social media- location based applications

In the world of social media, there are many social media applications like Facebook, blogs, social bookmarking, video sharing and so on. There’s also this growing trend of applications that are called location-based applications, where people can “check-in” at the particular location that they are presently at. Some well-known applications are Yelp, Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla and Neer, Loopt, SCVNGR are probably the lesser known ones. What makes location-based applications interesting, is the fact that you can let your friends know where you are in a city and if they want, they could join you at your location. Another cool feature of location-based application like Yelp, is that people can leave comments or reviews about the place that has been visited. This allows their followers or friends to know what’s good and not so good at the particular place.

One of the most prominent location-based application is that of Foursquare. Started in 2009, the number of users of Foursquare has increased exponentially over the past two years and now has 10 million users utilizing this application. Foursquare allows people to check into places to share with their friends as well as write reviews of places that they have just “checked in”. Users of foursquare can check into places using smartphones, and while doing so, they can even earn badges, points or even become the “mayor” of the location. Users can check into places like restaurants, cafes, grocery stores, museums and so on.

Here’s a short video for you explaining what Foursquare is about:

[howcast url=’http://www.howcast.com/videos/386406-How-To-Unlock-Your-World-With-Foursquare’ height=’240′ width=’360′]

I think applications like this is fun because it allows you to meet new people, discover new places, and allows you to appreciate your surroundings.

Here’s an interesting infographic about Foursquare and details the usage of this application all over the world. Looking at it, it seems that location-based application is a powerful tool. [Click the infographic to see animation]

Interesting Facts about Foursquare

In addition, I think businesses can stand a chance to benefit from location-based applications such as Foursquare or Yelp or Gowalla. It would be an attractive way for them to attract customers and retain loyal customers. For instance, as many of these applications already have in place, is the use of discount coupons for users of these applications. In a way, it allows the user to benefit obviously because of the discount coupons, but also allows businesses to jump on the social media bandwagon. I think this applications will allow the businesses to know more about their audiences and hence probably develop products that will cater to audiences tastes.

Some successful companies that have jumped on the Foursquare bandwagon are Dunkin Donuts, where it allowed users who overshared on Foursquare to win the chance of being the President of “Dunkin Nation”. Other such businesses that ran similar campaigns are Pepsi which revealed sweepstakes for badge users and allowed them to have a chance of attending a world series games.

Recently, there was this campaign in which Foursquare and Monopoly joined forces and created this mash-up called “Foursquarepoly.” I believe that it will allow monopoly lovers to check out Foursquare to play the game. What’s awesome about this campaign is that it may help to revive people’s love for Monopoly as well as attracting new users to Foursquare, and this is a win-win situation for both companies. It allows people to interact with one another in a fun, delightful and interactive way.

Here’s a short video showing how “Foursquarepoly” works:

Here’s another video for you to enjoy. Pee-wee Herman using Four-square for a day! 🙂

Enjoy and have a great week ahead! 🙂

Cheers,

Vera

Sources/Credits:

Foursquare: https://foursquare.com

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2011/06/20/foursquare-10-million/

All things about Foursquare: http://aboutfoursquare.com/category/fun/

Videos: http://www.howcast.com

http://www.vimeo.com

http://www.funnyordie.com

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social media

What exactly is social media? I feel that social media has allowed people to be connected to one another in one way or another. This can be done through the sharing of information with one another through social networks for instance. For  In the past, people often maintain a one-way conversation with another party through the use of a telephone for instance. However, social media has changed all that.

Now social media, together with Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, has allowed people to create content, share content, comment on other people’s content. What this means is that there is shift from being a consumer of content to a production of content, and this is often aided by social media. In the last couple of years, social media has grown exponentially, take the instance of Facebook, a social networking website. It has grown over the years and now is the most popular social networking site in the world. In a way, I feel that social media has introduced benefits that could help us, in the past we could only consume content, but now social media has provided an opportunity for us to learn and grow. Social media, to me, has essentially opened a whole new dimension. It allows one to be able to create content, share the content with people, listen to their feedback through the comments that they have, enable people to recommend what one has produced and share it with other people.

Here is a video of what Social Media is visually:

Many people have wondered if this phenomenon of ‘social media’ would last. It has grown exponentially over the years, with websites or applications that has come up over the years. And these applications or websites are still being produced today, each of which hoping to capture a share of audiences attention. I believe that many of us utilize social media and many of us cannot live without it. Simply put, social media has changed the way we relate with one another, and this is particularly because of social networks that has enabled us to be more intertwined with people’s lives.

Here’s an interesting video about the social media revolution:

The power of social media can be demonstrated through the use of ‘viral’ videos. The term ‘viral’ videos came about because these videos usually shared with many people at once and this is typically aided by the use of social media, where people can share these videos with their friends through email, social bookmarking websites or social networking websites.

Here is an interesting infographic about viral branding and the most viewed viral videos online. Indeed, ‘viral videos’ are powerful tools for brands and companies.

A popular viral video that I love the video that features Old Spice and Fabio challenging one another to staring showdown. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this campaign, this was created as to ascertain who should be the New Old Old Spice man, for the brand Old Spice. Old Spice is a brand of aftershave for men. You can view it here.

To conclude, here is the final video that I want to share with you guys. I think this video essentially sums up that we all cannot live with social media to a certain extent. This video was made at TED Gel Conference, where it was the launch of a new social platform called Twirlr, but watch what happens… 🙂

Alright, to my lovely readers, thanks for taking time to read this post!

Please feel free to leave a comment or two, thanks! 🙂

Cheers,

Vera

Credits/Sources:

Infographic: http://wwww.viraladnetwork.net

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com

TED Gel Conference: Gotta Share Musical: http://www.ted.com/talks/gel_gotta_share.html

reflection one- introduction to the internet

It’s the start of another fall semester yet again. However, though this semester will be 15 long weeks, I am looking forward to this module that I am doing called, Introduction to the Internet.

This module will introduce us to the wonderful world of the Internet. As we now live in a technological age, I believe that this module will equip me with the knowledge of the beneficial uses and dangers of utilizing the Internet.  Throughout these 15 weeks, I will learn different facets of the Internet such as social media, e-business, e-commerce, Internet and journalism as well as internet security. I hope that by the end of this semester, this module will allow me to have a clearer picture of how the Internet works and hence appreciate the Internet better.

This week, we were introduced to the concept of the Internet. The Internet has played a huge part in our lives.  It can be utilized by people to watch videos, listen to music, shopping, exchange documents with peers and so on. It is also used as an avenue for businesses to reach out to their customers. The Internet could even be utilized by educators to impart knowledge to students. Some people even use the Internet to for education and now there’s even ways to gain a degree with the Internet. This can be done through online courses or online universities. Imagine earning a degree from the comfort of your own computer at home!

The interesting thing was that there is a difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web. I was unaware of this difference because I would usually use the terms Internet and World Wide Web interchangeably, which I now know is incorrect. The World Wide Web (also known as WWW) is composed of hypertext language documents that can be accessed through the Internet.(Wikipedia, 2011) On the other hand, the Internet is a system of worldwide interconnected networks using a common set of protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol. (Wikipedia, 2011)

Here’s a short video introducing you to the concept of the Internet that was shown in class. This video is interesting because it introduces you to the world of the Internet in simple way.

Here’s another video introducing you to the concept of World Wide Web, done by Commoncraft, which is one of my favorite websites to go to learn about stuff.

Besides learning about the Internet and the World Wide Web, we also learned about domain names and Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The difference between the two is that “a URL lists the location of an object, usually in the form of a website or webpage on the Internet” while the “domain name usually consist of a textual address in order to find a host machine on the Internet”. (MYNIC, 2011)

Since learning about URLs and domain names this week, I decided to search the Internet for weird/funny/strange domain names and came across this article by The Daily Telegraph published last year. In this article, it talked about how the British Broadcasting Corporation ran websites with weird web domains while it was promoting shows on their BBC channels. These websites were created as some of them were related to the storyline of their shows. Though these sites were fictional, their domain names were nonetheless bizarre and funny.

Some of the more interesting domain names were:

http://www.singlessos.co.uk/

The above website, Singlessos was created in conjunction with a BBC show called Torchwood.

http://www.bestmurders.co.uk

This website above, best murders, is a website consisting of fictional content that was created for a BBC show. Check it out as it’s really funny!

Here’s another video that I want to share. This is really a funny video- What the Internet is… .

Enjoy!

Well, I have had an interesting week for COM 125 this week and I can’t wait for next week’s lecture on Social Media. Till then, thanks for reading this post. Feel free to add in any comments or feedback, thank you!

Cheers,

Vera

Credits/Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_Suite

http://www1.mynic.net.my/newhp/MYNIC-FAQ_AbtDN.htm

Article about BBC’s Bizarre Domain Names: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/7786153/BBCs-bizarre-domain-names-revealed.html

Videos:

History of the Internet: http://vimeo.com/2696386

WWW explained (Commoncraft): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZoMbBzqxyc

The Internet Explained: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99smfEQW8sA&feature=player_embedded

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