It's Been a While

Hello Cyber Land....

How goes it?

I have been incognito for about a year now. It seems I have not missed too much. Technology and media are still working hard to keep their Mass-Matrix take over.

Media...technology...what is the purpose of this lovely conundrum? Ask anyone and they will give you an answer that is more of an opinion than a true answer. Only each individual person can decide what the purpose of media or technology is in their own lives.

For me, media is a buffer on an open road, or in some cases a virtual road map to any location. It can be both enslaving and captivating with a touch of freedom depending on the topic of choice. I choose to use media and technology as a way to peep through the matrix and see the beautiful swirly twirly energy balls on the other side. The world is changing. From mass techno powers to mass spiritual oasis.

This is an exciting time to determine one's definition of media and technology.

Crank up the gigabytes and hold on to your digital world, like clockwork.

Media Rabbit Hole!

 

Welcome, to the timeline of mass media! This is an analytical, or rather, an attempt at trying, to show the timeline of media, technology, and the Internet.



So, let's take a stroll down the media worm hole....

 

It all started in 1971: The year computers were able to speak their first words to each other. Yes, you got it! Email! It was through Email, that we were now able to communicate in a different way, no longer did we have to fully and completely rely on speaking over telephones and news graphs, we could now send an email within 2 minutes and get it to its destination, as if by magic! Which we still do today!



1979-1980: Along with emails, you were able to read your news via the local newspaper. Those inky papery textured, fold-able, neatly accented papers where you could indulge in cross word puzzles, word searches, the funnys, and what the nation was doing as a whole, along with your local city gossip, and then add a touch of the personals and advice to the mix, and....voila, the NewsPaper! This is how celebrities were announced deceased, not through Twitter, Facebook, or other social media means. It was more provacative, in your face, to the point. I mean, look at that picture of John Lennon, look at the headline, it is so strongly in your face that you cannot miss it. It had a very odd appeal to it, to where you would actually want to pick it up read it. This is how mass media, which is now our mass social media, was presented to the entire world. Through inky portraits of our beloved musicians, artists, novelists, and every person who encountered the public daily, like Big Ang, who is now shown via videos, Facebook clips, and tweets about her existence.


1994: Oh, let's not forget Yahoo! Messenger. This was how I spent majority of my nights. Cuddled around my bulky overweight desktop computer, messenging my coolest and closest friends. Not to mention those really fun chat rooms, with different catagories on music, love, politics, gossip, and news. You name it and it was there, I mean you could even create your own Yahoo! Room, it was like whatever you wanted to discuss you could just make a room for it. Then, the show, To Catch a Predator, came along, and somewhere along the way, Yahoo! was no longer a world wide instant messaging platform, it changed into mail and news, oh and a search engine that many do not use as much as, Google, now-a-days.

Oh the fun many have had with Instant Messenger, which has now turned into Facebook Messenger. It seems the things some have grown up with are still around, only in different forms. For example, do you remeber the website, Classmates? Ha, I do, I acutally tried it for a split second, it was a mediocre version of what is now MySpace and Facebook. They tried, and there are few who took to its trend, but many have forgotten their email and password in order to log in, or they just plan out deactivated their account. Not a bad idea...

Oh and you cannot forget AOL Messenger. Well, to be honest, I did, but then I remembered my email account that has an instant messenger on the sidebar and then I thought oh yeah, they did the whole Yahoo! thing, only, AOL!


2003-2004: Then, bam, bang, boom! Along came MySpace and LinkedIn all in one year, with Facebook following close behind a year later. All three have grown into pretty big deals, only Facebook tops the cake. It just so happens that Facebook seemed to have waited long enough in order to get it right, and capture the audience with a something exciting, simple, and a lot easier platform and web set up. With MySpace you had that strange 80-90's feel, that many actually liked, but then Facebook and LinkedIn brought a new standard to the table that dealt with the modern, new, and hip outlook on how to share, "you", to the entire world.


2005: Saturday Night Live! Over the years we have had shows that stick with us like In Living Color, Full House, The Cosby Show, and so forth, but with Saturday Night Live, you have the idea of going viral and it being a thing, that is considered cool. Thanks to SNL, we now have virals day-in-and-day-out!


2006: The lovely Tweets, come to play with their counterparts, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn. A new competition, social platform, and to top it off, it has a Bluebird logo! How can you pass that up? Hashtags, and now Periscope, oh my! Varitey sets in and the exploration begins! We now have Four pretty major social media platforms to look to in order to expand our businesses, schools and the work loads we have, staying in touch and connected, following gossip or events and news, and just sharing, liking, loving, hahaing, wowing, and angry facing, emojis to show our disgust and exitement about posts, photos, and ads. How overwhelming, right?

2007: You have Tumblr! I tried Tumblr once, but it never stuck with me, although I do believe it was for those who wanted to have a blog, but then they would gradually over time get tired of the upkeep blogs demand. The daily, weekly, or monthly updates on topics and the media and context you have to keep up with, where instead you can freely post whatever it is you desire and not have to keep it up. A blog here, a gif there, and photos galore. Tumblr was for the hip, the now, and then it gradually faded a litte in the background, with those who really want to stick with Tumblr, me I will just stay mainstream, I guess...

And then, YouTube, the search engine for how-tos, videos on do-it-yourself, music, and funny fail compilations, that I personally thoroughly enjoy! You also have the first CNN-YouTube debate broadcasting and it makes YouTube something to remember.

2010: Instagram launches its big debut. As if Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, didn't get enough selfies, well now you have a new photo-tastic invention of a platform where you can get your face followed, or your hobbies, crafts, interests, whatever you can take a photo of, and post it quick with ease on Instagram.


2012-2016: Google+, reaches over 90 million users and is expected to grow well over 400 million. Facebook keeps changing with each year, from memories of each day, to new fun emojis, to instant messenger stickers that make any conversation feel fun and exciting. Each platform has grown, expanded, and changed with each new challenge and demand the social media masses have brought to the table. We have smartphones, when we used to have dial landlines, touch screen computers, laptops that keep getting thinner and thinner, and cameras that have gone from Polariod and Film, to digital, and our communication that seems to change with each new decade. We speak through a gigabyte screen, downloads, apps, and instant messaging. We hide our true selves in the form of an avatar, we speak our mind via a Facebook or Twitter post, and we follow our neighbours and news via social platforms. From face-to-face interaction to robotic movements, we catch ourselves doing first thing when we wake up, and after or during breakfast, and even on our drives to work.


Social media, the new wave of Communication!

 



Reference:

 

Cerulo, E. (2012). Timeline: The Most Important Social-Media Events in History | Details. Retrieved February 29, 2016, from http://www.details.com/gallery/social-media-timeline-evolution#22

Expectations of Mass Media, Oh and Culture!

With each culture you have a silent rule. It is an understanding of how things work and flow within your community, family life, and social life. With the new age technology, sometimes that can get muddled in with all the extra things life can throw your way over time. 

For example, instead of meeting Shawn for lunch via a face-to-face invite, you now have to send an instant messenger or even an invite via Facebook, just for a simple luncheon among friends to catch up on everything going on, just in case you missed all of Shawn's Facebook and Twitter updates every other hour...?

It seems that we as a culture are being reconditioned. Reprogrammed and re-adapted in the ways of media and our culture. Now we are always asking is this appropriate to post, or will so-and-so view and like my posts? How many "likes" can I get? Where is Shawn today? Is he at the mall? With Sandra from Economics Class? What is Cindy's love status? Has her and Brad broken up yet, or again, or are they still madly in love as they proclaim to be every other month? 

It seems that there is less privacy, and more airing of our dirty laundry or lives on social media. We seem a lot more prone to really obscene and proactive ways of life and how we share this life. We see more couples meeting on social dating sites and less courting to win someone's heart. We have less time to chat with people one-on-one and without distractions like mobile devices, Netflix, and so forth. Do we really and truly need all the technology we have today? We have iPads and iPhones that basically do the same thing, and we have computers that are desktop or laptop and become smaller or bigger with each person's preference. When it comes to life, we should be living it like they did back in the 60s and 70s, minus the drugs and orgies, but more vibrant fulfilling lives that do not rely fully and totally on electronics to get up by daily. Becoming drones and electronic zombies lazily walking to the gigabyte beats of the 21st century.

So, along came technology. Turned what our social media used to be, newspapers, word-of-mouth, news on the television, VHS, DVDs, CDs, landlines, and so forth, and spoon fed us to be reliant on such things. Don't get me wrong! I love technology! I have an iPhone, a touch screen Dell desktop, and two tablets, two tvs, and my car is a smart car with SYNC installed. Yes, I am a fanatic about the newest and truest devices along with fiber optic internet that can take me around the world at the speed of light, or the speed of a megabyte. Either way, I am just making a point that we should not let such things rule our lives, even though I work 40 hours a week in front of a computer and stay on the phone about 80% of my day-to-day interaction, I still find the time to really unload and let it all go. I drop the iPhone, I drop the tablets, and the desktop that I was 70% of my movies on via Netflix and Google, and I take my child and I go out into nature to return to my roots. Because without my roots, I become that zombie in the above paragraph treking through out each day, eyes clued on the phone, watching "Once Upon a Time" and "Along Came Polly". 

Now, our social media has caused us to be impatient. We want it quick, fast, and by yesterday. I know I am guilty of this, and at times I catch myself becoming a brat!

 

We don't seem to notice it at times and we end up seeing or viewing things that we really shouldn't or don't care about at times and we can become insensitive, or detached from others when they are going through issues and instead of sympathy we become harder on others and what they are going through, and then there are times we find ourselves coming together as a community on social media and binding together to make things happen, like fundraisers, or charity events, just different things from time-to-time.

So, it has become a challenge to the human race. We can adapt and grow like we have never imagined with technology and its many facets, and at the same time, keeping in touch with our roots, ourselves, our higher purpose in life and our higher interests in why we are who we are and what we are meant to do or become. So, take the challenge to not loose yourself in all the social media noise, grab hold of your ancestors and your culture firmly and take note that life can be a great mixture of both technological and cultural growth.

Tech Geek

Drop it in the Dropbox, pin it to the Pinterest board, blog it in the Blogger, look it up in the Wiki of all wikis, Google it!
How do these great ways in which we communicate help us in our work environment? Where do we learn the most, and why, and what works? 
Is it the idea of everything digital? The fact that if we want to know something we can just use a search engine and, voila, it's right there in front of us. 

Like this video for example....how to write faster and catchier content with 8 simple ideas. This is how we learn now-a-days, more video content, and less reading or researching in the library catalog. Just a quick, catchy, 6 minute video to help you create and write with a better you in mind.

Or maybe it is the idea of being able to chat with someone you are working with over the internet. Like Messenger or Google Hangouts and many other opportunities for conversation on the work frontier.



It's quick, easy, and cuts off the time being used while trying to get ready or fill up for gas on your way to meet up. When you can just sit at your very own computer or use your very on mobile device and talk about what needs to be done on a project, plan, or course of action with work and learning. So simple, and fun.

You also have Skype, a perfect way for communicating and learning. 

     

In all shapes and forms. You can view from around the world, speak and type or send documents for the other person to view. It is a perfect way in which we can talk to others and learn from them in all areas of training for a job, or doing an interview for a write-up, or having a meeting to talk about a project or way of planning an event or happening within the communication work sphere. 

All three are a brilliant way in which we communicate and learn. A quick catchy video to give us inspiration, and an instant message to type out our concerns and ideas in a fun quick way, or through skype where video calling is the next way in which we will do our learning and communicating in regards to work and how we perform.

Love Me Tinder

The world wide web has turned into an actual, web. It has twisted the once innocent ways of love, into a twisted match making matrix, or even a web of lies. Have you ever wondered what your lover, partner, or husband is doing on their Smart Phones? What apps they have and who they are talking to? Or if you will be Catfished on your fifth attempt of a date with yet a new candidate? Sometimes, these apps and these sites for love can make you feel like you have Bats in the Belfry...

The number one reason that I have seen it being used for lately is for love. Browsing apps late at night, soul music jamming in the background, your lying in bed feeling absolutely alone or horny, no other soul around, or there could be many around you and you just feel like your in a pit of doom all on your own, with no one to open up to, and so you think, perhaps I can find someone to tell my troubles to who might actually care about it. Perhaps I can reveal my soul through a white screen and gigabytes, and expect them to completely get me within a weeks time and know it will turn into something meaningful. 

Not only this, but then you have apps that cater to those seeking for someone, just anyone, whether a soul mate, or be it casual sex meet ups, and exciting flings, heck it doesn't matter anymore, you could want your toes licked and I know you could find an app for that even, I know you can on Craigslist, ha ha, no joke.

Social media, the web, whatever you want to call it, has turned love, into a game.

My favorite as of right now, is the app called, Tinder. Swipe right if you're interested and left if you aren't interested. A game based solely on pictures and age, unless you decide to tap and see what lies behind these pictures, but how many actually tap to see? Then, it is an array of chatting and finally the next step, giving out your number, and the meet up if it ever goes that far...? How many of you, us, I include myself in this, have desperately searched through a collage of photos on the web hoping this is the one, or maybe they are great at fucking? Maybe it is sexual, maybe you really do want a relationship? Who knows, only the one they call God, and yourself really know what you are looking for.

Then, it is the presentation...yes, I said the presentation. The same is for guys as it is for girls, the way you look in a picture, perhaps what you are wearing, doing, or even have in the picture also depends on how the person who is looking at that picture will take you. If you have breasts hanging out and cleavage then the guy says, "hey look, this will be fun to play with!", oh but maybe you have glasses and you are well dressed and the guys says, "hmmm this could be wife material?!", nope. The presentation does matter, but in all actuality, it doesn't. Sure you see a girl and think this, but when you meet her, then what? For men, my favorite saying is, "Pussy, don't have a face!", and it is true. Sorry if I offend anyone, but it is so true.

What happened to courting? Or dating in other words? What happened to those silly stories parent tell their kids of how they met and who introduced them, or maybe it was a silly incident that brought them together like the movie When Harry Met Sally, but then the reminder that life is not a movie comes flashing forward, and yet again I am left wondering if a Smart Phone is the only way I am able to find someone, and even then, make it actually work or last?

The Effects of Multimedia

Multimedia is a wicked thing, it can do just about anything in the cyber world to make our lives entertaining, informational, insightful, and easy. Multimedia has encouraged both the older generation and the younger generation to bridge the gap and create a world that does not discriminate against age, gender, nationality, or race, and if you have no idea about how things work it is so simple to find out how thanks to YouTube and other video search engine sites to show you a way to do everything you can come up with or even think about trying to do. That, is the beauty of multimedia, the fact that we can search and figure out how to do something so simple within minutes is both mind blowing and inspiring to take it up to the next level and create a cyber world for anyone to collaborate on or share their own techniques and ways to do something.

Thanks to this site, Educational Technology Resources, you can view many different way to figure out how to record your very own pod casting which can then be used to add to a blog, Facebook post, Twitter tweet, and just about anything you want thanks to Garage Band, and you can of course watch the video below just to see what it is about and how to use it, happy singing and instrumental playing guys and gals!

Or, perhaps you are like me and have not heard of a few up and going multimedia programs, like Glogster, well that too can be viewed in just 90 seconds with great banjo background music that is always inspiring which you can see below! 

Oh and one last one, what about movies? Making and creating your own movie is always a great way to spread the word about your own life or your own business if you happen to want to be professional, or perhaps use it in order to do your own business, for example, someone who videos weddings and wants to create a memorable movie out of all the outtakes...well of course it can all be done on iMovie, and here is how...

It does not matter what you decide to do or use, there is usually always a way to find out how to do it if you are unsure or do not know, and thanks to Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and several other Search Engines as well as YouTube, you can now view alternative ways as well as the most popular way to use certain or any multimedia program and outlet!

OH, and another thing, Feliz Dia de los Muertos! 

Analyze This

I have been a Hi-Fructose fan for years. In my early years of college I used to go to the local Barnes and Noble store to pick up the latest issue, which they would release once a month, and pick it apart from cover to cover, as well as hang up many of those images of great surreal contemporary art up on my wall in my dorm room. 

Thanks to Justin Page, an artist and blogger, I am able to keep up with each volume and the take on its contents for that month. For example, his Hi-Fructose: The New Contemporary Art Magazine Vol. 33, it allows anyone who is Hi-Fructose overloaded to see a point of view from an artist.


First, lets look at the layout of his blog. It is simple by Justin using a white and green color scheme that does not wash out, or over do the imagery from the art or the context. It is simple and easy to scan, and read through, the examples of the art that he uses have symmetry and are laid out with precision and used appropriately for the viewer to see without straining their eyes. Plus, you have widgets to other social media sites that are easy to locate, as well as tweets, and other popular posts for the week on the right hand side of the blog, and of course advertising which is usually there for exchange of your use of a platform.

Second, what is Laughing Squid? Laughing Squid is a blog host that showcases a daily variety of unique art, culture and technology from around the world. They are a cloud-based web hosting service with a particular focus on WordPress hosting. Laughing Squid was created in 1995 by Scott Beale and as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the blog he has a great crew working with him as bloggers.

Third, Justin Page does a great job of getting the Hi-Fructose nerd something to look forward to by adding word from the Hi-Fructose headquarters about what is coming up in volume 33, as well as giving names of the artists depicted in his blog. Although his blog is short and sweet, it does the effect it is created for, to get you interested and into the magazine Hi-Fructose, as well as give you a behind the scenes scoop that many magazines are unable to dish out to their readers and fans.

The only thing I would change about this blog in particular is the fact that it is so short. I would have tried to have given a more lucrative opinion about the up-and-coming magazine rather than just give a quote from Hi-Fructose and show some great art. Other than that, I think the layout and the insert alone are great and strong pieces to this blog puzzle, because a lot of people just scan over to see what is expected mostly. I appreciate this blog for giving me a heads up on the next great volume of the Hi-Fructose Magazine!