The GPhone

At this point almost everyone has heard of the GPhone. Or at least the concept of it. Right now thats all it is but supposedly this thing could hit shelves and leave them just as fast as early as first quarter 2008. Currently the best look you can get at the prototype is in simulated designs on consumer blogs but it is fun to imagine what the possibilities of a gadget like this could have. The fact that Google owns YouTube and this Blogger only makes things more interesting as to what type of content you could be holding in the palm of your hand from anywhere in the world. The linked blog on last100.com certaintly fills my head with dreams of one day owning one and at least holding out for now on the iphone. It is said that Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites would be fully functional miniature versions of themselves on your phone. This thing would revolutionize the world!

The GPhone

Mondays with Drew

I am a huge Texas football fan and sometimes I cant get to my television to watch SportsCenter for the latest updates. God forbid, sometimes I cant even get there to watch the games. Fortunately, Mack-Brown-Texas-Football.com has provided me with an answer this season. Mondays with Drew is a weekly broadcast exclusively over the internet on this website that I can go to 24/7 and catch up on whats going on with the Horns. The star of the show is Senior safety Drew Kelson, #4. He goes around campus and interviews various athletic staff, players, and fans. I dont quite know whether or not Kelson will go pro in the draft, but he may have a career in social media somewhere!

Mondays with Drew 11/5/07

Pure Volume

Pure Volume is one of my favorite social media networking sites because of the fact that it is based exclusively on music. I am a huge music fan, especially alternative punk and emo rock which is what they specialize in. You can actually create your account and start adding favorite bands immediately. Once you have built up a pretty good library of bands, you can go and see who else likes the same bands and link up to their favorite list. The home page features a daily rotation of editor's and listener's choice bands for you to sample and at the bottom there is a top played bands list. Many of the bands on this site are unsigned and are willing to give away their music for free download to get their name heard. This is one of the best resources I have ever come across for up and coming bands and I encourage everyone to at least go and browse for a while on it. It has an excellent search browser where you can go and sort through their entire library by genre.

Pure Volume

Social Media Tips & Tactics

I found this video on YouTube that gives some really great tips for successfully entering the social media world. It features Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Public Relations & Advertising. She gives some great advice on how to use RSS to your advantage in getting your content on the web. This is definitely a video for anyone looking for an entry level public relations position.

Yahoo! Widgets

Yahoo! Widgets are a really cool little tool that you can completely personalize to your own style. A widget is simply an interactive interface with which you can view some type of content. It can also be a search engine implemented right onto your desktop or an hourly weather report with the click of your mouse. Yahoo! Widgets are one of the most extraordinary however because of the elaboration of some of these. I currently do not have them on my computer but I have used the program in the past. My only complaint with them was that they were too cluttery but it appears as though they have fixed that issue and are now offering a very clean, compact system that you can download for free instantly. There are clocks, countdowns, miniature control panels, and more for your convenience and pleasure. Check it out and add these new wave inventions to your desktop today!

Yahoo! Widgets

PR Christmas List

I found this really cool list of things that this blogger really hates about Web 2.0, even though he points out that there is much to love about it as well. He includes in his list a code of ethics over the general content of Web 2.0, a crackdown on Facebook's immoral practices, a social media wiki training program, and many other items. This is a blog on socialmediatoday.com which looks like a really awesome blog actually, I think I might sign up on it. It leaves an area for commenting right there on the page as well as a neat little section for all your bookmarks. It looks like though after some snooping around that this isnt a completely public, free forum. Anyways take a look at this list its kind of funny.

PR Christmas List

Las Vegas

I am going to Las Vegas for New Years this year and I am going to be competing in the World Series of Beer Pong III. The reason that this relates to social media is that I completely set up my entire trip on this website that the creators of the tournament set up. It is unique in the fact that I did not just pay a fee and sign up, but actually created a team name and linked up with my room mate who is also my partner. All the teams that are created go into a pool with the ones who have finalized registration and you can actually add an image to your profile and talk trash on the forum. Not too long ago anything like this would not have been possible. Any type of sporting event or vacation package required an over the phone or face to face interaction to book. Even in the modern internet era, you are just starting to see fully interactive sites in ways that were never thought imaginable before. I just thought it was really cool how this trip did not just involve signing up but gave the participants something interesting to actually get from their registration.

BPong.com --Our team is called Blue Chips

Weston Twomey seeks Public Relations career

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Weston J. Twomey (Agency)
St. Edward's University
Public Relations Professional
Email: wtwomey@acad.stedwards.edu
Blog: http://westonj.blogspot.com
Website: http://myweb.stedwards.edu/wtwomey

Weston Twomey seeks Public Relations career

Weston Twomey is trying to find a place to utilize the talents that he has developed through extensive coursework in the social media realm of public relations. He has been exposed to many of the new technologies out there, more specifically those in Web 2.0.

Austin, TX -- December 3, 2007

Vice President, campus Communication Society, Fall 2005 - Fall 2006

Completed introductory public relations course in Spring 2007

Completed advanced social media public relations course in December 2007

Participated in a semester long blogging project in which an academic blog was created and maintained

Created, edited, and linked a podcast through RSS on personal blog

Created, edited, and linked public relations web video on personal blog and YouTube

Created a fully functional website in an emerging technologies class with video and javascript

MULTIMEDIA ELEMENTS:

Download
Public Relations Web Video - Austin is changing...

Download
Second Life Podcast

About Weston Twomey - Weston Twomey is a December 2007 graduate of St. Edward's University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication. His specialization focus was in Media Arts, PR, & Advertising. He has experience leading an on-campus organization with a two and a half year tenure as the Vice President/Recruitment Coordinator of the Communciation Society. He has extensive coursework in all of the communication fields with very recent work in the social media variety. During his last year at St. Edward's, Weston Twomey created two websites as well as posted a podcast and several web videos. He was born and raised in Austin, Texas.

RELATED LINKS

Facebook

Social media networking site.

My Blog
This is my blog.

PureVolume
My favorite social media music networking site.









Technorati Tags:
public relations | social media | emerging technologies | communication

Second Life Podcast

Audio

Social Media Web Video

Facebook Marketing

I came across an article about the Facebook marketing schemes that we discussed in class and found it very interesting. The New York Times article talks about Facebook is using its members as mediums of consumer marketing. If you are logged into the social networking site when you make a purchase from one of its sponsors, then your profile will identify that purchase and announce it in your news feed. Invasion of privacy? Maybe. The reason why Facebook has utilized such a powerful tool is because word of mouth is the most influential weapon that marketers have in reaching their target market. The article closes with the idea that Facebook marketing is successful because you know exactly how old and what gender each user is, making them easier to segment.

Facebook Marketing

Executives on Web 2.0

Many executives are now scrambling to get into the Web 2.0 arena that has become an arms race. Many organizations and individuals have already exploited the beneficial aspects of social media on the internet and numerous others are hanging by their coat tails. A certain blogger has given his opinions on the issue and is saying that corporations are in regret at this point for having joined the club so late in the game. Social media was originally viewed as a guerilla technology that would never make an impact in the mainstream. The one thing that shouldnt have suprised anyone is that consumers have turned to word of mouth by way of the keyboard to figure out what their next great expendature will be.


Executives on Web 2.0 blog

Astroturfing

Astroturfing is something that has come along with the Web 2.0 craze and many are taking the proper steps to minimize it when possible. Astroturfing is when you make a comment on something or blog on a topic posing as a general consumer when you are anything but. Many corporations have gotten into hot water over this recently including Wal-Mart, who hired a couple to travel across the country and blog nice things about their company and its employees. In the UK, flogging as it is also called, is being legally banned in order to stop the flow of misleading information in the social media realm.


Banned in the UK!

McDonald's

I came across this McDonald's article that is really milking what the two guys who made the fake commerical rap video did for them. In case you are unfamiliar with that story, two guys starting freestyle rapping about chicken mcnuggets outside a local McDonald's. The video exploded on YouTube and eventually the fast food chain got their hands on it. The two guys were offered money to make the commerical official and naturally they accepted. The commerical still runs in the New York area and can be found on YouTube using any of the above keywords as search queries. Anyways, McDonald's started a promotional event that will crown a winner of the create-your-own McDonald's commerical talent search. This time the commerical is supposed to be marketing the new chicken snack wrap and will be featured on YouTube's home page for a full day. It sounds like McDonald's is taking full advantage of a tactic that many companies still haven't gotten on board with. I guarantee that in 6 months to one year however, you will see more of these types of techniques. One example that actually went bad was the Chevy Tahoe make your own commerical campaign. The mistake that Chevy made though was that they chose the setup poorly, offering already existing video footage to be compiled into one episode that the creator organized. It looks like McDonald's has capitalized on the two rappers' improvement on that idea.
--westonJ OUT
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=54813

Viral Marketing

I browsed to this site because of what I think viral marketing can do for companies trying to get their product or message out there. I believe that viral marketing will eventually be just marketing because of the cost (free) and the use of employee resource (little). Viral marketing is marketing that camoflages itself as an online infomercial. You don't get what the point of it is until later when it has spread like wildfire. Then you think to yourself, hey they had a good idea. That is exactly what viral marketing is, something that takes people by storm before they even realize they are being targeting for a product or service. The article admits that many people see viral marketing as a tricky, sometimes deceitful tactic that people have to give props to. The six principles of viral marketing effectiveness that the article gives are that it gives away products or services, it provides for effortless transfer to others, it scales easily from small to very large, it exploits common motivations and behaviors, it utilizes existing communications networks, and it takes advantage of others' resources. Hotmail.com was one early example that the article offers that executed all of those principles to it's advantage. One of my favorite viral marketing campaigns was the Dove beauty YouTube video that made headlines within the past year that looks like a college student put it together in their dorm. It is a very interesting clip with an appropriate soundtrack and a simple message. Log onto YouTube and type in Dove commerical for a look at it. Anyways, viral marketing is the future for successful business and it will stay the course as long as the internet does.
--westonJ OUT
http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

YouTube and MySpace

This article offers some logical opinions on the explosion of video posting site YouTube and social networking phenomenon MySpace. The article offers that these two sites particularly are so big because they are a couple of the first major players in Web 2.0, the generation-x version of the internet where consumers contribute just as much as they take away. The article is a huge fan of YouTube and why should'nt anyone be. It makes a rational point when it says that anyone who can send an email can upload on YouTube. The video sharing site makes it very simple to watch or add videos by cutting out the video format/player conversions that often make it difficult to use video from computer to computer. The arguments for MySpace being the top social networking site is that it is a one-click away dreamscape. Making things easier is always a popular attraction to tech veterans and internet newbies alike. So join in with the other 40 million or so people who check out vids on YouTube everyday and see what all the fuss is about!
--westonJ OUT
http://www.slate.com/id/2140635/

AOL Customer Service

This particular article that I found is a follow-up to the Vincent Ferrari case study on AOL customer service. Recently, Vincent Ferrari, a former AOL customer, called in to try and disconnect his service, but was relentlessly harassed by the cuastomer service associate who tried to change his mind. Ferrari recorded the phone call and posted it online expecting nothing more than maybe some fellow disgruntles who would also speak out against the internet provider. What actually happened however, was a widespread hysteria in response to Ferrari's blog/clip of his phone call. AOL took a pounding over the incident and are still trying to recover. Ferrari was asked to be on the Today show in addition to many other mainstream media outlets to tell his story and share the experience. This post is to show what AOL has done to try to alleviate some of the damage that this has done to their image. Supposedly there is a plan of action to reform the customer service portal of AOL and around $1.25 million was paid to the state of New York according to the article. Apparently, the article implies that customer service representatives received a bonus for meeting a customer retention quota which has since been done away with. Another key component to this reformation is the installment of a third-party watchdog to keep a close eye on customer/customer service relations. Other individual subscribers received refunds on their service due to similar situations and it appears that the state of Ohio also received a lump sum. I beleive that AOL has conducted itself well according to effective PR strategies but it will take much more to complete the seemingly impossible task of wiping the mud off AOL's name. As the textbook says, "Simply log onto Google and type in aol customer service." See what you come up with...
--westonJ OUT
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5842727.html

Blogger Relations Tips

I found an article here that talks about some various techniques and helpful tips on keeping positive blogger relations. The top five primary tips that are offered are be relevant, personalize, make it easy, schwag is good, and be persistent. When talking about relevance, the article says that when you are posting, look at the previous post and make sure that your's follows it in some sense. This is apparently one of the biggest mistakes that bloggers make because their information is disregarded when it is obviously no relation to the host. Another two items to note are personalizing and making it easy. When you blog, show the potential reader that they are important by including some kind of personal salutation. Also, the article suggests that you should definitely not paste any sort of long transcript directly into the blog because it is careless and lazy. Make the text clear, personal, and composed in shorter paraphrasing. When you are blogging, be persistent. I think that this is one of the implied most important tips since it is the one that they leave you with. If you keep throwing your opinions and information out there repetitively, then someone will eventually notice it and take note of what you are saying. I thought this was a great article for anyone that is new to blogging like most of us in class are. It is basically a bloggers survival manual in my mind.
--westonJ OUT
http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/10/blogger-relations-101/

The 1% Rule

I came across an article that highlights on the 1% rule topic that the Citizen Marketers book points out. It begins with a very interesting statistic that basically defines the 1% rule. It says that, "...if you get a group of 100 people online, then one of them will actually create content, 10 people will "interact" with it, and the other 89 people will just view it." That is amazing to me considering all of content available online with YouTube and MySpace and all the blogs out there. The article continues to say that although the creator to consumer ratio is less than one percent, you can expect it to increase because YouTube is still not something that is commonplace with everyone. The article ends saying that even Yahoo!, one of the pioneer search engines, reports that less than one percent of it's population are creating groups, with about the same corresponding numbers as the previous statistic interacting with it and viewing it. I believe that this 1% rule is probably a concept that not many people know about so I was just throwing that out there in addition to what we have already seen in the textbook.
--westonJ OUT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/jul/20/guardianweeklytechnologysection2

Jango

Jango.com, a brand new social networking website, is something that everyone out there is going to have soon. It basically combines the convenience of iTunes, Amazon.com, your car radio, and Facebook.com all into one. You can log into the site once you register and start listening to live music feeds. If you like a particular song you can immediately link to purchase it via mp3. This is a completely free service and I literally just registered for it. So for all of you out there who have deleted your MySpace and are starting to get annoyed even by Facebook with all of the daily updated cluttering widgets you have to get past, this site may be for you. So go ahead and consolidate your social networking into one site, or at least give this one a shot. Jango.com is the future craze so get on it before everyone else does!
--westonJ OUT

PRX Builder

PRX Builder has just announced that YOU can have an image on the Reuter's Times Sqaure billboard! This was amazing to me that at the low rate of $299, any average Joe can throw something up on the legendary Times Square advertising block. This does include the image on the billboard as well as, feature space in the LA Times, Yahoo!, and ABC television affiliates. You can have up to 100 characters for a headline on the image and it receives 15 seconds of air time on the billboard. If I was any kind of a public relations representative or advertising designer, I would want my message involved in this. I thought that you had to be a giant corporation to get that sort of outdoor adspace but apparently not. This is a great opportunity for independents to receive some quality PR at a very cheap rate for what you get. The website also mentions that it is displayed during rush hour! What more could you ask?! I would be willing to bet that you could'nt even talk to the advertising companies that run the billboards on Sunset Boulevard for that price. Anyways I just thought I would throw that out there because it is such a ridiculous opportunity.
--westonJ OUT

Social Media Release

SocialMediaRelease.org is a site that is illustrating the various new social media technologies out there today. It offers an array of opinions from the site's numerous writers/bloggers on how you can get on the social media bandwagon. I personally enjoyed visiting this site because it links several social networking tools that you can start using immediately. For instance, the front page gives you a link to Google groups within this first paragraph. Google groups is a place where anyone can go and discuss a topic on a comment board. Up until I just looked at it, I had no idea about this function of Google as they don't link it from search engine's home page. Something like this could be useful to me when looking for information on a topic and not wanting to read a generic desciption. Anyways this is just one utility that socialmediarelease.org makes available to it's visitors and I will continue to access this site for all the cutting edge updates in the technological public relations realm. westonJ OUT.

In-Class Blog Assignment

IKEA's new branding campaign is using social media by creating a very hip, very 21st century slogan, "Home is the Most Important Place in the World." And they are actually utilizing the social media by combining that slogan with free internet broadcasting on YouTube and other media outlets. This spot invokes a certain emotion into the viewer that makes you feel are warm and cozy about IKEA. I personally felt like going out and buying a futon after my previous interest in IKEA was intensified by this extremely clever placement. The IKEA television spot is obeying the guidelines that Solis has thrown out there. LIke he says, audiences are becoming more and more difficult to latch onto physically, or traditionally. Audiences must now be targeted where you know where to find them; social media pipelines. It was inevitable that marketing would soon become a hybrid cooperation of all technological mediums. The UK version of the "home" theme is a more definiite, tangible description of what IKEA is trying to say that the home is. To be honest they both invoke a high level of sentiment within myself in completely different ways. With IKEA, I feel like I have to go out and support this because the company and its products can help me to attain that feeling. The UK version doesnt so much even make me think about the organization or what they do but instantly creates that feeling for me.
--westonj OUT

Test Post

Hey whats up everyone, this is my test post just to see if this thing works. I have never posted to a blog before but I guess this is a great time to try it out!