MySpace Secret Show Tomorrow

MySpace Secret Shows are back. This time, Neil Diamond and The Black Keys will be performing May 7th at two locations. Diamond will be in New York, while The Black Keys perform in Cleveland. Both shows are free of charge. Neil Diamond is performing for an 18 and up crowd; however,  The Black Keys show will be open to all ages. Admission is on a first come, first serve basis.  Log on to MySpace for more info!

Neil Diamond’s latest release, Home Before Dark is in stores now. The Black Keys’ album Attack & Release is also available.

Facebook Chat is here!

Facebook Chat is now available on Facebook. I’ve had the opportunity to try the new application. Facebook users can chat with friends who are online. Users have the option of making themselves available for chatting. Users can also keep the conversation window at the bottom of the browser if they do not want to have it visible to others. The chat application even keeps conversation history between the user and their friend, which is optional as well to delete the history. Notifications pop up in the conversation windows when a user has made changes to their page. Very cool…

Social Media Marketing IS the new trend

With rapid changes in technology, marketers are using less traditional marketing tactics for their products and using Social Media Marketing as the new method for businesses to get products out to different audiences. Ways to market on social networks include, posting bulletins, blogs, advertisements, announcements, fliers and selling products and selling products for little or no cost.

 

According to Wikipedia, Social Media Marketing is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social medias networks such as Myspace, Facebook, etc.

 

Forrester Research states Facebook and MySpace have different demographics. Senior Analyst Jeremiah Owyang says that “Both MySpace and Facebook serves different demographics with a different purpose and different tools. Facebook is more of a ‘lifestyle play’ that allows members to connect with each other.”

 

There are over 60 million active users on Facebook with more than 65 billion pages viewed per month. More than half of users are outside college. Their Fastest growing demographic is 25 and older. However, MySpace positions themselves as more of a media site primarily targeted at youth, who does more work with advertisers. Around 300,000 new people sign up everyday. 85 percent of users are 18 or older. With numbers like this it’s hard to not market to these audiences.

 

 

UNLV student Deonna Reese thinks social media marketing is great tool. Reese realized that she uses social media marketing often to spread word around about things in her community—parties, group meetings and such. She is also friends with her favorite music artists via myspace. “I feel more connected with the artists [through MySpace.] The artists sometimes make blogs and other posts to their pages which I think is interesting. I also like the fact that I can keep up with what the artist is doing with new tour dates, merchandise, new music and things of that nature,” she said.  

 

Another MySpace member, Ryan Blevins does not use MySpace to become friends with big artists, but more for smaller acts. “Smaller artists have sent me friend requests, I’d listen to their music and if I liked it, I would accept their friend request,” he said. Blevins also liked the idea of Social Media Marketing. “I think it’s very helpful. It gives you a broader exposure than you would normally have. It’s like a game of telephone times 20,” he said.

                                                                                                          

R&B recording artist Trey Songz used a poll featured on his MySpace page where his fans voted for the next single from his sophomore album. He also had a competition on MySpace where the fans create the treatment for the single. “I wanted to come up with an original concept where my fans get involved with the making of the video” he said on BET’s 106 & Park.

 

In conclusion, social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace are the new marketing tools. Social Media Marketing is also a good way to get viewers to look at your site and possibly come back if they like what they see. The point is Social Media Marketing actually works.

 

 here’s an audio clip of what Ryan Blevins thinks about Social Media Marketing:

 

 

NewsU Webinar

On April 8th I had the chance to attend a webinar on the NewsU site. The course was called The Online Credibility Gap which provided live discussion about perceptions on anonymous postings and other journalism topics.

What I found most important about the webinar was that readers and editors share values on good journalism and believe in correcting errors quickly. However, I wasn’t surprised that editors and readers would disagree on anonymous postings. Editors want to know if the person posting is credible-who they are and if they researched the subject. Readers on the otherhand, would like to remain anonymous so that their identity is protected. Other tips the webinar suggested that the journalists should know their sites, be able to monitor them and be aware of the tools.

The webinar was useful and informational, unfortunately there were some technical difficulties during the first session, but it was definitely live.

***NewsU extracredit post***

Myspace sued by a minor’s mother

Mother of a female minor sued Myspace for fraud, neglegence and neglegent misrepresentation. The minor contacted a 19-year-old male via Myspace and the two agreed to meet. During that meeting, the 19-year-old sexually assaulted the minor. The lawsuit was first filed by plaintiffs in Texas, but voluntarily dismissed lawsuit and refiled in New York. The defendants removed the lawsuit to federal court from New York and the lawsuit was later transferred to a Texas federal court. The case was later dismissed due to the ruling that plaintiffs had not plead their claims of fraud and misrepresentation clearly. The plaintiffs had later admitted that they wished to no longer continue their claims of fraud and misrepresentation because the base of the case was negligence.

**Citizen Media Law Assignment**

Facebook introduces new instant message feature

Facebook Chat will be introduced to Facebook users this week. This feature will allow site users to instant message their friends who are online. Users can also have the option of keeping the instant message converstations at the bottom of the screen or in a pop-up window. While chatting with buddies, users can see their friends mini-feed activity. Mini-feed activity gives notifications when Facebookers have made status changes, multimedia uploads and any other changes to their page. There are also settings to make this feature private such as clearing the conversation history (a link is provided in each conversation) and choosing not to include mini-feeds in chat conversations. But why introduce instant messaging if there are already tools to communicate via Facebook? Facebook blogger Josh Wiseman says,

The Wall and Inbox have been the primary ways to communicate, but when more immediacy is necessary—for example when making plans for lunch in half an hour or arguing over a foul call in the NCAA tournament—they might not be enough. Chat aims to fill this gap…Chat is by no means a new concept, as instant messaging systems have been around for over a decade. But just as other features on Facebook have allowed friends to communicate more efficiently than before, we hope Facebook Chat will make it easier to connect instantly.

Myspace Music creates new venture with big record labels

Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group have created a joint venture with Myspace Music to make their music available for purchase via Myspace.  Myspace Music will launch a music service similar to iTunes where fans can purchase music. However, Myspace Music will allow fans to also puchase ringtones,  concert tickets, t-shirts and other merchandise from their favorite artists.

Chief executive of Myspace Chris DeWolfe said, “We believe that this is really a historic step in the music industry redefining itself, both with the partnership and the product (to come). There’s no other product on the Internet that looks anything like this.”

Sony, Universal and Warner will make their music catalogs available for downloading and listening later this year.

source: New York Times, Variety

If you only had $1.08 to eat with per day…

While in my journalism class, my professor mentioned that Nevada citizens that qualify for welfare receive $91/month for food stamps, which breaks down to $1.08/meal or $ 3.25/day. That’s hardly anything. Most people spend over $3 on one meal at fast food places.

I took a trip to Vons grocery store today to pick up a few snacks. I purchased 3 yogurts, green grapes, oatmeal, fruit cups and craisins. The total added up to $18.68, but was reduced to $16.60 because of my Vons club card. The Vons club card is free of no charge, to sign up and receive discounts on prices. I also looked at a few prices of some basic necessities, such as sandwich ingreidients- the generic brands. The prices were: $ 1.29 salami, cheese $4.79, loaf of bread $1.19, mustard $0.89, mayonnaise $1.29. It’s also hard  to each a sandwich for a few days in a row, because there is no variety.

Other items such as a gallon of water cost $5.99 , a gallon of milk $3.99, a pack of chicken wings cost $5.94. In conclusion, it is very hard for one to survive on $91/per month for food stamps. Sure, one could buy cheaper items such as ramen noodles which are under one dollar, however they would not receive the proper nutrients nor would they be able to eat ramen noodles on a daily basis. Most people eat 3 times a day. $1.08 is not enough.

Gas Prices-Will They Ever Go Down?!

It’s kind of hard to ignore the rapid increase in gas prices when it affects your finances. It’s also obvious that gas for our cars is a necessity. Most everyday activities involve transportation, which involve gasoline. According to an article written in 2007 on MSN.com , the national average gas prices are $3.22 per gallon. Chevron gas in Las Vegas is currently $3.31 dollars per gallon near the UNLV campus. According to this article, the lowest gas price around this time of year was $3.01 in South Carolina and Indiana at the highest with $ 3.46. This article also mentions that the average consumer is spending $1,000 more on gas than in previous years, according to the Consumer Federation of America.

Even one penny increase on a gallon of gas affects consumers. Cameron Hanover analyst Peter Beutel says, “Every penny increase in the price of gasoline costs American businesses and consumers $4 million [per day.] If people telecommute one day a month or commute with one person twice a month, we would have gas demand down 4%, instead of up 1%.”

Broadband Penetration in the U.S.

It seems like everyone is on the Internet these days, whether it’s at home, work or even mobile phones. Technology is expanding frequently, but how is the U.S. doing?

Nielsen Media reported that about 221 million consumers have Internet access in the U.S. According to a Leichtman Research Survey in 2007, nearly three quarters of households subscribe to an Internet service provider and a high-speed (broadband account) which is over 70 percent of online home subscribers. Although U.S. is the 12th in broadband penetration worldwide; according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, studies from Leichtman in January 2008 show that broadband penetration grew from 86.79 percent to 87.49 from December 2007. If the current rates continue to increase by 0.7 per month, The Leichtman Research Group predicts that broadband penetration among active internet users will reach 90 percent by May 2008.

But what is the importance of having broadband internet versus narrowband? And what is the difference?

Blogger ydogg from MobilePhoneBlog.org couldn’t have explained the importance of broadband any clearer:

Why is broadband wireless important? Well, if you’re currently on a broadband connection on your desktop, you probably already know the answer. If you’re still on dial-up at home, one analogy I can use is to think of highway traffic. As a Seattelite, we experience some of the worst traffic in the country. Dial-up is like driving in traffic during rush-hour where it is not uncommon to take over an hour to go under 10 miles on our highways. Broadband, however, is like driving on the same highway in the middle of the night when there is no traffic.

Social networking has also been popular within Internet use in recent years and so have third-generation mobile phones; phones with wireless Internet accessibility. There are nearly 3.3 billion cell phone subscribers in the U.S., 2.3 billion (50 million) of the subscribers are using mobile internet for multimedia uploads and social networking according to Informa Telecoms in a New York Times article. For example, T-Mobile Sidekick phones are popular among teens and young adults. These phones have features where consumers can instant message others online, send multimedia and have high speed internet access, especially when they can’t get to a nearby computer to check their MySpace pages. It also seems like there is a direct correlation between broadband penetration in the U.S., mobile phones with Internet access and social networking.

 

**The Numbers Assignment**