Social Networking Sites

The four social networking sites that I will discuss in this post are: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Firstly, talking about the site that I've used the most over the past year, Twitter comes across as a platform where anyone can engage in an intellectual conversation, go on a rant about a social issue, or try to learn more about a topic. Twitter also seems to have the most accounts with people choosing usernames that aren't their legal first or last names. Of the four, Twitter is the most diverse and broad platform in my opinion.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a place where you have to tread extremely carefully as whatever you post/share is influencing everyone else's impression of you as a professional. Of the four, LinkedIn is the most formal platform.

Facebook started as a platform where individuals would add their friends and family, post pictures, update friends about any key life events (graduation, marriage, new employment, etc.) and share any funny pictures or videos. Over the past few years, the picture posting part has moved to an entirely different platform called Instagram. It might be Facebook's algorithm, or users preference towards Instagram, but Facebook no longer seems to be the behemoth it was five or six years ago. Instagram is currently the app/website young adults visit 50 times a day, whereas Facebook is mainly used for its Messenger feature.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter

When comparing discussions on Twitter and Blackboard, it is important to realize that there is a 280 character limit on Twitter. Discussions on Blackboard can involve a thread of a few posts that might be more descriptive and more detailed as there isn't a character limit. People can expand upon their points and provide multiple sources of evidence to support an argument in one post, which might not be possible on Twitter. The good thing about Twitter is that a discussion can be viewed by people who don't follow you through the use of hashtags. If someone retweets or likes your tweet, your tweet will appear on the timeline of that person's followers, thus increasing your reach. There are also some similarities between the two, however. Both discussion boards follow the format of a thread, where contributors can reply to any post in the thread. The discussion boards also allow for the inclusion of links, pictures and videos. Even though you can change settings to receive n...
Read more

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

People tend to think of technology's biggest benefit being the exponential increase of convenience in our daily lives. However, technology has allowed for the creation of virtual worlds where humans can go through experiences that they haven't done in real life or don't want to experience in real life. Virtual reality or virtual worlds have already been used in the gaming industry and military training. Diane Mehta's article in Forbes  "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?" mentions, "But Minecraft is a virtual world. It’s digital LEGOs if you will, but it’s a space for kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others to also want to build and create things. And it’s the biggest phenomenon today." This technology has also been used to test self-driving cars and other autonomous vehicles. However, the biggest problem with the virtual world is that it is expensive, challenging and time consuming to create. Also, it is impo...
Read more

The History and Future of Podcasts

     I will be conducting research on the history and future of podcasts. Podcasts are one form of new media and can be thought of as the modern version of radios. People of various ages, ethnicities, academic backgrounds and genders, all listen to podcasts as there is a wealth of audio content out there to keep everyone engaged and entertained. In my term paper, I will be researching about the emergence of podcasts, how they have evolved since they were first introduced and what the future looks like for the industry. At the end of the day, podcasting is also a business, which is why I'll be looking at the growth of the industry's value, along with merger/acquisition activity in the space. Different parts of the world have different reactions to each form of media, and I will try to discuss where podcasting has been successful and what has led to that. Apart from reading fact-based and opinionated articles, I will try to incorporate the perspectives of people involved ...
Read more