Gilpin will explain the nuances of social media and train students on how to best use these tools in a new class to be offered this fall – Media 2.0: Social Media. The 400-level class is open to all ASU students.“Social media is changing the way that we are communicating, in person and across space and time,” Gilpin said. “These things have pretty important cultural impacts.”The advent of social media can be compared to the era when television was introduced into living rooms across the country during the 1950s. Today, Americans and many citizens around the world expect immediate information and instant access to the people in their lives.Media 2.0: Social Media will explore the medium from the perspective of four cornerstones: cultural, economics and ownership, law and ethics, and privacy.
In other cases, the same digital economics have spurred entirely new business models, such as "Freemium," a free version supported by a paid premium version. This model uses free as a form of marketing to put the product in the hands of the maximum number of people, converting just a small fraction to paying customers. It's an inversion of the old free sample promotion: Rather than giving away one brownie to sell 99 others, you give away 99 virtual penguins to sell one virtual igloo. (Confused? Ask a child: This is the business model for the phenomenally successful Club Penguin.)
