Web Video: The Media and Your Children

This is my web video made using Jaycut. This video's purpose is to raise social awareness of the harmful effects that the media can have on children - mainly, the sexually charged images that children see in media every day. These such images have a strong influence on their actions and their though process.

Since there are no federal restrictions on this kind of media, children are exposed to it daily. Often times, television shows, movies, advertisements and music influence our culture so much that they become the essential teachers of the cultural norms. Our society has become so influenced by these images that at a young age children are not being taught how to be good people, but rather how to be cool and follow the lead of stars such as Britney Spears, Lil Wayne and Paris Hilton. Not exactly good role models!

It is my belief that this kind of inappropriate media is partly to blame for sexual violence, illegal drug use and other violence. If children are exposed to media that teaches them to be cool you have to show skin, have sex and do drugs, then they will. They learn from observation, and these images are what they see!

This media is full of things that any normal parent would not want their children to be taught! Since the government fails to protect our children's safety in this way, it is up to the parents. It is important that parents do their best to protect children from inappropriate media.

The Future of Web 2.0

The future of Web 2.0 is referred to as the "Adoption Curve" as seen in this picture.

According to the website http://www.socialmedia.biz/ the 2008-2009 phase of Web 2.0 is "Hype and Experimentation". This stage is characterized by a bunch of emerging Web 2.0 providers who barely know more than their clients. There are endless Web 2.0 providers today that few of us have even heard of, let alone use. It would be near impossible to be a client of every Web 2.0 service today.

This being the case, "Most Web 2.0 initiatives will fall short of expectations... Because enthusiasts do not understand the application of the disruptive technology, they make false assumptions, and initiatives are not successful, so they are curtailed in a classic backlash", according to socialmedia.biz. This leads to the 2010 phase, which is "Failure and Disappointment". Most of the sites which we are using will fail. Think back to myspace and its booming time, which appears to be slipping quickly.

However, fear not! 2011-2013 will be characterized as "Triumph of Determination". At this point, most organizations have stopped using Web 2.0 as a failure, but those who persist through these hard times will end up with success. This will take a while!

Finally, by 2014-2015 "Persuasive Adoption" will occur. This means mass adoption of the successful Web 2.0 providers. " The Internet has been at this stage for the past several years; the innovations and application to work processes have long been more incremental than during Web 1.0".

So, in conclusion, trust Web 2.0, find the successful providers and persist! YOU can be one of the lucky few to last through the Triumph of Determination age!

Live on Press Release!

This article by journalist Tom Foremski discusses his hatred of the standard press release. He finds them nearly useless, full of top-spin, pat-on-the-back phrases and meaningless quotes. He offers a solution which is to deconstruct the press release:

"-Provide a brief description of what the announcement is, but leave the spin to the journalists. The journalists are going to go with their own spin on the story anyway, so why bother? Keep it straightforward rather than spintastic.

-Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other C-level execs.

-Provide a page of quotes from customers, if applicable.

-Provide a page of quotes from analysts, if applicable.

-Provide financial information in many different formats.

-Provide many links inside the press release copy, and also provide a whole page of relevant links to other news stories or reference sources."


I disagree a little with Foremski's views. I think that the press release is still a valuable material. Journalists are not always so quick to throw them out if you have targeted your news media and audience correctly. If you format the release in a way which appeals to the journalist and makes he or she think that it will appeal to their audience, you've reeled them in.

As a student striving to learn more about the PR field, I have recently started understanding media pitching. To me there are two types of ways you should pitch to the media - depending on what you are pitching and the audience to whom you are pitching.

One way to pitch is with the traditional press release. This is useful in circumstances that you have all of the information and want to have more control over the direction of the story. You simply pitch to the media the information, with the story that you would like them to cover. Foremski is right in that most journalists will add spin to the story and make it their own, but if you present the information in a way that is appealing to them, they will pick it up!

Another way to pitch is with a news advisory. This is used when you have some sort of important news that the journalist will most likely be interested in. You have no real story or way you would like to present the information. You list the who, what, where, when and why of the information and hope that the news or event appeals to the journalist.

To me, Foremski's suggestion to get rid of these traditional ways of pitching and simply give the journalist everything he or she needs to make a story is not an effective way to get your pitch picked up. The journalist will be getting all of the information, but he or she may not see exactly how it appeals to their audience. By formatting the story in a press release, you have more control to pitch the story in a way that appeals to the media's audience.

I support the traditional press release! And by the looks of things...so do most all PR professionals and journalists since things still have not changed.

Yes, You're Still Ugly in Real Life

A study by Jeremy Bailenson, head of the lab and an assistant professor of communication at Stanford, shows how our self-perception effects our behavior. This applies to our virtual world, avatar, appearances too.

A shocking find in Bailenson's research suggests that Second Life insecurities can affect our real life perceptions and confidence. "When we cloak ourselves in avatars, it subtly alters the manner in which we behave," says Bailenson. "It's about self-perception and self-confidence."

This is increasingly significant research with Second Life's 13 million visitors and World of Warcraft's 10 million subscribers. Some people spend about 20 hours a week in virtual worlds! This research shows the inevitability of the leak of virtual experiences into real life.

Overall studies find that subjects with attractive avatars portray more confidence in real life than those with more unattractive avatars. This affects how people communicate: mainly how close they stand to one another and shyness.

These same characteristics are seen in the characteristics of power. Studies show that those with taller avatars negotiated harder than those with shorter avatars, which also held up in real life situations.

Again, those who watched their avatars exercise, exercised more in real life. Whereas those who watched their avatars lounge around, became couch potatoes in real life (for a few days).

The point being, this effect can work both for good or for bad. "In a therapy setting, we could use these virtual environments to get people to become more confident," says Yee. "But they can also be used in advertising and as propaganda."

My question is, if you watch your avatar fly around all day...Will you in turn be able to fly in real life??

Top 10 Reasons to Use Video

In our book for class, PR 2.0, Jason Miletsky, CEO and Creative Director of PFS Marketwyse, gives 10 reasons to use video in social media. Some of his ideas are as follows:

1. "Improvements in Technology" - Videos when internet was first developing took SO long to load! We would sit for minutes to download a 20 second clip that had bad quality and would cut out if someone called your phone line! Today, most companies and homes use DSL which of course leads to faster downloads and better viewing quality.

4. "The YouTube Factor" - Sites such as Google, Facebook and YouTube are thrown around as if real words in our vocabulary. They need no definition, almost everyone has used these sites and is familiar with what you mean when you say "I googled..." or "I used YouTube..." YouTube with "its almost two-billion dollar sale to Google, focused the world's attention on a previously little known fact: Video on the Web is finally here."

8. "Higher Degree of Internet Marketing Sophistication and Integration" - In the past, traditional marketing agencies viewed Web 1.0 as "a curious oddity they didn't understand, and wished they didn't have to deal with." Web development was left to the computer geeks who understood programming and html. Today, the Web is fully used by the same mainstream marketers as a necessity to more widespread marketing campaigns. Advertisements online have been converted from banner ads to full out converted TV commercials, talking heads, and video-enhanced landing pages.

Video is such a useful tool for PR, marketing and - I hate to tie this in to the three - advertising. It engages the audience and can result in a better understanding of a campaign, product, service, etc.

Target Found: Children.

With the emergence of more social media, the youngest, most technologically savvy are some of the first to join the trend. Some of the social sites that children are joining include: Webkins, Planet Bratz Fan Club, Club Penguin and many more.

Children are able to register as users on these sites to explore worlds, play games, talk to friends etc. What they don't know, is that the surveys and registration that they fill out, is only ammo for marketers and advertisers to target products directly towards them.

Many of the registrations begin with general questions such as birth date, gender and name. This is so that advertisers can target the correct gender and age group for toys and products. Some of the sites ask fun questions periodically like, your favorite TV show or your favorite hobby. This only opens the window more to specifically targeted ads that the children will be attacked with.

Advertisements towards children are not only banner ads on websites, but they encompass the games and activities that children participate in online. Advertisers have made websites, such as the NabiscoWorld site, directly geared towards children with games that children can play titled instead of pinball, "Triscuit Power Balls". This attracts children to the website where they want to play the Triscuit game. They are blind to the advertisement, but later in the day at the grocery store with Dad they will remember the Triscuit brand. Score one advertisers.

In our society, children are bombarded by advertisements day after day, so they have become blind to many of them. This has caused advertisers to look for more intrusive ways to get inside the children's head. They are hooking children at a young age to products such as macaroni and cheese with images of Sponge Bob hoping to create lifetime customers. What they are really creating is a generation of consumer spend-aholics.

Children spend more of their parents' money now on toys, food, beauty products and expensive clothes than ever before. Children's' products should be ethically designed to increase knowledge or personal growth for the child. However, today, children's' products are merely a means for a company to make money. It would not surprise me to see the amount of debt rise dramatically in not-so future generations. Advertisers immoral actions are in part to blame for much of the materialistic incline that we have seen in our children. Grow some...morals advertisers!

And now, back to you, Ashton Kutcher.

<----Now THAT'S breaking news!

Please view this enlightening video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma8AcfKGaEI

Ashton Kutcher agrees the tides are changing from traditional news outlets to social media outlets. "...with our video cameras on our cell phones and our picture cams and our blogging and our twittering and our facebooking...We actually become the source of the news, and the broadcasters of the news, and the consumers of the news." What an insight, Ashton.

Ashton Kutcher now has more followers than CNN on Twitter. Is that a good step for citizen journalism? Or a sign of our society's decline?

I believe that there is a great power for citizen journalism. It is definitely a new way to more broadly view the news. But, it is not a good sign that more people in our world care about Ashton Kutcher news of master cleanses and marital problems, than real world news from CNN!

Our society is way too concerned with celebrity, beauty and wealth. There are so many issues across the world that deserve our attention. If more people, especially Americans, followed world news, the knowledge that people would gain could at least broaden our ideas and cultural views, which is never a bad thing. That is one reason why everyone else hates "dumb Americans"!

I for one would rather feel that I am more knowledgable in world events, than in what the most popular celebrities are wearing and where they are partying tonight.

Social Media Tips: Understand and Learn

Chapter 11 of our book, PR 2.0, gives some advice to PR professionals dealing with social media.

The first helpful piece of advice is to keep in mind that you are a consumer of social media too. It is important to get involved and be engaged in social media. Not only should you blog, tweet, bookmark and update your Facebook - you also need to be blog commenting, searching and watching other's social pages. You will be more widely informed and it can help spread your own pages to be active on others.

Another interesting point is that "every audience has a certain level of social media sophistication." For example, if you would like to reach a younger audience, you should target them through Facebook, Twitter or Myspace. If you would like to reach journalists, you should become active in social media news rooms and perhaps Twitter.

It is also important to keep up to date on social media skills. "As a communicator, you need to be tapped into what's in the news, and social media is making the news." It is not enough to make a blog, Facebook and Twitter - you have to know how to use these tools effectively to stand out and reach the audience you wish to.

With the right knowledge, you can use social media to reach a wide range of audiences. The power behind social media can help PR professionals reach out and widen their scope.

The Biggest Thing Since Google??...The Most Ads Since Google

For a free website, like Facebook, it is difficult to make money through advertising, but protect users privacy at the same time. They need to make a profit, but how? Beacon was a tracking program used by Facebook to target what users buy online, and fit them into an ad, to directly communicate to the users.

In a 2008 60 Minutes interview (link above) with Facebook owner Mark Zuckerburg, he responds to the use of Beacon on Facebook: "When you put that information in your profile...that you like a scarf...we might show that information to your friends, as an add." This sparked controversy because users felt their privacy was highly violated. Zuckerburg, was forced to put more privacy settings on the program, Beacon. Ads are still targeted towards users interests, but not as intrusively. Zuckerburg believes that these sorts of ads are a new, better way of targeting users, rather than posting banner ads. People are more likely to view ads that are catered to their interests than any random ad at the top of a page. Zuckerburg remains hopeful. Facebook must use ads to make a profit while keeping the site free for users. These "special interest" ads seem to be the lesser of the evil.

There may be a better way to use ads on social media sites, but I have not yet come across it. Advertisements are always a bother when they consume the pages of every website we see. We have almost become blind to many of these advertisements. I think it is a good advertising strategy to use user targeted ads, but is it a good strategy for Facebook?

Podcast with Janis Krums

Click on the header of the blogpost to open the link to our podcast.

This is our social media podcast for the St. Edward’s University course, COMM 4352, Internet and Social Media for Public Relations. We interviewed Janis Krums, who posted the first breaking picture of the Hudson River plane crash, on the social network, Twitter. We ask him about the actual posting, and about his thoughts on social media.




00:10 Ben introduces the show, speakers, and special guest, Janis Krums.
01:58 Ginny interviews Janis about his experience during and after posting the famous Twit Pic.
5:28 Reanne and Janis discuss social media and citizen journalism.
09:15 Austin presents concluding thoughts, out-tro, and our Thanks to Janis.

Podcasting Stars!

Our podcast was a very interesting experience. We chose to interview Janis Krums, the Twitter poster of the first breaking Hudson River plane crash picture. He lives in Sarasota, FL. We conducted the interview via Skype.

Our first dilemma was finding a way to record our conversation. We could not find a program that would adequately record both sides of our conversation. Skype does not have a recording feature. So, we brainstormed to record each side separately on Audacity. We had Janis download Audacity and the proper applications to send us his recorded side of our Podcast. He was very patient as we struggled with our computer issues!

The interview went well, for students rather than professional reporters. Janis made a really interesting interview and I am so glad we chose to do our Podcast with him. I hope that people outside of our class will hear our interview too, because he really is an interesting guy. After he exported his recorded side of the interview as an mp3, he sent that to us. We cut the two recorded sides together, and began to edit all of our mistakes.

I was very surprised with the clarity of the recording, considering we did the interview through Skype. Listening to the edited interview, you can not tell that we did the interview over Skype, or that we recorded both sides separately. I am so glad it worked out perfectly!

These programs continue to impress me the more I learn of them. It is amazing that we are able to interview Janis all the way in Sarasota, FL, and then send it to him to listen to. We are very happy, and very impressed with our finished product!

One small step for Skittles, one giant leap for Social Media.

The Skittles website has gained a lot of talk and controversy. This only adds to the publicity that the company receives. I think the website is a great idea because it plays on what people love right now; transparency. It looks like they are confident of what anyone has to say about Skittles, which makes me feel like people must not have many terrible things to say. And when I think about it, I don't think I have anything bad to say about Skittles.

The best part of the website is the "chatter", Twitter page, which I think should be the opening page. I like this page because people are actually talking about Skittles. I would have never thought that Skittles could be such a hot topic, but with about one comment every four minutes, this site has proven me wrong.

I think this is a great idea for Skittles. I really do not think this page will necessarily add or subtract from sales, since Skittles is a pretty stable candy, but it is definitely a fun idea. It spurs more talk amongst people who would have maybe never thought about talking about Skittles (like me). I believe other companies could benefit from tasting a little of this social media rainbow.

Now all this Skittles talk is making me want some gelatin-filled, partially hydrogenated, bug coated candy!

Podcasts

I had never thought making a Podcast could be so hard. After trying out a section of podcasting, I have realized it is kind of an art.

All elements of a good radio show, plus many more, are needed for a good Podcast. Having a good radio voice and interesting subject is not even half of the battle!

Being able to cut jingles, adjust volume, transition clearly, make clean cuts, and control content are all balanced in a good podcast. Matching jingle volume with voice adjustments can be tricky. Editing all of this, and paying attention to all the elements such as background noise, voice/music volume, clear cuts, and so on, is much more difficult than Podcasters make it seem. It is especially difficult after finishing an entire podcast, then going back through to edit the entire thing, and make sure every second is perfect. Although it can be tricky, a good podcast should sound professional, smooth, and easy, just like a radio show.

This art takes a lot of practice. I have a much higher respect for Podcasters.

Filter for Netflix

After reading the section of chapter one in Citizen Marketers about "Filters", I decided to check out Mike Kaltschnee's HackingNetflix.com blog.

The website is well organized with an option to submit a story, RSS Feeds, polls, links, etc. This truly does blur the line between journalist, blogger, and the common public. With blogs such as HackingNetflix, any normal person can become a journalist.

Filters, as mentioned in the chapter, wrap up people's rants and raves, and some traditional media stories, into journalistic packages complete with sources, links, observations, etc. Some remain, as Kaltschees strives to, objective. HackingNetflix seems to do a good job remaining balanced without coming across as complete marketing for Netflix. A few stories are posted by Kaltschnee weekly, with credit to the people who submit them. Though most of the stories relate directly to Netflix, some are about other renting services or things to do with DVDs.

Filter blogs are an interesting blend of journalism with every day life. I still have not decided how this will affect media journalism and the general public, for the better or worse. But it will be interesting to watch how this continues to evolve the way we view news and how we receive information.

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking services are the new answer to endless searches. These can help for specific searches for information especially those that have many results in engines such as google. It helps to label the web and make our searches easier and quicker yet.

Folksonomy is the new power behind social bookmarking, powered by the people themselves. This online collaboration is a bottom up way of spreading information. It produces information that is being used and shared by normal people faster than it could be produced in the old world.

The systems used for social bookmarking continue to grow including, del.icio.us, digg, magnolia, blue dot, simpy, blog marks, reddit, etc.

Overwhelming tools

It is very easy to become overwhelmed with internet sources for PR. With all the the tools; blogging, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, Twitter, Digg, podcasts, etc., you can easily have a PR overload, which you can not keep track of.

I have learned thus far that it is best to stick to one thing and do that one thing well. The best companies that are online use minimulistic styles. Southwest, Whole Foods, and others use one tool, a blog. Fox news, Brittish Airways, and Apple use Twitter. These companies are successful online because they have kept up with these tools and used them to their benefit without becomming overwhelmed.

Web perceptions

New internet technology today is becoming more popular because it is easy to access and use. But many people's interpretation of blogs, Twitter, del.icio.us, Digg, and other sites is almost like a joke. Those who do not know the usefullness of these web tools often see them as nerdy, time consuming, and funny.

I recently told my sister about the many businesses using blogs and how useful they actually are. The first thing she said to me was "when I think of a blogger, I think of a nerdy man sitting alone blogging in his house all day". Once I began to explain more uses of blogs and stores that use them, such as Whole Foods, she decided that maybe her preception of bloggers is off.

It is hard to shake the mis-perceptions of internet-savvy users who blog, tweet, and bookmark. I recently read an interview article (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/02/13/blogging-as-a-job-the-perceptions-of-others-convincing-those-you-love-that-you-can-be-a-problogger/) in which the author concludes that to change the "perception about blogging I think that this naturally happens over time as more and more people become familiar with blogging as a medium."

The more people begin to see their business', grocery stores', and friends' blogs, the more they will begin to accept these new web inventions. This will take time.

Blogger, or journalist?

Today journalism is much more than news papers and television media. Normal people have become a new source of news, gossip, product reports, and much more. Blogs serve as a vehicle for information sharing. Many help feed our knowledge of other people by showing real people's voices and points of view. We want to know what others think, what they are doing, and what they are buying.

Even blogs with important news, such as the whitehouse.gov blog, are topped with comments from real people. This gives us another perspective on the news. Now we can view the topic, and other's comments and opinions on the issues. It comforts us to hear what everyone else has to say. We no longer have few sources of biased media and skewed information, we have all American people as journalists.

The desire to know what others with many different viewpoints think and say should continue to influence us to follow less conventional media sources. Many online sources, including blogs, can be a good source of information and show us many views and opinions. This new media seems more honest and open. The change from completely government controlled journalism has made the move to our own hands; we can only hope for more.

Try it, its del.icio.us!

Someday I aspire to be one of the great del.icio.us users of the world. With the tips from the readings I think I just might be! These are a few of the most interesting parts:

Tags can be very helpful, but as seen since I have began using del.icio.us, they can be messy. One tip is to clean up your tags by using the ‘Settings’ section of your account. There is a page where you can delete tags, or change one tag into another. So if you have a few links tagged with the same or similar words this is where you can make that adjustment. This is helpful because many of the same tags can look messy and confusing.

The inbox is an interesting tool as well. Here you can subscribe users with similar tags, so that you can see what they have been tagging and follow their bookmarks. You can also subscribe to specific tags to get updates on when more bookmarks are tagged with those words. You can stalk other users by replacing the username in the url with theirs: http://del.icio.us/inbox/USERNAME. You are able to view their inbox and see who they are watching. This is both helpful, and a little creepy! But it can help you find more people to tag and more places to bookmark.

These tips make del.icio.us a little easier to understand, especially for those less computer savvy! Bottom line is, it takes time and devotion to figure out any new technology. Allthough it is very helpful, it is tricky and time consuming to completely understand.

Yes, I googled

Today's technological words are the subject of my interest this week. It is interesting that in the past decade we have invented numerous technological words such as, blog (and all of its uses, blogging, blogged, bloggers), google (and its uses, googled...), i-anything (iPod, iPhone, iTunes), and so many more. These words that we invent have become well known words and even daily used verbs. Even movies and TV are using these words. If we could go back in time, I would like to tell someone, "oh yeah, I just googled that today" and watch their response.

Wikipedia (which is also a new word with many uses), defines google as is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. When we use the word google, we don't think of what it really is. This is because it has become a word in our actual vocabulary; we don't need to think of its definition to use any tense of the word.

Our speech is being created and defined daily by the new technologies we receive. Language is added to in every decade and there is no doubt by the progress of our language today that we are the decade of technology. Microsoft Word must have a hard time keeping up with all the new words we are adding.

Blog improvements

After learning the basics of blogging from this class, I have worked on the SGA blog to improve its functionality. I used to write blog posts every week with very few viewers. Now I have subscribed to other University's SGA blogs, and have more viewers. I hope that by searching and subscribing to more blogs like our own I will have more views, comments, and followers.