 So it's been a while since i wrote anything here. I have no idea what got into me (well actually i do) but I told myself that even though blogging started off as a class requirement, I would blog afterwards. I guess I will just fall back on my excuse of having nothing to say. However, here I am at exactly 3:01 am on Wednesday morning writing. Writing. I never thought that I would take pleasure in it but after hearing for close to a year that I'm not as terrible a writer as I thought and still to some extent think I am, again, here I am writing. I figure I might as well get used to it especially if I go on the route I'm preparing myself to go on albeit hesitantly. But I will come back to my future at a later time. For now, I will revel in my sleepy yet oddly happy state as I write about how I intend to write more frequently. So, I the prodigal blogger, returns.
I just had the absolute pleasure of interviewing or more so conversing with Daria Kempka, Web producer at Marquette University. Well this happened about three days ago but thats not the point here. Daria has a little over eleven years of experience in web and multimedia development as well as web marketing and multimedia landscape.Though I veered off what we were supposed to be talking about, she was gracious throughout the time we spent talking. In the process of developing an app for Marquette University,Daria has been exposed to mobile web along with its challenges and and she mentioned her thoughts on the growth of mobile web and her belief that it would grow even more than it already has recently. Since we have talked about the growth and future growth of the mobile web, I was not surprised to hear that. She believed that it might grow even stronger. She was fascinated by the sameness of what happened about eleven years ago when she started her career in web development and what was happening now with the growth of mobile web. She felt that the same questions that were asked then are what are being asked now with the growth of technology and the different applications that have been developed. Daria felt that with technology, easier ways have been developed which has enabled more to be done Daria also mentioned that she believe tablets would have a stronger edge over laptops should a way be found for one to be able to connect to a server remotely. All in all a great interview with Daria!
This is a follow up to the previous blog about e-book pricing. A New York Times reported that the Justice Department charged Apple and five of the largest book publishers with an antitrust lawsuit, alleging that there was a collusion to raise the price of e-books. Read to get more information from the above article about what this could mean for consumers and the price of e-books.
When I saw this article, I remembered Robyn's book presentation where she mentioned a couple of applications one can use to on thier LinkedIn profile to make the most out of LinkedIn. Since it's pretty obivous that e-books are here to stay and captilizing on that is only right, Amazon released its latest update , 6.3 Fire software version, for the Kindle Fire. This allows device owners to share their favorite passages and notes from their ebooks on Facebook and Twitter, fulfilling Amazon's aim of bringing the sharing and conversation of books online. This proves to me that Amazon is no slouch in the tablet arena. Unless I'm mistaken, this is something new. Amazon's aim of making the Kindle Fire more social is of course brilliant since social media and anything social is the rage right now and probably will be for some time. Since most consumers are all about sharing in this day and age, this update would arguably be used to its best potential, especially for avid book readers. If I owned a Kindle Fire, I would probably be the first to use it, if i could find time to read at all this semester!
So I am looking for an internship for this summer and I've submitted a couple of applications. For some internships, they asked for a tweet or a link to the applicant's facebook page to presumably determine the applicant's social klout I would guess. So while I knew that some employers wanted to know how active a person was with social media, I was shocked to read an article which said that employers were asking for Facebook passwords from applicants during job interviews. This Associated Press reported that some companies and goverment agencies are asking for apllicants' passwords in order to log in and look around as the user. Apparantly troubled by this report, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut in an another Associated Press article said they were calling on the Justice Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to start investigations. Now I suppose that, no I cannot come up with any reason why companies would ask for an applicant's password. Social media is an increasingly important part of most companies' efforts to increase their brand image among other things but I think asking for a password to verify an applicant's social media credentials is going a bit too far. What do you think?
When the new ipad e-book publishing software came out, we talked a bit in class about the issue of pricing the e-books. There was mention of the matter of how pricing of the e-book once published would be determined among other things. That was what I remembered when I saw the New York Times article which mentioned an investigation by the Justice Department of "pricing collusion between Apple and electronic book publishers. "People with knowledge of the inquiry" state that antitrust officials have pressured five major publishers with the threat of a lawsuit based on charges of working together to raise the price of e-books to reach a settlement. What came to mind again was our discussion of seeing two big publishing firms espousing the new e-book software by Apple who were however not mentioned in the article. The current model of pricing allows publishers to set their own prices for e-books. The disagreement is on a pricing policy considered to be important to the survival of the publishing industry to be critical to its survival as e-books have a large share of the market.
I dont know how this investigation will turn out but it doesnt surprise me that some publishing firms want to increase the price of e-books in a concession. With the increase in the sale of tablets, e-books might concurrently increase even more and publishers want to make the most of that opportunity. We can only wait and see how the investigation turns out and if it makes any difference in the pricing policy adopted by the publishing industry.
So I was a little suprised for lack of a better word when the morning after the Oscars, I saw an news headline on yahoo about Angelina Jolies's leg having a twitter account. I did not bother looking for it until today when i saw an article about a race car driver getting more followers after tweeting during a car race. Robyn has a little something on that article. So back to Ms Jolie. Within probaly seconds of appearing on the red carpet with a pose that exhibited her right leg, someone, I dont know who, nor do I care to know for that matter, set up a twitter account for the leg. I will even attempt to guess the motivation behind that act. What is interesting to me is that before the end of the show, that account had about ten thousand followers, which begs the question of why people follow what on twitter. The power of social media, being able to set up an account and getting so many followers within such a short space of time is basically what most social media have in common. The timeliness of it all. Does it have to do with who the celebrity is or the uniquess of the situation/ subject(race car driver, ms Jolie's leg)? If you have an answer to that, please do share! If not, share your thoughts anyway!
I can literally count on my fingers the number of times I have been on a plane. I would not say that i am particularly picky when it comes to who I'm sitting by. Now the only reason I confidently say this is that I've been lucky enough to not get the much talked about individual who never shuts up during the flight. But for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have been in that situation, then you might like the fact that KLM is testing out a new program called Meet and Seat which basically allows ticket-holders to upload details from their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles and use that data to choose who they would like to sit by. So here's the rundown on how it works if you would prefer not to read the whole article. If you have a confirmed reservation and are willing have your booking connected to your social profile, you choose which part of your information you would share. You would then be presented with seat maps that you where others who have shared their profiles are seated. Finally you can then reserve the neat next to anyone who seems interesting to you. That person would then receive a message with your profile details. As companies seek new ways to utilize social media, it's fair to say that even more interesting ways would be thought of to integrate social media to engage customers as well as improve brand image. I dont know how sucessful this program might be, but I'm sure there would be people willing to try it out!
If I havent made it obvious by now, let me emphasize it again. I am an online girl! At least in my mind! I am more often than not online even when I should be doing something more important. So, anyway, I love to watch my favorite animes and tv-shows online since I do not have a Tv and have no intention of getting one anytime soon. A New York Times article mentions a study by Nielson which revealed that Americans ages 12-34 spending less time in front of Tv sets. This is attributed to the effect of the available alternatives to the Tv set such as internet videos, social networks, mobile phones and video games. Essentially, the same shows are being watched by young people but they are being streamed on computers and phones to a greater extent than their parents or grandparents. It's no surprise that research supports what has been widely taken for granted which is that young people spend more time on the internet and away from traditional media, particularly the television set. The growing popularity of tablets provides more screens for which most people can watch their favorite shows or videos pushing the traditional television set even farther away. Weigh in below!
One word, Pinterest. For something i had never heard of, it was surprising to notice it more than twice yesterday, first in an article by Mashable's ceo Pete Cashmore about why Pinterest is 2012's hottest website. Pinterest was launched almost two years ago and was under the radar until the Silicon Vally news sites made mention of it. If like me you hadnt heard of it until now, Pinterest is, according to its website, a virtual pinboard or in the words of Pete Cashmore, "a visual social network that organizes images by topic and lets you reshare with just one click." Pinterest seems more interesting than I have made it sound so the less written the better. It could be the new big thing sooner than later so check it out here!
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