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As traditional print newspaper readership is declining, online content is becoming more and more predominant. Just fewer than three-quarters of Internet users gather their news today online, according to the 2010 State of the Media Annual Report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. People are exploring various media outlets to get their news when they want it, especially as the amount of information continues to grow online.
But this transition presents itself with issues. Daily print newspaper circulation has dropped just over 25 percent since 2000, according to the State of the Media 2010 Report, and in September 2009, industry-wide circulation fell just under 11 percent from a year earlier. “Those declines, however, pale by comparison to the loss in revenues, which represent a more significant problem,” stated the report.
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If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are tethered to a power strip which is tethered to the socket in the wall. If you are one of the unlucky ones, that socket may be deep within the cave under your desk, or worse, behind the couch.
If you aren’t plugged in (as us laptop users sometimes brave against the waning tide of battery life), you’re likely nervously watching the battery icon in the corner of your screen. In which case, I hope you can finish reading before you’re rudely interrupted by the shutdown.
10. Your site has dead links
This might not be the sole reason you redesign your website, but might be the first step into evaluating the content, design and brand and how these play into your online reputation of your company. A free Microsoft tool to find dead links on your website is http://www.microsoft.com/web/Downloads/platform.aspx
This year’s relations between Google and the Chinese government seem to have hit a significant bump. After four years of compliance with China’s “Golden Shield Project,” a set of censorship standards often referred to as “The Great Firewall of China,” Google has announced that they will no longer permit censorship on the Google.cn (or any other Google) site.
It begs the question: how much do you trust Google? Or Yahoo!, or Bing, or your ISP for that matter? Google’s stance earlier this year seems to be a positive step towards network neutrality and freedom of information. Do you think it is important that these service providers maintain neutrality in their services? Or, perhaps you would prefer a certain level of non-user applied censorship? Furthermore, do you trust them with your information? For years the people of China didn’t get the same information that those here in the United States were privy to. Google, in that time, was a willing participant in shielding millions of people from information that was otherwise available to the rest of the world.
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As advances made in the technological sector are happening rapidly, so are changes being made in the way that legal decisions and precedents deal with the advances.
Every day, the legal system, both here and abroad, is adapting to the most recent breakthroughs and changes in defining legalities, property rights and even what “is” the law.
A legal (and security) issue that has become a major concern in the last year is the download and use of false internet security programs. Symantec recently estimated that as many as tens of millions of internet users have downloaded and legitimately paid for any of the scores of fake security programs online.
The sad irony is that many of these programs are, in themselves, malware – programs designed to pilfer information from and breach the security of the users’ computer. It is always a wise step to research a computer security program online before downloading, installing or even visiting the site of any such program.
Have you ever done something you wish you could undo? Wouldn’t life be grand if, at the touch of a button, we could unsay that embarrassing remark, unmake that last minute u-turn or uneat that double cheeseburger? Of course it would. It is empowering and oh-so delightfully passive aggressive that you could publicly, but with no direct interaction, terminate the friendship with any person that displeases or offends you.
This dream of being impervious to the actual consequences of ending a relationship has brought rise to the term “unfriend”. In 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary named this little public breakup the word of the year.
For those not in the know, the term refers to the action of removing a contact, or friend, from those amassed in any online social network a user has joined. For example, if an old eighth grade schoolmate of yours happens to profess their love for John Mayer and you do not like it: One click – Unfriend. You just let the masses know “I hate John Mayer and all of his minions,” and you’ll never hear about it again. At least not from that guy. This action of unloading folks from your digital social circle is applicable across most social networks.
Social media is becoming more ingrained in our world, and national peace organizations are finding the medium good for more than just a casual conversation.
On October 28 through October 30, a Global Forum will be taking place in Bangkok, Thailand. The forum is centered on building peace through communication and information. The conference is facilitated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO.
Media Genesis President Antoine Dubeauclard is one of the speakers at the conference. He will be presenting a social media platform and how it can be used to exchange information and create discussion relating to peace. He is presenting the platform along with Abdul Waheed Khan, assistant director-general for communication and information, UNESCO, and David Nostbakken, UNESCO consultant for The Power of Peace Network.
“Utilizing social media is a great way to start motivated and intelligent conversations on peace because of its ability to be discussed on a global level,” Dubeauclard said. “People can interact with issues relating to their local area and also learn about what other countries are facing. Better global understanding can create unity to work toward common solutions.”
Would you take your business to a place where you’d have to work alongside a garage sale, a pyramid scheme, a kid who modifies Xboxes, a speed dating table and a lot of profanity?
The prospect might seem crazy, but every day thousands upon thousands of employers and would-be employees do just that. The place where they lay it all on the line is Craigslist.org. Craigslist is best described as a collection of online classified ads. It is simple, free (for the most part), expansive and almost completely unregulated. With the ability to reach so many people and search for so many services and products, Craigslist might seem like a no-brainer for your office.
The mega-site has a jobs listing section that absolutely dwarfs the likes of Monster.com or CareerBuilder. However, with a community that is controversially nefarious at times, it would be understandable to not want to job hunt or search for talent on Craigslist. You can find out plenty about the popular online community and uncanny founder Craig Newmark, but we are here to tell you that this site can and does work as a professional resource. Like all other things online, you just need to present yourself professionally and know what to look for.
To give you an idea of how functional or dysfunctional Craigslist can be, we posted an anonymous job posting as well as tried to ask for employment as an inexperienced individual to see how honest the web would be to us.
You’re afraid the average Internet user – a slightly attention-deficit, click-happy web surfer – will never pick up on what your website is all about. Their eyes are dashing around, judging whether or not your site is worth their time.
Unfortunately, this fear leads to the desire to cram every bit of significant information onto the screen as it pops up. A bit of classic newspaper journalism terminology, above the fold refers to exactly that – the content area above the creased fold of a printed newspaper.
As humanity continues to trend away from such oddities as spending time with each other, a new trend is emerging. No longer is television the undisputed king of making people sit idle. In fact, companies in Great Britain are actually spending more money online for advertising than they are for television. Yet, at least in America, online advertising is down.
So what does this mean for you? Online advertising isn’t even remotely trending toward being useless. You don’t even have to be smarter about it; a lot of that decrease is probably due to capacity cuts and huge expenditure decreases more generally. That said, more profit is good, and, with keywords costing more and more on Google, greater bang for your buck may be had in the social media realm. Nielsen reports that advertising on social media networks is up 119% from last year. The same study says people are spending 17% of their time online on social networks.
Think about that. When people are on a social network, what state of mind are they usually in? They might be using it for work, sure, but most of the time they’re bored and just killing time. Not exactly busy, you could say. Add to that, they put their demographic information in their profile. Does this get easier?
Bottom line: Strongly consider allocating more of your online advertising budget toward social media advertising. Depending on your demographic, this could be a no-brainer.
