Tom's Story on Vimeo

A student from UT Dallas speaks about his journey in America as an immigrant from Thailand.

Tom's Story from Cintia Guerrero on Vimeo.

La Obligacion de mi Generacion

A video my friend and I made last semester in my Advanced Emerging Media Communications Class.

La obligacion de mi generacion from Cintia Guerrero on Vimeo.

Why is Social Media Important in Our Society?

Picture Courtesy of FredCavazza

               Back in 2007 a person by the username Jmosley said that his first time visiting the Youtube site was amazing. However, he thought that Youtube would not become a serious medium for learning. That’s what most people’s opinion was back then of any social network.  Not many people realize just how important social media is to society. Youtube for example is a place we can plan large amounts of actions towards making our planet a better place.

                Why is Social Media Important to Society? Social Media has changed everything around us. From the way people are recruited and hired to consumer expectations and customer support. It connects people personally and professionally through messages, videos, pictures and more. Social Media should be important to everyone. It could seriously help out our political, economic, and personal issues with ourselves and society. History has taught us that with new ways of communicating to the masses, new ideas, new possibilities emerge. This is why Social Media is so important. Not because you can “friend” someone, or “like” something, or even “tweet” your routine existence.

                This is the Age of Social Media, something that our children or grandchildren might not even know about, unless we tell them. We won’t know the effects of social media for quite some time. But what we do know is that social media is important for this moment. Technology has improved since the Industrial Revolution, who knows what’s in store for the future. Whatever comes at us then, society will be ready. After all, it’s been fine for the past few changes.

A Facebook and Myspace Mashup

Picture Courtesy of TechShali.com

          Social Media has come a long way since it first started.  Back in the day there was bebo, yearbook and xenga. It wasn’t until Myspace, when Social Media started to be a big thing. Now that Facebook is taking over the Social Media World, who wouldn’t want to be a part of the grand social network? That’s where the old and new big social networks decided to collide and make a mashup.

After a whole year of rumors, Myspace allows you to finally be able to log in using your Facebook account.  That isn’t the only thing they incorporated though. Facebook’s “like” system can also be done through Myspace now.

“ Through a product the companies are calling “Mashup with Facebook,” users who log in with Facebook (or connect their existing MySpace account) are able to pull in their likes and interests, which makes it easy for them to do things like follow updates from their favorite entertainers. MySpace also has plans to integrate “Like” buttons across the site, meaning MySpace content like music and videos will start getting shared back to Facebook.” -Mashable

   This was a good choice for Myspace to make because it was dying without Facebook. Let’s face it, nobody logs on Myspace to chat with friends anymore.  It made sense for Myspace to join the popular social network.  The only thing Myspace was good for, was entertainment.  At least, that’s the major reason I signed on from time to time.

I think MySpace should make a niche for itself and start doing social networking specifically for the music/entertainment industry--all of the elements are already there, and catering to everyone (i.e., teenager girls) seems to be failing for them now that Facebook is so popular. Now with this feature, it would make even more sense.  We’ll see what happens due to this decision.

Privacy in Social Media

   Last weeks presentation on Privacy really brought up a good point. Is our content really Private even if we customize our settings a certain way? Facebook has been the major concern on privacy for a while now, but what about other social networks? Sources say no.

Bloomberg News

"MySpace and some popular applications have been transmitting information to outside advertising companies that could be used to identify users. Above, website pages from MySpace.com."

Picture Courtesy of Wall Street Journal

   According to The Wall Street Journal, Myspace recently also had a privacy leakage. They way that it was leaked was through advertisements. When a Myspace user clicked on ad, the data that was let out wasn’t necessarily from the person who clicked on it. Whoever clicked on ad exposed some of their friends ID numbers if not all. However, the problem didn’t stop there. Some appliances such as RockYou Pets and TagMe also transmitted user IDs. It may have not been such a big deal to some, but for others it became a really serious issue. With a Myspace user ID, anyone would have been able to view a person’s profile page, photographs, location, gender, age, etc. This is a problem for some people when it comes time to get a job. They can’t possibly compete with others if the company they are trying to work for finds their profile because of this leakage. Myspace said that applications that have the intention to steal user’s data are prohibited and that certain measures will be taken against those application developers.

This situation doesn’t stop at Facebook and Myspace though.

“The lesson here: If you don’t want any possibility of accidentally sharing personal data like your name, location, or social connections with companies, you pretty much have to avoid social media and social networking altogether -- for now. “  - Mashable  

Exaggeration of Gender Parts in Media

Video Courtesy of Photobucket

     First off I'm sorry for not attending class on Monday.. I had an extremely allergic reaction to Mary Kay. Mary Kay has evil products.. Yep. But anyways back to the topic. On Monday what I missed about racism. As far as racism goes online. I don’t really see a big deal.  Well me being Hispanic I guess I don’t even look it. I know friends who almost tried to commit suicide because of it. I guess there’s people out there that have nothing else to do but bully people online. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that.

    For today’s discussion about Gender Exaggeration…female parts and male parts.. On video games and other media. Well.. I gave on my twitter account about the Bratz example. I mean ever since they came out I thought they were really ridiculous. I mean they had like huge boobs and big butts and they were just really exaggerated.. Oh and big lips. Yeah. And when I first saw them well personally I didn’t even like dolls so I didn’t really care but I know little girls.. Well like my cousins and stuff. They use to play with them a lot and they would always ask me: Am I going to have boobs like this doll or something. And it was funny at the time but now that I really think about it. It’s just ridiculous because some kids could have taken it really seriously. I know there’s celebrities out there that exaggerated their parts. I don’t know if it’s because of that. But I guess I’m talking about a whole new topic. I guess Bratz and Barbie dolls are like roll models to little kids and teenagers. And they’re just making people anorexic, bulimic, or make themselves get implants. Well, I kinda suffered though that phase. When that video game Final Fantasy X-2 came out. When this character named Yuna came out. I just loved how she looked! I don’t know if she had exaggerated boobs but, to me she kinda did. Well I have none. But I really wanted them. But I mean I didn’t have money to get them. If I did.. .I would have probably gotten them. That’s the bad thing about it. They’re putting a bad example for little kids and teenagers. They should really look for those things other than sexuality. I can’t really say anything much from a guys perspective. But yes, I can. I have friends that have actually like taken steroids just because theses characters. It’s just super ridiculous what people have to do just so they could be like these characters.

    SORRY FOR THE DIFFICULTIES! My camera turned off last second. But yeah I just think video games have way too much of an influence on how they control our lives. We let them control us, and that’s the problem.

Should Facebook be more concerned on Social Interaction OR Privacy?

  
   For the past few weeks, Facebook has had minor glitches and lockdowns due to the fact that their new version was out for appearance. Their new version changes the way people interact on Facebook groups.  See, before, people were limited due to regulations that had to be set within a group. Now, people have the ability to be in a group and talk to  one another.

"Before today’s changes, interactions on Facebook were primarily one-on-one (messages) or interactions with all of your Facebook friends (status updates).  From what I gathered, Groups is designed to solve that issue, something that Zuckerberg calls 'the biggest problem in social networking.'" -Mashable

"Two key examples Facebook’s CEO cited were that Group Chat is immediately disabled at 250 members and that e-mail notifications dwindle down from actions by all members to only actions by your friends in the group."
Picture Courtesy of Mashable

I recently got included in a group and it’s not as great as Zuckerberg makes it seem. First off, I didn’t even get the chance to have a say on whether or not I wanted to even be in the group. Second, since I’ve joined this group I’ve been notified of all the comments by every member in the group. Third, there is no privacy within the group. So if I were to say something negative in the group forum, people from outside the group would be able to see it if they wanted to. That’s something I really worry about with any social network.  Maybe it’s the way the administrator from the group made it be, but it should really be up to the person commenting to have a say on what should be seen by who.

The biggest problem in social networking isn’t how people interact. It’s their privacy.  Facebook has it’s loopholes to search for people.  Facebook is just too concern to be like Twitter.  Maybe, one day they’ll be more concerned with privacy than other issues such as social interaction.