The Pope Gives His Blessing to Facebook, Orkut, and Social Media

Dear Catholics,
Now we can feel good about being active using social media. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI shared his reflections about social media and global communication throughout internet. He pointed out the "dark sides" and "bright sides" of the social media use. However, in his speech he concluded that:
"I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible. This is not simply to satisfy the desire to be present, but because this network is an integral part of human life. The web is contributing to the development of new and more complex intellectual and spiritual horizons, new forms of shared awareness."

via Message for the 45th World Communications Day, Benedict XVI."

Moreover, we all can fallow Pope on his personal internet website: www.Pope2you.net

To read more about go to:

http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/01/24/the-pope-gives-his-blessing-to-facebook-orkut-and-social-media/?boxes=businesschanneltopstories

Facebook Photo Hacks

It's something we all (in this class) look at everyday: Our Facebook profile page. I've always thought of the home profile page as a bit utilitarian. It gets across information including bio, recent pictures, comments but I've never thought of the layout of the page as a way to display your own type of art.

Apparently you can create Photo Hacks on your profile page. Mashable asked people to submit "Facebook Photo Hacks" and they got some impressive results.

http://mashable.com/2010/12/24/more-new-facebook-profiles-pics/#64278-Marc-LaurentAtthalin

This blog entry isn't telling you about a new media or tool but is about a different way of expressing yourself using standard media. I was drawn to the creative approach and it made me stop and appreciate the multiple ways media (in this case FB) can be used as a way of self expression or self marketing. These unique approaches can grab the attention of friends or customers - just like the guy who bought the PR URLs for when the bosses googled themselves. Does anyone have any other experience running into creative new ways to use "old" media tools?

Turning Your Phone Off at the Theater, A Thing of the Past?

The Illusion Theater, one of Minneapolis' well-known independent theaters, is using social media in an interesting new way. They are currently staging Moliere's "The Misanthrope," and in order to generate interest and buzz, they created a Twitter Night, where audience members were asked to keep their cell phone on and live Tweet their reactions to the show using the hashtag #lightsup.

What do you think of this idea? They managed to make it a trending topic, and generated conversations and buzz about the show, and was free publicity. What do you think? Should more art shows and theaters follow in their footsteps, or are people always going to hate sitting next to someone with their cell phone on and Tweeting?

Read the full story here.

Online Networking: It can help OR harm

As media savvy students, we are all well aware of the networking capabilities of social media. You can use Twitter to find a job posting, Facebook to connect with people in that network, and Linkedin to provide them with your online resume. With all of this online presence, however, how much of a footprint are you leaving?

This article below describes how many companies are now conducting social media background checks. We have discussed this in class (Professor Kumar's topless nurse) and Groundswell addresses it too. In our era of a strong social media presence, we have to be aware of what we are saying, posting, and even who we have associated with us.

Perhaps we all have a friend who likes to post about bringe drinking an illicit drug use. Not only do we have to be cautious of what we say, but being associated with someone who posts bad things reflects poorly on us as well.

IPcalypse

 Internet is Running Out of Space

This morning I came across an article from Mashable stating that the Internet is running out of space. It's funny because you don't necessarily ever think about something like this happening. The web is infinite how could it have a maximum capacity? There are bounds to everything but luckily someone was intelligent enough to realize how quickly we were approaching this number and creating a new IPv6.

My question is doesn't this seem to be inevitable? Will this happen at one point in the future or will all those computer geniuses out there continue to fix the problem? Can the world even having this much?
 

The World Before the Internet [COMIC] - What do you think?

The World Before the Internet [COMIC]

I wanted to share this Comic with the class. I thought this was funny yet scary at the same time. The sentence "The World Before the Internet" does sound so far away but the Comic portrays the world as boring place and I disagree. I find that people used to spend a lot of time coming up with original ideas and we have so many great thinkers like Einstein to prove it. Now with the Internet we are still developing and sharing great ideas but I wonder if we are sharing more than we are developing. What do you think?

Podcast pessimism?

Early on while reading Groundswell I was struck by how pessimistic the authors seemed to be toward podcasting.

Podcasters and even podcast listeners are rare, reaching only 11 percent of the online population in America and less in other countries.

As a University of Florida alum and an avid college sports fan, I was excited when I discovered during my senior year that a group of sportswriters for our student newspaper were starting a Gator sports podcast. I listen to it regularly and have grown more impressed over time as it went from an ambitious idea into a funny, informative and professional 40- to 60-minute product. If you're interested in seeing what a group of dedicated kids can do with a Macbook and a few pieces of recording equipment, you can check it out here:

alligatorSports Podcast on iTunes

But beyond that, I was just wondering if anyone else in this class is a frequent podcast listener. Are the podcast statistics from Groundswell out of date? Or are podcasts simply a technology that has failed to catch on?