Creativity

One of the most important functions to come out of new media is the ability to create original content. Blogs, videos, games, avatars, and entire virtual worlds came be created instantaneously (or within a specific time frame). We've reached an era where original ideas can be conceived and accessed easily, and the users have taken this to their advantage. A perfect example of this is the game Minecraft. This open world game is simple- you create a character, and "mine" the world of coal, iron, gold, silver, etc and create buildings, obstacle courses, murals, and even entire planets. It's the very definition of creating original content.

Original content is not just excluded to creating tangible worlds and construction of buildings and items in a virtual reality game. Blogs and social media sites, like Twitter, attract all sorts of original content. Nowadays, tagging a person's name (using the @ key) and creating trends (using the # key) is a norm for Twitter. But, Twitter and its creators were not the ones to come up with this ingenuity- it was the users. As the NY Times article "Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers" explains, the idea of hyperlinking another user's Twitter handle and creating hashtags to make following important news and information easy took the creators of Twitter by surprise. Original content, as you can see, can not only benefit the user and his/her friend- but entire companies as well!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html?_r=0