Digital Footsteps

When I ‘googled’ my full name ‘Jacqueline Rotunno’ to track my digital footprint, there were many interesting things that I found. The search result first came up with my LinkedIn account and then my professional Facebook account, which I made specifically to network and connect with professionals and co-workers, came up. I was relieved that my personal Facebook did not come up with this search. I would not mind if potential employers found this Facebook account, however, I would be hesitant for them to see my personal account, not that there is anything too bad linked with that account, I just feel it would be more appropriate for professional relationships to see the professional Facebook instead. After conducting this search, I decided to alter my privacy settings on my professional Facebook as well, because I did not feel comfortable that anyone can see a picture of me on my Facebook when they google search my name.

The next links that came up in the search was from mylife.com, this website revealed my home address and names of my family members, which scared me that this information was accessible online. Also, a link for a scholarship that I received my senior year of high school, “The Leaders of Tomorrow” scholarship also shared some information on me. There were also links revealing the name of my high school and my varsity soccer statistics, accompanied with pictures.

When I googled ‘Jacqui’ instead of ‘Jacqueline’ the results were very different, more of my personal information was revealed including “Girls Soccer Profiles” and my Blogger Account. I believe that it is hard to hide your digital footprint once it has been made; there is almost no way of getting rid of what is on the Internet. In a sense the digital footprint is almost impossible. Advice that I would give Internet users is to monitor what they put online because it will always be there, even when you are older, it is very important to watch what you say and how you are perceived.

While reading the Pew article “Reputation Management and Social Media”, Pew urges us to monitor what we expose about ourselves online. On the chart on page sixteen, I found many things were exposed about me that I hadn’t expected, while I was looking for my digital footprints. I found many companies and employers that I have worked with in the past and present, I found photos, my date of birth, my email, my home address and organizations that I have belonged to. This is definitely more information than I thought that I would find about myself and, it actually scared me a little bit to know that someone could learn that much about me by researching. In the future I will monitor what I expose about myself online.

What Is Community?

The Merrian-Webster dictionary defines community as a 'unified body of individuals' or a 'group of people with a common characteristic, living together within a larger society.' As unique individuals, we all have belonged to a myriad of different community, throughout our lives. Whether it be the community that you grew up in, which could be centralized around the public schools in which you and individuals throughout your neighborhood attended or a smaller community encompassing people who share a particular interest, such as athletes or musicians. Developing a community, is allowing the participants involved to feel a sense of belonging and pride towards their community and a commodore with others involved. Some communities, in addition, open doors for opportunities and entrance into other, similar or comparable communities, where individuals can overlap. For example, I belong to the University at Albany student body community. I am in the fourth year at this university, there are various ways in which I feel as though I am involved and important on this campus. Just being in the University at Albany community, however, is a large community, encompassing all of the students on this campus, yet, we all, through experience develop smaller communities where we share more personable interest and passions as other members. Finally, the University at Albany community can also introduce a student to the Alumni community- which is marketed as "a world within reach" implying that Albany can give you access to anything you want to do throughout the world, whether you are a student or alumni.

The Internet gives individuals an advantageous edge when attempting to get particular opinions, suggestions and perspectives to large masses. The Internet community as a whole, is enormous. Even dividing that community into smaller hubs, like the Facebook or Twuitter community, the Internet is an enormous tool for various entities, such networking, communicating, sharing and expressing opinions. To identify a target audience and develop readership one must think strategically. Sometimes, a website, video or blog, instantly goes viral and attracts users from all over the world with similar interests, however, in other instances, a person's voice is lost in the vast black hole of 'cyber space.' Gaining attention from an intended audience is most important, however, then the communicator needs to maintain the relationship, which means giving a reason for audience members to come back, as well as, developing new platforms to attract new viewers. The users make up the specific community, all of the audience members keep 'following' the messages you are relaying- they share a similar interest in your material.

To develop a readership around this blog and other blog posts that I have posted or will post in the future, I will add this link to my social media pages, such as Facebook and Twitter. Individuals who are already in 'my community' already share similar interests with me, thus, hopefully, they will be interested to further explore my opinions, even if they are just curious to what the link is and stumble upon my blog accidentally. The content is interesting and hopefully, it will entice them to come back and see what new material I am posting.

Analyzing the 4 Tools of Communication

With advances in technology, we have witnessed a global change in communication behaviors. When exploring computer-mediated technology, mediums of communication in which a person can utilize based on their desired outcome. People are less likely to use traditional methods of research for trustworthy information; the use of collaboration, which is defined in the strategic white paper ‘New communication behaviors in a Web 2.0 world- Changes, challenges and opportunities in the era of the Information Revolution’ written by Alcatel-Lucent as “the collective development of information and knowledge,” those seeking reliable information can now easily access “global knowledge” banks through webpages, online journals and a variety f search engines. In addition to the increase in knowledge flow, web-based social interaction and social media is also booming. Networking and keeping in contact with individuals worldwide is easier than ever before, one can connect with friends and family on Facebook, professionals, co workers and previous employers on LinkedIn and celebrities, news mediums and government officials on Twitter. When using each medium, however, the uses of the services that the site provides can altered based on what exactly the communicator is trying to accomplish from that specific site. For example, a college student uploading pictures and constantly changing their ‘check in’ location for their friends to see, will probably not be utilizing Facebook’s assets in the same way that a social media representative would be using it in order to create a product profile for a company to gain awareness to that new product.

In each of these forms of social media, users are asked to develop personalized pages, in order to attract and bond with those users who share similar interests. Niches are formed, however, with these websites expanding and users actively participating, to get their own voices heard, share their perspectives and find others who share comparable ideas, these small niches are rapidly growing to worldwide awareness groups. Additionally, smart phones and mobile devices such as ipads and tablets have helped allow users to update status, upload videos and pictures and broadcast messages, while on the go. “The evolution of broadband and IP has expanded the business of telecommunications service providers. Once solely concerned with the delivery of voice services, they are becoming truly multimedia companies, bringing together voice, data and content.”

When utilizing different tools regarding computer-mediated communication, the user must strategically decide whom the communicator’s intended audience is and how they would like to communicate with their targeted audience. Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are terms that are used as frameworks to distinguish between different mediums of communications, with 1.0 being the most passive user and 3.0 being an active user utilizing a smartphone and/or ‘on the go’ technology. In September 20^th’s Computer Mediated Communication class, we were asked to explore four types of communication channels (Webpage, Prezi, Twitter and Blogger) and discuss which category the channels would fall into.

I believe that the specific webpage that we used in class that listed the channels of communications based on their uses, would fall into a Web 1.0 category. I believe this because one person is writing the content of this page and pushing the material towards Internet users, who are dependent on the content of the creator and not able to alter and express their own opinion. On this website, you are merely accessing information, however, it does transition into the Web 2.0 phase because after you click on the link for the program, the door for platform to express one’s self is opened, upon creating an individual account.

I had little experience with Prezi before this class; however, I believe that it falls under the Web 2.0 category because numerous people can edit the same presentations simultaneously from different locations. We saw this when we were all asked to post our name and topics on the Prezi presentation during the class period. All the students in the class were altering the same document, thus multi-way channels of computer-mediated communication were opened. I knew the topics that my classmates across the room had chosen; I received messages from students via the Prezi site through various communication channels.

I believe that a Twitter and the Blogger are prime examples of Web 2.0 that has evolved into Web 3.0. Web 2.0 is the beginning of two-way communication, which covers blogs, wikis and social networking sites. On Twitter, you can ‘tweet’, post statuses, locations, ideas or simply anything that comes to your mind. You can ‘re-tweet’, someone that you follow’s individual post and/or ‘mention’ their posting. It is multi-way communication, allowing you to have conversations with numerous people at one time. Additionally, a blogger is also multi-way communication medium, once you post something, anyone can read it, and numerous people can be reading the same post simultaneously. All of the public can read your perceptions and comment on what you think.

I also believe that Webpage, Prezi, Twitter and Blogger mesh into Web 3.0 because of the technology of smartphones and applications that can access these webpages even when the user is not in a stationary place. All 3 frameworks, Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 build on and overlap each other, thus, each tier is essential to the growth of the next. The website (Web 1.0), a straight flow of information from page creator to user, can evolve into the twitter, blogger and prezi (Web 2.0), which is where users actively create and share information, express their personal opinions and even change the content of the site, and finally, with technology growth and development, all of these channels of communications can be accessed through mobile devises, if they are designed to be easily viewed on the smaller screen, or in an instance like Twitter, an “app” has been created for the program.

What Is Culture? Links to My Resources

6 Links That Help me to Define Culture in my everyday world:

Delicious Link #1 #uacmc #defineculture Video to define culture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai9pRv_t3y8
Delicious Link #2 #uacmc #defineculture Twitter Users Define Culture http://cindyking.biz/21-definitions-of-culture/
Delicious Link #3 #uacmc #defineculture Wikipedia Culture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
Delicious Link #4 #uacmc #defineculture What is Culture? http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm
Delicious Link #5 #uacmc #defineculture "Culture" http://www.culture-at-work.com/concept1.html
Delicious Link #6 #uacmc #defineculture TED Inspirational Videos- Human culture http://www.ted.com/