Media 2.0 class synopsis and final post

Media 2.0 has been one my all-time favorite classes. It also has the distinction of one of my last classes, one of four I needed to graduate. It's been fun, but it's time to get out there and apply some of the knowledge I've been accumulating these past four years.

In this class I suppose the main thing I will be bringing away is a sense of having finally connected the dots. I have used computers since I was very young and have seen them advance from a novelty to an integral part of daily life. I suppose I never looked at the internet and the rise of sites like amazon or itunes in the perspective of the long tail. My understanding of the long tail theory is that in a marketplace where everything is available and all tastes are catered to that all the things available will eventually sell at least once. If we picture the sales of available items or songs as a graph that looks like a tail the most popular items will be at the top with the least popular dropping down and eventually going down to just one or two sales per year but never zero the tail continues to go on hence the "long tail".

I also got a more in depth look at new media artists or those that use social media, blogs, web sites, to improve their visibility or even create on the web. Artists are no longer relegated to the shadows with hard work and proper promotion success is possible.

The project on collaborative knowledge was quite informative in that it taught me firsthand what goes into making an entry on wikipedia and problems and advantages of that. I felt that there was a high barrier for entry into becoming a full-fledged contributor, but if one had a true desire to participate in online collaborative knowledge building that wikipedia is proving itself as good a place as any to do that.

I felt our final project was great for helping learn what goes into truly promoting something and sticking with it. I have learned to link all of the social media forms together and promote a cohesive message easily deliverable to a wide audience.

There were many more topics covered in class we went over new media in most of all its forms and truly learned about what goes into producing successful content in the age of new media.

In keeping with our Wikipedia discussion:

Link here. This was copied from reddit here. Enjoy!

Wiki-American Chinese Cuisine

I have chosen the subject “American Chinese Cuisine” for the Wiki Project. My major is Asian Studies and International Trade which is the study of the Chinese language, economy and history. My truest passion is the study of traditional Chinese culture and how it is transforming. Throughout my program of study I have become entirely connected to the idea that food is the essence of a culture. I have visited China and had the pleasure of tasting cuisine in five provinces- all of which were fantastic and nothing like I have had here in the states. The Americanized version of Chinese food is fairly tasty, although again-nothing like I had in China. When I happened upon the wiki article I realized the need for original citations and research. The article link is posted below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_American_cuisine

Neutrality is the convergence of opinion

I think that "Neutrality is the convergence of opinion" is what I was really trying to say in class Tuesday. Wikipedia's striving towards a neutral point of view is a constant ebb and flow of popular opinion. This phrase came to me earlier as I was going to work.

I will do another longer post after class on Thursday until then here's a picture of some Ewoks:

Wiki Project: East Memphis

For my Wikipedia project I have selected the wiki page for my neighborhood: East Memphis. It is a place I know a lot about since I have lived here most of my life. In fact, I bought a house on the same street where I grew up.

I initially had the idea of watching the wikipage about the West Memphis Three because it is a controversial subject and one that is likely to change in the future. I think it is a fascinating subject but I don't have any real first hand information to add to the article. East Memphis, on the other hand, is a place I know well.