The class cloud assignment was a great way to witness how and why
people react to various tweets. I feel that I learned a lot about what drives a
person to create tweets. I will use myself for my first example. At some point
in the class a comment was made regarding Jennifer Lawerence in which I
responded to the person by saying “you got that right.” We proceeded to
high-five each other and the class thought it was funny. Then he said I should
put it on Twitter. Once it was on Twitter though, the tweet received very few
likes. This showed me even though a group of people found something to be funny
it doesn’t necessarily means the others are going to be able to understand what
the context of the tweet is, which is probably why there were not more likes
and retweets. Something I found interesting is how often does get the chance to
be in the same location as someone who is tweeting about the same topic?
Probably not too often, so it was cool to be able to watch an individual say
something in the class then ten seconds later it be up on the Twitter feed. One
of the best moments of the class was when the professor showed a video from YouTube
of his daughter’s one year birthday party. By the time the video was over and
he refreshed the Twitter page, the same video had already been linked out. As
funny as his reaction was to seeing it on Twitter it definitely brought to
light some disturbing facts. For example, the speed at which the video was
linked out was less than a minute. That just shows how quickly a person can
post an image or video. I think it is kind of scary to know that someone can
post something that I am in and there is a chance I would not know about it.
Chances are a person never expects to get a tweet back from a celebrity and or
a big name company. I have never seen it occur until the class. One of the
students tweeted to Jet Blue and the company tweeted back to her. I looked them
up and they have over 1 million followers. For them to be able to take the time
to send a tweet to a specific person tells me there are companies that care greatly about what their customers
have to say. As for myself I sent a tweet to Facebook asking why they chose to
make the process of uploading videos go through a “middle man”. I did not
receive a response. At the same time I wasn't expecting to get one. This
assignment was great exercise. It definitely opened my eyes.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Online Reputation
Dustin, I looked you up online and found a lot of information on who
you are. Or at least who the internet says you are. Your LinkedIn, Facebook and other social
media sites helped me to gather my information. Everything below is what I was
able to learn.
I started off by looking for details in your professional life. What I found
was interesting. First up was LinkedIn. Based on what I found you are an
Intellectual Property Attorney at Superior IP located in Salt Lake City. You
went to college at the University of Washington where you graduated with a Bachelor
of Science in Electrical Engineering. Before then you graduated with your first
degree, Biochemistry, at Brigham Young University. Also you graduated from the
University of Maryland Baltimore with a Law degree. You are highly skilled at
working with patents and trademarking which brings me to believe your specialty
within law is patenting. You are a very
accomplished person for someone so young.
Suspecting
that this was not you I decided to check on your Twitter profile. What I found
there was pretty intriguing. For starters I did not know you were bald. Based
on your bio you are a “political professional”. Based on some of your retweets I
gathered you are a Republican who lives in the Woodland/Sacramento area of
California with your wife. There was a hyperlink attached to your bio that I clicked
on which took me to your professional website. There I found out you earned the
achievement of being able to call yourself an Eagle Scout. You studied
political science with an emphasis in public service at the University of
California Davis. You specialize in political campaigning, legislative
operations, policy development and volunteer organizations. Currently you serve
as Chairman of the Yolo County Republican Party and you are the youngest County
Chairman in the state of California. That sounds like a great accomplishment to
be able to tell people such a thing.
It seemed
like every link I clicked on, you were some form of an attorney or political affiliate.
So I decided to take a different approach and started to add attributes with
your name. The first one I added was Utah State and I finally found you. Your professional
LinkedIn account was the first to show up. After reading it I was able to
gather a little bit of information about you. You consider yourself to be an
entrepreneur. Also, you currently work at Keepsake Cottage Home Interiors as a
secretary. Based on that information I gathered you like fashion and being able
to create decorations.
The last
item I checked was Facebook. This was by
far the easiest way to find you, mainly because we have a shared group in
common with one another. When I went to your profile I was not able to find too
much about you due to your settings. Based on what I could see I was able to
gather you enjoy traveling and being with your friends. A few years ago you
were, and possibly still are, close to a girl name Keiyana. You and your mother
have a close relationship with each other.
After
researching you this is what I have come to conclude. You have a very common
name so it can be rather difficult for people to find you online. The most
looked up people with your name are political figures and attorneys. This also
tells me something else. You do not bolster your life on social media. If you
do, a person would have to know what attributes to search under your name.
Based on your FaceBook page I gathered you are somewhat a private person who
does not mind allowing people to see small aspects of your life. The downside of
having such a common name is you need to have something to help you stand out
from others with your name especially when someone is looking at your LinkedIn.
So I would consider expanding more on your professional page. Remember the
world is becoming more active on social media so make yourself easier to find.
Legal, Policies, and Ethics
There are many issues surrounding this topic and there are lots of
research papers posted to the internet discussing these matters. There is a
very fine line between social media, legal and ethics.
I looked at an article from the website “usatoday” and what I found
from there was pretty interesting. One of the biggest topics that was discussed
in this article is the ethical issue with social media being used for academic
research. Where the issue lies in this
is private companies are gathering vast amounts of information from individuals’
private accounts. Through this mining of online communication it has aided in
giving new insight into all aspects of everyday life. Personally, I think this instance
is a good thing because these companies such as, Microsoft and Facebook, have
been able to identify key items in people’s lives. Microsoft has used its data
to help identify women who are at risk of postpartum depression and Facebook has
been able to show how parents and kids interact. What they found is the
interaction between them drops at the age of 13 until the child moves out. The argument
to this is, is it ethical for a company to be able to store your information
you have into their databases? I think if it is for research to help identify
and find solutions to everyday life problems then yes. If not, then no because
technically it is an invasion of privacy.
The next article I read discussed seven ethical dilemmas faced in
content marketing. The list this article came up with were invasion of privacy,
spamming, public bashing, dishonesty and distortions, distorted endorsements
and improper anonymity, misuse of free expertise and contests, and opportunism.
I found it intriguing that spamming was listed as unethical because it is such
a common thing to happen to people that I do not really think about it. What
makes it unethical is the manner in which messages are broadcasted. Usually
users are deceived through a trail of twitter and Facebook posts. I know I have
been a victim of this and I cannot stand when a post shows up on my “wall” of
one thing then when I click on it, it takes me to a completely different link
than what I was under the impression I was going to.
Is it okay for companies to gather data from the information you have
put on your personal page? Is it right for a company to send you links that
take you to a site that is not associated with the link? The simple answer is
no. At the same time the web was created where anything goes and the rules don’t
apply which has created numerous problems. These ethical issues will never go
away so what can a person do to avoid this? Simply be aware and careful of what
you decide you want others to see online.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Collaborative and Distance Communication Platforms and Tools
In today’s society the idea of going an entire day without having a way
to communicate other than face to face would have a person go insane. How can
you blame them though? With how fast paced the world is needing a constant
connection to everything is important. There are many distance communication
platforms out there and the two I’m going to talk about are Oovoo and SnapChat.
I bet a vast of amount of the readers have not heard of Oovoo before so
I will give a little history. Oovoo is a video chat service similar to Skype
that began it services in the year 2007. In the first article I read it
discusses how Oovoo became the teenager’s favorite way to video chat. I actually
can agree with that statement. I say that because Oovoo was the first form of
video chatting I did when the chat first went live. One of the biggest benefits
I found was during that time Oovoo and skype were somewhat competing and Oovoo
offered free conference calls with up to six people in a party and 12 if you
had a subscription. In the article it talks about how Oovoo was never trying to
target a young audience rather the company solely wanted to provide quality
service to anyone. It caught on with teenagers because of the features that
make it more fun to use. Now the company is ranked in the top twenty on the
technology brands on FaceBook.
The next platform is SnapChat. Ever since this photo and video sharing
app surfaced I have been hooked. I like
to think of this company as the future “walkie-talkie” form of communication. I
say that because to me the app symbolizes a walkie-talkie. Think about it, a
person can have a full-on conversation with another person without ever having
to directly seeing them. In the article I read it discusses why kids love to
use SnapChat and the overall consensus came down to because it is not FaceBook.
SnapChat has widely been known as the “sexting” app but only a small quantity
of pictures and videos are related to that subject. One of the big reasons why
people love the app so much is the ability to control how long a person can see
your images and on top of that everything gets deleted after the time limit has
expired. Having control over this form of media is It is a “trend worth
following because it runs counter to the ways most tech companies are trying to
monetize social media.” The idea that people have control of their data is
considered to be new and for FaceBook it is at odds with its underlying paradigm.
Since the users are in control SnapChat can keep up with the rate of change
kids go through in social media.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/12/19/wait-a-minute-facebook-the-kids-like-snapchat-because-its-not-facebook/
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Location Based Platforms
When I first looked at the assignment and saw we were to
write on Location Based Platforms I was definitely at a loss for what any of
those words meant. With a little bit of research I found some interesting
items. In an article I read it talked about how the future of location based
apps will shape the way we shop in stores. By now most of us know that many
platforms/applications used involve having to turn on our location features on
our phones. Imagine you are walking around Walmart trying to find some items.
Only problem is you have no idea where to look and there are no customer
service representatives. I bet it would be nice to have an app that can tell
where to locate any item you might be looking for. That is exactly what a
company named Aisle 411 on a smaller scale. This company has mapped out every Walgreens
drugstore. All a person has to do is enable their location feature, type in
what they are looking for and the app will tell you exactly where to find the
item. As technology becomes more sophisticated I can see this happening on a broader
scale like in Walmart.
There are some pretty nifty things that can come out of
Location Based Services, but with good there is also bad. Personally, unless I need
my location feature on for something specific I keep it off for a few reasons. It
helps conserve my battery life and most importantly I like my privacy. In the
scholarly article Time for a Privacy Check-in it states, “Depending upon the
information and who learns it, the ramifications could range from annoying to
embarrassing to downright dangerous. Robberies have been linked to location
status updates and GPS technology already has been involved in a significant
number of stalking cases.” This is a big issue with LBS. Location information
can be gathered knowingly or unknowingly to the user and when this happens it
can spell trouble because someone who is looking at the information not only
can tell where you are, over time they can pick up what a possible routine is
for the user. As long as the location feature is enabled information is
constantly being transmitted and it is stored indefinitely. What scares me is
in the article there is discussion on how LBS have the potential to compile a
large quantity of history of where the user has been. Talk about invasion of
privacy.
I think there are upsides and downsides to having such
features as the LBS. There can be a lot of great uses like not being able to
get lost. At the same time I feel there is a general concern for the amount of
privacy lost by deciding to use it.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Pizza Delivery Guy Gets Last Laugh
What it is the fasted way to get the internet to go crazy
with comments? Simple, all you have to do is put a video online of a pizza
delivery guy doing his job and the recipients berating him. In today’s world a
person has a better chance at getting away with a speeding ticket than thinking
a person can hide from the wrath social media. What happened to the pizza guy
was a cruel display of a group believing they were better and had more
power. The group of individuals were
probably thinking or in this case, not thinking, the footage from the security
video would not make it to the internet. I can only imagine how the delivery
guy felt as they talked down on him. Something I would like to know is why is
it when people are put into a position of power they think it is okay to abuse
it?
In the first article I read it appears the driver was
clearly confused about the situation. I for one believe a food bill in the
amount of $42 dollars deserves at least the five dollar tip. What made me get
angry was hearing the dialogue that took place. When the driver asked about the
additional money the employee clearly stated he knew he gave the extra money so
he can have the opportunity to call the pizza company to have the driver go
back to give it back to them. I feel that was so senseless. At one point in the
video the female is heard saying to the driver to get out of the office before
she sticks her foot up his “ass.” I think for this situation it was a good
thing the security camera had audio capabilities because without it the pizza
company would have probably made the decision to fire the driver. I was brought
with the teachings of treat others the way you want to be treated. I say this
because throughout the video you see the driver maintaining his composure and
staying respectful while the transgressors steadily make the situation more and
more destructive. I was glad to see towards the end of the article the owners
of the dealership approached the manager of the pizza company to personally
apologize numerous times. I tried to find information on whether the employees
made a personal apology to the driver or were reprimanded for their actions but
I could not find any information.
So now, what happens when the social media gets a hold of a
video such as this? They go crazy with it! I already said I was not able to
find information on the employees being punished but what I thought was
interesting is the amount of people who began supporting the driver, and in
some ways did their own form of social justice. One of the ways was they left
negative comments in the reviews of the company. I think it is safe to say that
the power of numerous negative reviews can easily break a company. This makes
me wonder if the reason the owners of the dealership made it a priority to
personally apologize was to get back on the public’s good side. To show how
much support the driver had, there were donation pages created for him so he
could receive his tip. Here is the crazy part, in only two days the donations
were passed $22,000 dollars! I understand that people felt bad for him getting
stiffed on a tip, at the same time I think it was a little bit overboard on the
amount that was raised for what some might say was a rare case of bad tippers.
Also, I feel this type of situation happens all over the Country, so I am
curious to know what details made this particular case so special to people. I
was able to find a plethora of videos on YouTube of employees being mistreated
by others yet they did not receive any type of national attention. I imagine that the delivery guy’s life has
changed drastically due to this encounter with social media. It kind of makes
me want to get a pizza delivery job in hopes of something like this would
happen to me. This entire situation from
the negative reviews posted to the outlandish amount of money raised shows how
powerful social media can be. It also puts into perspective how far some people
are willing to go to show support for another.
The fact that this incident was happened privately and eventually given
to the world can evoke some thoughts of caution. People need to be cautious of
the material they post online because all it takes is one person to share it
and another person’s life can be changed.
http://www.eater.com/2015/1/16/7559921/internet-bands-together-to-raise-22000-for-stiffed-pizza-driver
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Platforms
These days people are looking to
connect with others through many different platforms from FaceBook, LinkedIn,
etc. It has even gotten to the point that phone game apps give the user the
opportunity to communicate with other players. With so many platforms to
communicate on it is no wonder why face-to-face communication is declining
among our generation.
Ladies and gentleman I give you
the greatest phone app a college student has student has ever come across: Yik
Yak!
This app has been around for a little over a year and it has
taken college campuses by storm. With
this app users are able to post anonymously and can say whatever they desire as
long as it is within the 200 character limit. One of the great features of this
Platform is the creators made it so that only other users within a 1.5 mile
radius can send other post and comments that show up on your feed. One of the
problems that arises with a platform like this is it opens up the realm of
cyber bullying, which is becoming more prevalent in today’s society. Although
many of the posts happen to jokes and one-liners, there have been posts made of
confessions made of heinous crimes.
Up next we have the Platform that pretty went extinct the
moment FaceBook got big. Let’s be honest though, this was pretty much the
original Face Book. I give you MySpace. At the peak of its existence MySpace
was considered a “Titan” of social media. With a title like that it can a
person wonder what had to go wrong for such a strong Platform to almost become
non-existent? According to the Bloomberg Business Week Magazine a compilation
of mismanagement, a merger gone wrong and countless strategic blunders sent MySpace
to its grave. Like many other Social Media Platforms MySpace made its money
from advertisements. The issue with this was users started to become annoyed
with the increased use of ads on their homepage. Now starting to make a small
comeback MySpace is becoming a Platform to use if a person wants to create an
identity in the music industry.
I think few of the items which makes MySpace and YikYak such
different platforms are the way content is presented. On YikYak there is a
target audience of college students. So much so that they created what is
called a “geofence.” This geofence is a barrier which disallows users on High
School campuses from using the app. Also the fact that it’s anonymous makes it
more of a “free-for-all” type platform. I like to think of MySpace as the unprofessional
LinkedIn page. Its main purpose is to connect people and socialize.
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