Amoruso 9

Nicole AmorusoAnnotated BibliographyAlba, Davey. "Watch Out, Skype: WhatsApp Is Testing Internet Voice Calls | WIRED." Wired.com. Conde Nast Digital, 6 Feb. 2015. Web. 2 Apr. 2015.This article from Wired was chosen because it speaks about the leading forms of international, personal communications. The main theme of the article is new technology that WhatsApp is developing, however it utilizes the data about the monthly usage for the application. The author, Alba, makes note that though WhatsApp is leading in the market at the moment, many other companies are following closely behind. He also mentions the marketability of WhatsApp to foreign countries. While the application is popular in the United States, it dominates the competition in the foreign market. It also talks about Facebook, the company that owns the application. While Facebook is hugely popular with almost all age groups, less than 20% of its users are under 24. Through WhatsApp, they are exploring new technologies and they continue to track the market to try and leverage new opportunities. Thats why Facebook bought WhatsApp in the first place. There is also a mention of the competition. Alba talks about a few different developing competitors, but the heavy competition comes from Skype, one of the most well-known communication applications. There is also a discussion about the way the applications are being used worldwide and how and what makes these applications desirable. I agree with Alba that interest in these applications will not go away. If anything, it is only increasing and more and more people are turning toward this type of media to communicate internationally. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are taking advantage of this new market and are targeting new demographics. Various new features, such as the voice call feature the article mentions, are helping to bridge the expensive gap between countries around the world.

Harasim, Linda M. Global Networks Computers and International Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1993. Google Scholar. Web. 4 April 2015.Though a little dated, this book covers global communication trends. It also analyses how media and new technologies have revolutionized the way people communicate around the world. A new social space was created by computers and especially by the internet. The theories discussed in the book are still applicable today. Of course, computers, and the subsequent internet, have helped connect the world in incredibly important ways, but they have also truly augmented global communication. The way that people talk to each other on a personal level has completely changed. Certain aspects of cultures have changed and adapted as a result. Though the bulk of the research will focus on how international, interpersonal communicate converges or differs between generations, however this article would serve as a basis for the research. The research will involve technological communication almost entirely. The author, Linda Harasim, is using this book to discuss the importance of global networks and media that connects people with other people. That type of media is exactly what applications like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Skype are. These applications have helped create the global village that Harasim speaks about so often in this book. The invention of the cell phone, and of course later on the internet, enabled this global village to become closer to reality. It takes a look at the technologies that have helped change the way that we communicate. For the purposes of the project, this would serve as research and would allow for the analysis of trends. It would show how far the world has come in terms of communication and how many people are sticking to past venues as a way of communicating with each other. The book details the exponential change in the ways people communicate across long distances. The information provided will serve as a backbone for the research and the project itself. While the project focuses on how people, particularly of different age groups, use technology to help them communicate internationally on a personal level, knowing the way people communicated previously will assist with understanding how people communicate today.

Cao, Xiang. Understanding Family Communication Across Time Zones: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM, 2010. Google Scholar. Web. 6 April 2015.Cao speaks about the methods people use to communicate across long distances and time zones. This piece takes family into consideration. There is a discussion about the venues of communication, their popularity, and the pros and cons of a few of them. The research done for this was primarily interviews, which is the same type of research that will be conducted in the project. This will provide a sample structure for organizing the interviews and how to incorporate the information presented in the interviews into the project as a whole. This study, however, focuses entirely on those people who communicate regularly. This, like the previous source, talks about the global village that is continuously being built with newer technologies. It also admits that the ways in which people communicate depend on their circumstances. Interestingly, it tries to explain how these situations affect communication. As predicted, email and letters still appear to have a place in social society, though other, more modern forms of communication dwarf them. It also tackles the reasons for the decline in international cell phone plans in exchange for applications such as Skype and, more recently, WhatsApp that allows customers and users the same service. Interestingly enough, the author finds a new trend in communication. Distance no longer hinders communication; time does. A text message can be sent and received instantaneously, no matter where or how far a person is. Time zones were not an issue when correspondence always required multiple days of travel to get to someone. The main issue that the research found was that communication was burdened by uncoordinated schedules, often as a result of the time difference between the two people. It was also noted that different methods of communication warranted different patterns in peoples daily lives. The study inspected not only the methods people use communicate, but why they use them and what effects it had on them, particularly regard synchronous communication methods and asynchronous methods.

Neustaedter, Carman. Connecting Families:The Impact of New Communication Technologies on Domestic Life. Bristol: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Google Scholar. Web. 6 April 2015. This collection of essays studies multiple facets of communication. One of the first chapters, entitled the Importance of Connection, focuses on the reasons which people strive to stay connected to each other, despite physical distance. This is something that developers must keep in mind when designing applications like WhatsApp and Skype. Without an understanding of the reason that the product is important, they cannot really market/produce it in an efficient way. This is also information that will help with the final project. By understanding the why people communication, it will better allow one to analyze the patterns of communication.Interestingly, there is also a small breakdown in the ways that different generations communicate. Grandparents are being forced to utilize newer technologies and communication methods in order to talk to younger generations, specifically their grandchildren. Though it seems that older generations still favor more asynchronous methods, when they do use synchronous methods of communication they prefer options that have a visual element. Skype, for example, allows someone to video call someone else, but applications like WhatsApp only offered text based communication until recently. This resource makes it very clear that generations communicate differently. Bridging the gap that difference has created is the challenge that developers face today. The collection focuses on communication between family members. The reason given for this focus is the frequency in which family members communicate. Though not all of the interviews that will be conducted for the project will be between family members, it still provides a basis to compare the findings to. It will also provide an understanding on the reasoning for the ways different generations use technology to communicate with one another.

Eastman, Haley. "Communication Changes with Technology, Social Media." U N I V E R S E. Brigham Young University, 7 July 2013. Web. 9 Apr. 2015.This article focuses entirely on virtual communication, specifically the changes that it has undergone. It breaks down the ways that different generations use technology to interact with one another. One of the best examples given is the different ways that college students communicate with different generations. Though they usually communicate with each other through venues like text messages, Facebook, and other forms of social media, they communicate with different generations through different channels such as email. Another important aspect of the article is the popularity of certain forms of communication. Email has been around since the invention of the internet, but still seems to be thriving. Though there are trends that predict the changes in the way that people communicate, it is also interesting to view the actual changes in real life application. Not only do changes in technology change the way that people communicate virtually, but it also changes the way the interact in real life. These changes are important to analyze for the purposes of the project because they explain the connections people have to previous forms of technology and communication. This article would also provide a set of findings to compare with. The research discusses popular social media and breaks down the traffic they receive daily. Unlike previously mentioned sources, this article includes information about sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. More than any other site or application, however, Facebook is the topic of discussion. Out of all the people interviewed, almost all of them mentioned that they used Facebook on a regular basis to communicate with people near and far. The second most popular method of long-distance communication appeared to be email. It also discusses the move towards communicating by means of the cell phone, whether through a phone plan or through a web-based application. This move sets an interesting precedent for the research that is to be done for the project.