Recommended blogs

In this entry I would like to recommend you five blogs of my fellow students.

First one is blog written by Zuzana Topolska, The Misleading of the Masses - Media and Manipulation. This blog elaborates today's very popular issue - how media can maniplate our minds. I particularly liked the article about edited photos which are being advertised as a true portrait.
link: http://misleadingofthemasses.blogspot.cz/

Second blog is made by Alena Davydova, she focuses on social advertising. I find this topic very interesting, because I consider social advertising to be one of few advertisings that have informational values and are very interesting. People should know, what are they about and what knowledge do they offer. You should too! So go and visit: http://davydovamedia.wordpress.com/

Third blog elaborates the Celebrity Worship Syndrome and is written by Aneta Zadrazilova. Very recent topic, we may find many examples in our pop culture such as Justin Bieber, One Direction, or many athletes. Anyone, who has a favorite band, actor, or actress, should go and visit this awesome blog.
link: http://azadrazilova.wordpress.com/

Fourth is called The Force of Advertising. I found this blog very amusing, since I am really interested in advertising and everything that goes around this topic. The author Alen Semelkin takes the blog as a spaceship that takes the reader through the galaxy of advertising. Very interestingly done and very well written. Anyone interested in advertising should go and visit this web page: http://semelkin.wordpress.com/

Last blog I would like to recommend you all today is the one I am very happy about. It deals with very dangerous Eeating Disorders. Lucy Balcak gives very nice examples and even shares her point of view and attitude towards this topic. People should have more information about this issue, which is due to the media pressure, very contemporary. Make sure you visit her site: http://mediasocietyandeatingdisorders.webs.com/

My thoughts on (mobile) social media

Social networks are a today’s phenomenon. Nowadays, the popular culture tells us to share everything with our friends on Facebook, to share our short thoughts on Twitter with our followers, or to put our photos on the Instagram.

Social networks have been influencing our lives for last few years and this influence is stronger than an average person may assume. Only by watching people’s behavior on the street, in the subway, or in a bus can tell us a lot about the power of social media. People are constantly checking their iPhones, iPads or other devices in order to stay connected and to see, what is new in the virtual world. The importance that has been given to social networks by today’s society has, among some people, grown into an obsession that is keeping them away from the real world. 

My main concern is issue of the need to be connected everywhere we go. I would be lying if I said I do not suffer from this phenomenon. First thing in the morning I do when I wake up is checking up the internet on my phone - Facebook, Twitter, and news, only then I am ready to leave my bed. I feel like the easy access to social networks is the source of distraction. It is quite common to see people online on Facebook during classes at school. This problem not only occurs at schools, but also in working environment. Curt Rice in his article “How social media is destroying productivity” elaborates the problem and says that some companies have banned Facebook from their network and have even allowed email only for few hours a day, because it simply creates distraction at work and drains productivity. Rice also offers some facts and statistics related to the usage of social media from LearnStuff:

1) 2 out of 3 internet users have a social media account

2) Facebook has 955 000 000 users, that is 13% of the world, or 3x he U.S. population

3) YouTube has 4 billion views a day

4) Twitter has exploded, in 2010 there were 27 million tweets a day, in 2012 the number of tweet per day reached 340 million.

5) 22% of our time spend online is on social networks, people spend 2 times more time on Facebook than they do exercising

6) 1 of 10 workers spends more time on the Internet than working. 6 out of 10 people do visit social media at work, and worker get interrupted once in 10,5 minutes by things like tweet, IM’s, or Facebook messages. It takes 23 minutes for those employees to get back on task, which is costing American economy 650 000 000 000 dollars a year, which is 7x  the amout of time lost due to smoke breaks.

These statistics show very disturbing data of usage of social networks. Yes, as Rice mentions, we may ban social networks from the company network, but what about the mobile social media? Who is going to ban them? No one. The mobile social media offers the alternative for the people who want to spend their time on social sites.

I do not want to say that mobile social media are all evil and should be banned or anything like that. I just want to stress out the problem of the distraction and the support of addiction on social networks. I personally like the idea of being able to let people know what is going on while we travel, share real-time photos/videos from parties or concerts, and to be able to stay in touch with people while we do not have the access to the PC.

 To conclude, mobile social media are a great tool which can be misused and become a very evil enemy of our productivity, social life and interaction with the real world. It is only up to us how we choose to use the social media and how much we allow them to interact with us on our mobile phones or other portable devices we carry with us everyday.

Sources: 

"LearnStuff." LearnStuff. N.p., 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2013. ( http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/ ).

Rice, Curt. "How Social Media Is Destroying Productivity." Curt-rice.com. N.p., 26 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2013. (http://curt-rice.com/2012/11/26/how-social-media-is-destroying-productivity/).

Recommended websites

In this entry I would like to recommend you three websites that are worth reading and subscribing.

1) First website I would like to recommend you is Social Media Today (http://socialmediatoday.com/) The website describes itself as an independent, online community for professionals in PR, marketing, advertising, or any other discipline where a thorough understanding of social media is mission-critical.  

Almost every day they post interesting articles about tools, platforms, companies and personalities that are revolutionizing the way we consume information.

2) Second webpage is Mashable and its category Social Media (http://mashable.com/social-media/). I particularly like the modern design of the site, it makes it really easy to read. On the website we can find a lot of interesting articles about social media, their development, new features, etc.

3) Last website I would like to mention is the onbile website (http://www.onbile.com/info/). They provide latest information about social media, social media marketing, as well as news about mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices that are very popular among today’s society.

Future of social is in the palm of your hand

I have found a very interesting article by Meghan Peters, “Why the Future of Social Is in the Palm of Your Hand“. I consider this article to be very reliable because of many statistic data and backup she uses.

In the article, she stresses out few very interesting points, or advantages the mobile social media offer to us, such as self expression in real-time. Peters mentions a good quote from CEO of Sonar: "It's no longer good enough for some of us to come home from vacation or a night out to post our photos and thoughts. We've become so used to real-time sharing that it feels irrelevant to post pictures of and reactions to things that happened mere hours ago."

What I like about this article is that there is a focus on positive aspects of mobile social media as well. One of them is the fact that mobile social media help us strengthen our relationships, because mobile devices help us to stay connected to people we care about.

Peters also talks about the fact that mobile social media enrich our lives and elaborates what is coming up next. I recommend you to go and visit the article yourself, I personally find it very interesting and very well written.

source: Peters, Meghan. "Why the Future of Social Is in the Palm of Your Hand." Mashable.com. N.p., 5 May 2012. Web. 11 May 2013. <http://mashable.com/2012/05/05/future-social-mobile/>.

Social Media and Mobile Internet Use study

In this entry I would like to discuss a research called “Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults”. The research was done in 2010, thus now in 2013 we may expect even higher raise in percentage of Internet/Social Media usage. Even though the data is not very recent, my point of increasing usage of social media and Internet can be easily proven.

Here are some statistics I find really interesting:

1) 73% of wired American teens now (2010) use social networking website. .Just over half of online teens (55%) used social networking sites in November 2006 and 65% did so in February 2008.

2) The impact of the mobile web can be seen in young adults’ computer choices. Two "thirds of 18"

29 year olds (66%) own a laptop or netbook, while 53% own a desktop computer. Young adults are the only age cohort for which laptop computers are more popular than desktops.

3) Pew Internet reports have noted that internet connectivity is increasingly moving off the desktop into the mobile and wireless environment.

These data can show that the popularity of social networks is constantly raising and the society tends to go mobile. The increasing trend of tablets and notebooks creates very suitable environment for mobile social networks. The developers of the social sites know it very well and customize their apps to be as user friendly as possible.

More interesting information about social media, its increasing popularity, and the mobile Internet can be found in the research here: http://web.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Social_Media_and_Young_Adults_Report_Final_with_toplines.pdf

source: Lenhart, Amanda, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, and Kathryn Zickhur. "Social Media & Mobile Internet Use Among Teens and Young Adults." Pewinternet.org. N.p., 3 Feb. 2010. Web. 11 May 2013. (http://web.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/PIP_Social_Media_and_Young_Adults_Report_Final_with_toplines.pdf ).

Mothers Day

Today, 12^th of May, is the Mothers Day. When I woke up, I opened up the socialmedia.com website and what amazed me was the latest article regarding this holiday. It is called “6 Social Ways to Show Your Love on Mothers Day“ and the idea of showing my love to my mother on social sites shocked me.

As the name of the article may reveal, there are six tips for us how to express love for our mothers. These tips are following:

Create a custom made image with mom’s favorite quote.

-         This is pretty much a quote with custom background uploaded on your mother’s favorite social network. Personally, I find this gift a little bit strange; I cannot see how my mom would appreciate that. Well, she probably would, just because I did not forget.

Send an instant gift.

-          This is a Facebook feature. The selection of gifts depends on what Facebook offers. Basically, you purchase a gift, send it to you mom and she gets a notification she has been given a gift from you. Don’t you think that a real life gift would be more appropriate? I certainly do.

Create a special slideshow of pictures with your mom.

-          The socialmedia.com suggests an iPhone/iPad app Ptch from Dreamworks to help you with the slideshow. I consider this to be the most suitable gift out of the advised 6.

Use Instagram to remind you to call mom.

-          In case you tend to forget about your mother, Instagram will help you. Just hashtag #mom, you will get a message with the reminder that you have mother you should be thankful for.

Search well known brands’ social media profiles.

-          You can even save little money on your mother! Just use Facebook pages for searching for the right gift for your mom. Socialmeda.com says that 1-800-Flowers has a nice 20% discount.

Find a cool event or book a table (even last minute).

-          Tabeso app will help you book a table or find a cool event to impress your mom. It seems that nowadays it is hard to please your mom without an app for it.

Well, I might have taken this little bit sarcastically, I am sorry about that, but I could not help it. For me, the idea of relying on social media in such cases sounds just ridiculous.

source: Evans, Sarah. "6 Social Ways to Show Your Love on Mothers Day."Socialmediatoday.com. N.p., 11 May 2013. Web. 11 May 2013. <http://socialmediatoday.com/sarahevans/1457361/6-social-ways-show-moms-mad-love-mothersday>.

Facebook HOME

Facebook Home is the new app or feature from Facebook for our mobile devices. There are two ways we can get the new invention from Mr. Zuckerberg’s workshop, we can either download it to our phone, or we can even buy a “Facebook phone” with this app already pre-installed (HTC First). I may note that Facebook Home app is only available for Android phone at the moment and its future on other platforms is questionable.

So, what Facebook Home is? It is basically a tool that turns your Android phone into a Facebook hub. Immediately after unlocking the phone you have your profile picture popping up, then news feed appears, so you can read what is going on without even opening the Facebook app. Also, while working with your phone, you get better, bolder notifications of everything that is happening on your Facebook account. When, for example, is user watching a video and someone sends him a message, the sender’s head bubble with the message appears on your screen and you can quickly reply.

The problem I have with this app is that it makes people to interact with the Facebook even more than ever before. We are constantly reminded of the existence of the site and basically we are forced to be involved in it. It also creates distraction from work. Imagine situation when you just want to check your phone while studying and the news feed is popping up, you start reading and quickly wasting your precious time.

My question is: Is it really necessary to have such app and use your phone to be constantly online and interacting? Is it really necessary to read meaningless statuses from our friends that usually do not have much information value? I do not think so. As I see it, it only strengthens the need of spending more time on our phones.

Here is a YouTube video of Facebook Home on HTC First:

What do you think? Do you use Facebook Home? What do/do not you like about it?

sources: "What Is Facebook Home?" Welcome to Facebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2013. <https://www.facebook.com/help/558055177560569>.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!

The aim of this blog is to elaborate today’s mobile media, especially mobile SOCIAL media, their new features, possibilities and their influence on our productivity at work and at school.

Social media are today’s phenomenon. With their growing popularity, they start to reach our mobile world. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, have their own apps for our SmartPhones and tablets, so we can reach our friends everywhere where we go and where we have Internet connection.

Sure, it is a great opportunity how to stay in touch with people we care about. We can read what is going on with their lives while we travel or simple when we are not at home. This opportunity that has been brought to us by constantly improving technology has many benefits as well as negative impacts on our life.

In this blog, I will try to cover both, either positive or negative, sides of this issue.