I-phone or Blackberry?

Although I am taking a class whose teachings center around "new media", it is almost impossible not to be surrounded by it in my every day life. Even though I like to think of myself as learned individual when it comes to new media, it seems that technology is moving and developing so fast these days that even the most knowledgeable person might find it hard to keep up. At first glance one might think that new media primarily surrounds just a handful of things and this is true, to an extent. However companies such as google and apple are consistently finding new ways to come out with "the next big thing" (i.e. "google wave", "I-touch", etc...) challenging their competitors to take action.

With all of this new media constantly being thrown in our face, there is one major area of new media I feel is being overlooked: rather the "cult" following associated with what mobile media device one uses for social networking. Through the progression and development of cell phones, we have been introduced to what I like to refer to as, "the smart phone". The earliest sign of smart phones which i can think of is "the palm pilot". Since then, new media users have been given the ability to choose from a wide variety of smart phones including the "blackjack", "treo", "I-Phone", "Blackberry", etc... Of all these phones I think its safe to say that the "I-Phone" and "Blackberry" are the mobile devices which gain the strongest following amongst their users. Literally everyone I know who has an "I-Phone" emphatically argues that it is the coolest thing in the world. Respectively, every (fellow) "Blackberry" owner will tell you that the it is much better then the "I-Phone" once you know how to use it and that "BBM's" are God's gift to earth.

Overall I feel as though these media devices, which I'm sure all of us couldn't live without, have become not only a major staple in our involvement with new media but in our day to day lives as well. These "phones" not only allow their users to gain access to their preferred areas of new media, but demonstrate just how important it has become for us to involve new media in our lives multiple times a day.

Twitter; the new Facebook?

When I think about it, I would consider myself up to date with new media. However, as of late I have found that there are many new forms of media which I have basically no knowledge of. It seems as though nowadays when a new form of media comes out, it is embraced and followed almost religiously; that is until a newer form of media comes out and the short attention span of our generation immediately embraces it. Facebook has been extremely popular for quite some time but now all I ever hear about is twitter. Even though the concept of twitter is very easy to understand, it took me a while to grasp the concept. After pondering the idea behind twitter I found that it was not actually the idea of what twittering was, rather why everyone had become so enthralled by it. To me, twitter is nothing more then a facebook status that one would update more frequently. Besides this, the only difference i found is that many people look at other peoples' twitters (such as celebrities, famous athletes or complete strangers) which they deem interesting or relevant. As twitter becomes larger and more popular I cant help but wonder what is to become of other social networking sites. The main questions i draw from this is "what will become of facebook; will people lose interest just as they did with myspace?" Also, "with the simplicity of twitter, what will come next in new media in regards to social networking?"