MySpace Admits Defeat

After multiple CEO’s changes and redesigning the networks features countless times, MySpace has recently admitted it has been “pawned” by Facebook. So admitting this means that MySpace is shut down and out of commission, correct? Wrong! MySpace is now going to attempt to integrate the popularity of Facebook into MySpace pages. MySpace has enabled Facebook on their network, which enables users to integrate their friends, likes, photos, and music. The sites can now share these features and users can use either networks feature on their personal pages. By doing this MySpace is looking to play its strengths to position them as the social entertainment destination.

In 2005, News Corp bought MySpace for $580 million. At this time MySpace was social networking’s king. Shortly after Facebook opened up the network to users outside of college campuses, it has become a social network phenomenon. While increasing the number of users to 500 million to date, Facebook has impacted MySpace’s number of users and this started a decline to MySpace’s current 66 million users.

MySpace is hopeful that this change is the magic they needed to get the social network back on track. I think it will help them out. I believe there are multiple issues that need to be ironed out but after they figure out these issues, I think MySpace will overcome any obstacles and give users a great social entertainment site. This move is being compared to Yahoo!’s convergence with Bing. When Yahoo! began to lose the search engine battle to Google, they integrated their search engine with Bing. This helped combine the two sites and create a major player that can compete with the search engine giant, Google.

Do you think this is a good idea? Do you think that MySpace will position itself as the social entertainment destination or will it flop?

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Are you kidding? Facebook is blocked!?!?!

The title represents what you might be thinking as you settle into your cubicle of your first job (or an office for the lucky ones.)  I found these astonishing facts in a recent blog of Meredith Singer’s from AllFacebook.com on November 16th, 2010:

“A survey of more than 1,000 businesses from the US and UK found that 81 percent of workers said their company has an employee Internet policy in place. Fifty percent said employees are not allowed to visit any social networks via a company computer or laptop. Of those polled, 39 percent have a company policy that prohibits visiting Facebook, 30 percent block Twitter, and 27 percent block video-sharing sites like YouTube.”

These facts are really surprising because I had not stopped to think about the decrease in daily productivity due to social media sites. If you add up all of the time of each individual in the whole company, there is a lot of time that employees are being paid to check their friend’s Facebook status!

This survey was conducted by Webroot, an Internet security company. They found that number of small to medium-sized businesses that were blocking social media sites was quite large and increasing. Many companies reasoned that the reason for preventing employees on these sites is to reduce the risk of viruses. While this may be true, I am sure they are not disappointed that they will reduce wasted time.

From a business perspective, I believe the organization’s structure should decide whether or not this is necessary to implement. I think that organizations such as advertising/marketing agencies should be allowed to visit social media sites due to their direct connection to these sites and this also helps spark creativity. On the other hand, I think blocking social media sites at a customer service phone center would be appropriate. These employees would never need social media sites in their daily work.

What do you think about companies blocking employees from social media sites? Do you know any businesses that do this?

http://www.allfacebook.com/report-50-percent-of-smbs-block-facebook-at-work-2010-11

Text Coupons

This past weekend my girlfriend dragged me down to Lebanon, Tennessee to go shopping at the outlets mall. While there I saw a sign that said to send a text to the number provided to receive a coupon. So I pulled out my phone and sent a text to the number. Almost immediately I received a text message in response with a coupon to instantly take 20% off my purchase. How Great! All I had to do was show the cashier the text on my phone which had the discount code. I had not yet personally experienced this type of discounting. I had read about it and worked on a project similar for KFC during my internship at Creative Alliance. So if you’re at the outlets in Lebanon, make sure you have your phone handy!

Write a Blog about How to Write a Blog

In May I began to follow various blogs about social media and current digital advertising trends for my internship at Creative Alliance advertising agency. I have read a lot of posts since then from very distinguished bloggers and I began to notice a trend. All of these known bloggers at one point or another have wrote a blog about how to write a blog. They provide helpful insight, suggestions and resources for people to utilize to help aid their efforts in writing a personal blog.

Why do they do this? I have concluded that after you have established yourself as a premier blogger, the next thing to push yourself “over the top” and onto the next level is to write a blog offering help to others. This develops credibility by showing your experience and superior knowledge compared to your peers.

This is not a set rule, this is just an observation but I believe this is important because it can determine bloggers you should use as an example when writing your blog.  Especially in the beginning, I was struggling to write my blogs, I referred to some helpful how to’s written by fellow bloggers to spark some inspiration and learn new blog resources to utilize.

Chris Brogan is a great blogger that I enjoy following and I believe he has developed a very credible blog that many advertising and marketing professionals read.

This is Chris Brogan’s helpful hints on how to write a blog:

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/blogger-support-resources/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chrisbrogandotcom+%28[chrisbrogan.com]%29

Social Media and Fishing?!?!

             November 3-6 I will be in Bloomington, Indiana on Lake Monroe representing WKU in the 2010 FLW National Guard Collegiate Bass Fishing Central Regional Championship. Wow what a title! Try saying that fast 10 times! Only 20 schools have earned the invitation to compete in this event by placing in the top 5 in one of the 4 qualifying tournaments this past spring. I was fortunate enough to qualify for this tournament this year and last year as well.

            Thanks to social media, family and fans that are unable to attend the event are able to follow the tournament action by Twitter and Facebook and they also are able to watch the anglers weigh-in their catches at the end of the day through live streaming video.  At the event there are a dozen or so photographers and videographers that capture the event through their camera lens.

            Before we take-off in the boats each morning of the tournament, people walking around with video cameras interviewing the anglers about how they think the day is going unravel. These videos are then uploaded on website and Facebook for viewing. Also, each competing team has an observer in the boat with them to regulate the anglers and make sure they are follow the rules of the tournament. The observers also communicate with the tournament officials back at the boat ramp about the team’s status and success throughout the day. They use Twitter and text messaging to share our catches and how we are doing. This also helps the tournament officials determine who the videographers need to follow around to capture the best action of the day. At the end of the day, we return to the boat ramp and we will weigh our catches. Live video of the weigh-in is streamed online on the Facebook page and also on the www. collegefishing.com website. This allows family and fans unable to make it the ability to follow their favorite team.

            I know a lot of you might be thinking what is he talking about?  But explaining the basics of competitive bass fishing can go on for days. With that in mind, I still wanted to blog about this because I think it gives another example of how social media is utilized by people. In this particular case it is used to share the standings and news of a collegiate bass tournament. I personally love that they do this because I compete in tournaments all over country in states like Texas, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri. My family is not able to travel to all of my tournaments because of the travel expense, work, and other obligations. But when it is streamed on the internet they are able to watch me weigh-in my catch at the end of the day and can instantly know what place I took in the tournament.

            Last August, I won $10,000 in a college tournament in Iowa and since it was streamed over the internet my family was able to watch me on stage weighing in my fish and  then being told I was the winner and the presentation of the trophy and check, even though they were not present. It was great because as soon as I called them, they were able to share the excitement with me because they watched it take place live. It was the biggest win of my fishing career at that point and it meant a lot to me that my family was able to share that moment with me.

            This is exactly what the sport of fishing needs for it to be brought into recognition from the public. Television shows, live streaming videos of weigh-ins, tournament updates on Facebook and on the water tweets of angler catch updates all are making it easier for people to follow a fishing tournament without having to pay the overwhelming expense of traveling to the event. This leads me to wonder, what are some other lesser known sports that are receiving more exposure due to social media?

P.s.  You can watch me and see what I am blogging about Nov. 4-6 at 3pm Central time at www.collegefishing.com. Then click on watch the weigh-in live.