Foundations of
Social Media
RTV 453
Legacy media vs. new media
 Is Social Media a new form of media?
 Is Interactive Media a different new form of media?
 Is Cloud Computing related to where ‘digital media’ is going?
 Will there be newspapers in 50 years?
 Radio? TV channels? Movies? Plays being performed?
 Will the ‘marketplace of goods’ be replaced by ‘information
exchange’?
 Will ‘high culture’ disappear?
What is Social Media?
 Origin of computers (next pages)
 Abacus, analytical engine (1800s), electronic computing (1900s)
 Origin of the Internet
 Sputnik, Pentagon / ARPA, legislation, hardware & software
 Origin of personal computers (1960s-70s)
 Next page
 Virtual realities?
 Change from tool for calculating to tool for communicating
History of Computers - Long, Long Ago
 beads on rods to count and calculate!
History of Computers - Way Back When
Slide Rule 1630
based on Napier’s rules for logarithms
used until 1970s
History of Computers - 19th Century
 Joseph Marie Jacquard
 First stored program - metal
cards
 Did no computing
 first computer
manufacturing
 still in use
Charles Babbage - 1792-1871
 Difference Engine c.1822
 huge calculator, never finished
 Analytical Engine 1833
 could store numbers
 calculating “mill” used punched
metal cards for instructions
 powered by steam!
 accurate to six decimal places
 Inspiration for Herman Hollerith
for 1890 census
Vacuum Tubes
 First Generation Electronic
Computers used Vacuum Tubes
 Vacuum tubes are glass tubes with
circuits inside.
 Vacuum tubes have no air inside of
them, which protects the circuitry.
UNIVAC – 1950-51
 first fully electronic digital
computer built in the U.S.
 Created at the University of
Pennsylvania
 contained 18,000 vacuum tubes
 Cost $487,000
 ENIAC that preceded it (late
1940s) weighed 30 tons
Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
 Programmed UNIVAC
 Recipient of Computer
Science’s first “Man of the
Year Award”
 First compiler for a computer
programming language, led
to COBOL
First Transistor
 Used Silicon (semiconductor)
 developed in 1948
 won a Nobel prize
 on-off switch
 2nd Generation Computers
used Transistors, starting in
1956
Second Generation – 1965-1963
 1956 – Computers began to incorporate Transistors
 Replaced vacuum tubes with Transistors
 Beginning process of making computers smallers
 ‘transistor radios’ in the 1950 made music portable
Integrated Circuits
 Third Generation Computers used Integrated Circuits (chips).
 Integrated Circuits are transistors, resistors, and capacitors integrated
together into a single “chip”
 First one made by Texas Instruments in 1958
Third Generation – 1964-1971
 1964-1971
 Integrated Circuit
 Operating System
 Getting smaller, cheaper
The First Microprocessor – 1971
 The 4004 had 2,250
transistors
 four-bit chunks (four 1’s or
0’s)
 108Khz
 Called “Microchip”
What is a Microchip?
 Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit (VLSIC)
 Transistors, resistors, and capacitors
 4004 had 2,250 transistors
 Pentium IV had 42 MILLION transistors
 Each transistor 0.13 microns (10-6 meters)
4th Generation – began 1971
 MICROCHIPS!
 Getting smaller and smaller, but we are still using microchip
technology
Birth of Personal Computers - 1975
 256 byte memory (not
Kilobytes or Megabytes)
 2 MHz Intel 8080 chips
 Just a box with flashing
lights
 cost $395 kit, $495
assembled.
Over the past 50 years, the Electronic Computer
has evolved rapidly.
Connections:
 Which evolved from the other, which was an entirely new
creation
 vacuum tube
 integrated circuit
 transistor
 microchip
Evolution of Computer Electronics
Microchip
(VLSIC)
Integrated
Circuit
Transistor
Vacuum
Tube
Evolution of Electronics
 Vacuum Tube – a dinosaur without a modern lineage
 Transistor  Integrated Circuit  Microchip
 Another major development in recent years
 Flash memory
First Mass Market PC
IBM PC - 1981
 IBM-Intel-Microsoft joint venture
 First wide-selling personal computer used in
business
 8088 Microchip - 29,000 transistors
 4.77 Mhz processing speed
 256 K RAM (Random Access Memory)
standard
 One or two floppy disk drives
 Open architecture (except ROM BIOS)
Apple Computers
 Founded 1977
 Apple II released 1977
 widely used in schools
 Macintosh (left)
 released in 1984, Motorola 68000
Microchip processor
 first commercial computer with
graphical user interface (GUI) and
pointing device (mouse)
 First GUI: Xerox PARC
Today’s chips in PCs
 Traditionally Intel divides the Core platform into three
segments--Core i3 at the low end, Core i5 for the midrange,
and Core i7 at the high end.
 Following that designation is a model number. You may also
see a suffix at the end of the model number: K for unlocked
processors, S for “performance-optimized” processors, or T
for “power-optimized” processors.
21st Century Computing
 Great increases in speed, storage, and memory
 Increased networking, speed in Internet
 Broadband growth
 Netbooks / iPad / tablets
 Smart Phones
 Impact of touch technology
 3G to 4G (3-5 Mbps / 8-10 Mbps)
What’s next for computers?
 Use your imagination to come up with what the
coming years hold for computers.
 What can we expect in two years?
 What can we expect in twenty years?
 Voice interface?
 Cloud computing growth
 True ubiquity?
 Interface among almost all devices?
 Smart cars, smart electronics, etc.
What is Social Media?
 Fad or future?
 IPO Facebook failure
 Decline of Apple shares
 How do you pay the bills?
 How do you meet life’s basic needs?
 Media jobs: content creation, distribution, sales
 New media jobs? ??????
Before the Internet rolled out
 Electronic Bulletin Boards
 CompuServe
 America Online
 The WELL
 Early ‘chat rooms’
 Hypertext
 Vannevar Bush first proposed the basics of hypertext in 1945
 Tim Berners-Lee et al in 1990: html, WWW
 Multimedia
The early web pages
 Public Relations extension
 Like a magazine (text and words)
 shovelware
Users (audience)
 Just like newspapers, magazines, radio TV …
 An audience (market) exists
 Are YOU trying to reach them with your
content?
 Or, is another company trying to reach them
based on this form of ‘content distribution’?
Components of the social media
 Chit-chat
 Sharing
 Commenting
 Wikis
 UGC
 Everyone has a voice
 Technologically-replaced intermediation (Second Life)
Predicting the future
 Anthropology and Sociology
 But what’s next?
 The Machine is Using Us
 The semantic web
 Ubiquitous instant communication
What got us here
 Broadband applied to all that went before
 Speed and storage
 Innovation and profit seeking
 Popular culture / ‘common person power’
 Steve Jobs and similar people
The major players (not just Facebook)
 Facebook
 Twitter
 LinkedIn
 YouTube
 Pinterest
 MySpace
##
Some of the others
 Bebo is a social networking site where
users receive a personal profile page to
post blogs, photos, music, videos and
questionnaires.
 Hi5 is a social networking site where
users can create a profile to showcase
their interests. Users can upload
pictures, play games, and more.
Others (cont.)
 Tagged is a social network where users can make profiles,
post pictures, chat and play games with friends and send
virtual 'gifts.'
 Multiply allows users to share videos, photos (unlimited),
blogs as well as shop and sell in a large online marketplace.
 Answers.com is a wiki Q&A combined with free online
dictionary, thesaurus, and encyclopedias.
Others (cont.)
 Buzznet is a photo, journal, and video-sharing social media
network. Members participate in communities that are
created around ideas, events and interests.
 CafeMom is a community where moms come together to get
advice and support on topics like pregnancy, health, fashion,
food, entertainment, and more.
 IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video
games, films, music and other media.
Others (cont.)
 IMVU is a social game and entertainment site where millions of
people meet, chat , play games and have fun.
 Netlog is a European youth-oriented online community available in
over 20 languages where users create profiles, join groups, post
blogs and media.
 Reddit is a social news website where the registered users submit
content, in the form of either a link or a text post.
 BlackPlanet is a social networking site targeted to the African
American community with music, jobs, forums, chat, photos,
dating personals and groups.
Others (cont.)
 Kongregate is an online gaming site where users can upload
and play flash-based games, earn points and rewards for high
scores and discuss in user forums.
 Those are some of the Social Networks, then there are the
Blogging sites…
Blogging sites
 LiveJournal is a blogging platform/social network where
users keep a blog or journal, comment on friends' blogs and
join virtual communities.
 AOL Lifestream streams your updates in one place. You can
comment, like and update your Facebook, Twitter and
MySpace statuses.
 Blogger is a blog publishing service with many features
including geo-tagging and time-stamped entries for private
or multi-user blogs.
Blogging (cont.)
 Disqus is an online service which allows users to create a
profile for organizing and following their comments across
hundreds of websites.
 Posterous is a blogging platform designed primarily for
mobile users who wish to share blog posts, photos, video,
mp3s and connect with Twitter, Facebook etc.
 Tumblr is a blogging platform geared towards 'hip,' urban
youth. Posts are generally short, and might include videos,
quotations, pictures and links.
Blogging (cont.)
 WordPress is an open-sourced blog platform which provides users
with templates to utilize for on or offsite blogging.
 Xanga is a blogging community/social network where users can
blog, share photos, videos and audio and connect with fellow users.
 TypePad is a blogging service that shares technology with Movable
Type and is used by both tech-savvy and non-technical users.
 Wretch is a blogging community based in Taiwan. Although
available in English, Wretch is primarily geared towards Asian,
Chinese-speaking youth.
And then photo sharing…
 Flickr is an image and video hosting website where users and
bloggers share, embed, and host photographs and images.
 Picasa is an image-organizing, photo-sharing site developed
by Google where users can upload and edit digital photos.
 On Gravatar, users can register an account based on their
email address, and upload an avatar to be associated with the
account.
 PictureTrail is a photo-sharing site which allows users to host
images and share photos via a user profiles.
Photo Sharing (cont.)
 deviantART is an online community showcasing varied forms
of user-made artwork and aims to provide a place for any
artist to exhibit and discuss works.
 Fotolog is a photoblog website where users share pictures
through online photo diaries or photo blogs.
 Instagram is a free photo sharing app which allows users to
take a photo, apply a digital filter to it, and then share it on
multiple social networking services.
Photo Sharing (cont.)
 PhotoBucket is a photo-sharing service which allows users
500MB of free space where they can host, share (i.e. on
MySpace), or keep their photos private.
 Behance is an online portfolio site for creative professionals
across multiple industries including photography, graphic
design, illustration, and fashion.
 Smugmug is a premium photo sharing site primarily used by
professional photographers.
The Music sites include…
 Jango is an internet radio station where users can create
their own stations and find other users with similar tastes.
 Pandora is an internet radio station created by the 'Music
Genome Project,' which automatically recommends and
plays music based on user's listening preferences.
 Lyrics.com is a searchable online database of song lyrics
where users can share favorite songs, create profiles and
make customizable playlists.
Music sites (cont.)
 Last.fm is a UK-based music recommendation service where
users can listen to music and discover new artists based on
personalized, automated recommendations.
 SoundCloud is a platform that puts your sound at the heart
of communities, websites and even apps. Watch
conversations, connections and social experiences happen,
with your sound as the spark.
 MOG is an online music and blog service. MOG offers on-
demand listening and has a library of over 10 million songs.
And then Video sites…
 Vimeo is a video-sharing website where users can upload and
watch largely high-quality, HD videos and subscribe to user
channels.
 DailyMotion is a video sharing service website where users
can find or upload videos about their interests.
 Flixster is a social movie site allowing users to share movie
ratings, discover new movies and meet others with similar
movie tastes.
Video sites (cont.)
 Hulu started as a free video uploading and sharing site
featuring copyrighted content then added a paid service.
 Justin.TV is an online broadcasting platform which
specializes in live streaming content. Users can broadcast live
feeds and chat in real time with audience.
 Metacafe is a video-sharing network where users upload,
discuss, review entertaining short-form (90 seconds on
average) clips.
Video sites (cont.)
 Ustream.tv is a broadcasting platform which offers live,
streaming feeds (concerts, speeches, sporting events etc.)
along with interactive, user-generated content.
 Veoh is an Internet television website specializing in network
television and movie content, along with independent
productions and user-generated videos.
 YouTube (duh…) is a video-sharing website where users can
upload and watch videos, subscribe to user channels and
leave comments.
Video sites (cont.)
 Break is a humor website targeted to males aged 18-35 that
features comedy videos and flash games.
 CNN IReport accepts video, photos and audio from a
computer or cell phone. A compilation of news items
submitted by citizen journalism.
 (others from legacy media?)
Then there’s online shopping
 Early 1990s Internet start-ups vs. ‘bricks and mortar stores’
grocery deliver, per stores, clothing stores –”dotcom bust” 2001.
 Amazon is America's largest online retailer. Their product lines
include books, music, electronics, home goods, clothing, and
everything in between.
 eBay is an online auction and shopping website in which people
and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and services
worldwide.
 Etsy is an ecommerce website which focuses on the selling of
handmade and vintage items, and arts and crafts supplies.
Shopping (more)
 Epinions.com offers reviews about a variety of items to help
readers decide on purchases. Readers can join to write reviews and
earn money.
 Kaboodle is an online shopping/social network site where users can
discuss, recommend and share products with other users.
 ThisNext is a community of shoppers that share new and unique
products and trends with the public.
 Zazzle is an online retailer where users can sell their own self-
designed merchandise or buy merchandise from other users.
Typical items include t-shirts and posters.
And, Location / Review sites …
 Foursquare is a location-based social networking site where
users can 'check-in' at vicinities with mobile devices.
 Formspring is a questions and answers site that allows users
to set up a profile page from which anyone can ask them
questions and post comment.
 Upcoming is an event calendar website where users can
research or receive notifications of upcoming events
(concerts, festivals etc.) and coordinate plans with friends.
Location / review …
 Urbanspoon is a service where users can review and
recommend restaurants, share pictures of food and even
make dining reservations.
 Citysearch is an online city guide that provides information
about U.S. businesses in the areas of dining, entertainment,
retail, travel, and professional services.
 Delicious is a social bookmarking service for saving,
organizing and sharing personal bookmarks. It is also used to
discover the newest and most popular bookmarks.
Location / Review …
 Eventful aims to help users search for, track, and share
information about events. Users can also create calendars
through the service.
 Pinterest is an online pinboard. Organize and share things
you love.
 StumbleUpon is a 'discovery engine,' which recommends
random websites, videos, photos etc. based on user taste and
preferences.
Location / Review …
 TripAdvisor is the web's largest travel review website, which allows
users to make travel plans (i.e. book flights/hotels) and write
reviews of hotels, restaurants etc.
 Zillow is a real estate database which allows home buyers, sellers,
renters and real estate agents to compare or appraise
home/property/mortgage values. (Trulia too)
 Menuism is a service for foodies and food lovers that offers
restaurant reviews, individual dish reviews, restaurant menus and
locations, and a social networking feature.
 Topix is an online community where users can comment on
aggregated news articles and discuss local and national events with
each other.
Dating
 Match.com is a popular online dating network which allows
users to create profiles and meet like-minded singles looking
for love.
 OKCupid is a free online dating network where singles can
message, share blogs and photos and find compatible users
through member-created quizzes.
 PlentyOfFish is an online dating site where singles can take
personality tests and find compatible mates.
Other…
 GitHub is a Git hosting site that helps users manage software
development projects. It also offers free public repositories,
issue tracking, code review and more.
 SourceForge acts as a management system for software
developers to regulate open source software development
and projects.
And what else?
 How are you using social media?
 How are people making money using social media?
 How are you spending money that’s connected to social
media?
 How are your relationships with others changing?
 How are your relationships with products and services
changing?