Curtis Chung

Virtual Worlds are where users can create, connect, and chat with others from around the world using voice and online interactions. In most Virtual Worlds memberships are free, but players use real money to exchange for virtual currencies, used to buy digital products. In "No Budget, No Boundaries: It's the Real You" Ruth La Ferla states that roughly 250,000 items are created daily by residents using a built-in modelling tool to construct 3-D objects to sell in the virtual marketplace such as the one in Second Life. These items include shoes, coats, furniture, and possibly anything you would normally buy from Amazon.Virtual Worlds have encouraged many users to become more creative. For example, Jonty Glaser, a partner in Stiletto Moody, a Second Life shoe brand have become a super successful entrepreneur through this Virtual Reality World. He has sold more than $1 million dollars since 2007 and has earned the nickname the "Jimmy Choo of Second Life." According t...

Twitter and Blackboard discussions are both useful tools for an in-class discussion. I have used Blackboard discussion boards for various classes and found it be a simple yet useful tool to share information with your teacher and classmates. However, a major drawback to Blackboard discussions is that it does not provide real-time notifications and alerts to people commenting on your post. On the other hand, Twitter allows for an option to send real-time notifications to the user for whenever something that you are following tweets or someone comments on your tweets. This real-time alert allows for more active discussion, almost as if the class were together in person. Also, Twitter does a better job of categorizing information under a common topic. For example, #3810NET1 combines all the tweets with this hashtag together so it would be much easier to find relevant information about this hashtags and its subcategories. Twitter's retweet, share, and like functions are also very ...

There are hundreds of social networking sites on the web. All of these sites serve its own purpose and have its own unique features. Today I will be comparing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Soundcloud. Facebook is the most popular and has the highest monthly active user count with over 1.6 billion active users in its social network. Facebook allows its users to create profiles, upload pictures, and videos, send messages, update statuses and stay connected with friends and families. I have a very positive impression of Facebook since it is my major source of digital communication. Over 90% of my texting is done via Facebook Messenger and the other 10% via Groupme and text. Facebook is a very user-friendly and useful platform. Users may use Facebook to plan events, spread awareness through advertisements, live stream events, and keep up with news happening around the world.  Twitter is another popular social media platform that many people would use. It has over 650 million...

Using blogs and other sources of social media can be beneficial to many companies. For example, in "Antisocial Networking" Hilary Stout emphasizes the issue of face to face interactions nowadays due to new technologies. Prior to the internet and the rise of new technologies, kids used to spend hours on the phone and hanging out in the neighborhood. But now even chatting on the phone and emailing is too "passé." Researchers who study relationships have discovered that close childhood friendships help build trust in people outside of their family and lay the foundation to developing healthy relationships with their coworkers, friends, girlfriend, in the future. Oftentimes shy kids do not develop this sense of "trust" in other people outside their family and become outcast later in life. Researchers believe that the impersonal nature of texting and online communications may make it easier for shy kids to connect with others. According to the article, Mr. Wil...

The terms "blog" and "wiki" are often lumped and categorized together. Although there are many similarities in their appearance there are also many differences in their purpose, style, and audience as well.  A blog is a website with usually one author and many contributors. The author posts about different topics and contributors would comment on those posts. Blogs are usually written in a "diary-type" style and express the author's opinions about different topics. Blogs allow for interactive discussions and provide the audience with an up to date commentary in a traceable timeline. According to How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere" Kathy E. Gill states that bloggers write about topics that matter to them. Blogs may have a large or small audience and produce positive or negative opinions on certain debates. According to the study, many bloggers post to attract awareness about certain topics and express their personal opinions. So...