Are you up to date?

Snapchat is classed as a social network, in the beginning is was a picture oriented app, where you would send photos instantly to people for a maximum of 10 seconds. You were able to add a line of text or write on the photo to communicate with the receiver. Since its popularity increased it continued to have updates and allowed the consumer to do more things, it allowed you to put filters on your photo, by swiping right, being able to send longer messages and chat to your 'snapchat friends' and the general layout improved to make it easier to use. 

But the most recent update introduced new elements and sort of re-invented the app. 

1) Before you were able to see all your friends and see their best friends, however now you just see the people who have stories that day, it doesn't show all your contact unless you go on the chat aspects of the app.  There is also a 'discover' page which is filled with 12 different places you can visit from CNN to Cosmopolitan.  

2) When you click on snapchat you are presented with the camera screen, here you can see how many snaps you have, have many pending stories there are and your information. There is a new interactive element to this page and if you want to add someone on snapchat all you have to do is hold their

ghost over yours and it will add them to your contacts/friends list. A pretty quick and handy tool rather than searching their username, added them and waiting for them to accept. 

3) As I have written about before convergence is about the flow of media across multiple media platforms, but i never thought about convergence of media on one device. Now emojis (emoticons) that were used generally for texting are now used on snapchat, instead of just listing your top 3 friends you have 5 different symbols next to some of your contacts:

💛(Yellow Heart) = You are number 1 best friends with each other, they send you the most snaps and you to them too.
😁 (Grimacing Face) =Your number 1 best friend i also their number 1 best friend too.  

😊 (Blush/ Smily face)  = A best friend

😎(Sunglasses face) = One of your best friends is one of their best friends

😏 (Smirk Face)= You are one of there best friends but they are not one of yours.

5🔥 (Fire) = You have had a 'snap streak' for a certain number of days. 

These show how apps are changing to keep up with the latest develops, especially since most of my phone apps are set for automatic updates so sometimes I don't know unless they are drastic changes like this. I first found out what each emoji means through friend, but if you just Google 'snapchat emojis' the meanings come straight up. The thing with updates is they stay new for about a week when everyone is still figuring it all out and check out the new stuff they can do, then after that it becomes old. They start to forget what it was like before the update as they are used to the new thing, This could be either because we are obsessed with new media and technology or that we are now quick learners because it is so second nature to us now.

Social World vs Real World

There is always a big debate about the affects the social world online has on our lives. Social media can have a huge impact on a person lives whether is be virtually or in the real world, many people have different social presence depending on the social media site that it is. Your Facebook profile may be completely different than your Twitter or Instagram account and even your Linkedin profile.

There are over 1 billion people who have a Facebook profile whether that be for personal or private reasons many people are connected and consume this one site. Facebook is positive in some ways because it allows you connect to family members or friends who maybe in a different country to you, it is one of the only ways you can stay connected. You are able to communicate with them in some way especially if you don't often get to in the real life. However some people can create a different persona on Facebook and some people tend have fake accounts for many different reasons, in that sense it is dangerous as you only believe what you see and don't know the really person behind the computer. You are supposed to be able to trust the person. But there are many ways you can make your profile private and only available to friends and loved ones. Just because people may use Facebook on a daily basis does not mean they no longer interact or communicate with people in the real world. A lot of people have many different devices in which they can log onto their account, so it is available pretty much anytime anyway. This doesn't mean that people live in a social world, it just allows them to stay connected wherever they are.

I know that my use of social networking sites has definitely changed over the years as I am sure many other peoples have, for instance I now only really use Facebook to post photos and I have many family members on there who can keep updated with me (especially being here in America). Which is different from Instagram for me because you are not 'suppose' to post on their frequently and I don't have the same people across all my social networking sites. Twitter is the site I would say I visit the most it is good because you can connect with not only friends, but sports, news, celebrities almost anything you want to find out or get the local news on your favourite things who generally have Twitter feeds. Companies also use Twitter to connect with people who use their products, it has definitely become a more global social network. Although there are many people who revolve their life around being on these sites and making sure they have a certain number of likes or followers I think there is a generational difference in who has a more impact on the social world than the real world. Many young people probably feel that it is one of the only ways they can stay connected to their friends.

The big part of this whole debate I believe that your social media presence may have some affect on you in the real world so people may say 'Oh yeah I saw that on your Facebook' people are able to get to know things about a person based on there profiles, so when you may meet a person for the first time you may already know a lot more about them, which in some ways is kind of creepy. However I think a clear indicator about your consumption would be whether you would be able to live with out any of these sites?
Social Networking sites are free so an individual can use them. They incorporate many different things that allow you to stay connected to who ever you want which is what I think is the overall appeal.

Addicted to Google?

Google - Is one of the largest and most commonly known search engines worldwide. One simply click to 'Search' can lead you to many places on the Web.
There have been many discussions about how Google has to much power over consumers lives. Google has expanded over the years, as more people have used it. Allowing you to pretty much plan your whole life around this one search engine. From the gmail as your domain name, Google docs used a lot by college students for uploading work and using the calendar to remind people of events or appointments, Google has converged in a way that it would be hard to use any other search engine or even imagine if it didn't exist.

Im not even sure how many consumers know that other search engines are available to use. I didn't know that until last week that 'DuckDuckGo' existed, and in fact since then I have been trying to use it but I am just so use to Google and knowing how it works, that I could be addicted like many other consumers. One of the benefits however to DuckDuckGo, which really made me think about how much we Google stuff is the idea that they don't record your searches unlike Google. The fact that Google record your searches, makes me sometimes question it's trust. It is a search engine that is used frequently by many, even when people are in a conversation and don't know or want to find something out they usually say 'I will Google it'. They are instantly able to find out the answer this may mean were addicted or that we just want to be able to know a lot more knowledge, which Google allows us to do.

The recent ideas about the privacy of Google makes me question whether to use it or not, however it is I, like many others all we know. Even with this knowledge that Google may be endangering our privacy, we choose to consume this. I think if you want to keep something really private you would not post it on the Internet anywhere, I understand that Google control emails and has google maps which shows people's location, but at the end of the day most of us, if not all of us have used all aspect of Google knowing full well that the information could be used anywhere. Lets be honest, many people don't read any terms and conditions so we could be signing our privacy away without even knowing as we are too lazy to click through the endless pages to read them. I feel that if Google are honest about privacy issue, people would still use it because they like how Google works. It may be effecting our independence and private life but so many people have 'different' lives through the Internet anyway that how do we know when someone is telling the truth anyway?. Google is just a tool for everyone to connect and find out information about other people/things worldwide.

Convergence

What is convergence? 'The flow of content across media platforms' Henry Jenkins talks about convergence a lot and it's important relationship between media platforms and consumers.

Convergence helps us, the consumers to experience all different types of media into one single platforms. It allows us to connect to other people all around the world through the internet, social media, email and platforms such as FaceTime or Skype. These are always readily available to people who are able to access almost anything that they could on an computer, tablet, kindle. No matter where the consumer is the information is always available for them almost instantaneously, with a few simple clicks.

These devices, such as mobile phones have become the lives of many people today. Consumers no longer can live without their phones, so many people rely on this single device to provide them with all information. Many plan there day with this device, through alarms and appointments as well having email wherever they are so that they can work from whether they want. In this sense convergence has become empowering because consumers can control content and are able to decide what media platforms they want to indulge in.

Convergence though has effected many different older media platforms such as newspapers, and with technology developing older forms of media are not necessarily dying they just have to adapt there ways to allow consumers to participate to media. Convergence is a good tool to allows consumers to use media efficiently.

Blog Reaction

Rebeca Blood interview with Megan Reardon - Reaction

Megan Reardon is known as 'Not Martha' in the virtual blogging community. In this interview she says that although she has had the weblog for a few years, not a lot of it has changed on it technically in the way that she does not include tags or categories. This means that her blog could be easy to read which is more efficient for somebody who may not like using computers/technology. As it would be pretty straightforward to follow and use. It seems that she prefers older technology as that is what she has grown up with, which could work, however the blogging community has become a lot larger and so maybe including things such as tags, links and using newer technology will improve her posts. 

She also highlights the fact that she didn't like writing in school and that blogs can contain anything you want, which is what I like about a blog is there is not many restrictions on what you write, so you are able to have full control over everything and edit/delete again and again until you get it right. Also Megan states that she may not always post as much as she should, and that her post usually take "about three days to write" since she has to make everything, then take and add the pictures so her blog does not always require a daily post.

Her blog is about different crafts that she made and how she makes them, she says she makes notes as she goes along so she remembers. Also because her blog is about crafts it includes pictures and visuals or her products and so therefore this improves it because we are able to see it physically. Especially because unless your a dedicated blogger I feel pictures are important to accompany words because people will be able to get a better sense of what you are talking about and it breaks up the writing. It is personal to her so therefore she does not have to please or write for anyone, she is not making any money from it.

I feel as though her blog isn't such a dramatic prescence in her life, it is just something that she posts her work on and gets some recognition for her crafts, as she has had some good feedback. However it seems that if people are interested in crafts and arts they will enjoy her blog, which it effectively communicates. Overall I think that her blog clearly expresses her ideas and is the right medium to advertise her crafts. 

First Post!

Just testing to see if this works