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The Internet: Social Networking

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Social networking is undoutably big business on the internet. I mean, as of March 2010, there is over 400 million active Facebook accounts. Facebook is used as a free tool to contact friends and family, as are other social networking sites, such as Myspace, Twitter and Bebo.

Myspace, was the first to be used to promote services, mostly music artists. Where they could set up a free account and stream music to visitors to their site. This was music getting back to its routes, where you would pass cassettes of your favourite music on to your friends. And Myspace quickly became the best way to stay in contact with favourite bands as well, with being able to add bands such as My Chemical Romance and The Editors as friends. This improved contact with bands, made people become more involved in music.

And this concept has spread to other sites, and to other types of promotion. For instance, fast food outlet, McDonalds’ Facebook page as over 2,000,000 fans. This means that the groups can send offers to the people who like their business, and to the people who are their customer base. This reaches people, who may not read daily newspapers or don’t watch a lot of tv. And the best part is, it is free. Doesn’t cost McDonald’s a penny.

Then Twitter, which is now being actively used in offices, where people can send each other short messages to discuss information. It means that rather than having long distance calls, which can cost a fortune, they can ‘tweet’ each other, and it costs nothing. Twitter is widely used to promote businesses or offers, where again, if someone follows you, you can send them out new updates or offers. Which again, closes the gap between customer and business. And the more involved the customer feels with the company, the more likely it is, that they will use them for work purposes.

And yet, when doing online advertising, too many companies still overlook the power of social networking. Some think it is just for teenagers, some think it is a fad. But fad or not, free advertising is free advertising, and businesses should learn to uses this new media.

If you run a business and considering social networking to advertise, think of this: More people under the age of 25 use the internet and social networking sites, than they use any other type of media, including TV.

Crazy that isn’t it. If that is the case, how benifical is it to still spend so much money, advertising on TV and in newspapers?

Walking + Vlogging =Vlolking

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Because of lack of updates, I bring vlog on the move. Just for a change.

There hasn’t been too much going on, worth writing about, so I have another topic blog I may type up later, seeing as how the Punk one seemed rather successful, and I have a few interesting things I want to talk about.

The only thing vaguely exciting is that I have given myself a daily vlog challenge, where I have to upload a new vlog every day on youtube. What this means is that I should post them on here as well. 🙂 I started yesterday, and to start of the whole process, I thought it would be a good idea to recommend the 5 channels which made me want to make videos.

And all my Vlogs will get posted here, seeing as I would like to keep this updated with all things Me.

Punk rock is not dead

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

If you are talking about the 70s and 80s where punk was publicised everywhere, then yeah, punk is no longer at that stage anymore.

The ideal of punk was that people stood up for themselves, that no matter what society may tell you to do, you only do what you want. Its the ethic that it is YOU that can change your life, not putting your life in the hands of other people.

And now that DIY attitude is in the public domain, it will never die. Punk is the kid brought up on classical music, who goes to see Coldplay in concert. Its the man who wears a bright tie, where his work has a strict dress code. Punk is the little girl wanting to be a singer, when her folks want her to be a doctor.

I suppose, it depends on how you look at punk. But, to me, after being a memeber of an active Scottish punk scene for the last 5 years, I can say that it definately isn’t dead. People all too often, seem to think that punk is just about anarchy and sticking it ‘to the man’. So when they don’t see the national media covering punk, they assume its dead.

Punk has ALWAYS been about being true to yourself. And to be honest, I hope that NEVER dies

What’s in an impression of someone?

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

I had a discussion online today, about people and how they react to someone they don’t know.

We are taught from a young age,  that first impressions count. But how tainted is your ‘first impression’ if someone imposes their judgement on you. For instance, Paris Hilton. I have had many chats with fellow Good Charlotte fans about Paris, and a lot of people think she is a stupid bimbo. But where do they get this idea from? I mean, they have never met nor even talked to the girl, but yet some will say they hate her.

Hate. Is that not a bit severe to describe someone you actually know nothing about. They get these impressions from tabloids and the 24 rolling ‘celebrity’ news. These are preconceived ideas about people, which are created to sell the idea of fame as if it were some product that could be picked up from the supermarket. So the hate people feel, is not for Paris, herself, because they no nothing of her true personality, and her behaviours, they hate the Paris which appeared in The Simple Life,  and still is in endless tabloids.

But, if hating someone blindly is wrong, so is loving someone surely. I mean love and hate are such extreme emotions, that you can’t feel them for someone we have never met. Is it maybe that we live in a society filled with extremes, that we can only describe things in extremes? Its like the whole obsessing over things ( which I am prone to) where a band, you maybe have never seen in real life becomes a main object of interest and your life works round your obsession. Love is a word, not that much different from hate, but you can openly love something, but hate is like a swear word. How is that fair?

So your childhood lessons of passing judgement is rendered useless by the input of other sources. How does this effect our judgement? It obviously does, because our enviroment is so busy, we can’t help but take in almost everything we see. And the way our brain works, is that it absorbs everything we read or hear. And what you absorb, effects how you make judgements about what you see.

So, I think that it’s the enviroment that you put yourself into, which decides how you judge others. As a child I used to be very judgemental, but as soon as people started judging me (e.g- was beaten up for ‘being a Goth’  for wearing a Green Day shirt), it effected how I thought about others. And I now, pretty much live by treating others how I want to be treated. And by that, I mean I make a conscious effort not to judge someone untill I have met them. It has led to me making more clear assessments on people, and in turn has made me happier for it.

*******

And nonsensical ranting over. This is something that has been getting on my nerves lately.

Is playing way too much Xbox

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Bought UFC 2010 and the Sega Megadrive Collection.

I am trying to boost my GamerScore, because at 630, it is pittyful. And the SMC is perfect for doing that. I mean they have an achievement just for playing all the games.

Note: I know this isn’t that intresting, but I felt like I needed to update. *shrugs*

Puck Glee Look-alike

lol. He so does. But I have got myself hooked on Glee. Right at the end of the series. Yep, go me.

But I like that it is all about trying at something, no matter what your circumstances. And its that kind of thought which is helping me getting going about starting my own business *nods* So yeah, there is no bad positivity.
I still stand by the fact that it should just be a tv show, and thats it. Though I do truely think that me and Sarah should do commentry on the boys Kiss preformance.

Angst

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I have already said how I had to bail the course and my reasons for doing so.

Well, today I had to explain to one of my tutors why I was doing it. He was alright actually, but I hated telling him. It felt horrible.

But I did manage to get my website sorted a bit. That’s right, I know own the domain, http://riot-graphics.co.uk. At the moment there is nothing on line, because the server is being sorted out so I can add my files for the site.

This has made me so happy. Its like after all this planning something is getting me somewhere. I am building my base page, and should get that finished tonight. 🙂 And it will be uploaded to the service tomorrow. This feels like I am achieving something.

Sue’s Interweb World

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment
Youtube and Tumblr. I seem to be living on those sites right now. I have got so many Vloggies to catch up on. :SIf you want to know where else I live on the interwebs—-

Youtube for Vlogs http://youtube.com/user/riotgraphics

Tumblr for randomz http://riotgraphics.tumblr.com

Twitter for verbal diarrhoea http://twitter.com/SueRiotGraphics

Livejournal for fanfics and whinging http://representgc.livejournal.com

DeviantART for arty stuffs http://riot-graphics.deviantart.com

And I frequent many forums including Paramore.net, GC.com, punkrockers.com and viewaskew.com.

Anyone is more than welcome to add me on any site I go on. I talk to everyone

Updateez

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Ok, this week has been a bit of a minefield, with my brain wanting to explode on me.

I have been left with the dilemma on whether I should finish college this year. I mean I have already decided that I am not returning to the world of education this year. Why? Because I hate it.

To put a few things straight here, I don’t hate everything. I hate my work being in direct comparison with others, when whether its better or no, makes no difference.  I hate the atmosphere. The college seems to be such an uninspiring place at times. Because everything is in an open enviroment, as in one big room, lots of classes within that room,  and if one person decides to fuck around, it distracts everyone.

Well, I’ve spent my last few weeks of bloggie silence to think about what I want to do. Because I have been so uninspired at college, and I work every night, I have fallen behind in my work very easily. And it gets to the point where I was wondering whether I should rush everything, just to pass, when I know that passing grade won’t get me anywhere, due to me not continuing with education. Is it not better, that I take time over my projects, do a good job, and use them to build my portfolio? I think that is a lot more beneficial to me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I liked the course, and I love the people at the college, it’s just everyone gets to the point where that can no longer work in that enviroment. To me, in the overall task of getting my business up and running, this is the best decision.

Its kind of taking a step backwards, before you can go forwards.

Google Vs Viacom

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

This is one story which has not been getting nearly enough publicity. Which is suprising, it seems to have been going on for a while.
Cut a long story short: Viacom tried to sue Youtube owners’ Google for $1 billion due to copywrite issues.

What happens, is that on youtube, as most know, people upload videos of things they like. So that would mean South Park snippets and clips from The Hills, would be shared by kids, and Viacom would take them down. Simples you would think, right? Wrong!

Who Are They?

Viacom are a huge corporation, which owns many brands, such as Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, Spike TV, Paramount Pictures, Nikelodeon, Neopets, and many more well know brands.

Google is primarily a search engine, which is the most used search engine on the Web. Google also provides an online office suite called Google.docs, and owns, video sharing site, Youtube,

What Happened?

Well, as said above Viacom accused Youtube of knowingly uploading copywrited material, and then profiting from it. Youtube says this did not happen, as there was no way they could moniter ALLLLL the content that gets uploaded. This all happened in 2007, when Viacom said that 16, 000 videos had infringed their copywrite and were deleted. It has since been said that:

1) only 3,000 videos included copywrite infringement, as it is stated by US law

2)almost 120,000 videos were infact removed by Viacom.

Anyways in 2007 Viacom started procedures to sue Google for $1,000,000,000, because of the damage this infringement had.

And now?

There is no love lost at all between Google and Viacom. In 2008, MTV.com posted almost every music video ever made onto its site, an obvious attempt to get Googles back up. This kind of failed, as to date, Youtube is still the most popular way to watch music videos.

So other than music videos, what else is Youtube reknown for? Viral videos. You know, the videos that you revieve in emails, and are posted on every site under the sun. The one that has about 22 million views? Yep, that one. These viral videos are (as in still happening) stolen from youtube, and magically appear on Spike.com. Spike is another video sharing site, which also shows premium content such as UFC events, but this site is owned by Viacom. Well, the videos appear on Spike as being embed, which is when you can post the whole video on a site. Now, Youtube has no issue with this, in fact it promotes sharing videos in this way. The only rules are, that you cannot edit the HTML code, because the video MUST link back to Youtube (fair enough). Well when the Youtube video appears on Spike, it DOES NOT link back to youtube. These are popular actual youtube videos just embed onto Spike, and there are no link backs at all, or any credit to the original video’s maker. So therefore, this breaks Youtubes T&Cs, and the original author is NEVER notified.

Note: in Spike.com T&Cs they say EVERY VIDEO is checked before it is posted.
So how can Viacom cry about Copywrite, when they dismiss others’ rights so willingly?

And, this does go into somewhat murkier waters. There is proof from various Youtube users, saying that there are fake Youtube channels set up, where they post things such as South Park clips. They then block their own clips. Why? To show that Youtube is allowing copywrited material onto their site. It is a very mean trick. And basically attempting to use dirty tricks, to sink Youtube and Google.

But that’s not all, now other ‘powers-that-be’ from the internet, have sided with Google in this battle. Yep, usually they may not be best of friends, but Facebook, Yahoo, ebay and IAC (InterActiveCorp) have all sided with Google. Basically saying that if Viacom are successful in sueing Google, it will effect the freedom of the internet. This has to be a good side, as I do believe that this will hopefully stop this war.