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If you were to poll the average person and ask them what their home media center currently is, chances are they will tell you they have: a TV, a VCR, a DVD player and in many cases a cable box. However, I think this will change significantly in the near future because a computer-centric system would prove to be a better replacement.

First of all, video tapes are completly obsolete and even with DVDs, I find myself now prefering to buy movies online and save the space of more disks. My thought is that this new media center could be a computer like the Mac Mini that is very power efficent but also does not take up too much space, this system will still have an optical media drive to accomodate any CDs or DVDs that you already have, but more importantly, it has a large hard drive to store all the media you want on it and also have the option to transfer the media over your home network to computers and other media centers in the house. It will run a normal computer operating system in addition to media center software so it can also be a computer in addition to a media center. It will be connected to a big screen TV so you can get a full image and a high quality image. The media center will play media off the device itself, other computers on the network as well as stream media from the Internet off sites like Hulu. This can already be accomplished by using media center software like Boxee, although they no longer offer access to Hulu but, that is one of the reasons I reccommend using a normal operating system instead of a specialized operating system like MythTV but, I think in the future there will be Media Center software that does integrate Hulu and other television streaming sites. This system would save a lot of space because you only need one small box to power your entire home media center and you can save space form having many players. This is what I plan to do when I get my own place and I do not plan on getting a cable subscription because it is no longer nessesary!

I already explained my distaste for radio, because it is outdated but, there is one thing that I dislike even more than radio, that is satellite radio, because very few people still listn tro terrestial radio so, why would people want to pay loads of money for satellite radio? Satellite radio offers subscribers commercial-free broadcasts that can be listened to anywhee, while terrestial radio is limited to a certain area and have numerous commercial breaks.

Although there are some benifits to satelittle radio,  there are two major fees involved with becoming a satelite radio subscriber: first, there is buying the reciever  which can be anywhere between $40 and $300, then after that there is the month subscription fee which can be anywhere from $6.99 to $18 each month, depending on how many channels you want.

I cannot understand why people would pay loads of money when they can get similar services for free!  Services like Pandora is an alternative to music radio and podcasts are alternatives for talk radio. If you are not able to access the internet, then you could just listen to bought music on your ipod. As fazr as i’m concerned, there is absolutly no point in paying for satellite radio  and because of the current economic crisis we have experienced SirusXM has filed for bankrupcy protection because people have been cutting back on frivolus spending. I do not think this will last nearly as long as radio and is just a passing trend.

For the longest time, journalism has been done through printed papers, television  and radio but recently, the majority of people are able to access the internet and have been accesing their information online. This has caused fewer people to utilize old media and instead they  use new media.  Plus, because of how horrible the economy currently is, many old media companies are able to stay above water and are facing bankrupcy! PC Magazine for example, has shut down their print magazine completly and has moved to being a fully online publication. The main problem is that people don’t want to pay for print media, when they could simple subscribe to a free RSS feed and read online at their convience.

The other great part of new media is the fact that anyone with a computer can create media that can be published and read by anyone. This allows everyone to express themselves and be their own reporters. You can report on any topics you like and work independantly  instead of working for a major media company and still have many people viewing your media. This not only helps people’s opinions be heard but, this also allows the viewers to pick from many journalists and then view the one they enjoy the most.

This blog is a great example of the power of new media, I write about anythin I think I can write a high-quality article about and don’t focus on a specific topic and I get people that come and read what I write. New media also helps teach tyhe creator many things, like how to run a website and how to write well and this helps them learn a lot more than if they were just viewing old media because this helps them express themselves and also build high-quality results when people search their names online.

Wikipedia is a informative website that allows anyone to provide information on any topic making a web-based encyclopedia that is a collaboration of everyone’s knowledge. However, many educators and other skeptics do not believe that Wikipedia is a viable source of information and do not allow students to use it for research papers.

However, I believe that because the fact that anyone can post, edit and add information that wikipeida allows informationm to be fact check by anyone and edit it so that the most accurate information is posted. I believe it is ignorant for educators to not accept the new trend in information and not allowing students to utilize it. Personally, I use Wikipedia evertime I need information quick because it has alot of information on a wide variety of topics from a wide range of perspectives.

RSS feeds have made reading news so much easier and simple and now Google Reader can make it even better. Google Reader is basdically a web-based RSS feed reader that allows you to read any feed where ever you can get an internet connection or even offline access through google gears. Another great advantage is it gives you a “river of news” where it shows all the articles from your RSS feeds from oldest to newest. You can also read your article in the same river style by the category. Google Reader also tracks what kind of feeds you like to read and suggests new feeds that they think you would like to subscribe to, along with “Packs” or collections of a certain category of feeds. I love to read google reader feeds it has become a part of my daily life and hope you all consider utilizing another great Google service.

A few days ago, PC Magazine announced that they will no longer produce a printed magazines. I believe that this is for the best and that many other print media companies will do the same. The fact is, that printed media is not worth the effort when people can release internet media like blogs for much less money.

Print media requires so much overhead between the printing costs, shipping costs, cost of buying supplies to print on! All those fees are not needed with online media all you need to do is buy web hosting and pay people to write content and manage the website. That is a major savings and allows anyone (even me) to become a journalist in their own right. In hard economic times like now where money is tight and many companies are on the verge of bankruptcy,  it could save the businesses a lot of money by going web only and eliminating their print operation.

As for the consumer, the biggest advantage is that most online media outlets don’t require you to pay anything, online media relies mainly on advertisement for revenue. In addition, online media lets you read the news anywhere and does not require you to have to hold the media in your own hands. Plus there is no need to have to store or dispose of it because it is all hosted on the internet and you can just close the webpage!

In conclusion, online media is both more cost-effective for the producer and the consumer and is easier to be read. Print media requires too much overhead and unnecessary things that can be avoided by moving to all online media.  I believe that especially now in these tough economic times, many media producers will move to online and do away with the unnecessary print media

In this modern age where everyone is using a computer for their day-to-day life radio broadcasts have become more and more obsolete and Internet radio has made it even more useless.  The internet now has various different services that replace most of what Radio offers.

Podcasts are now availible which is talk radio shows distributed over the internet in MP3 format and on any variety topics and can be listened to when ever the viewer wants. The other advantage of pocasts is you can get the information much faster instead of having to sit through long advertising breaks and music breaks podcast has quick ads and no music can be distributed over that format so that you can get the information much faster and podcasts don’t have the FCC regulations that restrict content and foul language giving much more freedom. Podcasts can also be made by anyone with a microphone and internet connection so you can get a wide variety of opinons and perspectives.

As for music broadcasts the two main services are Last Fm and Pandora. They both allow you to enter your favorite song or musical artist and then builds a playlist of songs that you may like based on what you entered in as your musical preferences. This allows you to have your own radio station of songs that you like and not have to sit through long advetisements or songs that you don’t like. The internet is a great way to get music that you like and have a personalized playlist you can share with your friends.

By moving  to the internet for audio broadcasting not only gives the listener more freedom to listen to their music and shows but also allows them to share their favorite content over a variety of social networks and if they choose to they can create their own radio show by making a podcast allowing them to express their own ideas. With the continuing growth of internet broadcasting I predict very few people will be using radio in the next 25 years and think it will decrease even more in later years.

Amazon’s Unbox video on demand site has become one of my new favorite video websites becuase it give more freedom when you buy video online. Unbox is like Apple’s iTunes’ television and movie store but, even better because with Unbox you can buy the Television shows for:  $1.99, buy movies for $9.99 and rent movies for 24 hours for only $2.99, which is very competitive with iTunes’ prices but, instead of just being able to watch video on Itunes and on your iPod you also have the option to watch online in a Flash player so you can have access to your favorite shows anywhere you want.  Unbox has a large library of movies and shows and also has free videos available as well. The one downside to this service is that the desktop offline player is Windows only, meaning if you are a Mac or linux user then you wil only be able to watch your videos while you are connected to the internet.  The unbox video store is a great way to get video that you can watch it anytime and anywhere! This service make watching television on your computer extremly easy and enjoyable and could pose a threat to regular cable television and could force television netoworks to change their entire business model.