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.

TimeHop

   Timehop is an app for smartphone users. It is meant for users to be able to go back in time and see what they posted on this day in time, one, two or even three years ago on their social networking site, such as Twitter or Facebook. Every morning, the app will send you a notification stating that your timehop is ready. The user is then able to access the app and view things they posted via Facebook/Twitter 3 years ago on this date. This app is a great way to time travel to your past without actually doing so.Timehop shows old photos, statuses and tweets a user posted years ago on the same date. Timehop is a new way to record, reconnect and remember personal experiences and allows us to connect with our digital history. The team who created this app also created the app Foursquare, which allows users to check into their favorite places using an app on their phone. Since the app is fairly new, it is still developing. Currently users are able to access old posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and FourSquare. In order to send an email to users of their daily timehop, the app needs to collect information and data over night. In the morning, the user will receive a notification reminding them to check their timehop to see their digital history at this date in time. After learning about this app, I decided to download it and test it out myself. Every morning I receive a notification to access my timehop. Once I view it, I am able to see things I posted on Facebook 2, 3 4 & 5 years ago on this date. For example, today's timehop consisted of images I uploaded to Facebook 5 years ago! This app is a great way for users to revisit their past through a simple app. I highly recommend it to all smartphone users.

IntoNow

IntoNow was the top application for smartphones in the year 2011. IntoNow is a great application for connecting with your social ties across your friend circle. The application IntoNow derives from the very popular successful web browser site known as Yahoo!. IntoNow is a application that is used to share your personal favorites when it comes to television shows with your friends. It is a very easy accessible application to use and can be used on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. In class we have discussed many different tools to use to share your likes that will reach the common interest of others. IntoNow can be used for just that! You can use it to discover new shows by viewing your friends timelines of their favorites that they have shared. Also you can search shows recommendations that your friends have made that will help you decipher whether it is a show that will gain your interest. It is an easy way to see what shows you may have in common with one another and to see if your friends are watching the same shows as you! Finding out if your friends watch the same networks as you in just one click makes it easier to discuss and gossip about the previous episode or the next one showing!
      IntoNow has many options for you to share your interests to more than just one audience. You are able to share anything you watch or read on IntoNow by sharing it to your Twitter account or even your FaceBook account. You also can add shows to your Netflix account as well as look up information about shows on the universal webpage IMDB. IntoNow can be compared article Building trust is the key to promoting your organisation online by Katy Cowan because IntoNow gives you a great way to build your audience how you want to do it. You are able to post whatever you are interested in and that will build an audience that relates to you!

                        

Facebook the Socialite

I was recently using Facebook more often than usual when I found out my cousin got engage through my news-feed. When I realized that I heard about such big news through a social media site it first made me infuriated with my cousin, but then I realized that times have changed and are going to continue change. My cousin used the most efficient  method to inform her friends in the quickest manner. Everyone has a Facebook, or most people I should say and it is becoming the new socialite. Fewer and fewer people are going to their friends and magazines for gossip, rather they are logging onto a social media website and reading about the latest global warming trends and daily horoscopes. I truly do appreciate Facebook and all it has done for the method of information transfer. It also brought me and my best friend from 4th grade back together, for three years I lived in Tokyo, Japan. My parents were in the military and we were stationed over there, during that time I became very good friends with Ashley Anderson. When my parents were told that we were moving again I cried and cried because I didn't know if I was ever going to see my best friend again. I moved to New York and she moved to California after our stint in Japan. I lost all contact with her until facebook came out, I typed her name into the search engine at the top right corner and the rest is history. In fact I just booked a flight to San Diego to visit her over the winter break, this re-kindled friendship is made possible because of this social media website.

Edmodo

  

Edmodo has an app that can bring the classroom right inside the comfort of the students home, or whereever they may be.  Edmodo can be used with various types of smart phones and the App itself is free.  Edmodo is a great learning tool and an even better App.  It enhances communication between students and their teachers, making out of class assignments much easier.  Edmodo mobile App has tons of different features that are shockingly similar to those on the normal website.  Its functions include sending messages, events, sending notes, sending a post to the entire class, and you can every submit assignments to meet a deadline.  Teachers can give students alert messages, give out grades via Edmodo, and even start up a discussion if people are not in class.  Edmodo also creates an encourages the use of group work, by having a link that allows group chats and discussions.  The absolute best thing about Apps in general is the notifications.  I am the type of person that lives by her calendar and I always need to know what is going on.  Edmodo alerts you when something new is posted or a deadline is approaching, or if something is late, its like having your syllabus on you at all times. 

These past couple of weeks we learned a lot about video messaging as well as conferencing and how effective both can be.  I downloaded Edmodo on my iPhone and iPad and in through the App you can send and recieve video messages, although you cannot live stream a video between yourself and another person.  This is a great feature though because you can record a video or take a picture and then store it in your “backpack” and share it with whoever you wish to see it.  Sharer makes very valid points in his article about video conferencing; however not being a fan of the camera I would much rather video message.  Although it is less professional and efficient I think it is more ideal for the classroom setting.  In the professional world every point that Sharer makes is completely valid, but as far as an educational App, I think Edmodo contains everything it needs to.  Sharer briefly mentions all of the tips to enhance you video conference.  They all make sense but its great that most of them can be avoided via video message.   For example, “Practice, practice, practice”  If a student needed to relay a video to their classmate on Edmodo no practice would be necessary, if you mess up or don’t like it you do not have to send it.  You can simply delete it and rerecord, and that’s the great differentiation between the two.  For what Edmodo users are looking for this great App feature is more than enough.  Similar to blackboard it also can tie into Cowens issue of trust.  Apps and websites with an instructor operating behind them are always more efficient and accurate with right information.  Educational sites and Apps can definitely be trusted, and should be utilized in every way,  if they could not be trusted  then they would not be used to enhance education. 

PSN "Play Station Network" & Cyber bullying

 PSN is an online community for people with the play station video game systems. Just like any social network, you can have friends, send and receive messages, pictures, share music, videos, join your friend's game lobby and even create chat rooms where you can have a group chat. Recently they have developed new apps that allows a player to go online and still be able to chat with their friends, interact, share etc right from their smart phones which I think is really cool. 

 If you've ever owned a play station system then you probably like the multi player aspect to it. This is what allows players from different parts of the world to come together and play any game they'd like to play with their friends and others online as well. This all sounds fun and "cool" but it isn't entirely the case all the time. Sometimes the very place where people go to have fun online, play together and socialize can be the very place where people are made to feel weird, different, lame and not cool. What might I be talking about? Cyber bullying. In the readings "Bullying as true drama. The New York Times online edition" it talks about a 14 year old boy Jamey Rodemeyer who had committed suicide after being bullied by his friends and calling him gay. This incident happened outside the online community but it is very much alive in the world of video gaming. I am a big gamer myself and it is very common to see bullying every time I play with other people on the PSN. People pick on each other; call each other names using profanity and foul language on others who appear to be less aggressive. In my opinion I've realized that most people with a Spanish accent get called names on a regular basis, others who sound black are called other names and so do other white people who's accents sound a bit of the Western/South. Occasionally you see others pick on players who are girls simply because they are women and this bullying goes on day in and out. 

Despite all efforts to ban certain users and players from the online community, not much has been accomplished because not much is reported to the authority. Like the article stated, most teenagers who become victims of this terrible act normally just say it’s just "drama" and dismiss the issue. When someone tries to help they refuse and make reasons for it because they think they can handle it themselves. I highly dislike cyber bullying and bullying in general, I think it can leave a person devastated for their entire life and such practices that happen online should not be tolerated. It is my hopes that we learn from the past unfortunate incidents and stop this act in the online community as well as in real life. 

Voxer

Voxer is an app that is a virtual walkie-talkie. It can be used on various smart phones and it's free. Voxer does not limit itself to the walkie-talkie aspect: you can also send instant text, photo, and location whereabouts to friends as easily as you can with audio. Another special function is that it enables group chats and it also enables the receiver to listen to it at their leisure. Voxer is also interactive with Facebook in that it allows the user to connect with Facebook friends and invite them to their Voxer group.

Although Voxer's basic function is to send your friends a quick voice message or text message, there is something about Voxer that sets it apart from other types of computer mediated communications like texting or Facebook chatting, and that is that you can hear your friend's voice. Yes, this can be done with a simple phone call, but this type of message is the audio version of a text. This adds a whole new dimension to computer mediated communications because most times there is little to no humanity involved in it. When hearing someone's voice it adds a sense of intimacy or of an understanding that there is in fact a person behind that phone or computer.

In the Sharer article, she talks about videoconferencing and how it enables the participants to get the aspect of body language or non-verbal clues that are missed by either a text or a phone call. This is what Voxer is lacking. While Voxer enables about 30% of effective communication (by the choice of words and style it is delivered in) it is missing the 70% that non-verbal ques gives the participants. It is said in the article that in voice-only conversations the person walks away with only about 40% of understanding, and in a method like this where the flow is inconsistent and choppy, it is probably even less than that. While Voxer is a step above texting and instant messaging, the voice only aspect in the limited version it is offered is still not as effective as video chatting can be.

YouTube

According to Kirsty Pitkin we can measure our social media impact and maximize one's presence. In order to do so, one should know what is the impact you're planning to have with your audience. Also you would like to see who "uses" your stuff, an example citing or liking your song and making it into a famous hit.

We have seen that many artists have been discovered through YouTube. Many such as Justin Bieber and our latest personality Psy have become famous through the use of YouTube. Many of these artists have the account to expose their abilities as singing, acting, and many other great skills. After having 100,000 views you will instantly get paid .8 cents for every other view. Not only are they exposing themselves as artist, they are also obtaining income.

In the article by Pitkin we get to see how YouTube is a way to measure the success of a person. We hear in TV shows the number of viewers a certain person or song have on YouTube and we automatically believe its a good song or a good artists. There are many YouTube channels in were people communicate with their audience and give their audience what they like, whether is a song, funny jokes or impersonating someone.

Kindle Fire HD

Karley Giles

                 

                The Kindle Fire HD is the newest Kindle out on the market. Kindles are not like iPads or Tablets in the sense that they are not really for internet use or staying plugged in. The kindles much like Nooks in the sense that they are geared for reading and media. On the Kindle Fire HD, which is much like the Kindle Fire is great for reading books, magazines, and watching movies. This Kindle has a much better visual display. It is also an improvement for the Kindle Fire because it is offered in more GB’s, has a larger screen option and has a better resolution (HD).  The Kindle Fire HD has a rubber back that makes it easier than other say all glass devices for gripping. All devices of this sort a great for cutting back on your stacks of books and magazines, now all your reading can always be with you in one convenient portable device. Some say this is the best “cheap” device of its sorts.

                The reading “Media Lab Conversations Series” by Howard Rheingold talks about being alert in the media. Devices such as iPads, Tablets, Kindle Fire HDs can help you do so with the literature they offer online that you can read from these devices not matter where you are because they portable. The article also talks about being involved in the media and creating a “mindful use of digital media” and publishing things that will help others. You can do all these things from these devices. I used “mindful media” to write this post by the helpful reviews written by others on the Kindle Fire HD. These devices will help people get involved in positive uses of media that engage people.