Username: esthetiq33

From: chicago

Hobbies: music and movies

I had little trouble logging in to Second Life and creating a profile and avatar. I’m not sure if it was my internet connection or the location in which I tried to log on, but I had trouble locating Gloria’s avatar. Hopefully we can clear this up tomorrow. From what I saw at a glance from using the program, is that it can become a literal second life for users. From what i have read through my own research, you can own a house, cars, and other property. The interactions between people are just as if they were if anyone could be whoever they wanted to be in an online universe, which is essentially what second life is.

I know that there are certain people who use this software a bit more than they should, and I can see how this is possible. I have read about it before when researching the problems that come with online video role playing games like world of warcraft. Many times people who play these games obsessively are not happy with the way their real life is, and turn to the characters in the video games, and live through these characters because they believe they are more interesting. These people believe that living as an alien warrior is more exciting than their own life, so it becomes easy to become obsessed with these games.

Second life appears that it could be potentially more addictive. With the ability to create a person in a real life scenario, with a personality, history and hobbies from a list of anything imaginable, the risk for addiction is probably pretty high. It will be interesting to see how these abilities pan out in our in class research.

I actually found it really interesting that religious sects have included social media in their world of religion, but then again, i feel like it should have surprised me. Our world has become so intertwined and linked together that it only makes sense that social media become useful for all types of things, including religion. I found the idea of a religious facebook page, and twitter page especially interesting. It makes sense that people use these platforms to share their views of religious just as so many people use them to share politics, world views, economic input, etc.

Because of the very nature of these platforms it is no surprise that they have become instrumental in the world of religion. They might be used for a weekly facebook news letter for christians, or a way for muslims to ‘follow’ religious leader on twitter. The very fabric of these sites acts to promote a certain message, whatever it may be. This is precisely what religion does as well.

The explosion of religiously backed apps comes as expected with the explosion of twitter and facebook. The app revolution exploded exponentially more than anyone expected. So why wouldn’t there be a bible app, where one can search for any passage or scripture. It makes perfect sense when you really think about it. Religious sects are doing everything they can to stay desperately relevant wit their ancient messages as texts. A perfect way to move into the digital age is to update all of these ancient things by creating digital versions of them.

In this evolving digital age it has become all but essential that anything desiring to stay relevant  has to go digital and viral. All corporations, no matter what the business audience has to involve social media if they want to stat on the up and up. Even companies that don’t utilize social media in their relations with the public are creating twitter and facebook accounts in an effort to better promote their product or services. That’s what it really comes down to in my opinion with social media: promotion. If you want to get your message, product, idea, etc. out to as many people as possible, you must use social media platforms. This logic transfers flawlessly to the world of religion. Promotion of ideas and teachings via social networks has only made the church;s job easier.

When deciding what to do my podcast assignment on there were a few things that I wanted to take into account first. When picking a subject for a project like this I wanted to chose something that I was interested in, and something I had a decent amount of knowledge about prior to the assignment. Music has become a large part of my life. Whether it’s making music, working with people who make music from a business stand point, or simply enjoying the many parts of the music scene, I am very involved with all of it.  For this project, mainly due to the audio component do it, I decided to do my podcast about the underground music scene in San Francisco. I spend a great deal of my weekend time going to concerts and shows in many different cities in California.

There are a number of things I am taking into account when preparing to record my podcast. Because I am focusing on a subject that heavily involves music, I want music to be a significant part of my podcast. There will be a musical intro and outro, as well as music spread throughout the podcast itself. One tip I learned from Terry Fitzpatrick of UPIU, is that if you chose to use music within your podcast, you should really only use it when changing the mood of the conversation. Using music to induce a certain feeling, and then proceeding into an interview that goes along with this mood can be very effective.

Another technique that i found very useful was to keep your podcast flowing; don’t jump around too much with your questions. You want to keep your listener interested in what you have to say, and jumping around too much can lose their attention. It is also important to keep the sound of all the parts of the podcast similar. I got some points lost from my last podcast project when i re-recorded my questions at a later point because it sounded to jumpy. The sound when I recorded the interview was different than when i re-recorded the questions, and this made it sound a bit strange.

Sometimes, as an interviewer, you can look a bit intimidating when interviewing your subjects. A technique I was taught to avoid this is to hold the mic at a 45 degree angle when interviewing. This way the mic isn’t right up in the persons face, but off to the side. This is not as intimidating, and actually records a better sound in the long run. The point of a podcast is to paint a picture for your listener with the audio you record. These tips are important to use if you hope to achieve a mental picture with a podcast.

Twitter and other social media platforms have become instrumental in the spread of knowledge for obvious reasons. They have become particularly useful in the spread of information and knowledge from oppressed countries whose free speech has been constrained. The universal anonymous nature of these things has led to the inability of the oppressors to keep tabs on the spread of this information.

Because these forums simply exists in the clouds, they allow for information to be seen from anywhere on the planet. Protesters in Egypt used twitter to send out important information for rallies and group protests. The article says, “Twitter emerged as a key source for real-time logistical coordination, information, and discussion among people.” Twitter became the key organizational tool for the resisters. Because twitter is used as both a professional platform for journalism, as well as a platform for citizen journalism there was a considerable amount of information that was shared by both recieving equal attention.

The relationship between social networking sites and news organizations is becoming more and more interesting. Because of the simplicity of the sites citizen journalism has spiked tremendously. This influx in citizen journalism has helped spread the knowledge of certain things happening around the world at a wildfire pace with no cost to major news organizations. Twitter has essentially become it’s own user run news organization.

In the digital age of music that we live in today, podcasting has become a way for music to be spread throughout the online universe seamlessly. There are countless weekly podcasts released through online radio every week in all different genera. There are a few that I personally follow, one in particular being Skream and Benga’s “In new DJs we trust.” Every second Thursday each month Dubstep superstars Skream and Benga host a show on BBC Radio 1 that debuts the hottest new songs from producers all over the world. the majority of the time the songs are brand new, and often unreleased.

These online radio show podcasts have become very integrated in the world of music. Musicians often send their music to these shows before anywhere else. It’s a great way to debut tracks to the public because of the large international following. Getting your song played on podcasts like “In new DJs we trust” can be a huge step for up an coming artists. Because these podcasts are full of water marks and plugs, it makes the songs impossible to rip, but still allows for the most promotion possible. In the world of online file sharing, especially music file sharing, it has become very difficult for musicians to promote their music, while still receiving compensation for their work. These podcasts take care of that problem. The hosts provide tracklisting, as well as links to the URLs where the songs played can be purchased.

Most of the big artists in the business host similar radio show podcasts. With artists like Annie Mac, Giles Peterson, Armin Van Buuren, and Ferry Corsten constantly pumping of radio shows like this there is never a shortage of new music. And these podcasts have become very important in the world of music. Any kind of promotion, especially free online promotion can make a career take flight.