Social Media

1.) I, personally, am on two social networking sites; Facebook and Twitter. Originally I preferred Facebook due to the fact that the majority of people I knew communicated using it. However, in recent days I am noticing that a large quantity of my Facebook friends are switching over to the world of Twitter. I feel as if someday soon Facebook will turn into MySpace and become non-existent.

2.) Virtual worlds are basically a life that people live through the internet by ways of social media, blogging, etc. Virtual worlds allow people to share their life experiences and events with others all over the world if they choose to do so. Virtual worlds can be used for entertainment, education, communication, and a myriad of other things. In Professor Encourages Students to Pass Notes During Class - via Twitter we see how Twitter and social media in general can be used for educational purposes by way of discussion boards and out of class communication. Aside from education, social media and virtual worlds allow communication of important news to be spread quickly and effectively. The article How can we Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere? covers many different aspects of blogging but in particular I wanted to focus on the part of the article regarding the news and mass media. Many times big news events are tweeted or blogged about before the coverage of the story airs on the news. This effectively allows information to be communicated instantly and for people to "stay in the loop" much easier. In my virtual world I would like to have a combination of news, entertainment, and education.