We Are Not Alone

I just came across the post of another class that is using WordPress to publish class discourse.  Cool.  You can find it at http://bus442.wordpress.com/.  Check it out.  Who knows?  There may be opportunities for collaboration of some sort. 

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What I Don’t Like About Facebook

For the most part I think Facebook is a very helpful application that allows you to keep in contact with friends from high school, college, and other people you meet along life’s journey. However I do believe this site is leading to a continual downfall in personal communication. To me Facebook is very impersonal and if I have something I really want to say to someone I would rather talk face-to-face or over the phone. I notice a lot of people seem to like the fact that Facebook is fairly informal but I would not prefer to use it all the time, especially with close friends.

 Recently I went on a family vacation to Costa Rica which was great and I uploaded pictures on my profile. When people at Grove City ask me the common question, “what did you do over break?” and I respond with the answer of I went to Costa Rica on a family vacation then the majority of the time they will say something along the lines of “oh yeah, I saw pictures.” I think that is kind of stalkerish to be browsing through albums of people’s pictures. It is fine to be curious about what people have been up to, but it’s like now you don’t have to talk with someone to find out what they are doing lately, you just search for their name and there you have your answer.

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A Great Cheat Sheet for blogging!

Copywriting is truly an art and takes practice and study to get right. Something good to think about is that in this ever changing world and especially the internet, words are the new currency! Much of the new approach to SEO involves using content to acquire links.

Just write and you’ll improve!

Content and copy are some terms for the words you write.

Update: Great blog post- 52 easy ways optimize your blog while on your coffee break

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Facebook Stalker Skit

This is a hilarious parody of the song Hero by Enrique Inglesias. It highlights the absurdity of Facebook we all know and tolerate? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FahBBnfHAQ&rel=1]

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Is your dog’s name public knowledge?

Many of us are very much into Facebook, to put it gently, but in light of recent discoveries and murmurings in the blogosphere. We may want to reconsider what information we put in our profiles.

Recently, Facebook learned a hard lesson when it released the "Beacon" feature and didn't notify users but even worse made it an opt-out feature. User's had personal shopping data appear in their friend's news feeds. Facebook has now rethought this system and currently you have to approve items to be published.

Facebook also has a troubling policy regarding the dissemination of user's private information. They can and do share your personal information with third parties. This should cause us to think twice about what we put on Facebook.

It also can be, and probably is, an incredible tool for marketers, as it allows you to target highly specific markets. Currently 50 major companies are participating in the Beacon feature As a marketer what do you think of Facebook and Beacon's capabilities? As a Facebook user do these privacy policies concern you?

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Facebook Expansion

In creating facebook the business seemed to start out slow and then increase at a very fast pace. When I was a Freshman here at Grove City my sister was a Hamilton College and she called me and said hey you should get on facebook. So I looked into it because I didn’t even know what it was at the time because it wasn’t very big at the time. I later found out that it was similar to Myspace in that it was a social networking system. The difference at the time was that it wasn’t open to everyone it was only open to people at certain colleges that Facebook designated its service to. After a little while I remember that it came to Grove City and it was a really good way to keep in touch with High School friends and other friends that you didn’t go to school with. However, instead of continuing to keep its niche as just college students across the globe Facebook expanded to High Schools and then to everyone who has an email address. I personally don’t like this because I thought it was cool to just have friends from college and at the college level rather than everyone like My Space and the other services are. So I think Facebook expanded because they have a huge following and are making a ton of money on it but I also know a lot of people that are mad because they expanded so much and did all these different things. All in all I think it was probably the best move for them to expand if their end goal was to get as many users as possible but I am just not a big fan of it.

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Facebook’s Beginning

Okay, guys, I'll try to get the ball rolling. As I've been researching Facebook, it seems to me like Mark Zuckerberg (founder) was a really fortunate guy. He created a basic social networking application by himself in about two weeks, at a time when people were just realizing how the technology could be useful to them. So, as far as I can guess as to why he has been so successful #1) he already had good programming skills to accomplish the task and #2) his timing was great. He also benefited–and I'm not sure he was aware that this model would be best–by starting small and only releasing the application to his own university first. After the initial market was convinced of the usefulness of the application, the idea just snowballed as people told their friends about it and demand grew. A mass release might not have worked so well as it would have lacked the closeness of the first Harvard market that in turn generated positive buzz about his product. Also, I think that appealing to colleges in particular made the application stronger in that it caused people to think of it as more directly relevant to them. Myspace, at least in my opinion, seems a bit too far-reaching and impersonal. As to some good reasons why Facebook is so different from other social networking sites, I can't really say. Maybe somebody who has used Facebook in addition to other sites can comment.

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Blogging is Easy - Just give it a try.

As you make an attempt to start blogging, remember this: READY, FIRE, AIM.

Your blog does not have to be perfect. That’s not the point. In fact, the main thing right now is just to START - start to ask questions, start to offer thoughts, start to open up subjects that are worthy of dialogue.

If you have some experience blogging, demonstrate what a sample blog might look like.

“Blog” comes from the term “Web Log.” It is a series of brief, related or unrelated thoughts on a subject that is posted and managed on a web platform. Think of it as a collective stream of consciousness.

People don’t expect perfection, just effort. Go ahead - give it a try. Write a few thoughts, and if you don’t have a lot of thoughts, start asking some questions. We can all participate and stimulate discussion.

And remember, you can start a blog and come back and edit it at any time. You can save your work and NOT publish it initially, and then, as you complete it, publish it for all to see.

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Hooray For Facebook

I think we can all agree that facebook is an incredible invention which provides entertainment during boring classes and enables us to waste copious amounts of time. Many people love to make fun of "facebookers" (myself included) but we all secretly indulge in private. Checking out other's photos (even if it is "stalkerish"), writing on walls, and "poking" arise in us a glee of sorts, whether we like it or not. For me facebook is a photo gallery. I keep all my digital photos on facebook to keep them safe from my computer crashing (which happens 2.3 times a semester) or breaking burned cds. Those that talk about "stalkers" are really just trying to bolster their own appeal. You are placing you photos on the INTERNET, what do you expect? That no one will look at them?The question, which comes to mind, is not about stalkers but about future employers or campus security. Is it fair for someone to make judgment calls on a situation from a facebook photo? Facebook is supposed to be a page where I can personalize it, share my photos, and communicate with others. Now, I have to worry about what photos are in my albums, who is tagging me, and what is being written on my wall. My message to the world is “let’s not take is so seriously”. Facebook is NOT a reflection of who I am or my work ethic. I would argue that quite a few people use facebook as a medium for humor not for communicating their heart and soul. For example, some individuals on campus have their religion as ABT Sweetheart. Does that mean they are going to hell? Let’s not forget that facebook is for fun and a way to chat with friends.

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Questions to Consider Regarding Facebook

Here are a few questions for you to consider as you start to blog about Facebook:

• Who are the target user groups?
• What are their needs and how is Facebook meeting those needs?
• Why are people so addicted to this application?
• Is there anything you don’t like about Facebook?
• How are businesses using Facebook to reach customers?
• What about the founder, Mark Zuckerberg? How did this idea start? How did he develop it? What makes him tick? What is his vision?
• Is there anything controversial about Zuckerberg or Facebook that is being discussed in blogs or news sources?
• What sets Facebook apart from other social networking sites?
• What is the revenue model here? How are they making money?

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