Everything Is A Remix

I found the clips by Kirby Ferguson to be really really interesting. He is a US filmmaker who stated that everything is a remix. 

I have never actually thought about how much we find derivative works throughout culture. For instance, there are so many sequels, remixes and adaptations of Pirates of Caribbean and James Bond movies- Why is this the case?

Throughout major advancements, ideas are combined to turn the old into the new becoming Hollywood's greatest talent. The main element of creativity is copy, transform and combine, which is demonstrated through the remakes of the films. The remakes become Blockbuster films that reshape our pop culture. However, copyright and intellectual property laws conflict with cultural norms. 

I just found this issue to be fascinating. I've always wondered why there are so many sequels and remixes and I would definitely like to watch more clips to further understand this concept. 

Internship!

Last week, I signed a contract to be a Brand Ambassador/Intern for the PR/Marketing department at a peer to peer platform called Uniiverse for the summer. They are "the world's marketplace for collaborative living". It's a place that allows people to share and discover activities and services near them. 

My role will be starting April 30th, where my main objective will be to drive up the number of listings posted on the website. 

I am really excited for this opportunity and can't wait !! 

Week 4 Thoughts

The first hour of the class on February 2nd was a guest speaker, Glen Farrelly who was a Geosocial Networking expert.

The way he explained Geocoding, Geotagging and Geosocial media was really interesting. I have always been a fan of Foursquare, Twitter and Google Latitude. One major player he mentioned that I do not use is Flickr. I hope to start using it eventually and see its cool features. However, I do use Foursquare daily because it excites me checking into venues and beings days closer to mayorship. I can say that I have over 1000 checkins on Foursquare yet only 3 mayorships since they are easy to loose. I did once have 10 mayorships and received a special badge for holding down that many mayorships, which I found cool. With Foursquare, I like how one receives badges after a certain amount of checkins to a certain venue such as coffee shops or movie theatres. 

Glen's presentation was about certain Geosocial technology, outcomes of Geosocial Networking, concerns and recommendations. My favorite aspect of his whole presentation was the outcomes. The three he mentioned were social coordination and cohesion, identity protection and giving voice. In society, social cohesion is used as bonding. For example,  once the Haiti earthquake happened,  geosocial networking coordinated relief efforts and news for the public.

Geosocial Networking is a hybrid space. It forms new relationships, collective experiences of others and recommendations.

The downside is that you approach the world providing an experience of others. The example Glen mentioned in class was totally true. If you go into a coffee shop you have never been before, you are going to think positive things, but once you check in via Foursquare and see the negative reviews (if there are any), your experience will change, which will shape your experience of that coffee shop. I tend to read the negative reviews on Foursquare of venues I go too but it does not really shape my experience. If I like the place, I will go there again despite what people think. 

I found his talk really interesting and hope to study more about this topic in the future !

Social Media Map Thoughts

I am currently taking a course on Social Networking, which is a topic that I would like to further study in graduate school and pursue a professional career in. We were assigned an interesting yet challenging assignment illustrating and/or describing what our personal social network would look like.

It took me a couple hours just to reflect on what my social network looked like, who was in my network and why was my network is the way it is. I found it really interesting because it's something that I have never thought of before and it gave me a good outlook on my relationships with my friends, family, acquaintances and interests in life.
I define Social Networking as encompassing many Internet tools that make it easier for individuals to engage and interact with others. It is a conceptualized structure that allows for individuals to form relationships and build communities by sharing connections through interests, patterns, concerns, and activities. I related this definition to my own personal networks and thought that it represented me quite clearly. I use a lot of Social Networking websites such as Facebook, Email, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr, which are the ones I am most comfortable with and some sites like Blogger and Google Plus, which I am not that comfortable with since I'm not familiar with what it has to offer. However, this gives me a great opportunity to spend some time with the site and see what it's all about, which is exciting.

I concluded that my personal networks that I interact with the most on a daily basis require me to use more than one social networking site since it helps me to communicate more effectively and have a greater impact with them.

Using social networking sites to communicate with my networks leaves me with three aspects of life that I continuously develop: friendship, kinship, and community. These social networking sites are useful since they allow me to share activities, events, and interests within my personal network, which represents my personal brand.