Blog:Creativity

I have read the article called Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers which states that "Companies big and small monitor Twitter to find out what their customers like and what they want changed". From that, I can see the reviews from customers are important for a company's development, so many companies try different methods to find out what customers like In order to create products that meet customers' needs and taste. In other words, the creativity of companies can come from customers. Therefore, companies use social media like twitter in order to reach customers and get their comments. In this way, it can attract many people's attention, get as many as responses, and spend less time. A company just need to post up a question on Twitter. People from all walks of life can read it and make a comment it.  The company get different ideas for consideration in order to create its products better and better. Thus, getting comments from customers is the effective way for companies to get ideas for making creativity. 

Blog: Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds can be used in some ways:

• In office: clerks share documents and have distance conference
• In military: for training soldiers for the dangerous situations
• In education: hold large group of students in the same class, and hold discussion with large group of students; Especially for students in medical school, visual worlds can be used for showing surgery processes. 
• In healthcare: can be used for diagnosis like MRI scans.
• In Entertainment: people wear the particular goggles to see 3D objects.

Pros:

• They provides convenient and efficency . Documents can be circulated among different departments in a company.Employees can hold conference not only in offices, but also at home with their bosses or partner. The article called Going to The Virtual Office in Second Life states that companies are seeking ways to bring employees together by conference. In addition, it mentions that IBM sells Sametime 3D which allows businesses o share ideas and collaborations. Those are ways to save time and provide convenience. 
• They save money. Documents do not need to be printed out. Also, in the article call Going to The Virtual Office in Second Life says that " Dropbox" allows online storage and sharing. 

Cons:

• They lack face-to face interaction. The article called Virtual Classroom say that students may want to have a immediate feedback from their instructors, which they do not get online. Without professors' detailed explanation,  students may not fully understand some keys points of the subjects. 
• Sometimes, technology will cause troubles. For example, you can't upload documents without internet. Your software in your computers do not support certain format of documents. When you try to fix those problems, it may waste your plenty of time to do it.

The ways that virtual worlds foster creativity:

Through cooperation and idea sharing from different parts, people use virtual worlds to work and study can find the appropriate ideas to create their works. People can try their new ideas through virtual worlds where they can correct and revise their new ideas until their new ideas can be carried out in reality.

Future developemet:

No matter what advantages or disadvantages of virtual worlds have, they are going to be prosperous. I think there is no doubt that virtual worlds will be used a lot in jobs, study and military training. Computer science experts will try to overcome shortcomings and develop new tools for virtual worlds, such as security of virtual worlds and efficiency.  

BLOG: Social Networking Sites

Qzone: I used it a lot when I was in China. I am not sure whether only Chinese use it. Now I still keep my account on Qzone which connects to my QQ number. QQ is a kind of another what's app or Wechat. On Qzone, I can post my moment messages. Everyone in my QQ contact can see my moments. Also, I can post pictures and video along with my moments. Moreover, I can post an article and along with my pictures, too. In addition, I can add background music. I can make a setting that when someone opens my postings, the music is on. I like the function of photo albums. I keep many pictures of myself and my family in it. I can add music to my picture albums. However, if I want to make my Qzone more beautiful and attractive, I may use Q bi to buy more accessories to decorate my Qzone. 

Facebook:  I think Facebook is similar to Qzone. It has "what's on your mind?" spot that I can enter my moment feelings and ideas, but I can't post pictures and videos along with the moment messages through Facebook. The special feature is that I can see my mutual friends. I can see my friend's friends' comments on Qzone, but I can't see how many mutual friends I have with my friends. Also, I can enter a group on Facebook. I can post words and pictures in the group. In addition, there are games linked with Facebook which is the same as Qzone. I find there are more games on Facebook than that on Qzone. Moreover, I can read immediate news on Facebook.

Twitter: I find Twitter has less function than Qzone and Facebook. I can tweet a message to friends and post a moment along with pictures. Among friends, we can use @ friends ‘names to talk to specific friends. However, on Twitter, there is no photo album. I can’t post a long article through Twitter. The special feature is that Twitter provides plenty of instant news for users. I think I can get first-hand news through Twitter.

Yelp: I thought this website was mainly for finding restaurants and giving reviews for the restaurants that we had been to, before I signed it up. Generally, the aim of Yelp does not provide a place for people to make new friends and share moment feelings.

TWITTR: Blog About Twitter

Twitter discussion: we can tweet  messages to the pubic. Followers will see it. They can leave  comments. If we want to refer to somebody, we need to use "@" somebody's name. We can "@" anybody's name.We can also limit the persons who can't or can see our messages. However, we can only post 140 characters at a time.
Blackboard discussion: If we need to post texts, we need to create threads and write titles for the texts. Then we can compose texts. When we want to read others' texts, we can click in the titles. After reading them, we can just leave messages under the texts but only to the authors.In addition, there is no word limit.
In-class discussion: We need to have a place to sit down to meet each other. In-class discussion has the limit of locations, time and the number of people. Who attend the discussion need to have the same schedule. Too many people in a discussion group may not work. On Twitter and Blackboard, we can read texts and leave messages anytime and anywhere. However, if we have a face-to-face talk with each other, we can get somebody's ideas more directly and immediately.

Social Networking

The technologies of social network provide convenience for us. People can contact each other regardless of places and time. We have mobile Facebook in our cellphones. We can message friends and comment friends' postings immediately. Social network decreases the distance among people, and group people together. I often use WeChat. I can group my parters together under the same account and discuss our project. We do not have to spare time to meet together if we have different class or job schedule. We send documents via the social app instead of printing out. The convenience of WeChat is not only good for individuals.In some countries where WeChat is popular, the government departments have official WeChat accounts. They use the account to release prompt news for their citizens. People can know about the news immediately. For example, the traffic department reports the traffic status for drivers. The drivers can avoid the traffic jam and plan the faster route. In some way, if the drivers in big cities can know about the prompt traffic status, it can alleviate the traffic pressure since many vehicles are running on the roads in big cities. According to the article In India, Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drive, it says that Delhi police use Facebook to fight against dangerous driving.They have a Facebook page which is used to post the pictures of drivers who violate the traffic laws. The police use those pictures to issue tickets to drivers. Although social network is helpful and useful. The privacy is the concerned issue for every one who is using Facebook or other social network, and the disclosure of privacy is the "dark side" of using social network.  No one like to let strangers or unfamiliar people see the personal postings. As the article Facebook Privacy is so Confusing Even the Zuckerberg Family Photos isn't Private, Randi Zuckerberg complained that she was not sure how a stranger get her family picture which she only posted in Facebook posted in Twitter. We don't know when we release our privacy  to strangers by just posting a picture or writing some words on the social network. Strangers or unfamiliar people will get your phone number and email addresses if you fill it out in your proflie in your social network accounts. You may receive junk calls and spam emails fill up your mailboxes. In future, I believe people will use social network to text friends rather than texting from cellphones and rely on social network at work such as sharing  information and live video conferences.  The social network may be also use to be business platform. People may tend to buy and sell products through social network instead of shopping in malls.