COMM 200: Social Media Project

 
and Social Media

In the world we’re living in, the news and social media have nearly become one. They flow seamlessly together as we are allowed to share news articles, photos and videos quickly and effortlessly to our Facebook pages. We can tweet URL’s and share any bit of information we read with our Twitter followers, who can then, pass it on to their followers at high speeds. Not only that, but we can do any of this from our mobile devices, including tablets and cell phones. But this, however, is just the tip of the iceberg.

The goal of this assessment is to examine how news mediums use social media to create a web of information, how well they use it, and also, how these entities can improve their use of these applications. For this assignment, I followed news entity, The Huffington Post, to discover how they utilized various forms of social media including, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, as well as lesser-known media and web and mobile applications.  

What is The Huffington Post?

The Huffington Post is an American news website, content aggregator, and blog founded by political activist Arianna Huffington, along with Kenneth Lerer, Andrew Breitbart, and Jonah Peretti.

The site features the content of columnists and various news sources and offers news, blogs and original content. Though originally established as a political news site, The Huffington Post covers a wide range of topics including, politics, business, entertainment, environment, technology, popular media, lifestyle, culture, comedy, healthy living, women's interest and local news. Possessing an active and diverse community, the site has over one million comments made each month.

The Huffington Post, owned by AOL as of February 2011, was launched on May 9, 2005, and is known as a left-leaning political commentary outlet. However, Arianna Huffington has stated that its goal is to go beyond the “traditional liberal and conservative divide in American politics and news media.”

Commonly called HuffPost or HuffPo, the site was the 6th-largest news site in the United States as of April 2011 and attracted 40 million monthly visitors in January 2012. The site has seen steady, significant growth since it was launch.

In July 2012, The Huffington Post was ranked #1 on the 15 Most Popular Political Sites list by eBizMBA Rank and was the first commercially run, United States digital media enterprise to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Use of Social Media

          The site has developed an active community in the last seven years, drawing hundreds of thousands of comments per month, as well as millions of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. CEO Eric Hippeau has described HuffPost as “one part social network, one part news content site.” As of 2012, it had 13 employees in social and community engagement, plus 30 in comment moderation.

Facebook and Twitter

In 2009, HuffPost Social News was launched in partnership with Facebook. The partnership integrates the Facebook Connect API to allow its readers to recommend and share news with friends. The project has helped increase the site’s traffic significantly according to statistics from the Nieman Journalism Lab. In 2010, the site launched HuffPost Badges, which rewarded users for participation within the HuffPost community.

It has also launched Twitter editions of several of its section pages including Huffington Post Blog, Huffington Post LA, HuffPost Politics, El Huffington Post, HuffPost Women and several more page-specific Twitter accounts. It is here that Twitter users can follow and read articles specifically from the sections they are interested in.

HuffPost users can also sign into The Huffington Post’s website via Facebook and Twitter accounts. Users are given a username and use their Facebook or Twitter login information to access the site. This allows them to see what Facebook and Twitter friends are reading on the site and also allows for friends to see articles and videos the user accessed from their own newsfeed.

Blogs

          In an effort to add more user-generated content, The HuffPost unveiled a comment system that allowed for the site’s top commenters to become featured bloggers on the site. Launched in 2007, blogging and citizen journalism have become an essential aspects of the HuffPost’s content.

          Scott Karp, the co-founder & CEO of Publish 2, a content sharing and advertising company targeted specifically at small businesses, stated that rather than using only well-established bloggers or allowing any user to blog for the site, The HuffPost changed the rules with their new system.

Karp (2007) states:

“Instead, they took a middle path, opening up an opportunity for ANYONE who actively comments on Huffington Post to become a blogger — but with one caveat…they have to EARN it. Or put another way — they are leveraging the power of the network, while still creating boundaries to channel value.”

Other Social Media and Apps

          On the Front Page, users can find all the different ways they can connect with The Huffington Post’s website through sites I’ve mentioned, such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as iPhone and Android mobile applications and RSS feeds, allowing users to subscribe through various mediums. Simply by clicking the icons, users are linked to pages where they can download the apps instantly to their cell phone or tablet.

          HuffPost was also one of the initial partners of the publisher program of the social magazine app Zite designed for originally for iPad, which allows its users to read magazines from their mobile devices and adapts to their interests. It has also opened its own HuffPost Pollster API to allow developers to use its poll data, and has a HuffPost Labs website for its experimental products.

Conclusion—An Effective Use?

          From my research, I devised that The Huffington Post, as a news entity, effectively uses social media and from what I’ve seen, utilizes social media better than most other news sites. Literally, The Internet Newspaper, the HuffPost was created for the Internet and as the Internet has evolved with the addition and development of social media, so has the site.

          As social media has become an integral part of our daily lives, news entities have learned to utilize these tools to spread information, articles, stories, videos, etc. across the web as efficiently as possible and have reaped the rewards of this.

According to British daily paper, the Guardian, and Forbes.com, statistics show that the HuffPost did not become profitable until 2009. The site was profitable on $30 million in annual revenues when it was purchased by AOL in 2011 and increased revenues to $40 million by the end of that same year.

 Everywhere you look on HuffPost you see a user written blog, a “tweet” link allowing users to post links to their followers, or a “share” button just waiting for users to post the articles and videos they view to their Facebook pages. Being able to subscribe to various sections of the site, as well as to RSS gives users an instant connection to the news they want.

References

Aldred, J., Astell, A., (2008, March 8). The world’s 50 most powerful blogs. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/09/blogs

Bercovici, J. (2012, May 24). The Case Against AOL, In Numbers. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/05/24/the-case-against-aol-in-numbers/

Bunz, M. (2012, January 4). Huffington Post and Politico set to make 2009 profit. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jan/04/huffington-post-politico-to-make-profit

Karp, S. (2007, August 16). The Huffington Post Allows Top Commenters to Become Bloggers. Publishing 2.0. Retrieved from http://publishing2.com/2007/08/16/the-huffington-post-allows-top-commenters-to-become-bloggers/

The Huffington Post (2012). Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/HuffingtonPost

The Huffington Post. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

The Huffington Post. (2012). Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/HuffingtonPost

The Huffington Post. (n.d.). In Nieman Journalism Lab Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.niemanlab.org/encyclo/huffington-post

Zite. (2012). Retrieved from http://zite.com/

I get by with a little help from my SmartPhone

Putting together jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, and watching home videos are seemingly holiday past-times of...the past. Enjoying time with family over turkey and cranberry sauce has more or less become a matter of survival for many. And smartphone app companies are taking advantage of our short attention spans and loss of interest in watching Uncle Harry chug eggnog and sing Christmas carols.Whether you're belted into a minivan for hours, stuck sitting between your great-uncles at the holiday supper table, or just not sure how to plan your attack for Black Friday, there are mobile apps to get you through it, sane and sound.

Here to keep you sane, entertained, and organized are the latest, must-have apps for the holidays.

Specially for Thanksgiving, the top five apps you just have to have: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/22/tech/mobile/thanksgiving-apps/index.html. Coloring books keep rugrats out of the kitchen, while grandma cooks like a gourmet with the $50.00 Professional Chef app. See, kids are quiet and you get to eat the best stuffing of your life--all because of your smartphone or tablet! It's like the stuff of dreams.

For the entire holiday season: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/11/holiday-survival-apps/all/1. With these, you can plan your holiday flight, create and share memories, handle cooking conversions with ease, and again, keep the kids, as the women in my family would say, "out of this damn kitchen!"

Now the question is: are these advances in smartphone technology going to bring us together or push us apart? Aren't the holidays about dogs and kids running everywhere, burning the the bird, and running head-first into Herberger's at 4 a.m. on Black Friday with no game plan at all? Isn't chaos what the Christmas season is all about? Or is this just my family?

Honestly, what did we do BEFORE we all had our own personal technology to keep us entertained? Technology is amazing, but it detracts from the whole point of the holidays. Some of these apps really are great tools, but does it bother anyone else that we need them to "survive" the holidays, rather than just enjoy this time of year without them? I will agree, however, that a 12 hour car ride might go by a little faster playing Angry Birds and Turkey Plucker than singing Jingle Bells and counting license plates.

The internet will give you cancer, too

OK, the internet won't give you cancer (or will it?), but one huge concern about the world wide web many experts and parents have is how much time kids are spending online. This has been an issue for developmental psychologists, doctors, parents, teachers and educators.

"Staring at the screen damages your eyes." "Online games will stunt your brain development." "It'll make you stupid." "It's a waste of time." "It's making our children fat and lazy." "Social networking decreases face to face social skills." "Tweeting and texting ruins language skills."

Some of these arguments sound a little ridiculous. Some are right on the money.

There are many concerns about children spending too much time online.  Whether its 15-year-olds thinking they can insert "LOL's" into their English papers and receive full credit, or a decrease in how much face time parents and children have, experts are attributing these problems partly to time spent online.

In this article taken from Fox News, http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/29/does-online-time-hurt-kids-face-time/ , the concern that parents have with this issue is expressed as well as a popular method used to mediate this possible problem: monitoring internet use. Some however, as shown in this article also, feel that children need to be exposed to the technology of their time, fearing that by withholding social networking from them, we are holding kids back.

This site names this trend we are seeing in children: internet addiction http://childrenshospitalblog.org/internet-overload-are-we-spending-too-much-time-online/.  The amount children spend online is revealed here, as well as links to the view points of a neurologist, a media expert, and a psychologist for their thoughts on the matter.

This is not a new issue, as shown here in an article from 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2007-09-27-parents-kids-online_N.htm; parents and experts have been struggling with this for years and as the problem increases, there seems to be less and less parents can do to monitor their child's online activity. With the innovations of smartphones and online game consoles, kids don't even have to be on a computer to be online anymore. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing, is something I can't answer. There are benefits to the internet, as well as negative effects. All of this is subjective, however.

The iPod Turns 10!

Apple has revolutionized entertainment in many ways. One of the biggest ways that has affected nearly everyone I know is the iPod. Originally released in October of 2001, Apple recently celebrated the device's 10th birthday and gave tribute to how far it's come.

The original iPod, described at brick-sized and brick-heavy, due to it 5GB hard drive--a concept never before seen in portable MP3 devices--came onto the scene and blew the minds of millions of people. People were used to Sony Walkman and tape players. This new device allowed you to store music, take it from CD's, etc and store your entire music collection on one portable device. It has completely overhauled the way music is stored and sold in just a decade.

Steve Jobs said it best, probably knowing the exact impact the device would have, on October 23, 2001. He stated at a press conference: “With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go. With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.”

This article, from Macworld digs deeper into the impact iPod has had on music. http://www.macworld.com/article/163179/2011/10/how_the_ipod_changed_the_world_of_music.html

As a former owner of a generation 2 original iPod (I lost it in a car accident. It was the only injury I suffered.), it's hard to believe that it's already been 10 years. I often forget how far technology has come in just my lifetime--even in just HALF of my lifetime.

As stated in this article, http://www.pcworld.com/article/242411/apples_ipod_turns_10.html,
the iPod has given way for Apple to create other handheld devices, including the iPhone and the iPad. In just ten years we have gone

From this....

 To this....

"What's gonna happen to us?"

As many have found out, through commercials, internet ads and by word-of-mouth, smart phones and personal tablets are all the rage in technology. Why do we like these machines so much ? The answer is relatively simple: convenience. The majority wants to be able to social network, email, communicate and do all the things that a personal computer (PC) can do while being completely mobile. We want all the power of a PC in an easy-to-use, easy-to-transport packaging.  If we can have the vast functions of a computer in a cell phone, why wouldn't we? And with thousands of useful and entertaining smart phone and tablet apps, everything we need is in our pocket. Some of the driving forces behind this trend that I have noticed include these apps, 4G technology and touchscreen technology. Everyone is after the "lastest and greatest."
However, according to this article, http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/19/technology/intel_pc_sales/index.htm,PC's aren't going to go down without a fight. They're putting up a good one, too. As the article states, the company Intel, though seeing "slumping demand" for PC's in the United States and Canada, has seen great increases in demand world-wide. China has become number one in the personal computer market in the last quarter.
Though it seems PC's aren't necessarily suffering, they are in no way reaping the benefits that media tablets like the iPad are. And experts are guessing that the demand for these tablets is only going to continue to rise: http://www.itchannelplanet.com/trends/article.php/3908851/Media-Tablet-Sales-Worldwide-Expected-to-Jump-181-Percent-in-2011.htm.
Though this article seems like 'old news,' it shows that really, we've seen this trend already. Companies, like Apple, are continually producing products like these that make our lives supposedly easier. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/14/us-apple-research-idUSTRE72D30020110314
It's going to get even bigger from there. Many wonder what this will mean for the personal computer industry, though it seems to be maintaining itself--how much longer can it do this? Will PC's become arbitrary? Doubtful, but it will be very interesting to see where this trend takes us as consumers, and where technology will go from this point on.
As an owner of a smartphone (a BlackBerry Torch), I feel like I will never have a reason to use anything other than it and my laptop--they seem portable enough. I wonder if I'll jump on the bandwagon of tablets...we'll see!

What Will Happen to Apple?

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in Cupertino, California. The company established on April 1, 1976 and officially incorporated on January 3, 1977, designs, produces and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. Apple’s revolutionary and best-known products include the Macintosh line of computers which was first released in 1984, the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the iPad in 2010. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system, iTunes, iLife, iWork, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, Safari web browser, and iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system. 

As we all know, the creator of this revolutionary company, Steve Jobs, passed away this week. Now, many wonder if Apple Inc. will continue to be successful. In this article, Bill Stepp and Cecil Henderson discussed how Apple will sustain itself after the lost of the creative engineer.  http://lorton.patch.com/articles/the-lorton-perspective-steve-jobs-and-the-future-of-apple 

Many also wonder what's next in the line of Apple products. Production of the iPhone5 will continue as planned and will be released as previously announced, early next year. Really it seems that Apple will go on and continue the projects that were left behind by Jobs.  

Much like how Disney mourned Walt Disney's death and fell behind in the markets, as Steve Case discusses in this interview with PBS News Hour, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec11/jobs2_10-06.html, many believe that the employees of Apple will obsess over the loss of their visionary and lose track of their goals. Case, suggests that they do not do this, but rather, remember Jobs and carry on--as the rest of the world should do as well.

We're watching your every move

 We all saw the Facebook statuses about how much everyone hated the recent Facebook changes. We all saw the public reaction on Twitter and other networking sites--the hashtag "#newfacebook" trended on Twitter for days after the switch.

The public, overall, was in an uproar about how the new "creeper bar" that rests on top of your Facebook chat-available-friends list was an invasion of privacy and how you could see updates from people you didn't even know--like, friends of friends. This means that, yes, people we aren't friends with could end up seeing one of our updates. Susie Imnotfriendswith could see my photo comment on Bobby Imfriendswith's album instantly when it happened and without even looking at the album herself. Personally, I don't have anything to hide, and you can still approve who you're friends with--you also still have privacy settings. Realistically, if Susie Imnotfriendswith wanted, she could see my comment anyway. Honestly, I'm not worried. And Facebook executives aren't either. And they've released an explanation of the changes--it's not worth reading, however.

New changes have also given way for your Facebook pals to see what you read, listen to and watch, outside of Facebook, so be careful what you "link" to your profile or "like." The article linked here from the Washington Post explains these changes in greater detail. I recently unlinked my Twitter account from my Facebook.

Bottom line is...Facebook is changing. I think it's interesting that we still can't handle that fact. Does anyone ever remember the ORIGINAL Facebook? The never-ending scrolling? The hundreds of separate notifications....daily fortunes? Look how far we've---they've----come.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/facebook-changes-timeline-and-apps-spark-new-privacy-concerns/2011/09/26/gIQAl8JfzK_story.html

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/29/technology/facebook_ticker_privacy/index.htm