Facebook's social plug-ins are now on over 100,00 websites. This is pretty incredible when you consider the problems with privacy that the social networking site has been having recently. According to the article, some of the sites that have adopted these plug-ins are recieving big gains in traffic. This reinforces what we have been discussing in class all year: social networking is becoming more dominant than broadcast networking. In other words, the mass public is more powerful when it comes to knowledge than the experts who can talk on a TV show or broadcast. Facebook's path to "web domination" seems to be on track, especially with the traffic numbers websites are generating because of the new plug-ins.
The other article dealt with how Twitter could replace the mainstream meadia when it comes to opinion polls. Researchers looked at the sentiments expressed in one billion tweets and filtered them according to the economy and politics. This is huge when it comes to information gathering from the masses. Twitter will eventaully be a huge resource when it comes to political elections and campaigning. One can only imagine what the future of information flow will be with advancements and innovations happening everyday on sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Flow of Information Through Social Media
The way information is passed among individuals has been evolving since the beginning of civilization. When language was invented, information was passed orally. From there, written language was created and that was a means of retrieving and recording information. Over the centuries, different technological inventions and innovations have made information even easier to access. In our current state, social media like Facebook and Twitter is a very powerful arena for the flow of information.
In her article, Danah Boyd discusses how broadcasted media was the predominant form of constructed knowledge, but it is now being surpassed by networked media. This theory can be backed up by the discussion we had in class about the Phillies fan who was tasered. Millions of people saw the video and knew about the story because of social networking. By the time the story was broadcasted on ESPN, it seemed that everyone already knew about it, thus backing up the fact that information through networking is more convenient than information through broadcasted media.
The Phillies-fan-taser video also supports Boyd's article because she says the internet is dismantling traditional forms of distribution. I personally saw the video on Google Video, then about 2 hours later saw it on SportsCenter, and by that time it was old news to me. Distribution innovations through new media has been a common theme in the our class for the whole semester, and there seems to be an unlimited amount of channels for distribution with websites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, etc...
In conclusion, Social Media is completely changing the way information is dstributed. As Boyd says, the common man is now holding power to distribute media through the networking landscape of the internet. Although people are just learning of this power, it will keep growing and eventually everything will be linked together. It truly is the Information Age.
In her article, Danah Boyd discusses how broadcasted media was the predominant form of constructed knowledge, but it is now being surpassed by networked media. This theory can be backed up by the discussion we had in class about the Phillies fan who was tasered. Millions of people saw the video and knew about the story because of social networking. By the time the story was broadcasted on ESPN, it seemed that everyone already knew about it, thus backing up the fact that information through networking is more convenient than information through broadcasted media.
The Phillies-fan-taser video also supports Boyd's article because she says the internet is dismantling traditional forms of distribution. I personally saw the video on Google Video, then about 2 hours later saw it on SportsCenter, and by that time it was old news to me. Distribution innovations through new media has been a common theme in the our class for the whole semester, and there seems to be an unlimited amount of channels for distribution with websites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, etc...
In conclusion, Social Media is completely changing the way information is dstributed. As Boyd says, the common man is now holding power to distribute media through the networking landscape of the internet. Although people are just learning of this power, it will keep growing and eventually everything will be linked together. It truly is the Information Age.
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