Twitter is micro-blogging that allows you to write brief text updates about your life and send them to friends and other observers via text messaging, instant messaging, email or the web.

I’m also interested with Twitter. I have thought that Twitter is proper tool for any communication, since I’ve heard about Twitter in Communication Week. Now, anyone can send news and receive and respond to news from other people through social networking sites. Twitter is more useful than other social media, since Facebook has many functions and is complicated to post photographs for me. But, in Twitter, people just write 140 words in the column in the top of the site. Therefore, Twitter will be effective for the communication between organizations and consumers, friends and friends, and journalists and news viewers. I think this communication will become more timely and convenient for them than e-mail or other ways to contact each other.

This site would be helpful to understand how to start Twitter.

I used to be an user of Veoh, a free video site. However, I stopped to use this site last week. Actually, I think that this site has the best quality among other video sites. For instance, the picture quality is excellent, the duration pf a video is more than 2 hours, and they have thusands of videos. This is Veoh TV site. http://www.veoh.com/.  This is the explanation of Veoh TV. http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/363634/veoh-tv-launches-video-aggregation-tool.html.

The reason why they stopped to use this site was a problem of customer service. To keep the quality, the users upload the applications about once a month. When the users upload the applications, this site sometimes has some problems with the applications. The users can contact with them via e-mail and phone. However, they rarely respond the users; the problem is not solved.

I think the technology advance is necessary for their growth; however, the most important thing is to build and keep the credibility between cutomers and companies as well as other businesses.

Who can control social networking sites? What is a social networking site?

As I mentioned in the last blog, I thought the users can be the police for social networking sites. Now, I also think that the users have to consider they are watched on these sites all the time; these sites are public places.

I found two legal issues about the decipline of teachers’ behaviors in Teacher Fired for Inappropriate Behavior on MySpace Page of Media Shift site.

In Spanierman v. Hughes, Jeffrey Spanierman created MySpace Page to communicate with students; however, his page contained inappropriate contents, such as pictures of naked men. One of his colleagues found this page and reported to the school administration; then, he was fired .

In another case, Snyder v. Millersville University, Snyder, a teacher in training, was denied a teaching degree. This is because an official found a photo on her MySpace, showing her wearing a pirate hat and drinking alcohol. The school district contends that her conduct is not appropriate as a student teacher.  

In the first case, I agreed with the school decision and he had to be fired, since his conduct was obviously inappropriate as a teacher. Even though he created the page for outside-class communication, he should have the ability to evaluate whether the content is appropriate for students. However, I wonder, in the second case, whether she should be denied her degree.

But, anyway, I think they should consider that social networking sites are public places. On these sites, any people can communicate each other; at the same time, people should keep in their minds that anyone can watch and read everything on the sites.

A man warned that he would commit a crime in an event through a social networking site, and the police found him and arrested him. A man who works in a train company posted the story about riding trains without buying tickets several times on the social networking site, and the police arrested him.

I found these two news in this week. I think this is a good way to prevent crime by using social networking sites; at the same time, I wondered how the police found them before they committed crime.

According to the social networking site, the users who read the stories reported to the owners; then, the owners notified the police about the stories and the personal information of those who posted the stories. Actually, while this site protects the users’ personal information, people made contracts that this site can use the personal information in some exceptional cases, such as, illegal contents.

Is it to keep people from saying what they really want to say?

In social networking sites, most writers are not professional journalists; therefore, sometimes, they do not understand what is ethical and what is unethical to write in public space. It is difficult to keep this site safe. Considering who control the safety and the ethic in this site, I think the people who use this site can control it; this is the easiest way. Of course, the cooperation with the police and the owner is necessary, but, I think, the users can notice unethical issue first.

When I was a little, there was no computers in schools, and we had a big and thick computer in my house.

However, now many schools, even in elementary schools, have the computer classes to teach students how to use computers and more detailed skills.

I found an interesting article, J-Schools Use Geo-tagging, Wikis, iPhones to Teach at MEDIA SHIFT site. I did not notice how fast the technology is improving. I was surprised with using cellphone, iPhone, in college classes. Some professors think that they will use students’ cell phone as educational tools.

At Abilene Christian University, professors Kenneth Pybus and Cade White are taking this even further by studying the Apple iPhone as a new platform for news. The university was the first in the U.S. to give freshmen either an iPhone or iPod touch, seeing it as a converged media device that could be used by students to receive homework alerts, answer in-class quizzes or get directions to their professors’ offices.

I also think a cellphone is a great tool because it is convenient and has many kinds of functions, such as listening to music or radio and watching TV. It meets consumers’ demands; however, I do not think it is unappropriate for a learning tool. I wonder whether students can concentrate on classes because of cell phone’s many functions.

What is the difference between hyperlocal news and hyperglobal news?

Isn’t hyperlocal news meaningful any more?

I found an interesting article about hyperlocal news and hyperglobal news on The Future of News. http://thefutureofnews.com/2008/09/18/news-going-hyperlocal-or-hyperglobal/  The author, Steve Boriss, talks about the crisis of hyperlocal news future. He considers that hyperlocal stories are necessary for directly affecting out lives, but global stories are now seen as directly affecting our lives. It’s not good for hyperlocal news.

However, I think hyperlocal news is still needed in local area because the news sometimes includes critical information that people need in their daily lives, such as traffic information and events in areas. Now, there are many choices to provide local news because of the age of multimedia. I think online source is especially effective.

Hyperlocal news source, outside.in, gathers content from local news outlets and bloggers.

According to Journalism.co.uk, outside.in was launched in the US in November 2006 and reportedly has an audience of nearly half a million educated, mostly female users, nearly 40% of which are between 18 and 34 years.

I also found the related article to this concern. The article, Local and hyperlocal news: the good and bad is on outside. in. In this article, the media analyst, Rick Edmonds, in Poynter Institute concerns about hyperlocal contents. This is because the news is sometimes news, but often pet pictures or baseball game results.

To survive hyperlocal news, the content of the news should be more sophisticated and meaningful for their lives. I think that the most important thing is hyperlocal news should differentiate it from global stories; for instance, to include local people’s opinions about local events.

What is news?

I think news has wide variety of meanings. News focuses on politics, economics, sports and entertainment, and news is provided in newspapers and broadcasted on TV. I also think news include news of family and friends provided by social networking sites, like Facebook or Myspace. However, are these news on social networking sites meaningful and useful?  

I found an article,”Maybe it’s a ‘good thing’ that young people are following the news less ” in The Future of News. As New York Times says , less young adults and teenagers are following the news than ever. Steve Boriss, the author, says that it is not bad thing against NY Times.  He says,

it is simply not true that young people are getting less news than ever — they’re just getting less of what the journalism community calls “news.”

As Boriss says in his article, certainly, young people know less about the “formal” news, such as political or economic news. And, they are more interested in the news on social networking sites. I think the hyperlocal news is one of the opportunities for young people to know how to get information from the news. But, I don’t think the news is the place where they are aware of what happens in the world and think about the world through the news.

Thus, I don’t think that it is good thing that young people are following the news less.

When I went to my friend’s house in this summer, she showed me a Google’s new feature, Street View. This feature is amazing and surprisingly easy. We don’t need to upload and just put kewords, the address or the name of the place, on the box as well as Google map. Then, Street View shows us the roads and landscapes as if we are actually there.

My friend searched her parents’ house in Kobe, Japan. I was surprised that I could see the person standing by her house and the people inside the bus when I zoomed in. I thought it’s sure this feature is helpful to know the exact direction, especially when people go to unfamiliar places. On the other hand, my friend told me, ”I’m scared someone knows how to get to my house in detail even though I don’t know the person. ” And I agreed with her.

David Chartier published the article about Street View on Ars technica at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080824-google-no-tresspassing-signs-wont-stop-street-view.html 

This article says that a couple sued Google for posting pictures of their house; therefore, everyone in the world can see their house with Street View. A google spokesperson answered that they would remove the images if people found inappropriate images and reported it to Google.

This article also says,

In this media-rich society where anyone can snap a photo with a free mobile phone and instantly share it with the world, is it the responsibility of companies like Google to prevent unauthorized content from leaking onto its services? Or is an (ideally) effective set of content removal policies and tools enough, and we all just have to roll with the punches as they come? (Chartier)

I think Google has to have resposibility on what they are doing. Now, I’m not sure how we can deal with this issue, but I think it’s sure that people are controlled by overloaded information through media even though we think about our privacy more seriously than before.

I like coffee, especially Starbucks coffee. Starbucks has had success as a global company, and there are tons of shops around the world. But I was curious about why Starbucks is prospering with only one or two TV commercials.

Today, most companies promote themselves by advertising. Advertising is one of the most beneficial promotional tools, and, in fact, advertising makes great profits for the companies. While we can see advertisements all over the place, such as on Websites and billboards, I think most ads that we see are TV commercials.

Starbucks has their own Website and promote new foods and drinks, but they have a policy-don’t advertise. They think in-store experience is the best way to advertise the company. Therefore, they have a excellent training system for workers to satisfy customers.

These days, I heard that Starbucks opened too many retail stores; thus, they closed some. They have been in difficult economic situation. I’m not sure whether their promotional way (without advertising) is one of the causes for this situation and whether they will change their way into TV commercials. But, I think the promotional way increases regular customers even though it doesn’t have a strong impact on customers, like TV ads.

More information about Starbucks commercials on

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Other/612/Starbucks-Commercials.html

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Friend’s qoute:

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. 

This is a link to my friend’s blog.