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.