Twitter Ads

Twitter releases new advertising platform: promoted tweets.

Brad McCarty link to article

We’ve all wondered, since its inception, how and when Twitter would make money.  The answer comes tomorrow.  Twitter will be releasing its new advertising platform, consisting of promoted tweets.
TechCrunch started the rumor mill, which has since been confirmed as true.  Look for promoted tweets to start appearing in Twitter search results on Tuesday, with a slowly-but-surely rollout style into your main feed soon after.
Advertising Age is reporting some more depth on the story, and gives us a look into the thought processes behind the sponsored tweets as well.
Users will be able to re-tweet the advertisement, which will be found at the top of the search results page.  In case you’re wondering, yes, the ads will be very akin to Google AdWords.  Ads will appear based upon search keywords, but the interactive model should prove interesting, as an even more immediate feedback model is available with Twitter.
Starbucks, Bravo and Virgin America will start the sponsored tweets campaign.  These companies are a perfect fit, according to Twitter Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo.  When you take a company that is already active in conversation over Twitter, the sponsored tweets idea is a logical step.
Twitter is claiming to be taking its time with the new model.  There is no profit goal set for the first year, but rather the focus is on the user experience.  Ads will be sold on a CPM basis, but the company is already looking at a performance-based pricing strategy as well.
It will be interesting to see whether Twitter is able to keep the user experience the same, while still promoting a rollout of a product this large.  Our bet is on some pushback from the Twittersphere, but the end result looks promising.

What are your thoughts?  How likely are  you to jump into conversation about or the retweeting of an advertisement?

***It happened in Facebook, it happened in Youtube and now it has happened in Twitter.  Our free social media sites are being plastered with ads so the site and the companies can cash in on your life. Advertising and marketing are multi-billion dollar industries and the name of the game is how to "make you look".  The internet is still a very new entity and avenue for marketing firms and companies who are learning new ways everyday on how to cash in on your eyes. Twitter has now introduced a way for advertisers to key in on keywords that you use in your tweets to market different products to yo based on your interest. Twitter says, they have no idea how much they stand to make from this but, next time you type the word whipped into your twitter be careful because you may recieve ads about the cream or some chains....*** 

Skype: Maintaining the long-distance relationship

This blog is inspired by a past relationship that has recently come back into my life. I told you that I would put a little of myself into this from time to time and, well here it goes...

Reinhardt was not the first University I have attended through my college career.  I originally attended Siena College in Loudonville, New York (a little town near Albany, Ny).  I studied and played baseball their for two years and while during my learning I met a young lady.  Myself being from Kennesaw, Ga and her from Massapequa, New York (Long Island girl) I smelled trouble from jump street, but just could not resist her charm.  Early on the relationship was easy and wonderful, until we had to confront the elephant that had been lingering in to room: our distance from one another during holidays and summers. 

We knew that we were always just a phone call away, or a two hour plane flight from one anothers arms, and as comforting as it is to hear the voice of that special someone before you lay your head down at night there is just something about being able to look in your partners eyes and just know that things are going to be alright.

Lucky for us she discovered a great online tool called SKYPE. The Wiki definition of Skype is :  (pronounced /ˈskaɪp/) is a software application that allows users to make voice calls and chats over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and video conferencing. Skype has 663 million registered users as of 2010.

Link to About Skype: http://about.skype.com/

Skype allowed us to make voice calls on those hard nights where hearing each others voice just wasn't enough.  I made the time apart not seem so long, and allowed both of us to rest easy at night knowing that we were in bed and thinking about each other. 

People say, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and that is true but others may say, "it makes the mindd wonder"...lol. For me skype was something that made the long gaps inbetween us being together bearable. It made nights not so dreary and my heart not feel so empty. 

The application however is not without fault... There is both a free version that is downloadable online as well as a version that you pay for. The free version does not have as good a quality video or sound, picture can lag at times and the connection is dropped everyonce in a while, but if you are in college and ddo not have deep pockets, this software can go a long way in helping contribute to a healthy, long-lasting long-distance relationship.

I encourage any couple who is in a long distance relationship and looking for something to help make your time apart work a little smoother to go to the site : http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/welcomeback/

As for my relationship...well distance finally came between us.  However, she remains the most influential person in my life and from time to time she still rings me on Skype.

Jenkins Ch 4 notes

Value of Surplus Audiences

audience members outside the target demographic are often treated as "surplus."

*In some cases, audience members might provide supplementary income through purchasing content surrounding the main television property, but they are often considered irrelevant.

*when these "undesired" segments start to overwhelm the core demographic, they can be seen as a nusance, diluting the show's market, and confusing advertisers about its value for delivering targeted consumers

Transmedia a System of Generating Audience Engagement

*Narratives such as soap operas have staying power because they provide a storytelling universe substantially larger than the show itself, offering almost infinite material for fan discussions and debates—and thus insuring "spreadable" content across fan networks.

*story worlds are defined by large backstories that cannot be neatly summarized; an ensemble of characters within the current narrative and across its larger history; substantial reliance on program history; narratives shaped by a wide variety of creative forces over time; a serialized structure of storytelling; and a sense of permanence and continuity within the fictional universe.

*Since the appointment television model focuses primarily on income from advertising, the many business possibilities of longer-term content are often ignored.

*soap opera industry continues to see its properties only as a vehicle for selling young adult females to soap companies (the same model that the genre has used for the past eight decades)

*comic book franchises, sports leagues and other immersive franchises have built business models which identify multiple ways of engaging with the narrative and thus open up multiple revenue stream

*professional wrestling builds its weekly soap-opera-like serialized television shows around a business model which includes live events, pay-per-view shows, merchandise, DVD sales, original website content, video games, and various other types of storytelling, many of which generate direct revenue from audiences

*Such examples are driving the media industry to think more deeply about content as an ongoing and renewable generator of value, not as a one-time commodity

*these complex serialized narratives are now extending beyond the medium of television into  webisodes, printed and digital comics, computer games, alternative reality experiences, and so on

*The industry calls such practices "transmedia entertainment"

Continuity and Change:

A History of Transmedia Entertainment

*Comic books, video games, and other markets once considered ancillary now play increasingly significant and re-centered roles in the production and consumption of everyday film and television properties

*Ex: Heroes, Transformers, or Star Trek

*Understanding transmedia in terms of cultural exchange across and transformation through different media experiences means recognizing traditional processes of adaptation and translation of content as a foundation for the social exchange of spreadable media today

*Ex: the Bible might be considered one of the most successful transmedia narratives in history: its stories have been passed down over centuries not only through written word, but also religious paintings and icons that framed those stories in new ways

*Corporate managers increasingly consider the development of a video game to accompany a film, for example, not in terms of adaptation but in terms of extension in which stories are elaborated rather than retold

*Today’s spreadable media, therefore, extend from a much longer history in which entertainment culture has been generated and regenerated over time and across production contexts.

*Transmedia entertainment makes a great deal of sense in the context of convergence, offering content that can be liberally extended and multiplied across a range of possible cultural experiences

"The Total Engagement Experience"

*"The total engagement experience gives you a bridge experience in between each broadcast; it drives people to the show week after week through these experiences; and it also gets people to sample the show who have never seen the show before. It also generates press buzz and creates new revenue sources."

*an engagement model thrives when entertainment properties help active audiences connect with one another

*this is best accomplished through extending the  experience of the story world to new venues

Valuing "Cult" Audiences

*active fan discussion and active word-of-mouth is a stark reminder that transmedia and spreadability should not be too narrowly defined.

*behaviors that were once considered "cult" or marginal are becoming more central to television industry's acceptance of the engagement based model

*In a world where audiences now regularly use Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and video-sharing sites to react to mass media offerings, the media industry and brands increasingly recognize and respect the influence of these grassroots intermediaries

Trend Topic: Twitter ( ya Atiya we did the same trend sry)

http://twitter.com/

Ok, so about a month ago the twitter bug spread through the Reinhardt baseball team like wildfire and I knew what I wanted to write my trend paper about. I figure it being the third largest and second fastest growing social media site in the world that even if Atiya was doing the same topic hopefully their would not be a lot of overlap.  I am still very new to the twitter craze but am very intrigued by it all.  Twitter was created back in 2006 and are composed of what are reffered to as microblogs that are 140 characters or less. Considered the SMS of the internet the large majority of all "tweets" are mindless bable and only 4% of tweets are considered news (Wiki).  However, with over 200 million users and 65 million tweets world wide daily it has become a social media force to be recon with (BBC). 

Creation

Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey in San Francisco, California. The first tweet was sent in July of 06’ and since that day the social media networking site has grown to over 200 million users in just less than five years.  Twitter was developed in a day long brainstorming session of a company called Odeo when Dorsey suggested the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate to a small group of people (Wiki).  The original name was “Twttr” modeled after the site name flickr.  

Growth

Since Twitters creation in 2006 it has grown from one user to over 200 million users worldwide including professional athletes, news corporations, musical artists and actors and actresses as well as your average person looking to express their ideas freely in an open forum.  In 2007, the social site Twitter was averaging 20,000 tweets a day.  In July 2010, the site averaged 65 million tweets per day, equaling about 750 tweets sent each second, according to Twitter (Garrett).  That is an incredible growth in just a few years.

Twitter is now ranked as one of the ten-most-visited websites worldwide by Alexa's web traffic analysis and is continuing to grow and become more prevalent in American society daily.  Twitter is commonly seen being highlighted on news shows, celebrity news shows, music channels, and Sport Center.  It is a social media site that has now doubt engrained itself into popular culture and will continue to change and shape the framework of social structures across the globe.

"bbc.co.uk". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12889048. Retrieved 28 March 2011

Garrett, Sean (June 18, 2010). "Big Goals, Big Game, Big Records". Twitter Blog (blog of Twitter). http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/big-goals-big-game-big-records.html. Retrieved April 7, 2011.

Ok... so I broke down and got a smart phone

Check out the Video Review!

As of Friday morning I Don DiPetta, finally broke down and conformed to the rest of the world. I bought a smart phone and for the past 4 days have slowly been trying to figure everything out on my phone and am not even close. I do know however, that yea... it's pretty damn cool and I have been missing out. However, I can already feel myself becoming immersed in it and one of my friends went as far as to say it will "change my life".  Its a sprint EVO Shift, and all i know is I really haven't even made calls from it yet and have almost forgotten it was even a phone. 
**Wow, a couple weeks into having this phone and I am in love.  I can now access my banking, youtube, Facebook, Twitter and the internet all in the palm of my hand! It is incredibly fast and a very reliable phone.  The applications on it are endless and most are available for free if you look hard enough. 
It is easy to see how you can get carried away and loose yourself in all of thi new, new technology though.  I am obsessed with Twitter and am crazy about the idea of being able too directly talk to famous athletes and actors. 
Critical insight is that cell phones have been and are the fastest growing piece of technolgy in history.  They are a multi-billion dollar a year industry and nearly all american's over the age of 15 have one. Our overall connectedness as a society is shocking and the number is only growing.  But, with these cool cell phones who can blame us, right?

Still fed up!

Ok, so last week my blog was about how I felt technology had a negative affect on our society by dragging them further and further away from reality. As Atiya's latest blog talks about, the alternate reality Second Life is just one example of  people immersing themselves in an alternate world ultimatly losing touch with actual reality. 
The more places I visit where there are people around the less faith I have in us as a society.  Next time you are at the mall or a restaurant as a social experiment, for a minute, take your eyes away from your cell phone (no it wont kill you) and look around the restaurant at the people around you... I can bet you the majority have their heads down texting or phones attached to their ear. When did it become so much cooler to talk to someone your not with as opposted to the people you are with?

It seems like every week we see a new commercial for a new phone or a new computer or pad or whatever else they can think of... All the while slowly and quietly our economy, healthcare, government and everything else really important in this country goes to down the toilet.  But hey, check out my new wall post and look at the new app I found, and suddenly the world is right again... Whoever "they" is, whoever is overloading us with new, new technology is blinding us from reality. 
Yes, I'm sure they have good intentions and a lot of technolgy that is produced is for the betterment of society and for healthcare.  Those aspects of the spectrum are wonderful and should be fully embraced by society. 
However, I am pleading with people to work out of our new, new technology coma and take an interest in what is going on in our country.  We can make a difference and help make change, but we cannot do it hiding in a cell phone.

Feed up w/ New, New

Someone once said life is what happens while your busy making plans. I think this can be applied to the concept of new, new media.  Last night while on my way home I listened to a song entitled " I don't know why they say grown men don't cry". The song talks of many different instances in life where people realize what is ultimately most important to them.  Those were interactive experiences between people and memories of loved ones lost, and time that they cannot get back.  It really got me thinking, " how much of my life am I wasting on the internet and my cell phone?"
While I am adamant about my overall lack of enthusiasm about the new, new media explosion, I cannot sit here and say that it does not have its uses and that there is a lot of good that has come out of technological advancements. However, our "connectedness" as a society has gone overboard. 
You can look around a college classroom today and plainly see the effects media has had on students in class. You can look around a class room and there is usually one or more computers in the room, a projection screen, and most professors teach from power point.
Are these all good technological innovations? I think so, but then observe the students. How many have their head down and their phone out?  Most students cannot go 50 min or 1 hour and 15 mins without texting, or browsing, or playing a game or updating their Facebook or Twitter.  All the while missing information that can help them succeed in their future professions. 
Now, I'm prob being a bit drastic but, honestly what would you do without you phone or computer for a day? Or a week?  Track the amount of time you spend staring into a screen or punching away at a key board and then ask yourself what else you could have done with that time. 
As a society today what is more important to us: updating my Facebook status and stalking friends and ex's, or spending interactive quality time with people and loved ones because tomorrow is a gift, that we must not waste?
I chose to add this video as a reminder to people how important each day really is. A lot of people are blessed and fortunate to be in the position that they are.  They take for granted each day what life is like for other less fortunate people all the while they waste their time lost in meaningless technology.  Life is a gift and time can never be gotten back, so make the most of it while you can and everyonce in a while turn off the cell phone and take a break from your laptop and spend sometime with people you care about.