Fish and Chicks

and

Cricket Spitting

Thank you!

Amanda Wulle,  Kelley Sheppard,  Erin Daugherty,  Sammy Sisk

On the home page, they have links to pertinent video with their headlines like the past couple days of Butler basketball and NCAA action have taken the main news headlines as well as the sports. The videos page is set up very similar to YouTube which is really helpful so people know where to look for different videos.

Their multimedia page is easy to navigate with search capabilities and even though they don’t have that many video you could easy try and find something you need. They have the page divided up into News (local and national), Sports, and Entertainment, which I think is very user friendly.

I really like how they have a on-going segment called the Bob’s 2 minute Bliz, which is the sports commentator, Bob Kravitz, little video clips of his thoughts on sports in Indiana.  I think it helps staple his column and the mark he’s made on the sports page to have him to a 2 minute video every week or so.

I don’t know much about video positioning but I have really never noticed any bad camera movement or to far off to one side and such. So as a little news organization out of Indy I think it good that they have video to show people that goes with their stories.

A preview of the Women’s Big Ten Championship!!!

Enjoy all!

I think they did a really good job as a Facebook fan page even without the designation of a journalist or organization. Since the Olympics started on Friday there have been many posts from fans and the administrator of the site.

Fans are out in full force showing their support for U.S.A in post like “Go USA! I love Apolo Ohno,Congrats! Bode Miller Congrats! and Shaun White! When do they do the half pipe?”, from a fan then under that the answer to the question.

They did a very good job of inviting comments from their status updates as well as keeping us updated on what is going on. Like “Hey Team USA Fans, on the third day of competition, the USA leads the medal count with six. There are six more medal events today. Where do you think the U.S. Team has the best chance to medal today? (ladies’ and men’s cross-country skiing, men’s alpine skiing, men’s snowboard cross, pairs figure skating or men’s speed skating)”

They comment on people’s pictures that are added to the site and are positive about all outcomes with Team U.S.A., and even encourage it by saying “If any of you are in Vancouver for the Games, don’t forget to come here and post your photos! Thanks!” They add picture from the games themselves like the Olympic Village Album showing all around the Vancouver’s Olympic Village.

One concern that they had to deal with was NBC’s coverage on the west coast. NBC is not providing live coverage for mountain and pacific coast time zones, even though that is the same region that Vancouver is in. So while the administrators were posting congratulations announcements in real time and live coverage for the east coast, west coast viewers were getting spoiled by the results so they issued this statement.
“For those concerned about real time comments – we have noted your concerns and will do our best to remain spoiler free. However, others are welcome to comment here and follow us on Twitter. View the wall at your discretion. Go USA!!”

So overall, I think they are doing a really good job of keeping fans updated and letting us know what is going on inside the sports and outside. They take the time to make comments on fans posts and also take into consideration critiques of the page.

I must admit I am not very active in the different christian organizations on campus. Though many of my friends are.  I really the idea of her going to different service and posting what each church is about. I know there are a lot of different types of churches all around the area, and each one has a distinctive personality.

I feel like there should be more interactivity so that people would be wanting to comment on her postings. Like maybe on the bottom of Music and Faith ask what music people feel life their faith in God and so on.  The one about University Church did and I really like her question.  “Do you already attend University Church? Feel free to post comments about upcoming U-Church events!”

I think another good idea would be going outside the Christan faith would be an interesting twist. Like going to an event at Hillel or another non-christian focused event and do a compare and contrast of similar Christian rituals.

Other than that, I thought the posts were easy to read and can offer many topics over the course of the semester.

I decided to follow a couple companies and the most interesting I would write about. This turned out to be Pepsi. Especially with this past weekend being the Super Bowl and Pepsi being a chief sponsor they have been busy this week but staying with Four Ways Social Media is Changing Business? to determine the benefits of the company tweeting online.

1. From “Trying to Sell” to “Making Connections”

I think they did a good job of trying to make connections by responding to their follower and re-tweeting compliments of the company. Simple things like someone was drinking the new Pepsi throwback used with real sugar to what a good job they are doing in the social media and the Pepsi refresh campaign. They are, in a way, still trying to sell but doing it, in such a way, they are making those connections. Making it seem less like a used-car salesman and more of a friend telling you to use the product.

2. From “Large Campaigns” to “Small Acts”

They have stepped away from the big commercial campaigns. They didn’t have any promotional commercials during the Super Bowl and if I hadn’t been following them on twitter wouldn’t have realized why. Instead of using money for commercial Pepsi decided that they would take the money and donate it to a charity where fans could vote. Here was the tweet: “NFL FANS: Which Super Bowl Pepsi grant project do you support? Drew Brees, DeMarcus Ware or Mark Sanchez? Vote now: http://bit.ly/aghzZx”  The fans chose Drew Brees’s charity and it received a hundred thousand dollars.

This is a great way to give back while still protecting their image and getting their name out in the news without the flash that is Super Bowl commercials. With such a politically correct and also environmentally aware society we live in this is an amazing opportunity for Pepsi to use their name to help in those causes.

3. From “Controlling Our Image” to “Being Ourselves”

With social media growing exponentially over the past few years Pepsi has taken steps to grow with it. They have created the Pepsi refresh campaign which goal is to create a community of people wanting to make the world a better place. They are looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact giving out $20 million a year for the winners. They have six categories in which people can apply for these grants.

4. From “Hard to Reach” to “Available Everywhere”

By the fact, that they are on twitter and creating connections with their followers makes them more accessible and available everywhere. On their background they even have ambassadors of Pepsi to follow as well as the Pepsi refresh campaign. Their bio states “Your direct line to the Pepsiverse. Currently serving: Ana and Rachel.” So one would think that makes them really available to giving advice and helping with problems should they arise.

Overall, I think Pepsi does a very good job of their tweet and relating their product to consumers. I found out a lot of new information that I hadn’t know before and I will continue to follow them to see if there is anything that might be good to know.

Before I went to the meeting, I thought that tweeting from an event would be really interesting and would be the future of how meeting and certain events could be covered. I don’t think so any more, especially when the use of technology could be an iffy situation.

At the beginning of the meeting we were told to turn off our cell phones, not just silence them but completely turn them off. I didn’t know what to do. I feel that this could happen in future opportunities where someone would want to use Twitter.

I really didn’t know what to do I was going to turn off my phone but then I didn’t know what would happen for the assignment if I did. I thought maybe I could just tweet after and take notes during the meeting, but that would be very similar to what a journalist would do. This was an exercise was supposed to show us how to update in real time. So my judgment lost out and I decided to tweet throughout the meeting.

Even though the meeting was quick I had many updates and I didn’t know if I was over doing it or not, but I still think there are many good things, as well as bad that are involved in tweeting a meeting.

Twitter gives instant attention to the issues the Board is discussing in real time. So if I could not attend the meeting it would be nice to know what was going on with out just looking at the minutes and not leaving everything out like an article would.

In print, people can get the whole scene of what is and what is not important instead of quick little snippets. A journalist can take time to pick details out. They can stick to certain points that are more pertinent to the readers than something that was just passed as a technicality.

For example, at the meeting the Board had to pass that they would pay their bills for the month. I would hope that my child’s school board would pay the bills but I do not need to know that in a newspaper article.

In any case, I would always go back to the newspaper as my definitive source of information, if I could not actually attend and Twitter would become more supplementary.

What are your thoughts on Twitter vs traditional news?