TwitPic is a website that allows users to easily post pictures to the Twitter micro blogging site. It is often used to upload pictures in real time as the event are taken place. Although TwitPic is often associated as a capability of Twitter, it could be used independently of Twitter, in a way similar to Flickr. However, there are several characteristics that link it to Twitter. Your username and password used for Twitter can also be used for TwitPic. This allows anyone with a Twitter to be able to share photos with their followers. Comments to these pictures or videos are sent as a reply tweet.
Services like TwitPic have played a critical role in spreading newsworthy images from eyewitnesses who have been present with mobile phones at world-changing events. Events such as the evacuation of Times Square, the earthquake in Haiti, the protests in Egypt and many more were portrayed through TwitPics. Occasionally, TwitPic images not only depict the news, they become the news, themselves. Last year, there was a photo of a transit worker sleeping on the job posted on TwitPic that caused uproar in the media.
TwitPic this year furthered its capabilities and allowed users to start posting videos in the same fashion they would post pictures. The founder Noah Everett did this in hopes of being a one-stop shop for users to share media on Twitter in real time.TwitPic is a great way to express what is going on in the present time, I encourage people with Twitter to experience this capability and have fun with it.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Google Plus
Google plus is a mixture of different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and others. Like Facebook it allows people to post statuses, pictures, videos, edit your profile and the +1 (like Facebook's like). So like any other social media platform it allows for two way communication.
One unique thing that Google Plus has that blends ideas from most social network sites is Circles. Circles are the Google Plus way of following someone, however you can sort them into different categories like a Facebook list. You can sort whose posts you see by these circles or you can post things just for certain circles. So it makes communicating more efficient if you want to get a message out to a certain crowd. Say you're having a birthday party and you want to let your family know, you can post it just to your family circle, easy as that.
Google Plus also has a tool called Hangouts, it allows for 10 people to video chat at once. The people in the chat can also jointly create a document, draw or share pictures. This allows for easy collaboration and communication through webcams and the use of the different things you can do while video chatting.
Google Plus however has an identity crisis however. Is it a social networking site like Facebook where it's about your actual self or is it an open identity where you can post content or whatever you feel like Twitter or Blogs. It appears as if Google Plus wants to go towards more of an actual self with deleting pseudonyms on the site. But with the new What's hot on Google+ it seems as if they want more of an open approach.
Google Plus is trying to put all of the best features of Social Networking sites that allow people to communicate easily. However the site isn't the best utilization since not everyone isn't on it. Google is the leading search engine in the world but most people don't think of it as the communication hub of their life. Google Plus could be great for all kinds of computer mediated communication but with Facebook, Twitter and all the other Social Networks out there it kind of falls flat. People are already on one place and they don't need another for the same exact communication features.
ZuluPad
ZuluPad is a new and innovative way of keeping a scheduled notebook. "ZuluPad is a notepad on crack." It is basically a place where people can just jot down some notes, appointments, to-do lists, favorite websites, bookmarks, and anything else that there is to think of. It is your personal schedule that is very convenient and easy to stay on top of. This is a great way to help organize your day/s. The great thing about ZuluPad is that it combines the best parts of a notepad with the best parts of a wiki, a concept made popular by (Wikipedia).
The basic idea has been called a personal wiki or a desktop wiki. For example, if you are trying to study for a test on Darwinism and the concepts Charles Darwin has come up with, you would jot down the notes from that class. Darwin stays in your notes and becomes a hyperlink just in case you ever want to make a reference back to it. The notes stay in the ZuluPad for a long time and they are attainable even when you think yo may not need them anymore. Like mentioned before, it is a great way to stay organized, as well as, a personal reminder of your schedule. This tool can be very important in everyday use because many people are using task managers and day planners as ways to keep a balanced scheduled. Unlike regular day planners, the ZuluPad is able to keep notes in them and these notes will be around for a long period of time. This type of tool can very beneficial because people are able to take notes and keep a scheduled planner all in one. It's a great catch.
The basic idea has been called a personal wiki or a desktop wiki. For example, if you are trying to study for a test on Darwinism and the concepts Charles Darwin has come up with, you would jot down the notes from that class. Darwin stays in your notes and becomes a hyperlink just in case you ever want to make a reference back to it. The notes stay in the ZuluPad for a long time and they are attainable even when you think yo may not need them anymore. Like mentioned before, it is a great way to stay organized, as well as, a personal reminder of your schedule. This tool can be very important in everyday use because many people are using task managers and day planners as ways to keep a balanced scheduled. Unlike regular day planners, the ZuluPad is able to keep notes in them and these notes will be around for a long period of time. This type of tool can very beneficial because people are able to take notes and keep a scheduled planner all in one. It's a great catch.
Google Wave: Ride It
Google Wave yet another free web application brought to you by the kings of internet innovation, Google. Because it’s from Google, you can expect it to integrate Google’s other groundbreaking software, such as Gmail, Google Plus, and of course Google search. Google Wave is a media mashup web application that allows you to collaborate on a project with your team, be it friends, family or coworkers. If you were to look at each individual feature, there would be nothing new about Google Wave, but when you cram all these features into one, and integrate it with Google’s other services, you have a winning combination.
The structure of Google Wave is that you create and share “waves” with your group. A wave can be either a discussion board, complete with a polling system, task tracking, where the user can create and manage to-do lists, meeting planner, richly formatted documents, or brainstorming, where you can type text, add images, or even draw your own images. You can even do a video search from within Wave’s interface and embed it in your wave. Not only videos and images can be embedded, but also Google maps and a long list of customizable add-ons. Customizability and personalization are the keywords for Wave. Wave syncs with your contacts, and the way in which you present ideas and data are virtually unlimited.
The user interface is sleek and intuitive. There are helpful mini tutorials along the way as you explore its features, yet they don’t clutter your screen or get in your way. When you create a new wave template, there will be a sample format shown, so you aren’t wasting time stumbling around with the features.
So how does all this affect the way we communicate and interact? It seamlessly melds the best of both worlds of what we look for in communicating on computers. That is, you can get the real time collaboration and instant feedback from something like the video chat extension, and you can have the “read now, respond when I have time” angle of communication with a wide array of text based communication options such as the discussion boards. You can collaborate on the computer, or you can organize a face to face interaction with the wave template for meetings.
If you’ve got a project that requires group organization of any scale, there’s no reason not to give Google Wave a spin. There’s no sign up required, just sign in with a Gmail account. Like all Google software, new features are added constantly, and you can trust that if the technology is there, Google is going to find a way to make it better for you and not even charge you for it.
Bing
Provided by Microsoft, Bing has been a growing search engine since 2009. With its main competitor, Google, Bing seemed but an infant in the field of popularity. However, Bing had some credentials to its name, formerly known as MSN Search and Windows Live Search, Microsoft also teamed up with Yahoo! to help further extend their name. And with a similar concept to Google, Bing is easy to adapt to and use. Search Engines, as the name implies, allows people to look up information for just about anything by typing in key words in a search box. And with some filtering to be done, a user can find their answer one way or another within the vast cyber world of information. In this time and age, speed and efficiency are dominant factors when it comes to choosing which types of search engines will best fit the user’s needs. Here we have Bing, providing many different types of services such as multipurpose search functions. Some basic options that we find within most search engines include searching for pictures, videos, news, maps and more, but Bing also takes it a step further. With “Instant Answers”, users can track packages with a tracking number and company, and “Bing Search Gadget” facilitates live searches for real-time traffic to online shopping. Bing also allows Facebook users to connect directly to their accounts for access to sending messages to friends in the search results, and link up twitter accounts for similar functions.
With other choices out there, Bing has been making a bigger impression on the mass over time. In the competitive market out there, Bing has been able to offer searches matching the speed and quality to Google’s, and with new functions ready to be exploited, Bing is a search engine worth looking at.
TweetCaster
Tweet Caster in the world’s number 1 Twitter application. It tops competitors with
over a million downloads. It has all the bare necessities that a typical twitter app would have, including tweeting (of course), reading your timeline, clicking links, viewing profiles etc. One of
the reasons it has become so popular is not what makes it the same as the competitor
apps, but what helps it stand apart…far apart apparently. Tweet caster has Zip
it functionality, Instappaper Support, Multiple Widgets, Multi-Account Support,
Twitter Lists, Offline Tweet Caching, Tweet filtering, color code tweets, facebook integration and much more.
There are so many things you can do with this app. You can
hide unwanted tweets without having to unfollow people using Zip It. You can be
creative and get personal. With color coding, tweet caster allows you to choose
a custom color for your own tweets and replies. You can even use the Nearby
search feature which allows you to search for tweets near your current
location. With that, you can check out who tweeted about local restaurants,
amusement parks, movies etc. This can be extremely convenient when looking for
a good restaurant to eat at. You can search tweets that have people’s opinions
about that restaurant. This can help save time and money because in essence you’ll
know what you’re getting yourself into before you spend your money.
A lot like the original twitter, this technology is great
for computer mediated communication. It allows for multiple people to
communicate at a time. With all of TweetCasters savy features, it allows the
user to communicate outside the box. This app is user friendly, which means
that the communicator wouldn’t need much guidance to communicate effectively.
Its as simple as the push of a button (or two). This is definitely a form of
multiple communication and interaction. With TweetCaster’s “Follower Management”
you can follow, unfollow, block and even report as spam, all from your mobile
phone. This allows for INTENSE interaction, or no interaction at all. And like most social networking communication
apps/software, there are little to no time constraints. TweetCaster was voted
one of the fastest apps on the android network. There is little freezing and “force
stops” on this application, another reason why its great for computer mediated
communication. This ceases the amount of
resistance or potential problems that may impede communication. A lot like a
dropped call on a Cell phone, you would no longer have to worry about “noise”
or interruptions from technology failure. There would be no freezing, interruptions,
force stops or “wait” options. As people all over the world continue to
download this app, the team at TweetCaster continues to improve its
functionality and preserver with its unique and near flawless design.
over a million downloads. It has all the bare necessities that a typical twitter app would have, including tweeting (of course), reading your timeline, clicking links, viewing profiles etc. One of
the reasons it has become so popular is not what makes it the same as the competitor
apps, but what helps it stand apart…far apart apparently. Tweet caster has Zip
it functionality, Instappaper Support, Multiple Widgets, Multi-Account Support,
Twitter Lists, Offline Tweet Caching, Tweet filtering, color code tweets, facebook integration and much more.
There are so many things you can do with this app. You can
hide unwanted tweets without having to unfollow people using Zip It. You can be
creative and get personal. With color coding, tweet caster allows you to choose
a custom color for your own tweets and replies. You can even use the Nearby
search feature which allows you to search for tweets near your current
location. With that, you can check out who tweeted about local restaurants,
amusement parks, movies etc. This can be extremely convenient when looking for
a good restaurant to eat at. You can search tweets that have people’s opinions
about that restaurant. This can help save time and money because in essence you’ll
know what you’re getting yourself into before you spend your money.
A lot like the original twitter, this technology is great
for computer mediated communication. It allows for multiple people to
communicate at a time. With all of TweetCasters savy features, it allows the
user to communicate outside the box. This app is user friendly, which means
that the communicator wouldn’t need much guidance to communicate effectively.
Its as simple as the push of a button (or two). This is definitely a form of
multiple communication and interaction. With TweetCaster’s “Follower Management”
you can follow, unfollow, block and even report as spam, all from your mobile
phone. This allows for INTENSE interaction, or no interaction at all. And like most social networking communication
apps/software, there are little to no time constraints. TweetCaster was voted
one of the fastest apps on the android network. There is little freezing and “force
stops” on this application, another reason why its great for computer mediated
communication. This ceases the amount of
resistance or potential problems that may impede communication. A lot like a
dropped call on a Cell phone, you would no longer have to worry about “noise”
or interruptions from technology failure. There would be no freezing, interruptions,
force stops or “wait” options. As people all over the world continue to
download this app, the team at TweetCaster continues to improve its
functionality and preserver with its unique and near flawless design.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
DIPITY
Dipity is a digital online timeline website that is free to join for public users. It allows users to find, create, and embed interactive timeline. Dipity helps users organize different content with date and time. Users can visually engage in these timeline which integrates video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps.
Dipity can be utilized by anyone who uses the internet: anyone from politicians, students, professors, journalists and many more. "Dipity allows users to create free timelines online. Digital timelines are a great way to increase traffic and user engagement on your website. Dipity is the fastest and easiest way to bring history to life with stunning multimedia timelines (dipity, 2011)".
It is recommended to anyone and everyone who wants to create their own history. It is a great way to keep day to day, month to month timeline of things you never want to forget. In one way or another it helps you understand what others had to do in order to get to where they are today in a organized time and date manner.
Dipity can be utilized by anyone who uses the internet: anyone from politicians, students, professors, journalists and many more. "Dipity allows users to create free timelines online. Digital timelines are a great way to increase traffic and user engagement on your website. Dipity is the fastest and easiest way to bring history to life with stunning multimedia timelines (dipity, 2011)".
It is recommended to anyone and everyone who wants to create their own history. It is a great way to keep day to day, month to month timeline of things you never want to forget. In one way or another it helps you understand what others had to do in order to get to where they are today in a organized time and date manner.
Blogger
A company called Pyra Labs created Blogger in 1999. Google later purchased Blogger. Setting up a blogger account can be done very easily; you need to create an account through your Google email, name your blog, and choose a template. Through this blog, whether it is public or personal can be used to talk about anything a user wants. The creators of Blogger say there main goal is “focusing on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the worlds information from the personal perspective.”
Blogger allows one to post text, links, visuals, and audio, and you can go about doing this in different ways. One option of getting your posts onto your blog is to optionally set up your blogger with an email address; this is so you can email posts to your blog. This is beneficial in the sense that you can update constantly whether or not you are at your computer, for example you can use your cell phone or any other mobile device. Blogger also allows you to upload pictures from your desktop and post them to your blog. As well, Google videos and Youtube videos can be directly linked into your blog spots. One interesting aspect of using blogger is that if a user lets you, you can add information on their blogs, and there is also a section for you to comment on their blog. People enjoy this because not only can you voice your opinion in a personal blog, but also you get to hear others feedback on the topic being discussed if you chose to make it public.
Affordances of Blogger include being able to easily access this website with no downloading necessary. It is a simple way to post your personal views on certain topics. Blogger is a great way to present information to the public, as well as it being beneficial to others to hear other opinions and being able to comment on them. Compared to other blogging websites, this one is easy to access; there is no download, or membership fees necessary. Blogger is simple to use, and great for personal, public, educational, and or recreational use.
http://google.about.com/od/googleblogging/fr/bloggerreview.htm
Friday, October 28, 2011
DriveSafe.ly Pro
DriveSafe.ly Pro is a smart phone program that reads email and sms text messages aloud so the user can concentrate on the road. It helps dramatically eliminate the temptation to drive distracted and with the Pro version you can respond back via voice commands. The program lets you send text messages and emails back by voice so that you don't have to look down to read and respond to messages.
You can command the program to speak in different voices (male and female) in different languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, French, English, and Italian plus many more. The text-to-speech software is enabled by one of the leading manufacturers iSpeech.org. You can customize auto-response and timeout duration as well as the length of messages read out loud and up to unlimited words. The program plays messages on demand and can be easily toggled on and off without ruining the performance of your phone. The program evens reads shorthand (lol, brb etc).
Although the program does not read or respond to other applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Calendar etc. if you receive updates from these social media outlets via text message, the program will read them. You can purchase the program for $19.99 regularly and from now until December 31st, 2011 blackberry users can select this program as a free gift. There is a discount and free version for most smart phones similar to that as well. There are also discounts for enterprises, families and other annual and monthly users.
(Alcatel-Lucent 2007) Internally, enterprises globally will increasingly make 2.0 ‘tools’ part of their routine. Collaboration productivity tools, unified communications, virtual worlds and Web services are among the tools likely to be adopted. Their adoption will, in turn, drive the growth of a social networking enterprise software industry. With the increase in web. 2.0 and now 3.0 tools with web capabilities and collaboration tools, the world of information changes dramatically with DriveSafe.ly Pro being a perfect example. More tools and applications are being created to infuse and bring together the most used and visited sites and web content to make things easier to share and view individually and throughout communities.
Phone-based voice communication is changing and being intertwined with face-to-face capabilities as with the text-to-speech capability. With the new changes being made in the world of communications and web functions, smart phone and web based activities are even that more combined and brought together. The growth in fixed and mobile broadband has created a richer multimedia communication environment. This has shifted the emphasis from personal communication and voice transmitted communication to a multimedia and multi-content way of communicating (Alcatel-Lucent 2007).
References:
Thursday, October 27, 2011
FormatPixel
FormatPixel is a website online that allows the user to create their own online magazines, brochures, catalogs, portfolios, and other tools to display themselves. This site enables people to use their creativity to create these tools and share them with their friends, family, coworkers, or the world. Anybody can sign up for this site, depending on how much you want to use the site. If you only want to create one project it is free, but the more projects you would like to create the more money this site costs.
In your projects you can add photos, make the tool interactive, design a layout, and add your own text. From looking through other peoples creations, I see that a lot of people use this website to display family trips, company magazines, and promote themselves. This is a great way to communication and if done correctly, can be a great portfolio and resume for yourself for a potential job.
The website also allows you to attach videos and pictures to your pages. This helps you reach out to a larger audience and may obtain more followers or readers of your posts. Since the posts can be interactive and commented on, the communication aspect of this site is high. It is a way in which to share yourself, your ideas, and other things with the world.
The affordances of this website is the ability to share yourself with the world. It enables you to use multiple tools to interact and create something that can help others learn in a way. People can be learning about you, can be learning about a company, or can be learning about something educational.
www.formatpixel.com
Gmail
Gmail is Google’s free web-based email service. Gmail is different from AOL, and other email websites. I chose Gmail as my tool because I think it is an application we should all use. As we enter the professional world within the next few years, it is important to have another email account besides our school email. I believe Gmail is an appropriate, professional email account.
Michael Arrington “blogged” about the comparison between Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo mail. He states that all three applications “make up the vast majority of the 500 million or so webmail users around the world.” When you think about it, almost everyone in this day and age has one of these accounts. I have both an AOL and Gmail account, AOL for personal use and Gmail for professional use. He believes that Gmail is the preferred application because the performance is consistently fast. Emails on Gmail can also be tagged, making search much more effective. Neither Yahoo or Hotmail have this feature. Gmail groups’ emails in a thread into a single line on the inbox, making things more organized. This makes emails easier to read and reply. This way, you don’t have to search for an old email from the sender, it will simply be in your thread. Gmail also offers Google talk, also known as Gtalk. This enables text and voice chat between users. You can send instant messages and make free long distance calls to people anywhere around the world. This feature is very similar to Skype – it depends on what you’re using the tool for. Gmail offers email as well as the video chat and instant messaging. Gmail also allows to web searching. Described by Eric Holter, “Gmail’s search is practically instantaneous.”
http://techcrunch.com/2007/02/08/a-comparison-of-live-hotmail-gmail-and-yahoo-mail/
Michael Arrington “blogged” about the comparison between Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo mail. He states that all three applications “make up the vast majority of the 500 million or so webmail users around the world.” When you think about it, almost everyone in this day and age has one of these accounts. I have both an AOL and Gmail account, AOL for personal use and Gmail for professional use. He believes that Gmail is the preferred application because the performance is consistently fast. Emails on Gmail can also be tagged, making search much more effective. Neither Yahoo or Hotmail have this feature. Gmail groups’ emails in a thread into a single line on the inbox, making things more organized. This makes emails easier to read and reply. This way, you don’t have to search for an old email from the sender, it will simply be in your thread. Gmail also offers Google talk, also known as Gtalk. This enables text and voice chat between users. You can send instant messages and make free long distance calls to people anywhere around the world. This feature is very similar to Skype – it depends on what you’re using the tool for. Gmail offers email as well as the video chat and instant messaging. Gmail also allows to web searching. Described by Eric Holter, “Gmail’s search is practically instantaneous.”
http://techcrunch.com/2007/02/08/a-comparison-of-live-hotmail-gmail-and-yahoo-mail/
Chatter
Chatter is a great tool that helps people conveniently collaborate at work. It is a tool made by Salesforce, one of the biggest names in enterprising communication webapps. At first glance Chatter looks similar to Twitter or Facebook with the profiles, status updates, and streaming in-line comments. However, what makes it different is it’s a private social network that is just for your business. What I mean by that is you connect with your co-workers and people within your organization and everything within that network is kept private from others. This helps with community building, by making your business or company more connected and accessible to each other. Only people with a verified company email address can join your company network. This can save businesses a lot of time by having little meetings on Chatter to prepare for presentations, or to discuss future ideas, especially since you can communicate while people are in different places geographically. Once you join on Chatter, you can make a profile which helps you get to know more about your colleagues and also have them learn more about you. You can also post and share large files for times where you need an employee’s opinion before a meeting or to proofread a presentation.
Recently they have added new features to Chatter to improve the convenience for connecting with important parts of your business. They made applications for your cell phones, iPad, and your desktop computer to conveniently preview files and share new updates. They have also added customer groups, to securely connect to customers and respond and obtain feedback. Salesforce has really created Chatter to make communicating throughout the business easier than ever. With being able to connect, message, and communicate from anywhere, anytime, while just being on the computer really transforms the way a company can work.
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