Research Project: Social Networking in Business: Better or Worse than The Real Thing

In Businesses today it is important to have a network of individuals or clients in order to get ahead. Social Networking has created a platform which helps to bring professionals together for such a purpose. Like any other forms of communication in business, social networking has its advantages and disadvantages. With this project the idea is to examine the positive as well as negative attributes of social networking compared with the idea of meeting in person, i.e. ‘The Real Thing’. We will look at how both methods prove to work in some cases and also where they both fall short of pushing professionals ahead.

-compliments of Lonette's blog

Cleo...

Checking Out Some Social Networking Sites

My comments here might be very bland because I do not use the internet to make friendships. I connect with other professionals and old friends with whom I meet in person to do face to face introductions and/or touch base with. I have been a member of Facebook for about 1 month now and it is a good source of networking. Some of the people that I know on a personal basis use their account as a way to blast their connections with their advertisements. There has been limited success with this. I believe that we are so bombarded with ads that we are not receptive to these ads since we are looking for relationships (friendship and/or relationship). I believe that the setup is very user friendly and is aesthetic pleasing.

Friendster, however, is not appealing at all. The name itself sounds very childish. I would not have setup an account on my own if were not for this class. The profiles are very bland and lacks color.

Myspace is a site where you can get creative by adding different background graphics, music, and even multiple pictures. It gives you alot more options that Facebook in designing your page. I like the fact that you have a full spread.

I will continue to use my Facebook page. To be honest, I only use it to meet up with friends to occassionally hangout. I will definitely open a Myspace account to promote myself and business.


Cleo....

My New Media Class so far.............

In this class we have viewed many forms of new media. The class presentations and lecture notes introduced some technologies that I was not aware of. In C. Kam's presentation we saw how photos can be taken at different angles then downloaded to create a 3-d image through Photosynth. Other popular examples of new media technologies that we discussed were blogs, wikis, and social networking sites (Friendster, Linkedin, MySpace,...). These mediums encourage collaboration and information sharing between users. Old media did not have this capability. I have learned that new media gives many people an opportunity to communicate on a different level. This level helps them to exhibit more creativity and encourage creation of new technologies that have flexiblity for cocreation. Youtube and mashups are perfect examples of this. Many individuals post videos of themselves as a form of self promotion. It could be something as simple as sharing a family moment or someone showing off their public relation skills.

Copy and paste link in new window to view "self promotion" on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNmhihKIINM

Mashups are a combination of technologies such as videos, music, or audio.

Copy and paste link in new window to view "Tick-Toxic" Mashup of Brittany Spears and Gwen Stefani on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRHfd9Yto0A

What is New Media? My working definition of new media...

"The news media is a term used to describe print media (newspapers, magazines); broadcast media (radio stations, television stations, television networks), and often Internet-based media (World Wide Web pages, weblogs). " Newspapers, magazines, and other print media are considered to be old media. These instruments of communication were designed to distribute material but are only accessible on a physical basis. Post production editing is costly and updates take too long to get to the public. The audience cannot interact with the authors directly and immediately upon receipt of information. With new media, information is readily available and can be edited promptly. Feedback is instant which is one of the interactive characteristics of new media. New Media allows the end user to create, edit, and collaborate information in many ways.

Source: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/News_media

Intro.....who wants to know...

New Media,

Got to love it! How else can we find reasons not to interact with people? I spent the whole weekend on the internet trying to figure out how to set up a website. If I did not have to interact with clients on appointments or a child I think that I would be completely engrossed.

Let me know if you share my sentiments.

and/or check this out...
http://www.lowcosthealthinsurancefinder.com/

Constructive Criticism only!

Thank you,
Cleo