Chapter 14- Video Games and Feature Film Industry

Chapter 14: Personal/Social Media

Then- Social Media’s wild history

            Digital technology is part of everyone’s daily life and effects our means of communication. But before we had social interaction on the internet, we had different types of communicating. In the 1970’s a large business called CompuServe, which became available to the public in the 1980’s (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). This device allowed users to sh

are files as well as access news and events, and discussion board forums. These became extremely popular as thousands of people joined a discussion to give their opinion and learn more about a certain topic, and this started the popular use of social interaction we do every day. BBS was also a big part of the start of social and personal media. BBS is a Bulletin Board System which allows users to download files or games and communicate messages to others. Technology was restricted at this time in the 1980’s, yet BBS remain popular and made it all the way to the 1990’s with the internet revolution (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). The next big thing for social and personal media was AOL. America On Line is considered to be the internet before the actual internet craze started, and gave users an option to create a members profile, listing things about themselves. This was an instant hit and grew very popular by the mid 1990’s (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). Sites like Yahoo and Amazon were just getting started and online shopping was not a thing yet. It is amazing to see the technological advances in just the past 25 years alone. Another huge milestone in social medias history is the site Classmates.com, which was a website that let you connect with peers from school in a sort of virtual reunion. It was basically Facebook before the explosion of popularity in internet a few decades later. Even today, Classmates.com has around 57 million registered accounts (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). Yet another social site during this time period was SixDegrees.com. This website allowed users to create profiles as well as look at others people’s profiles, organize groups and invite friends to your account. The founders of this website pushed its members too far by encouraging users to add more people, and this site eventually filled with spam on their membership drives. By the end of the 1990’s, this social website was forced to shut it down. Now we have reached the new millennium. In 2002, a new type of social website was formed, that of Friendster. This social site worked better than SixDegrees because they didn’t focus on the circle of friends, but rather that online community’s work because of common bonds between people (Digital Trends Staff, 2014). Today, this service is only an online gaming site due to technical difficulties and management problems, though it had over 3 million registered users. Moving forward a few years we see yet another social media site, that of MySpace in 2003. This site was once a huge deal and an extremely popular social site, but with most sites like this it’s gets boring and people want the latest and greatest of social media. Now MySpace is target site for bands and musicians (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). The history of social media is very interesting to look at, especially since I was around for some of it. I remember when AOL came out and I begged my parents to let me get a KOL account, which is kids online. And I also remember the popularity of MySpace and all the excitement of having a social media account. Media’s history is also important because it paves the way for our future.

 

Now- The always popular Social Media today

            The biggest and most well-known social media website is Faceb

ook, which started a little over ten years ago. Facebook was initially used as a social website for college students. In 2006 Facebook became general to the public and its popularity just sky-rocketed. In just the two years since it official start up, this social website was considered a huge business, and three years later billionaire Peter Thiel invested millions of dollars to see this website be a success (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). Facebook now has over 1.3 billion active users, and one reason to Facebook’s massive success is 2007’s launch of Facebook’s platform and had thousands of apps on their website. Now Facebook has the ever-popular like button and Twitter is a huge social media website as well. Tweeting is the next best thing to come out for social media and just like Facebook has tons of active users. During this popularity, Google decided to take this major internet use to their advantage. In 2007, they developed Google+, which is a considered a social layer of the media experience, and have now developed Hangouts. This is the next thing in social media as it allows you to have video chats with other people online. Google+ now has 540 million active users as of late 2014 (Digital Trend Staff, 2014). Mobile phones have been extremely popular for quite some time. But with recent developments in technology, we now have fourth screen technology like smart phones and tablets. This brought social media and digital communication to a new level. We can multi-task without much effort on our mobile devices without needing multiple devices, because it’s all the functions we need on one complete electronical device (Digital Trend Staff 2014). We now have a new feature called mobile computing, which is considered to be smart phone apps. Social apps like Instagram and Snapchat, which have changed to mostly mobile apps. Tinder is another popular social media site and has 10 million daily users, which is location based matchmaking. Platforms also allow users to share posts or pictures simultaneously to several apps at once (Digital Trend Staff ,2014). A popular app for the personal computer is webcam. It is a video camera that transmits live images between computers. These are able to operate at 30 frames per second, which is why it looks so clear and sharp on your screen (Medoff, Kaye 274). This is a major convenience for people who stay in touch on a daily basis and can’t see each other. This is a way for them to stay in contact. My younger sister lives four hours away and I am able to see and hear her using Skype, a type of webcam service. Webcams are also used for international conferences and public relation tools, such as online school work (Medoff, Kaye 275). Another big part of the social media world is the use of communication through gaming. Playing the game occurs on your mobile device, and social gaming has over 100 million people playing various games, such as Farmville, Bejeweled and Pet Society. There are three types of game playing, which are self-presentation, collective identity and phatic communication (Medoff, Kaye 279). With self-presentation, the player chooses who they are and how they are seen by others online. Collective identity is a way to learn more about a person by asking them questions, and you define who you are on the particular social media site. The last communication through gaming is phatic communication. This is where you maintain contact with friends online, but do not necessarily form a dialogue with that person and It is used for social reasons rather than sharing information (Medoff, Kaye 279). All of these things are part of the huge success of the social media, and with all the new inventions and apps coming out every day it is clear to see social media isn’t going anywhere.

Later: A more technologically advance future in social media

            With inventions of new apps and the latest technology, it is hard to imagine what the future has in store for us when it comes to social media. There have been so many upgrades, new technology and convenient apps, and from learning about the history of social media, it is safe to say new advance’s will not stop anytime soon. There is always some new development in process and it seems like just when it gets very popular and affordable for the audience, something else tops it. Social sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Instagram have proven their popularity and are here to stay. Twitter has 270 million active users, while YouTube users add and watch 4 billion videos a day. The success of Instagram is huge as well, as over 60 million photos are uploaded on this social media site (Wellons, 2014). Social experts agree that in a little over 20 years our use of social media will be integrated in our daily lives in various ways. The latest technology can track our habits, and virtual experiences are part of this too. There are many opinions from people in this profession. BreakingNews Cofounder Cory Bergman says “When news breaks in the future, it will be covered by a multitude of eyewitnesses streaming live video, enabling the viewer to virtually experience the event in real time. For better or worse, the world will feel like its right around the corner.” (Wellons, 2014). This is a very interesting outlook for the future, seeing how far streaming and video technology has come. The thought of watching news right as it is happening definitely seems like a possibility. Piera Gelardi is a creative Director for Refinery 29 thinks the future will bring a more sci-fi feel and it will be a portable future of social media. Wearables will be popular and we will implant a device that connects us to the world. Personal experiences will also change, like being able to share a taste, sensation or smell. Even things like shopping with turn to virtual technology. Going to an e-commerce store with a friend and using an avatar to represent you (Wellons, 2014). Also the talk of making these devices even smaller and convenient is a definite possibility. Jeremy Goldman is the author of Going Social, and he says years from now things like tablets, laptops and smartphones will be irrelevant, and interactions on social media will be voice controlled. Also holographic displays will be popular, making smartphone display a part of social medias history. Otis Kimzey is a Director for Simply Measured and his opinion on social media communication is it will be used but look very different. The amount of data will increase and so will convenient uses for other things. We already have watches that take our pulse and Nike shoes that can tell us how fast we run, and these are only the start of products like this. Our personalized content will be the norm of the future and it will become even more individualized, such as getting the exact content you want or watching a movie on a projector watch or contact lens (Wellons, 2014). Nobody can guarantee 100 % what the future of social media looks like, but technological advances make the future seem closer than far away, and who knows what the world will look like 20 or so years from now.