Using Multimedia Tools to Enhance Our Message!

Does the use of multimedia tools really enhance our message? Well of course. Think about all the ads you see on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and even your cellphone. All these ads are different ways in which a company can advertise and get their product across to us, the consumer. We see these 'messages' that usually come in the form of a picture and we are intrigued to see more. This then leads us to following the picture to the actual website and therefore creating more web traffic and possible business for the company.

Now the question is, which form of multimedia works best? In my opinion, a photo or a personal video speak volumes about a company, person, place, etc. I want to see what the company can do or what the founder really stands for and if they are really hands on with their company.

A good example of a company that uses photos is Freeds Bakery in Las Vegas, NV. Freeds uses review sites such as yelp and tripadvisor for consumers to leave comments and complaints about the baking company. Freeds also uses photos posted on Facebook and Twitter to showcase their work, contests, holiday events, etc. Once they post on Twitter they have a link to a picture and that shows the consumer their work and allows them to see more. (The link for Freeds Twitter and Facebook accounts are posted below).

One more example of a company using multimedia tools to get their message across is the Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF). The ISF is a foundation started by actor and animal/Earth rights activist Ian Somerhalder to show people how they can help save the Earth and the animals all over. Mr. Somerhalder not only is a hands on founder but does so through his Twitter account, Facebook account, and his ISF webpage. Mr. Somerhalder posts videos and tweets all the time for the world to see. Followers of Ian Somerhalder can also see that there is an ISF account for more than just our country showing that Mr. Somerhalder has many followers and many viewers to help spread his word. (To see Mr. Ian Somerhalder's impact on the Earth, animals, and his different ways of spreading his message please find his links below).

So, do multimedia tools really enhance a message? Or is it all in the consumers head? I think that just depends on the person and how in touch with today's technology they are. For me, multimedia tools such as those mentioned above, as well as a few others, are great ways to get messages across. I prefer to see the photos and videos posted by companies to showcase what they can do and who they truly are. That's just me though. :)

Freeds Bakery
https://twitter.com/freedsbakery
https://www.facebook.com/freedsbakery

Ian Somerhalder Foundation
https://www.facebook.com/ISFoundation
http://www.isfoundation.com/welcome
https://twitter.com/IS_Foundation

Functions and Substance of Food Blogs

So, I found this food blog (since I love baking) called Pinch of Yum. The blog is written by a husband and wife team who started their blog as an experiment to see if they could turn a food blog into a profitable job.

I have to say that upon finding this blog I have fallen in love with most of it. I say most because the blog does not consist of only food, but also monthly income reports (which I do not find interesting). So I will talk mostly about the fact that I love the food aspect. 

Lindsay and Bjork (the writers), not only write and post recipes from themselves and others, but they post videos allowing the viewer into their private lives. This allows a type of connection between the viewer and the blogger, allowing them (the viewer) to see that they (the blogger) are real people just like them (the viewer).

The functionality of this blog is so easy to navigate and with drop down menus at the top and pictured items within each category available. The writing in this blog makes it a very informative, well organized way of gathering new information. I would say that this blog is well written and a great way to not only learn new recipes, but learn how to become a professional blogger. 

http://pinchofyum.com/

Best Practices

I think the most important practice in blogging is to make sure that you know who your target audience is. When you are writing you do not want a blog that is going to be so generic and open that there is no specific audience, this is the best way to lose an audience. 

Readers are going to look at the content of the blog and decide whether it is worth their time or not. If the content is so broad and all over the place then you will never have the same audience and will end up losing more than you gain through sheer boredom. 

Another great practice is learning the perfect length (and grammar) of the blog and what avenue to use in order to post. Length and grammar are another quick way to lose readers. People want to read a blog about things that interests them, but they also want the writer to get to the point and not include a bunch of useless information. 

This goes for grammar too. Readers do not want to read a one page blog that contains horrible grammar (to include punctuation, spelling, etc.). As a reader we want to believe that the person writing the blog has some type of experience and knows what they are doing. 

Finally, the best practice to use when blogging is PUT YOURSELF IN THE READERS SHOES!!! After you write what you want to write go back and re-read it. Is it something that would catch your attention? Is it informative, but fun? If the blog is not something that you would read then why post it? Always remember, the only thing more important than the writing of the blog, is the person reading your blog.

Joe Paterno Dies at the Age of 85

Joe Paterno, also known as "JoePa", has died at the age of 85 years old today, January 22, 2012. Paterno was the long standing football coach at Penn State College. According to Mount Nittany Medical Center (2012), Paterno died of "metastatic small cell carcinoma of the lung", (lung cancer).

Paterno's family has released a statement according to ESPN (2012) saying, "His loss leaves a void in our lives hat will never be filled. He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitious wee far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave his Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players, and his community."

Paterno was known for his credo of "Success with Honor" but lately had been plagued with questions of his honor. Paterno was in the midst of a child abuse scandal involving his colleague Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was diagnosed with ling cancer only days after his resignation was denied and he was fired.

Paterno's death comes a midst the child abuse allegations of his assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. In an article in The Washington Post, Paterno is quoted as saying, "I didn't know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was. So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn't work out that way."

For many like 30-year season ticket holder Steve Schaffer the scandal was a slap in the face or like "finding out there was no Sana Claus" (USA Today), while others held on to their love of Paterno and their belief in him through it all. The allegations against Paterno were not enough to over shadow the loss of "maybe the greatest coach ever," (Bobby Bowden). This is how many seen Paterno before and after his death.

Paterno seen 409 wins in his 46 year career and turned out over a dozen NFL players. Paterno will forever be remembered as a 'hero' to those who knew him. Christian Marrone was quoted by CNN as saying, "Joseph Vincent Paterno was a great football coach, but his life can never, ever be measured in wins or championships. The greatness and the legacy of Joe Paterno lies in each of us."

Facebook Status:

Joe Paterno died today at the age of 85. What can we say? Paterno was a legend in football and not only at the college level. He gave us so many great players in the NFL that his name is carried on with them. The scandal that rocked PSU and Paterno will never have the input of Paterno now, but can these people not let him rest in peace for now? I wasn't there, I don't know what he did or didn't do and neither does anyone else who wasn't there, so I say we leave the family alone and let them grieve. Paterno once said, "They asked me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone, I hope they write I made Penn State a better place not just that I was a good football coach." Joe Paterno Dec. 21, 1926-Jan. 22, 2012 RIP JoePA "We Are...."

Carey, J. (2012). Penn State coaching legend Joe Paterno dies at 85. USA Today. Retrieved October               17, 2014, from: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2012-01-    
            21/former-penn-state-coach-joe-paterno-dead/52737230/1

CNN Wire. (2012). Paterno Remembered as a Teacher, Winner, 'hero' at Public Memorial. Retrieved             October 17, 2014, from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/26/us/penn-state-paterno/

ESPN. (2012). Joe Paterno, 85, dies in State College. Retrieved October 17, 2014,                                            from: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7489238/joe-paterno-ex-penn-state-
             nittany-lions-coach-dies-85-2-month-cancer-fight

Goldstein, R. (2012). Joe Paterno, Longtime Penn State Coach, Dies at 85. The New York     
             Times. Retrieved October 17, 2014,    
             from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/sports/ncaafootball/joe-paterno-longtime-penn-  
             state-coach-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Shaprio, L. (2012). Joe Paterno, former Penn State football coach, dies at 85. The Washington    
            Post. Retrieved October 17, 2014, from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/joe-             paterno-dies-at-85/2011/12/09/gIQAS9eXIQ_story.html

Best Way to Convey Your Information

There are many tool out there today in which to convey information and enhance our delivery of said information. Here is a look at just three of those tools in which I personally use and prefer.

Blogging-

A blog is an online conversation like this one. It is informal in writing and tone and allows readers to comment. The purpose of a blog is many things. For some it may be something like an online diary or journal to vent, or it could be used like this one, to bring forth information and used as a classroom tool. Another, great use, for a blog is to inform its readers of important information. One such site is AIDS.gov. This site, “serves as a gateway for information about these Federal efforts, with a focus on domestic programs,” (AIDS.gov, 2010, ¶ 1). This blog enhances the delivery of information that would otherwise not be available unless through a research department or doctors office. Not everyone is willing to pay for this information and the AIDS.gov blog offers this information for free for anyone that is willing to read it.

Social Network Sites-

A social networking site is something that almost every person is familiar with regardless if they have one or not. The most popular of these right now are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. These sites are made available for free and are used for many different reasons. Facebook is can be used to share information about yourself, your business, your cause, etc. It can also be used to play games or just keep in contact with friends and family around the world. Twitter is limited to 140 characters worth of writing, but we will get into that in the next paragraph. Instagram is limited to photos and videos but is a great way to spread the word about almost anything. With the use of video and photo you can get your point across better than is just by word. Although, Pinterest is a great social media site it is not one of the best for getting a point across. This site is more, or less, just for ideas and interests that allow you to share these ideas with others. While all these social media sites are great I believe that the best one to use to get a message across would be Facebook. As of July 23, 2014, Facebook has, “1.314 billion monthly active users,” (Smith, 2014, p. F). Because of the number of users on Facebook, this makes it the perfect social media site in which to enhance our delivery of information. For example, the Breast Cancer Awareness page currently has a little over 4.2 million followers (Facebook.com, 2014). This shows just how far Facebook’s reach can go in providing information for anyone.

Twitter-

This is another social networking site that we briefly touched on in the paragraph above. So to clarify a little more information on Twitter here we go. Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to “tweet” messages in 140 characters or less and follow “tweets” made by other users. These “tweets” can be about anything from how a person’s day was to showing support for a specific cause or foundation. On any given day the average number of “tweets” sent out is 177 million (AIDS.gov, 2014). With this amount of messaging someone could easily convey their message to millions of people. A great example of this would be fellow Twitter user, actor, and animal rights activist Ian Somerhalder (whom I personally follow). Mr. Somerhalder runs a foundation called the ‘Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF)” to help, empower, educate & collaborate w/ people to positively impact the planet & its creatures” (ISF, 2010). Mr. Somerhalder currently has 5.32 million followers and his foundation has 181,000 followers. Different states and countries also have pages for ISF making it hard to pinpoint exactly how many there are. Although, it is hard to pinpoint the number of pages, it does go to show that Twitter is another great platform to convey your message.

Anyone of these would be a great way to get a message across, but it is simply up to the user and the message that needs to be conveyed. Although, I use Facebook on a daily basis, I personally prefer the blogging experience.

AIDS.gov. (2010, Sept. 21). About this blog. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from, http://blog.aids.gov/about

Facebook. (2014). Breast Cancer Awareness Page. [Social Media Site]. Retrieved from, https://www.facebook.com/BreastCancerAwareness

Smith, C. (2014). How Many People Use 700 of the Top Social Media, Apps, and Digital Services? Retrieved October 9, 2014, from, http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/7/#.VDaZb_ldXpE

Twitter. (2014). Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF). [Social Media Site]. Retrieved from, https://twitter.com/IS_Foundation?lang=en

What Can We Deem Reliable?

I am sitting here writing this post thinking, "How am I to be considered a reliable source since everything I am writing is my personal opinion?" The answer is easy, it is up to the reader to verify my blog or not. The choice is yours.

There is so much fraud in the world today that it is hard to tell what truth is and what is a hoax. Then when there is truth, the internet allows us the ability of unrestricted web publishing, such as this blog. The difference is since this is a personal blog, people know that even though it may contain some truth, it remains that what is written is of my own volition and my opinion. With that said, I read an article in today's online issue of The New York Times entitled 'U.S. Suspects More Direct Threats Beyond ISIS written by Mark Mazzetti, Michael S. Schmidt, and Ben Hubbard. The article talks about the Islamic state and the new threats facing America and Europe because of this rebel group. Throughout the article, there are many sources to help back up the authors.

 The first source, is the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, Jr. Mr. Clapper has been the director since 2010 and “serves as the principal intelligence advisor to the president,” (DNI.gov). The next source is a Bipartisan Organization, which is a non-profit organization founded in 2007, by Bob Dole, Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, and George Mitchell. The third source, Institute for the Study of War, is an organization built on helping the nation’s military through research and war studies. Finally, the last few sources come from the authors own research and eyewitness accounts of what is going on in those countries right now.

So, what is my problem then? Well, the problem I see is that even though I am able to make sure these sources were credible, it does not mean that they were not tampered with or published unbiasedly. Because the web allows unrestricted we publishing articles like this can be taken out of context and rewritten to insight war, rioting, hate, etc. Anyone can take an article off the internet, rewrite it to fit their agenda, and then publish it through sites like Wikipedia and call it true. This article shows the worry that people are facing and the threats that face Europe, and us but it also tried to instill the thought of hope that the threat is under control right now. If people were to take to the internet and publish what they want about this topic, who is to say that it would not just make the matter worse. As Americans, we have the freedom of speech, but that does not give us the right to use it in a harmful way. We are given the right and freedom to write and publish what we want all over the internet without prejudice, but in my personal opinion, there are some people who should simply keep those opinions to themselves. Then again, that is just me using my ability to publish my opinion in an open forum. :)

Here are the links I used to verify my sources from the New York Times:

http://bipartisanpolicy.org/

http://www.understandingwar.org/who-we-are

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/leadership/director-of-national-intelligence

In addition, the article I read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/world/middleeast/us-sees-other-more-direct-threats-beyond-isis-.html?ref=todayspaper

Social Media and the Perception of Truth

How do I know what I know? Well…how do any of us know what we know? Are we born with an innate ability to understand the world around us? Or do we simply have the ability to ‘soak’ up the knowledge around us? I personally believe that as we with everything in life we need to be taught what we know. This being said, I would say that I know what I know because I have learned how to put technology and social media to use. Through such sites as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I learn different things on a daily basis.

Today for example, I learned about an altercation in San Antonio, TX. Two men (one of them an employee) started an altercation at a Sonic drive-thru, apparently over a woman (according to news 4). One man pulled out a box knife and cut the other man across the abdomen (according to KENS 5 news). When the police arrived the suspect left the scene only to be pursued by said police, while the other man was taken to the hospital (according to FOX 29). As you can see each site contained different information and yet the same information. So how do I know that this story is true? “Truth is a statement of what is most probable in proportion to the evidence at the time,” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010, p. 32).

We cannot say for certain what the exact truth of something is unless we were there and involved in the entire scenario at hand. Do I believe this story to be true? Yes, not only because I see it on my Facebook page, but also because I took the time to look up more information on the situation and vet the sources that contained said information. I could say that social media, or media in general, is never reliable and state plenty of instance, such as the Sandy Hook coverage, or the Boston Marathon coverage, or plenty of false deaths of celebrities, but that would be wrong.

Social media may be concerned with being the first to get the news out and some may say they are trigger happy, but they also bring us news on a steadfast plane. We are constantly connected through some type of ICT (information and communication technology). Due to this, we have instant access at our fingertips and in a moment’s notice. This by no means makes social media more reliable, but it also does not mean that they are not. “For there are no media rules. There is no law that requires labeling. The First Amendment protects the right of all of us to write or broadcast freely,” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010, p. 35). Therefore, all in all everyone has their right to say or print what they want. Does this make it true? No, but it also does not make it false. The truth is up to the consumer to find and with the vast majority of information overload available to us, how could we not.


FOXSSan Antonio. Man arrested for stabbing at Northwest Sonic. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from: http://www.foxsanantonio.com

KENS5. Worker stabbed during altercation at northwest-side Sonic. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from: http://www.kens5.com

Kovach, B. and Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA.

News4 San Antonio. Stabbing at Sonic leaves man in jail. Retrieved September 14, 2014, from:http://news4sanantonio.com

Social Media and My Daily Routine

On a daily basis everyone uses some form of social media, myself included. Today alone, I have used Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. These are just a few of the sites I have been on today alone. I can honestly say that every morning after I wake up the kids the first thing I do is grab my phone and check all my tweets from the night before and then check my Facebook page. Social media is in every aspect a part of my life.
Not only do I use social media to keep in touch with friends and family all over the globe, but I use it to keep track of the news. I can honestly admit that I hate watching the news because very rarely is there ever anything happy on there and this just makes me even more scared. With the use of social media, such as Facebook, I can keep up with the news but at the same time I can bypass anything that I do not want to partake in. Not only can I bypass it but I can delete it from my view. With this I have to say that I am still undecided as to whether or not social media is good or not.
I say this because if we look at everything that has gone on in society we have both perspectives. On the one hand, we have the good which involves the ability to keep in touch at the push of a button with those on the other side of the world. We can share our lives with those we love the instant it happens. Those this may be the good do not forget that we have the bad as well.
Take for example the Cloud issue that happened just recently. Someone hacked into the cloud and was able to steal personal photos of celebrities. To me this is the bad part of not only social media, but also technology. We try to make our lives easier by building this technology into our lives, but at what cost? We allow others the ability to take what they want from us without our permission because we wanted to share.
So, is social media a good influence or a bad? I guess that just depends on the day and whether or not someone has stolen something else that does not belong to them. I guess my answer would be to ask me on a daily basis because as social media and technology changes, so does my view of it.