Word Bully

For my final blog post in relation to communication driven Apps, I wanted to take a slightly different approach by researching Apps, instead of using ones that I am familiar with.  In my search my main focus was if there were any Apps that have the prevalence of cyber bullying similar to the Web.  The cyber bullying article sparked my interest,  because I think it is an important issue that is too often ignored.  In my search I found the opposite of what I was looking for, but it was still relevant to this issue.  I found an App that can help to cut down cyberbullying over  devices.  

 I found an App for android phones that is called Word Bully, this App has a lot of potential and seems as if it may be helpful, in putting an action in place against cyberbullies.  This App is ideal for parents, who have younger children with androids that should be monitored. The articles states "Adults need to start paying attention to the language of youth if they want antibullying interventions to succeed." and that is exactly what this App does.  It is a parental monitor for their child's phone, where they can be alerted and notified when certain words are sent or received from their child's phone.  Parents can include acronyms , profanity, vulgar language, or any other type of offensive communications.  This will allow adults to monitor bully behavior, and monitor what is being said to and by their children.  Opposite of the article however, I would suggest that this is aimed toward the elementary and middle age school groups rather than high school.  

                As of right not the App, has a tremendous downfall since it is not iOs compatible.  Obtaining access to the iOs operating system, would be very beneficial to Iconosys, which is the maker of this App.  However, this should not be too big of a concern because they are currently in the processing of making the App compatible with iOs, and it is expected to be complete by Christmas.  Also, after a short trial the App costs $9.99, if it is as good as it sounds than that should not a concern.

Extra Credit- Cinemagram

Cinemagram is an application for IPhone users. Users of this application can animate small portions of a photo to create an image that becomes part photo, part video. Videos can also be uploaded and speeded up or slowed down. Just like instagram, users can also filter the photo effect. On the app, users can browse through trending "cines", which are images uploaded by other users that have a lot of views. Users can engage, interact and be creative with photos and videos. An example of a "cine" uploaded can be a picture of coins spinning on a table. The user can animate the coins to move so that it looks like a still picture with just the coins moving. Cinemagram uses your iPhone camera to capture a short video clip, and then convert it into an cinemagraph, where only a certain object in the picture moves. You record a clip and cut it down to a length of a couple of seconds. Then you mask the area you want to move. Lastly, you can share it with other cinemagram users, as well as sync with Facebook and Twitter. This app is my newest favorite app to browse through. Its amazing to see what some users make out of the images they upload. 

Djay

Music is definitely one of the most popular things on everybody's mind. On a list of priorities it would be: 1)Breathing, 2) Eating, 3) Family and then depending on the person it would be 4 or 5 on their list. It is something that can be used for all things; when you're happy you put on music to celebrate or when you're sad people play music to help cope. Heck, no party would ever be good without it, so when algoriddim came out with the djay app, it became a huge success. Winner of the 2011 Apple Design Award this app has taken the music world by storm. As many people have fantasized of being something big like a professional athlete or musician, they have also wondered what it would be like to become a DJ. A lot of people like to play DJ at a party by trying to regulate the music but usually they are just controlling some iPod and can't do much but change the song from one to next. The djay app lets you take songs and mix them and set up one for the next as well as record a mix that you might want to make. It also lets you select the levels and gives  you and in-depth look at what real DJs do everyday. Obviously not everybody has the ear to make good music but its always fun to play make pretend.

This app also is a step forward for the people aspiring to become a DJ, its a good way to start getting "your foot in the door" in the highly competitive world of DJing. I currently have it for my iPhone but I can definitely see it better on the iPad. The larger screen can make it a lot easier. The audience this app goes to is pretty much anybody who likes music and an interest in creating music. Although I can definitely see the younger crowd using it a lot more than the older crowd, as well as the music varying greatly between age and demographics. The cowan article talks about how building trust is key to promoting your organization by adding testimonials and getting visibility, algoriddim did this by offering the app for free which is usually $19.99 and this was a great way for their product to get into more peoples hands, and what do people do when they have a great app? They brag about it to their friends who in turn go and buy the app and when you look up the app on their site they have reviews and ratings and the app has a 4+ average rating out of 5 and the reviews it gets are good except for some talking about bugs but the company fixes them accordingly.

GymPact

In a society where looks is a major concern, many people have to schedule their lives around doing activities to accomplish this goal. A majority of people that are concerned with their looks often go to their local gym to maintain it. The issue is sometimes things might come up that prevent you from going to the gym and then you just decide to just go another day, even though you have more than enough time to go that day. Usually those days you end up doing something that contradicts an outing at the gym. Well technology has struck again to help avoid this dilemma and its called GymPact.

GymPact is an app/website that helps give an incentive to the avid gym-goer. How it works is simple, you buy the app then you register your gym membership into it and you pick what days that week you are going to go to the gym. Once you have done that you then put in a "stake" that you are willing to pay if you do not go to the gym during that day. If you do go to the gym all of the days you said you would then you actually make money. The whole concept is to provide an incentive to not waste your money on a gym membership you never use and make some money for going to the gym. Now I know what you're thinking only in America would we need such an incentive but I think its genius. Something like this can really help people get into or stay in shape while making some money for doing it. For the stakes the minimum you put up is $5 dollars and it goes all the way up to $100 (if you're a baller) and for every gym session you miss you pay them and that is how they are able to pay those who did go to the gym.

Now this is just another example of how technology is a major role for this app and this shows how the move from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is constant and will keep shifting into web 3.0 and so forth. This is an idea that will definitely branch out and expand. Hopefully gym users will remember to go on the days they plan on because now something is definitely on the line besides their self-esteem.

Giving Smartphones Emotional Intelligence

Have you ever been so mad at your phone because the auto correct  keeps putting in a different word then you would like? Or perhaps your phone call has been dropped 2 times but you have service? Well now there is an app on its way to being released where it can actually tell emotions. Now I know what you're thinking yea well this app is probably going to be a bust...but it actually has worked 81 percent of the time compared to most others which are around 55 percent.

The app has not yet been released by engineers at the University of Rochester have come up with a program that can detect your emotion just based on the pitch. This is different then what most other programs work but it works. As the example given in an article "it is like talking to somebody on the phone from Kenya and knowing their mood even though you don't know one word of swahili". This technology could change how smart phones work in the future because based how you are feeling it can adjust color or music playing to the mood you're in which is a pretty nice luxury. It also would be good for psychologists because they wouldn't have to necessarily see their clients all of the time. They would be able to tell their clients mood on days when they aren't scheduled so they can check up on them. This will change how computer communications work because eventually this technology will go from the phone to the tablet to the laptop and soon all computer will be able to tell emotions, but is giving technology a smart idea? My answer is yes simply because when you're not in a good mood you always want things to work right to get out of it and how good will you feel when you see that that you're phone actually knows you and might treat you better than some friends (hopefully not).

So in conclusion I believe that the new technology is inevitable. I have heard rumors that Bill Gates has can actually detect the mood the inhabitant is in and will change the pictures on the wall accordingly. If this is true then it was only a matter of time before us little people had access to such technology.

Extra Credit Blog: Snapchat

So if you are big into texting and share a lot of your adventures, experiences and your awesome moments with your friends then perhaps you have heard of snap chat. But if you haven't yet, well lets just say you might be missing out a bit. Snapchat is an app that allows friends to share pictures between themselves, pictures that tell stories of who they are, trips they've been on and a whole lot more. It's a "magical" app if you want to put it that way. Why magical? well unlike sending a picture message to a friend, romantic partner, classmate etc. which they can have on their phone forever if they chose to without you knowing, this app allows the picture to be shown only for 10 seconds then it disappears forever. Literally just vanishes and cannot be seen again. I find this technology incredibly amazing. New York Magazine will comment on this app saying "the message vanishes, like a communiqué in ‘Mission: Impossible" USA Today College
This is a prime example of mobile technology and the article on "Social Implications of Mobile Telephony:
The Rise of Personal Communication Society" by Scott W. Campbell and Yong Jin Park. It takes mobile communication and social media to a new and exciting level while providing in many ways a better means of privacy. This app is very simple to use which gives the user more time to have fun and play with the app instead of trying to figure out how it works like most other apps. In a way one can say it is also an app for "Sexting" perhaps due to its high level of privacy which gives romantic partners a chance to share things with one another in a more safer way. I like this app and if you haven't tried it out yet, check it out.

Video Conferencing with Skype

It is commonly known that when text messaging or emailing, the loss of non-verbal cues can be very detrimental to the interpretation of the information being shared.  So much of how we interact really relies on the cues that we send with our face and body language and not so much with the words that we say.  We hear emphasis, cadence, tones and see eye-contact, slow or rapid body movements, and hand gestures.  We can even see how the person is breathing or sighing to show a sign of disinterest or liking! All of these human expressions are what matters most and seems to be getting lost with all of these online and phone written messages lacking our non-verbal cues!  As the business world seems to be getting more important every day, the stimulation of information is demanded at a much faster rate and we all can’t physically be in one place at one time, but we can online. What better way to replace emails and phone calls with online and video conferencing which offers a face-to-face connection when using a great site and application called Skype!

The application Skype is very known but is also a great useful tool that allows individuals or groups to come together and see each other and their faces while verbally talking.  This can be especially essential for business meetings and conferences or for school. In the article “Effective Meetings via videoconferencing” by Sandra Sharer, she describes how videoconferencing for sharing ideas and giving presentations can really be useful for our business world. She explains that videoconferencing will increase the overall productivity of an organization and will cut down on the miscommunication between all parties involved! To support how much we rely on non-verbal cues, Sharer states that “when we communicate, 10% of the meaning is contained in the words we choose; 20% is contained in the style of delivery; 70% is contained in non-verbal cues or body language. That's why videoconferencing can be so much more effective than a voice-only conference call.” The engagement of interaction between people allows for an “80% chance for common understanding between all parties” when communicating face-to-face.

The affordance of this application is the ability for others around the world to hold conference meetings or exchange business ideas without having the cost of air plane tickets, hotels, and the dragging out duration of time to complete their desired task.  Skype allows users to stay within the comfort of their realms while getting business done.  Skype also offers the ability to stay on the application even when it is closed so you can always be reached and called. Skype can be used on a cell phone, your portable laptop, iPad or Tablet, and home PC. Wherever you are, you can always get business done in a way that is more understandable and comprehensive to you all because you have a face-to-face connection with others. Sharer provides tips that one should know the technology for fluent and confidence use and to position the cameras in the best angles possible so it suits the interpretation of the receiving parties better.  Remember, visual aspects in video-conferencing are important! The way you dress, your slow or rapid movement, tone and facial expression are all important just as they are in real life which is why it keeps all parties accountable to a real life situation and in good practice, but allowing people to cut down on cost, time, and miscommunication! Skype can be a great tool for businesses and even family members who don't often get to travel to see one another the opportunity to re-connect and stay close.  Whether you need it for your job or for your personal life, Skype offers an all around purpose for your need in life and gives you greater communication and understanding of each other.

Pinterest

A picture image may not actually speak to you with sound but surely has a profound impact on how you think it speaks to you and what it makes you feel like.  Much of today’s social media sites allow users to post pictures instead of just comments, or using them together which can be even greater.  An ever growing social media site that I think speaks to each person in the most personalized way is Pinterest. This site has affordances that include an organized imaged environment that can be captured on your mobile devices or PC's. It also has the ability to post pictures that pertain to your most favorite categories and allows you to repost on your own account for the purpose sharing common interests.  The user can comment or re-caption an image to make it their own.  Because this site is so easy, stimulating, and entertaining, it makes learning from others by way of information sharing that much greater!

But how would you have found these awesome pictures and images so easily? Pinterest curates and filters information by categorizing images to certain topics that best suit and interest you. This way, you are not surfing this site for hours trying to find what speaks to you the most.  All you have to do is find a category that you love, search it, like it, and/or “pin” pictures that you want to save for your own site and share with others.  You can even search other people’s accounts within your category interest and other recommended sites will be offered.  You may come across different categories you may have no initially thought! According to the article about curating and filtering by Teresa Gorman, the purpose of curating information is to “gather of the [images] in once place that are most accurate and the most relevant.” She also states that by filtering through such pictures, you are able to “expand” the information more as its relevance increases. The content of information that people post is “overwhelming” so you need a site that give you what you are looking for without having to suffer through the clutter.  This is another affordance of Pinteterst that narrows down what you are looking for and pleases you faster and with more satisfaction. Pinterest lets you relax and have fun, and the best way this site allows this is through curating and filtering the information and images for YOU!

Extra Credit Blog Post: Cloudy

          Everyone these days seems to want advice on where to go and what to do. We are constantly looking up reviews for products and places. Often though, these reviews can be mixed and therefore confusing. The one seeking information from the reviews doe not know whose opinion they can trust. With the application Cloudy though, you can get rid of the confusion and ask your trusted friends their opinions. You simply input what you are looking for (for example you might type in Mexican food) and then where you would like to search for that item, either near your current location (which is found using their GPS) or near another location. Once you hit search all of the Mexican food places near the location you specified will appear on a map that also shows all of your friends' comments about that place. If someone you know has not reviewed a place but you would still like their opinion, you can ask them to submit a review even if they do not have Cloudy themselves. Once you click on a location, along with your friends' thoughts, you are also shown the exact address, the hours of operation, the price ranges, and the phone number. If you want to know something specific about a place you can submit a question to be answered by your friends. For example you could ask "How are the chicken burritos here?"

          This app is meant is a means for two way communication. You can ask a question about a place and then receive feedback from your friends. Because you know who is giving the review, you know you can trust the review. No reviews are posted anonymously. You can also ask for more specific information of your friends if their review was not clear enough. The message transmission among users is asynchronous, they may reply at any convenient time, not just when others users are using the app. The persistence of the transcript is forever, as users' reviews are left on the application's map. The norms of the messages are informal, informative, and opinionated. Without the second two of these characteristics the application loses its purpose. In order to create a popular review, one must also look at their audience. You must use the same skills discussed in the article on "How To Go Viral on YouTube". You must identify your audience and create a message geared towards their needs. If you want to tell your friends who are college age about a restaurant, you would most likely not discuss the early bird specials in your review.

          Cloudy is helping people make decisions in an easier fashion. Knowing what those who you trust think about a location can greatly influence your decision.

Burner

 

By: Karley Giles

For my extra credit blog I have chosen to write about an app called “Burner”. This app for a small fee of $1.99 will give you a face phone number to use form you current phone for times when you wish to have a more protected identity. This app also comes with 60 text messages and 20 minutes of talk time, and will last until this time is used up or at most seven days (you can also by more minutes and talk time from this app if used up before the end of the seven days). This app was created for the iPhone.

This reminds me of our reading "Social Implications of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personal Communication Society". It speaks of how people are beginning to see their cell phones as an extension of themselves. With cellphones seen as a person part of yourself you can see why someone would not want to share something personal as a cellphone number.  Believe cellphones and their use have become much more private, especially now since they’re little computers with all our information in our pockets.

The burner app has great reviews and recommends it to anymore who needs to be in contact with anyone they are not so familiar with.

Steva Jeremias Corrective 2nd blog post - The Campus Special Mobil

Campus Special To Go

It's no secret that college students are always looking for ways to save money and do fun activities on tight budgets. Coupons are an old school idea, but with the Campus Special mobil application students don't need to carry around their cut-out coupons with them...only their cellphones. The Camups Special is a company whose mission is to work with local businesses in college areas to offer discounts on the products and services used by college students every day. From food, to clothes, to auto repair shops, the Campus Special offers a variety discounts for those of us who need to save money.

The genious in the mobil app is that people constantly have their cellphones on them at all times, which means that college students will constantly have the discounts in their pockets and therefore be more likely to go to the businesses offering discounts through the Campus Special (its win win for everyone!). Along with the coupons, there is a food ordering section which allows the students to actually place food orders right from their phones while still using the discounts! This portion of the app is also equipt with a gps locating service that pulls up all of the food ordering listings (as well as all the other businesses with listings) on a map in order to make it easier for the students to find the business.

This app is SUPER simple to use and practically self-explanatory. As discussed in the article "Building Trust is Key to Promoting your Organisation Online" by Kathy Cowan, a key element in the success of a webpage or electronic median for communication is easy navigation. The user can not be lost in a cluster of information or a sporadic layout, this app is organized in to 4 easy categories 1) featured (located on the opening page of the app), 2) Food (a list of places offering take-out or delivery options), 3)Deals (discounts from the local businesses), and 4) the Map (a way to use the gps locating services to find the business you're searching for).

*The Campus Special app is available to Apple and Android markets. *

Extra Credit Blog Post- HopStop

Does anyone else ever feel completely lost and confused when they are trying to navigate their way around an unfamiliar city? Maybe you're visiting from out of town or you have just moved to the are and are having a hard time trying to learn your way around, either way it can be an incredibly confusing and chaotic process. Luckily, there's an app for that. HopStop is one of my favorite apps on my iphone, and makes any city experience like having a local from that city with you at all times. HopStop works similar to the way a gps works in your car, it automatically uses its gps locator to sync itself to the major city/area you are in, and then offers a list of routs and public transportation options for you to get from your current location to your desired destination.  Lets say I was visiting NYC, and was looking for the quickest way to get from uptown to downtown. I would open up HopStop, select "current location" as my starting point, then type in the address of my desired location as my end point and right away HopStop brings up a list of possible routs I could take to get to my destination. The app could display two or three subway routs, show options of different bus routes, block-by-block directions for walking, or a combination of any or all of these. Hopstop can also display a map of the area you're in, locate the nearest subway station to you, and remember past trips and routes you've taken.HopStop is available to apple, windows, and android markets as well as directly from your computer or in an web format that can be accessed from any internet compatible device. I myself have personally used HopStop on many occasions. I frequently visit Boston and NYC and often like to explore the city's, although i spend much time at both these cities i have yet to be able to navigate my way around by myself. HopStop is single-handily responsible for helping me to reach countless destinations and taking away much of the stress and chaos that can come with attempting to navigate any major city. Two thumbs up for HopStop! 

Shazam

I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels like they would be lost without their cellphone. Nowadays cellphones can do practically anything we would ever need and in a matter of seconds, but one of the app's on my cellphone that i would truly have a hard time without is Shazam. Shazam is a music identifying app, just simply hold your phone up to any music playing, press Shazam's button to activate the program, and Shazam will use your phones built-in microphone to listen to the song it hears, creating an "acoustic fingerprint" in a sense,  and match it to one of the songs in its 8 million song database. Thus, identifying the song for the user.

A plus of Shazam is that phone users need not have a smartphone in order to use Shazam, simply be able to get internet access to their phones for Shazam to connect with its database and find the song that matches the clip. As of 12/5/12 Shazam is still in the top 100 "free app" category of the itunes app store, quite impressive for an app that has been around for over 12 years and is currently being utilized an average of 10 million times a day worldwide.

I for one can not count the amount of times that i have been in a store or in a car and heard a song that i instantly liked and wanted to know what the name of it was and who it was by. Having Shazam in my pocket is an extremely easy and convenient way to for me to quickly find out the information i need about a song and even gives me the option to purchase the song and download it directly to my iphone. I can personally thank Shazam for finding half of the music on my music library for me, and will 100% continue to use Shazam in the future.

Extra Credit: HotSchedules

             

                With all the new advances in technology it has made life easier for many people with accessing information. For instance, information with your job is a lot easier to obtain with these new devices in technology. The application HotSchedules is a great application that can be used to stay in touch with what is going on with your employees and co-workers. In order to have this application your job must sponsor it first so if you are a manager of a company reading this pay attention!

               HotSchedules is an application that can be used on any smartphone or tablet such as an iPhone, Droid, iPad and many more. HotSchedules automatically notifies you when there is an update to your schedule for work or if a fellow employee drops a shift giving you access right at hand to pick that shift up yourself! Not only does HotSchedules offer you your weekly schedule but it also shows you everyone who is working on any day of the week. This is a great advantage to have because if you are looking for a certain employee it is very easy to find them. Another great feature of this application is you have access to a full contact employee list. This makes life a lot easier when trying to contact an employee if you do not already have their number or email. HotSchedules also gives you the opportunity to make requests for your managers to see, requests being to either need the day off or to request to work a certain day. The main feature that HotSchedules With all the new advances in technology it has made life easier for many people with accessing information. For instance, information with your job is a lot easier to obtain with these new devices in technology. The application HotSchedules is a great application that can be used to stay in touch with what is going on with your employees and co-workers. In order to have this application your job must sponsor it first so if you are a manager of a company reading this pay attention!

               HotSchedules is an application that can be used on any smartphone or tablet such as an iPhone, Droid, iPad and many more. HotSchedules automatically notifies you when there is an update to your schedule for work or if a fellow employee drops a shift giving you access right at hand to pick that shift up yourself! Not only does HotSchedules offer you your weekly schedule but it also shows you everyone who is working on any day of the week. This is a great advantage to have because if you are looking for a certain employee it is very easy to find them. Another great feature of this application is you have access to a full contact employee list. This makes life a lot easier when trying to contact an employee if you do not already have their number or email. HotSchedules also gives you the opportunity to make requests for your managers to see, requests being to either need the day off or to request to work a certain day. The main feature that HotSchedules offers you is that you have the ability to send and receive messages like an email account on your mobile device. This is a very important feature because it gives you easy access to your managers when you have a problem or an emergency. Referring back to the article by Byrne, HotSchedules is a great application to keep your business and their employees closer by just a click away.

Filtered Information on the Internet

In our first activity we had to google our own names. I googled David Plungas and so much information came up. The odd thing was that the much of my information had been taken from different sites and put together on some "mylife" or "ancestory" websites. This information of my probably had been taken from survey's, information fill-outs, facebook, twitter, and other information sites to be all put together into one.

People use sites like pinterest, facebook, and twitter to categorize all sorts of information. On Pinterest to categorize different subject they use words as in running, sports, food to filter the information. All of those are categories that are tag within other categories also. You can find your way through different areas and interest of that same categories through these filters.

Crowdbooster

The tool that I chose was Crowdbooster. It was the first one to jump out at me and get my attention for tools for social media. Crowdbooster is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to develop genuine, one-on-one relationships with their customers. It Analyzes the performance of your individual tweets and posts with an interactive graph and table to quickly understand what’s working and what is not working for you and your business. Crowdbooster also sends you ideas, or plan of action, to help with your product to get recongized more. You can use this tool for your twitter or facebook apps. It easily helps you find whats working for you and whats is not in terms of effectiveness over social media.

In reading different articles on Crowdbooster it seems that the ease of use is pretty simple. To sign up for one account on Facebook and Twitter it is free. If you are a business and want multiple account it ranges from $39/ a month to $99 a month depending on how many account you want to use. Its relatively simple and does give you some good data for you to use to enhance your twitter and Facebook markets. In reading more it is tough to see what the disadvantages are except the pricing can get a little high for multiple accounts. Advantages, You get access to usual stats around followers, tweets, mentions and retweets for Twitter as well as fans, comments, mentions and likes for your Facebook page.  You can switch between both accounts easily, and create charts and tables pivoting off of dates.

SocialBro Program

 

You ever thought of the best way to be interactive, network or build a community with and feel please to do so. Through social media, many of those three positively words are seen today through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, etc. They all have an identity but it’s you who creates an identity of what you want to be through the social media.  However, it wouldn’t just be the main social media’s of today because a program called SocialBro helps explore the community well. This is what helps technology grow but also get more people involve through the social networks of today. SocialBro helps you get involve with the community by knowing who your followers are, why are they following, what area they are following from and the language that they speak. This shows an effective way to build trust within the community but also build a strong and stable one.  As most of the time twitter would be used as an example and so to have a fast communication with your community you would target your audience by tweeting and sending a direct message to selected users from the search results. It’s easy as 1, 2, 3 because SocialBro wants it to be that way. This will help increase your Klout score because you’re engaging most of the time. SocialBro is interesting because it will let you know when users are on and where in the area because they would want you to tweet at a specific time. That’s how you catch a fan base or as they say more followers to follow you on twitter. As to creating an identity, you would get respect by those following you consistently. SocialBro helps you with that but shows who isn’t following you, check who aren’t following you, check who follow/unfollow you and who are already following you. SocialBro is an interactive program in which I would recommend many users to use. But to use this program you would have to set up an account but pay for whichever category you fall under because the one you pick will support your needs and wants. Although its a pricing program but those that created this program were very smart. This is a new way to computer mediated communication and a very successful one too. 

http://www.socialbro.com/features

MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter

MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter is a fast and easy way to lose weight by keeping track of your calories. It has the largest food database, over 2 million foods, of any other calorie counter and amazingly fast food and exercise data entry. It became a very credible app. It was PC Magazine Editor's Choice Selection, Wired Magazine's Editor's pick for lifestyle apps, and is the number one free app on Apple's App store. It was featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Family Circle, Marie Claire, NBC, CNET, Shape, and the Today Show. This app remembers your 'favorites,' can add multiple foods at once, and can save and add entire meals. It has a free barcode scanner that helps you easily find foods you have eaten whereas other apps charge for this feature. The app can fully sync to the web, so you can log from your computer or your phone, which ever is more convenient. Plus your data is backed up online so you never lose it. My FitnessPal also tracks your exercise as well. There are over 350 exercises, you can track both cardio and strength training, including sets, reps, and weight/rep. You can also create an unlimited number of custom exercises. MyFitnessPal allows you to connect with friends and easily track and motivate each other. Another feature is that you can record your weight loss goals. You can customize your goals based on your specific diet profile which includes age, gender, and activity level or enter your own goals if you have specific recommendations. You can also report on your progress. Whether it be tracking your weight or measurements for more motivation.

I have this app and it has really helped me control my eating habits. Not that I had bad eating habits, but this Web 3.0 app helps keep me on track with what my proper calorie intake for the day should be.

In the Campbell and Park article, "Social Implications of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personal Communication Society," they explain how mobile communication plays a central role in mass communication. That is exemplified with this app. Since you download to your mobile device you will always be able to add the food you have eaten through out the day while you're on the go, keeping it completely organized at the same time. Cell phones has become a huge part of our everyday life perhaps even part of our identity so having this app at the palm of your hand will make it easier for you to keep your body in check. In class, we talked about community building and I think this app expresses community because you are able to connect with your friends and you can motivate each other to achieve your goal of your desired body and body weight.

Extra Credit-ICQ

 ICQ is an online media company providing communication tools, content and services to an online community of millions of users worldwide (www.icq.com). ICQ is a form of instant messaging just like gmail, yahoo and google. It was established in summer ’96 under the name Mirabilis. It was founded by four young males in their twenties. The reason for this creative website is because they knew that people were connected to the Internet but not interconnected. They wanted to build a community within this service so everyone can feel love and be one. This technology just helps bring people together in a world of information, fun and entertainment. Also it was about networking in a more effective way because to them Instant Messaging was the missing link. This technology made peer-to-peer communication possible! This company had fallen under the great AOL which made success in great ways. ICQ had built communities where people can socialize, communicate and simply hangout with everybody, everywhere. This new program wants to attract any crowd who uses this program but more to the young. Attracting the young is easy because each and every one is up to date on technology nowadays and what to do with it. ICQ gives you everything that you ever wanted because you can play games, share messages, videos, pictures, and more. You are able to download this on your mobile: iPhone, Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone 7, Java, Bada and Mobile-Web Chat. As it was said by Campbell & Park article that mobile devices or mobile communication plays a central role in mass communication and that social change in our society result in the rapid increase for the use of these mobile technologies. With this program at hand, change will come. But also you can have the opportunity to download it on your toolbar, skins, Mac and Linux. This is a free program that many users can get too. As statistics have shown that there are over 42 million active users, 425 million downloads, available in 16 languages, 47 percent female and 53 male users. This is a great program! Everyone should get on this and get out the comfort zone. You can have fun with this program in many ways and make the best out of it. It’s the future of tomorrow and so I would like you to be part of the future!

http://www.icq.com/en 

Extra Credit: TweetReach

     When you tweet something that gains the attention of others, it is not uncommon for someone to retweet your tweet. When you tweet something for the first time only your followers will most likely see your tweet, unless someone is searching a keyword that you happened to use but, when someone retweets your tweet then it is seen by all of their followers. People spreading your tweet can create this kind of snowball effect. TweetReach helps to show you the impact your tweet has made and how many people it has reached. Some of the statistics it measures are, how many people saw it, how many people are talking about it, and it can help to "analyze tweets about your hashtag, brand name or URL." The main purpose of this tool according to the website is to "get in-depth social analytics on reach, exposure, tweets, and contributors." The website allows for one time snap shop summary reports or a tracker that is an ongoing analysis.
     What is helpful about these tools is that marketers and different agencies have a way to measure their efforts. If they are launching a new campaign or a product and want exposure on twitter, they need an effective way to measure whether or not their technique is making an impact. Tweetreach does just that by showing the "reach" of your tweets. These impressions are turned into measurable result that can be relayed back to whoever is concerned with the analytics and statistics.
This can help to also shape your network because in order to have a tweet that will travel and create a bigger impact, you need to understand your network. If you have a following of people who are interested in your product, campaign, or your message, then you know they are good candidates to help in creating a greater impact and reach by retweeting, for example. These people become some of your biggest contributors and they are an important asset to have. Tweetreach helps to measure who your greatest contributors are.
     Even without an account you can search a hashtag, username, or tweet and the stats are presented to you. This shows you the accounts reached, the exposure generated by the tweets, activity, who contributes the most, and retweets.
      You can start to develop a community and a sense of trust among your community by catering to them more specifically with what they want to hear. If you understand what is generating buzz and the topics that people are most interested in, you can develop your tweets to be more relevant. TweetReach is a tool that can help you understand what people want to hear and what will increase engagement, driving the conversation forward.

Words with Friends

A great social media application is words with friends. It is an app that can be downloaded on any iphone or android phone. It is just like scrabble because you are given a certain number of letters and you need to come up with words using those letters. You also get a certain number of points for each word that you make. Obviously, you get more points for longer words. It is a two player game and you can find people you know to play with by obtaining their username. You then send that person an invite and you can begin playing. You can also chat with the person you are playing with as well.

This type of communication would fit into the category of hyper-communication which involves chatting and interacting with family and friends using a mobile device which is talked about in the reading, "Social Implications of Mobile Telephony: The Rise of Personal Communication Society" by Scott W. Campbell and Yong Jin Park.This app allows you to stay connected with family and friends by being able to do something fun with them without being in the same room together. When it is your turn, you also do not have to go right away. You can take as long as you want. Once you go, the other person will receive a text onto his or her phone. It is very important to keep connections and this app gives people the opportunity to do so.

Extra Credit Post: Quora

Quora

Forget Wikipedia, Quora is your go-to "question-and-answer"smart phone app. Similar to wikipedia, Quora relays on user-generated content to succeed. Which means the site is continually improving and growing, which means the more users, the more content there is, the better the collection of questions and answers gets. 

Unlike Wikipedia however, Quora has many distinguishing features which help it stand out. One of these features is its location-based searches, which means that Quora will personalize itself based off of your location using it "Nearby" feature, bringing up topics relevant to your whereabouts.  As a new social media app, Quora develops at a faster in one day then Wikipedia did. It is also very easy to navigate and features a notification tab to keep you up to date with the latest answers to your questions. 

I think it can be used as a new form of communication as a result of many of it's qualities and features. After setting up your own feed, which you can personalize to your interests, Quora then makes suggestions as to new topic for you to follow based on those interests. For this reason the app encourages setting up your account with either your Facebook or twitter in order to pull that information off your account and create a ready to go account for you.  

I encourage others to download the free app and give it a try. Connect with others as you get your questions about everything and anything answered, or return the favor and help to contribute to the world of knowledge users are building. 

Wikispaces

The best thing about communication on the Internet is that is virtually fluid (pun intended) - especially today where the boundaries of being privileged to know and share content is no longer favored to a particular group of people. Today, people take pride in being the owners and controllers of the information available on the Internet - and applications and social networking websites encouraging those freedoms. Wikispaces, an open collaboration website tool similar to popular encyclopedia based website Wikipedia.

Wikispaces appeals mostly to those trying to build communities surrounding education, business, and social change platforms. In the interest of this blog, we will focus on how Wikispaces facilitates new ways to communicate for educational purposes. Many students, especially of higher education, are familiar in some capacity with a wiki and the Wikispaces website. My first introduction to the website was during my sophomore year, where a professor needed a trustable application to monitor the participation of users in assigned groups. My professor was particularly interested in the feature of the wiki that showed the procession of published pages; the timeframe of edits and who those authors were. If there was any way to monitor the participation of someone in team, especially online, would be through timestamps.

Another feature of Wikispaces that appealed to my professor was Wikispaces integration of other applications - like powerpoint slides, chat widgets, and other forms of multimedia. If you ever needed a centralized platform, to share special file types, that can be accessible to almost anyone then this computer medium would apply to you. While Wikispaces boosts all these great features, the core of it that is for everyone. Communication, no matter the medium that it transmitted through, depends on the development of interaction and relationships between people. Wikispaces understands this core concept, and provide tools for people, educators especially, to consume information in a unified way.

Path

Path is a social media app available through iTunes and Google play. The app was released as a way in which to keep connected while only having a select group of people who could see. By adding friends and family, they became able to see the photos and videos you post. However, the app has since been re-released as a more of a "digital journal". Due to it's more intimate nature people became more comfortable with sharing more of their personal lives on it. 

Path allows users to easily share what they are doing, who they are with and where with a select group of friends  or they can opt to share on their social media sites, however having the option to not share publicly you can avoid having randoms know your every location. 

The "digital journal" has many features similar to other social media sites. Path allows you to post photos, tag friends you are with and what you are doing, check-in to locations, share the newest music you are into, comment and post status, indicates if you've gone to bed or woken up for the day, as well as use your Facebook to invite friends to "follow your path".

While much does not seem to be different from every other social media site, the apps winning factor is the level of intimacy it can achieve for those whose don't wanna tell all 500 of their Facebook friends they are getting coffee. 

SCVNGR

SCVNGR

SCVNGR is an smartphone app available on both iPhone and Android. It was originally compared to Foursquare since both apps allow for users to check into locations, earning badges and the chance to unlock rewards. However, it's purpose is to add a game layer to the real world. It does this through a location based game that allows you to not only check into places but it offers "treks" and "challenges" that could practically make you explore a city. 

Challenges, treks and rewards are some new words to know to better navigate all that SCVNGR has to offer. Challenges are a set of tasks to accomplish at a location. Some of these challenges include checking in, commenting and take a picture and bumping phone, which means you and a friend would have had to check in together in order to accomplish this task. Treks take challenges a step further by making scavenger hunts that incorporate many different locations and their challenges. Finally when either completing a challenge or trek, participating businesses with anything from coupons to signature items. 

The reason I even learned of SCVNGR is because of the SUNY Passport program set to launch soon. SUNY takes SCVNGR's purpose in a different direction by applying it to higher education purposes, allowing for the possibility for professors to design their own treks, to students being able to discover what SUNY campus' have to offer through challenges. As soon as i heard about the app I was curious to see how it worked and so I downloaded it and I would highly recommend others do the same. It showed me New York City through different eyes, you learn while exploring the real world. What could be more fun?

Goba

Goba is an application for smartphones that is meant to get you offline. This tool's main purpose is to connect you with others in person. Using Goba you can create events and invite your friends so that you can all get together in person. It is much easier to assess who is attending an event when you have a “formal” invitation. Facebook has discovered this as well and has created an events application. Often when trying to organize a get-together it becomes difficult if you are the middle mad relaying information to numerous people. This feature streamlines that process into a simple invitation. You can also create a group and use the group chat feature to discuss plans. This keeps everyone in touch at once. You can also use the Discover button to find out what is happening around you. You could discover local concerts, festivals, or anything you and your friends may enjoy! Goba could be used by groups of friends or by small organizations to create events and communicate with friends. You could plan a trip to a pizza place or a fundraiser for your organization; it’s all up to you. Goba has realized that while computer mediated communication is an awesome technology, people need face to face interaction as well. Goba is a great micro-coordination tool. It allows you to make the plans, change plans, and relate final plans to your desired group.