PR and Social Media

PSA Humane Society Video

2009-04-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

The first version of this PSA was done in the internet-based video editing service.

The social issue I chose to address in my PSA was people who are either reluctant to adopt their pets from an animal shelter, or those who are simply unaware that doing so is an option. In the video, I inserted a number of photographs depicting cute dogs and cats in order to show the video viewers that cats and dogs make good companions regardless of if the came from a breeder or a shelter.

For the PSA (the iMovie version), I used a number of different photos of cats and dogs. Many of the photos I took myself, the Dorchester County Humane Society in Cambridge, Maryland gave the rest of the pictures to me. I inserted five text slides, most of them addressing a different misconception held by people who are hesitant to adopt an animal. After all of the slides that I intended to use were in my iMovie project, I adjusted the length of each slide so that they not only fit into the one-minute timeframe, but also so that their transitions fit into the rhythm of the music. Once I was happy with the way my PSA was looking, I converted it into QuickTime format and uploaded it to my YouTube account. From there I copied and pasted the embedded link directly into my blog post so that I could be streamed directly from my Blogger page.

Dominos YouTube PR Disaster

2009-04-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, two teenagers who were workingat a Dominos pizza chain decided that they would make a video and upload it to YouTube. The motivation behind this appears to be simply boredom. So what's the big deal? Teenagers post up videos on YouTube all the time, after all. Well the difference in this case is that the video depicted the two teens dressed in full Dominos uniform, doing stomach-wrenching acts to food that was seemingly going to be sold to customers. Sticking cheese up their noses and then placing in on a sandwich was just one example of the two teen's antics. Dominos managed to act relatively quickly and pulled the video down in less than two days. But by then the damage had been done. The video had received close to one million hits by then, so it's safe to say that the damage had been done. On top of this, it would seem that some viewers of the original video downloaded it off of YouTube and have since posted it back up. In other words, the pizza clip is now impossible to squash. But what does this mean for Dominos, or any company for that matter? I mean, its not like the company did anything wrong themselves. This could have happened to any company and this type of behavior is not unheard of in the kitchens of restaurants. The difference now is that todays disgruntled employees now have the power to share their disgusting acts with the whole world instantly, and thus doing significant damage to the company and it's reputation. This is a tough situation to deal with for any organization. My advice to Dominos and pretty much any other organization is to keep a close and constant eye on what is being carried out in you name on the web. The only other thing they could do is press charges against the offenders so as to make and example of them (Dominos is looking at this option) . This will at least act as something of a deterrent. Other than that, there's not much else to do. There will always be unhappy employees and many of them will have video cameras. Just hope their not targeting you with them.

Twitter Podcast

2009-03-30T11:32:00.001-07:00

For this assignment, (Linked here or streaming above), our group was asked to produce a podcast that both showed that we had learned the skills needed to accomplish a task like this, as well as have the podcast cover a topic that is relevant to our studies in social media and web 2.0. We all agreed that, because of the great deal of attention it has been getting lately, Twitter would be a good subject to cover. Overall, I would say that our project was a success. We began with an introduction, which laid out what we would be covering in the podcast. Each member of our group then took on a different aspect of the micro-blogging service to analyze. Then concluded it with our findings. The entire podcast was recorded in my living room on my MacBook through GarageBand. We didn't even need any extra equipment since the laptop has a mic built in. After recording, we converted it into MP3 format and uploaded it onto our blogs.

Show Notes

Social Media Today

00.14 Juan begins to introduce the show.

00.38 Juan introduces the various topics that will be discussed on the podcast.

00.42 Sara begins to talk about the use of Twitter for journalists.

01.49 Juan transitions topic to Kirby.

01.58 Kirby begins to talk about the advantages of Twitter for the average person.

03.01 Juan transitions topic to Joe.

03.12 Joe begins talking about the advantages of Twitter for business.

04.38 Juan ends the show.

05.13 Podcast ends.

Twitter: I still don't get it... :(

2009-03-16T00:05:00.001-07:00

Not too long ago I gave in and joined Twitter. If you are unfamiliar with what Twitter, think of blogging, only a lot smaller (micro-blogging) and only answering the question "What are you doing?". I didn't join because I have saw a use out of it, but did so simply because everyone else was doing it - I just wanted to be popular :( -. Anyway, I still haven't found any truly good use for it in my day-to-day life. Believe me I tried. First I looked for anyone i knew with a Twitter account. This was a lot harder than I expected. There isn't really a good searching ability on Twitter. You can't look by E-mail or school/employer like on Facebook, for example. And even when I did find an account with a name I recognized, they often didn't have a picture up or listed their city, so I couldn't tell which of them were people I knew (if any of them were) and which just happened to have the same name. I did finally manage to track down my friend Wayo. Ironically, I did this, not by looking up his name, but instead by typing in my own. Evidently, my friend had run into the same problem as me because he was following the Tweets of someone who shared my name, but was NOT me. I called Wayo up and we straightened everything out. Well I decided to give up on friends and look for celebreties that I might want to follow. This however, was also a bit disappointing. I found that all of the celebrities I would care to follow, they all fall into one of two groups. Those who Tweet way too much and constantly fill up your page, such as Jim Gaffigan and The Onion, or those who don't use Twitter at all, like Kristen Bell. (* The third group would be fake Twitter accounts like Tina Fey's). I would really like to be into Twitter, seriously! In fact, not liking it makes me feel kind of old. But I guess its just doesn't have a useful purpose in my day to day activities. Still, if Twitter does something about the problems I mentioned, who knows!

(Twitter pages of Jim Gaffigan, The Onion, Kristen Bell, *fake-> Tina Fey)

LOL, this sums it up really well:

China takes up Pakistan's example

2009-03-15T22:13:00.001-07:00

In a previous blog post, I wrote about Youtube removing content deemed by some to be offensive to the Islamic faith. They did this in response to Pakistan placing a nation wide ban on the site. Well since then, Chinese officials have done the exact same thing (obviously this means that the Chinese government reads my blog). The Youtube ban, which bars the country’s internet service providers (ISPs) from granting users access to the site, is in response to video’s posted of many Tibetan protests that have taken place over the years. This puts Youtube in a terrible position. First of all, if Youtube again censors its content due to political pressure, I have no doubt that other countries will follow suit. The last thing Youtube wants is for countries banning access to become a trend. Another problem lies in the motives behind the ban. While China’s and Pakistan's ban may appear to be the same issue, this actually isn’t the case. Pakistan's ban, and Youtube’s decision to meet their demands, was centered the fact that the videos were clearly examples of religious intolerance. Many of the videos China is objecting to are of Chinese police using what many would define as unnecessary, even brutal force against Buddhist monks, Tibetans in exiles, and others participating in the demonstrations. The difference here is that with the Pakistan situation, Youtube was acting against intolerance. China, however, is the oppressor in this situation. Many people, including myself, would see the removal of the Chinese protest videos as assisting China’s attempt to cover-up human rights violations (See: “Tiananmen Square Massacre”).

Video Example:

Youtube finds itself in a tough PR situation. If they ignore the demands of the Chinese government and leave the content up, they will most likely lose all patronage from the Chinese people. This is no small issue since China makes up a relatively large piece of those who visit the site. On the flip side, if the site does cave and remove the content, it could put them in an even worse position. There is no doubt that numerous people around the world, myself included, would view this as Youtube not only turning a blind eye to human rights violations by actively censoring others speaking out against them. Not to mention that doing so would go against Youtube’s core philosophy of free expression.

So what’s a video-sharing site to do? Here's what I think. Taking down the content the Chinese government is objecting to would be a BAD move on YouTube's part. A line in the sand needs to be drawn to prevent countries, or any group/organization for that matter, from trying to bully YouTube into censorship. This is a good place to dig in and refuse to remove the content. Unfortunately, I believe that this powerful tool for free speech and self-expression may be reduced to nothing more than a way to watch clips of skateboard accidents, sneezing pandas and “lol cats” while on your lunch break.

Pakistan's ban on YouTube

2009-03-08T21:46:00.001-07:00

On February 27^th, 2008, the government of Pakistan removed its ban on YouTube after the website took down material many deem offensive to Muslims. The questionable videos contained cartoons drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. While I haven’t confirmed that these videos intentionally attacked the profit, any depiction of him is felt to be disrespectful in the Islamic faith. In fact, it was not too long ago that a very similar situation involving a cartoon featured in a Danish publication caused a wave of outrage throughout the world. Well it seems that Pakistan’s actions worked. The spokesman for the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), Khurram Mehran, said, "We have issued instructions to all internet service providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific content has been removed by the website”.

Frankly, I am unsure how to feel about this situation. On one hand I’m not the kind of guy that supports the mocking of any religion, regardless if it is my own or not. Plus, do we really need to cause any more friction between the cultures of the West and those of the Middle East? On the other hand, YouTube is supposed to be about free speech and expression. While it isn’t good that the material was seen as offensive to Muslims, one can no doubt find content that is derogatory towards other religions on YouTube. Isn’t being equally offensive to everyone a form of equality, too? I really don’t have the answers but it certainly seems that YouTube has made up their mind on the issue.

Chapter 1 Citizen Marketers - My favorite firecracker

2009-03-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

The summer before last, my roomate and I became obsessed with a video on Youtube known as "Drama Chipmunk". This video is the definition of a firecracker. The video depicted a prairie dog (not a chipmunk) giving a weird look to the camera, set to some very dramatic music. I'm not really sure why the video was so funny, but believe me, it was. Almost overnight, the video was everywhere. I saw it posted on my friend's facebook walls, all over video sharing sites like youtube, it was even played on television a few times. In addition to all of this, dozens of remakes and parodies of the drama chipmunk started popping up all over the place. It was strange how popular the drama chipmunk became. Why did this particular video succeed where so many others failed to become viral? What makes a firecracker a firecracker?

Who's Watching us Online?

2009-03-08T21:13:00.001-07:00

My softmore year of college I did some volunteer work at MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). There, they would give me about an hours worth of work with four hours to do it. Because of this free time, I would often sit back and listen to the conversations around me. One in particular caught my attention. A woman in the cubicle next to me was talking on the phone, explaining to whoever was on the other end that she had been monitoring a high school student's Myspace page. She was doing this, I learned, in order to use it as evidance for a judge to show that the student was violating his probation by drinking on the weekends. It makes me wonder; who else is looking at our digital footprint, and will this become more common place in the future?

Why Women Shall Inherit The Earth, And Why Social Media All But Guarantees It

2009-02-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

Remember the good old days? When dial-up AOL was the cutting edge of technology, when all facets of our media were controlled by men, and when you wouldn't think twice about sitting next to Pee-wee Herman in a movie theater? Yeah well those days are dead. I'll let you research AOL and Pee-wee on your own, and instead focus in on the one regarding men dominating the media. While sexism no doubt played a significant role in why this came to be. I wonder if thats all there is to it. I believe that, even if sexism was completely taken out of this equation, woman may still be at a disadvantage in the mainstream media simply because of the different ways in which men and women communicate. For the first time, it looks like women may have the upper hand.

In addition to my interests in the study of social media, I am fascinated with theories in interpersonal communication. Particularly those dealing with the different ways in which men and women communicate. The book, "You Just Don't Understand" by Deborah Tannen depicts a number of different communication styles, some of which men tend to favor, and other women prefer. Report-talk versus rapport-talk.

Report-talk is the form in which men seem to be most comfortable speaking in. Mrs. Tannen discribes this as, "...(Report-talk) is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order. This is done by exhibiting knowledge and skill, and by holding center stage through verbal performance...". This seems to fit nicely into what we often see from our familure main-stream news outlets. I also find it interesting that, although the author is refuring to face to face interactions in this quote, it doesn't take much imagination to picture this as a one-way communication. This one-way, hierarchical method of communication is the same structure we find in all traditional medias; from newspapers to radio programs to cable news networks. All hierarchical, all one-way.

Now look at rapport talk. This is the form of speech women feel most accustomed to using.

Internet Democratization, Advancing Technologies, and a Grandma

2009-02-11T05:04:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3 of Citizen Marketers, entitled “The Democratization of Everything”, covers a great deal of information regarding Web 2.0 being a “…multiple-way communication between Web-site owner and visitor, and visitors with other visitors.” This is in stark contrast to the “Web 1.0” model, in which the communication is passed one-way, from the content’s creator to the viewer, much like more traditional mediums (Newspapers, television, ext.). I found just about everything covered in this chapter to be, not just interesting, but exciting. However, it was what the authors, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, said regarding the younger generation that really sparked my interest. Quotes like, “Children are actively using personal music devices, digital cameras, and DVD players by the age of 7…” and, “Twice as many kids aged 4 to 14 owned personal music devices and digital cameras in 2005, while cell-phone ownership in the age group has shot up 50 percent since (2005).” made me take a moment to stop and think about how quickly our nation’s youth pickup these technologies and then surpass the generations in front of them in both know-how and creativity. It reminded me of a story a professor of mine once told to our class.

It was my first semester at St. Edward’s University and I was being taught Darwin’s theory of evolution by a Professor affectionately known as “Dr. Dave”. I can’t remember why, but one day he brought up his grandmother. He said that she was in her late 80’s and, bless her heart, simply could not comprehend that documents, pictures, ext. could be saved on the computer. She held the belief that once the computer was turned off, everything that was on it was lost for good. So, she felt it necessary to print everything out on paper. Dr. Dave told us that every year a different member of the family would take up the quest of getting grandma to understand the computer’s save function. And every year that family member would walk away defeated, their frustrated mumbling muffled by the sounds of grandma’s printer churning away in the other room. It’s been over four years since Dr. Dave shared that story with me, and yet I still remember it as if he had said it to me just moments ago. As for my recollection of the subject… Hmm, I know it had something to do with monkeys...

Anyway, I think this story stuck with me through all these years for two reasons. The first is that it’s adorable. The second is the fact that it forces me to ask myself a difficult question: “What kind of technology will I be unable to wrap my mind around as an old man? Could we really advance so quickly that I will not only fail to keep up with technology, but find myself unable to even comprehend it?” I’m not really sure. Sitting here in front of my computer as a 22 year old , it’s hard for me to even imagine myself as an elderly gentleman, becoming frustrated and perhaps even fearful of new emerging technologies. Could this really be my fate and if so, is there anything I can do to prevent it? After a bit more thought on the matter, I came to this conclusion: As long as I get to ride around on one of those Rascal Scooters, I don't really care.

Democrats once again take up the Net Neutrality cause

2009-02-11T03:11:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, Democrats once again introduced the Internet Freedom and Non-discrimination Act before Congress. The Internet Freedom and Non-discrimination Act, originally passed in 2006, is a bill that would change America’s antitrust law to keep corporations such as Comcast, Time-Warner, and AT&T from, “…blocking, impairing, or discrimination against ‘lawful’ Internet content, applications, and services or charging extra fees for ‘prioritization or enhanced quality of service.’” (Anne Broache, Cnet.com) In other words, companies that serve as network operators will not be able to use their control of the networks to tilt the virtual playing field in their favor. This regulation is known as Net Neutrality.

Personally I think this is fantastic. The internet today is the only mass medium where quality of content alone decides the fate of websites, blogs, and other web content. Being a broke college student, there is not much hope that I will be able to start a television program, newspaper, magazine, or radio station that could rival those found in the main stream media. Even if I could manage to accomplish this, it would certainly not happen over night. This, however, is not the case on the Internet. Thanks to the web’s level playing field, I am able to create, lets say a blog, and in no time at all, be in competition with the most established blogs on the web. My success or failure would be determined by how interesting/entertaining/useful visitors found my content, and not whether I am backed by a powerful conglomerate. On the web, money, power, and control all take a back seat to quality of content and creativity. I for one, hope it remains that way.