Social Net'g

Social networking’s original purpose is to provide an interactive platform that allows people to communicate and stay connected. These technologies have been adapted to fit the needs of a variety of people. For corporations, one need that has been satisfied is recruiting. According to “Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting” by Frank Langfitt, LinkedIn has a network of 8 million professionals around the world including executives from all of the Fortune 500 companies. Businesses big and small have taken advantage of LinkedIn’s huge network to search for high-quality job candidates. This huge networking platform has simultaneously made the process easier for job seekers and recruiters giving both parties opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Social networking has benefited society in many more ways than just the example given above. By allowing people to communicate and share information, it has been able to bring people together regardless of backgrounds or location. In “Is MySpace good for Society? A Freakonomics Quorum”, by Stephen J. Duber, a group of knowledgeable professors are asked to discuss the pros and cons of social networking. The professors have a general consensus that social networking for the most part has been beneficial for our society because it has diversified the way we express ourselves and how accepting we are of the new and different. Of course, there is a “dark side” to social networking as well. Danah Boyd, Ph.D. candidate at the University of California-Berkeley, points out that while social media magnifies the good of our society, it does the same for the bad. As a result, Bullying, gossip, hate-speech are all put out into the open and is much more visible and painful for those involved.

For the future, I believe that social networking will continue to have the positive and negative sides. It would be impossible to completely eliminate the negatives but, we can instead use social media to help bring attention to important issues. Social networking is a powerful tool and if used correctly, we can create a community that can address issues we face rather than just staring at them on our screen.

Blogs vs. Wikis

When I think about blogs and wikis, I think about the 5C’s, but blogs and wikis achieve these characteristics in different ways. Blogs are generally run by a single author communicating his/her thoughts with readers. Wikis have multiple authors and are intended to be a group effort to collaborate and share information. Although these two forms of new media have different purposes, they both use the 5C’s in order to create an interactive space for users and readers alike.

An interesting example of blogs using collaboration was in the article “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid.” The Bay Ridge community took it upon themselves to speak out about the crimes occurring in their neighborhood by blogging. Many residents used this an opportunity to inform their fellow residents of potential dangers. One resident was grateful for the blogs, “You check and see what’s going on in the neighborhood…there’s strength in numbers, you know? There’s more of us than them.”  Despite the fact that it was likely by chance that the authorities discovered this blog and took action, it wouldn’t have been possible without the united effort to take action by the community.  

For wikis, because they focus on information collaboration, they can be used in a variety of ways. One possibility discussed in “How to use Wikis for Business,” was using wikis in business to create a more organized and interactive organizational culture. Employees would be able to collaborate on spreadsheets and word documents efficiently and as a community. Wikis solve many of the issues that companies have with information sharing by providing an interactive platform for community and creativity across the entire company.