YouTube in the Business World

Now-a-days business will do anything to get the word of their product or service out there. With social networking sites their job has been made a little easier. Small companies are often the first to adopt new technology because it’s an easier way to keep in touch with their employees, customers, and clients. Technology such as YouTube is an equalizer for small businesses because with big companies paying for all sorts of advertising is easy for them, but small companies have more of an issue with that. YouTube is free, and gets just as many, if not more, views than a larger companies advertising would. Advertising on YouTube can be good in many ways. It would cost little or no money, and get out to the public quicker than ordinary print advertising would. However, there are drawbacks of using YouTube as well. It’s not as professional and consumers might not take it as seriously if it’s advertised on YouTube; some might think it’s a scam. But in my opinion, YouTube can be a very good way to advertise for your company, just so long as you venture out and use other types of advertising, funding permitting of course.

Texting While Driving

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/02/11/outlawing-text-messaging-while-driving.html

According to this article, up to 16 states are trying to outlaw texting. Only 2 however have actually followed through at the moment. Roughly 20% of all people text while driving, and this number goes up to over 60% when looking at 18-24 year olds only.
Recently 5 girls died after colliding with a tractor trailer truck. They had just graduated high school.

“Mass. Senate votes to ban texting while driving”

The Mass Senate wanted to try and ban texting while driving to stop all the accidents that are caused by the distraction of texting. After years of similar bills the Senate voted for a budget amendment that would ban texting or reading texts while you are driving. They said “A lot of us who opposed this in the past realize that there’s a new generation of drivers who think it’s OK to text while they’re driving,”. Massachusetts is one of the twenty one states thinking about banning texting while driving. I’m thankful this passed so you can’t text while driving because this is was just another major distraction on the road which caused a number of accidents.

Link

Is Social Networking Bad For Your Children?

The article that I just read was about the “F” word, meaning facebook. Every teenager is asking the question is if they can use facebook! A lot of parents see the views differently. Some think you should allow them to socialize and learn new things online. Others believe you should not, but no one really knows the true answer. Four fathers MC Hammer, Chris Kelley, John Salley, and the articles writer were having a conversation at a “gathering” about using social networks and they all disagreed about how it should be dealt with. My opinion is that teenagers should be able to use social networking if they chose to do so; I say this because my mom let me use Social Networking Sites but she also watched what I was doing online.

Next up for E-Book Readers – Social Networking and Online Sharing - Wired

Everyone is familiar with new technology devices such as iPod Touch, Cell Phones, and Laptops. Everyone is familiar with social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. One new technology that is starting to grow in popularity is E-Book readers like Amazon's "Kindle" or Sony's "Reader". These devices are relatively small, lightweight, and are relatively easy to carry around. One thing that you wouldn't expect from a device that you can buy books from is the power to access social networking sites that people are familiar with. Will the developers say "this power can be used to discuss about books and news", the answer, probably "yes". Will that power be used for social networking just on the basis of book reviews and news, the answer, most likely "no". According to Wired.com and Forrester Research analyst, Sarah Rotman Epps, "Buying and reading books is an inherently social process and the lack of robust sharing capabilities on the (Amazon) Kindle is an obvious weakness that competitors will address,". Knowing this, many companies are currently in development of this type of social networking bridge. In my honest opinion, if you really have to be connected to these sites constantly from cell phone, to computer, and now to Kindle, your perspective on the try functions of devices become shadowed. Plus, the more portable you make the devices that run this type of software, the less options you will have in order to protect yourself online. For example, I cannot block a user on Facebook from my iPhone, but I can on my computer. Obviously, the phone is advanced enough to support the full web site through the internet browser application, but MySpace will always bring me to the mobile version and bug me about their less-protected application. How fun.

[Link]

Too Much Online Sharing May Haunt You, Study Warns

They call it a digital tattoo; you know when you post something on a social networking site and how everybody can see it? Yea, you're probably wondering what the hell a digital tattoo is. Well, it's when you post something like a personal picture or just personal information and everybody sees it and no matter if you try to delete it or not, it will always be there. That's kind of scary because what happens if you were just playing around with your friends and you didn't realize how personal the picture you posted was until the next day. For example, what happens if you took a picture of your car and it showed the license plate number? You already posted it on MySpace and some creep from Eastbumcrack found it and saved it to his computer and searched it and found you? Even though you deleted it the next day, that guy is still out there with your license plate number and all your information. Kind of scary right? Yea you never realized that a measly little picture could get you tracked but some middle aged creepa. In the article, the security firm revealed that nearly two-thirds of the people that surveyed had uploaded personal pictures, while 79 % had at least part of their address online and nearly half had their cell phone numbers online. One in ten also admitted to have uploaded their bank details somewhere on the Web outside of online shopping sites and one in 20 have uploaded their passport number. But what makes this all worse is that, colleges and jobs now look at your MySpace and Facebook and see what kind of person you really are. So now it really makes you think twice about what you post.

 

Article

Home Crafts get wired

The article is about a woman, named Alison Lewis, who makes “comfy” technology if I may call it that. She makes pillows that light up when you sit on them, teacup that project movies on an LCD screen, and birds that flap their wings when you walk in the room. I think this is completely amazing, just to take a bunch of small things and make something so different. She doesn’t have a job right now so she hopes to get a job working in technology. If you would like to find out more she has her own blog about all her different technologies. You should go check it out. http://iheartswitch.com/.