Social Media and the Future

How do you think social media will change in the future? What other trends would you add to the mix? Are they any specific technologies that you think will gain popularity or emerge?

Social media will continue to evolve, and I believe that the way it will be in the future is that it will continue to expand as the technology evolves as well. As social media continues to expand, it will also gain more and more people from all over the world. Social Media is a trend as it is, and as for adding more trends to the mix, in all honestly the way it is right now I don’t believe that other trends will be that big of an impact. Yes, Social Media will continue to grow and the way it is used may also expand, not change. With the technology that we have today, the ease and access of Social Media has attracted a lot of attention. I believe that smartphones and tablet technology will continue to evolve while adding more and more functions to their use and in result, attracting more attention. With this in hand, people will buy them and as they get more and more attention, competitors will further develop their products leading to new evolution cycle of technology. In the end, Social Media will grow, not change in the future, just expand, just as the technology will evolve and expand as well.

Does social media has the potential to bring about real social change?

I believe that Social Media does have the potential to bring about a real life social change. This change can be either good or bad depending on the situation and the partys involved. Malcom Gladwell, an author known in the area of social media, believes that people and social media are built around weak ties, and real social change can never be achieved from the loose networks of people that do not know each other. As much as I hate to say it, but that well-known "author" states a personal opinionated statement. I say that because anything is possible. People can use these social networks to better communicate and get to know one another. It is possible. They can share and communicate their thoughts and ideas towards one another as well as form "bonds". Yes, these people can also change things in real-life. One major example, is the incident that happened in Egypt and government. This incident started out on FACEBOOK. People who barely knew each other, shared a common idea, which in result was put into action. The country went into an uproar with the demands of change from these people. They wanted to take down Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, and they did. They found the system corrupt, and formed up and stood up for their rights. Another example is when the Anonymous hacker group, took down the Department of Justice, RIAA, MPAA, and several other sites, because of SOPA and PIPA movement. as well as the shutdown of the famous filesharing site, Megaupload. This group has their online social network, with people who also barely know each other, but all share the same ideas and goals. To sum things up, anything is possible with Social Media. People will continue to interact, and real-life social change does happen.

Social Media and the Quality of news and information.

Social media has allowed everyday citizens to become authors, editors, and publishers of news and information. Do you believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information or decreased it?

In my opinion, I believe that social media has increased the quality of news and information. I believe this because of the fact that social media allows anyone to publish news and information, with that, it allows different perspectives and opinons when news and information is published  regarding a certain  manner. In my opinion, I find that the news on  televions and newspapers, tend to be censored and controlled to the point that it can relay false information on  certain subjects. The fact is, with social media people from all over the world can post information, and that information or news will be different as to the "controlled" news. And I find that reading things that others over the world have relayed is more reliable in obtaining the information that I require. So yes, the quality of information is way better, but also sometimes you will have people posting random information just for the hell of it. Yet in the end, it is always up to the reader and how they obtain their  information and whether or not they choose to believe it. With having so many open sources of information, the quality gets better.

(Yes.. i like to keep things simple)

Is Social Media a fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?

Social Media is part of our everyday life. It includes the various online technology tools that allow us to communicate all over the world with ease via the internet in order to share information, resources, and ideas with one another. Social Media can be in a form of many different things. These things can range from pictures, audio, videos, podcasts, and other forms of multimedia communications.

In my oppinion, I believe that Social Media is in fact the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution. Because in today's society the online world makes up for over 75%  of the world's population. People find different forms of ways to communicate, the common ones being Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. Nowadays as well, many companies all over the world interact with each other and customers via these sites and many other sites. They have their own pages, advertisments, or other ways that they would use to relay their products and services to the world.

To sum it all up, I believe that social media will always remain a part of our lives and our everyday use. It will continue to evolve and be a daily, never ending factor in our lives. 

Day 1. The Creation

Blog for Social Media course created.
:o