Black Friday

 Black Friday- consumerism at its finest. Families leave the Thanksgiving table in search of the cheapest and latest gadget that they just simply have to have at 5am in the morning. While this is a crazy day of camping out, fighting the crowds, and spending money, there are good deals to be had. Many stores utilized social media to get coupons and store information into the customer's hands. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. were used on this day with great results. See the following link to view the specifics: Link.

 

Did you go Black Friday shopping? Did you use social media to help your shopping? What were your best buys?

Twitter Trolls...

This year there have been many companies, sports teams or public figures that have been criticized either for the Tweets they post or insolent Tweets posted about them.

Recently, the Los Angeles Lakers fired Coach Mike Brown (who was only there for five games) blaming him for their poor start to the season. Fans began voicing their opinions about Brown. 

Not only have there been threats made against Coach Brown, but also against his teenage son. Threats on Twitter have become a fad of our time. More and more athletes and public figures have been threatened on Twitter. Recently Sportscaster Erin Andrews was a victim of this with this Tweet posted,

“@ErinAndrews You make eye contact with me and I will chop you apart. You are just a bad thing”

With this trend becoming more and more common on Twitter, do you think more censoring will come into play? Or will they just continue to allow people to make threats??

Here is a link to read more about the issue twitter trolls

Gangnam Style!

“Eh- Sexy Lady oh oh oh oh!”  Do you find that line familiar?? More than likely you have heard the song that has taken the world by storm, Gangnam Style!

As of November 24^th, 2012, the YouTube video of Gangnam Style has become the most popular video with over 804 million hits (It has surpassed the previous leading video, Baby, by Justin Bieber) It is now the most popular video on YouTube EVER! Statistics predict that by December 16^th of this year the video will reach the BILLION views mark. I imagine the creators of YouTube never imagined their site would attract that many views for only ONE video!

YouTube has continued to increase viewers of their site and generates so many videos everyday. With how effective YouTube is at gaining a large audience, do you think businesses would try to maximize this source of social media to bring recognition to their organization?

YouTubes #1 video

Facebook's New Dictatorship

Facebook is under new management. Not really. They are just under a new kind of pressure. Now being public for over half a year and having over a billion users, Facebook has decided they are "too big for Democracy".

This may suffice for their large population of Chinese users, but many other global users are outraged. Facebook used to maintain the policy of "votes" for change. If a certain strategy or change received 30% of Facebook's users to vote, the change was vetoed. Facebook is under global pressure from a publicly owned perspective.

Revolutions have been mentioned as radical as "Facebook freedom". One talks about tell his grandchildren about the great fight for his Facebook freedom. While Facebook is a social community, others view it as an advertising algorithm. With so many changes going on with Facebook, nobody knows how the information will be used and who will be able to receive private information.

With the general community using the network, many do not know enough or care enough to "vote". Others are very concerned about Facebook's future and especially with regards to "how far is too far?"

Some believe Mark Zuckerberg is willing to do anything to keep his company afloat. Selling personal information is only a marginal cost.

Do you trust Facebook? How do you use Facebook with potential trust issues circulating? If Facebook completely removes themselves from public opinion, will you continue to use your personal profile?


For more information, click HERE!

www.[YourNameHere].donuts

Remember hearing about the battle over the "Microsoft" domain name back in the 90s which ended in a computer geek's multi-million dollar payout? Whether or not this is fact or fiction, perhaps nobody knows.

Now, the battle is over domain names. In 2013, companies are expecting to expand the domain names from common ones like .com, .net, .me, .org, and .gov, to more precise domain names like the following: .dentist, .lawyer, .ad, .buy, .coffee, and .donuts.

Companies like Google and Amazon have raise the bids on many names they would like to buy. Rightfully so, they have revolutionized the search and buying industries forever. A conglomeration of donut shops have now come together to request the domain name of their choice, and of their niche.

.Donuts has raised a whole new style of thought. Giving companies more options for their domain names, this domain name will help focus the industry as well as give them a strong asset to build their online presence. Thought they won't be selling digital donuts, they are looking to spend a pretty amount to purchase their domain name.

They have spend more than $56 million on over 300 domain name suffixes. In attempts to hold out like one did on Microsoft, these domain names come with a high payout. This is a business strategy for donut shops and multi-billion dollar retail sites alike. The donut cornerstore and Amazon all have a common interest in this dilemma. It will be determined by a government non-profit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

Do you think focusing the domain names will be good for business? 

Many venture capitalists are becoming involved in this as mere investment strategies. How could Icann help protect small businesses from having to pay millions of dollars to recapture their deserved domain name?

Grab a .donut and a .coffee and think about how you could benefit from this emerging change.

For more information, click HERE.

Papa Annoying

 Papa Johns has been taken to court recently by individuals who are sick and tire of receiving illegal text messages from the country's favorite fast food pizza chain. Apparently, Papa John's has been accused of sending over 500,000 unwanted messages to customers who had recently frequented their stores. Some individuals attested to receiving chains of 15 messages even in the middle of the night. Plaintiffs are asking for up to $1,500 per message from Papa Johns.

 

See the full story by clicking this Link.

An independent company actually sent the messages on behalf of Papa Johns. Do you think that Papa Johns is liable for these messages? Or is the third party company who actually sent the messages liable??

Hacking for Dummies

According to a Wall Street Journal article, there is one thing to assume about the Internet.

The Internet isn't safe.

As secure and complicated as we may think it is, everything can be compromised. When we talk about everything, we mean Twitter, Facebook and even our private e-mails.

Most of us have experienced the frustrating hack on our e-mail and Facebook. What's worse is getting our information back and private.

With issues surfacing regarding the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, we are learning how insecure we really are.

Caught in the middle of a extramarital scandal, Petraeus' private life has been brought to light through a series of e-mail hackers.

With great amounts of our information stored on Google databases, it has become much easier for organizations and the government to find information without seeking warrants or permission.

This issue has really put Google and other major companies on the line. Holding so much information, they are responsible for maintaining the privacy of the individuals they represent. Also, they are responsible to withhold any information they store. Nobody knows who all has access to the oasis of knowledge on Google and this has provided a major security and privacy threat.

What steps do you take to ensure your information is private? Do you trust Google and other online databases to keep your information safe?

 

To read more, click HERE

President Romney

 WOW, The election results are in and the new President is.... ROMNEY! Or so his campaign declared. Romney staff prepared in advance a transition website in the case that he should win presidency. For just a few moments on election day, the website went public. Not for long, but long enough for some to get screen shots. Some are ragging on Romney saying that he was cocky in assuming his win. But was this just good business?

Do you think Romney was just being prepared for what very well could have happened? Or should this site not have been created until he knew he had won?



 

The Pinfluence of Pinterest

Pinterest has created a buzz among women to share their recipes and craft ideas.

How can the blog of recipes, crafts, sayings and other little snippets be used for businesses?

People have found a great use for Pinterest using the repin feature. This way of circulating data online has drawn the attention from businesses from all sorts of markets.

Perhaps the simple statistic, "1.4% of Twitter tweets are "retweeted" 80% of Pinterest pins are "repinned"" will help explain why companies are jumping on "board" with Pinterest.

With the capabilities to have corporate boards where they can sort material to their liking, companies are now placing the iconic "P" next to the Facebook "F" and the Twitter "T".

While women primarily drive the popularity of Pinterest, it is only a matter of time before men will find their stake on the growing site. MLB and other male-driven companies have already established their boards. Stay pinned to see more postings from these companies.

What companies have you seen utilizing the Pinterest interface? How could you see your company or organization use Pinterest to help communicate better?

The following links may help you learn more about Pinterest:

How Pinterest Can Help You

How Pinterest Can Help Your Business

"Pinfluence" on Businesses

We are so not Facebook friends...

With the election going on, social media has blown up with people voicing their opinions. Facebook and Twitter posts were consuming the web the night of the election. I personally checked my Facebook page that evening and almost every single status I saw was about the election. But did you know that many people took their political views to the next level? Statistics show that 47% of Facebook users “unfriended” someone because of the results from the election. How crazy is that?! Unfriending someone just because they have different political views that you do…

Have you or someone you know, “unfriended” someone after the elections possibly because of a status or Tweet they shared? What are your thoughts on this link between social media and politics? In 4 years at the next presidential election, how do you see social media coinciding with politics?

Facebook & the Election

#vote

Instagram is the new hottest trend in social media. We all use Instagram to keep our friends updated on how cool and hipster our lives are. We enjoy sharing our pictures through this easy to use app that allows users to view, like, and comment on other user pictures.

This is great to keep up to date on the best restaurants, local activities, and other fun times, but it also creates a problem with sharing too much information. Especially in this election season, Instagram is posing legal issues. Today already, there have been over 500,000 #vote pictures listed on Instagram. These pictures include posts of individuals actual ballots.

 

This has been deemed illegal by several states, but is this a real problem? Is it important to keep this information private? What are your opinions?

View the full story here: http://mashable.com/2012/11/06/instragram-voting-illegal/

@hurricannesandy

As we all know, Hurricane Sandy has been utterly destructive around the world today. Thousands of people have suffered loss as a result of this storm. There is great reason to be concerned about this storm and to keep up to date on the status of it. Social media has offered a great solution to the question, "How do we keep the world updated on this storm?" Facebook, Twitter, News Websites, etc. have proved to be very effective in sharing news with a wide variety of individuals.

One individual, however, may have taken this too far. Twitter account @hurricannesandy continuously posts updates on the storm. But these are not objective statements of fact- they are silly comments that can even be interpreted as inappropriate.

Tweets such as "I HOPE RIHANNA'S UMBRELLA IS BIG ENOUGH FOR YOU ALL"

and

"I BROKE UP WIT MY HURRICANE BOYFRIEND SINGING WE ARE NEVER EVER EVER DESTROYING CITIES TOGETHER... LIKE EVER."

 are some of the quotes.

 

How do you respond to this? Do you think this is funny or terrible?? Would you follow @hurricannesandy?

https://twitter.com/hurricannesandy