Positives and Negatives of Social Media

Social Media Helping Society

In Coopers article he talks about technology and how it is helping society. Specifically he says that it is helping to bridge gaps between people as well as better communication. Most of what he says is fully in support of technology and social media and essentially says that technology makes everything better and fixes all problems. This is not the case, however, when it comes to social media.
Social media is an incredible thing. It helps people facilitate relationships that they would not otherwise be able to keep up with, it helps people to be more involved in each other’s lives when they are not physically near each other and it does a lot of other great things. Where my view differs from Coopers is that social media and technology is not all rainbows and butterflies, it has many drawbacks.

Facebook Causing Divorce
An article on NBC says that Facebook is cited in 20% of divorces and 80% of people going through a divorce are using Facebook to cheat. Obviously this is not the purpose of social media sites and the concept of it is good it is often used in a lot of negative ways.

Twitter Causing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

There was also a study done at Michigan State university about how social media causes stress, anxiety, and depression. It found that the use of social media and other technological devices have increased by 20% and there has been a 42% increase in social anxiety. The study found that the constant checking for messages and constantly trying to post on social media has caused stress in many people which leads to anxiety and depression.

Cyber Bullying

Cyber bullying is an issue that many school age kids deal with.  It can happen to adults as well but it is more prominent in the school age children just as physical bullying is more prominent in that age group.  There are many examples of cyber bullying and it happens daily.  An example from Cease Cyber-Bullying says “An autistic thirteen year old that’s sweet as can be just trying to make it through the days became a prime target of cyberbullying. Going through his days, and like any boy, he had that one crush. This girl that he had his eye on, had stuck up for him for a while but soon became the main bully. She pretended to like him and then made fun of him and said, she would never like a guy like him. As his pain got worse, he had a pen pal that was encouraging him to end his life. Ryan became so hurt, the he hung himself. All because of cyber-bullies.”  Not all cyber bullying ends this drastically but it can and does happen and it is a huge drawback of the easy access people have to the Internet and to social media today.

Conclusion

Not all uses of social media cause harm to people or bring up negative things.  Social media has many positives that I believe outweigh the negatives but we need to be aware that there are drawbacks that come with everything and we cannot assume that new technologies will only improve society when that is clearly not the case.

Sources

Coopman, T. M. (2011). Networks of Dissent: Emergent Forms in Media Based Collective Action. Critical            Studies In Media Communication, 28(2), 153-172. doi:10.1080/15295036.2010.514934

http://www.depressionanxietydiet.com/how-social-media-causes-depression-anxiety/

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/press-here/Facebook-Causes-Divorce-121123344.html#

https://sites.google.com/a/cypanthers.org/cease-cyber-bullying/real-life-examples-of-cyber-bullying

Social Media and Planning Events

Social Media as a Planning Device

Social media has grown in popularity of the past decade.  The purposes of social media vary but one of them that has become increasingly popular has been using social media as a planning device.  Different things that are planned through social media include flash mobs, revolutions, and parties.

Flash Mobs

According to this website flash mobs are “groups of people who gather spontaneously in a public space and perform a coordinated dance or action” Bill Wasik, an editor at Harper’s magazine and the “inventor” of the flash mob, simply called his project, which he began in May 2003, “MOB.” (The term “flash mob” was coined after the fact, by a blogger.) Wasik e-mailed the instructions for the first meet-up from an anonymous account, sending it to what he calls a “fairly representative cross section of hipsters”

He said he did this because he was “seeing how all culture in New York was demonstrably commingled with scenesterism … it should theoretically be possible to create an art project consisting of pure scene — meaning the scene would be the entire point of the work, and indeed would itself constitute the work.”

Now flash mobs have gone from being created on email to being created through social media messaging.  WikiHow gives 17 steps on how to plan a flash mob.  Step 4 is about organizing your flash mob.  It says to use things like Facebook and Twitter.  It says to do this because it helps to bring more of a variety of people to your flash mob because it will bring in people who are searching for one.  There is a page on Facebook that is a collection of flash mob posts to bring in more participants.

Political Events

Flash mobs are not the only group things that are planned through social media.  Egypt recently planned entire protests on Facebook.

An article said “Using social media, Egyptians have previously organized, protested and communicated with each other and the outside world. And now the nation’s leaders are getting in on the act to issue their decrees.”

Egypt planned their protests through social media and used that as a way to bring as many people together as possible “According to a study by Northwestern University on social networking, of those who use social media in eight Arab countries, including Egypt, 94% are on Facebook.”

Another article talks about how President Obama greatly utilized social media for his campaign as well.  Social media allows people who would have never had to the chance to be able to speak out about their opinions and make a difference in their society.  Social media has allowed a whole new way to participate in important political events.

Planning

Social media is also used to plan normal events such as parties or school events.  People often create events on Facebook to let all of their friends know the details of the event.  People use this more than the more conventional way of sending out party invitations in the mail.  Social media has changed the way people interact with each other and will continue to do so in coming years.

Sources

https://www.facebook.com/pages/FlashMob-/130416539492

http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/the-egypt-revolution-will-be-facebooked

http://people.howstuffworks.com/flash-mob.htm

http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/05/social-media-citizen-engagement-laboratory/

http://www.wikihow.com/Organize-a-Flash-Mob

 

Copyright and Social Media

Copyright Policies on Social Media

Copyright is the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.  All social media sites have copyright policies.

Copyright on Tumblr

In the Tumblr terms of service it states their rules concerning copyright that are as follows:

Tumblr may immediately terminate or suspend Accounts that have been flagged for repeat copyright infringement.

Tumblr has adopted the following policy toward copyright infringement on the Services in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA“). The address of Tumblr’s Designated Agent for copyright takedown notices (“Designated Agent“) is listed below. You may submit a notice under the DMCA using our copyright notice form.

Reporting Instances of Copyright Infringement on Tumblr:

If you believe that Content residing or accessible on or through the Services infringes a copyright, please send a notice of copyright infringement containing the following information to the Designated Agent at the address below:

1. Identification of the work or material being infringed.
2. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing, including its location, with sufficient detail so that Tumblr is capable of finding it and verifying its existence.
3. Contact information for the notifying party (the “Notifying Party”), including name, address, telephone number, and email address.
4. A statement that the Notifying Party has a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or law.
5. A statement made under penalty of perjury that the information provided in the notice is accurate and that the Notifying Party is authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the copyright owner.
6. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that has been allegedly infringed.

Please also note that the information provided in a notice of copyright infringement may be forwarded to the Subscriber who posted the allegedly infringing content. After removing material pursuant to a valid DMCA notice, Tumblr will immediately notify the Subscriber responsible for the allegedly infringing material that it has removed or disabled access to the material. Tumblr will terminate, under appropriate circumstances, the Accounts of Subscribers who are repeat copyright infringers, and reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate any Subscriber for actual or apparent copyright infringement.

Copyright on Twitter and Facebook

In Twitter and Facebook’s copyright policy they cover topics similar to that on Tumblr.  The policies say that the user owns their original status’ and tweets as well as their original photographs.  The policies also give options to users to report copyright infringement of other users.

Copyright Thoughts

Most people think of  copyright as concerning movies and music and other media.  What people do not realize is that copyright is a part of our daily lives.  With the prominence of social media in today’s society copyright is even more evident because users are publishing thoughts and photos constantly that they own by copyright that they may not even realize.  Copyright is very important in today’s society and people should be more aware of their copyright in order to take advantage of it.

Sources

https://www.facebook.com/help/193430577370347/

https://support.twitter.com/articles/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy

http://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service

Privacy and Social Media

Privacy

According to Lessig in Code 2.0 “The traditional question of ‘privacy‘ was the limit the law placed upon the ability of others to penetrate your private space.  What right does the government have to enter your home, or search your papers? What protection does the law of trespass provide against others beyond the government snooping into your private stuff?  This is one meaning of Bandeis’s slogan, ‘the right to be left alone.’  From the perspective of the law, it is the set of legal restrictions on the power of others to invade a protected space.”

Lessig also goes into how digital technologies have changed these protections that were available for protecting physical privacy.  He used the example of the cost of parabolic microphone technology has dropped dramatically, which means that it is easier to listen to people’s conversations through their windows.  He also wrote about how the cost of security technologies has also decreased.  He said “The expectation of privacy in what is reasonably understood to be ‘private’ spaces remains unchallenged by new technologies.  This sort of privacy doesn’t present a ‘latent ambiguity.'”  He also posed the question of “What kind of protection is there against gather data about me while I’m on a public street, or boarding an airplane?”  Lessig said the answer to this question is none.

Privacy on Social Media

USA Today  posted an article about how social media research has raised privacy and ethics issues.  It starts off about how every time you search for something online, share something on Facebook, or tweet, that your “audience” is bigger than you know.  It talks about how every time we do anything online we are leaving a cyber footprint without even realizing it.  The article goes into the fact that mining online communication has already helped Microsoft identify women at risk of postpartum depression.  It also said that it allowed Facebook to study how parents and kids interact.  This shows that we need to be aware that anything that we do or say online is not completely private.  It relates back to what Lessig said about how we essentially have no privacy in public and being online is like being in a public place and we need to realize this.

Online Privacy

According to Wired privacy online is currently thriving.  This article by Nathan Jurgenson points out some things that I personally had never considered.  When thinking about online privacy I always think about how people put so much on their social media sites that there is no possible way that they have any true privacy because people can see what they are up to at any given moment.  What Jurgenson pointed out was that in reality privacy operates not like a door that’s kept either open or closed but like a fan dance, a seductive game of reveal and conceal.  He said “the explosion of personal information online is giving rise to new mysteries, new unknowns. When you post a photo on Instagram, it offers up not just answers but hints at new questions: Who were you with and why? What were you feeling? What happened between the updates, and why was it left out? Secrets, creative concealments, the spaces between posts—this is where privacy flourishes today.”  I think that this is a very interesting way to look at online privacy and that this point of view will continue to grow in coming years.  I think people already have a sort of idea about how this “reveal and conceal” game works, they just have not thought about it in those terms.  It goes along with the act of subtweeting.  Often if someone is upset with a certain person they will tweet something along the lines of “Nope not okay” or “I can’t believe people these days” that are very vague but it is obvious they are directed at someone.  This shows partially what is going on but brings up a lot of questions as well.

Conclusion

Depending on the way you look at privacy you may see it as dying out or as something that is in no danger at all.  Regardless of whether we are concerned about our privacy we need to be aware of the cyber footprint we are leaving behind and know what it is that we are putting online that can later be traced back to us.

Sources

Click to access Lessig-Codev2.pdf

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/08/data-online-behavior-research/5781447/

http://www.wired.com/2014/03/privacy-is-dead/

Social Media and Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech is a right that is given to us in  the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.  It says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Freedom of speech is defined as the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.

Freedom of Speech on Social Media

Freedom of speech is something that many people in our generation take for granted. Because most of us have grown up with the Internet readily available to us we have a whole new platform to utilize our freedom of speech than was available when the Bill of Rights was written.

Some of the Internet sites that are most used when people are expressing their freedom of speech are Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or any other type of blog site such as WordPress.

Facebook

Facebook first became popular in the mid 2000s and has since become one of the most popular social media sites in existence.  People use it to post pictures, status’, and converse with friends.  Facebook safety says “We prohibit content deemed to be directly harmful, but allow content that is offensive or controversial. We define harmful content as anything organizing real world violence, theft, or property destruction, or that directly inflicts emotional distress on a specific private individual (e.g. bullying).  A list of prohibited categories of content can be found in our Community Standards at www.facebook.com/communitystandards.”  This shows that ultimately the freedom of speech that users have is still limited by these standards.

Twitter

Twitter was also made popular in the mid 2000s and has been a way for people to express themselves in an online format since then.  As we talked about in class Turkey recently banned Twitter but that changed two days ago.  Twitter is no longer banned because it is said to be under freedom of speech.

“This is an exceptionally strong win for freedom of expression,” Twitter wrote in its official blog post. “It will be of paramount value for us in protecting Twitter’s users against other attempts at censorship in the future.”

People often use Twitter to express their feelings and it is extremely beneficial that opinions are not censored on this media.  Freedom of speech is extremely important and Twitter is a huge online platform in which we utilize it.

Tumblr and Other Blogs

Blogs are becoming more and more popular as the Internet evolves.  Some people use the Internet as a diary and this is a perfect example of that.  Tumblr is a mix between social media and blog.  It is mostly full of reblogs of other people’s posts but it also allows for personal text posts as well as anonymous or not messages sent to other users.

Recently a problem arose concerning anonymous messaging on Tumblr.  Five blogs were suspended because of the hateful messages they were sending to other users.  Some people thought of this as an issue of free speech and limiting it but Tumblr creator David Karp responded to these accusations.

“While Tumblr has ‘absolutely no interest in censoring users,’ Mr. Karp wrote, and in fact had ‘rushed into enforcing this policy’ somewhat by mistake, he stood by the move to root out the use of Tumblr blogs for ‘harassment,’ which the new policy describes this way:

Accounts with the sole or primary purpose of repeatedly harassing or abusing specific members or groups within the Tumblr community will be suspended.

Not surprisingly, the move disturbed some bloggers who use Tumblr and others who wondered about its impact on Web culture. According to Owen Thomas of Valleywag, all five of the suspended blogs were devoted, at least partly, to criticism of the same person, a blogger Mr. Thomas describes as ‘microcelebrity egoblogger Julia Allison.’”

Sources

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/28/turkish-court-rules-tweets-are-free-speech/

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-safety/controversial-harmful-and-hateful-speech-on-facebook/574430655911054

http://time.com/32864/turkey-bans-twitter/

Social Media as an Immersive Environment

Immersive Environments

According to this website “Immersive systems are high tech, three-dimensional display systems that allow users to be “immersed” into a displayed image.  In an immersive environment, images are often displayed in stereoscopic 3D.  Tracking systems can also be utilized, enabling a user to move all around these 3D images and even interact with them.  The result is an experience that very much looks and feels like it is ‘real.'”  This goes along with the term “augmented reality” which is  a technology that allows for a digitally enhanced view of the real world, like in Second Life.  Another way to look at an immersive environment is to see it as something that people get so involved in that it seems almost more important than “real” life.  Examples of these types of immersive environments are Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Facebook as an Immersive Environment

Facebook really took off in 2006, by August of that year there were over 100 million users.  I remember when I first started using Facebook I would be on for hours.  Users get so immersed in this virtual world of pictures, status’, and likes and they tend to forget about the outside world.  People become addicted to this website and spend more time socializing with friends online than they do in person.

Twitter as an Immersive Environment

Another social media that users really become immersed in is Twitter.  This video shows how immersed people become in their world of constant updates that they do not enjoy the moment that they are living in.  This is often the case when it comes to dedicated Twitter users.  They become so invested in keeping the rest of the world updated on their thoughts and what they are doing than actually enjoying their activities and the time they spend with their friends and family.

Tumblr as an Immersive Environment

Tumblr is part microblogging and part social networking.  Microblogging is blogging with as little effort as possible.  The majority is full of reblogs of GIFs from TV shows, movies, and celebrities.  It lets you share anything with hardly any effort.  It allows users to post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, e-mail, or wherever you happen to be.  Users can also customize everything, from colors to their theme’s HTML.  The other aspect of Tumblr that is social networking is that it allows users to message each other, anonymously or not, as well as tag each other in posts.  This is an example of an immersive environment because people can create whole new identities in this online world.  Many people have friends that they have made on the site.  Users also tend to use their blogs to express themselves, like an online journal for everyone to read.  Often users become so immersed in this online reality that they have created for themselves with their likes, dislikes, and friends, that they miss out on what is going on in the “real” world.

Sources

http://www.mechdyne.com/immersive-virtual-reality-portfolio.aspx

https://www.layar.com/augmented-reality/

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/09/ff_facebook?currentPage=all

What Is Tumblr?

https://www.layar.com/augmented-reality/

Social Media as CMC

CMC (Computer Mediated Communication)

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is a process in which people communicate with each other through one or more networked telecommunication system.  Some platforms of CMC are Email, Instant Messenger, Video Chat, and Social Media.  CMC is separated into synchronous and asynchronous modes.  Synchronous is live communication, this would be instant messaging where both users are constantly talking back and forth, or video chat where you are essentially speaking face-t0-face there is just a computer between you.  In asynchronous communication there is a time lag.  Email and social media would both fit into this category because there can be hours or even days before one of the people communicating responds to the other.

Email

Email has been around since before the internet was created.  Early email was just a small advance on what we know these days as a file directory – it just put a message in another user’s directory in a spot where they could see it when they logged in.  It was based on the concept of leaving a note on someones desk but it did not require the person to physically go to the desk.  The first email system of this type was MAILBOX, used at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1965.  Another early program to send messages on the same computer was called SNDMSG.  Over the years email has developed to be used worldwide and there are now many different email options such as gmail, aol, comcast, etc.  Email is one of the most widely used CMC platforms.

AIM (Aol Instant Messenger)

Instant messengers first came to existence in the 1960s.  Operating systems such as the Compatible Time-Sharing System and Multics was used to send notifications for things like printing but people learned how to utilize it as a communication tool rather than just for notifications.  After that other instant messaging services were created.  One of the most popular was AOL Instant Messenger.  AIM was created in 1997 and was very popular in the early 2000s.  This gave people a chance to talk to people on the computer through synchronous CMC.  It was set up the way that Facebook chat is set up now, with the list of your friends, who is online, who is away and what their away message is, etc.  This is an example of how CMCs changed over the years from 1960-1997.

Video Chat

Video conferencing first came into existence in the 1980s.  It was extremely expensive then because it was such a new technology.  Over the years video conferencing has developed and is now advanced to the point where it is almost like the person on the other side of the camera is in the room with you.  Like we talked about in class, it is becoming more widely used in the school and work place.  It is much cheaper to hold a video conference for a meeting between someone in the US and someone in China rather than flying one person somewhere else and it also takes less time.  Video conferencing is also being used for job interviews and I think it will continue to develop over the years.

Social Media

Social media would be considered CMC because it is used through computers and smart phones and tablets.  This is one of the most popular forms of CMC.  Facebook recently joined with Skype in order to add another platform to their already extensive ways of CMC.  Facebook also uses messaging, instant messaging, commenting on status’ and pictures, as well as wall posts.  All of these things are different ways that people use CMC.  Facebook has the most extensive list of CMC platforms on a social media but Twitter and Instagram also have CMC options.  Twitter uses the tweets as one to many communication, it also allows direct tweeting at another user as well as direct messaging privately between users.  Instagram also allows one to many communication with pictures but it allows comments on the photos.  Recently it also updated to allow users to send pictures directly to another user privately.

Sources

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/402/instant-message-im

http://www.techopedia.com/definition/392/computer-mediated-communication-cmc

http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html

http://www.nefsis.com/best-video-conferencing-software/video-conferencing-history.html

 

Social Media and Shaping Technology

Social Media: The Beginning

In 2003 the first popular social media site was created by a guy we all know as Tom.  This social media site was Myspace and was actually created by Chris DeWolfe, Josh Berman and Tom Anderson.  In 2004 Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, then came Twitter in 2006 created by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass, and then the latest popular social media was created in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram.

Myspace

Myspace was originally created based off of one of the first social media sites, Friendster.  Friendster allowed people to communicate with others, share online content and media, discover new events, brands, and hobbies.  Myspace was similar to this but had a few differences.  It also allowed for communication between users.  Another thing that Myspace allowed was blog posts, status updates, and pictures.  Finally Myspace  also allowed users to personalize their profile.  It gave templates but also allowed for simple html coding for personalization.  This added a new aspect to social media.  People wanted to use it to express themselves and Myspace allowed that.

Facebook

Facebook was created as a social media site in 2004 but did not become popular for the high school and college crowd until around 2008 and 2009.  That is when a lot of people in that age group switched from Myspace to Facebook.  Facebook is similar to Myspace in several ways but also made changes based on the way that people used social media.  Facebook is based more on the communication aspect.  It emphasizes the communication aspect with the way status’ are posted.  It allows you to post a status and then other users can like and comment on it, this allows for the personal expression that people liked about Myspace combined with the communication aspect as well.  It also allowed for the pictures to be posted like Myspace.  What it had that was different was a generalized profile layout rather than customizable.  It was a more grown up and sophisticated version of Myspace with more emphasis on the useful factors of social media.

Twitter

Though Facebook has not died out other popular social media sites have come into existence, Twitter being one of them.  What I find really interesting is that other social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram.  Twitter focuses on making sharing your every thought extremely easy.  As a Twitter user you are able to post whatever thought you happen to have in 140 characters or less.  You also have the option of tweeting “at” people in a sort of public direct message, it also allows users to post pictures with their updates.  This is still very popular because of the way it allows people to interact in an informal public setting.  It has been updated over the years to become more available on mobile devices so that users can keep their friends updated on the go.  This is a huge update in comparison to Myspace and what it allowed.

Instagram

Instagram is very similar to Twitter in the sense that it makes sharing things with your friends extremely easy.  Instagram allows you to post pictures with captions that have an unlimited length.  It also allows people to comment on pictures and has recently allowed for direct messaging of pictures between users.  Twitter users often post pictures with their tweets and I think this was a spin off of that and it became so popular because pictures are such an easy way to keep people updated as well as be updated about others.

What’s Next?

Technology determinism says that technology shapes us but social media sites and the way they develop over time are evidence of how we are shaping technology.  Over the years social media has changed based on the way it was being used which is what has led us from Myspace to Instagram.  Because of the growing popularity of Twitter and Instagram and the way the allow users to easily share thoughts and pictures with each other I think those will continue to develop.  Maybe the next social media will have to do with sharing other things, the way if you link your Spotify account with Facebook it will post what you are listening to, but be more focused on the sharing of what you are listening to or doing rather than a combination of everything.

Sources:

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/friendster

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/myspace

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/instagram

Social Media and the Mobile Web

Social Media on Mobile Devices

Social media is often times used on our mobile devices.  Personally I use Twitter and Facebook more on my phone than I do on my computer.  According to marketing charts 55% of social media use occurs on mobile devices.  I think this is an interesting fact because social media and the mobile web are both fairly new technologies. In the past decade cell phones have developed dramatically.  Back in high school the cool phone to have was the enV2 or enV3 because that was the new design and it allowed some limited web browsing.  Since then smartphones have been developed to the point where almost all cell phones allow some sort of web browsing and social media use.

According to ZDNet two thirds of cell phone users use the internet on their phones.  This includes email, browsing, and one of the most popular internet uses, social media.  According to Marketing Land the top three social media sites on mobile web are Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.  Facebook accounts for about 60% of data shared on mobile devices and Pinterest is used three times as much on mobile than on desktop.  It is most popular on iPads and Tablets rather than smartphones while Facebook is most popular on cellular devices.

Popular Mobile Social Media

When talking to people around campus about the social media sites they use on their cell phones most answered with Twitter and Instagram.  Twitter, as most of you know, allows for constant ‘status’ updates about anything and everything, it allows you to post your thoughts in 140 characters or less.  Instagram, as most of you are probably also aware of, allows you to post a picture of anything you would like to share with your friends with a an optional caption.

Twitter

Twitter was created to work best with the mobile web.  Because of its allowance for constant updating it actually works better to use in its application form rather than on a desktop because you can post faster updates on what is going on around you.  It is also used for news purposes by popular stations such as CNN and Fox.  If this social media was not connected with the mobile web it would not be as useful or as popular as it is today.

Instagram

What is especially interesting about Instagram is that it is only available in application form.  They recently have made it available to look at on desktop but posts can only be made from mobile devices.  I think this is a perfect example of how social media and the mobile web work together to be successful.  Social media has developed from a way to communicate and stay in touch with friends to a way to share your daily life with friends and that would not be as effective if it were limited to desktop updates.

Sources:

55% of Social Networking Consumption Occurs on A Mobile Device

http://marketingland.com/when-it-comes-to-social-media-sharing-mobile-rules-52750

http://www.zdnet.com/todays-internet-is-the-mobile-internet-7000021349/

Social Media and IPTV

Since analog television became extinct in 2009 there have been many advances concerning digital television, Internet Protocol Enabled TV (IPTV) and social media.  The combination of these things have created a way of watching television that is completely different than it has ever been in the past.

Something that has been one of the biggest advances is the flexibility that comes with IPTV.  This has enabled people to watch shows “On Demand” at their convenience.  People with certain cable providers have an on demand feature on their televisions while others watch their shows online.  ABC Family and CBS are examples of channels that have their shows available online for people who were not able to watch the show when it came on television live.  A social aspect that websites like these allow is comments on the video.  This allows people to get a social aspect of watching television that they did not have before.  It allows people to interact with each other and share their opinions on the episode, what they did and did not like as well as what they are hoping to see in coming episodes as well as theories on mystery shows etc.

Something else IPTV has made possible is streaming.  This is watching a television show live but online instead of on a television.  What is unique about streaming and what it allows from a social media standpoint is conversation between others watching the show as well.  This creates a social aspect to watching television that was not available before IPTV.  This allows constant conversation between strangers about the show or event that they are streaming.  This has created a whole new way of communicating that would not have been possible without IPTV and the options that people have for watching television shows.

Another way that people connect by watching television and using social media is something called ‘live tweeting’.  This is the process of tweeting your thoughts on a show and what is happening as you are watching it premiere live.  This allows a different kind of interaction between viewers.  Because you are tweeting you are able to put your thoughts into 140 characters and post it and then people have the option of responding to your thought, retweeting it, or favoriting it.

If you miss a television show when it comes on live there is still a chance to connect with others about it through websites like I said before that allow comments on shows but also through social media.  Facebook allows status’ about anything at any time and if you want to share your thoughts on a show, even if it is weeks or months later, you are still able to post about it and get feedback from your friends on what they thought.

IPTV has allowed people to connect in a whole new way and I think it is incredible how people who do not even know each other can connect over television shows and share their thoughts with each other so easily.