April 27, 2010
Weekly # 11 Presidential Campaign 2012
Our last weekly class assignment asked us to look ahead to the 2012 presidential campaign and predict what we think will be key to winning the election online.
With their 2008 campaign internet strategy , the Obama Campaign changed everything about how political campaigns will be conducted online going forward. I predict that every presidential campaign will follow the strategy of interactive websites where supporters can contribute small amounts of money multiple times instead of just relying on the big donors. This was definitely a game changer in 2008. Everyone was pretty much ready to hand the democratic nomination over to Hilliary Clinton because of the name and connections, and consequently the big donors followed. No one knew that Obama was going to blow everyone of the water when it came to fundraising by having regular people contribute small amounts of money.
I also predict that in 2012 presidential hopefuls will follow the Obama Campaign model of having an option to sign up for text messages of campaign happenings. I think that the 2012 campaigns will expand this and copy the Haiti disaster model of donation where people donated $10 to $20 dollars via text message.
As an Edelman Study points out, the online strategy of the 2008 Obama campaign was incorporated into every aspect of the campaign. I see this strategy continuing because social media and online activities are even more ingratiated in our daily lives than they were two years ago.
Response Blog # 3
Yesterday, Ben Parr at Mashable wrote a post entitled “What the Lost Iphone Case Could Mean for the Future of Media.” In case you haven’t heard, here is the situation: Apple’s next generation iphone that was supposed to be revealed this summer was lost (or stolen) from one of its engineers recently. The technology site Gizmodo purchased said lost/stolen prototype and did an expose’ type article on its site, taking the phone apart and exposing all of its new features. Apple was none to pleased with this, and asked Gizmodo to give the phone back, which Gizmodo eventually did. In a suprise twist (at lease to me) Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s home was raided and computers were seized for a criminal investigation on the incident. The article mentions that Gawker Media (which owns the Gizmodo site) is trying to make the case that Chen was protected from such a search and seizure because he is a journalist and therefore protected by California’s Shield Law.
Before I say my views on this, I would like to first say that I have a degree in journalism and therefore appreciate the laws that protect freedom of the press and free speech. In my view this, however, isn’t a free speech or freedom of the press case. The California Shield Law shouldn’t (in my view) protect Chen from having a criminal search conducted on his home. The lost/stolen prototype isn’t a source, it is an item that may have been acquired illegally. And oh by the way, real journalists don’t PAY for this type of information or scoop to begin with. On its site, Gizmodo says that the Iphone prototype was disguised as a 3GS phone, so how (one might ask) did they know to pay thousands of dollars for a phone that wasn’t glaring something new? I feel like Gizmodo may have checked its ethics at the door and willing bought stolen property. If you do the crime you have to do the time Gizmodo, just like everyone else.
April 26, 2010
Personal Blog # 3
Okay, since this IS supposed to be my personal blog I will admit something. I am a big NASA fan (whew, there I said it!) Thats why when I heard today that the last space shuttle mission EVER would be pushed back to November, I was a little relieved (For those of you who didn’t know, the space shuttle program is set to end by the end of this year, and the shuttles will then be sent to museums).
The fact that the space shuttles will soon be museum exhibits is hard for me to believe. As a child, we always took school field trips to Cape Canaveral to watch shuttle launches as the educational part of school trips to Orlando and Disney World (since we were only one state away in Georgia). Even though I was exited to visit the Mouse House, there was always something about the lauches that were awe inspiring in a different way. It was real and the astronauts were heroes. Even though we will still have Hubble’s gorgeous pictures of the universe and various other unmanned missions, I feel that there is still something really special about human space flight and there will be a void as we rent a ride from the Russians for the foreseeable future. We will still be sending our astronauts up, but somehow it just won’t be the same.
Weekly # 10 –The War and the Internet
For this week’s Social Media class blog we were asked to take a look at some blogs and videos on the internet that deal with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and see whether we think that having that type of information being available on the internet is good or bad thing.
After reading some of the suggested blogs and watching some videos that deal with the war on YouTube, I would have to say that I am glad that the people who are affected by the situation have an avenue to express themselves. As the Swarthmore students figured out in their quest for information on the Iraq War (even though I believe that their anti-war motives may have played apart), we (the public) don’t get the full picture of what is happening in a war. I’m not saying that this isn’t for a potentially good reason, we wouldn’t want to compromise national security, but every outlet that we have for getting information has their specific agenda ,and we only get information pertaining to that agenda. This includes the news media, who tend to also have a particular editorial slant to their stories. I appreciate that we can hear the “real deal” from those that are fighting the war or those that are affected by war.
Having said all of that, one of the things that I figured out was that we may never get a complete picture of the war. There were some blogs and videos that were pro war, some against, some totally neutral but describing life as a soldier, some honoring the dead. All of this highlighted to me that for all of the politicking by Republicans and Democrats for or against, the thing that we all need to acknowledge is that this is a complex issue that affects the live of thousands. I just appreciated experiencing some of their stories.
April 19, 2010
Response Blog # 2
On the Mashable Blog, Jolie O’Dell wrote about Ning in a blog post call Ning: Failures, Lessons, and Six Alternatives. The blog chronicles the online communitie’s troubles over the past months with the news of a 40% workforce reduction and an announcement by new CEO Jason Rosenthal (He took over after former CEO Gian Bianchini left last month) that the company would phase out their free service and devote 100% of their resources to their paying customers.
I haven’t really been paying much attention to Ning in quite awhile, beside when we discussed online communities in Social Media class. However, this wasn’t always the case for me or my friends. As recently as Spring of last year I was going on the site almost everyday, even more than Facebook. It was all the craze in the HBCU community as we all rushed to join this online community where we could reconnect with old college friends. The Ning site to my Alma Mater (Florida A&M University) even had videos of our award winning Marching Band (The Marching 100), robust discussion boards, and alumni events. It seemed like every single day I was finding more and more of my old friends to reconnect with and taking a look at their personal pages with pics and blogs.
After about a year though for some strange reason it all died down. I thought it was just me, but I was noticing that lots of others were not checking their Ning pages either. Now when you sent a friend request or wrote on someone’s wall it starting taking months for people to reply, and conversations dried up on the discussion boards. Soon the very same people started seeking me out on Facebook and we maintained our connections that way. I think it might have been due to the fact that the site isn’t as interactive as Facebook with its news feeds and variety of ways for people to interact.
I’m sad that Ning will not be a free site anymore. It was really valuable and I found so many of my college friends with it. With it now being a fee only service, I’m not sure that it can ever be the niche craze that connected people that it once was.
April 13, 2010
Weekly # 9– Global Voices
For this week’s class blog we were asked to pick a country to examine in Global Voices and tell about our experience there. The country that I picked was Trinidad and Tobago (A little wishful thinking that I would be magically transported there….
Trinidad and Tobago
…Okay back to reality).
A big topic that the bloggers seemed to be most interested in is the upcoming elections there. The Prime Minister recently dissolved the parliament as of April 9th. There was intense speculation by the bloggers on why the prime minister took such an action and which party would be elected to fill the vacated seats.
It was interesting to read the comments that the bloggers made on the government’s response to the Haiti earthquake back in January. Apparently, a lot of them weren’t too pleased that Prime Minister Manning took an entire day to issue a response instead of doing so immediately. They also wanted their country to give more than the 1 million dollars that was given and felt that they could have also sent search and rescue teams. It seems that they felt the same helplessness as everyone else did around the world when watching the whole thing unfold. Some expressed how wanted they wante to go to Haiti and help.
This was my first time on Global Voices, but it is a site that I will definitely come back to. It was interesting to get a glimpse into a country and its people.
April 10, 2010
Personal Blog # 2
This week Nike came out with a new commercial that addresses Tiger Wood’s marital indiscretions (trying to be kind here). You can view it here.
I am a little conflicted about how I feel about this commercial. On the one hand I feel like its genius. Nike knew that everyone would be talking about this commercial when they made it, and used the situation as a way to get their brand name out there, but still acknowledge what is happening in Tiger’s personal life. Nike uses the opportunity (with great use of his father’s voice) to gently chastize Tiger.
On the other hand though, can’t we just let it go? Do we really need a commercial that addresses the situation. I know what Tiger did was bad, and I don’t like cheaters, but the situation broke five months ago. Its now old news, in my opinion. Tiger has tried to make amends, gone to counseling, and tried to apologize multiple times. I doubt that he will ever have the reputation that he once had, but I guess everyone is fallible. Let him get back to playing golf.
April 6, 2010
Weekly # 8—Second Impression of Wikipedia?
I wrote in my Wikipedia or Encyclopedia post below that I thought a published encyclopedia was more trustworthy than Wikipedia. I felt this way because, in my view, the information in Wikipedia was unverified. However, after learning more about Wikipedia in class last week, I have changed my mind about Wikipedia a bit. I still don’t think that the information is as trustworthy as the information in a published encyclopedia , but I have to say that after learning about the community editors surrounding Wikipedia, I will trust the information there more.
For one thing, I didn’t know that there was a community of people that is protective of the content there . In class our professors show us a chart where most of the edits are made by this group of people. Some have made more than one thousand edits to Wikipedia pages. Another fact that I didn’t know before class was that there is an undo edit feature and people tend to undo any rumors that get posted to protect the integrity of the online tool.
I also didn’t realize that people create new pages for any significant breaking news stories that happen pretty quickly after the event occurs. Some pages were posted minutes after a major event happens. It is interesting to see that people were doing this as if they were journalists themselves. These days with the 24 hour news cycle where media outlets rush to push information out about an event before verifying the information, I think that Wikipedia is just about as trustworthy if not more trust worthy than the media outlets. The Wikipedia editors tend to post info without bias (If it sounds biased, it is most likely taken down), whereas news outlets will sometimes feed the rumor mill around an event by making their own speculations about the event.
April 2, 2010
Response Blog #1
Recently David Brooks, an OP-Ed columnist for the New York Times wrote a column called “The Sandra Bullock Trade” about the misfortunes of the star. For those of you who have been living under a rock, here is a re-cap of what has been going on. In a nutshell, Sandra Bullock, as sweet and down to earth actress, recently won a best actress Oscar for the movie The Blind Slide. The movie title ended up being prophetic when she was essentially blindsided by news that her husband, who she was gushing over profusely during this past awards season (and in her Oscar speech), has been cheating on her with multiple women.
In Mr. Brook’s column he asks the question “Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow?” I’m sure that most people’s answer to this question would probably match my own and be a resounding NO. People who have achieved professional success aren’t always the happiest people. Most of us would prefer love, support, and trust in our lives. If we don’t have these core things, then there will still be a huge void even though professional and financial success have been achieved. There is a reason that someone coined the phrase “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Professional success doesn’t buy it either.
In the case of Sandra Bullock, she thought that she had both, and her “loving” husband turned out to be someone very different than she thought he was. I feel for her, and hope that she is getting support from her family and friends. Hopefully, when she recovers from this personal blow, she will one day be able to again enjoy the success of winning her Oscar.
March 30, 2010
Weekly # 7– Wikipedia or Encyclopedia?
This week’s Social Media Class question asks the questions “Which should you trust more Wikipedia or a published encyclopedia?” Before I answer this question, I would like to say that I love Wikipedia! It is normally one of the top results when you do a search on most subjects and provides a way for you to find information relatively quickly. For popular subjects, you can most likely find updated information posted to the site rather quickly, thus the name (“wiki” is the hawaiian word for quick). I normally will look at Wikipedia to give me an overview of a person or subject that I know nothing about before I do further research.
However, all that being said, I think that you can trust the information in a published encyclopedia more than Wikipedia. Why? Because anyone can contribute to Wikipedia and the information in unverified. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it is inaccurate, but I feel that you can’t use only Wikipedia as your source of information. While normally people will use a variety of sources with a published encyclopedia as well, they don’t have to worry about any of the information being inaccurate or based on rumor. The fact that information can be published on Wikipedia quickly is great (and the reason why its so successful), but it can also be a vehicle for rumors and conjecture. The information in a published encyclopedia is typically verified from a variety of sources prior to publishing.
