The PATH less traveled

Normally when I post a blog I write about something that I have heard/read about throughout the previous week. For the first time this week I went online and Googled "Social Media" in an attempt to find something interesting to write about because honestly, I am all out. What I found was actually very interesting; to me anyway. I am not a big fan of social media. I use it sparingly and only then because I am nearly forced to by my friends and family. I can appreciate it for it's usefulness but normally what I am thinking when I look at people's facebook and twitter posts is: "who cares?" To me it has always been a pointless popularity contest with little to nothing real going on. It is just boring.

That is why Path, the new social media site available currently only as an iPhone app is interesting to me. Most people I know have several hundred facebook friends. How do they keep up with so many people and why WHY would they ever care about all these minuscule details of these people's lives?

Path limits its social network to 50 people and every post must include a photo. That seems much more interesting to me. If it's worth taking a picture of; I might be interested. I certainly will be more likely to take interest if you are someone I communicate with regularly. This smaller network will surely make me more likely to pay attention to posts as I will surely remember who the 50 people in my network are. Everyone else I am probably not that concerned with anyway!

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/the-path-to-social-network-tranquility-is-lined-by-50-friends/
https://www.path.com/home.html

Gregg Gillis (Girl Talk) releases new mashup album only online for free

Artist Gregg Gillis released a new album today under his mashup moniker Girl Talk. It is very much a mashup album (mixing together of other well-known songs) blending tracks from over 300 artists into one 70+ minute track. I ill not begin to critique the album as this is of little importance here. What I would like to do is touch briefly on the evolution of the music industry and the internet.
The album is being released through the record label's website aptly named illegal-art.net. In recent years many artists have begun to release their work in such a way (NIN, Radiohead, etc). The artists know that people are going to pirate it so they just put it online for free and as in the case of Radiohead simply ask their patrons to contribute whatever they can afford, be it .10 or 100.00. In some cases this has proven to be more effective than a traditional release as diehard fans wish to support their favorite bands and the money goes directly to the artists bypassing the record label's ridiculous release and marketing fees. The free releases are then promoted through mass emails and heavily through social media (which is how I found out about today's freebie). Way to go bands, sticking it to the man!

http://illegal-art.net/allday/

Twitter as a legitimate news source?

So I don't check my Twitter account very often, but I do check it more often than facebook. What I like about twitter is the lack of extensive personal profiles and it's quick, concise, and most importantly relevant format. While the short posts do allow for a lot of pointless b.s. they are also useful for getting across what is important in a very quick fashion. At Twitter's homepage there is always a ticker showing what is currently trending on the sirte so it's easy to see what people are interested in at the time. Recently it has allowed people to relay breaking news as it happens much quicker than "real" news sources.  Granted, I started looking into this because one of my favorite bands broke some tour "news" on Twitter but my subsequent "Twitter news" searches yeilded some pretty interesting results.On 10/31 there was a sustantial earthquake in southern California.  This graph shows the response time of a couple of local news sources versus Twitter updates which began almost immediately.This is the second time this has happened as far as earthquakes are concened. Twitter beat the AP first on this issue in July 2008.



My sister who is a journalist in Lexington tells me that many news sources are now watching social media heavily as a source for leads and breaking news. I find www.twitter.com/breakingnews to be pretty informative personally.There are several accounts like this which allows you to get breaking news on your phone if your into that sort of thing.

Foursquare provides power to business owners

Recently in class we talked about Foursquare users becoming "Mayor" of a location  and not actually visiting that location often. I just read a post on Mashable.com discussing Foursquare's attempts to eliminate this issue. They had first allowed users only to check in via their mobile device and it's GPS locator.

This then created the problem of people checking in from nearby. If my parking space is beside the McDonald's for example; I might check in 4 times a day, become mayor and earn a a gang of free coffees or a whole passle of the McRib (should it ever return).  Foursquare has now given business owners the ability to oust the current mayor giving the title to the next in line if they know that someone is doing this. This is a great idea because the power to market the business and give perks should be in the hands of the business owner anyway!

http://mashable.com/2010/11/02/foursquare-lets-businesses-out-mayors/

Chevron's New Ad Campaign Hijacked Immediately

So Chevron launches a new ad campaign and immediately the the social-media savy group the Yes men have spun it against the oil giant by producing fake ads from Chevron exposing many of the company's weak points such as this fake BBC interview  which was picked up by Yahoo!News. Chevron is now in a scrambling retreat and trying to save face. They claim they "knew this would happen". If that was the case then why bother even beginning the campaign! This is not the first time Chevron has been targeted by the Yes men but they were obviously not ready for what was going to happen this time.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlUQ2sUti8o&feature=player_embedded

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/The-Yes-Men-spoof-Chevron-ad-campaign-713253.php

http://www.youtube.com/user/Chevron?gclid=CJOH4tCHvKQCFc9L5QodVV071A&gclid=CN7luajp36QCFQK87QodoBfNKg

Tyler Clementi and the terrible consequenses of vendictive social media

Last Tuesday there was an article in USA TODAY concerning the implications of social Media being thrust upon us and how the results can be both very positive and very negative. A portion of the story was dedicated to Tyler Clementi. Clementi commited suicide after an intimate encounter between he and another man was recorded by his Rutgers oommate and broadcast online against his will. The roomate then used Twitter to announce that he intended to do so again. While social media can do so much good to connect people it is a shame that there are those who will use it to so maliciously attack others. Social media is so deeply ingrained in this tragic event that Clementi's final act was a Facebook post declaring that he was about to jump in the George Washington Bridge sent from his cell phone. This really punctuates our recent class discussion about choosing VERY carefully what you choose to share online. Maybe Tyler's roomate did not intend for Tyler to kill himself but he obviously did mean to do harm by posting it online and he had to consider this as one of the possible outcomes of his actions. I scrutinize very carefully what I publish online becouse I recently found myself tagged in photos with people whom I no longer associate with and I had to remove the tags. It is often not only ourselves we can hurt but others as well, even with the best of intentions.

I beleve that Invasion of Privacy charges have been filed against the roomate Dharun Ravi carrying a maximum of 5 years. Bias charges are also pending

http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20101011/OPINION01/101011003/DeWayne-Wickham-Social-media-thrusting-us-into-global-town-square

http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-Honor-of-Tyler-Clementi/153517964681258

The lack of USEFUL social media in politics

In watching some political news this week it occured to me that even with the recent wave of politicians using social media to campaign very few politicians are using social media in a very constructive way. I know that Obama used Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace to engage followers and drum up support tin '08 and that is a good start but why are politicians not using these platforms to more directly do what they are elected to do, find out what the people want and be their voice! And why are we as citizens not speaking more directly to our nation's leaders. We have a new, wonderful tool to communicate with and engage others and it's most obvious use is being overlooked!

After Googling Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell, the only one with a social media link in the top 5 results was Barack Obama's Twitter account. After looking at the websites for  both the Republican Party of KY and Democratic Party of KY there are Facebook and Twitter links on the front page of both but it seems as though they are really doing very little to really engage in convrsation with the public and mostly campaigning and pointing out what the other party is doing wrong. Usual politics I suppose.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frankfort-KY/Kentucky-Democratic-Party/137078141865
http://www.facebook.com/KYGOP
http://twitter.com/KyDems
http://twitter.com/kygop