Another semester behind me

As the Spring 2012 semester is ending, I felt the need to update a blog post.  I am in my Senior year at Western Kentucky still.  I just recently took on an internship for the summer in Louisville, Kentucky where I will be working under Creative Alliance (http://www.creativealliance.org/) and my title is in the Account Services department.  I am extremely excited to have a summer job in my field and to gain some experience.  I am still on track to graduate in December of 2012 and then begin my real job hunting experience! Feel free to email me any questions or potential jobs!

Twitter and Facebook Today

Posted on December 1, 2010.

Just how much impact does twitter and facebook have in today’s world?

Let’s just say alot.

We all know that “everyone” does it, but to actually sit down and think about how many people in the world, this very second, are on twitter or tweeting or changing their status or facebook picture, it’s unreal. So i decided to dig a little deeper.

Upon researching, I found that as of today the top 10 popular people to follow on twitter are:

Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama.

This table was found at http://twitaholic.com/

I think it’s interesting the different types of people that are among the favorite searches in twitter. Facebook and twitter’s largest influence I feel, and this could be due to the fact I’m learning about it in my major, but with marketing today’s products.  Anyone that’s anything has a facebook, twitter, tublr account, if you don’t you seriously are snoozing through life.

At http://www.istrategylabs.com/2010/01/facebook-demographics-and-statistics-report-2010-145-growth-in-1-year/, it said that according to facebook’s Demographic and Statistics growth rate is up 145% in 1 year. Other key facts found were:

The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user base.

The 55+ audience grew a whopping 922.7% in 2009.

Atlanta had the highest growth rate in 2009 at 267.6

Facebook and social networking has grown so much faster than previous media technology it’s unreal.  It honestly makes me excited how technology is evolving, and how quickly it’s doing so! It has been debated if social media is a fad, I feel that twitter and facebook have had such an impact on our lives and our media, that we will infact never not use some form of social networking site to communicate with others.  People for years have been working for ways to easier communicate with those they can’t live near.  It started with letter writing, telephone convos, texting, email, ect. The process is only going to continue, and I can’t wait to be along for the ride.

Podcast One Thought At A Time.

Over the weekend I went through a variety of ideas, decisions, and mind changing.  Unfortunately, I was not near a computer to actually post day by day, but I was able to type my blog post into my cell. Therefor, I am going to bluetooth them to my Mac and put them all in one blog post but separated by dates.

Thursday 11/18/10

I finished with my tests for the week, so I’m able to finally think about my podcast.  The first thought is realization that the more interesting the subject, the easier it will be on me to complete the required time limit.  I start by concentrating on the subject of my podcast rather than the process or other factors.

Myself and college roommate Cristina Major’s story of going to school in Los Angeles for two years.

My hometown of Leitchfield Kentucky’s transition from a dry county to a moist county (alcohol can be sold in restaraunts)

Fashion Designer job after college and her journey from cities to cities.

Friday 11/19/10

Decision has been made! I felt it would be much easier for myself to tell the story about my hometown due to the hectic schedules of my friends with finals and I don’t want to miss the deadline that the assignment is due.

Saturday 11/20/10:

Research begins.

First, I got on our class website on Blackboard, to look at the given links and information about podcasts.  After printing those I had all the information I needed to get started.

Next I wrote the script to my podcast by following an example from https://ecourses.wku.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FcontentWrapper.jsp%3Fattachment%3Dtrue%26navItem%3Dcontent%26content_id%3D_1578635_1%26course_id%3D_73487_1%26displayName%3DSmall-Business-Podcasting-Kit.pdf%26href%3D%2F%2540%2540%2FF993CF96536B6685017C65C073688FEA%2Fcourses%2F1%2F201030JOUR34800238949%2Fcontent%2F_1578635_1%2FSmall-Business-Podcasting-Kit.pdf.  I had to plan the script at least 10 minutes because that was the minimum requirement.

Next I had to set up the equipment and scene the podcast would take place, so I picked to use my Mac in a quite room with no one in the house and warned everyone not to come home for a bit.  Before this project, I thought using your computer for this would be the low-end way to go, but I read from the same article I posted earlier that, “one of the biggest trends in recent audio production involves merging digital recording with computer technology.” Voices.com so my computer was now the easy choice.

After checking every room in my house and brainstorming where the interview could take place, where my apple could sit, ect. I decided it would take place in my living room.

After getting everything and everyone ready, the interview began.

 

“Finally, Bookmark Ads”

Posted on November 3, 2010

For class, we were assigned to go to an external link and discuss a video blog while relating it to Advertising. I chose a blog from M.I.T. Advertising Lab, and you can find this article at https://ecourses.wku.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_7_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_73485_1%26url%3D

In this article, there’s a video demo that shows how bookmarkable banner ads work and it’s such a high advantage because up until now, banner ads only had to offer annoyance and clicks to other websites.  With bookmarkable banner ads, viewers can now save ads that they are interested in further pursuing, but may be busy researching other items at the moment.  I think this is a genius idea, because Advertisers have been struggling with banner ads for years.  There are various opinions on banner ads, some wondering if they are beneficial at all, others wondering if we can really take away all of the ads.  At the end of the day, the answer wasn’t to completely do away with them, but to find a way to have them be helpful to viewers, not annoying.  With bookmarkable banner ads, viewers willl now be able to get the banner ads out of the way, but not lose them forever, they can be saved in a banner history folder where they can be located when ready.  It’s a win win, viewers get to use the discounts, but on their own time, and advertisers still get to promote their products.

Flash Catalyst

Posted on October 25, 2010

Flash Catalyst makes designs come to live, gives your website a personality.  It’s a design tool that converts Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks designed into real life motions.  Today’s industry is so fast-paced, it all comes down to a matter of seconds, soFlash Catalyst was developed with code already embedded, to make it easier for designers and less time.  I’ve found it to be my favorite website design program due to how well it works with photoshop and illustrator and how easily i can upload my designs into Flash Catalyst.

For more information on Catalyst, I found this website to be extremely helpful when performing my research: https://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashcatalyst/articles/flashbuilder_flashcatalyst_workflows.html

Flash Catalyst and Flash are similar and in the end are both doing the same thing, but there are many different features, and ways to go about building your website that seperates the two.  ”Flash Catalyst is the entry-level product in the Flash Platform lineup. It’s the only Flash application designed for users who can’t write code” (http://www.creativepro.com/article/flash-catalyst-cs5-first-impressions) If you like designing in Photoshop and Illustrator first, Catalyst is the way to go because you can easily import it.  In Flash, you start out designing your layout in Flash and pull images and outside elements, but do the majority of the work in Flash not other outside programs.  Personally, I like designing in Illustrator and Photoshop and I know the basics of HTML code but not as much as I would like to if using Flash, so Catalyst was a thousands times easier for me to build my website in.

After researching reviews on Flash Catalyst, I was able to discover these three important facts:

ProsOverall ease of use for creating Flash-like apps.

ConsLayout lacks the polish of other CS5 apps. Still a bit on the technical side. Workspaces lack configurability found in other Adobe products.

Bottom LineAdobe seeks to turn designers into coders with Flash Catalyst CS5, giving artistic types the ability to create interactive apps without requiring extensive programming knowledge. This program is a nice first stab, but it still has a way to go.

You can see more facts and read the entire Flash Catalyst review at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362463,00.asp.

Flash Catalyst’s Impact

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Shelbi

Flash Catalyst’s Impact

One of the main ways advertising is changing deals with customer interaction and involvement.  In the traditional media days it took a lot of time for a customer to be able to interact with the media, it wasn’t even worth the amount of time it took you.  Today is a totally different story thanks to our laptops and smartphones, we can reply and interact with our media in less than two seconds!  Flash Catalyst also helps move toward the idea that everything in the industry is starting to come alive and bounce off the paper and computer screen as more and more electronics are becoming 3D viewable. The movement with today’s animation is the more realistic the better, and Flash Catalyst helps websites feel more realistic so it’s perfect.

 

344 Quiz 10/13/2010

1. Social Media is one of the newest movements in advertising today. It’s a form of communication that uses the internet and is extremely interactive. Social media is mobile and can be updated in seconds. Unlike traditional media, which had deadlines and took much more time to produce.  It’s a way of spreading the word, advertising your business quickly on the internet, in forms of Facebook or Twitter for example which many people today check daily, if not many times a day.
2. “Recognize the power of the audience” means that companys can now use the help of the audience in developing new ideas, new products, it helps companys know exactly what their audience wants and helps them provide that.  Less work for the company and more satisfied consumers. At the same time, if you don’t handle your audience the right way it can have a very bad negative effect on your site and company.
3. Active Audience is one of the differences in Social Media and Traditional. Before, it was harder for audiences to become involved in the media. With social media having an active audience, this means anyone viewing the site has the option of sharing their opinion right that moment and becoming engaged with the site.  Active audiences can have a huge impact on the site’s reputation, so it’s important to not ignore customer feedback.
4. Crowd-sourcing is where the company involves the customers by allowing them to choose the next product or take part in a decision making.  For example, a company could use all the customers that visited their site in one week vote on their favorite object and by taking the results of that crowd sourcing, the company will deliver what the majority of the crowd wanted.
5. 99designs is one of the top crowdsourcing design sites. Their job is to connect low-budget designers with small businesses who need help with projects. Designers can show their work, network with other designers and small business and mostly just try to get their foot in a door for other opportunities.
6. 8 tools of social media:
7. 7 steps to a blog: Link it up- meaning link every social media website you have running with your company to your blog. The more ways consumers can reach you, follow you, stay updated with your company the better your company with benefit from social media.
8. SEO- Search engine optimization, the higher up your company appears in a search engine such as google, the more chances consumers will view and visit your site.
9. Facebook- Huge way to advertise in social media. Add all of your friends, have your friends send your companys page to all of their friends, just continue networking and adding people the more people that view your company the better. You can also make a fan-page for a business that goes in a “facebook market” with other businesses. Here you can provide important information like business hours, parking, location, ect.
10. Competition- theres millions of blogs out there, you need to have ways to attract users to your blog so it can get read.  Have things on your blogs that makes people want to go to yours rather than other peoples. For example: Offer your skills or have prizes.
11. Blogs and Micro blogging- blogs are people’s diary or journals but online and published where other people can view and comment and interact with it.microblogging: essentially a blog, but all around smaller. Smaller length such as it can be sentences and smaller audiences and topics.
12. Forums- Online discussion tool where viewers can chat back and forth about their opinions on your site.
13. Social Networks- online organization of users connected or linked together in order to communication via the internet.
14. RSS- Really Simple Syndication where you publish frequent blogs, audio, and other various forms of media.
15. Social Bookmarking- a way  users can organize, store & manage their online bookmarks
16. Wikis- are simple web pages that groups, friends, and families can edit together.
17. Podcasts Picture- images in a podcast
18. Video Virtual Worlds- interactive videos on the web

344 Quiz Continued- Blogging Assignment

10/20/10: How is blogging used by the entertainment industry to market its products?

Blogging is used a lot in the entertainment industry to market products as well as spread advertisement.  There are many different types of bloggers as well as many different types of blogs.  Active audiences use blogs to share opinions and ideas about celebrities as well as for gossip and tabloids.  One of the most famous bloggers that come to my mind when I think of blogs in the entertainment industry is Perez Hilton.  He blogs daily about celebritity gossip and stories as well as has a huge fan base and followers who leave comments on his blogs.  His website iswww.perezhilton.com.  An example of the type of gossip Perez blogs about is

Blogs are also used to spread the word about artist and entertainers upcoming albumb drops and concerts and tours.  Fans can show their love and add comments about these concerts as well as share experiences with other fans.

Blog #1

• Flash Catalyst is an application that is created so that people can no only view websites, but also interact and become involved with them. It works by design iteration which is where designers modify their design to benefit the user experience.
• Designers should use Flash Catalyst because you don’t have to write any codes! It writes all of the code for you, which makes the process a lot faster and easier for designers.
• An example of a site that uses Flash Catalyst is http://cms.template-help.com/magento_30216/

• 

New semester, new class, new blog!

I have used my blog for a class previously, but thiese blogs will focus on blogs dealing with Advertising in the digital world.  We were given an assignment by our professor that stated the following:

Build a blog and write your first blog entry:
• Who am I?
• Discuss two or three things that make me very interesting.
• The person I’d like most to have a conversation with (and why).
• What issues are top-of-mind for me (and all my friends know it)?
• Where will I be in five years and what will I be doing

I am two years shy of graduating with my Bachelors degree.  I am creative and a fan of design.  I’m a great friend and like to brighten other’s days.

I have already moved three times in three years and have finally found the right place for myself.

Andy Warhol would hands down be the person I would love to have a conversation with..  A personal fan not only of his work, but of his quotes. I feel it would be a very inspiring and interesting conversation that I would relate to very much. His quotes are so unique, I can only imagine what an entire conversation between the two of us would consist of.

In five years I will be attending grad school.  Not exactly sure which school yet, but I’ve narrowed it down to out West or a southern SEC school.  Depends on the business programs.  I would to get my graduate in business so I can one day open up an Advertising firm.