Learning Moments from Twitter

Twitter started as a tool to communicate with friends and family or just to share with others about your day.  However, Twitter has been use lately as a tool for various organizational purposes: Marketing, public relations, organizing, mobilizing, branding, social media reputation ans lately for job search and many more.  Also the use of tweets has become more global and through this venue, people around the world may have other venues of access according to their needs and accessibility. For example, in Mexico and in other parts of Latin America, mobile is the venue to have access to social media tools.  Many people in Mexico were not aware that this tool could be use or access through texting, but after a report from CNN in Spanish about how people in Mexico used Twitter to mobilize people to vote “No Vote”, people became more aware of what Twitter was.  I posted a link with instructions on how to use your text message service to tweet in Mexico and withing minutes I had 56 clicks to the link.

I think the discovery above was very interesting, because even though I was aware about the mobile accessibility in Mexico, I was not aware that Twitter could be accessed through text message and that it could be a great potential in Mexico and in other parts of the world where text message is the only availabe/affordable technology in other parts of the wold.  Good job Twitter!

Reading Reflection: A few Chirps About Twitter

It was very interesting to learn more about the usage characteristics of Twitter not only in the United Stated, but around the world. The authors in this article examined the user geographical spread and then they compared the results. They use both crawl and time-line datasets.

In the results obtained, it was noted three groups; users that have a larger number of followers than they themselves followed (this can se as a behavior of broadcasters of tweets), the second group acquaintances that exhibit a reciprocity in their relationships like the one given in online social networks, and the third group which follow a much larger number of people than they have followers (they have the characteristics of spammers, stalkers or evangelist, who will contact everyone in hope that some will follow them) of course this group are not among the top tweeters. In regards to the third group, I have to say that I have encountered that this spam or stalking behavior is a true problem  -I was automatically follow anyone who was followed me- not a very good idea due to these third group of individuals who will spam or stalk you using Twitter.

Article Analysis: Micro-blogging as Online Word of Mouth Branding

According to the article Micro-blogging as Online Word of Mouth Branding, micro-blogs like Twitter are now serving as electronic Worth Of Mouth (eWOM), forming a eWOM branding which is based on social networking and trust. This aspect is very important, because with the new technology allowing us to increment our social networks through micro-blogs like Twitter, trust needs to be present among the members even if they do not know each other in person. This trust comes from member’s reputation, which is created by being a part of a large conversation first, so that the new member can build a good reputation among his/her social network.

Podcasting Reflection

For many years I wonder how I could share my children stories with other people. At first I thought about video, but that can be very expensive and time consuming.  I also thought about publish them, but they needed to have pictures/images and I am not a graphic designer.  I thought that I was never going to share these stories, but that idea went away the first time I heard about Podcasting.  I thought “I can do that”, I can record my own stories, add some sound effects, make my own voices and music.  At last, my dream of sharing these stories became true.  I never wanted to make money with this, I only wanted to share in hope that my stories put a smile or two on other children faces, just as they did on my kids when they were little.

After taking this podcasting class, it gave me not only the opportunity to finally accomplish the dream of producing my stories, but it gave me all the tools I need in order to turn this dream into money, specially with all my student loans coming up after graduation.  I am not sure if I will do it for money, but I know that definitely, I will continue with this project, the best payment I can get for now is to know that these two first stories have put a smile or two on some children and also on adults.

Podcasting offers the creator an opportunity to create and produce a program, story etc. that they actually enjoy, it can turn into a job or a hobby.  I hope that this class continues to be offer as part of the MCDM program, I am sure that there are many students out there that have a dream just like mine and this can be the venue that they were waiting for.

If you like children stories with a Latino touch, visit my Tales From The Heart blog where you will find the first two podcasts of my stories, full scripts and pictures.

Class Reflection #6

Before the industrial revolution, making a copy of a document or book was not an illegal issue, at the contrary it was a carrier. The act of copying was an act of recording data and make improvements. According to James Griffing in The Rise of the Digital Technology ” Meritocracy”: Legal Rules and Their Impact, “In regard to written works, this culminated in the development of the ‘Scriptor’. The Scriptor was an individual who was skilled in making immaculate and precise copies of the text in pre-existing works.  The scriptor became an important individual because of the difficulty in making copies of works, but also he could add extra graphical elements additional to the original text.  Again, the more skilled the Scriptor in using the technology available at his disposal, the more successful the Scriptor was likely to be”.

If a beautiful piece of art was created as a result of copy/added material (that back then was not illegal), then this means that as a result of copyright law, this will no longer be possible.  This means that a piece of art created by an  individual artist, will only offer the beauty created by one author, but how many wonderful pieces have been created as a result of the addition from other authors to the same piece of art?

What defines beauty?

Side Note: There are many wonderful pieces of music if added to a good quality podcast program, together they make a wonderful piece of audio, however many of this music is copyrighted.  Therefore, sometimes it is easier to create your own music, just to avoid infringement or to pay high fees to use a copyrighted piece of music.

Reflection Class Week 5

Even though I was not able to attend the class, I reviewed many of the materials posted on this week class notes.

I learned that one way to be able to publish/post many of the short stories I have written, WetPaint can be a great web hosting resource.  I can even use this as a web for other writers who may want to share their stories as well (even in other languages).

I also learned about other podcasting hosts like the MLB.  This made me think about Obama, I’m not sure if he has a podcast program, I know that he uses YouTube, but I wonder about podcasting.  I can download his postcast and listen to them on my way to school, gym, work etc.

On another note, I missed the lecture from the guest speaker, Jyotsna Natarajan from Amazon. I wish that we could have her lecture via podcast, well maybe that’s something to think about?

Class Reflection Week 4

During this class we learned about the art of interviewing. This is very important in terms of a good program/interview outcome.  In podcasting, it is very important to have good interviewing skills, not only to know how to make and ask questions.

For editing purposes it is imperative not to make any sounds while the other person is talking, including expressions like mmmjh or hah. Plus this does not sound right in a podcast.

It is also important to do some research about who we are interviewing, so that we have enough information that will help us to create good questions.  It is very important to avoid closed ended questions like Did you enjoy the party last night? Here the person will response yes or no, but if you ask instead, What do you think about the party last night? then you open the door for a variety of answers with more information for the listener.

One good tip is to be a good listener, becuase this will lead you to more good questions!

Summary of Podcast and Blog

Summary of a Podcast:

It has been a great learning experience to follow the Grammar Girl podcast. The Grammar Girl’s podcasts have helped me tremendously in the improvement of my English grammar skills (Spanish is my first language). The way that she introduces the topics and the examples she provides to support them are very helpful in my learning experience. For example before I listened to her podcast programs, I used to think that all abbreviations were the same, but they are very different.

Acronyms and initializms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms or initializms. All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms like in Oct. or Dr. which are abbreviations, but they are not acronyms.

One way to differentiate acronyms from initializms is that acronyms can be pronounced as a word like in N.A.S.A. but in the case of F.B.I. that is not pronounced as a word, therefore is not an acronym, it is an initializm.

Summary of Blog:

This blog has articles about current events that have to do with digital media tools and podcasting (vodcasting for video). The latest vodcast really caught my attention and I have to confess, I was part of the game.

On April 14, Ashton Kutcher started a Twitter race against CNN. The purpose was to show CNN that he could reach up to one million followers in Twitter (micro-blog with a 140 space character). He made a home video look alike in which he explained that one of the reasons why he was doing that was to prove to CNN that now, it is not necessary to be a part of a big network to reach a large audience. He also mentioned that CNN invited him to one of the programs and the reason was only to increase the number of audience of CNN, so he decided to show them that he could reach a large audience by using Twitter. In the video Ashton receives a phone call from one of his collaborators and is informed that he has close to nine hundred thousand followers.

This is the part in which I became a participant; I think that it is important for the big networks to get the concept of two way communication and to forget their old business one way communication. They need to listen to “us” the audience, so I took 45 seconds of life to go to Twitter, look Ashton Twitter’s account up and click on follow.

Class Reflection Week 3

During this class we learn the process of encoding and decoding.  In regular communication we transmit an idea (encoding) we chose the right words and the structure of our sentences so that others can receive our idea (decoding) our message. In this case our voices are moving in real time using continue sound waves.   In transmitting idea/message through podcasting in this digital era, it works similarly, first we encode our message into digital using a digital recorder devise, then we need an encoder to hear/transmit that idea/message like iTune, iPod, etc. We need to understand this process in order to understand how to correctly make a podcast and how we can listen to it.
In addition, is very important that if we are making a podcast, that we have an outline to follow.  It is important not to fully script the message, because it could become a reading message. Podcast should be done in a human voice, let the listeners hear your voice, your passion about the subject etc.

Class Reflection Week 2

Before this class, I used to think that podcasting was just a process of recording, but now I know that it goes beyond that. It is a complete piece of art that needs management, effort and time.

Telling a story for the ear only is very different than telling a story using the eye and the ear. During our second class, we learned many of the important aspects of a story of the ear:

Punctuation between the sentences is very important. Punctuation provides clues for the readers (just like a script for actors)

Clear speech, culturally appropriate, age relevance (use the right words).

Music, sounds and natural sounds are very important as well. They provide life to the podcast.

It is also very important to have a very engaging beginning so that people will continue to listen to the rest of the content in the podcast.

Motivate and inspired your audience is also very important.

Side Note: Podcasting can be use for many purposes: interviews, education, marketing, storytelling, informational announcements etc.