Has Twitter "transformed free agency"?

That's the conclusion made by Nicholas Deleon, who in a CrunchGear post today argues that the social networking platform has allowed athletes to retain "complete control" of their narrative. Deleon looks at the tweets of NBA players like Dwayne Wade as a powerful source of information for journalists hungry for clues during free agency season:

I fully expect to see either Bosh or Wade tweet: "Man, it's a windy day here today!" and then see stories like, "WADE TO CHICAGO ALL BUT OFFICIAL."

But just how "in control" are athletes when every tweet, no matter how banal, becomes a source of speculation, as Deleon suggests. Yes, Twitter gives athletes power. Yes, it allows them to speak directly to their fans. But what happens after that? Tweets don't exist in a vacuum and without the proper context, I'm sure any 140-character message can be misinterpreted - especially during a time of free agency. So, while athletes can begin the narrative, journalists can finish it any way they want to. Sports stars can easily lose control of their own messages if they don't respond to speculation surrounding them.

At the Play by Play event some of the class attended last week, panelists briefly touched on the PR dangers of Twitter. If you were a PR agent for any athlete, would you see Twitter as a threat or opportunity - or both?

Will the Internet change the communication pattern in the future?

We have been witnessing the rapid change in our personal life and careers caused by the Internet. A recent research study claims that the current social media will create a new social world in 2020. The study reveals that people will count on the Internet to build and maintain friendship, marriages and other relationships. Thanks to the Internet, the world will get closer and closer.

It is true that the Internet will and is playing a big role in connecting people. The Internet reduces the phone costs whenever I talk to my parents, who are in China. Using Skype even doesn’t cost me any penny to talk to my parents if they use Skype in the meantime. I posted a message on Facebook the other day, looking for some connection with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. To my surprise, a few hours later, a friend responded to my posting and gave me contact information of a person she knows who work for the organization. I am not a Facebook or Twitter fan, but I have to say that the Internet has made information dissemination faster than ever before. And this type of social media can really rock in someone’s professional life. When it comes to social networking, the Internet has become a tool that can not be replaced by any traditional communication tools.

However, I don’t embrace the Internet when it comes to nurturing deeper relationships with family members and close friends. Unless there are some physical obstacles, I always prefer to have face-to-face communication with people. This may be because I am from a culture that values family ties. Without being able to see their facial expressions, I don’t know if my family members and/or friends are really telling me the truth. Do they really feel happy now? Do they need any help but are afraid of asking me for a favor?

The Internet is not mighty in some aspects. Many people believe that benefits of the Internet outweigh the negative effects, but I am skeptical about this argument. It is not the Internet that has advantages or disadvantages; it is the people who are using the Internet can gain benefits or suffer from the use of the Internet. By 2020, we may have more social media platforms and tools, more Facebook, more Twitter and more YouTube.

For the full article about the study, click here.

Opera by You

The Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland is crowdsourcing an opera for its 2012 season through a new project: “Opera By You 2012.” Any member of the web community can contribute to the creation of an opera – helping to create the story, write the libretto, compose the music, and design the sets and costumes – from beginning to end. Savonlinna is providing the performers, the crew, and an orchestra for the final production, which will premiere at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in summer 2012. Here’s a link to their site. (Make sure to click “English” on the top right.) They are using a collaborative film production platform called Wreckamovie.com.

This is the first time an opera company has utilized crowdsourcing technology to create a new opera, so it will be interesting to see whether Savonlinna is successful at attracting new audiences (and holding on to them) and whether other opera companies will replicate the process.

Could Groupon save local newspapers?

As a journalism student, I found this post on Mashable today interesting. The McClatchy Company, which owns major local newspapers around the country (including the Miami Herald), announced today that it's beginning a partnership with Groupon. Groupon will offer visitors to McClatchy-owned newspapers' sites exclusive deals not available to their own site and, of course, tailored to the city the paper is in.

Companies are not the only ones being forced to listen to the Groundswell. Newspapers and magazines are trying to stay afloat now that their business model can no longer be based on what people should want, but what they do want. Not all journalists are sitting around whining about how the internet is destroying journalism. Some are. But there is a lot of innovation going on, and one of the ideas that's gotten a lot of attention recently is the power of delivering tailored advertising to readers based on very specific locations (instead of shouting at them with generic display ads, which do little good for the paper or the company). For example, what if signing up to use a paper's website and listing some preferences enabled you to receive coupons tailored to your interests on your smartphone for the places you happened to be driving by?

This particular partnership not only gives people what many of them wanted the paper for when it was delivered to their door (coupons!), but also harnesses social networking. In order to get a Groupon deal, enough people have to sign up for it -- that means reaching out to your friends through social media to get them to buy. Now, they'll be sending links to the papers' websites.

While this is no silver bullet, it's a step in the right direction.

Get your virtual wallet out

Hey, remember when our whole class was ridiculed for not playing games on Facebook? Well, here's why. A new study of 600 teens age 13-17 shows that gaming on Facebook is growing.

More than 75 percent of online teens play games online, and they spend twice as much time playing on social networks as on the web. Also, more than a third of Facebook gamers spend at least 50 percent of their time on the site playing games. Long story short: Facebook games are addicting online teens everywhere.

Although we may not fit the teenage game-playing demographic, it's not surprising that marketers are starting to look to social networking games to get their brands out there. Teens do control a large portion of the market, whether it's through their parents' money or the influence that they hold over their parents' buying decisions.

Not to mention the money actually spent on games. In fact, games bring in the majority of teenage social network spending. According to the study, 15 percent had spent money to purchase "currency in a game to buy virtual items," 14 percent had purchased "accessories for their avatar in a game," and only half that (7 percent) reported buying a "virtual gift."

Nearly half (49%) of those who had purchased said they had allowances for online spending. Would you want an allowance for online gaming? Would you allow your kids to have one?

"Google Me" fact or fiction?

A new hot topic on the web this week is a rumor about Google's alleged attempts to create a social network competitor to Facebook called "Google Me."

Techcrunch, PC World, and several other websites have been reporting that this news broke on Twitter when Digg CEO Kevin Rose stated, "Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon "Google Me", very credible source."

That definitely sparked interest in the topic. Apparently Google has had this project in the works for awhile, suspecting that eventually Facebook's growth and fanbase would die down. But guess what? It hasn't. Oh snap!

At 500 million strong, Facebook has got the market locked up. So if these rumors of a possible contender are true, it would certainly be a David and Goliath kind of tale. Furthermore, as the article points out it will probably take a lot to get Facebook users to switch to another provider after they've invested so much in Facebook. Google Me will likely have to target those that aren't on social networks yet to build up a fan base. And Google's other past forays into the social media world haven't proved as viral as they assumed they'd be (Ex: Google Wave, Buzz, Orkut).

For my part I know that it's very unlikely for me to ever switch from Facebook. For one thing all my friends use Facebook and the whole point of a social network is to connect with friends. So unless there is a mass exodus from Facebook to Google Me, then I'm thinking it's not worth my time (assuming of course that these rumors are true). Not to mention all the photos and other content that I've spent time putting on my Facebook profile.

But who knows? Maybe Facebook will pull something dumb and upset a lot of people. Then there could be Google Me standing by in the wings with open arms. And frankly, that's where the advantage lies. Up until now when Facebook does something stupid (i.e. changing privacy policies) that elicits outrage, people can voice their opinions and protest, but they're unlikely to actually leave because there are no other better alternatives. Google Me could be that sole competitor to reach out to disgruntled Facebook users. Hmm well there's some food for though!

Microsoft to kill off Kin messaging phones

I found this article to be quite interesting because it shows that not all technology that features social media is a must have. This phone which was aimed towards “Young, social-networking-savvy mobile users,” according to the article is not selling. Therefore, the manufacturers are going to stop production and are going to focus on the creation of the Windows Phone 7. Now, if I knew this phone was being discontinued and none of my friends would have it, I wouldn’t buy it either; considering that you and the person you are talking to must own one to use it to its full potential. Plus, who wants a Kin when the IPhone4 is out? It will be interesting to see if already customers will complain and how hard/long it will take to sell those last few Kin phones in the US. I recall seeing the commercial often, but now that I think about it, I have not seen the commercial in a while….have you?

To read the full article visit: http://tinyurl.com/2abhfxl