Social Networks Break Outside Internet Slowly....

To my blog readers I am sorry this posting is late but I was home for the Jewish holiday of Passover and was celebrating the holiday.

A few days ago I was loading my pictures onto face book. I then received an im from one of my friends. I could not believe it! You can now see who is online and communicate with them through instant messaging. As the author in this Economist article mentions "the problem with today's social networks is that they are often closed to the outside web." Though outside companies like BMW, movie studios, and other companies market on facebook with creative and interactive campaigns, users do not combine their outside activities on the outside world web onto facebook. This is why igoogle and yahoo are beginning to research ways to combine social networking onto the gmail and yahoo mail. The goal is to combine outside internet use with social networking.

GPS cellphones save the world

I don't know if anyone else is overwhelmed with all the new and innovative social networking technologies out there but I am. After reading this article, I started to think about how many people have access to this technology and how many do not. People who do have internet are sure to have access to all of these modernistic websites but not everyone can afford cell phones that have GPS systems and reach and locate everyone.

In regards to that I have to mention this other article in my blog posting because I literally stumbled upon it. The article focuses on how cell phone companies like Nokia are sending anthropologists to third world countries. They are not marketing to the locals they are there in order to understand the culture and see how their technology can be used in the country. If technology such as the Mobile GPSs system should be targeted to everyone it should be priced at realistic and affordable prices. If this does not happen they will not reach the people they are trying to target.

Social Media Consuming Politics

In a recent New York Times article "Finding Political News Online, the Young Pass It On" writer Brian Steltzer discusses the proliferation of political news on the internet. Young consumers e-mail videos and stories to friends by sending out a chain e-mail or message on social networking websites. They rely on these messages to stay current with the political race. Internet users are adopting a social filter while using mainstream websites and nontraditional media. This provides a constant viral chain and can be an advantage and disadvantage for political canidates.

You can have user generated content like the Obama Girl Video which spread like wildfire across the internet and the Steven Colbert for President facebook group which had more members than any other political candidate. Nevertheless, it can backfire on a candidate. The article "John Edward's Web General" explains how Edwards was attacked by not a politician but by a youtube user. The person posted a speech Edward's made and set it to the song 'I Feel Pretty'.

This demonstrates the capability the internet has to ruin a candidate's chance in the race. Politicians must be viral 24/7 if consumers are viral 24/7. A politician's career can begin to plunder just by the click of send to all friends in a facebook message.