Social Media Questions

1. While the amount of user-generated advertisements increasing in recent years, we still feel it depends on the type of product that is being marketed to the consumer. While Sonic generates commercials that lack professional techniques, but rather have a more amateur, personable feel; many companies still choose to advertise their products in a professional manner. When it comes to fast food, a company like Sonic may try to relate more to the ordinary person by shooting a commercial with a simple camcorder. However, high-end luxury car companies, such as Mercedes Benz, shoot highly professional commercials to associate their products with a high-end product.

Regarding movies and television shows, the success of movies with an amateurish or homegrown feel such as MTV's The Real World and the new hit Paranormal Activity can lead to an increase in these types of media. However, movies such as the newly made Avatar, which made hundreds of millions of dollars more than Paranormal Activity in the box office, will continue to dominate the box office with it's more professional feel. The popularity of reality TV can be attributed to average,every-day feel of its characters. The producers want the viewers to think that they themselves can be in one of these situations.

2. Consumer-Generated Ads (Tags for this article are located in the Labels for the post below)
Some differences in the tags on Digg and the labels we chose include that they tagged almost every major company that was listed throughout the article. They also tagged more random words throughout the article. We felt they might have done this to possibly increase the frequency the article might pop up on random search engines. For example, the article is filed under the category "Food and Drink" simply because Doritos was tagged. However, we did have some similarities within our tags. The main topics covered such as Social Media, Web 2.0, Advertising, Marketers, and CGA were all tagged in both articles.

3. Transparency is an important concept in the Social Media world because it is causing lots of controversy and questioning of the authenticity of people's individual "opinions" within their blogs when they are paid by corporations to promote their product. For example, Pepsi has recently been paying popular bloggers to write about their products in a positive fashion. According to "The Illusion of Transparency in Social Media", bloggers who are paid to write about specific products lose their authenticity. Transparency definitely affects the offline world as it is changing consumer views of products and companies. After reading a popular blog that puts a product in positive light, it may cause them to actually go and purchase the product offline.

The Persuaders Questions

"The Persuaders" begins by questioning the increase in the amount of advertising we typically encounter in our daily lives. How would you assess the amount of advertising you see? Too much? Too little? Just right? In your view, what difference does it make to know that people today see much more advertising in their daily lives than people 20 or 30 years ago?

I think the amount of advertising I encounter throughout my daily life is definitely way too excessive. Not only are the amount of encounters with commercials, billboards, fliers, etc. throughout my day numerous, but the amount of text messages I am now receiving advertising products and stores are increasing. In my marketing class, we learned of how stores are actually going to begin automatically sending texts with coupons and advertisements when you actually drive or walk passed the store. While this may be a great marketing and advertising technique, it can definitely become agitating and annoying for consumers.

Today, people definitely see much more advertising than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Many companies are increasing advertising budgets to help increase their sales and improve their company reputation. Advertising techniques is becoming a form of art to help convince consumers that they need the product the company is selling. With the increase in advertising over the last 20 or 30 years, many people purchase products based more heavily on the actually advertising of the product than the product itself. A good slogan, logo, or a humorous commercial can directly affect the consumer's purchasing decision.

Where are things headed in the future? What are some possible scenarios that could play out as far as the direction that future persuaders may take their marketing techniques.

The ways companies advertise their products to consumers has changed severely over the past few years. Within the future, new ways for advertising from companies could be severely different. As mentioned before, one of the new ways companies are advertising to consumers is through text messaging. If you walked passed the Apple store at the mall, you could receive a text message from Apple offering coupons, sales, etc. Many companies could take this possible direction as a method of advertising towards the market. Other scenarios that could attract attention from companies include the increase in the social networking world. The information on possible consumers on sites such as Facebook and MySpace is valuable. While many people may think the social networking world is 100% private, this information could possibly be purchased by companies to help identify their target market and increase their knowledge of social trends. For example, if a person lists their favorite activity as video games, the amount of advertising they recieve through emails for products such as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 may increase.

Digital Nation Part 2

After concluding Digital Nation, some very important issues regarding technology became apparent to me. One of the most interesting aspects of Digital Nation was the story discussing the possible addiction to online gaming that many teenagers in South Korea are dealing with. I think its important for South Korea to continue their assertiveness in dealing with the problem to not only teach kids about ethical issues pertaining to technology, but also to warn them about possible downfalls due to addiction.

I was also very interested in the segment dealing with Second Life. I have never heard of this virtual platform that is taking the place of classroom lectures, meetings, and face-to-face interactions. While it may be a great substitute to connect people who are geographically separated, I feel various issues could arise including the decrease in the actual interaction between people in reality. Many people could impair their social ability to communicate and interact with people away from the computer.

Digital Nation was a great video that brought various issues to my attention. I can directly relate to many aspects of this video. I learned a great deal about the possible decrease in quality of work due to multitasking and also the dangers of addiction to virtual media.

Video Reaction

After watching the first twenty minutes of Digital Nation, my first reaction is that two concerns really come to my mind. Just like the students at MIT, I consider myself a multi-tasker while at school. I also am really beginning to question my addiction to new digital media such as my cell phone, computer, and iTouch.

At school, I am never doing work without listening to music, talking to friends, or watching television. I usually considered myself a good multi-tasker since my grades have been somewhat decent over my four years at Marist. However, after watching the video, I realized that multitasking actually hurt the quality of work for the MIT students. This leads me to question whether or not my GPA could have been better during my time at Marist if I didn't multi-task and focused more on my work.

I am also beginning to think about my possible addiction to new digital media. Yesterday, I was at home on Long Island to watch the Super Bowl with friends. I realized I forgot my phone charger at Marist and was unable to text anyone from school the entire night. This not only made me very anxious to get back to school, but I was in a bad mood all night. I am also always on my iTouch browsing the web during class. I could not imagine myself without continuously either texting or browsing the web on my iTouch or computer everyday. I am curious to see how the rest of the video will actually affect my thinking during the time of Digital Media.

Web 2.0 Definitions

User-Generated Content
relates to the various forms of media content created by end-users

Long tail
a retailing niche strategy consisting of selling a large number of unique items in small quantities

Network as platform
Making features normally ran on the operating system network readily available anywhere.

Folksonomy
A system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to categorize various content.

Syndication
Making website information and content readily available on multiple sites.

Mass collaboration
Collective action that occurs when large numbers of people work independently on a single project

Computer supported collaboration
Research that focuses on technology that can affect groups, oranizations, communities, and societies. (e.g.- voicemail and textchat)

Hosted Services
Services provided to individuals or companies in which they can make their website readily available on the WWW.

Web Applications
Any application a user accesses while using a Web Browser.

Social Software
A range of software systems that allows users interact and share data with one another.

Video-sharing Sites
Interactive web platforms in which users can post and share their various videos with other users.

Wiki
A website that allows the easy creation and editing of a number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language.

Blog
A type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics of video.

Mashup
A web application that combines data and/or functionality from more than one source.

source:wikipedia

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