The newest trending topic on Twitter is RIP Justin Bieber and death note. It appears some person wrote a tweet saying he had died and there was a death note. Within hours it had become very public. Justin Bieber is known for pranking on the internet and he took it very lightly. But this is tying back to the negative side of Social Media and the false information that is out there and how quickly it can spread.
I clicked the trend topic and read a lot of the comments. Most of the tweets talked about how sick it was that people thought of death so lightly and the others at how sad they were it wasn't true. Either way the mentioned "RIP Justin Bieber" in their tweet. My fascination comes from those that are tweeting how confused they are at how fast it trended but even they put the words in their tweets. Do people not realize that topic trend becuase of how often they are mentioned. If you really think something is untrue and should not be being talked about, then why mention it in the tweet?
I can't tell if it is the twitter communities general stupidity or if they are hoping to get their topic on the trend feed. The more times these people mention how disgusting it is the more it gets mentioned and therefore the more popular the tweet gets. This just happens to be one example of this, I'm sure that topics such as this trend everyday. I just happened to check twitter today and there it was.
Side Note: I know next to nothing about Twitter, I have an account but I have been on it maybe 10 times in the past year. Some of my twitter vocabulary might be slightly off but I think I got the gist of it correct.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Zodiac Signs
Since this blog has the intention of talking about Social Media and its effects, the recent zodiac sign phenomenon is a perfect example. Last thursday an article was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune saying that due to the earth's unrecorded "wobble" the previously believed signs are wrong by about a month. There is also the added new sign of Ophiucus. This news went viral and fast. It was one of the most tweeted topics by friday and it was all over facebook pages. A story in a small paper in Minneapolis was able to reach thousands if not millions of people within days. This story affects everyone even those who do not believe in astrology. Everyone knows or has known their sign. Though it in reality does not change much, there was a lot of commotion about what this could mean.
People everywhere were freaking out about their respective tattoos and other effects they had in regards to their sign. The actual revelation of this story is nothing new to astrologers. They say that this information has been known for ages and that it is really irrelevant to the signs people assign themselves to.
The most interesting part is that this story spread so fast and so wide that it cause a mass hysteria (in the most online and not physical sense). This story could so easily have been fake but people took to believing it with no trepidation. The power of social media at its finest. We discussed in class on Thursday the negative effects and this is one of them. The story actually got so big that CNN had to report on it in order to calm the storm. ( http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/13/no-your-zodiac-sign-hasnt-changed/ )
Everyone needs to understand that if they were a Scorpio last week they will forever be a Scorpio, or whatever sign you might be.
People everywhere were freaking out about their respective tattoos and other effects they had in regards to their sign. The actual revelation of this story is nothing new to astrologers. They say that this information has been known for ages and that it is really irrelevant to the signs people assign themselves to.
The most interesting part is that this story spread so fast and so wide that it cause a mass hysteria (in the most online and not physical sense). This story could so easily have been fake but people took to believing it with no trepidation. The power of social media at its finest. We discussed in class on Thursday the negative effects and this is one of them. The story actually got so big that CNN had to report on it in order to calm the storm. ( http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/13/no-your-zodiac-sign-hasnt-changed/ )
Everyone needs to understand that if they were a Scorpio last week they will forever be a Scorpio, or whatever sign you might be.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Design
This blog has pretty cool design features. I dislike that all my photos are usually too big to be able to be uploaded as backgrounds. The stock photos that are offered are nice but I would always rather a photo of my own rather than a photo that everyone can choose from. I went through and made changes and adjusted the design of my blog. I believe that I will change it quite constantly. Always updating and adjusting depending on my mood. I do like that it can constantly be updated and changed. It took me 2 tries to figure out where all the font adjustments were but the second time I found everything. I changed all the colours from the originals. It is now my own unique blog. There was even a gadget to link to my flickr account, very cool. The only thing that I dislike is that I was able to access my flickr account through the gadget without needing the consent from my flickr account. Could anyone potentially link to my account if they knew my username? Could I link to other people's flickr pages without them ever knowing. You could easily call someone else's photos your own on this blog. I think I may try to link to someone else's flickr page as well just to see if I can. As a photographer who posts material on the internet the fear of it being accessible for download to everyone is constant. There are no guarantees that anyone's material is truly theirs. What if one day I am looking at a website and bam, one of my photos. Now I know this wouldn't happen to me as I am a completely unknown photographer, but couldn't it potentially happen to someone more known than me?
Food for thought.
Food for thought.
Entry #1
This is my first entry for in my blog for MRKT 2111. This isn't my week to post but I figured that I could write a first entry anyways just to get started. I have never used blogger before but I do have a blog. I currently have a wordpress blog. That blog is primarily dedicated to my photography, its address is http://angelawphotography.wordpress.com/. I haven't updated it in quite a while. I had intended it to be the place where I sen potential clients to see my work. It was easy to use but without followers it began to seem slightly useless. It was hard to understand that a blog had to be established and constantly updated in order to attract followers or whatever they are called on blogs. (I am realizing that the word followers is the Twitter term, but I think it applies to blogs as well.)
Blogging is a daunting task, as it requires you to write an entry that goes into the abyss of the internet. Anyone could potentially stumble upon it and read whatever it is that you blog about. The thing that is important to remember is that does anyone else really care about what you have to write? It's quite doubtful. This blog of course has a purpose. All classmates and the professor will be reading it and commenting. So really the content is not all that relevant, or need to be all that personal. I have never understood those that blog every detail of their personal life, for exactly the reason I stated above - the fear of the abyss of the internet.
Well that is all the thoughts on blogging for the moment.
Blogging is a daunting task, as it requires you to write an entry that goes into the abyss of the internet. Anyone could potentially stumble upon it and read whatever it is that you blog about. The thing that is important to remember is that does anyone else really care about what you have to write? It's quite doubtful. This blog of course has a purpose. All classmates and the professor will be reading it and commenting. So really the content is not all that relevant, or need to be all that personal. I have never understood those that blog every detail of their personal life, for exactly the reason I stated above - the fear of the abyss of the internet.
Well that is all the thoughts on blogging for the moment.
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