New Technology

   In the words of Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants, "FUUUUTURE."


    We're all worried about it. Grades, graduation, babies, relationships, work, lack of work, car, payments bills. This is most definitely a non-exhausted list and even with this abbreviated list of possible future events we can feel overwhelmed and intimidated. Obviously there are a lot of things to have hope about and look forward to in the future but sometimes it can be scary. However, amid all of those major life events and decision we will move into the future with some pretty awesome technological advances working their way into our lives and hopefully will make those large decision easier, smoother, or more realistic just because of technologies addition to the equation.


   One very specific technology that I want to mention is bendable screens! What!? A screen that bends? Yes. LG has released recently their innovation of screens that bend.

These screens can bend up, down, left, right and basically act like a piece of paper with a little more limited flexibility. The image on the screen are intense and very much high quality and bend with the screen almost flawlessly.
   One comparison used in an article by Lisa Eadicicco is that of a newspaper-like ability to bend. But I don't think this is its real potential. And it sounds expensive for newspaper route boys to toss a bunch of bendable screen around their neighborhood every morning. Of course, Lisa isn't implying they will take the place of newspapers but I don't think they will either.

   My prediction is they will be used on your forearm to use as a personal computer and/or cell phone. They will attach like a bracelet only bigger. They will connect to wi-fi and network data to allow you the ability to walk and use your arm as your personal little social media home. You could potentially get multiple that would connect to each other and you track heart rate, blood pressure, all sorts of medical readings constantly throughout the day and it wouldn't even bother you because since it will just be flat and attached to you. They would look like those shooting sleeves that basketball players wear sometimes but no one knows what they are used for. The difference is they will have a purpose and there will be plenty of purposes.

   As far as social media goes it would be fun to see you scroll through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram right on your arm. Then you could change between all of those right on the spot. Work out updates and workout apps would work much smoother than having to carry a cell phone around in your pocket or get a case specific for holding the phone. The problem with even the phone holding cases is that you can't use them while you run. In the future you will be able to tweet the heck out of your run because we all know everyone is super interested in where and how you are running.

Mobile Apps Vs Browser Apps

   Growing up in my house we really didn't have internet at home and the computer was a rarely used thing. That isn't to say we were one of those families that reads books all the time, we spent our fair share of time on the TV. But it wasn't until I got to college that I started consistently using a computer with applications for various different purposes. I did have a phone before a lot of my peers but the smartphone didn't happen for me until I was in my early 20's and got to experience a hold new world of technology that had already begun developing around me years earlier.


   From that perspective I give my thoughts on the differences between a desktop and browser applications verses a mobile phone applications. I transitioned straight into the mobile phone apps without even thinking about it. I would download the app, play around with it and would decide whether or not to keep it after roughly one day. The desktop application were very different. It would take strong coercion and force just to get me to download an application and even then I would only use it when absolutely necessary. So you could say that I lean more toward generally liking mobile apps more.

   What is interesting to me after seeing my own personal experience with the transition from nothing to applications was that a very similar occurrence took place but on a much larger scale. According to PCWORLD.com when Apple launched the app store everyone freaked out, got their apps and it happened so fast that we can't even remember living in a world without mobile apps. Slowly but sure the mac store got going and windows is still getting to their app store. Wow. It seems like a total parallel. I jumped on the apps bandwagon and then eventually joined the browser app scene and the world followed that same pattern. I guess I should really say that I followed the world's pattern.

   It would seem that mobile apps are then superior and/or cooler than our desktop friends. However, in an article by Sondra Hart while she is making a list of keep differences between the two options she does make several great points. One point she makes is that, obviously, mobile apps are on smaller screens. Now I don't to use that every single phone screen is smaller than any given laptop screen but for the sake of the argument we can all acknowledge that the majority of the time we see a much smaller application option for our mobile buddies. Another important note, which also could vary between computer types and phone types is the speed of the applications. When using a computer you will generally have a faster processor and it makes the actual transitions much smoother and gives you more of the experience you are hoping for during your surfing of the online web.

   One thing I can definitely attribute to desktop and browser apps is that my typing has great improved since I've started using them because if this were 10 years ago I would still be part way through the first paragraph I bet!

Viral Videos

    Is there anything sweeter or anything more bitter on the internet than a viral video? Think about it. While the cat falling, man dancing, or thing happening is getting traction and it is the first time you've seen it then it is fantastic, hilarious and almost life changing. We can agree the whole Harlem Shake phenomenon was, at the very least, entertaining the first time we saw it. Then we got to enjoy the fox song video... ok, maybe not every viral video is awesome the first time you hear it.


   An article about what makes these videos go viral by the New York Times explains that their ability to catch on and turn into the viral videos we come to love or hate is based off of well... love and hate. In their words happy and sad emotions are the key factor. But not just normal happy and sad, we are talking about the extremes of both emotions. It would be safe to assume that happy would encompass the funny and hilarious videos out there. Obviously there are hundreds of opinions as to why the video are as successful as they are in whatever setting the come.

   The setting itself should play a role as well. There are many different media or sources that feed into the viral video world. Some examples include large companies, small companies, viral video makers, random person, random camera timing, etc... And on top of all of those the video could've been intentional, accidental, or intended for one purpose and took off for another. As for the company and commercial videos Thales S. Teixeira says the key is to help the sender as much as it does the advertiser. Whatever that means...

   Now to the real question, what the heck is a viral video? Think about it, we use the phrase, "it went viral" all the time but is there really a moment when that happens? If we are talking about a city then a couple thousand videos could be considered viral. In a state it could be several million. Getting up to a country it could be hundreds of millions and with the world it could potentially be over 1 billion.

   But does that even imply the volume of its reach will get to everyone it could have? For example, while I was on my mission the KONY 2012 video came out and I still have no idea what it is or really what it is about. The same thing ended up happening with the fox song video. I eventually watched the video but only for about three seconds before I got bored and moved on with my life. And are TV shows viral video?.. Food for thought.

Tagging

   Isn't the idea of tagging just awesome? Think of it, if you knew multiple languages and knew lots of individuals from all around the world then the variety of opinions, thoughts and insights on any given topic, basically anywhere in the world, could be right at your finger tips at any given time. With just a few typed words or a couple clicks you could get yourself into a whole mess of wonderful discussion and topics that you might've not have even imagined before jumping on your virtual surfboard and riding the world wide web of information and sometimes too strong of opinion.

   Now these crazy opinions from all over the world aren't just available to our bilingual and trilingual friends, but even in your own language the connections can be seemingly infinite and constantly growing. Just imagine you heard the news about our buddy Lebron James taking his talents back to Cleveland, Ohio and all the information you got in that first snippet of news was your buddy texting you with a bunch of exclamation points and some vague attempt at telling you Bron Bron was making his way back home.

   This situation while made up could've been very real in the lives of many teen and twixters around the country. And it was a reality when Jabari Parker committed to Duke. In an article by James Harper he talks about how critical and important hashtags were during that moment. Lots of people found out very quickly what Jabari had decided based off of all the hashtags that had been created about him or Duke or Michigan State (who came up a little short in the sweepstakes).

   But back to our Lebron example. You hear something about him headed to Cleveland and what is the first thing you are going to do? Well, in an article by Constant Contact they talk about why these hashtags are so important but then talk about tagging through hyperlink. And that is just what you are going to do. You get on your most reliable search engine, type in a few key word from the story and go in "search" (pun intended) of your desired information. Several clicks through a few pages and you find yourself deeper and deeper into a list of page-back options and you've clicked one tag after another and then another. Might I add that one of the great things about tagging is that you can use tags that are location based and will allow you to be able to see what other people are saying around you whether you are in Ohio, Miami, Utah or France.

   Tagging to connect and create has been one of the many reasons the internet becomes more and more powerful everyday. And jumping on the power of tagging is social media itself. We'll see how much more complicated and great a tag will become in the future.

Management Platforms and Tools

   So in preparation for this blog post about management platforms in social media I have been looking into specific aggregators for all of my different social media accounts which is really just Facebook but all of my little secondary accounts have helped me to know more about the website Hootsuite.


   From what I can tell it basically just takes all of your social media accounts and stuffs them into one super account that you can use to see everything that is going on in your social media life. So I made a Hootsuite account and threw Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn onto my "stream" and watched to see what happens. And the answer? Nothing, they just show up like their regular selves with a wall or page of some sort with all of the new information you need to see.

   With all of this information now at my finger tips I felt a new level of power, like I could take over the world or even save the world! Depending on if I go the Anakin or Luke route in my personal adventures. Now, because of the lack of sarcasm that comes through the written word I would like to take this time to say my whole first line of this paragraph was sarcasm. Why? Because I already had all of those things at my fingers tips and so it really doesn't do much for me and the present time. Also, the fact that I do have all of those things really doesn't give me power to take over the world in case you didn't pick up on that.

 Even all of the reasons listed on the Social Media Today website don't really give me enough incentive to convert my whole social media life to my Hootsuite account. The big problem I have is that I basically have a social media aggregator right now... it's called a smartphone. Isn't that exactly what I already do with my social media apps? I put them all on my phone, swipe through them in under a second and connect and receive notifications for as many or as few as I want. I'm sure that there are individuals out there that can find some use for these types of programs, or even productive uses for these programs, but my current lifestyle and needs do not require something like this idea or set up.

    While I might not have found any personal use you productive uses for an individual that does not mean this couldn't be effective for a product, brand, company, or organization. In an article from Entrepreneur.com they do lay out some of the possible websites or programs that could be effective for your company to use. This would only make sense if you had a bunch of different marketing tools in your social media platforms and needed to monitor activity and happening of a lot of different conversations at the same time.

   Well, as always, the the choice is yours as to whether or not you would like to use an aggregator program, and if you do chose to do so please leave a comment explaining why you think it is a good idea and what some of the pros are in having one. Maybe you'll just convince me!


 

Organizational Uses

     With the seemingly infinite number of organizations in this world it would be considered difficult, and for small businesses impossible, to establish a strong online identity without having large sums of money and huge amount of resources to pour into online advertising and marketing. It is clear that while not all marketing an organization is done or should be done online there is still a very large chunk of their efforts being poured into the world wide web as a source to get their message out as quickly as possible and to as many different individuals, groups or other organizations as possible.


   All of these potential readers and seers of online advertising, marketing or just online presence pose a problem. How do we reach all of them without a great deal of power to back up these internet campaigns? Well, thanks to a relatively new and well know medium we can see a glimmer of hope and maybe a possible solution to that problem. Let's take a look at a small business perspective and how social media might play into an established online presence. There is a business in Honeyville Utah that focuses on selling homemade honey to as many locals and nearby customers as possible. Their information can be found at their Honey Jar website and it seems like great local business with some fun potential.


    But now let's look at a problem they might face. Let's say they only have about a dozen employees, most of them are focused completely on taking care of the bees and honey, and the rest are so consumed by other responsibilities in the business that they can't run all of the online marketing on top of their already demanding workload. They could hire someone to be in charge of the digital marketing process but really the profit margins haven't been booming off the charts at a high enough rate that they could afford to hire someone for such a task. What then could be done? (This is where social media applies and a great article from Kelsey Humphreys highlights exactly how this could be accomplished if you're interested in looking into how social media can be effective in a busines). Social media can take its role in this company because only a small amount of time as effort can be used to start up the process and if it were to grow then it would be assumed resources would now be available to really drive it home.

    All that someone would need to do would be to start a few social media profiles and begin reaching out to friends and encouraging them to reach out to others. Especially those who have purchased your honey and have a great opinion of your product. Then just make sure to through a couple interesting picture, videos, deals and incentives on your websites and monitor the progress of each social media profile until something takes off. Of course, this whole idea is a gamble, but the time and money (no money because it is free) is definitely worth the reward of finally developing some online power outside of just a website.

Reflection 2 on Shaq and Officer White

   A little over a month ago there was an awesome video going around of a police officer showing up to go see about a call that had been made reporting children being loud and disruptive in the neighborhood. Those kids were playing basketball. Upon arriving that police officer started asking the kids some question and then began playing basketball with them. He ended up playing with them for a long time and it seemed to be a pretty fun experience for everyone involved.

   The whole video was recording on the officer's dashboard camera and it ended up being posted on social media a short time later and became the subject of conversation for many online newspapers and media outlets. Such as CBS who highlighted the great fact that these were outside playing and enjoying themselves instead of inside playing video games all day. The general public deems long amounts of video games instead to be a terrible thing (which is a conversation for another time) and so CBS made to highlight that aspect of the case. By highlighting that it showed they were very much on the police officer's side.

   But with all these media outlets on the side of this cop, who is pretty clearly awesome, what about that person who had originally called the cop into the situation? What was their opinion of that cop after the incident? Police officers have been taking a lot of heat lately in the media and it makes you wonder how that individual, who had called Officer White, felt once they saw how he took care of the situation. We don't know what they were dealing with at that time or the reason for calling in all of the noise. What if they were taking care of a baby or someone struggling with a bad illness? Or what if they work night shifts to take care of their family and they hadn't been able to sleep because of it? Did the boys have another options of where they could have played and had it been a reoccurring up to this point?

   Of course I don't know the answer to these questions but it reminds us of how incidents like these can escalate quickly and throw someone or some people onto "the losing team." They can go from someone who was really trying to get help or to help the neighborhood (in their eyes) to a person that is basically a joke and a laughing stalk who now wouldn't have much traction if they were to try and argue against the officer's side because the media would immediately turn on that person.

    But wait, there's more. On top of everything the media had already done for this situation there became another key factor to the story.

   Everyone's favorite 7 ft TV basketball analyst and TV star in general Mr. Big Cactus himself, Shaquille O'neal decides to join the officer in a rematch. This huge (pun intended) rematch took place after Shaq surprised the officer and arranged for them to be teammates in this street ball game to take place.

   How big did the Shaq (and Officer White) basketball game become? Well according to journalists in Venezuela it was a big enough story that they would right about it down there! Imagine all of the publicity this story is getting around the world and some of the reactions that look to America as a huge source of their news. The people in Venezuela now might assume that all American police officers are cool and fun and that Shaq is totally legit. Both of which might be true but now this could be the only story a little Venezuelan boy sees, hears, or reads about related to Shaq, policer officers and how our law enforcement runs in this country and might be slightly disappointed to find out this isn't how it always work in every situation.

   A great example of this would be an American hearing one or two stories of a police officer in Mexico being corrupt or making a bad decision all of a sudden there is a stereotype placed on these Latin police officers and that American might not really have much ground to stand on. Basically one of the big points I want to make about this story is while the story is awesome, funny and great it is there is a lot of power in the media being able to shape how large groups of people are viewed and perceived just because of a viral video or two that makes its way through outlet after outlet. That being said, Shaq and Officer White are pretty sweet!

Twitter Cloud

    In my most recent social media class we had a class cloud day. What does that mean? We took to Twitter to jump onto an floating but not really floating internet cloud. This took place over about an hour and we jumped onto the metaphoric cloud through hashtags and conversations on Twitter.

   While leading up to this hour I posed a question about why people ended up on Facebook instead of Google +. Through recent information we learned about Google + in our class it had become apparent that there were a lot of great benefits to using Google + as a primary social media platform.


   The responses were interesting and straightforward in the sense that Facebook gets more users just because it is Facebook. What I mean by that is everyone seemed to love the fact that if they wanted everyone in their online friend circle to see their most recent post or update it would be most effective on Facebook because everyone is on Facebook. Even though the argument between Facebook and Google +'s pros and cons hasn't happened on a large scale it would seem that even if Google + came out guns a blazin' with a seemingly endless list of pros it would still fall short of the great pro that Facebook holds for the time being in that, if you want people to know, you go to The Facebook.


   My time spend on the cloud was basically focused on the this Google + vs Facebook conversation as I went onto make a poll of where we would turn and social media users if Facebook were to shut down and we had to find a new time waster... I mean social media platform. The poll while limited in participants and possible answers did give an informative answer for those of us who had taken place in the mini experiment. The options were MySpace, Snapchat, Google + or some other form of social media. The majority came back as possible Google + users. I named this event the #SocMedApocalype because in order for this event to take place it would be safe to assume there would be such a huge outrage related to social media that it would be apocalyptic in nature.


    Beside the cool apocalypse related hashtag that was created a lot of other conversations popped up, like my attempted to get Mark Zuckerberg to join the cloud and a small break off group that created a little cloud dedicated to cats.

Overall the experience was fun but had the feeling of a lot more potential. There were other celebrities and public figures that were reached out to but besides a few smaller local celebrities there wasn't a lot of big name player conversations. It showed me how many people it really takes to get the world or country or even a small area talking about and engaged in the same thing.


 

Online Reputation: Nina Melissa Davis

    It has been my privilege to go online and find out as much as I could about Nina Melissa Davis. Nina, of course, knows I am writing this blog and hopefully will be very happy with her internet profile from different sources.

    The initial reaction to what type of a person Nina is comes from her Instagram. I've only interacted with Nina a few brief moments and so this was my first "getting to know you" experience with her. The things that are clear and Nina is happy to share with the world is... well... the WORLD! She loves the world's great beauty and freshness. Nina enjoys being outside and using her addiction to fresh air to encourage others to do the same.

   Nina just seems to love to share the things she loves with others. Her passion about Jesus Christ and His role in her life is obvious and frequent. She doesn't seem like the type that would back down in her beliefs and rightfully so because you can tell her beliefs are important to her and have definitely affected numerous positive outcomes in her life. That enjoyment she has received from this spiritual aspect of her life is something she wants other to see and feel.

   I don't want to make any huge assumptions with this next part but she does care about and like her hair. It's important to her! And heck, why wouldn't it be, she takes it with her everywhere she goes!

   My next stop on the Nina internet tour was Nina's Twitter account full of confirming tweets about her love of her religion and enjoying the great outdoors! New information that could've been picked up on in Instagram but became apparent in Twitter was her sense of humor and making others laugh. She seems to like giving a witty or clever or insightful post from time to time so her fellow tweeters can soak in the humor of her page.

On the final stop of this great online adventure I picked up on a theme in her Facebook wall that popped out to me and helped me understand another large portion of Nina's life. Nina loves people! I mentioned her love for the world but accompanying that love of the physical world comes a great love for the people in it. She is an advocate of diversity, ethnicity, knowing about and learning about cultures, helping those who don't have all of the easiest or simplest opportunities given to them, and those who have been adopted hold a very special place in her heart.

   Basically Nina is doing a great job of taking advantage of the internet. She is a good example to a lot of people using her social media resources in a positive way. And sure, there is the possibility you don't agree with everything Nina says, believes or does but it is clear that the goals she hopes to accomplish are becoming more and more of a reality through a smart and sober use of the world wide web.

   Nina, it was a pleasure getting to know your online self!

 

Legal, Policies, and Ethics

    Immanuel Kant the great philosopher made many great additions to the world's dialogue related to ethics. The idea, "a means to an end" will be a reoccurring debate on every TV drama until the internet eventually destroys TV, sitcoms become a footnote in history and daytime dramas will be the future bedtime stories of Generation Z 2.0. But that isn't my subject today. This means to an end might be interweaved into TV but is also making its way into the conversation of how social media develops and grows.

    The power of social media especially related to an individual's ethics isn't just an idea of the past anymore. In Chicago where gang wars are a very real and very scary issue, there are many of these gangs and gang members that communicate through Twitter. In an article by Ben Austen the idea of gang gaining power and being fueled by social media is becoming very apparent and in the Twitter conversations every day. If there was ever a situation where someone's ethic would be change, challenged or questioned it would be in gang related event.

   I personally am not closely affiliated anything close to those type of situations but through my super reliable grapevine that reaches me here in Utah I will make several assumptions and if anyone would like to correct my statements or help me to understand the reality I would gladly listen. The first assumption is that many gang have an initiation process. Some examples might include, stealing, fight, violence of some kind and a number of other possibilities. Assumption number two would be that the individuals had to change their regular ethical pattern upon going through that initiation. And assumption number three would be that their ethics, if not change by initiation, would definitely change after time with the group because their bonds and loyalties would grow stronger with other members than they had before.

   These powerful social situations aren't just things that happen on streets in Chicago, New York or who knows where else, these are influences that can be scene in our online social circles. And don't believe that the only ones being affected are us as users, it will be another assumption to say I could see high up executives of these very same social media companies have their ethics changed or challenged as they make their transactions.

    So you will one day be faced with a social media related ethical dilemma and in the words of Immanuel Kant, "Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end." 

Collaborative and Distance Communication

   There was this idea years and years that someone could through the power of science be able to communicate to another individual or group of individuals face to face while being in a different location. Maybe a different room, town, state or even country. But then the science movies got us thinking about face to face communication with people not even on planet earth. This is of course the science fiction in our pre-1950's discussion but then we hit this technological boom within a half century and the conversation became not only that of when it would happen but how could it become more effective and what would be the farthest reaches of these interactions?


    As of right now those communications are possible through a variety of sources and different media. In fact the most fascinating of recent communications amongst some of the millennials occurred during an episode of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. In one of the bits that he did on the show he had one of the astronauts on the International Space Station read some of the cards or jokes they would be doing. How would they do this? Via Skype!

   At last, this crazy face to face communication is now possible! Obviously the technology isn't brand new, especially not to our generation but just imagine how amazing it would be to see this going on 50 or 60 years ago. The specific medium that is particularly impressive to me would be Skype itself. This is a platform that allows face to face calling on both a laptop or mobile device. Having a Skype is putting you at a few quick clicks away from anyone anywhere Earth's direct influence.

    Dean Anthony Gratton talked about additional powers Skype now offers as he listed five of the reasons Skype has become even more awesome in 2015 and one of the reasons was its new translator feature. Allowing an open dialogue between two parties and breaking that language barrier just opened a whole new world of connections and possibilities.

  Business Insider in an article related to the moment Microsoft took over Skype there was a small piece of the article that shared an interesting statistic. That about 40% of Skype usage is through video. Of course this article was written back in 2011 and they predicted that it would keep growing. The obvious assumption to be made would guess that number has since risen.

   While technology keeps growing those who will be able to access it will continue to grow and that is the beauty of a technological boom, most of us will get to take part in it one way or another.

Location based platforms

   

    There are so many great apps and websites and other technologies out there that connect us to people all across the world, other cities, states, countries and even continents are just seconds away, or less! There are amazing amounts of power to influence people whose face we may never even see.


  This is not the topic of my post today, I want to talk about the location based platforms we have out there and the one I specifically want to talk about doesn't have a ton to do with connecting people across the world, although it technically could, I am talking more about the very locals effects of our favorite online review platform, Google Reviews.


   It really is great, especially in a college town like the one I live in. What is so great? The ability to get very open opinions about all of the most popular places in town make your weekends, holidays, free time and crunch time all that much smoother and easier to handle. Google reviews seems to have at least one review for anywhere worth researching before going. When my wife and I are looking for a pizza place in town or in a different town we can connect to the people of that city or those who have visited that city with some great feedback and quick restaurant checking. After all the signs that claim their restaurant has the world's best pizza we start to catch onto the fact that not everyone can have the best pizza, but Google Reviews lets us know the better places in at least one town.


 The sad truth however is that it isn't the perfect system. As Tom Forrest mentions in his article there are a number of problems with Google Reviews and one of which is the idea of fake reviews. There could be countless reasons for these fake review but some of the biggest reasons are obvious. It would make sense to write a fake very positive review for my own company, and the smarter people wouldn't log in with their own name. Another might be wanting to give negative feedback to a competing company and starting rumors that otherwise wouldn't exist.

 Obviously the power or lack of power through Google Reviews in generally fluctuating depending on the individual, but how does it affect a small business on the flip side of the coin? It would make sense that all of this positive feedback could help a small business grow. There is a problem as pointed out by Olsy Sorokina writing about this same subject. The problem is that people are starting to trust their friends more that online reviews. There seems to be a problem Google... your move.

Most Used Platforms

     There are a lot of different forms of social media out there. Some are more popular and arguably more effective than others but they all pour into the same general purpose of being social through the media. Admittedly there are several media out there that are just completely boring or annoying. Obviously each person has their own preference and I have mine as well. My goal of this blog post is not to offend anyone of the users of the various media but since we are talking about social media I am pretty sure there exists an unwritten rule that someone must be offended or it wasn't a real post.


  My favorite social media option is Facebook. The reasons aren't very concrete other than it is what I have and therefore it is what I will continue to have. I talked about this Dallas Cowboys theory that I've been developing for years. It has other names in the academic world but I have decided to call it the Dallas Cowboys theory that way I can some day take credit for it and someone might pay me to get this idea in their book.

   The idea is simple. We all have our favorite sports team in the different sports we follow. We know their are teams that are disliked, there are teams that don't matter and the classic bandwagon team that is having an amazing season and so everyone becomes their "biggest fan." However, there is another bread of sports fans that all into the emotional rollercoaster of being a dedicated life long fan. It doesn't matter how the team is doing, who the coach is or what the players are like you are attached more deeply to that team than your first two marriages.

  I stumbled onto this idea while having a conversation with a friend. I asked what his favorite team was. He proudly responded THE DALLAS COWBOYS. Great. Why not? Actually... WHY? The Cowboys at the time of that conversation were terrible, Tony Romo couldn't have a successful season if the rest of the league had to play in flip flops and Terrell Owens complained more than Oprah Winfrey fans after they found out their cars weren't that free. But nonetheless he loved the Cowboys and will until the day he dies.

    In a less extreme sense that is my relationship with Facebook, I use it, I love it, but are there any REAL reasons why I keep coming back year after year? Nope, not really.

  Ok, maybe there are positives to Facebook that I genuinely like such as the fact (Jeff Bullas) that the majority of Facebook users are outside the U.S. I am easily connected to my friends in Mexico, Peru, Chile and other countries with just a few clicks. And I of course love that in 2012 (CNN Facts) Facebook bought Instagram, so now my wife can post all our cool pictures!




http://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/04/17/21-awesome-facebook-facts-and-statistics-you-need-to-check-out/

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/11/world/facebook-fast-facts/

Blogging

Blogs seem to be sweeping the nation like disease on a bad piece of meat. Everyone seems to have a blog. You can have a blog related to sports where you can let everyone else know just how good the Golden State Warriors are compared to the rest of the NBA (Because they can't figure that out for themselves.) There are the always popular fashion blogs that range from the best in the world to that girl down the street that wears an eye patch as a fashion statement. Heck, even my wife got into blogging when she wanted to share her cooking talents and thoughts with people around her. And of course, there is always the classic, "Let me tell you about my life." blog that is a fan favorite.

   I personally do not like blogging. Which is ironic as I am actually writing about my dislike for blogging on a blog. But hey, there is nothing you can do to stop me and I actually enjoy that part of blogging. So maybe there is a little clarification that needs to take place before I freak too many die-hard bloggers out of their cyber pants. Blogging in the sense of actually reading a blog has never interested me. It would be a safe estimation that I've read under 10 total blogs in my life that were not related to assignments in school. The reason is because thanks to other social media outlets there has been a sufficient amount of opinion and thought sharing going on for the past several years that I don't feel the need to go in and dig to find an opinion that is openly available to me in other areas of the internet that I already use. This lack of wanting to get more or deeper opinion most likely stems from the early blog reading experiences in my life and the short clips of blogs linked in from other websites.

   Now that being said, sure I don't like to read blogs but I have no problem with people actually having a blog. Their opinions are their own and I enjoying having mine. I like being able to share my opinion when it doesn't endanger or hurt someone else and other should have the same privilege. There are positives that come out of blogging for those individuals. Jessica Knapp wrote a blog dedicated to the basics of blogging and using one of her basics I will expound on her thoughts. She talks how a blog can be used to make money. Having a blog, getting sponsors and getting a positive use out of blogging in this way is just as much of a job as other options out there. Some of these bloggers making money in this form are professional writers with great experience in the writing world. Other bring their own experience from a specific field and that is valuable information to those followers.

  Another positive besides the potential money of blogging is the mental and stress relieving qualities.  Scientific America does a better job of explaining it than I do but my little opinion is just how obvious it is that some people need to get things out. It is like my wife always says, "everyone just needs to go to counseling, not because they're crazy but to just talk through things."


http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/how-can-i-make-money-from-my-blog/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-healthy-type/

Social Media Change

How has social media changed communication?

I think I'll focused first on how it has personally affected me as I've gone through the transition in my life. Communication used to be such a simple thing to me, and it might've had to do with the fact that I was actually quite a bit younger before social media surged onto the scene of the communication world. I think a lot of my group set up came through phone calls and flyers. The biggest example I can think of is that when my friend and I would be bored on a summer night and looking for something to do we would both go through our whole contact lists and call every girl we knew until someone would give us the thumbs up. It was slow, systematic, painful, and generally unsuccessful. Comparing that to how we get things set up now days is just night and day. Now we just go on Facebook, throw up a post about a plan, wait for responses and get to the activity as soon as we can.

Another example would be to get my birthday parties set up. As a little kid I was ambitious in my party set ups. Even from the early elementary school years I would try and invite as many friends as possible to my parties, half for the friendship and half for the presents. Now I've noticed a huge change in whom I can invite. Back in the passing out flyers for my friends days I would be limited to my class and maybe a few other friends in the school. Comparing that to recent parties I've had a much larger range of invitees. School aren't a barrier for me and distance poses more of a threat to them coming rather than me inviting.

These two changes in my communication thanks to social media have macro level impacts. As people plan and coordinate events, parties or just hang out the two large influences social media will have on their communication would be speed and efficacy.

The speed of communication isn't just affected by the internet anymore and the internet itself is just a medium for the real speed increase that social media has. When one person hears about something they find worth posting or commenting about on social media it will automatically reach several other individuals. The ripple effect begins and that information can travel across the global as fast as our fingers can type or click. Before social media there had to be intention give to try and get that information to other countries or even states. Now it almost becomes the default route of social media posted information.

The efficacy is in the connections that are made or sustained. The messages you hope to convey to certain individuals are now just a few clicks away instead of phonebook searches, internet investigations or extension checking into a few small pieces of information to find one person. With most social media sights just knowing there name is enough to get you to where you want to be extremely efficiently.

Social Media Case Reflection 1

    The power of being able to respond and being responded to seems to have a much faster and deeper impact than it used to even just a few decades ago. The IndyStar article related to the Kilroy case has received a great deal of attention and does a great job of reminding us that event that might've been considered much more extreme or dramatic wouldn't have even received attention by more than just a few hundred people back before Facebook had its 1 billion + users and daily checking and updating.

The big fallout and follow up stories that cover the incident have a similar underlining quality to them. The Daily News website make the points that the woman who had complained in the bar initially had since been fired from her job, terminated her Facebook profile and wasn't open to comment for reporters. Then another follow-up article done this time by Fox News mentioned the same facts related to her job, Facebook and willingness to comment.

The follow-up article seems to really being playing to the emotional revenge that America apparently wants to see have happen to the complainer. All the articles related have this strong sense of, "look, everyone, we got justice for that jerk who complained about the heart attack victim." It's easy to see why that would be a playing point for the news outlets because they wanted bring in all of the Facebook community that was following this story and wanted that sweet moment of victory. It's kind of like that moment in a movie or TV show where the annoying villain or annoying character, villain or friend, finally get punched in the face or yelled at and the room cheers internally or in some cases audibly.

The feel the internet is trying to give is that the symbolic punch has been thrown and Ms Jones (the complainer) has fallen to the ground and landed in her own self-loving filth. Admittedly there is a part of me that would throw myself into the group of internal cheering fans to some degree but then a single word in the Daily News article crept its way in plain sight to the title of their article that reads,
Indiana woman who threw fit at bar while another patron was having heart attack let go from her job at salon....  And I was left wondering, "wait, what?" At what point did this conversation start making a point to explain the woman was Indian? Now granted, there really wasn't a lot of content that link anything of her ethnicity to the results of the incident, but the title just left me wondering if there was any kind of motive behind the intentional insertion of her Indian background. 

Of course, any online news source is going to make sure and grab as many readers as possible. But the story itself has enough emotion to drag a reader into the details of everything that happened. Several of the questions that seemingly haven't been answered (at least not through the article I've read) are related to what her friends are thinking about it. She was there paying for a $700 tab and I would hope all 700 of those dollars didn't go to her own New Year's drinking game. Do the other people at the table share their opinion with her, or did they try and calm her down in the first place? What do her friends think of how everything worked out? It could be possible that someone might defend her and explain how out of character all of this was for her. 

I thought of a recent episode of "The Middle" about a midwest family that leads a fairly simple life. In this particular episode the dad decides to start getting into social media and sets up a twitter account. At one point, while selling these diapers that allow a baby to "poop" on a teams logo (obviously it would be a team you don't like) the dad responds to a tweet someone had commented about how much they don't like the diapers. Eventually the dialogue builds and conversation becomes a huge twitter battle involving a university and the dad. This is just a perfect example of a sweeter, nicer, version of the Kilroy incident. What started off as a disagreement between two relatively small parties it just blew up into a nation wide debate. In the TV show the medium was Twitter and in Kilroy it was, of course, Facebook. However, thanks to social media, the results can be the same and now anyone can get involved.




http://fox59.com/2016/01/08/woman-who-posted-facebook-rant-about-ruined-new-years-eve-at-indianapolis-bar-no-longer-with-salon/



 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-threw-fit-patron-heart-attack-job-article-1.2489904