Web Hit Wonders!/week 4/readings

While reading one of the greatest books ever, "Citizen Marketers", I found the section about the web version of a one-hit-wonder very interesting. It struck me as odd at first and then totally made sense. If music can have one-hit-wonders, why can't the internet? The particular example that caught my eye was the song ,"Milk and Cereal", by G. Love and The Special Sauce. It struck my interest because I remember stumbling onto this song while searching videos on YouTube and actually ended up liking the group. The only downside with web one-hit-wonders is that you do not get paid like the real music versions. Although G. Love found mainstream popularity through this song, he did not get a lump sum for the millions of views. Overall, I found this chapter exciting because no longer is the ordinary person insignificant to big business. Instead of begging for a record deal, an artist can just post their music on YouTube. If you want to voice your opinion there is now an audience to listen. The next web-hit-wonder is out there and it could be you!

New Type of Advertising/week 4/PR

While surfing the web I stumbled on an article that stated that Perez Hilton, famous for his super popular blog, makes close to $54,000 a day for advertising on his website. Being in a Social Media class I found this shocking and interesting. Three years ago he was just an average person blogging about his ideas and now he is one of the richest bloggers on the web. According to Nielson, the soundscan perezhilton.com gets 196 million hits a month and people who visit his site stay there for an average of 45 minutes. I have a total of 13 followers on blogspot; I cannot even imagine having millions. Although it sounds like an easy job, Perez posts about 30 times a day! Some people will say that it is ridiculous making that much money for blogging, but if 196 million people look at his website that is 196 million people reading some company's advertisement. Is he annoying? Yes, but everybody needs a gimmick and he has found his. He started out just like me and every other ordinary blogger, maybe somebody in my class is the next Perez Hilton. This is the new way of advertising, forget magazines and commercials, advertising on blogs is going to be the next big thing, I guarantee it.
www.perezhilton.com

White Bear/week 4/ONU

I recently was talking to a friend of mine and he said that he paid $3.50 for a Mountain Dew energy drink at White Bear. How can they legally make him pay that much? It is not like we are at a Reds game or something. This school makes so much money off of the students it is not even funny and yet they continue to gouge prices. Why doesn't the school put the students first? Profit always comes first with this school. Yes without money this school cannot go on but we pay so much to go to this school and I feel that I am not getting my full worth out of it. The students need to organize and do something about it, if people refuse to go to White Bear and the cafeteria they will be forced to do something about it. I'm sick of sitting back and letting the school monopolize on the situation at hand. Unless they change the prices I will never go back to White Bear.

Gutenberg invented the Blog!

While reading Chapter 4 in Citizen Marketers it got me thinking. If it weren't for Johann Gutenberg there would be no Facebook, MySpace, Blogspot, or possibly civilization. With his invention of the printing press he was able to give the world the opportunity to learn what was going on in other parts of the globe. The printing press made it possible for people to express their ideas without censorship, leading the way for the reformation. Hundreds of years later and blogs are the same concept just with better technology. People use blogs the same way those in Gutenberg's time used the printing press, to express ideas. We, as americans, take a lot of stuff for granted, especially technology. Gutenberg literally paved the way for today's technology. Without the printing press we could still be stock typing letters and who wants that.

New Facebook

Sad to say but it looks as though the new Facebook is here to stay. Recently compete.com did a survey to find the amount of users who switched from the old facebook to the new and the results baffled me. In the past month over 50 million users, which is about half of the entire Facebook, have switched to the new format. I thought that facebook was suppose to be for people to interact, now that big industries are developing ways to market their products on it it is becoming a platform for companies to advertise. I suppose it is the chain of events, something becomes successful then big industries find out how to make money off of it. Unfortunately anybody who liked the old Facebook is out of luck. Facebook has made it impossible to be friends with someone who does not have the most up to date version. Facebook really shows how much social media is a part of ours and companies' lives. It is unfortunate though that something that starts out as a simple idea to help the little guy gets abused by the man.

Unwanted Classes

Looking for spanish classes online I began to wonder, why do I need a foreign language class to graduate? I took 2 years of spanish in high school and all I remember is me llamo Brandon, that's it. College is supposed to be a place where you learn the skills that will help you in your future career. Foreign languages are crucial to society but I never plan on being in an environment where I will have to know another language. I live in America where everyone speaks english or at least should. No one in college remembers anything about the language they study except how to say their name and ask where the bathroom is. Why do universities keep trying to stick unwanted, unneccasary classes that students are not interested in down our throats. Why can't universities listen to their students and give them what they want instead of charging them $40,000 to learn how to say el cuarto de baño. College is supposed to be about the students so why not listen to us.

Best artist you've never heard of.

www.facebook.com/people/Brandon_Rainier/36002195

PR 3.0

After reading Chapter 15, The Path to Great PR, I realized that times are changing. In the article Brian Solis, one of the "Founding Fathers" of PR 2.0 talked about the changes within social media. While reading I started to get really excited about the possibilities for public relations majors. PR 2.0 is geared toward the younger generation, with blogging, youtube, facebook etc. there are endless possibilities for the younger generations to expand on old ideas. One of the topics I found interesting in the article was the fact that businesses were not utilizing social media to benefit their company. My only hope is that businesses realize they need the younger generation of ideas in order to thrive in the marketplace. With talks of PR 3.0 on the horizons, businesses as well as students better learn to perfect 2.0 quick.

Stalkbook

I found this article and had to blog about it. In a recent survey 39 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds would quit their job if they couldn't access Facebook. Reading the article I was shocked at the percentage. Being a college student Facebook is a nice place to talk to friends that you may not otherwise talk to, but to quit your job because you couldn't look at what Timmy did over the weekend, get serious. I used to always laugh when my parents would say "you don't know how good you got it, your generation is spoiled." After reading this article I'm going to have to side with my parents. In the words of our parents we need to grow up.

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/tve/?p=338

9 Weeks To Go

One week down, nine to go. My first week went as smoothly as possible. Classes were good, friends are great, and I am still engaged lol. The only problem I had was all of the freshmen in the weight room. When I work out I like it to be quiet and not crowded. Forty-five minutes in and out. This week was the first time I left the weight room because it was too busy. ONU needs to either build a much bigger gym or set some allotted times for upper classmen to work out. The school will build a 50 million dollar hotel that the students won’t even use, yet they can’t build us a bigger gym. Something’s wrong with that picture.

Bad PR?

Is there really such a thing as bad press? Recently Oprah took some heat for refusing to have Vice President nominee Sara Palin on her show. As a result of this statement there have been boycotts of her show and magazine. The sad thing with all of this is that Oprah’s ratings and sales have gone up since the announcement. Like the old adage goes “there’s no such thing as bad press.” I feel that she is wrong by not allowing Miss Palin on her show because she is supposed to be a supporter of women and women’s independence. Yet, she refuses to have on her show a woman who could potentially be the first woman Vice President in the history of the United States. Oprah needs to bite the bullet and give her viewers what they want and that is a Sara Palin interview.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/15/wynter.oprah.boycott.cnn

1st Day!!!

Another year in Ada. Coming back down Main St. there seems to be some new additions to my lovely little town. My first shock was that there is a new burrito restaurant. From what I hear it is a knock off of Chipotle but I say the more the marrier with restaurants. In addition to the burrito place is that the McDonalds is almost ready to serve delicious breakfast. Ada is starting to thrive into a little metropolis.