Lots to do lots to do.
For those reason(s) this post will be quick and painless. Just two dumps of stories from Mashable. One is a list of ten inspiring videos on the INTERNETS right now, and the other is a list of the ten biggest social media stories from this past week...
Enjoy.
Inspire Me!
Top Social Media Stories.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
If You Want It, Internets Got IT...
The title of this post comes from the lyrics of an Old Crow Medicine Show song titled "God's Got It."
"If you want it, God's got it. He's got everything you need..."
"If you want it, Internets got it. Internets got everything you need..."
I was unsure of what I wanted to write about today, so this will be an unorganized jumble. A non-definitive dump. Everything you want and nothing you need. The wants to an end, but not the means. The space above our heads, but not the air. The question: "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" But not the answer. This is the third rewrite, but not the final script.
But like I said, if you need it, Internets got it...
Via Mashable: Ustream has now made it possible for video chat items and status updates to be uploaded simultaneously to your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and even AIM accounts (I didn't know anyone actually still used AIM anymore, but w/e).
Via Michelle Lentz: An explanation of Facebook's new redesign: The Live News Feed. Still not sure if I care about this but whatever. Oh and did you guys see that Facebook's other new suggestion redesign is actually suggesting you become friends with ex-lovers and the deceased? Yikes? Or maybe not, I dunno what you're into. Some people think it's brilliant tho...
Via ESPN: In case you missed it this week, Kansas City Chief's running back and apparent idiot tweeted some homophobic comments and insults directed at head coach Todd Haley...
And finally, since I absolutely love how social media connects us with professional athletes, especially those that are our same age...Via Kevin Durant: the Durantuala posts the link to his new BLOG. No sarcasm here, I love reading athletes over analysts (considering they are the actual people playing the games) and OKC are a young and exciting time. If you seriously think college basketball is still more exciting than the NBA...I pity you. Oh, and while you're there, check out the Hyperize commercial. Dare I say Genius?
"I BELIEVE IN THE INTERNET ABOVE! I believe in the righteous, I believe in love. I BELIEVE IN THE FIRE BURNING IN MY SOUL. I BELIEVE THAT INTERNET'S LIGHT IS GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE!"
"If you want it, Internets got it..."
"If you want it, God's got it. He's got everything you need..."
"If you want it, Internets got it. Internets got everything you need..."
I was unsure of what I wanted to write about today, so this will be an unorganized jumble. A non-definitive dump. Everything you want and nothing you need. The wants to an end, but not the means. The space above our heads, but not the air. The question: "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" But not the answer. This is the third rewrite, but not the final script.
But like I said, if you need it, Internets got it...
Via Mashable: Ustream has now made it possible for video chat items and status updates to be uploaded simultaneously to your Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and even AIM accounts (I didn't know anyone actually still used AIM anymore, but w/e).
Ustream just taken this concept to another level by launching what it calls Social Stream. The new feature allows you to sign-in to all three networks simultaneously, plus AIM, and have each chat message distributed to all of them. Further, the chat room will contain messages streaming in from all four platforms.
This means that if you’re watching Ochocinco or Soulja Boy on Ustream, now, you can have your chat messages show up on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and AIM. Thus, there’s potential for 4x the viralness of your typical live video with chat. It should be another big win for Ustream, who has seen its audience grow significantly in the past year as it taps into the growth of other social media sites.I know digg links the logins of your Facebook and Twitter, and although I haven't yet tried it, it seems pretty cool. I'm always down for 4x the OchoCinco.
Via Michelle Lentz: An explanation of Facebook's new redesign: The Live News Feed. Still not sure if I care about this but whatever. Oh and did you guys see that Facebook's other new suggestion redesign is actually suggesting you become friends with ex-lovers and the deceased? Yikes? Or maybe not, I dunno what you're into. Some people think it's brilliant tho...
Via ESPN: In case you missed it this week, Kansas City Chief's running back and apparent idiot tweeted some homophobic comments and insults directed at head coach Todd Haley...
And finally, since I absolutely love how social media connects us with professional athletes, especially those that are our same age...Via Kevin Durant: the Durantuala posts the link to his new BLOG. No sarcasm here, I love reading athletes over analysts (considering they are the actual people playing the games) and OKC are a young and exciting time. If you seriously think college basketball is still more exciting than the NBA...I pity you. Oh, and while you're there, check out the Hyperize commercial. Dare I say Genius?
"I BELIEVE IN THE INTERNET ABOVE! I believe in the righteous, I believe in love. I BELIEVE IN THE FIRE BURNING IN MY SOUL. I BELIEVE THAT INTERNET'S LIGHT IS GONNA MAKE ME WHOLE!"
"If you want it, Internets got it..."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Internets Are Helping Our Brains
I have never believed that things like television and the internet turn people's brains to mush. The notion of the idea is ignorant and simply propelled by skepticism of change. Now, I may finally have proof:
Yesterday, Mashable reported on a UCLA study that essentially shows that internet use can increase brain activity.
The study, which was originally reported by Fox News showed that groups of people with little internet usage, "were able to change their brain activity patterns and increase function after just 7 days of one hour sessions searching the web."
In the end, the study concluded that:
Researchers are now hoping to make their findings more conclusive by testing younger subjects.
So what do we know, and is this social media related? Do we care?
Certainly we care, as should everyone, and specifically those in the profession of educating others. It is almost unbelievable that there are some out there who still believe all TV is bad for you, and the internet does not help in the learning process. Baffling really.
If nothing else, the internet is the best teaching tool to be introduced to society within the last 50 years. The absolute access to information and interactive nature of the web, not to mention the fact that prominent internet relevance and understanding resides in the abilities to read and write at a proficient level drive its ever increasing use, represent the significant evidence for my claim, if not the only evidence/reasoning needed.
The Fox News story explained that as the brain ages, "A number of structural and functional changes occur, including atrophy, or decay, reductions in cell activity and increases in complex things like deposits of amyloid plaques and tau tangles
This is where social media fits in. So the internet helps increase brain activity. Know what else helps people learn? Doing tasks and interacting with the processes they are being taught. What is social media? In a word, it's INTERACTION.
Some people write dumb Facebook status updates. Some people tweet stupid things. But ultimately they generate user interactions and topics/mediums for discussion. And what is discussion? Another learning tool. And if we want to go even deeper, discussion should be the end-all be all goal of any opinion-based journalist/opinion-based journalistic endeavor. Why? Because they are opinions! And opinions should be debated and discussed and analyzed and researched and ultimately understood and incorporated into our collective knowledge or revealed as ill-advised and without sufficient evidence and thus discarded.
Today, Mashable reported that 19% of internet users now post or read status updates. As concluded by the Pew Internet and American Life Project:
THUS, INCREASINGLY, PEOPLE ARE GENERATING DEBATES, DISCUSSIONS AND FORUMS FOR CONVERSATION. ALL OF WHICH WHETHER SOMETIMES NEGATIVE AND HOPEFULLY MOSTLY POSITIVE, GENERATE LEARNING ONLINE.
For some, it probably seems like common sense. (And by some, I mean my generation). For others, they may still dispute or argue that pointless posts generate pointless learning or no learning at all. If nothing else, the evidence is beginning to accumulate.
People will just have to do what they always should have been doing. Find the information and generate their opinions/decisions themselves.
-Nate
Yesterday, Mashable reported on a UCLA study that essentially shows that internet use can increase brain activity.
The study, which was originally reported by Fox News showed that groups of people with little internet usage, "were able to change their brain activity patterns and increase function after just 7 days of one hour sessions searching the web."
In the end, the study concluded that:
“The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults.”
Researchers are now hoping to make their findings more conclusive by testing younger subjects.
So what do we know, and is this social media related? Do we care?
Certainly we care, as should everyone, and specifically those in the profession of educating others. It is almost unbelievable that there are some out there who still believe all TV is bad for you, and the internet does not help in the learning process. Baffling really.
If nothing else, the internet is the best teaching tool to be introduced to society within the last 50 years. The absolute access to information and interactive nature of the web, not to mention the fact that prominent internet relevance and understanding resides in the abilities to read and write at a proficient level drive its ever increasing use, represent the significant evidence for my claim, if not the only evidence/reasoning needed.
The Fox News story explained that as the brain ages, "A number of structural and functional changes occur, including atrophy, or decay, reductions in cell activity and increases in complex things like deposits of amyloid plaques and tau tangles
"Research has shown that mental stimulation similar to the stimulation that occurs in individuals who frequently use the Internet may affect the efficiency of cognitive processing and alter the way the brain encodes new information."
This is where social media fits in. So the internet helps increase brain activity. Know what else helps people learn? Doing tasks and interacting with the processes they are being taught. What is social media? In a word, it's INTERACTION.
Some people write dumb Facebook status updates. Some people tweet stupid things. But ultimately they generate user interactions and topics/mediums for discussion. And what is discussion? Another learning tool. And if we want to go even deeper, discussion should be the end-all be all goal of any opinion-based journalist/opinion-based journalistic endeavor. Why? Because they are opinions! And opinions should be debated and discussed and analyzed and researched and ultimately understood and incorporated into our collective knowledge or revealed as ill-advised and without sufficient evidence and thus discarded.
Today, Mashable reported that 19% of internet users now post or read status updates. As concluded by the Pew Internet and American Life Project:
"the 11% number has skyrocketed to 19% in less than a year, which means that now almost 1/5 of the entire online population publish or read status updates on sites like Twitter"
THUS, INCREASINGLY, PEOPLE ARE GENERATING DEBATES, DISCUSSIONS AND FORUMS FOR CONVERSATION. ALL OF WHICH WHETHER SOMETIMES NEGATIVE AND HOPEFULLY MOSTLY POSITIVE, GENERATE LEARNING ONLINE.
For some, it probably seems like common sense. (And by some, I mean my generation). For others, they may still dispute or argue that pointless posts generate pointless learning or no learning at all. If nothing else, the evidence is beginning to accumulate.
People will just have to do what they always should have been doing. Find the information and generate their opinions/decisions themselves.
-Nate
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Our Internets Are Alive! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
Your internets are alive! Ah!
What the F*** does that mean? No idea.
So this blog ehh.... what's it about? Social Media.
What the F*** is Social Media? Who knows.
Do you use Facebook or Twitter? Do you post status updates, news items or your plans for the evening? Yea? Then in a way, you are participating in social media.
Wikipedia defines Social Media as:
So what is my point in all of this? To comment, analyze, make-fun of, champion and provide access to examples, definitions, sites, users and other such things relating to this "social media" thing.
In all serious though, this blog is meant to be somewhat of an information dump and a place for me to rant and rave about all things social media. From the speed at which Kanye West's treatment of Taylor Swift at the VMA's found itself posted online by gobs youtube, facebook, digg and twitter users to the daily updates posted by sites like Mashable to any of my own social media-esque posts.
This seems like a decent enough introduction. Look forward to frequent posts and updates.
Lates,
Nate
What the F*** does that mean? No idea.
So this blog ehh.... what's it about? Social Media.
What the F*** is Social Media? Who knows.
Do you use Facebook or Twitter? Do you post status updates, news items or your plans for the evening? Yea? Then in a way, you are participating in social media.
Wikipedia defines Social Media as:
"Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers."For further reference, check out the web results for "social media definition" on Google, HERE.
So what is my point in all of this? To comment, analyze, make-fun of, champion and provide access to examples, definitions, sites, users and other such things relating to this "social media" thing.
In all serious though, this blog is meant to be somewhat of an information dump and a place for me to rant and rave about all things social media. From the speed at which Kanye West's treatment of Taylor Swift at the VMA's found itself posted online by gobs youtube, facebook, digg and twitter users to the daily updates posted by sites like Mashable to any of my own social media-esque posts.
This seems like a decent enough introduction. Look forward to frequent posts and updates.
Lates,
Nate
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