Transparency in Social Media

1.) Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional prodution values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY??

Amateur user-generated content will continue to gain popularity. Advertising, film, and television are all professionally developing content to purposely appear less than professionally produced. This method of production parallels user-generated content that has developed through social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ZelzzkePc

The Office is a popular television show that emulates user-generated content by using film techniques that give the appearance of a low budget documentary. Though the show is professionally cast, filmed, and scripted, the overall impression is that is was done by amateurs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu-HxTfVkGo

Films like Cloverfield, shown above, and Paranormal Activity are shot to appear like home videos or reality television, an amateur filmmaker "accidentally" capturing important video on a camera. This new trend in production exemplifies the idea that professionals are purposely choosing to use the style of user-generated content to appeal to the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iTOCavui_w

Advertisements such as this one for Sonic are also utilizing a method of production that appears user-generated (and therefore low-quality). Advertising is being completely revolutionized by technology. Because of this, advertising producers need to develop a brand new approach to advertising. In the case of this Sonic commercial, they are choosing to follow the popular trend of YouTube video.

It can be assumed that eventually the professionally produced media will meet somewhere in the middle with the lower-quality media produced by the users. Professionals mirror the user-generated style because that it is what an audience addicted to social networking has come to expect. However, it seems unlikely that professional production will cease to exist entirely. Instead it will level out, as user-generated content becomes more advanced through the use of technology. Eventually, it will no doubt become difficult to tell the difference between the two.

2.) Find a news article and write down tags you would use to define what the article is about. Now go to Digg or another tagging site and see how others have tagged it. What did you learn from the differences or similarities in tagging.

The New York Times reports that Tuft University applicants are now able to submit youtube.com videos as application supplements.

To Impress, Tufts Prospects Turn to YouTube

We would tag this article as: TUFTS UNIVERSITY, YOUTUBE.COM, COLLEGE APPLICATIONS, USER-GENERATED VIDEO.

Given tags are: TUFTS UNIVERSITY, ADMISSION STANDARDS, RECORDINGS AND DOWNLOADS, COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET.

The given tags were more technology- oriented. The New York Times's tags also covered a broader spectrum (for example "computers and the internet" instead of "user-generated video"). This is most likely due to the fact that Tuft's technological supplement to their application is so revolutionary. The tags we selected would offer more narrow search results.

3.) Why is transparency such an important concept in the Social Media world? Is it MORE or LESS important in the offline world? Why?

Transparency is an increasingly important concept in our technologically advanced world. As the internet become more advanced (and therefore people get farther and farther away from the original source), it is more difficult to trust the information they're receiving. In order for the readers to believe an individual site, there needs to be an overall trustworthiness and transparency for all websites, and the entire Internet. Though transparency is crucial in both the online and offline world, the assumed transparency of online media increases the necessity for the actuality. In other words, because enough people assume that they can trust the online world, it is extremely hazardous if there is a low level of accountable communication.

The Persuaders Questions

• "The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?
• I think there is far too much advertising, overwhelming potential customers when they are trying to shop, watch TV, even just going for a drive. I think that many companies feel that they need to do this in order to get a leg up on the competitors, but in fact the overabundance of advertising has the opposite effect. I feel like people today have become almost desensitized to advertising; we've gotten so used to it that nothing really affects us anymore, unless it's in a negative way, like annoyance. Because there is so much of it, advertising doesn't have the impact that it used to have maybe 20 to 30 years ago.
  
  
• What surprised you in the descriptions of how much demographic information marketers have about potential customers? What kinds of information would you be willing to share about yourself or your family in order to: enter a contest? Get a discount? Get online? Get a cell phone? Use a credit card? Would you be willing to reveal your name, address and phone number? What music you listen to or your favorite snacks? How much you earn? What medications people in your family take? What kinds of information would you want to keep private and why?
• It alarmed me a little bit to realize just how much information can be learned about you from the sites you visit, your apparent interests, etc and that this information is used to advertise to the type of person you are assumed to be. I personally hate giving out information because there are so many untrustworthy sites out there, I'm afraid of spam and viruses hurting my computer. I tend to only give out credit card information to websites like Amazon that I know are official sites. Also, I don't like the idea that your hobbies, interests, etc become common knowledge to advertisers and are then used against you.
  

Digital Nation Commentary

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/forum/2010/02/reactions-to-digital-nation-1.html#comments

Digital Nation II

This documentary had me very torn on my feelings towards the effects of technology on modern society. Each individual story showed the pros and cons of the technology movement to the point that it was difficult to discern whether the good outweighed the bad or vice versa. The main issue seems to be society's renewed focus on what the documentary called "instant gratification"- that as a whole, we are no longer willing to use patience and hard work to get results. We want what we want when we want it. Also, as the narrator pointed out, everyone now seems prone to a complete lack of focus or concentration; instead almost every computer user is easily thrown off course or at least temporarily deterred from the task at hand by some random urge or new lead to follow.

This seemed especially noticeable in the clips about students- both middle school and college level students. For the middle schoolers, the rise of technology was greatly benefiting their work, though the teachers needed to be increasingly inventive in the ways of learning. However, at the college level, technology is merely a distraction and the students were more prone to think and work in what they called "bursts" or "snippets"- only using short term thinking processes. I think this emphasizes the never-ending debate of technology's benefits vs risks. In the end, the main focus is simply on the fact that it is inevitably changing us. Technology helps and hinders learning, it causes addiction, it broadens the professional world, the list goes on and on. But whether the effects are positive or negative is irrelevant- technology is a fast-moving world that eventually everyone is going to need to become a member of- or risk falling behind.

Digital Nation

This documentary came as a surprise to me. I knew that the increasing amount of technology was greatly affecting my generation, but I don't think I fully understood to what extent. I am a member of the millions of teenage "multi-taskers", but I'm not nearly as bad as the students who were tested on their multi-tasking abilities. I also didn't realize that multi-tasking was considered such an epidemic that there are research studies being conducted. However, it seems right to assume that this trend is going to affect each new generation, in their education as well as their forms of entertainment.
I agree that it is important to draw attention to the growth of technology and our subsequent dependence on it. However, I believe that it is inevitable- as we create more, we are bound to use it more. Each year, children seem to be learning how to interact technologically at an earlier age and the frequency of uses is growing as well. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and hopefully slowed down slightly, but it also needs to accepted. The documentary seems to be a good way to introduce the subject to society.

Web 2.0 Terms

user-generated content- various kinds of media content, publicly available, produced by end-users
long tail- refers to the diversification of products- not the top percentile of purchases
network as platform- the network is the engine that drives communication technologies such as data, video, voice, and mobility- collaborative communication
folksonomy- system of classification- collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content
syndication- making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary of recently added content
mass collaboration- collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project
computer supported collaboration- technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies
web applications- application accessed over a web browser- popular because of the ability to update and maintain them without having to install software to all clients
social-software-software systems that allow users to interact and share data (ie social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc)
video-sharing sites- websites where users can distribute their video clips (most popular- YouTube)
wikis- website that allows easy creation of interlinked web pages (wikipedia)
blogs- type of website- contains regularly updated entries (like diary entries, videos, etc)
mashup- web page of application that combines data from 2+ external sources to create a new service

Smartphone Collage II

The nickname "smartphone" is an accurate one; as each new cellular phone is introduced, it is more intelligent, more sophisticated, and more complex. These phones take our world to another level socially, as well as professionally, artistically, and by way of entertainment. Each new variety has an important addition- first text messaging, then internet, and eventually music and video. The main benefit to this combination of media is convenience for the user. It is now easy to access multitudes of information from one hand-held device. This helps to overcome geological barriers by enabling quick and easy communication despite any amount of distance, but it also heightens society's reliance on technology, more specifically on one particular medium. Many people have become so dependent on the convenience of a smartphone, they are now unable to function without it.

Smartphone Collage