Innovation Research Essay/Blog

The Impact of Social Media Applications

The innovation of social media made a huge impact on the world by allowing people stay in contact with each other regardless of what part of the world they lived in. People could get back in touch with friends from High School, rekindle old flames, and plan family get togethers all from the comfort of their computer. This was indeed a major change to the world, but it also brought change to the world of emerging media.

Staying in contact is a major theme of social media and thus the present day world. So naturally, people were bound not to be satisfied with only being able to do such in front of a computer. Thus, the era of the iPhoine brought Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social sites to the consumer's hands. Mobile applications allowed users to log in (and thus stay in contact) from their phone, continuing to move closer to having that one single device that is capable of doing everything we want it to, as opposed to multiple devices. 

The portability of social sites like Facebook and Twitter changed the world in many ways thanks to their respective applications and the outlets (smartphones). Tweeting is now a constant and easy thing to do. Coming up with your thoughts in 140 characters or less doesn't have to involve sitting in front of the computer. Posting pictures to Facebook became the new fad, but not with a digital camera. It was no possible to snap a photo one minute and have it posted to your wall the next. This is all made possible thanks to the mobile social media applications. Not only could use the phone to call and text your family and friends, but now you could see just what they were up to, talking about, and enjoying in a matter of minutes.

Think about how much a large percentage of the world's population used Facebook. Now think about how much of these users also use Facebook mobile. Are you satisfied with Facebook limited to just your computer? Asking Facebook users this question will most likely lead you to a lot of 'no's. Indeed, mobile social media applications have changed the way the world views social media. No longer is it just a fad, but it is an integral part of everyday life,easily accessible with your phone!

State of the Industry: TCOM Prodcution/Emerging Media

My chosen industry for this essay is the industry with my TCOM major: Production and Emerging Media.
This applies to production of all sorts, be it radio, news, TV, film, and web-based productions. With the emerging media technology, this includes the software used to produce those things mentioned previously, as well as create web-based material such as advertisements, websites, banners, interactive tools and media, and complimentary tools used for production.

As you can see this particular industry can be rather large but that is only testament to its pivotal role in society. As it stands, the current state of the industry is growing rapidly and changes are being made every day. New innovations continue to become the forefront of the industry, while upgrades to existing technologies help solidify the industry. Because of the very nature of this industry and what it deals with, it is nearly impossible for this industry to be suffering during this time. TV programs are produced everyday, aired everyday and the same can be said for radio shows and advertisements, podcasts, movies, and news casts. In these portions of the industry we can look also at the software used to power these productions. New updates (and sometimes entirely new software) is released on a regular basis so that those within the industry can keep up with the standard, utilize new technologies to their maximum potential, and produce these various works with the best quality possible, in the most efficient time.

On the same note of software and production within the industry, we could also look at the sales of such software to private citizens and talk about the ease of production for single customers compared to large production companies. It is indeed easy than ever for a single person to create their own productions of nearly any sort with the very same programs that the large production companies use (perhaps with different equipment). This allows the industry to boom in terms of sales but one might also look at this as an impending doom of the industry. When it comes to the point that a single person can create the same production with nearly the same quality used by a professional company, the question of 'Why use the company?' arises. However, at this precise moment in the timeline of the production industry, the companies still have the advantage of having access to better equipment and technologies to supplement the newer software and programs.So while this could become a major concern in the future, I do not see this as a negative thing at this point in time. If anything, the ability for single persons to make productions this way could be viewed as a blessing for the industry, in the sense that because the large companies have better access to equipment, the single person does not. Thus, the single person will be attracted to the industry thanks in part to the ability to produce at least good-quality productions. And in this way, the industry grows.

Overall, I will conclude that the Production and Emerging Media industry is growing exponentially. The future of this industry looks bright as more advancements in the way productions are viewed continue and this merely opens more paths for the industry to travel down and more opportunities for jobs within the market.  

List of Industry Leaders

Because the Telecommunications(TCOM) Industry is a very broad term I have decided to to choose the industry of emerging media through companies like Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc. A lot of new innovations and technologies are springing up from these companies among others and I can directly tie most of these into my own future production and emerging media industry.

Thus, my Industry Leaders are as follows:

- Steven Anthony Ballmer (CEO, Microsoft)
- Shantanu Narayen (CEO, Adobe Systems Incorporated)
- Tim Cook (CEO, Apple)