Apps

I had a lot of fun reading about a lot of different apps that are available to download. I have an iPhone and I love it, but I am a very basic iPhone user.  I mainly text and call, I don't have very many apps, and the apps I do have are the basic apps that everyone has.  I found most of my apps on the "top 10 free" list in the app store.  I obviously don't put a lot of time or effort into my apps, so that is why I found "Top iPhone Applications" interesting.  It explained all of the useful and most popular apps, the article talks about an app called Instapaper, I thought it sounded so simple yet really cool and useful.  I often times will find an article that I want to read but have homework to do or need to go to work, what this app does is stores all articles, that you want to read later, in one spot. If you are on your computer and you find an article you can send it to your phone and store it with this app, so if you are standing in a long line you are able to pull it up on your phone. 
I found a video online, highlighting a couple new cool apps.  The app that I ended up downloading is called Vivo Need to focus?  It is a super simple app, the only purpose it has is to refocus you.  All you do is set a timer for 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30 minutes then turn it on.  After that an alarm will go off telling you to refocus on what you should be doing.  Because I am just as guilty as the next person of getting on Facebook "really fast" and then 45 minutes later I am still looking around.  This app will definitely come in handing studying for finals!

Viral Videos

I have become a YouTube addict the past couple of months.  I have channels I am subscribed to and love watching the new videos that are uploaded.  I think viral videos are so cool, I am usually one of the last people to hear about a new viral videos, Im a little slow on the update, but when I do eventually find out about them I love watching them.
It took me awhile to get into YouTube and other video websites.  My brother and sister have always been way into it and would talk about all the videos they were watching, I would never know what they heck they were talking about so I figured I might as well check it out.  My dad started sending me emails from liveleak.com, he would watch a few videos every morning before he went to work and would send me the funniest or craziest videos, so I started going to liveleak every once in awhile.
I think its so cool that one video can spread like wildfire, and with in a few days or a week can have hundreds of thousands of views.  I would have never imagined that there would be an opportunity to make money off a short video, its like Americas Funniest Home Videos on steroids.

Search Engine Optimization

Off the bat I wasn't quite sure what search engine optimization was, but after doing a quick Google search I realized that I knew much more about it then I was expecting.  I am surprised by the amount of information that is available on the internet about search engine optimization.  I was able to find out the definition of SEO,  which according to searchengineland.com "is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” listings on search engines".  I was also able to learn about the pricing of SEO.  I then read about some basic tips about getting started with SEO.  I found the list on businessinsider.com, I really liked it because it was basic enough for a beginner to understand, but the information was relevant and it was useful.  The first step they talk about is, to monitor where you stand.  This means, to get familiar with your presence online, also they state that it is important to track where your visitors are coming from.  Another tip that I thought was very good was to link back to yourself.  The article goes on to say that it is crucial to use keywords when linking back to yourself, but you don't want to be excessive, to many links will drive customers away.

I think SEO is a cool concept, I really enjoyed learning more about it and realizing the importance of it.  I also think that if a company is able to do this well, they will increase their business by a lot.  It will be cool to look for SEO in the future, now that I am familiar with it, and see which companies are doing it well and utilizing it well, and also see which companies should work on their SEO or who is doing it to much.  

Management, Aggregators, Analytics, and Tracking

Surprise, surprise!  I didn't know a whole heck of a lot about this topic, I have had experience with these things but didn't realize it at the time.  For the sake of this blog post I will focus my research on aggregates.  I learned a lot about this topic and found out that I use aggregates almost everyday.  In the article What Are News Aggregators, and How Will They Change Public Relations? I learned that there are 6,000 unpaid bloggers, or news aggregators, working for the Huffington Post.  I found this very interesting because, first of all that is a lot of information coming from many sources.  Like the article said, that is a huge source of controversy, bloggers are able to contribute information that they find important and they can insert their opinion.  There are a lot of eyes that look at the Huffington Post's site everyday, allowing these 6,000 bloggers are able to get their opinions out to a large number number of people.  This article also used the example of Perez Hilton, I never would have thought of him as a news aggregate but it makes perfect sense.  He pulls news from other sources and delivers it to the public.  That is the easiest way, in my opinion, to remember what an aggregator is.

I also looked into tracking, I found this information to be very interesting.  I have noticed that when I google something, or am online shopping and look at something in particular, it appears in ads on the side of my screen or other places.  At first I thought it was a coincidence, but thankfully, I caught on an realized that my searches and what I was looking at online was being tracked.  An article on wsj.com talks a lot about a new way companies are tracking information, it is called a "Supercookie".  It would be interesting to learn more about this because it is causing some debate and controversy amongst companies and consumers. 

Legal, Policies, and Ethics

For this blog I am going to focus on online fraud.  According to howstuffworks.com "online fraud is one of the fastest growing crimes."  I remember when I was in junior high I got my first hotmail account.  I thought it was the coolest thing!  One day I checked my email and saw that I had been emailed by someone in Nigeria, I thought there was a mistake for sure!  But I read the email and the person was asking for my help with money they had.  They asked for my information and account information, saying that they would deposit millions in my bank for safe keeping and I would be payed a big chunk of the money.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever!  I went straight to my mom and told her we HAD to do it!  And she looked at me like I was crazy and proceeded to explain online fraud to me.  Since then I have had many of those emails and have come across other online frauds.  I have read about many people falling into the trap of these frauds and losing tons of money.  It has become such a big problem that the FBI now has a part of their website dedicated to avoiding online frauds/scams. 

I think that scammers will only get smarter and more resourceful in their ways.  People have to stay educated and up to date on the best ways to protect themselves from the online frauds.  The FBI's website has awesome tips on how to avoid being scammed and many of the different ways people have been scammed in the past.   

Collaborative and Distance Communication Platforms and Tools

I actually have some experience with this topic!  I have used Skype quite a bit and really like it.  I haven't used it much in the past couple months because of FaceTime on my iPhone.  They are both really fun, and are great ways to keep in touch with people.  I think that it makes online connection a lot more personal, because you are able to see the person you are communicating with.  I read an article on geek.com that talks about a robot called Botiful that you are able to control via Skype with bluetooth or a USB cable.  It is such a cool idea, there is a short video about Botiful on geek.com that explains it in detail.  I think it would be fun to have Botiful to play around with while using Skype.
An article on businessweek.com talks about a great use for Skype, Skyping a doctor!  According to the article there are not enough physicians in Georgia to serve the 1.9 million rural residents.  I think this is awesome, people are now able to access medical help via Skype within minutes, instead of the hours that they had to drive previously.  I think this technology is an asset and will be used in many more ways that I haven't thought of.  It will be interesting to watch this technology grow and change.

Blogging

I feel like I am behind when it comes to social media.  In my last post I talked about how little I knew about FourSquare and other platforms like it.  For this post I will be blogging about how inexperienced I am when it comes to blogging.  I have only had a blog because I have had classes that required it.  It was interesting for me to research more about it and read some tips on how to be a better blogger.
I started with the most basic question, "What is a blog?", after reading a short article on problogger.net I realized that a blog is simpler then I was thinking.  It really is just a chronological collection of a persons thoughts.  I personally made blogging much more complicated in my mind, for the longest time blogs were a little abstract and intimidating to me.  After reading the article it helped me to realize that a blog is nothing to be intimidated by!
I was also interested in some tips to create a blog that people will want to read. There are a ton of websites dedicated to tips on blogging.  One in particular was really cool, it had tips on how to customize your blog with different colors, videos, pictures, all sorts of different things.  It explained the difference between HTML and XHTML, there is a search bar that you can use to search any topic that you have a question about, and chances are this blog has the answer.  The blog is Tips For New Bloggers I learned a lot of cool new information about blogging from this blog.