Checking in with Social Media

After the horrific earthquake that took over 2000 lives in Nepal, many loved ones have gone missing or have been displaced.  Family members have been frantically trying to get in touch with people in the area and some have been met with silence.

However, in October 2014 Facebook rolled out a new feature called Safety Check.  It allows people in disaster areas to check in and say “I'm safe” or "I'm not in the area" they can also indicate the other people they are with are safe.

Google deployed its own version before Facebook called Person Finder.  It is a part of Google’s charitable division and has lacked the success that Google desires.

Both of these features have importance that goes without saying, however, these features don’t address the fact that many people in the affected areas don’t have a digital connection or they lost their electronic devices in the devastation.

I think that social media sites will figure out ways to help people who don’t have connectivity, whether they have hotspot locations or perhaps they will work with the Red Cross to enable some sort of internet station. 

Until then, this feature is available to all the victims with service and it has been encouraged to post for others who don’t have service. 

Social Media + Political Election = Positive?

In 2008 and 2012 we saw how President Obama used social media to his advantage with both of his campaigns.  Now two years later we are seeing how social media is affecting the U.K. election.
According to an article by Dhara Ranasinghe of CNBC, the U.K. population of social media users has grown tremendously since their last election and now the two leading political parties are trying to capitalize on this growth.

The conservative group, known as the Tories, is using Facebook quite heavily. They have spent “$150,035 a month on Facebook.” This can include advertisements, boosting posts, and targeting certain consumers.

The liberal group, known as the Labour Party, prefers to use Twitter as their main route of information. They lead the pack with Twitter followers.
The question I pose is this: Is it a positive response when people are using social media to get all their political information or not?

I’m on the fence about this.  On one hand, social media is a great way to connect to the younger generation and spread the political party’s message. It can be used to get a conversation going and interact with other individuals, which can be great.

On the other hand, information can be misconstrued on the internet.  People could mistake a fake account for a real one and suddenly all the information this consumer has obtained is wrong.  Additionally, advertisements are looking more and more like journalistic articles so the consumer has to be aware of what they are reading.

My advice is to be careful. DO YOUR RESEARCH.  Just by following a political party on Twitter does not make you an expert.  So yes, social media can be a great tool to communicate with the masses but always keep an eye out and don’t believe everything you read.

I am Addicted to Google

After laying out how many people use Google on a daily, even hourly, basis it is amazing that we haven’t been fully taken over by Google.  I’ll be the first one to say that I am addicted to Google and use it constantly. 

Here’s a confession for all you other bloggers: I have a Google search bar on the home screen of my phone. So is Google taking over our lives? Probably.

I use it to look up the most mundane of topics like “whatcelebrity is dating who” and “how many ounces are in a cup.”  I also use it to get me to other sites when I can’t remember the exact URL, all I have to do is put the title of the site in the search bar and BINGO I can find exactly what I am looking for.

Just this past week my grandpa, a 70 year old man who loves the radio and television but is very skeptical of the internet, asked me if I used “the Google” and he told me how amazed he was by how much information you can get from it.  However, as I said, he is very unsure of the internet and it mostly has to do with safety and privacy.

He is worried about credit card fraud, catfishing, and he was also surprised and upset to see how much information you can get off of someone just by googling their name.  He did admit that it could be very useful (like when he was looking up tractor prices) he is much more cautious than any other millennial that I know.

Overall, I do believe that today’s generation is addicted to the internet in general.  We have slacked off on memorizing material and learning hands on activities because if we ever needed to know something we could look it up and/or watch a video about.

As for privacy, I don’t consider this world private anymore.  Maybe it is because I’ve been desensitized and it doesn’t bother me (which speaks louder than anything else) or because businesses and organizations request so much information from you that it feels normal. 

Having little to no privacy has become the norm.

Convergence Circle

As a society we are seeing convergence everywhere.  In both technology itself and the way that people interact with technology.  Being a student of Convergent Media, I have a grasp on how empowering it can be to consumers to participate in the media.

The first reason why convergence can be powerful for consumers is that companies are starting to listen.  By tweeting or commenting about an issue or problem with a product or service companies are now responding to the consumer.  They ask questions like: Why are you unhappy with said product/service? What can we do to make said product/service better?

Sometimes the customer service representative will even offer a coupon or they say we will take your suggestion into consideration.  This is all possible because of the convergence of technology.  Consumers can buy things online, review it on the company’s website, tweet about it, talk about it on Facebook, and then the circle returns when customer service representatives respond to the review, tweet, or Facebook post.

So the question remains, do consumers have the power to change a company’s mind? I believe the answer is yes.

The second reason is that it can bring consumers together.  People are able to communicate with each other having never met and be living on two different continents.  What usually brings them together is a piece of media like a TV show, or movie, or book. 

Together these consumers find a piece of common ground to talk about over social media or fan sites.  The great thing that comes from these conversations is creative and collaborative work.

In fact, I have a friend who was recently recognized for developing a computer game with another college student whom he met online.  They shared a love of zombies and decided they would collaboratively work to come up with their own unique game.  The game has brought success and is paying off tuition bills for both of the students. 

By having media convergence intertwined in our everyday lives it brings individuals closer and makes the world a little smaller whether it is between consumers or consumers and businesses. 

Blog Interview Reaction

As I was reading the interview done on Rebecca’s Pocket blog about Megan Reardon, I couldn’t help but wonder if her blog was even still around.  Reardon didn’t seem to want to keep up with the technology changes that were taking place and I believe that by doing this she was hurting her blog.

Reardon had disabled the comment section on her blog which has now eliminated interactivity between her and readers, which is what new media is all about. Of course I understand that some commenters are rude and “combative” but some can offer insightful information and actually teach the blogger something. 

Another thing that I found worrying is that Reardon hardly ever edits her work.  Now, I understand that if you are writing a quick blog you might make a spelling mistake or two. Nonetheless, when you are getting 4,000 viewers a day I think you should take an extra 5 minutes to make sure you didn’t confuse your with you’re.

One positive thought I had about what Reardon does with her blog is to make it personal about what she is interested in. She kept it like a craft journal and just a way to keep track of future projects and ideas she had come across and that’s how she incorporated hyperlinks into her blog.  I also liked that she would post the final version of what she made so that viewers get a visual of the real world application of the project.

However, she doesn’t let the audience in on any other aspects of her life.  She even said it herself: “The site has no sense of the person who writes it.”  Not that she needs to divulge in the details of her life, but the blog should have an essence of the person who writes it.  I feel like that may be the most important thing, next to interactivity, to have a successful and interesting blog.

Lastly, at the beginning I wondered if this blog was even still around and it is! The reason for that is because it evolved.  She made it more personal, but still keeps it as a “link journal.”  I do wonder how many visitors she gets in 2015 especially with the popularity of Pinterest. Another thing that I noticed is that Reardon also enabled comments again and is currently involved in all types of social media which can only help her get more views.