A New Place for News

May 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment


Probably less than a week into the month, you unknowingly click the headline of your 20th article and an online popup halts you, insisting that “to keep reading, sign up today.” Alas, the time has come that The New York Times will no longer allow free riders of the Internet to mooch off their professional paper.

It’s been long theorized that online articles will stimulate the demise of paper journalism, so it’s no surprise that nytimes.com has implemented a fee for online subscriptions. But the truth is, even professional online news carriers aren’t necessarily society’s top informer anymore.

Instead, word of mouth—or word of fingertips, rather—has become the first source of top news: through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Status updates and tweets infiltrate news feeds (in which you can even select if you want to see the most popular posts or the most recent) and inform virtual friends and followers of top news—usually including the writer’s personal feelings on the subject. It almost becomes a competition to have the wittiest one-line comment on the matter, instead of the most intellectual, well-developed news report.

Take Osama Bin Laden’s death, for example. Late that Sunday evening, Facebook was flooded with the subject from patriotic exclamations to mobile-uploads from rallies to the simple “Bin Laden is dead.”

Site users worldwide were updated with this information simply by being “social.” Many people who would otherwise not be watching the news or reading an online paper at that time, but do frequently check their social networking sites or receive notifications to their phones, received and spread the news quite quickly. And the same holds true for even smaller scale news like sport event turnouts and television show finales.

Evidently, credible and prestigious news carriers aren’t necessarily needed for the simple informative part of news spreading. There’s no denying that people still follow up with real stories after encountering news off a social network, but there’s also no denying that many people don’t.

And aside from relying on peers, the New York Times itself can even be followed on Facebook and Twitter. So instead of connecting users to news reports, social networking sites may be nudging their way into being the news for many people.

 

 

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Share events and track participants with SocialMeety

December 8, 2010 By 1 Comment

A group of Brazilian developers and entrepreneurs is working on a new web service that will leverage social media’s power to help event organizers promote events and keep track of event participants.

“SocialMeety is a platform intended to help people promote events and track participants in the most used social networks,” Thiago Esteves says, one of the developers.

Unlike other tracking services SocialMeety will focus on events, which gives event planners an ability to measure social media’s influence on event attendance. Being able to measure it will help determine the future marketing strategy by focusing on social networks that provide highest marketing opportunities.

Each event will have a “Going?” button, for those who will be SocialMeety users. However, SocialMeety will crawl through Twitter to identify potential participants that did not use “Going?” button. Anyone tweeting about your event with Twitter hashtag #going will be marked as an event participant, Esteves says. They are looking into searching through other social networks, but they are not sure this will be available in the first release.

“Easy event sharing system that uses a tags concept, a ‘friends’ concept and an email notification feature to help people stay tuned about the events that most interest them,” are few other features you can expect to see on SocialMeety, says Esteves.

To help visitors remember where and when your event takes place SocialMeety will offer easy integration with popular calendars, including iCal, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and other.

Event planners should always be on a lookout for services that help them use social media more effectively, especially when they offer metrics about their participants, “how many social networks the participant uses, what is participant’s influence in Twitter and other networks.”

The first version of SocialMeety is scheduled to be available by February 2011. You can subscribe to an email alert to be notified when it happens on SocialMeety.com.

For original article, click here

Author: Viktor Nagornyy

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Without Media

September 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Do you think you could give up all social media for 24 hours? To clarify, this means no Internet, reading, television, cell phone, music, movies and video games for 24 hours.

DON’T PANIC. Stay calm and read on.

For one of my mass media classes at Hofstra University, my teacher, Professor Paul Mihailidis, challenged my class to going without media. Of course, when Mihailidis presented this assignment to the class, everyone had a thousand questions and worries. Everyone was terrified.

My initial reaction to the assignment was anxiety. I had to pick a day to complete the 24 hours, and that alone was hard enough, since I need my computer for work and the television for Entourage on Sunday nights. Just thinking about what 24 hours without social media would be like, I imagined a very lonely day, and knew I would have to prearrange activities for the day so that I would avoid my beloved Blackberry.

Here was the layout for the day: play with puppies at the Northshore Animal League for at least a few hours, have a nice, long dinner with my boyfriend, and attend a college kegger at night. The rest of the 24 hours I allotted to the necessary sleep I needed to catch up on.

Since I opened up my laptop the second I announced I was beginning the assignment, I initially failed. Ugh. I restarted the assignment after my boyfriend pointed out my failed attempted to me, and for the next nine hours I did successfully avoid all media. I have to admit, however, that I did use my boyfriend and my friends to make calls for me, since not using my cell phone really was my biggest concern for the day. I mean, can most people, especially smart phone users, honestly say their phone isn’t some source of comfort and security for them? I know I’m not the only one out their who will admit to this, especially since some of my classmates claimed they failed the assignment in under ten minutes because they just could not live without their phones. What does this say about our culture and our ties to media?

In this day and age, as far as I know, it is almost unheard of for anyone over the age of 16 not to have a phone. I got my first phone at 13 and I have been an addict ever since. My elementary school introduced me to the Internet at the tender age of five, and I rely on it for most of my work and to stay connected to friends and family here and abroad. At this point, I need to say a big thank you to Facebook, Wikiepdia and Sparknotes.

Most of my classmates claimed to have felt psychological effects from the absence of media in their lives, and even my teacher admitted to having failed the assignment miserably. This makes me wonder how those in society who are not connected get by, and having once been to Tanzania, I have a general idea. Tanzanians do not spend quality family time sitting in front of the television, nor do they BBM their friends during school to tell them how boring class is. Media has become a key part in our lives in our society, and maybe we need to think about some of the things we’re missing out on; closer ties with friends and family, deeper conversations, more productivity, and much needed sleep.

But let’s be real, once you go Blackberry, you never go back, and sorry, but Entourage is on. I got to watch!

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Advertising Using Social Media

July 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

If you consider this fact, that if Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world, then it is probably understandable how advertising on social media networks and search engines could be an immense help to your company or business.

I am probably not telling you anything new by saying that people are constantly connecting on social networks, but have you thought about how many people would view your ad by posting it on a social network or search engine?

Social Media has been around awhile now, beginning with Instant Messenger, message boards and forums. However, as Web 2.0 evolves, so do the social networks, and so does their impact. In this post, I will focus specifically on five main social networks, Facebook, Yelp, Google, Yahoo! and Foursquare and their beneficial uses for advertising.

Maybe it’s just me, but I definitely pay a lot of attention to the ads on the side of my Facebook page, especially since the ads are targeted specifically toward me, based on the interests I have listed on my own Facebook page. But again, I probably did not have to tell you that, at least not if you are a Facebook user. But the beauty of it for advertisers is also that people of all age ranges use the ultra-popular social network, so it is easy to target specific people. The ads are right there in your face and switch up every time you change pages, which is why Facebook is a great place for advertising.

Now, how many times have you used search engines Google or Yahoo!? Both of these search engines get millions of hits every day, so how many people do you think view the ads posted on these search engines? MILLIONS!

On Google, if you purchase ad space, your ad will reach people actively looking for information about your product or services. Moreover, what is unique about this form of advertising is that you pay for your ad only when people click on your ad. Google gives you the ability to create your ad and choose keywords and phrases related to your business. This is why when you search certain keywords or phrases in your Google search related ads come up along with your search results, which means the ads are targeting people who are already interested in what your business has to offer.

Yahoo! works a little differently. Yahoo! offers directory listings, but unfortunately, when you submit your company name into Yahoo! for consideration, the process can take a long time. Advertising on Yahoo! means you can advertise your business in search results on Yahoo! and other popular sites. You can put your business in front of potential customers when they search for what you sell. Yahoo!, however, does offer another option. You can choose to use Yahoo!’s Express Service for an annual fee of $299, although there is still no guarantee that your site will be listed, only that it will be reviewed in seven days.

Ok, so here is how advertising on Yelp works. First, any business owner or manager can set up a free Yelp account to post offers, photos and message his customers. Listing your business then leads to word of mouth advertising when other Yelp users go on and rate and review the business. Moreover, users can use Yelp to find events, special offers, lists and talk with other users, which also creates free advertising. Second, Yelp generates money by selling targeted advertising programs to local businesses. When a business purchases an ad on Yelp, the business gains exposure, so that anytime someone searches for a business like yours in your area, they will find you. When you purchase an advertising package on Yelp, which typically ranges from $300 to $1,000 per month, you can advertise your business as a sponsored search result and advertise on related business pages. This also includes a dashboard to track your results in the program.

The last social network I want to discuss, and one of my favorites, which I have even blogged about before, is Foursquare. Foursquare is completely free for businesses, which is the greatest part. Foursquare is all about people playing the game of Foursquare on their smart phones to generate business for companies. Every time a player “checks-in” to a business, this posts to their Foursquare network and can even be posted to their Twitter and Facebook accounts for other people to see. Anyone who sees this can learn about a company or business. What gets players to keep playing is the hope of earning points, badges, mayor ship of a place, and maybe even some coupons or free drinks at Starbucks, so people are constantly generating business for companies. How convenient!

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