Week 12-
During class this week we were discussing the future of social media. I thought this was a very nice way to end the module as all throughout we had been learning about the different aspects of social media and i then left the note, thinking about how it is going to evolve over the next 20 years. I feel that what we were learning throughout the course of this module is very applicable to our own everyday lives, which i throughly enjoyed.

One of the readings posted on blackboard this week was 'The Future of Social Media According to Vice'. I thought this reading was very interesting. It starts off by discussing just how prominent social media is in our lives today and then goes on to state that there is now a new apparent shift toward anonymity. The article also describes the effect that Facebook has had on the development of social media, through Facebook we entered "what could be said to be a new era of human communication."
The article finishes on the striking note that social media feels like the backbone to society.

Here is a link to the article: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-future-of-social-media-121

Week 12-
This was the final week of term, we had our last class for social computing and media and also had to finish up on our group projects.

For the group projects, I had been collaborating with my team the whole way throughout the course of this module. I felt that we all worked very well together and really enjoyed my experience with working with this team.
Overall, I am pleased with the final product for our project. We designed an ATM Locator App that works well using geotags and google maps. For our e-marketing presentation we made a prezi. The prezi includes information on what the app does, how it works and what problem does it solve.
The prezi also includes a powtoon video to illustrate a situation may you may be in need of the App and a screencast to illustrate how the App works.

This was my first time completing a project like this and has definitely been one of the most enjoyable assignments for me!

Ted Talk- When social media became news, James Surowiecki.

This week I watched a particularly interesting Ted Talk, that i felt really ties in with what we have been learning throughout this module. 

This talk started off with an extremely detailed account of the Tsunami from someone in Colombo. This was quite significant at the time as it was said that one of the scariest things about the Tsunami was the complete lack of information. One of the things that happened in the wake of a tsunami was that we saw a whole load of live reporting from just witnesses and citizens themselves. Within a few days the outpouring of information was immense and this provided a vivid picture of the events that had happened. I think it was amazing to see the power of social media and the how much of an effect it was able to have in a situation like this one. A large number of unorganized, unconnected writers and video bloggers were able to come up with a far clearer image of what the tsunami was like than the main stream media.

This reflects how the blogosphere that exists today gives a voice to people who have never been able to talk before.

James continues to discuss the blogosphere throughout the talk and outlines three key questions relating to what the blogosphere tells us about our ideas and what motivates people to do things, the accessibility of intelligence with regards to blogs and what are the potential problems of blogs.

I gained a great understanding throughout his talk about the power that social media and blogging etc. has but the dangers too. People who contribute and spend all this time on the Internet are essentially doing it for free, which is pretty remarkable, as they receive no financial reward. These people giving their accounts during the tsunami were doing so solely to tell their stories to the rest of the world. Collectively, all of these blogs and contributions to social media can give us a very valuable picture of what is going on. Another message that I took from this talk and found quite striking is that there remains certain dangers when it comes to blogging and the power of online crowds. It is very easy to think that all networks are good but it can also be said that the more tightly linked you become with everyone the harder it is to remain independent, according to James, one of the fundamental characteristics of a network is that once you are linked in the network, it starts to shape your views and your interactions with everyone else. I think that having such easy access to information from people first hand all over the world is something extraordinary about the society we live in today but at the same time we do face issues when it comes to excessive use of social networks.

Week 11-

Our preparations for class this week included, having a look at google trends; Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on GoogleSearch, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. I found this quite interesting to have a look at and also watched the youtube video on how google trends works to do target market research. 

I also read the reading that was posted on blackboard, I found it extremely interesting and also quite shocking! (link to the article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257482/The-war-Wikipedia-fooled-years-Bicholim-Conflict-article-elaborate-4-500-word-hoax.html )
This article was all about a Wikipedia hoax. A 4,500 word article on the 'Bicholim Conflict' this was a fictional story that fooled the site for 5 years. The story was of 'how Portugal clashed with Indias massive Maratha Empire' but was completely made up.

I also watched the Ted Talk that was posted- 'The birth of Wikipedia'- this talk was given by Jimmy Wales. I really enjoyed watching this talk as he discussed how he brought together a "ragtag of volunteers" and gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that anyone can contribute to.

This was the week of our MCQ, therefore we did not have an elab or etutorial to complete. I spent the week reading over my class notes are some more of the readings to ensured I was prepared for the exam. My result in the MCQ was 22/25 which I was very pleased with.

Week 10-

This week, there was no elabs or etutorials and no readings/ted talks were posted on blackboard.
This class we had a guest lecturer. She spoke to us about social media for business and how it can contribute to creativity, community building and being connected. Social media strategy- Learn, listen, define. Relationship building strategy using social media. We also discussed some tips when using social media in business including: engage and be active, its all public so be wary of what you are posting. We saw the different peak times for interactions on social media. One particularly important person associated with social media is Erik Qualman. 93% of social media users believe that a company should have a presence on social media. We then completed a task where we made up a company and created a business strategy for social media for our company.