The Next Thing

Lavalife and Harmony.com have a long way to go. Virtual reality dating is the wave of the future. Picture this: An avatar based on your real life pic coupled with virtual reality setting. You can go to dinner, movie, a show, a walk in the park without leaving your living room. The key would to a success rate is for the person to tell the truth about their characteristics and scan in a real and recent picture of themselves that would be converted into an avatar for the purposes of the simulation. The point of virtual reality dating would be to test drive the first date without the insecurity of meeting a complete stranger. This idea might sound weird but I know that someone out there is pondering on how to monopolize on this.

Advice to Baruch College

It would be great if Baruch had its own official blog. Although each department has its own website, not all pertinent information is listed online. The blog would be made available to students, faculty, and alumni only. Everyone would be able to log in with their Baruch id card. This would be a centralized area for getting information. Baruch does send out emails about upcoming events but not everyone actually checks their Baruch email. Most people only check their Baruch email only as means to communicate with their professors and other students in their classes for that current semester. This would make the Baruch atmosphere a little less like a commuter campus.

Old vs. New

According to Wikipedia, "new media is is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century. Most technologies described as "new media" are digital, often having characteristics of being manipulatable, networkable, dense, compressible, and impartial." New media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Friendster to name a few are all used to collaborate, network, and the exchange information among users. New media is also known as web 2.0. Web 2.0 encompasses the user interfacing with technology. On the other hand, web 1.0 is used to describe old media which is characterizes by technology that were used merely as an ends to a mean. It is a top down approach. There is no real interaction or collaboration with the use of the technology, the creators, and/or other users.

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
Double click		Google Adsense
Ofoto		Flickr
Britannica Online		Wikipedia
mp3.com		Napster
Personal websites		Blogging

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_1.0