On June 14, 2010 The Price is Right game is going to be a social network. People will be able to guess the prices of toasters and even be able to spin the big wheel with other real players. This game is going to have weekly tournaments and prizes, which will include all the games that are featured on the actual show such as Cliff Hangers and Plinko. Ludia which is a company based in Montreal is releasing this game as well as FremantleMedia, both have worked on other major brands in the past but have not had much success. It has not launched yet so they are unaware of the success but it sounds pretty simple and interesting to me. I knew that someday EVERYTHING would be online. Now we won’t even be able to go out to the actual show and see The Price is Right because it is online now. No one is ever going to leave their houses, what is the world coming to?

No one can walk on water . . . or can they?

Hi-Tec Sports just recently came out with the most outrageous thing people have ever heard of. Shoes that are totally water repellent. This new sport that they created is called Liquid Mountaineering which consists of these athletes take a running start and run on top of water . . . no really, it’s true. This short video clip that they made to go along with their story so people could actually see them in action is more of a documentary, at the same time they are trying to promote their product (the water repellant shoes) but they do it in a very subtle way. They are still getting their brand out to the public but they are doing it in less of an advertising way so that people are more prone to watching the video through.



The video was posted on YouTube at the end of April and it currently has over 1 million views. Not very surprising to me, there were a ton of comments on this and whether or not it was real or whether or not this can even be considered a real sport. Hi-Tec Sports has also created a blog on blogspot.com written by the men themselves that created this lovely sport. Again, just like in their video, the Hi-Tec shoes are not even mentioned in the blog at all, with the exception of a few pictures. I would have to say this is a very good way of advertising non-directly but still getting the brand name out into the public and making people aware of these shoes that “can make you walk on water.” I can guarantee at least a few people that see this video or read their blog will want to go out and get a pair of these shoes and test out the waters, no pun intended. I want to, do you??

Mashable – The Social Media Guide

So if you are really bored at home and have absolutely nothing better to do with your time, you should check out Masable.com. It is the Social Media Guide for finding the Most Watched Web Series, the Top 5 Social Media Tips, The Slowest Loading Websites in the Fortune 500 and many, many other pointless web pages with pointless information on them. Oh I’m sorry, with very important information on them. It is basically just a website that people can go on if they are looking to find out about Social Networking sites and how they operate or function. Currently, they have over 15 million monthly page views and it is the world’s largest blog focused on Web 2.0 and Social Media news.



Mashable is basically just a site that published breaking news that is all on the web and it offers social media resources and guides. They are also connected with other bloggers, Facebook and Twitter users. I think this site is interesting in a way. It reminds me of a news channel except for the Internet. I guess it could be important to everyone that bases everything off of the Internet and relies on the Internet for all of their information and news that they hear about. So in that sense I think it is very important especially if these people going on this website do not usually watch the news or hear about current events, this website will kind of keep them up to date with things that are at least happening in the online world.

Southern Strikes Again..

On May 4th, 2010 a Southern professor was arrested for public indecency when one of his neighbors actually saw him masturbating in his window. This particular neighbor said that whenever she would walk her dog the professor would run over to his window, undress, and start masturbating. When the police went with the neighbor on her normal walk, the police saw the professor actually standing in the window naked but when he saw the police officer he quickly sat down. The Professor, Jerry Dunklee said that he was, “under the impression that whatever he did in the privacy of his own home was his business." Haha yeah okay buddy. Walking around your house naked is one thing, but to purposely start undressing when this particular neighbor would walk by is a completely different thing. He clearly knew what he was doing when he was doing it so he should have some repercussions for his actions, especially masturbating in front of the window so that people could see and tell what he was doing.

If it wasn’t for the internet, not many people would have heard about this story. I happened to be on WTNH.com and saw this under the top stories for the day and when I saw that it was at Southern I had to click on it. Posting this information online gives so many people the opportunity to read about it and talk about it. If this story had been kept a secret and not posted on the internet I doubt anyone around campus or around this general area would even be talking about it. I think it is a good thing because now more people on our campus are aware of this professor and his disgusting ways. What you do in your own home is your business, but keep the windows closed next time please! Thanks.

Kidney Savior!

When looking for a blog I tried not to do one about Facebook but this one was in the town (East Haven) next to my hometown (North Branford) and was really intriguing so I said, oh well. Carlos Sánchez, forty-four years old, desperately needed a new kidney. He was preparing to go on dialysis as his kidneys were failing because he had diabetes. He asked all of his friends and family but none of them were a match, so he desperately sent out a message on Facebook in hopes that someone would respond. He really did not want to do it at first but his doctor’s told him if he did not find one as soon as possible he could face serious consequences.


Luckily, April Capone Almone, who is thirty-five years of age, and also the mayor of East Haven, saw Carlos’ post and responded. She had already been friends with Carlos on Facebook which is how she saw his post. The arranged meeting these two set up to talk about it was also arranged through Facebook. April said that as soon as she saw Carlos’ post about needed a kidney; she knew she was going to be a match.

Of course some people always have something to say and may not have agreed with donating her kidney to a stranger. April went on to say, “My family was very supportive. They were of course concerned about me but understood and supported my decision. There was one close friend who said "If you were my daughter I would try to talk you out of this!" I replied "But what if your daughter was the one that needed the kidney?" That really changed his perspective.”

Facebook.. It’s a Killer.. No really, it is.

17 year old Ashleigh Hall was murdered because of Facebook. Her body was found on a farm with duct tape over her mouth and her arms tied up. She had evidentially been raped and killed. "If you're an overweight girl living in England and doesn't have someone to love her, you will look for that and you will grab at that, and the predators know that," said Parry Aftab, executive director of Wired Safety, a leading Internet safety Web site.

Peter Chapman is the man responsible for this. Police found out because he turned himself in (weird huh?) He was arrested after the fact of murdering Ashleigh Hall and then proceeded to say, "I killed somebody last night," Chapman told police. "I need to tell someone from CID where the body is." This all started because Chapman put up pictures of himself as a young, good looking, teenage boy (mind you, he is thirty three years old). He would send Ashleigh flattering messages telling her that she was “sexy as hell.” Anyone would have fallen for it right? Hmmm..

According to the blog I read about online on ABCnews.com, in December, Facebook, the world's most popular social networking site, created a Global Safety Advisory Board to tackle issues such as online stalking and cyber-bullying among its 400 million users. Serious crimes are rare, but when they happen, they capture headlines. There is no way to tell if everything on Facebook is 100 percent safe and that is why people should not take it as a social dating site. You cannot meet up with a complete stranger because of this reason alone. When I hear about people doing this I just shake my head, I do what I can to try and stop them because people need to realize this isn’t a joke and it’s getting worse.

Just because you’re a Cop Doesn’t Mean it’s Okay…

Just yesterday the case against two University of Maryland students who were accused of attacking a police officer after a basketball game was dropped. Thank God for video footage right? There happen to be a video recording by another student at the time of the attack. A University of Maryland student was just skipping down the street after a victory of the basketball game when a few officers attacked him and allegedly beat him to the ground. In a sworn statement, county police officer Sean McAleavey said McKenna and Donat (the two boys involved) "struck" other officers and their horses, "causing minor injuries." Clearly, the video says otherwise.

"The video shows the charging documents were nothing more than a cover, a fairy tale they made up to cover for the officers' misconduct," Christopher Griffiths, one of the students' lawyers, told The Washington Post. "The video shows gratuitous violence against a defenseless individual." After watching that video I was disgusted. I could not honestly believe that police officers think they can get away with things like this. I hope they all get fired and spend some time in prison.

I think this all ties into the internet aspect because that video was first posted online. If no one had saw that video, no one would have believed those two kids and it would have been a battle of the “he said, she said.” The video footage saved those two kids whether people believe it or not and thanks to the internet, now everyone around the world can see what losers those cops are and maybe it will send a message out to the rest of the Police Departments as well.

"I'm outraged and disappointed after viewing the video," Prince George's County Police Chief Roberto Hylton told the Post. "That's not the type of professional conduct we promote. Any employee who uses excessive force will be held accountable." Personally, I don’t think it should have ever happened in the first place. They should be doing things within their departments to make sure that their officers do not behave that way.

"Window Seat" or Striptease?

Erykah Badu came out with a very interesting music video called “Window Seat.” Basically the video is about her walking down her hometown streets of Dallas slowly giving the viewers a strip tease as she is singing to her song. As the song progresses more and more of her clothing comes off. The funniest part about all of this is that it was not even filmed by professionals, they did it in one shoot and the people that you see in the video are real people and nothing about this video was planned. Erykah obviously knew the risks of filming this video and she took them anyways.

Erykah Badu - Window Seat (Official Video) She Gets Butt Naked In The Video!

The point of this blog is that towards the end of the song when she is completely naked, we hear a gunshot and she falls to the ground with blue lines coming out of her head that spells “groupthink.” Directly where she falls is right in front of Dealey Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. In the article I saw this is it says, “Badu told the newspaper the video was a ‘protest’ and ‘about liberating yourself,’ adding that she chose the grassy knoll intentionally, for its historical significance. ‘I tied it in a way that compared the assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely,’ Badu told the Dallas Morning News.” Call me crazy but last time I checked I thought there were much better ways to go about getting messages across to others without filming a video of yourself naked. But hey, it’s 2010 right?

At the end of the song Badu says this message, “They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups; less guilt to swallow. They are us; this is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person within our circumstance can move one to change, to love herself, to evolve.”

If Badu had been caught while filming this video the fines would have cost her up to about $4,000 and up to one year in jail or both. It was also reported that she and her group had bail money ready just in case because they knew the risk they were taking in order to create this. Badu tweeted, “funny, I thought I was outta shape thus encouraging others toward self love .. but they think I’m showin off. lol. the irony.” This video had the media talking A LOT but I actually have no words for it. What does everyone else think??

Social Networking

A social networking service focuses on building online communities of people who may share certain interests or activities. There are so many different social networking sites in this day in age and they have everything to do with the advertising industry and advertising and promotions. Some examples are Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, AIM, iMeem, Live Journal, and many, many more. Some of these social networking sites are to keep people in touch that they may not have seen or heard from in a while. Currently, there are over 400 million active users on Facebook. That is a lot of people on one site and it is a clean easy target for advertising on almost anything people could think of. According to Wikipedia almost all social networking sites are web based, which means that they require user interaction either through Internet such as e-mail and instant messaging.

Facebook is one of the most growing social networking sites in America. Like I stated earlier they currently have over 400 million active users as of right now and more and more people are joining everyday. According to some statistics found about Facebook on their actual site, about fifty percent of those 400 million users log on at least every day. About 1.5 million businesses have active pages on Facebook. Whether or not people want to believe it, Facebook is a major way for getting advertising out on the market for particular companies. Facebook bases your personal information on your profile page off of the ads that they post along the side tab to try and promote. More than likely someone my age with my information they are going to put up advertisements for UGG’s or clothing stores they may think I will like and certain things like that just so they know they are targeting the right audience. However, those ad’s on the side tab of your Facebook page do a good job of promoting their products but when you actually click on it, there are a lot of steps you have to go through in order to actually see the product or win whatever type of prize they told you that you would win. So in that aspect I think Facebook is trying to scam us but it doesn’t take away from the fact of them doing good advertising and promotions for that particular product or service.

Once more companies realize the importance of social networking and relating it to their campaigns, the more popular it will become. I would say it already is pretty popular but within a few years I believe social networking is going to take over advertising. People are not going to want to waste their money on other forms of advertising when they can get their name out there into the public, a much easier way, online. Some may say that Facebook and Twitter are basically giving some company’s free advertising, however, there are still people who pay to do this, or get paid I should say. Someone is getting paid to post information about their company on the Internet so technically it is not free. But it is definitely cheaper than other forms of advertising. Now I am not saying that social networking is going to be the only type of advertising in a few years but I believe it will be a major form of advertising. People can do almost anything online these days and that is a scary thought.

The Media is a Mystery

A lot of the time when people read things online or in magazines or even in other people’s blogs, everyone tends to believe everything they hear. Recently, Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian were the media’s target. InTouch and Star magazine put the three sisters on the cover of both magazines, posted the articles online and fabricated many stories about the three and their relationships. The girls were furious and Kim reported on her blog that all of the stories were false including the rumors that her boyfriend Reggie Bush just flat out did not want to purpose to her and her sister’s boyfriend and father of their child was rumored to be cheating on Kourtney, and that Khloe and husband, Lamar Odom were getting a divorce.




All of these stories just prove that the media will go to such great lengths to sell a story, no matter the consequences that it may have on someone else’s life and how it will affect that particular person. I know many people could careless about these three girls but sometimes you have to think about if that were you and you were extremely famous and you had to justify everything you did to the public just because of how out of control the media has gotten lately with stars and their stories. The media has one job and one job only. Get the stories and sell them. They don’t care if what they are saying and printing in magazines or online is true; they just want their paycheck at the end of the week.

The media had a major effect on the internet and whether or not people are actually believing what they are being told, most of the time. Someone could easily post a story on a website and link it to inTouch magazine or Star magazine about any celebrity and call it the truth. This is why the internet should not be trusted when it comes to celebrity gossip or even any other type of information that the internet has on it. Now a day’s more and more people are learning new ways to hack into things online and you can never really be sure what to believe. Unfortunately the Kardashian’s were made an example of and in Kim’s blog she just tries to get the message out to everyone to not believe everything you hear and or see from the media. Some of these people really do believe these magazines and base their opinions off of what they read, so I guess that just sucks for those particular people huh?

Gosselin's Gone Wrong

When I think about Kate Gosselin I think about all the things that have gone wrong in the world in this day in age. I find it pathetic that someone like her has become the person she has today because of the media and because of other followers encouraging her and her actions. Before “Jon and Kate plus 8,” Kate and her family were very normal and very typical. Okay, they had sextuplets in addition to their twins. In the beginning it was cute and fun to watch. As soon as those two little words, money and fame, got involved that is when everything went downhill.

Believe it or not, despite what everyone may think, the media tore that family apart. It ruined Jon and Kate’s marriage and it ruined the children’s relationship with their parent’s. All because of that show, Kate is now writing books, getting fan mail or hate mail everyday, she is being offered all these positions on television shows, she was even offered to host her own talk show. She is also going to be on televisions famous Dancing with the Stars.

Some may ask why? Why is this woman so special? Why can’t everyone get these opportunities to do all of these events and get recognized? Fame and money got to Kate and Jon Gosselin so much. I just hate the fact that all of these ordinary families are being torn apart by putting themselves on national television for the whole world to see their every day lives. At one point or another things are going to take a turn for the worse. Unfortunately, we were able to see the bad side and the ending of Jon and Kate, but the overall point of this is, without the media attention and the internet and the news, I think this family would have survived. It’s ridiculous what media can do to a normal every day family, just like yours.

Even Steven.. Or no?

The power of giving a gift always makes one feel good, the fact of receiving one is appreciated as well. In this article Seth Godin goes on to explain that when someone sells you something, you are exchanging gifts. The customer gets the product and the seller gets money. Even trade, right? However, when someone gives you a gift of far greater importance or value, how is the trade fair? Godin also says that giving gifts gives you a power that some did not know they had and how giving can sometimes be just as good as receiving. Artists give to us all of the time. Whether they hang up a painting in a museum or we hear a song on the radio we are receiving their gift without giving them anything in return. However, this article says that we can be givers if we pass on what we saw or heard to another person, making that artists’ work even more popular.

The advertising world has done a great job of training us to believing only what we hear by word of mouth. If we hear that a song is bad or a movie that just came out was terrible, chances are, we won’t go see that movie or buy that person’s CD, despite all of the advertising that company may have done to promote that movie or CD to make it seem better than any other one out at that time. Everyone likes receiving gifts so when we hear about someone offering them we tend to like their work more than someone else’s and we might even re-visit this so called artists’ work again sometime in the future.

Online music comes to mind when thinking about something like this. A lot of people in this day in age download music off the internet for free. This is, in a way, the process of giving and receiving because when someone downloads a certain artist off Lime Wire or a music site like that, that person may or may not become more introduced in that artist’s music, therefore resulting in them purchasing their full CD or what have you. Then in that case, everyone gets something.

Seth later says, “When done properly, gifts work like nothing else. A gift gladly accepted changes everything. The imbalance creates motion, motion that pushes us to a new equilibrium, motion that creates connection.” Gifts are a great thing, but like Seth said, when they are done properly and correctly. The internet provides people with gifts everyday, whether it’s free information, free music, free movies etc., but what do the people receiving these gifts give back to the internet? It’s something to ponder I suppose…

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Celebrity Doppelganger Week Takes Over Facebook:

And we thought Facebook couldn’t get any better? Celebrity Doppelganger Week was the hit of Facebook for the week of February 1, 2010. Everyone is on Facebook, let’s face it. But I would have to say that I was a bit confused when I logged on last week and saw Megan Fox, Tom Cruise, and Carmen Electra writing on my wall. Come to find out, it was still the same friends that I see everyday, not the celebrities. What a let down. For those of you living under a rock let me clear up what Doppelganger is. It is when Facebook users put up a picture of a celebrity that they seem to believe resembles them, or who other people tell them they resemble. When uploading a picture of yourself there is facial recognition technology that will match it with a celebrity. There is even a Facebook group that as of today has about 7,319 fans in just about a week. Critics are relating this to “David after Dentist” and the New Orleans “Who Dat” movement.

Bob Patel, creator of CDW, said that this all started at his work when some of his co-workers would tease him by calling him Tom Selleck. That is where he got the idea to begin this fad that soon took over Facebook. Myheritage.com says that they created a celebrity look-a-like finder way before Celebrity Doppelganger Week even started (Boo Hoo). I decided to try it out, you know, to “fit in.” My match was completely wrong and looked nothing like me, so I am not quite sure where they came up with my match. When I posted the picture of my celeb look-a-like only a few people had asked me what I was doing and why I had a picture of a celebrity in my profile picture. Everyone else knew what was happening when everyone had a bunch of celebrities in their pictures, which just goes to show that the internet has a major effect on the way that people live their day to day lives.

People are starting to use Facebook more than their cell phones or face to face communication. Social networking is taking over and Doppelganger is proof. There is over 350 million users registered for Doppelganger, because you MUST register to take part in this. However, you better have a lot of time on your hands because with the amount of people participating, the site gets very backed up.

Problems…? There are many copyright issues with Doppelganger because according to Horizons blog, “Celebrity photos posted to the web are most often owned by the media outlet that paid to send a photographer to take them – reposting on your profile could be considered intellectually property theft.” People don’t think about issues like this when participating in the latest trends online and that is where a lot of trouble comes from. Everyone thinks that information on the internet is fair game and there is no need for copyright or citations. So again, internet plays a major role in the 2010 day to day lives of innocent people just trying to make themselves feel good by putting up celebrity photos and hoping someone will give them a comment that says, “Oh yeah, you look just like them!”

Even Facebook’s Terms of Service made it very clear that certain content is allowed to be posted while other content is not. Their Terms of Service says this, “You will not post or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.” Facebook had a very strong and logical comeback… Let’s see if you agree. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0202/Facebook-Celebrity-Doppelganger-Week-What-you-need-to-know

The Long Tail

After reading the Long Tail Blog it gave me a better understanding of how many different opinions there are out there in the world and how many of them blog about them. I was never into blogging before and never really understood why some people took part in it. However, now I know that they are used for people to express their opinions about certain issues or topics and have other people comment on them and put their two senses as well. The article in generally was very interesting. At some points I found myself glued to the screen because it was so interesting and at other times I found myself just wanting to skip to the next paragraph because of the dryness. There was a lot said in this blog and I wouldn’t say that I agreed with one hundred percent of it but I definitely agreed with the overall message.
I think that this theory of the Long Tail will affect Advertising for the Internet because now that some people have read this a lot of people will have a different outlook on how they are spending their money and how far their money actually goes. If they know they don’t have to pay 99 cents for a song on iTunes then they probably aren’t going to anymore which will decrease the sales in general. Towards the beginning where the blog went on to say that the twentieth century was all about hits and the twenty-first century will be all about misses, I think was a little far fetched. I don’t think there is really any way that people can predict that or not. A lot of it is based on chance. A movie is only shown in theaters if it gets 1,500 viewers in two weeks. They take a lot of chances with that and risk involving a lot of money on the chance that they actually will get 1,500 people.
A little later in the blog it goes on to say that there are 6,000 movies that are submitted to the Sundance Film Festival and only two hundred and fifty five were accepted. Of those two hundred and fifty five movies, only twelve were picked for distribution. I liked the argument on that study where the Long Tail says why not just pick all two hundred and fifty five of those movies, put them on DVD and discount them. There is a lot of time and money being wasted on evaluating these movies rather than actually releasing them. I think the blog brought up a very good point. Why go through that whole process when the blog even stated that most of the time, hits make money, but so do misses. Not everyone is going to like the same twelve movies that are picked to be released and they won’t know the money they are missing out on if they keep the other two hundred and forty three movies not available to the public.
Another interesting point that the blog brought up was the fact that stores only sell what we want. Or what we think we want. Certain stores make us believe that if they don’t carry it or we’ve never been introduced to it, then we don’t need it. If we wanted items, they would definitely be sold at all the stores. I think this is very true because if someone goes into Wal-Mart or Stop and Shop or wherever, if the brand that isn’t there that we prefer we are forced to settle for a different brand and we realize that okay this store doesn’t carry it so I don’t need it anymore. Certain things don’t get as much recognition as they deserve. Just because the overall population dislikes something, doesn’t mean the rest of us won’t like it either. The Long Tail discusses how if there is enough “non-hits” on the “tail” then the market will be bigger than the hits. I couldn’t have said that better myself. Everyone just goes along with the flow and with what is popular and “in” at that particular time. Everyone is so afraid to branch out and go against the “popular” things in life. If everyone realized this, the “non-hits” would be more popular than the actual popular hits.
“The biggest money is in the smallest sales.” I find this quote to be very true. Just like The Long Tail says, if things cost less people will buy more. So why do we overprice things that could be at a lower price? I think a lot of people have just stopped arguing with that fact and accepted it. No one is actually challenging it and The Long Tail was the first thing I ever heard about that is in fact challenging it. I think the blog brought up a lot of good points. A little dry and boring at some parts but the overall message was very interesting and fun to read about.