From Farmville to Social Network

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Kerri

Internet gaming has held a long-reigning popularity since the beginning of the Internet itself. Web-users have always looked to the computer to pass time and to play opponents in all kinds of fun ways from puzzles, to word games, to action-battling games and even virtual board games. What we now see though is a turn from just online gaming to social media gaming.

The ever popular online gaming company, Zynga, has more than 250 million users on Facebook alone. This company develops browser-based games that work both on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Google + and even just as application widgets on mobile devices. Games like Farmville and Words with Friends are as accessible as social media sites themselves and allow you to actually interact with your friends and chat with them while playing. Now, we see this company expanding in an attempt to change the online-gaming world.

“Zynga with Friends,” a new social network for gamers was released by Zynga Inc. on Tuesday. Game players can now make profiles and chat with other users either on mobile devices or on desktop computers. According to senior Zynga executive, Manuel Bronstein, it is “one network, one unified experience, and one social lobby that will for the first time connect all of our players, no matter what they’re playing.”

Bronstein says that the features and services are designed for bringing more people to play together. Facebook’s reach of 1 billion users has definitely helped Zynga’s games gain popularity but the company is hoping to seek independence in order to grow since Facebook’s expansion has been slowing down.

As this company gains its independence, it is probable that we will see an increase in social media gaming competitors. This site will certainly be achieving the popularity it intended to receive by allowing us to meet new people and communicate with our old friends while playing the games we love.

Journalist Live Tweets While Caught in War Time Crossfire

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Eileen M.

With over 100 million active users and 50 million users daily, it’s fair to say that Twitter is one of the most dominant social media platforms available. For those of you who may have been living under a rock and don’t know what it is, Twitter allows you to post tweets, which are 140 character posts. But Twitter, in addition to being a continual stomping ground for idiotic celebrity quotes, is also a place where real news can be reported. Take for instance Mustafa Kazemi, a journalist who had the unfortunate luck of being caught in the crossfire between Taliban forces and Afghan security forces.

Kazemi was reporting on a Taliban siege near Kabul, Afghanistan on Friday, June 22, when he was caught in the crossfire between the opposing forces. Known for Tweeting about the ongoing war in Afghanistan, he live Tweeted during the 11 hour siege which ended killing 20. The hotel, which is a waterfront building, was the scene of an hours-long hostage situation. Two other journalists, Martin Kuz and Ahmad Muktar, also risked life and limb to cover the situation, although they were not with Kazemi at the time.

Kazemi tweeted amazing photos of the siege, including the hotel itself, a hovering UH-60 helicopter, and a picture of Kazemi curled up, avoiding live fire was also posted. Afterwards, he posted pictures of spent shell casings. As a firsthand witness to the siege, Kazemi saw dead bodies in the aftermath of the battle. His experiences were harrowing and terrifying, and brought to life with an immediacy that network news can’t rival.

Everyone knows that social media is a real time way of communicating. Your immediate thoughts and feelings, whatever happens to float through your mind at a particular time. But as journalism continues to evolve in the face of changing media, situations like this are more likely. Just as Edward R. Murrow did live radio broadcasts from London during the Blitz, as William Shirer broadcast from Germany during the Second World War, and Eric Sevareid broadcast from Yugoslavia, journalists will continue to report on wartime events using the mediums of their age. This is one of the first examples of the new style of reporting but definitely not the last.

Pictures Trump Words in Our Visual Society

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Kerri

A picture is worth a thousand words and so much more. Our society has grown to be such a visual culture that photo sharing has become our way of communicating. Camera phones have made capturing unexpected memories easier over the years but now we have a way our actually sending those photos out to tell your friends and family stories: social media.

No matter where you are, you can always check and update your social media sites thanks to our improved technologies of laptops, tablets and smart phones. While the quality of these devices increases, so does amount of content that people put on their sites as well as the competition between different social sites such as Facebook and Google. These social networks look for new ways to make their sites more unique and easier to use than the other.

Now, when we look at our Facebook accounts, much of what we see is pictures rather than statuses. Our friends post pictures as a way of telling us where they are and who they are with. That friend can tag the location and other people in the photo as a way of attaching quick information rather than a long explanation of the picture. It seems that picture posting is snowballing as our society has become so visually based. Pinterest shows the evidence in this.

Pinterest is a social media site that has grown to be one of the top rated and used sites in the world. This site features pictures to tell about new products, home dÃ©cor, travel and fashion, rather than detailed wordy descriptions. It features these photos in a classy way and as studies show that consumers are more likely to shop on Pinterest than Facebook, it is obvious that a picture is all we need to sell us.

Facebook and Google + have both recently updated their layouts to include larger photos or â€˜cover photos’ which allows its’ users to select a picture that they think would best represent their social networking page. Looking at pictures is obviously a lot quicker and easier than reading; however, everyone sees things differently. This poses the question: how can we be sure that our pictures will mean the correct thousand words to everyone who sees them?

Global Sports Go Social in a Big Way

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Eileen M.

Millions of people all over the world have been watching the Euro 2012, the European soccer championship that occurs every four years and is restricted to just European soccer clubs. The Union of European Football Associations, has made a major push towards social media awareness across both Facebook and Twitter, as well as having a mobile app. The new exposure that the UEFA has worked towards has definitely reaped some major benefits, as their Facebook page has garnered 350,000 likes since the beginning of June. So what lessons can the organizers for the upcoming Olympics learn from this?

The journalism surrounding these events has changed because of social media, according to David Farrelly, the head of the UEFA. So the Olympic organizers should take advantage of the mediums in their entirety. Social media platforms are free to use, so use them! If you’re trying to bring attention to something, and soccer is definitely still fighting for a bigger share of the US sports market, then Facebook and Twitter are the ways to go. There are a multitude of different platforms to use so find the one that fits you the best and go from there.

For the Euro 2012 and the Olympics, Facebook and Twitter are logical outlets. Facebook groups with active engagement will help draw legions of fans in. The 350,000 new UEFA likes are proof positive of this. It does help that many of the European soccer clubs already have an active social media presence. Spain and the U.K. have a lock on “social media use and engagement,” according to Mashable.

As soccer is the most popular and widely played sport in just about every national market except for the United States, social media could be a great way to build the sport’s popularity in the United States. The Olympics, the world sports showcase, is watched by over a billion people. But the growth of the popularity could always increase and social media would be an excellent way to do that as well. The last Winter Olympics in Vancouver was a good start for this process, as athletes made liberal use of Twitter to post regular updates. But maybe they should take it a step further this year and try to take over different areas of social media as well. Instagram would be a wonderful way for attendees and athletes to really share the Olympic experience.

The Olympics are a special thing, and even though the luster might have dimmed now that there are Games every two years, but social media can truly help redefine the Olympic experience for many of those millions of people watching every day during July. The Olympic organizers have already started the process, and hopefully they keep going in this direction.

New 3D Mapping Technology Comes at a Price: Your Privacy

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Pam

Imagine laying out in the privacy of your own backyard while airplanes are overhead, secretly filming you.

Well, no need to imagine. Google and Apple have employed “hi-tech mapping airplanes” fashioned with military-grade cameras to produce aerial images of towns, cities, and your own home. According to the Daily Mail, these high tech cameras will be able to film through windows and anywhere else on any type of property for the sake of new and improved virtual maps.

How is this any different from Google Earth, you might ask?

Unlike Google Earth, which utilizes satellite imaging, these privacy-infringing cameras are said to be similar to those used by the military. They can be installed onto airplanes, helicopters, and drones. The photographs can be taken at a height of 1,600 ft., and are capable of photographing objects that are merely just four inches wide. Additionally, these “spy planes” allow for high quality and detailed imaging ofâ€¦anything.

“Google has admitted to having sent planes over cities, while Apple has acquired a firm using spy-in-the-sky technology that has been tested on at least 20 locations, including London.”

We seem to think 3D maps are cool and convenient, right? We can see our own house, our neighbor’s house, even a town on the other side of the globe. We can virtually visit any country on the planet without ever having touched feet to ground. If we drive into uncharted territory, we can just whip out our iPhones and open a map app. The world has become smaller with social media marketing sites like Facebook bringing different cultures together without ever having to meet.

Like any new technology, the good is sometimes outweighed by the bad. At what cost will these aerial spies come? Will we forfeit our own physical privacy with the adaptation of these spy planes? What do you think?

Protecting Your Brand and Online Rep

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Takara Alexis

These days, anything can be searched and posted on the Internet, whether true or not. In order for your brand to survive in the digital world, you need to make sure you safeguard it from any untrue stories or even information that you don’t want leaked for the public.

Creating social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is crucial and completely beneficial if you want to start promoting your brand and build a strong online presence. That’s just a start. Of course a comment on a social media site is easily removed and you control what your company or business publishes on your own website, but what about an annoyed customer or disgruntled former employee creating a nasty blog about your brand and launching it across the Internet?

Something you could use to be made aware of anything posted on the Internet about you is to set up Google Alerts that can notify you via email about anytime your name or brand name appears on the web. You could also create and post some interesting and informative YouTube videos since they rank pretty high on Google search. These types of posts can easily push any negative feedback about your brand off of the first and second pages of Google.

Responding to any comments posted by happy customers or clients on your social media accounts or website always helps and reinforces positive feedback any day of the week. Engaging is always a way to push negative posts down. If an apology needs to be made, posting it on one of these sites or in response to an angry comment shows how loyal your brand is to its customers and that you take responsibility for your actions and any mistakes made.

Of course you won’t be able to control or fix every negative rant that is posted about you or your business on the Internet. Not everyone is going to like you or what your brand promotes and stands for. IF you can catch most of the harsh feedback early on, one or two bad comments or blogs won’t destroy your entire brand.

The NBA Revolutionizing Sports and Social Media

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Michael G.

As we all know social media sites have become extremely popular over the past few years and the impact from these sites is being felt in many different industries. Since the emergence of social media sites the world has really changed. Everywhere you go you are basically guaranteed to see something that has to do with social media, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other site. Social media has also had a very big impact on the sports world as well. These social media sites have also contributed greatly to the growing popularity of the smart phone, because people enjoy using their phone to access their social media accounts.

Every night on ESPN’s SportsCenter they have a segment where fans can tweet them their favorite plays of the night to air on that nights “Top 10.” Since Twitter has become extremely popular there are so many prominent sports figures with twitter accounts and a lot of them tweet daily. These social media sites have also began to serve as a news source for sports fans as well. Every time there is a major transaction, trade, injury, or anything else news worthy the quickest way to find out about it is by checking your twitter timeline.

The NBA has really bought into the whole idea of social media and they have been marketing social media as a big aspect of this past season. They are also encouraging all people associated with the league to join the social media world. Right now the NBA has the most recognizable and marketable superstars of any of the four major sports, and all of these superstars are very much involved in social media. In the NBA its announcers, pregame and postgame casts, and even the commissioner all have twitter handles and they can be seen on the screen below the person’s name.

Tonight the NBA is hosting its first ever “Social Media Awards.” This is not only a first for the NBA but this is the first time there has ever been an award show based strictly off of social media. In tonight’s show the NBA will be rewarding the amazing plays shared most on Facebook, the most tweeted about moments, and the highlights that blew up the digital stratosphere. They will also offer a list of the most trended NBA topics throughout the season and the most popular photos found on social media sites from this past season. The NBA has officially begun the revolution of social media in sports, and it is just a matter of time until other professional leagues follow in the footsteps of the NBA.

Tune in to NBA TV tonight at 9 pm to see the first ever “Social Media Awards!”

Social Media Saves a Friendship

Posted on June 23, 2012 by Kerri

If someone had told me that when I met my best friend in 8^th grade, we would one day have a friendship based on the internet, I would have believed them just as much as I didn’t want to believe her when she told me at the end of junior year that she would be moving from New York to Utah. My best friend in the entire world was moving across the country; the only person that knew more about me than I did myself. The girl who for the past three and a half years had been my shoulder to cry on, my favorite person to laugh with and my “partner in crime,” would no longer be living just around the block from me. There was no one in the world that could replace her, so how was I supposed to get through what was supposed to be the best year of my life – my senior year of high school – without her? Social Media.

Connecting with people online is easy. Social media creates virtual friendships so that you have someone to talk to at any given time. I always used social networking sites to talk to my classmates that I already saw in school every day, but it was never an absolute necessity in my life until I suddenly needed to keep in touch with my new Utahan best friend, Ashley. Could social media keep our long-distance friendship alive?

I can honestly say, yes. Three years later, I am still closer with my friend who lives across the country than with any person who lives in my own neighborhood. If we had lived decades ago, in the age of mail and telephone calls for communication, I don’t think that my answer would have been the same. With today’s technology, we can look at each other’s pictures and stay updated on what is going on within our lives every day. No matter the social media medium – Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest – Ashley and I are always connected in so many ways at all times.

We now see one another two weeks out of the year, when she comes to New York and I go to Utah. One might think that a close friendship couldn’t actually be maintained on just two weeks of face-to-face communication a year, but surprisingly it has. As social media has taken over all other types of communication, I think that our friendship is better off existing in the online world than if we were waiting to send letters back and forth. Call me lazy, but I find it so much easier to check her status update to see how her day was than it is to pick up the phone and call her after I’ve had a long day at school and work. I am able to visit her vicariously through pictures and videos and we can even “hang out” using Facetime on our iPhones. No, this isn’t a traditional friendship, but this modern long-distance relationship works.

In today’s society, we are always rushing. There isn’t always time to preserve a long-distance relationship like ours but social media definitely makes it a whole lot easier. Social media is easy to use on-the-go due to its accessibility and ability to use whenever we want. Since Utah is two hours behind Eastern Time, it isn’t always conventional to have a conversation at the same time. Often times, she will send me a Facebook message when I’m already asleep and I can just answer it in the morning before school at my own convenience. We still share our most important pieces of information with each other without having to rely on the U.S. Postal Service or wait for the right time to return a phone call. Ten or even five years ago, a friendship like ours may not have survived, but I truly believe that in this situation, social media has saved us.