How to Podcast, easy as 1.2.3…

Podcasting is actually very simple to do. Anyone with internet access can create their own podcasts, and, as we have seen, podcasting is a cool and different way to communicate social information. Podcasting can enhance your blog or deliver your information to the pockets of all your followers. Sometimes, people are more interested in audio data than written information anyway. In this class, we learned how to use several programs to podcast. I prefer to use podomatic, soundcloud, and audacity. The first thing to do is to figure out what you’re going to talk about. On podomatic, you can create a profile that pretty much walks you through how to podcast in a step by step process. You can also do the same thing using Audacity, and this program allows you to edit your content. You can select blank spaces and delete them using trim. You can tighten up spaces between words or even delete whole words. Next, you can upload the content to a program like soundcloud. The program eventually will allow you to copy a hyperlink, and then, you can go on your blog and paste the url. Its as easy as that! The podcast player will then appear on your blog. Podomatic is a cool program because it organizes all your podcasts and you develop a podcast personality. You can explore other programs like Blip.tv or Ivoox on your own, but I prefer audacity and soundcloud, because it was very easy to export the material to my blog. You literally press record, say what you want to say, edit the sound, save the material, export it to a program like podomatic, and post the hyperlink to your blog, or upload the material and transfer it to iTunes, etc. Podcasting is extremely easy, and can definitely add a little spice to your blogs or webpages, giving the material you usually post more of a personality. Record, Upload, Distribute, and share with friends now using these programs!

Podcasting- the portable audio revolution

With the universal spread of portable audio players like the iPod came the advent of the “podcast,” cheap audio software similar to weblogging that spread over the Internet and became available for easy download. Podcasts are a sort of amateur radio, and a natural development in the digital revolution of 2.0 media.  Audio content such as interviews about various topics can be distributed in much the same way as written material via blogs. Audio versions of radio shows or the Wall street journal for example, could be sold and transported to portable audio devices. Shows, books, etc could now be listened to whenever and wherever the listener wanted. Audible information could now be portable. Developing a better system for audio file transfer required a new RSS language, which was eventually developed. A new program was developed and synchronized with the iPod, and podcasting as a practice spread like wildfire. Audio files could be transferred directly to portable audio devices in the pockets of every American. It seemed only natural that the trend would grow, considering the massive spread of the practice of blogging before it. The term “podcast” expresses the importance of the iPod and iTunes in spreading the practice of podcasting audibly and visually. The portable aspect of the podcast, and the ability for anyone to be a podcaster are two possible reasons for the popularity of podcasting. People tend to appreciate something as easy as downloading and listening to a subscribed feed rather than searching and reading scattered Internet content. The syndicated feed allows users to keep up to date easily with a podcaster. Podcasting and video-podcasting have grown in popularity and become an essential part of the “2.0 revolution.” Podcasts allow subscribers to have whatever audio content they desire at their fingertips and in their pockets, ready to be called upon whenever the listener decides. This sort of user-control is essential to its success. 

Click Here to learn how to create your own podcast

Marketing 2.0- The Blogging Revolution

Obviously, the media revolution has come to play a large role in the worlds of marketing and communication. It is only natural that as more and more people pay more and more attention to digital material online that companies would have to rearrange strategies to include sectors dedicated solely to information distribution via the web. Society at large places a large important for example on a companies twitter and Facebook pages to gain information about the company. Thus, more attention must be paid to these modes of information control to reach the massive audience in an effective way.  Corporations now use blogs, sometimes controlled by employees, on their own website.  Corporate blogs can allow managerial leaders to keep in touch with both employees and customer satisfaction. It can help the corporation seem more personable and dedicated to fulfilling needs of customers.  Traditional marketing strategies have been replaced by more modern communication modes like SMS texting, with some sort of reward for massive spread.  Masked marketing describes a situation in which information that doesn’t seem to be an advertisement is sent and rumor marketing is a situation where something related to something that may later come out is sent before it comes out. Exclusive invitations are another way. Such a sort can lead to millions of downloads within days. Evangelist customers are enthusiasts for a product who try to spread it amongst other people by blogging and researching. A corporative blog is blog created by an organization by an official worker, showing the mass audience that the worker is transparent.. Blogs are an important trend in advertising, marketing, and public relations as they increase communication and awareness. Blogs have the ability to change and highly affect a business Thus; hundreds of new blogs are registered everyday, up to 18 updates per second. Millions of people buy products because of a comment from the Internet. This sort of power shows that all corporations must adapt to this new marketing strategy, as it is highly effective, more so than any other in this growing digital age.  However, all blogs are not appropriate for a corporation, and must be carefully updated and worked on to be successful. Blogs allow corporations to have proximity to customers, accept and modify feedback, learn about competitors, network, and remain loyal to customers needs. Blogs can be used to introduce a new brand, to test a product, to keep in touch with bosses, to prepare for a special event or to promote a market.  There are many uses, and blogs have become an important staple for the success of a company. 

 

 

Click Here to view “The Editors Blog” of BBC

Click Here to view the “Fastlane Blog” of General Motors

Politics 2.0

With the advent and universal spread of modern digital technologies, many fields of work and average daily activities were affected at large. Particularly, methods and marketing strategies in terms of political campaigns were forced to change with the times and address and meet the needs of the grassroots masses and voters. It is interesting to observe Barack Obama’s campaign and success in terms of his revolutionary use of technology to reach and connect with millions of voters. Barack Obama’s campaign defines the concept of “Politics 2.0” and the necessary actions that now must be considered a standard to follow in order to succeed politically. In class, we first discusses the differences between campaign strategies in the U.S. and in Spain, where things remain simpler but are changing with the time as well. Most notably the differences in Spain include that in the U.S., minutes on TV are not regulated but rather purchased, that the internet is used to collect money and to advertise, that campaigns are run by professionals rather than members of political parties, that points of views on topics like abortion reign more important than an election manifesto, that US politicians microtarget based on several factors, and that campaigns cost much more. Obama’s campaign taught the general public several interesting facts about political campaigns today. First of all, people are self interested rather than politically motivated, that every factor must be addressed towards private individuals rather than generalizing amongst groups,and that public forums must be used to contact and understand the needs of voters (the Y generation is less interested in political debates and speeches), and Obama raised much more money than ever before specifically through private donations garnered by addressing individual needs and making each person feel “special.” His website allowed viewers to share opinions, which could be polled and addressed. Thus, although Obama employed traditional political strategies, it would be ignorant to avoid the particular importance the internet played in this campaign specifically. For example, Facebook  allows politicians to seem transparent, mobilizes people virally, communicates important events and message, humanizes, and allows for microtargetting.Obama used twitter to respond to followers, used SMS feeds to spread ringtones and programs, and addressed blog questions, making each voter feel important. Obama’s “Brand” focused on keeping in touch, and users knew it would be a permanent installment because he could not just bail out after winning.  Thus, the internet can be used to essentially win a campaign in the following ways: to inform (upload to youtube), to connect millions of people,  to ask voters to be involved, and to talk with people to address concerns, and to give all relevant information virally. Most importantly, microtargetting becomes possible as voters can be classified based on hundreds of defining factors. Thus, the internet is a permanent tool in the arena of politics since Obama’s revolutionary use of modern technologies.

Radio-verload

With the universal spread of social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace came an issue for the Radio industry, as we learned at our visit to iCat. The responsibility for several persons to constantly update several different pages several times a day becomes a burden for those people, and perhaps overwhelming for listeners. Obviously, having outlets that listeners can check to find out who will be on the radio show what day and when, or what number to call to enter a sweepstake, for example, is very helpful for an industry that thrives off popularity and garnering a massive following. However, these sources should be used sparingly and properly. For example, the radio should not automatically update, most of what they post to these sites should be personalized, not automated like a robot, or followers will lose interests in the radio’s pages and the radio will have to spend money paying for jobs that are useless. If a radio station tweets useless things multiple times a day, people will not continue following them on the website, or will ignore what they have to say in the future. I think exceeding 3 or 4 posts a day is a little overwhelming for any source, and the sites should be updated only when something important is happening.Posts should be engaging no matter what. Although everyone has an iPod now, radio is still very important to many people. And although we now have many sources to spread ideas, people still look to the radio for the same things they’ve always desired in the shows they listen to. Thus, radio shows are more capable than ever to provide listeners to what they want, because they have many outlets where people can provide feedback for what they want to here and what they prefer on a daily basis. The traditional radio audience still exists, and still wants the same things from the stations. Thus, social sites are good in that they allow the stations to directly connect with audiences and provide them with information they might desire. However, these sites should be used sparingly and posts should be manually updated rather than automated several times a day. In this day and age, every industry must operate these sorts of pages to be able to compete. I think they should try to not lose sight of what they came to do, to provide listeners with entertainment and music. Social sites should be used to keep the audience connected, but the radio should stay true to what they always have, and listeners will keep coming back. Social Sites can allow listeners to request songs, artists can promote singles, and radio stations can make money off their following. The social sites should be used to improve the station and what people want from it. Today, people expect and know that every station probably has a Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. Thus, stations MUST update and use these mediums, but it is up to them to not overwhelm followers and to figure out how to use these sights to their advantage rather than their detriment. 

Multimedia Stories

In the Journalism 2.0 age, a new form of “storytelling” using various types of multimedia has emerged. Multimedia stories are very interesting, visually and audibly. Multimedia storytelling uses written text, photographs and videos to basically, tell a story.  The media sources can be put on a web site arranged in an untraditional way. For example, rather than reading a news story, a media story might have text complemented by an embedded video with an audio link to the side. Other data, links to other resources, comment boxes, or suggestions to the reader about the same topic may be presented. Each presentation may be embedded within a larger section on say, a news website (perhaps economics or politics)  Several news organizations offer examples of multimedia storytelling.  Classic news sites are termed “multimedia sights” usually, like CNN or the BBC. They are interactive, offering more than traditional story telling using text only. Photos and videos make the story lively and active, as opposed to print in a newspaper.  Thus, a reporter must be armed with a camera, a video-camera,  and a method to record data, in order to compete in this multimedia industry. Several individuals may contribute to such a story.  The importance of the visual in todays society reflects the growing popularity of multimedia storytelling. This has become the norm in this technological age, and thus, it is expected from the sites we visit. This is interesting because I never really took the time to examine the many aspects that produce a typical news story I read online, or how starkly this contrasts with news of the past. Several news agencies have “multimedia teams” to present the most important data in the most appealing way that captures attention and offers as much information about the story as possible to the reader in an easy to access way. The journalism 2.0 revolution can be partly attributed to easy and instant access and maneuvering, and I think this quality describes why multimedia reporting has become the standard.

“Citizen Journalism”

As the 2.0 digital technologies revolutionize the reception and transmitting of information, and give each citizen the tools to do such, the trend of “citizen journalism” has begun to threaten the career of trained, classical journalists. Citizen Journalism is a term which explains the situation when every social actor acts as an emitter and receiver of information. With each citizen armed with a cell phone, a laptop, and the interweb, we each become capable of capturing data and instantly uploading and transferring files to sites like twitter or news agencies. As such, classical journalists have come to criticize the lack of classical training, ethics, rules, impartiality and transparency that trained journalists value highly. Citizen journalism, however, can be a very helpful advent to society. In instances like the Myanmar democratic protests, when government shut down internet and did not allow classic reporters in the country, citizens were able to go to their blogs and update  on the situation. During September 11th attacks, blogs emerged listing survivors; during Hurricane Katrina, when classical newspress was down, blogs also emerged all over the country. Similarly, instances like Monica Lewinsky on the Drudge Report, or Rathergate, allowed citizens to actively participate in the way the media controls news which is given or kept from society. As a growing trend, many news stations have dedicated specific parts of their websites to citizen journalism forums, as it is impossible to stop. As classical print newspapers and magazines experience a huge financial burden and people turn to online media sources, these industries need a way to create revenue, and have begun to toy with the idea of capitalizing off citizen captured shots and information. Often times, in situations where the media cannot possibly predict a breaking story (such as natural disasters) or when media would take too long to transport data (I.E. the Asian Tsunami or Earthquakes) citizen journalism becomes a powerful, and extremely helpful tool. Furthermore, as citizens are capable of playing an active role in distributing data, the collective intelligence in this information society is contributed to, adding to the 2.0 revolution. Citizen Journalism is a side effect of the digital technologies that have become the norm in the pockets of most citizens of the world.

Diaspora-mazing

In a social media age dominated by Facebook, the critical, universal following that Facebook has garnered cannot be disputed or stopped, in my opinion. However, several smaller social sites have emerged in attempt to dispute several aspects about Facebook that most have grown unsatisfied about. One such site is termed “Diaspora,” an alpha-phase social site founded by four NYU students in an attempt to create a decentralized, permissive site that offers the same direct social connection as Facebook, but places several values above profit. For example, Diaspora values user ownership and privacy above all else. As people have grown unsatisfied with Facebook’s ownership policies over private property, Diaspora offers a solution to this problem. All content is privately owned by the user. Users are allowed to host their own service, utilizing the idea of “pods.” People can either join or host their own server, but still communicate with users on other servers; a stark contrast to the way Facebook operates, sending all media content to an office in Palo Alto, California. The service is decentralized in this way, and users maintain full control over how their content is distributed, utilizing the idea that users can choose which content is shared with who specifically. Diaspora is an open source and is public. They operate off the principle of collective intelligence, that it can be collaboratively improved as more users join. I doubt that Diaspora can convert even a dent of Facebook users to their site, but I commend the idea and its dedication to protecting the privacy rights of users and valuing the concept of organization and selective distribution.