Assignment # 1

Hello everyone, my name is Jessica Wallerstein. I am a junior in the college of human ecology and I am from Long Island, New York. I heard that this was a great class from a lot of people and I am looking forward to taking it this semester especially since this is my first communications class here at Cornell.
After thinking it through, I decided that You Tube is an internet phenomenon that truly fascinates me. I find it amazing all of the different videos that people post through this website. After viewing one for the first time, I found the website to be stupid and pointless. It seemed like it was a tool that people would use to waste their time creating video clips that the public might happen to view. It is interesting to see that although this internet resource is not completely anonymous, people seemed willing to express themselves without fear of judegment from others which greatly differs from face-to-face communication.
Over time, I also began to realize how effective You Tube could be for publicity especially because of its easy access to anyone who has use of a computer. This past summer I worked for a public relations firm in New York City and was astounding to hear that this internet resource was also being used in the workplace. My boss explained to me that they planned on creating a video to spread the word about a new toy that would be coming out during the upcoming holidays.
I think that it would be hard to classify this in an online space described in Wallace. If I had to place it somewhere, I think that it fits best into the World Wide Web category because it acts as a self-publisher, however, You Tube is a more recent development and perhaps it would fit best in a category of its own.