Future Technology and Social Media

My roommates and I do a lot to make sure that our house and ourselves are as ecofriendly as possible. Typically we make monthly goals of how we can be better consumers, or save energy or water, and reduce waste. We are going to compost this summer, and of course we are really big on recycling. Once people figure out about this it is always followed with questions about why we choose to go through the “hassle” of doing this, or a lot of people assume that we are just really big hippies and leave it at that. Many of our conversations about stuff like this always end in the fact that there needs to be a huge cultural paradigm shift in how we view consumerism, and environmentalism. This whole intro may seem confusing when talking about technology, social media, and the environment, but the point all comes from this article that spurred my thoughts about how this paradigm shift could happen. The article explains radio-frequency identification tags (RFID tags) and how they are the size of a grain of salt, cheap to make, and they are used to track individual items for various reasons. It gave the example of creating a device that will sit at the bottom of your trash can and read the RFID tags that are in items that you throw away. While this seems useless there were immediate benefits that I could see coming from this.

First this is a great way to keep track of what your waste is and how much you are recycling and things like that. I also think that it would be a really cool feature if you could track where your waste goes or where your recycling is taken and used for. With this information, it would be so easy to share and create social media that encourages more people to keep track of that. I instantly thought about having company competitions with who had the least waste, or recycled the most, or something like that similar with how companies create competitions for weight loss or something. 

Second with the same technology there is communications that can happen with phones that are in the area and reviews on certain items and services can be so incredibly specific that this would be beneficial for businesses to tap into that information. 

Mostly what I found to be the most interesting was just the potential for awareness on a topic that I am passionate about. If we make being ecofriendly a social thing, or even a normal everyday life of living, this technology could be a huge part of that movement. 

Mobile Apps vs. Internet Browsers

I went to the new business building here on USU's campus today and used one of the study rooms for a group project meeting. On the table were instructions on how to download an app on my computer that would then allow my computer to connect to the TV, similar to Bluetooth. The whole reason why I tell this story is because I am always confused when instructions call for me to download or look up an app on my PC, because I only ever think of apps as something that is only available on my phone. As we talked about earlier in the semester the shift of just the language that we use for things with social media shifts a lot and I think that this is one of those moments. I always think of apps as just being available on my phone. This language shift shows that there is an actual paradigm shift happening when it comes to apps and how we use them. Forbes even goes as far to say that the mobile browser is dead. I think that this is so true, in a sense that very few people use mobile browsers anymore and more and more businesses have apps that are specifically designed for their company. When I look up a business that I want to order something from, or do more than just see their hours (I would just google that), I would look for an app before I looked for their webpage. This is mostly because it is quicker for me to get to and the interface is actually meant for a phone and it is easier to access things.
Something that I find interesting about the graph that was in the Forbes magazine was that majority of the time that people spend on their phones is gaming. Maybe this is just shocking to me because I probably have two "game" apps on my phone that I only use sometimes. I think that gaming on your phone isn't ideal because the physical phone is small and I feel like there are things that would be better/easier to do on a PC or a phone. The graph in the article also shows the small amount of use that is in browsers, and I didn't even realize that there were browser options that weren't google, this is possible on a phone? As a consumer I probably under utilize apps, but I think that when it comes to using my phone, I still use apps way more that I use a browser.

Viral Videos

This topic is a huge topic area to cover. I think that I am just going to take a few viral videos that I think are notable case studies of points that I think are interesting about viral videos. Most of these are based on the fame that is gained through viral videos. Some people want this fame while others don't. Also the rewards/benefits that people gain from their videos can be pretty crazy too. Here are some examples. The first video that came to my mind when viral videos came up is one that is often quoted by my best friend and I while walking around campus and noticing vans, this comes from the "Damn Daniel" vines that have gotten a lot of attention. After they got so much attention, as sometimes happens, Ellen invited them on her show and interviewed them about their journey to fame. It started when Josh took a video on his snap then people thought it was funny so he continued taking them, and then uploaded it to Twitter where it gained it's initial traction. From there Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and a ton of other news sources talked about it on their feeds. While on the Ellen show they were offered a life time supply of vans, that they then donated to charity. While not a video, there is Alex from Target who gained fame from a teen girls posting a picture of him on Twitter and ended up on Ellen as well. He didn't want this fame and the attention was actually something that was overwhelming to him.
Viral videos are something that I feel little people have control over. Sometimes candid videos are the ones that go viral, while others try really hard to create a viral video, then the one they don't expect or want to are the ones that go viral (cough cough Travis Chambers that we have heard from this semester). Viral videos can be really effective in telling what a culture likes and how they communicate. Viral videos can also be used effectively by businesses and activists to gain awareness or action for a campaign. Yet again I feel like it is difficult to control and know what makes a video go viral and how exactly it is going to be perceived.

Search Engine Optimization

For this post, I honestly had to do a little more searching to find out what this weeks topic was actually about. A common theme that I realized through different subjects under the umbrella idea of search engine optimization is that they are all meant to target certain consumers, but more than that make a certain ease for consumers as well. In class, the backlogs of what companies do to target customers has come up frequently, and most of the class acts uneasy about this and are somewhat creeped out by how personal and specific it can get. Overall, I would argue that how specific they can get a target audience is a good thing, because it is a better experience for the consumer. I know that when there is an ad about something I find ridiculous it is annoying, but if more ads are more applicable to me than I am happier as a consumer and things are more convenient for me. I think that search engine optimization does a similar thing in making the experience of the consumer more convenient. Geotagging, while effective for a business because of customers based on location, is also more convenient for people searching for whatever service that business has to offer in that area. I also thought that it was somewhat ironic that when I googled "search engine optimization" there were a ton of paid advertising at the top....for of course, search engine optimization for companies who help other companies do search engine optimization stuff. Silly. Lastly, I think that newsrooms and infographics hold the same theme. They are made to make things more convenient as well as interactive for the targeted audience. A good infographic is going to catch a reader's eye and have specific synthesized information. The better it is at meeting that criteria the more effective it tends to be. Most search engine optimization tools all come down to the idea that it is mutually beneficial for companies and targeted audiences, because of the convenience for the business to advertise and the consumer to see and act on it.

Management Platforms and Tools

This blog topic is probably the one that I have known the least about this semester, and I think it is because I don't really put that much work into my own personal social media, but I can see the needs and potential benefits that organizations can get out of this. I might repeat a little from last week because that was about organizational communications and I feel like these two topics go hand-in-hand with one another. The only social media management platform that I have had experience with is Hootsuite and it is a very useful tool. When I used it I was an intern and most Mondays would be scheduling tweets for the rest of the week. When looking more into Hootsuite for this post I noticed that it will also help you track mentions that you have on Twitter. I think that this would have been very helpful to use as it was an organizational initiative to keep track of when we were mentioned in articles and other media and we had a master list that was open for everyone to add to when we saw that. I also used a few different tools to shorten URLs when I was writing tweets that had links. I sometimes even use this in my own social media if I need to. Shorter URLs mostly help with word count in twitter, but sometimes they just look better in a different post that I can't hotlink a word, or that won't post the link without the URL there. For both scheduling posts and shortening URLs there are many different forms and platforms available and from my experience there isn't too significant of a difference between them to have a favorite to use, but again I haven't needed to use either extensively.
While looking up things to talk about on this blog I found a social media management platform called Dashburst, and I was pretty impressed with what it could do. It has a lot of the analytic side that most platforms have but it also has the capabilities of connecting with all your forms of social media and "bursting" out one post to all of them. I could see this being useful in my own social media, because to be honest most of my Facebook posts are just shared from Instagram, and I am too lazy to make a whole other post in Twitter. With Dashburst you just make one and it sends out to others. Another feature is that is updates you and can even automatically post when artists, people, creators, that follow post something as well. I think that this is a nice feature because again it helps just take everything into one form of social media, while helping manage all of the other platforms as well. I can see this being extremely beneficial for organizations as well.

Organizational Uses for Social Media

When I think about social media, I think that I first think about how I use social media, then I think about how organizations use it. Social media can potentially benefit every organization, but I think that it also comes with potential harms as well. The interaction between customers and whatever organization is involved, is key to maintaining public relations, reputation, and business. Organizations can also use social media to better communicate within the company as well as communicate outside of the company. In this blog I am mainly going to focus on the experiences that I have had or noticed that organizations have used. The summer after my freshman year of college I had an internship with a non-profit where I helped with social media, specifically with topics that we were working on as an organization. One tool that I found to be very helpful was Hootsuite. This tool made it possible to schedule tweets in advance so I didn't have to constantly tweet throughout the day. This was especially helpful when we would release a new poll, or we would have a constant feed with quotes from people signing our petition. I would get a build-up of quotes, then in one afternoon schedule tweets for the rest of the week or month. It was really easy to change the time or day of the tweets, so if something did come up and we wanted to wait to tweet something until a better time, we could easily go in and change it in Hootsuite. This helped me manage my time better and that way I could maximize the amount of work that I got done. This was also nice because we could prepare graphs, statistics, and much more, and instead of having to save it then pull it back up to tweet it once the study was released to the public, we could create the posts at the same time we made the visuals. It may seem like a little thing, but it saved a lot of time and made things much more efficient. Along the same lines learning how to hashtag hunt was a very helpful skill. This internship made me more comfortable using a hashtag in the middle of sentence instead of waiting until the end to list all of the hashtags. As talked about in class we often used #utleg #utpol because the issues that we were working on directly involved decisions that were affected by Utah legislators votes. This was important for people in the Utah legislator to see and people outside of it to know who to talk to about the issue.
On another note besides this I have noticed, and we have talked about it in class, that the public sphere of social media is important to organizations, This is a place where dialogue is fairly open to everyone and there for everyone to see. It is important that organizations use this to promote their brand and initiatives as a company in how they interact online. This can be through sharing news coverage of the organization, offering promos, showing success stories, and many more ways. When I think about organizations that I follow on my social media all of them have a strong sense of getting clear, simple, efficient information out and responding in the same way.
Organizations who use social media get many benefits from doing so, but we have also seen how in the process of trying to use social media for that benefits other organizations have ruined customer relations and it has actually done more harm than good.

Basket Ball Cop - Case Reflection

Basketball cop is another great example of how social media can be the leading influence on an initiative or a campaign becoming successful through social media. The fame that Bobby White gained through the viral video of him playing basketball with local kids that were called in for being too loud, has created a whole foundation that is aimed to help lower crime within impoverished neighborhoods. This is an idea that wouldn’t even exist or have enough support to get started if it wasn’t for the viral video. As we have seen a theme in class, when there is a problem that is made viral through social media there is often a go fund me to follow up quickly. In this instance I feel like it is a good thing and that the money is going to a trusted place. They have posted pictures of Bobby with kids that he has given new basketballs and hoops on the gofundme page and they even hosted a basketball game just this week that was between some of the local kids and police officers. I think that this is a really good campaign because the kids now look up to the police officers within the area and see them more as allies than as enemies or people to be afraid of. This is especially important as other media would probably tell these kids to not only be afraid of the police officers, but that they are hated from them and they are discriminated against by the police force. The Gainsville Police Department was quick to jump on the attention that the video was getting and commented with links to their twitter page, which is actually pretty stellar. I don’t know of many police departments that have such a strong following base, but because of the video the GDP has now gotten more attention with other programs that they have been working on that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise either.

This is important to establish as good relationships within communities like that can keep more kids out of growing up in crime and it just creates a safer environment for everyone. The idea has spread to other police stations that want to implement similar programs in their neighborhoods, with the idea that if kids have the resources to play basketball that it will keep them out of crime and creating a support system in the community. #hoopsnotcrime was started with the original video and has now gone internationally viral. I think that this is a good thing that can encourage other communities to take the same action and positively help better their community by simply donating basketball hoops and basketballs to neighborhoods that wouldn’t otherwise have them. I would be really interested to know that if this viral video didn’t catch the attention of Shaq how the circumstances would change? Would there be enough attention to get this much support enough to start a whole foundation? Shaq showing up and playing a game with these kids significantly changed their lives. He also paid for them to attend an NBA game, another opportunity these kids would not have had were it not for social media and the viral video.

Beyond this incredible initiative that has been started I also think that it is interesting to compare reactions that the public has had to this viral video versus the viral comment that we had a case reflection on early this semester with Killroy’s Bar. The gofundme for that received so much more attention and money that completely passed the amount needed for the victim’s medical costs. The basketball cop gofundme, which I would argue has much more of a positive impact and an actual need, hasn’t received nearly the amount of money as quickly as the other. I think that this is a shame. This comparison is a good example as to how social media can be disappointing when people rather support an outrage rather than a positive community program. I think that this is not a rare occurrence. There are several really important and deserving causes that receive little attention while other stupid things get a ton of attention and therefore money. 

Class on the Cloud

Beyond learning that cats are superior to dogs (thanks for posing the question Max it was a fun thread) and that Travis has a mustache just like a cat,  

I learned that Twitter is a more useful app than I thought in the first place. In had a Twitter for a while and I wasn’t utilizing it much so I decided to delete it, just a few months before this class….that I needed Twitter for. So I got my Twitter back and I have only used it for this class recently. The class day on the cloud made me realize how easily accessible things are on Twitter. I have mentioned in class before that for a summer internship I had, I was often responsible for tweeting about our campaign and different things that we were involved with that summer and I would always hashtag notable things or key phrases that were often used and I saw how it worked then, but I didn’t hashtag hunt as much as I could have. I would use other hashtags that community partners were using and ones that were already established, which made it easier for me, but I think that the reason why I did that was shown to me during this class. I think that Twitter (and many other social media sites but for this activity we will just talk about Twitter) is super helpful in getting mass interaction in a quick and easy way. It is easy to provide a short explanation and link that people can follow. I also found it somewhat to come difficult to come up with a good social media question that was short enough. I got an answer during class (thanks Prof Parker) then a random answer the next day form eClincher which turns out to be a social media managing company.

 I think that if I wanted to have a substantial discussion or get advice about a topic, I would not choose to do that on Twitter because of the 140 character limit. However, if I was to do it on Facebook then only my friends would see the post and respond to the post, while I feel Twitter has much more of a capability to reach outside of my direct network of people. Micro-blogging is interesting because I feel like people make a lot of claims that they don’t really have to back up (unless they provide link to something else, which people should do more) what they are saying and provide any warrants to their claims. I feel like this is harmful to important dialogue, but again with the right hashtags it can reach a wider network. For silly banter with friends this doesn’t matter that much, but when it comes to organizations using Twitter I think that it is a challenge. Sadly, Dan Croll only liked my tweet to him and didn’t respond. This doesn’t mean I am any less of fan, or that I will stop liking every single one of his posts, it just means that keep #fangirling shamelessly and using Twitter a little better than I did in the past.

Social Media Changes Law

Instead of taking this the way that most people probably are writing this blog on the legal issues within social media (like how messenger can legally access your microphone at anytime and all times), I am going to talk about how social media changes aspects of the legal system. To get this point across I am mainly going to talk about #freeKesha. I think that this case is a perfect example of it, but realize that all the things that I talk about are not unique to just this case. So here is a list of things that are notable in how social media affected the case for Kesha beyond just popularizing the hashtag. Here is a good link to get a basic background of the case before moving on if you want.

1. Dr. Luke's Deleted Tweets
It has recently came out that Dr. Luke went back and deleted photos of Kesha from his twitter. The only way that this came forward was because someone, somewhere,had taken a screenshot of it for whatever reason and was able to show the date and time that he had posted it that he has since gone back and deleted. This is just more proof that simply deleting something off of your account does not mean that it doesn't exist anymore. Dr. Luke's sketchy slip-up of this is a perfect example.

2: There is a Gofundme for Kesha
One of the main parts of the case is that Kesha wants Dr. Luke taken off of her work and wants to be able to produce not only another producer, but outside of Sony, because Sony has done nothing to defend or protect Kesha. So some person just randomly created a gofundme for Kesha to buy out of her contract. There are a few notable things about this. We don't even know as a public if Kesha is even able to buy out of her contract. The goal is set at $2 million dollars which may be the amount, but this hasn't really been confirmed. Next, the person who made the gofundme even admitted that right now the money is set up to go to HIS account. There is no way to make sure or regulate that this money is actually going to get to Kesha and used for the purpose that it is intended for. This is also sketch, but a way that is really important for the movement as a whole that has been made possible and means a lot through social media.

3: Taylor Swift's Donation
This is in the same vein as above, but Taylor Swift has donated $250,000 to Kesha to help with the case. (This is a lot of money for someone who is already rich and affluent enough but that is besides the point) T-Swift did this very quietly and did not make a statement about it. Demi Levato and Selena Gomez have both opened up about their awful experiences that they have had which mostly btw has been done over social media. Taylor Swift has taken a lot of slack from Kesha fans and other celebrities for not making a bigger statement about the donation that she gave. The donation was substantial but the fact that it was under the table makes it look like T-Swift didn't want this to be a fully public donation which is harmful because she needs to loudly support in order to change the culture around this case.

In all of these situations, social media has significantly influenced this case, and the social movements surrounding the case issues. Again, this is not unique to the Kesha case, but also applies to many other legal cases.

Online Reputation

Well now that I feel like a super big creeper, let me tell you about the online reputation of Mikala Linhardt. So here is the story of the initial search of Mikala, so I spelled her name wrong at fist (I missed the "d" in her last name) and I thought that there was nothing, so then I hop on my facebook and find her and notice that we have five mutual friends (whoop whoop!) and that I spelled her name wrong. So once I got the right spelling the search was great! But! I still found two results where her name was spelled wrong. I know that they are her because later in my search I found out that Mikala is a JComm student, who went to Snow (I went to Snow too!), and the link with her name spelled wrong was an article that she wrote for the Snowdrift (where I was an editor a year later, because I would not have let her name be spelled wrong).The first picture to pop up was indeed Mikala! If is a cute picture with someone who looks like she is very close with her in front of a temple somewhere? Super cute pic! The next one was of her as well, this one was somewhere in South America so I assume that she like to travel?
 
The first link that I came across was her twitter page, which linked right to her page. Some common themes that I noticed was the posts for this class, #socmeddiscuss! As well as a lot of posts for #jcom2010 which I would also assume is a class that she has to post for. Beyond that it seems like Mikala has great friends and roommates that she expresses gratitude for and gives shout outs to, which is super nice.
The next link was Mikala's Pinterest, which looked wonderful! But what is notable about this is that once I saw her Pinterest and went back to do some more stalking the rest of the images that immediately pop up when I searched her were from her Pinterest boards. After that was an instagram account link, but sadly it is private so I had to follow Mikala in order to see what she posted. #notcreepyatall
Here are the two things that I found that were the weirdest for me to see, I saw that Mikala has recently (Jan. 8th 2016 to be specific) was pulled over/charged with something having to do with a faulty vehicle. Now, I genuinely hope that this is some other Mikala Lindhardt from Manti, UT but I find that hard to believe. This was the 5th link down when searching her name and Utah. But this public record gives access to her address and everything, which is why I am not providing a link, on top of the fact that I am not completely sure if it is her or not. Lastly, I now know that Mikala played volleyball in high school. This isn't too creepy, but it is still weird that this comes up in some of the top searches considering that she is clearly out of high school and the records are from 2011 or earlier.
Overall, Mikala's online reputation is pretty stellar. I think that there is no bad things that are found in top searches, and overall people would think that Mikala is a religious (temple pics, pics with the B.o.M.), crafty/in-style (Pinterest), funny (Twitter), educated (FB and Twitter), cute girl!

Collaborative and Distance Communications

So I have very limited experience with both of these things, but this will still be good I promise. For this weeks post I think I will focus/rant about the first things that I thought about with these topics, Wikipedia, Skype, and Spotify collaborative playlists.
1: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is pure gold to start an idea for an essay, or to just quickly look something up. I think that most students simply misuse this wonderful resource. While we all know that you don't cite Wikipedia in an academic essay, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use it at all. I personally use it to get a base knowledge of a topic that I am searching, then there are sources that are linked in the wikipage! I then go to these sources that are usually something that I can actually use and cite in my paper, if not then it still gives me direction on where I need to be taking my research. I think that this is a tool that is misused because people take it for too much value (they think it is an actual academic source) or they don't use it at all.
Another cool thing about Wikipedia, is the Wikipedia game. This game is played when a group of people that have access to Wikipedia (whether through laptops or phones) and as a collective you decide on a wikipedia page that you all want to get to. The more random and obscure the better. Then for the first round you pick a page to start on. At the same time everyone starts pushing on hotlinks that are in the each wikipage to get to what was decided in the beginning. The first person to get to the page first wins. Once you have finished the first round then everybody just starts pushing links from the current page they are on. So for example, the group decides to find the wikipedia page for Utah State University, but they have to start on the wiki apple then click on links from there. The first person to get a link to Utah State University wins.
2: Skype. This is probably the one that I have had the least experience with, but I think that Skype is a really clunky app. Often times I find myself jealous of apple users because of factime, and I am sure that google has something that is similar that might work better. I think that skype (or any other platform that has the same capacity) has revolutionized what is possible. From keeping up with friends/family that are miles apart, to the business world, and even revolutionizing ways that collaborations happen in so many ways! I really appreciate it cause then I can visually see my nephew and niece growing up when I am not there to see it myself.
3: Lastly, Spotify collaboration playlists. I know that this platform isn't fully a collaboration platform, but it is the first thing that I thought about and I would argue that it is. At my work we can play our own music so I have made a work approps playlist that we can all add our music to. This way we can all add our music and have a good mix. There are so many music collaborations that are happening and while it is on a much smaller scale than on wikipedia or anything else, I still think that it is pretty amazing.

Location Based Social Media

My friends call me the 21st century try-hard, because no matter how hard I try to use social media and technology off the times, I end up acting like a 90 year-old women that didn't know the internet existed. This is only made more evident when I try to use location based social media sites. It absolutely blows my mind that things can become easier to look up, or that my social media is tailored for my local or surrounding area. The ones that I have the most experience with are Facebook and Yelp, but I will focus on Yelp mostly cause I feel like Facebook is always the example. I actually don't really like Yelp because I think that it is a pretty clunky app. It sometimes is hard to narrow the search for good food that is just becomes overwhelming and useless (admittedly this may be because of my lack of knowledge with technology). I like that you can get real life pictures of other people's food that they have uploaded because it is more realistic than any menu picture that I have ever seen. But back to convenience of the app. I mostly use this when I am out of town or in SLC just looking for a good new place to eat. I think most people already know that if you are in New York, or San Diego, or Portland, there are several wonderful places to try. This app has no function of helping narrow down what the options are really and I think that it is also really clunky in finding which restaurants are the best and closest. I think that while finding a new place to eat a deep cost-benefit analysis needs to happen in a sense that the cost is being more than just literal cost of the food, but also time and distance traveled for the benefit of how good the food is. However, in bigger cities there is "good food" everywhere. Based on my review of this I was not surprised to see that the stocks of Yelp are going down, I was surprised to find that business are using bad Yelp reviews to gain more business. When businesses can use an app like Yelp for the exact opposite reasons that it was used for and gain more customers because of it, I think that it shows that the app is not the most effective. While I think that a lot of people start to use Yelp to find new places, there has to be a large amount of people that are just simply looking for a place to eat regardless of what the reviews are. Maybe there are a few sick and twisted people that get a joy out of going to the worst rated restaurants, but majority I would guess not. I think that as the article explains above some businesses can pay for ads and such, which creates a bias in the availability to the app that restaurants have and the reviews that the restaurant is getting most likely.

There is a similar app to Yelp called Untappd and it is specifically for beer. By location you can look up craft beers that are sold around you and what bars they are available at. All the reviews have to do with the taste of the beer and you can even post a "status" about what you thought about a specific beer. There are also ways to level up once you drink more beers. This gives incentive to drink more and therefore spend more money on local beers, but also give more than just a review feel to the app as well. You can add friends and see what and where they are drinking. I think that this app would be a little better if there was more info about the bars and maybe adding liqueur to the drinks that you can try. 

Insta: My Most Used

For this weeks blog I mostly wanted to talk about my main love of social media Instagram. Instagram is by far my most used social media outlet as most of my Facebook posts are just shared from my Instagram anyway. Here is a list of 10 reasons why I think Instagram is better than most social media accounts:

1: I love pictures and I think that pictures express more.

Unlike a whiny Facebook on status a good cat-frown picture can actually be pretty funny on Instagram. When I scroll through my Insta feed I can do more than just hear what people are doing I can actually see this. While I think that this can be obnoxious (because some people are really non-unique in their variety of pictures they choose to post) most of the time it is a good thing. It is always nice to keep diversity in posts. I love seeing what people are doing, what they are eating, what they find beautiful in nature, what they think is cute, maybe even some good quotes (this is pretty rare, it is hard not to be cliche on the interwebs). Seeing a picture expresses more than a status can and certainly more than a 140 character post (even if it includes a picture with the 140 character post)

2: Following/friending on Insta is a lot less judgmental, so it is easier for me to be a creeper.

We all love to creep and stalk on social media. But let's keep it at a an appropriate level. When I follow someone on Insta I feel like it is a lot easier than friending them on Facebook. There isn't a level of commitment that I feel like I have to have in order to friend someone otherwise. This is nice. Following and un-following is much easier on this social media. Less pressure is always good. 

3: That NatGeo account, duh.

For real. The NatGeo account is the best. There are clearly different photographers that are featured and you learn a lot about everything. I think that the captions are always a good length and they tie in well with the picture and just life all together. Sometimes there is some fierce pictures of animals that oddly gives you motivation or there is pictures of baby animals or something. I can go on for days. If NatGeo isn't your thing then here are some more popular accounts (NASA's account is pretty rad as well). 

4: News that is shared on Insta

I love CNN, BBC, and NPR's accounts! Especially NPR's. The videos are helpful and I feel like they go with the flow of a quick scroll as I am going through. With Facebook and Twitter I think that is is more difficult to stop and look at more than the headline, but with Insta I get a little more than just a headline but I also don't get sucked into reading a whole article. It is a good balance. If I want to know more then I just look it up on the independent apps usually. 

5: There is a page for everything

There is dogs of instagram, and so many more look up an account about something you like or a hashtag (which I will talk about in just a bit) and bam it is there. If you look under the discover tabs you can always find something that you think is cool and  again there is no shame in following it. 

6: Scrolling and skimming feels easier

I think that I have already mentioned this but scrolling it really simple and liking is simple and the whole app is user friendly. 

7: Captions are everything

Witty captions always make everything better and I always find the best captions on Insta. Whether is is just an emoji that is clever or a quote, or anything clever captions are always appreciated.  

8: Hashtags are judged less as well/hashtag hunting is actually fun

Hashtags can shamelessly be used and my favorite way to use them is as a side comment. It creates a nuance to the post that I feel just isn't possible in other areas. 

9: Filter use/Filter names

Filters make you feel like a real photgrapher and the right use of them can always make the picture look better. Getting the right use is the difficult part though. But! There is more to it. A Time article talks about how parents are starting to name their kids after filters that they have seen on instagram! Pretty buts and kind of cool. 

10: It's basically everything.

Yeah need I say more?

A Blog About Blogging

One of the things that enjoy reading the most on the internet is academic witty banter. I hesitate to use the word academic, but I will explain that in just a moment. I think that short witty banter is currently in high demand as memes, gifs, and other clever quips go viral by the second. Part of the reason why this could be is because they are easy to connect with, they are about an interesting topic, and of course they are comical. Just as I think some memes are more worthy or true than others, I feel the same about blogs. I love blogs that make me think and mostly that make me laugh. I am a person that loves to rant and loves to form open opinions about many topics. One of the best places to find this common interest without having to leave my couch, is reading blogs. Here is my disclaimer though: I feel like "good" blogs are hard to find, and I feel like I have to have an academic background knowledge before I believe blogs.

I think that blogs are a perfect tool to use to further a thought process, idea, explanation, hypothesis, or something that you noticed in the academic arena. While there are many blogs that are not about these things, like a food blog, book blog, or a play-by-play of a persons life blog, I am not really discussing these ones. But as a quick side note I think that it is amazing that people can find a blog for just about anything they are interested. This is one of the main reasons that bloggers become successful in blogging what they are passionate about as seen in an interview of famous blogger Jaime Derringer. Blogs written by critics, activists, and forward thinkers are what I am addressing. A video that I watched awhile ago sums up how blogs are a place that we can talk about and question things in blogging that we can't in any other place. As said in the video (around 3:15) blogging is a space that claims can be made and discussed before they become an actual fact on paper. This is why I love blogs. I think that it is extremely important for people to realize that is a claim until proven otherwise. I think that blogs can be helpful to start questioning things, get a creative thought process going that can then be thought about. So much idea for thought and action can come from blogs. I also like that typically the language that is used in blogs is usually easier to understand and just more fun to read than academics journals to be honest (again academia should confirm what is said before it becomes "fact"). This makes blogs sometimes feel more accessible and useful.

In return to bloggers, people can comment on others blogs and become a part of the thinking process. If there is a blog that is asking a question, (like the video brought up, is the Pope gay?) it is now open for public discussion and discourse can happen on the topic. This discourse and criticism is something that can happen maybe more openly on blogging sites that it may not be able to in others. 

I realize that this discussion has focused on a very specific type of blog, but to be honest that is mostly what I read. From political blogs to feminist blogs, I mostly like readings other peoples rants and forward thinking thoughts. I think that it is a useful place to go for new insights that I can take further and more academic if I want. I think that is is an interesting place to have and read discussion that is I find valuable and other people do too. I feel like I have also explained my hesitations when it comes to reading blogs and what "good" blog looks like to me. 

Change in Social Media

When social media started the actual use of it was in the simply conceptualized by the word "social." It was created to socialize and connect with other people over the internet. I don't think that I am really saying anything new when I say that it has completely changed how we (a human population) now interacts, but new impacts of social media are realized everyday. Now not only can we chat with friends, peers, or business partners around the world, the options of how we interact are becoming more and more varied. There are now studies that are being completed that show how interactions that happen through a medium either than face-to-face defer from one another, revealing the positives and negatives to these changes. Moreover businesses are now seeing many ways to use social media to promote business in ways that weren't even thought of a few years ago. Communications can happen quickly and more efficiently than in the past, which naturally spurs more innovation and competition (whether that be socially or professionally). I think that discussions about social media are always accompanied with the question at what cost? With anything that is new or non-traditional, as social media consistently proves to be, more questions are made about is it useful? What are the consequences, good or bad, of the changes of communication patterns through new media? These are questions that have to constantly be asked and researched as the new inventions are made in the social media realm all the time.

Social Media Case Reflection #1

In light of the Kilroy's Bar & Grill customer reaction to being (arguably) mistreated as she was trying to pay her $700+ bill while someone was dying from a heart attack, this blogpost will focus on three different concepts that stood out to me while reading articles about the viral facebook feed.

1: Let's first talk about the customer's reaction. Where it is now common for people to use their various social media profiles to rant, this particular customer even thought that is was appropriate to rant about the poor service she felt she received on the facebook page of the actual business. I thought this was interesting because I want to know what her goal was in doing this. Was she looking for a response from management, possibly hoping to get a discount on another meal? Was she wanting to warn other customers (even after she establishes that this place had long been a part of her New Years tradition) about the horrible service? As a frequent customer I would think she would want to talk to management specifically about the one waitress that "ruined" her experience because clearly it had not been that way in the past. Moreover, the language that she used was so offensive and clearly privileged. Even if the person that, at the time, was thought to be dead was a "junkie" she still shouldn't have blamed the staff nor the establishment for "allowing them in." The reason why this post probably went so viral was because people recognized that this customer (I like the reasons why  IndyStar didn't include her name so I will do the same, see article here) clearly had no regarrd or respect for a human life at all. If she did she would have understood that the staff and everyone else in the bar would have been very sad, or heartbroken for whoever was being wheeled out. It was a traumatic scene for everyone to witness but just because her waitress didn't respond to her quickly and kindly this ill person was an "inconvenience" to her night. It was her right and freedom to post, however it was in a public space and she should have recognized the risk of putting such an insensitive post on facebook.

2: Now let's look at the response from a gentlemen in management of the bar. Just as the customer had a right to post in the public sphere, this manager did as well. However, instead of his own personal reputation to risk, he was also risking the reputation of Kilroy's. Luckily his post ended up gaining support and boosting support for his business. It was risky. I think that the passive aggressive response while 100% justified was not the most professional response. The response did show that the company had it best interests for itself and its customers at heart. It cleared up what could have been taken other ways by people reading the post. According to a Forbes article, ideal social media presence has been changing for businesses versus what businesses have been using social media for in the past. The manager in his response showed exactly what the article lists, showing the brand culture, responding quickly, respecting the audience, and many more things could be assumed about the management and the establishment. All in my opinion were really good things. I think that his reponse also empowered many other business owners to consider situations and maybe question the common phrase "the customer is always right" because in this case the customer wasn't and the business gained benefits by not bowing down and agreeing with the customer as most people would.

3: Lastly I think it is important to talk about the response of people who saw the viral post. The cruel responses and near vigilante justice that some people were trying to serve was almost ironic. The customer with the response faced death threats, harassment, and even potentially lost her job because people saw her name and hunted her down. This is phenomenon of people cruelly responding and "putting people in their place" is something fairly new due to social media. Often talked about as something that occurs because of the lack of face to face interaction there could be a disconnect that allow people to say more offensive and cruel things. However sadly, this women's reputation was completly ruined along with any poor person who shared her same name in the area (see Huffington Post article). While the post was awful and ridiculous it does not justify the actions that were taken against her and others with the same name. One rant on facebook should not ruin the quality of life that someone can live after expressing their thoughts and feelings through freedom of speech. I think that is should have just stayed within the realm of the facebook page and that others should not have became involved in telling this women off in just as cruel rants about her as she wrote about the dying person.

Overall, I think that this case could start a lot of important discussions and questions about the social media and business and what proper responses to situations like these should look like.