates a link its users are able to share with others, from music, to how to videos, people are able to share their message with others visually, allowing its viewers to give feedback also passing the link onto others. (IOS7World, 2012)

            Yes certain multimedia techniques are more effective than others, but each performs its own unique way of transmitting messages. Some multimedia techniques work way more effectively then how it may work for others, that’s why there are so many multimedia tools options out there now for people to chose from and to pick out what may work best for them. Multimedia and its tools tend to “imply sophistication” within both production and presentation. Multimedia is more a channel, it’s a tool to help transmit and receive messages. (Rouse, 2014)

IOS World 7. (2012) iBooks. Retrieved on October 30th, 2014.http://www.ios-w.com/app/ibooks/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=free%20ebooks.b&utm_content=sus.ibooks&utm_campaign=ios-w.com+Search+US

Rouse, M. (2014)  What is Multimedia? Retrieved on October 30th, 2014. http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/multimedia

8-2: Best Practices

Link to blog: http://www.dumblittleman.com/

After searching for the best well put together blog on blogger.com I came across a Blog Buster post listing the Top 50 Blogger Powered by Blogs. Out of 50 blogs, narrowing down to one, being ranked at 25^th the Dumb Little Man: Tips For Life blog stood out the most from its competitors because of its offering. The Dumb Little Man cuts straight to the point and gives its audience tips for life within different aspects in life, from Happiness, success, How to, money to health this blog reaches out to a wide range of people which attracts more readers and subscribers. Having different authors for every post, bloggers obtain different lifestyles of others and their view of many topics. The Dumb Little Man functions as a guide to delivery the good out of life, which most people search for in the world today, touching on many topics so no one in its audience will feel left out, this blog offers “the facts of life”. (Blogger News and Issues, 2008)

Practicing giving tips on life, the Dumb Little Man does so by reaching out to different topics that may serve a purpose to someone’s life. Who doesn’t want to be more successful or better their health? Touching on different aspects of life, this allures in more readers and more subscribers, because authors give their many views on topics that may relate to other bloggers lifestyles. Functioning as a guide to life, the Dumb Little Man pilots its audiences to making better choices in life to obtain better outcomes, it serves its purpose to giving what the people want. Being ethical authors, giving its posts more credibility being backed by sources, which allows the blogs audience to gain its trust, having a voice for its audience attracts more bloggers, and being consistent with their posts on a daily basis, gives their audience a shoulder to turn to when looking for a few tips that they may relate to. Having a variety of topics, gives its blog substance the bloggers seek when looking for a good blog.

The Dumb Little Man servicing as a guide to life, maintains its goal by giving an assortment of topics many bloggers can relate to in life. Not everyone may agree with the topics discussed within the blog, but it is sure to entertain its reader, gaining knowledge, tips or facts out of the blog’s posts. Being an easy read for its audience, this makes it easy for a blogger to browse throughout the blog, allowing easy access to particular topics searched for. Overall the Dumb Little Man blog gives its reader what they are looking for, tips on life, facts or just plain entertainment everyone can agree to disagree to.

Blogger News and Issues. (2008) The Top 50 Blogger Powered Blogs. http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2008/05/top-50-blogger-powered-blogs.html

The Death of a Football Legend: Joe Paterno

“He will go down as the greatest football coach in the history of the game.”

-Ohio State Coach, Urban Myers

              Today college football fans, family and friends had received shocking news of the death of a legend, not only a legend but also a father figure to a group of young adults. College football has lost one of their longest running head coaches with a total of 61 years in the NCAA division at Penn State, wining two national championships and leading the Nittany Lions to wining 409 games also coaching over 250 players that were later drafted to the NFL after their college season. On January 22^nd, 2012, the college football community had lost their beloved Joe Paterno, known to many as "JoePa" who suffered from lung cancer.

            Despite being fired from the Penn State sports program for being a part of child sex abuse scandal, Paterno holds a legacy with the Penn State Nittany Lion’s that will be hard to replace. Inside a Pennsylvania hospital, where Paterno was surrounded by family members before his passing, doctors confirmed that his cancer was spreading which led to complications that caused the death of Paterno, even though this cancer was treatable, it finally caught up to Paterno.

            Joe Paterno will not be remembered by the child sex abuse scandal, but will be remembered by his football legacy that he will be leaving behind back at Penn State. Not Only did Paterno leave behind a football legacy and make Penn State a better university, he ensured that his football players were successful on the field and successful in the real world. Paterno will be greatly missed by the Penn State and football community.

ESPN.com, (2012). Joe Paterno, 85, Dies in State College. http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7489238/joe-paterno-ex-penn-state-nittany-lions-coach-dies-85-2-month-cancer-fight Retrieved on Oct 18th, 2014.

Facebook Status Update:

“His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled.” – The Paterno Family

To my college football fans, today we have lost one of our longest running coaches Joe Paterno. Paterno leaves behind a legacy that touched many outside of the Penn State/football community. I send my prayers out to his family and friends. He will surely be missed. R.I.P. Joepa!

 Joe Paterno (1962-2012)

6-2 Blog: Social Media Tools

 Listed below are three social media tools that I feel are successful at connecting its users to a wide range of people all around the world no matter where you are. I feel each tool provides its own service directly connecting its users to the services they seek.

1.          LinkedIn-A social network tool that allows users to connect with other professionals and businesses. Assuring that their users are always linked in within the professional community.

www.linkedin.com/pub/eric-connelly/72/a29/2a7/ This link is an example of my LinkedIn profile showing my professional background. I share this profile with hiring businesses and other professionals within the LinkedIn network.

2.            Vine- A Video profile social media tool that allows users to share short videos to their own community of followers that allows other users to share and like the videos that other users post. The popular the video the more people it will reach, giving users the opportunity to connect with others around the world. Vine enhances the delivery of information by giving users the instant access of sending or receiving personal, informational, promotional short videos.

https://vine.co/v/hPrwjVVQQ2T This link shows a good example of how Samsung Mobile promoted their Galaxy S3 Note Pen usine the social media tool Vine.

3.            Twitter- A social media network that connects to people and users all over the world, composing and transmitting messages in 140-characters or less blurbs. This tool allows its users to gain access to information at a rapid pace by reading and sharing these messages referred to as “tweets”. Twitter enhances the delivery of information by sharing current posts the moment they are shared online by its composers. Whether it is a business, media outlet, celebrity, athlete, family or friend twitter keeps its users up to date on their latest news.

https://twitter.com/KatieDavisBurps This link shows a great example of the social media tool in use by writer Katie Davis of KatieDavis.com. 

            Out of the three social media tools I feel Twitter is the most effective when providing services for its users, because there is no limit to what you can market in your own style delivering information instantly to its users within the twitter network. LinkedIn serves its purpose as being a powerful social networking tool but is only business oriented, connecting its users to many professionals around the world. Vine is the least effective because its user are only limited to delivering six seconds of information to other uses, but the six seconds given can be used to get the point across.

           

3-2 Blog: Unrestricted Web Publishing

            Today I came across an interesting article I have located on the New York Times website titled Pass the Word: The Phone Call is Back, written by New York Times Journalist Jenna Wortham. Within this article she explains how the voice call has converted from talking on the phone on a daily basis routine to technology growing and basic phone calls turned in to text messages, video chat, emails and social media post since the 1950’s to modern day. Clearly Wortham has no bias opinion and only state what she see’s and feels about the topic.Within this article Wortham gives her opinion on the topic based off of her personal experiences and from app creators and independent analyst such as Cheta Sharman who follows the wireless industry, who discusses how American Households are transferring over to mobile, also Alan Braverman, an entrepreneur who is deleloping and app called Sobo, which is described as an “audio version of twitter”. Aside Wortham’s personal opinion and experiences, I questioned, how credible her sources may be? When she listed a few percentages explaining how the number of voice minutes increased 14% in the last year in the United States, stating that the numbers increased to 2.62 trillion, from 2.3 trillion.

1.     It is known that Jenna Wortham has the authority in this field because she works for the New York Times Technology department, working in this department it is her job to conduct studies on the worlds current technology usage.

2.     Worthham does list where she received her content from, identifying her sources to develop the information she has listed. When she mentions figures in the article she provides a link to the actual figures listed by the CTIA. Wortham also gives a few names with quotes but doesn’t list where these bits of information came from, only listing the given quote providing the name of who gave the quote.

3.     All information that Wortham mentions in her article is all up to date and state current facts to back her research.

4.     Wortham does not reference her sources within the article but does link the reader to the websites where here sources were produced.

5.     This article that Wortham has created for the New York Times also has a print version but appears as the same article posted on the World Wide Web. With the same information provided online and in print I feel she has reached all points she was trying to get across on the topic.

6.     I feel Wortham’s article can be considered as a news and journalistic site because it is a national publication in the United States, some may consider it as an international site due to it being on the World Wide Web, and people all over the world are able to access its content.

7.     This article was constructed on the New York Times website, listed as a blog post  (blogs&partners) established a New York Times technology department faculty member/partner.

      Overall this article created by Jenna Wortham covers the point she was trying to get across and the sources used were linked to its origins.

Wortham J. (September 20th, 2014) Pass The Word: The Phone Call is Back. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/pass-the-word-the-phone-call-is-back/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

Social Media & Truth:

How do I know what I know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information?

            A lot of my learning I have acquired in previous schooling along with gaining new knowledge from current online courses, I have resorted to the Internet to learn a lot of what I know today. As reliable and unreliable the Internet may be, I feel I don’t go a day without learning something new from the Internet everyday. Everyday the Internet continues to educate its users around the world and I am proud to say the Internet has taught me so much. From headline news, scholastic studies, products, celebrities, businesses/companies, our peers and branching out many other topics, the internet offers a wide range of information that society can learn from today. A lot of what I learn from the internet comes from verifying what is being learned by resorting to many sources on the Internet, I don’t think one can gain much knowledge from reading one topic without backing up that first source of information from other resources, the Internet is based upon researching, and if you don’t research what your read, you may step away from the computer gaining information not knowing if it is credible or not. Without the Internet I know for sure I wouldn’t know a lot of the things I know now, but this acquiring of information wouldn’t have came to me without doing the research, relying on multiple sources. With that being said, I can say I do trust and rely on the Internet on a daily basis.

            While browsing the Internet today, logging into one of the world’s most popular social media network “Facebook” I came across a pretty interesting breaking news headline article that caught my attention, dealing with the ISIS terrorist group, this group has beheaded yet another person, this time a British captive.  I have been following the updates on ISIS for the past month or so, but before acknowledging this information as credible I researched through other resources.  Even though Facebook broadcasts a wide range of fabricated news and information it also delivers a vast amount of credible information, but before accepting this piece of information on Facebook as credible, I research through other sources to confirm that this information is trustworthy such as CNN.com, NBCnews.com and other major news network websites. When reading information on Facebook I tend to do this often to back up what I learn on this social media site so I don’t go around spreading/sharing false information throughout social media communities or to others in the real world. With backing up what I read on Facebook I do consider this social media network to be reliable for obtaining credible information, only if I research the facts to verify what I read as credible.

What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?

            On a daily basis I rely on many forms of new media to make it through the day, without these media sources I may go crazy not knowing what is going on around the world, in my hometown/the current city I live in, also what’s going on with my family and friends. Since the development of these new media outlets such as social media, I always feel connected to the world.

            There isn’t a day that I let go by without tuning in to CNN on television, and since the creation of apps on mobile devices such as the smart phone and tablet I am able to browse through the news CNN transmits through their apps that I may have missed on television. With the development of these apps I am able to stay connected to daily/breaking news wherever I am not worrying about missing any piece of news I may be interested in. By way of viewing news through mobile devices, breaking news alerts are sent directly to my mobile device, this allows me to stay up to date on everything I may miss prior to watching television or just browsing through the app myself.

            As far as social media goes I rely on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep me entertained and connected to my family and friends on a daily basis. Even though I live in Atlanta, GA and the majority of my family and friends are located in Connecticut, with these social media platforms it feels that we are always connected and in reach of each other no matter how much of a distance is between us.

            With the creation of new media and social media platforms I feel that these developments have a positive affect on society and continue to influence civilization and mold the cultures of the world. These developments continue to impact the world everyday; with this impact more and more people are influenced to use these new media outlets and social media platforms on a daily basis, which allows users to keep connected with the events that are headlining the news and maintain relationships with the people we chose to keep connected to. 

            Even though the creation of new media outlets and social media platforms have made majority of a positive influence on the world, there is always room for the negative. With everyone having access to the Internet as long as they have the connection, as individuals along with blogs and media websites, we are able to update and post whatever we chose whenever we chose, with these post updates this may lead to many non-factual posts, these posts all have their own audience which makes it easy for people around the world to access false information that may spread around the world at a rapid pace.  While the negative continues to have a small impact on new media/social media, the positive influences still out weighs the negative, and as these media developments continue to grow hopefully the negative influences will diminish more and more.