Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Social Media Responses
I've found that using Facebook for leads on Journalism assignments can be both good and bad/annoying. I say this because people on Facebook can see everybody's status updates with the Live Feed feature, but a lot of people post new things so often that others get annoyed and start ignoring them. When I post status updates people will often comment on them but they are usually joking comments, so when trying to get helpful info it can be hard. I won't directly copy and paste the comments I received from my post in need of help or feedback pertaining to DPS's bike laws on USC's campus because many of them included obscenities. But I got the general idea of how people felt about it and if they were concerned or not. then after they commented me I sent them messages to see if they would be willing to speak with me more seriously about a story.
My Facebook post said: Is anyone irritated/frustrated by DPS's bike rules on campus? Need feedback for my journalism class.
From this, I received 5 comments and 1 "like."
I say it can be good because ALL of your Facebook friends have the option of seeing your status, so you're reaching a very large group of people. But, in many cases people will just skip over it or will not post anything useful. All this said, I do use Facebook for most of my projects that need input about issues where controversy surround them.
Facebook vs. Twitter: News War
So, I've had a Facebook for a while now and use it for mostly social networking and fun to pass the time, but I haven't quite gotten into the Twitter craze. And quite frankly I really don't understand it. However, I just recently made a Twitter account for a class assignment and I have to say, I still really don't like it nearly as much as Facebook.
The assignment for class was to compare the way news media sites utilize social media such as Facebook and Twitter, to get news out to people through different ways. Now, businesses like CNN, NBC, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times are all trying to keep up with the ages and expanding the way they deliver news. Already, most news programs and companies have fully interactive internet sites to reach the younger generations but that still doesn't reach everyone. A lot of college and high school students don't check news sites regularly or read the paper, so to try and reach those populations they have to bring the news to them. Most of those students do have either a Facebook or Twitter, so in attempts to make the news more accessible, they have created Facebook pages and Twitter accounts where students can see what's going on more easily.
I monitored CNN's International Twitter and Facebook page as well as The LA Times World pages for a week to compare and contrast the differences. I found that for both CNN and LA Times the Twitter accounts had many more posts and were updated much more often. I think the reason for this is because there is an older crowd that checks twitter pretty regularly and although older people have started using Facebook recently, it is still dominated by people between 17-28 years of age. On the both Twitter's the posts are short sentences designed to draw readers into the story and they are then directed to a link where they can view the full story. The Facebook format is a little different because they include pictures and videos in addition to links. It also allows users or (friends/fans) to make comments on each post which makes it a lot more interactive than Twitter.
In terms of improving either one- honestly, I cant think of much to do with the Twitter, simply because I'm not that familiar with it and also because the Twitter pages appeared to have much more updates and stories then the Facebook pages.
Surprisingly though, I found that I liked the Twitter better for stories because it wasn't so busy and filled with comments and pictures. I found that this was both a good and a bad thing for Facebook. On one hand the pictures draw the reader in, but they also made it seem more busy. With the Twitter I could read the quick teases for each story and decide which to click on. If I were to improve Facebook I might try to keep the updates in sync with the Twitter accounts.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Running For a Reason
Los Angeles’ edition of the Nike + Human Race sold out Friday, making it the largest in the country, but the bigger story was college rivalry between The University of Southern California and Ohio State University to recruit runners for a chance to win $50,000 for their school, according USC student and Nike employee Thomas Wagner.
In a new and unique marketing ploy, Nike spread the word about its upcoming race with a series of events held on the campuses of USC and OSU where Nike’s “youth ambassadors” got the chance to try out their own marketing ideas to get college runners interested in the race.
They started out by first installing a mini store called the “Nike Hub” inside one of USC’s more well known fraternities, Phi Kappa Psi.
And this was by no means cheap.
“They paid us almost $80,000 to use our house for just six weeks,” said Phi Psi House Manager Frank Sanchez.
Once they arrived to USC, it took only three days for the Nike employees to deck out with house with Nike symbols, stained glass windows, a gigantic USC Trojans mural, projector screens, tables and chairs, lights, and a fully functioning store where students could purchase all kinds of different Nike USC apparel.
Then, the youth ambassadors had to start getting the word out about the race to their fellow students in creative ways to encourage them to race so that USC could win the competition.
The way the competition for $50,000 worked was simple: through different running events leading up to the race and in the race itself, college runners logged all of their miles ran, then after the race was complete they added up the total miles and whichever college had the most miles logged, won the money.
Their first event was a viewing party for the USC Football team’s game against Ohio State.
Students poured into the frat house to watch the game on two large projector screens both inside the house and in the outside courtyard located in the middle of the house.
“It gave students a chance to have fun and watch the game. It was a fully-catered event with more than 500 chicken wings and beer for students over 21. But more than that it let students know about the event and Nike’s presence on the campus,” said Wagner.
After this event, the ambassadors came up with the idea to have an ’80s themed Jogathon followed by a toga run the week after.
The Jogathon was a run-off where students came to the front lawn of Phi Psi and ran on treadmills for as long as they could. Nike representatives then logged all the miles run from the meters on the treadmills.
At the toga run, students took off from Phi Psi at midnight (similar to the actual race which took place at midnight) and ran down USC’s frat row, to campus, and back.
“The events were really fun. A lot of us would drink and party before the night runs though, so it didn’t really help our conditioning. But it did get people excited for the race I think,” said USC junior Raphaella Turner.
In addition, each week Nike’s ambassadors held training sessions to get students ready for either the 5k or 10k versions of the race, where students would run about two or three miles alongside the youth ambassadors. These miles also went toward the grand total.
After the training runs and events USC and OSU appeared to be about even in student runners registered. In fact, USC already had 500 runners registered two weeks before the race date.
And the competition remained close. Until the race.
USC and OSU seemed neck and neck for college runners registered, and when race day came and runners came to collect their race gear at the registration stands, USC appeared to have the edge.
As a city, Los Angeles had already surpassed its target and extended the registration goal to 7,000 runners where Ohio only had around 3,000.
The race began at midnight on October 24, 2009. Streets throughout downtown
L.A were closed down causing massive traffic jams around the city.
“There were so many people. It was crazy,” said Turner.
L.A.’s numbers where huge. More than 8,500 runners ran through the city making L.A. the largest Human Race across the country.
Ohio State, however, had more than 3,500 runners, but were nowhere near the numbers Los Angeles posted.
That didn’t matter though. Because regarding college runners, Ohio State trounced USC
OSU finished with a whopping 22,107 miles, where USC finished with just 8,907 miles. Even though USC lost, students felt that it was a fun experience.
“It was fun competing for our school. The $50,000 would have been nice but really it was just a cool way to get students involved and show our school spirit,” said Turner.
Wagner agreed, and said he would like to compete again in a more popular sport like basketball.
“I think our event was a huge hit for the company, and the students. We will definitely have to try out some other similar competitions in the future,” said Nike youth ambassador Zack Goldbaum.
Next year Nike plans to include more colleges to the competition for a larger grand prize.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Soundslides
-My first Soundslides project.
*Soundslide editing is harder than it looks on a Macbook Pro Computer!
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