Facebook Watchers!

Since I just wrote my last blog about Facebook making its way on to Blackberry cellphones I thought that it was only appropriate to talk about a new article that I found titled, Facebook Employees Know Whose Profiles You Look At. After reading this article I was shocked to find out that employees can sit around the computer at times keeping track of whose profiles people are looking at on Facebook.

I know that it is appropriate to be able to find out what people are doing, (for security purposes), but to allow just basic employees this same privilege? The article states, "if your friend works at Facebook and you're crushing on him/her, then maybe you should consider NOT camping out on his or profile as a way of satisfying your creepy longing, e-stalker," (Terrence O' Brien).

Although I was shocked when I read this article I am really not upset that employees can view everyone's profile. I never really took the time to think about it until reading about this and after really thinking about it, I said to myself why shouldn't employees be allowed to look at people's profiles. The only thing that concerns me is I hope that people are actually doing their job, not just looking at people's profiles (and the profiles that those people have been looking at) for entertainment. It is Facebook employees jobs to keep the website in order. I would assume that they would need to be able to track member's courses in order to do so. As long as they are just looking and not sending random messages to the most visited profiles by Facebook members it seems ok to me. What do y'all think?

Facebook on Blackberry's

I guess in an attempt to diversify and reach an older crowd, Facebook will now be a presetting on new Blackberry cellphones. According to the article Facebook Comes to the Blackberry this feature is still going to allow people to do all the same things that can be done on a regular computer, but it is not going to look as cluttered.

I think that this is going to really help Facebook grow. While some younger people have Blackberry's they are mostly used by an older and more business crowd. If I had a Blackberry with this feature I would definitely use it. Technology is coming right to the palm of people's hands. It does not surprise me that Facebook decided to take this step.

One thing that I wonder about though is that Facebook has really gotten away from their original audience as of late. The site started as a college social networking site and has branched out allowing everyone to use it. Is this just because it is growing? Is this because they are trying to compete with myspace? And will this branching out hurt or help the site?

I think that this is a really good idea. What do you think?

Going Viral

It seems that going viral can be a really good way to promote something. Going viral was the main focus of chapter 10 in The New Influencers text. I really never understood what going viral meant before reading this chapter but it is awesome. It is basically a way (if done right) to have web users do promotion for something. "Viral marketing taps an existing vein of Web users and relies on them to spread the word about a site, contest or video by e-mail and blog," (pg 180).

The book does mention some driving forces behind going viral. They are declining response rates, technology developments, demographic shifts, customer preference, and low cost. (pgs 183 & 184) With these things happening it makes sense to go viral. The web has become such a great part of our everyday lives, why not use the power of it.

But not just anyone can accomplish a successful viral campaign. The book also mentions some facts that one must complete in order to possibly have a successful viral campaign. The product had better be good, the campaign must be innovative and fun, don't push it, reward people for coming, let go, and use the medium. Like almost everything in this world it takes work to be successful. Going viral can be very successful but people using it have to be willing to put effort in.

Going viral to me is really interesting for the simple fact that it is a great way for advertising and promotion. And like the chapter also mentions it can be really cheap which is always a good thing. Going viral has been around for a while and it has had some great successes. The book mentions that the documentary The Blair Witch Project actually went viral for promotion of its movie. It grossed about $140 million at the box office because of its viral campaigning. Going viral seems that it can really change the world that we live in. It kind of in a way gives us the voice. We no longer have to hear what other people want us to hear, we can be the ones in charge of spreading the word. I think that going viral is going to continue to be very popular in the future.

Public Relations

After reading chapter 7 of The New Influencers titled, Putting "Public" Back Into Public Relations I was fascinated with how much social media affects PR. "PR professionals see social media as both an opportunity and as a threat. The opportunity is to raise the professions visibility, and the threat is that no one really knows how to deal with these new influencers," (pg 125).

More and more each day my mind inches closer into wanting to go into the field of PR. This chapter really helped me to understand what is going on in that profession right now. It seems that PR has hit a spot in time were it must find a way to reinvent itself. Since the web has taken off so fast and has reached so many people, old ways will simply not work anymore. "The press release is not dead, but it is slowly being replaced. What is replacing it is useful information delivered to influencers in any form that suits their needs," (pg 128). This quote sums up exactly what is happening right now.

People want information fast and they want it to be reliable. What is hard about this is that because of the web, there are now so many different ways to give that information, and everybody seems to want something different. It is also getting harder to know what is important. PR professionals do realize the change that is ahead and are starting to find new innovative ways to do things. They are evolving along with the web, and are increasing their popularity in the world. They are doing so through blogs, podcasts, making shifts in their firms, and by simply changing the approach they use to reach their clients. Whatever the case may be PR seems that it is here to stay.

Social Media PR podcast

Here is our groups podcast! The group consisted of Ben, Amparo, and me (Shane). We talked about web 2.0 and other aspects of social media.

How To Find Things On The Web

Chapter 9 of The New Influencers titled "Tools of The Trade" was all about the different kinds of search engines there are to help find things on the web. Knowing how to find information on the web is extremely important, especially, if you are a corporation. "As a business marketer, you don't necessarily need to be a player in social media, but you should be aware of what's being said about you," (163). It is very important to keep up with this information because if you are a company you are going to have to respond to your customers/media/etc in some way. If you are not aware of what is going on then you are never going to be able to give that response, potentially hurting your company.

This chapter focused on some certain things that people usually need to look up or keep track of and don't know how too. It mentioned some important tools and search engines needed to help find different things and research.

Basic Information:
To help keep up with information on a certain topic there is the already well known search engines like google, yahoo, and the book mentions that ask.com and amazon.com are also always good sources to use to keep up with information. Search engines like these help companies keep up with themselves, allows people to keep up with a certain/specific topic, and allows people to see what is being talked about in the world.

Blogs:
Since this entire class already has a blog we already know of some of the ways to keep up with them. In this class we use RSS. This helps us to be informed when other people in the class have written blogs so that we in turn can read them, and comment on them if we choose. The book also mentions a couple of other tools that can be used to help keep track of blogs. These are Technorati, Blogpulse, and IceRocket. "These provide experimental tools to help you track conversations," (165). Lastly, there is trackbacks. We have learned about these as well. This is how the authors of the two books that we are using in this class found us. They were informed when there books were being linked too and they were then able to find our class blogs and find out where we were from.

Podcasts:
Lastly the chapter talks about podcasts. It mentions two search engines named podscope.com and podzinger.com. These two are the main search engines that can be used in helping to find a podcast or topic that a podcast focuses on.

The web is full of all different kinds of information. But with helpful tools like the ones mentioned above it allows it to keep generating even more information. As long as we have these tools and they continue to grow and get better as the web grows, we will be able to keep up with everything as well as be able to find everything easily on the web. Luckily because of these tools the web will be around for a long time.

Measuring the Influence

Chapter 4 of The New Influencers titled "Measures of Influence" talked about how influence in social media is measured. Mainly this chapter focused on how influential blogs are. There are types of blogs out there that people classify as being "A" list. These blogs are the ones that are recorded as being the most viewed/influential by people. In other words they are really popular.

Although bigger is usually better this chapter also shed light on how important the small can be. This chapter stated that a lot of big bloggers sometimes rely on the smaller bloggers to give/send them information. This not only helps the big blogger a lot because information can be found easier whenever there are a larger number of people looking for it, but it could help to gain benefit for the small blogger as well.

This chapter's main focus was on how important linking can be. This is the main way to measure how important something is. Links help to see how many times a website has been used for information, or how important a person's blog/web page is. This is were the benefit comes in for those small bloggers that help out the "A" Lister's. Since they are helping to find information there page could get linked back too by the "A" Listers, maybe helping them to gain more readership and an audience. Through links a sites popularity and influence is able to be measured. Although this measurement is not completely accurate it helps to give people a generic idea of how important different topics are on the web.

The Internet can be really beneficial. It helps us to gain information quickly and give our own opinions of different things fast. The Internet does a great job of tying everyone together in some way. But, if an idea is taken from another person it is important to link back to them. It is only right that everyone gives credit to were they found the information that they use.

Could the Iphone Finally Have Some Competition

Who out there hasn't heard about the Iphone yet. It is the latest thing that offers just about everything from internet access, to ipod capabilities, to being an actual cellphone all built into one. The Iphone has been out for about three months now and pretty much has been the only phone on the market that has a touch screen, good look, and likability, plus acting like a mini computer that fits right into your pocket.

But now Sprint is introducing a new phone called the Touch according to an MSNBC article titled, "Sprint Introduces Touch Screen Phone." This phone is going to have everything that the Iphone does and be even cheaper. The new Touch is going to be part of Sprint network's. While it is not as unique looking as the Iphone it is still not bad. I think that a lot of people will catch on to this phone just to be different. Not everyone wants to be the same as everyone else and carry around an Iphone just because of the name.

This will especially come in handy for those people that have sprint and do not want to switch over to AT&T/Cingular just to get a touch screen phone. While I do not think that it will make as many sells as the Iphone I think it will do good. Plus it is always good to have a little competition. Would any of you buy it?

Making Call's on the Web

It seems that even phone calls are going to be made easy to do on the web. In case you haven't heard what skype is it is a service that allows people to make phone calls straight from their computer. It is really a simple process. All that you have to do is download the software and begin. I know of a lot of people that have really seen the benefits of this when there family or girlfriend/boyfriend is in another country. It is a convenient way to be able to talk to each other.

Skype has not been widely know in the past but that may be changing now that it has joined with myspace. I just read an article titled "Myspace and Skype Join Forces," that stated that making these phone calls on Skype is going to be even easier to do now that it is being made more convenient through myspace. Now whomever has myspace is going to be able to make calls to anyone. It does cost to use this service, but the article stated that people who have skype already can call each other for free. This is really cool when you think about it. This will probably even get skype mentioned a lot more than it is now. It is hard to imagine that something like this that is offered on one of the biggest social networking sites there is not being mentioned. I am sure that skype will catch on even it is only for a while.

While this does offer a lot of benefits it is a little scary once again to imagine where technology is taking us. Pretty much everything is going to be able to be accomplished on the internet. People read the news on the internet, buy music, shop, now make calls! But when I think about it, I guess why not?

New Influencers: The Talkers

Chapter 8 of The New Influencers titled The Talkers has really helped to shed some light on what podcasting is. Until this year podcasting was a new thing to me. I had heard of it before but never knew the benefits of it, or what exactly could be done with it. I just learned in this class this semester that it could be used to help teach class. We have to listen to podcasts for homework and now we even have to create our own podcast. This is going to be a great assignment because other people will be able to here our thoughts.

I have to admit during this past Thursday's class I was overwhelmed with how much work it took to edit the sample podcast. I sat there for forty-five minutes working on it and still did not finish. But, even though it took me a while I have witnessed the great benefits that can come from podcasting.

First take Paige Heninger and Gretchen Vogelzang, from chapter 8 of The New Influencers, they were two normal women who made it big by podcasting. Also, look at all the companies that have gotten word out about themselves through podcasting. Technology continues to keep being an amazing thing. It just keeps increasing and getting more and more interesting everyday. It is hard to imagine what technology is going to bring to us next. I'm sure podcasting will continue to grow and someday everyone will know how to do it. When/If this happens everyone would be able to get their word out!

China banning RSS Feeds?

I just read an interesting article that stated that Chinese government is thinking about blocking all RSS feeds in China. In this class we all know what a great benefit RSS is. It has allowed us to keep up with each other's blogs, as well as keep up with other important news and informative sites that we may like.

The article I read stated that China is really strict with what goes through their internet system and they like to keep a close eye on what people are doing. RSS in the past has allowed citizens to get around this. RSS usually allows the Chinese to view whatever sites they want, even if they are blocked by the Chinese government through regular browsing. This is the main reason why the Chinese government is looking to get rid of RSS.

I'm sure that all of you out there know that China is a huge country with a lot of internet users. Is it really fair to take away all these people's RSS Feeds? Like I stated earlier the blogging system in this class would not be what it is now or run as smoothly as it does if we did not have RSS. I do not think that it is fair what the Chinese government is doing because RSS is a great benefit.

Corporate Conversations

Chapter five of The New Influencers titled Corporate Conversations was about corporate blogging. The main thing that this chapter focuses on is that blogging is not for all corporations, but it does offer a lot of oppurtunities and benefits. Blogging really gets the word out. These words may not be taken in the same way by everyone, but sometimes getting bad responses from people can be just as beneficial to a company as getting good ones.

The chapter states that blogging should only be done if someone wants to do it. Some of the benefits that come from it are: customer responses, product information, release dates, and responses to scrutiny. Take the GM/New York Times debate for example. A New York Times columnist bad-mouthed GM saying that they are not as great of a corporation as they claim to be. Although GM was having problems writing a defense in a newspaper they did have their blog. They typed responses about the New York Times article and defended themselves. So many people took interest in this that it got picked up by national shows/news stations. That was a great way for GM to get publicity and show how great of a company they are. There fans really seemed to stick up for them as well.

While national coverage does not always come from blogging, in my eyes it can be a lot more beneficial than harmful to a company. If a company really has good products and something good to offer to customers why not write about it? Even well known companies can benefit from blogs. They can gain praise from their loyal customers, or suggestions on how to make their products even better. If enough effort is put into corporate blogging a company can really gain great benefits from it.

Citizen Marketers: The Power of One

As we all know Jackie Huba, the co-author of the class text, Citizen Marketers:When People Are the Message came and talked to the class this past Thursday. She was very interesting and fun to listen to. As she was talking about the experiences she encountered during writing the book, one story really caught my attention. The story was about Brian Finklestein and his troubles with Comcast. This story was mentioned in chapter 6 of the book, titled, The Power of One. First off, I thought the video he designed was very well put together. I think that he did the right thing. I would have been angry if someone came to my house and took an hour and a half long nap, and on top of that the company still had him on hold.

Throughout this chapter I learned how much power a single person can have. It only took Brain to ignite a fire of angry customers and the bad experiences they had in the past with Comcast. The same thing went for the Apple story that happened in the past. It is funny because I had that same thing happen to my Ipod. After owning it for about fourteen months my battery went dead after about thirty minutes/even when it was fully charged. But, with the speed of technology/the fast pace that new products come out and the laziness to deal with customer service, I decided to update and buy a new one. But, if I would have known then what I know now about the hassle Apple was giving customers about Ipod batteries, I probably would have dug further into the situation. If I would have been given a really hard time by Apple representatives, like Casey Neistat was I might have even jumped on the bandwagon the Neistat brothers campaign.

By reading this chapter I have learned that blogging can be very powerful, both hurting a company and/or helping it out. The chapter gives an example of blogging actually helping out a company. A women loved target so much that she decided to blog about it. Her blog got popular and more people begin to shop at Target. Everyday I continue to be amazed at the power that the internet has, and the power that blogging has. I do not know how in the past I was so blinded. Who would have ever thought that a simple blog could ignite so much controversy. I surely didn't.

Facebook... Helping to Solve Crimes?

As I was looking for something to write about this week I came across a very interesting article on CNN's website. The title of the article was Victim Uses Facebook to Finger Suspect. This article talked about a crime that happened between students of Georgetown University. A student from the University was attacked by another student near campus one day. After the crime was committed, the victim decided to take matters into his own hands, and set out to try and find his attacker. He knew that a lot of students had facebook, which is a social networking site, and decided to look on the website to see if his attacker was a member. It turned out that his attacker was indeed a member. When he realized this he turned the information he found into this police, which helped them to catch the student who attacked him.

A police officer in this article stated that he had never heard of facebook being used to help solve crimes in his life.

I really did think that this article was very interesting. I thought it was amazing how this student had the brilliant idea to use facebook to look up his attacker. If I was ever attacked I do not think that I would have ever thought of using any social networking site to look up my attacker. Although this social media outlet was very beneficial in this case, it is a little scary to realize that all this personal information is out there on the web for pretty much anyone to see. When I thought about it, I realized that these sites do have a lot of information about people: from photos, to birthdays, to comments written to them, and even what there relationship status is. Not many people live without some type of social media outlet in today's society. I do think more times than not these types of websites offer a lot more benefits than harm, if used properly. They can be helpful in helping people keep in touch with one another, and they are a great way to connect multiple people together all at once. But, I cannot help to wonder what direction our world is headed in. Who would have ever thought, facebook, would help to solve a crime?