A Little Multimedia Flair.

"A website without multimedia is like a cupcake without icing: Functional but lacking" (Sniderman, 2010, para. 1)

Many of us "live" on the internet. Whether we are online to check a email or to connect on social media, we live in world that is dependent on the internet. As we search thousands of websites for information, at some point in time we come across some that are not maintained and others that are flat out dull. Who wants to visit websites with only text? Seems a little primitive with all of the perks that you can now add to a website.  If you own or maintain a website, it is imperative that you add some form of multimedia to your website. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, or video. Adding some form of multimedia will add a little "flair" to any website.


How does multimedia enhance our messaging?

Some of my favorite sites to visit on the web are vacation websites, especially islands. I want to know what the beach looks like and I want to know what my hotel offers. The more pictures the site has the better. Lately, I have been checking the web for great deals to Turks and Caicos.  Travelocity is a great place to start. They are a travel website that generally offers great deals on vacation destinations. If you visit their website, you can do searches on hotels, cruises and  entire vacation packages. That's great and all to have access to that type of information, but what if it was just that, information. What if that website had nothing but text, no images, no videos, no nothing. It would be pretty awful to look at. Even if did use colorful wording, the site would still be boring. Yes we process words, but we are also visual. We need visuals to drive home the point and get the senses going. Who would want to buy a hotel room without seeing what it looked like?  Would you want to stay in room that looked like this?      
 Image A

I know that I wouldn't. But if you go to Travelocity.com, you get great visual images like this:



Image B

Image C

   


 This is what multimedia does for a website. The messaging is more effective because you have added visuals. The viewer becomes more enticed because seeing images is much more effective than reading about them. You easily say something wonderful about image A especially if don't post pictures. On the other hand, if you truly care about your business and image, you know that effective messaging works best with images such as B and C.  It just makes more sense.

Are certain multimedia techniques more effective than others?

Well, that depends on the type of website that you own or maintain. I would say that if you are a news organization such as CNN or MSNBC, then you would want to not only have a news story, but be able to provide images or a video to make the message more effective. Take this video from CNN.com for example:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/2014/10/31/nr-bpr-miles-obrien-virgin-galactic-spaceshiptwo.cnn.html

This is a video of the crash seen involving Space Ship Two. In this case, having a website with just text could work because you are providing news details about an important story. You may not have  visuals at the time, but you at least have some facts to put a story together. Once you get images or video footage, these multimedia tools are very effective because you have now added visual imagery to enhance the story. Readers can not only read the story but they can see the story.  Images make the message more effective.

Overall, multimedia has great advantages depending on the message that you which to convey. Because we visual, it is definitely important to add images to enhance a website. This would absolutely get the message across. You can't smell things on a website, but you can see them.

Blog Best Practices

Are you ready for some football? That just happens to be my favorite sport to watch. I don' care if it is college or professional. I love football. That's not to say that I don't enjoy other sports, because I do. I also enjoy basketball and baseball. Football just happens to be my favorite. I would like to think that I have a vast knowledge of the history of football, as well as the rules and regulations. It's funny because when I talk about sports with guys, I tend to knock their socks off. Most guys are very impressed with my knowledge of football or sports in general. I find it funny. If you are passionate about a subject, why shouldn't you learn as much as you can. I love football enough to go out and buy books about the sport. I watch every Saturday and Sunday,  I play Madden and I also play Fantasy Football. For me, it is absolutely important that I stay up to date with the latest information about teams that I follow and the sport itself. I usually rely on news from my local paper or television station. Oddly enough, I find out about other sports related news trending on Facebook.

Recently, I was introduced to the art of blogging. I had considered starting my own blog page to talk about football, but didn't know how. I also didn't feel comfortable talking about football, fearing negative backlash, especially being that it is a male dominated sport. Plus, I really never visited blogs until recently. I never really understood the function of a blog but had always been encouraged to create and write one.

What I have learned is that as a blogger, in order to keep followers, you must be accurate. For me, I don't think that it really matters what kind of blog you have. Whether you are writing about raising kids or writing movie reviews, you owe to your followers to be accurate as well as responsible.

The blog that I chose to talk about is from the ESPN website. This blog covers all sports ranging from football to hockey. If you are a football fan like I am, the blog is broken down from different college conferences to  the different NFL divisions. I can go in and click on the blog that I am interested in.  I really like what I have seen so far with this blog. ESPN doesn't disappoint. I find that their blog writers are very knowledgeable and they are accurate in their reporting.  The great thing about ESPN is that it offers selection.  You can choose from any sport and read a blog about that sport or a particular player. I find that this blog has something for everyone. If you are a sports fan, then this is the blog site for you. Lastly, because the blog site is maintained by ESPN, I wouldn't expect anything less. ESPN has been delivering sports news for over 30 years through various outlets and I find them to very reputable. For me, its a no brainer that ESPN would have such a well written blog and that the information would be accurate and insightful.  I would recommend this blog to any sports fan. To check the EPSN blog out, visit  http://espn.go.com/espn/blogs.

Joe Paterno Press Release

                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                               


For Immediate Release


                         
                               Iconic  Penn State Joe Paterno Dead at 85

(State College, PA)  Very few coaches have made a name for themselves in the world of college football; Joe Paterno is one them. Having coached at Penn State University for over 60 years, Paterno will forever be synonymous with the university and college football.

On January 22, Joe Paterno passed away at the age of 85 from complications of lung cancer. Paterno's coaching legacy includes 37 bowl appearances with 24 wins, as well as 5 undefeated teams. In May 2006, Paterno was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame and later inducted in December 2007.
The 2009 season was Paterno's 44th as head coach  of the Nittany Lions, passing Amos Alonzo Stagg for the for the most years as head coach at a single institution in Division I. In that same year, he was named to Sporting News' list of the 50 greatest coaches of all time (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, college basketball, and college football). He is listed in position 13. 

Paterno is survived by his wife, Suzanne Pohland and his 5 children: Diana, Joseph Jr "Jay", Mary Kay, David, and Scott, all of whom graduated from Penn State.



^{FACEBOOK POST: Joe Pateno, former Head Coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions has passed away at age 85 after a long battle with lung cancer.  His coaching spanned over 60 years with Penn State. The later part of his career was tarnished with allegations of sexual abuse.}

Social Media Tools

Growing up, I remember watching The Jetsons thinking that that would be how the future would look. Who knew that some of the things that you saw on a cartoon would actually be used in modern day society.  For example, The Jetsons use of the video phone can be compared to what we know today as Skype. For years, society has found many different ways for a message to reach its audience.

I remember the first type of phone that I used, which was a rotary phone. You could not go anywhere with that phone unless you had a very long phone cord. It took forever to make a phone call because you had to wait for the rotary to complete its spin. Good thing there were only seven number to dial back then. After the rotary, came the cordless which I thought was the greatest thing ever. No longer would you have to lug that big rotary phone around. With the cordless, all you had to carry was the receiver. You could go anywhere in the house and outside as long as you stayed in range of the base.
Around the time that the cordless phone came out, we were also introduced to the car phone and pager. Society became more mobile. If you wanted to reach a person that was not at home, you could hit them on the hip (page them). In turn, the person would go to a phone and call you back.

Fast forward to 2014 and it seems like everyone has a cell phone. Even young children have cell phones. According to the website aids.gov, 45% of all adults in the U.S. own a smartphone. 80% of cell phone users send or receive text messages, 55% of cell phone owners use the internet on their phones and 50% of cell phone users send or receive email on their phones (aids.gov, 2013). Mobile users are able to send and receive messages through multiple outlets on their mobile device. Mobile users can also sign up for message alerts from different sources of interest. I receive text messages from my dentist to let me know that I have an upcoming appointment. I also get messages from my credit card company, and I get weather and Amber alerts. A message has huge reach on a mobile device because of the ability to text, access the internet and read an email.

Another way to get a message out is through blogging. A blog is a website with which allows a user to speak openly and candidly about any subject the blogger desires. A blog is usually very informal, however that depends on the blogger. There are many websites that offer blogging platforms such as Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr.  By the end of 2011, there were an estimated 181 million blogs worldwide. 71% of all bloggers say they blog to speak their minds and share their expertise (aids.gov, 2013). Blogging is very interactive. It allows for followers to leave comments to the blogger and the blogger can respond back. You can also direct people to follow your page. The more popular the page, the more likely it is that your message will be seen. Right now, my blog is only seen by about 25 people and because of the students in my class.  If I were to start my own personal blog about something that I really like football, I could ask all of my sports friends to check me out. I could share the link on other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

What is Twitter? Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to share information and connect with people and organizations that share the same interests.  According to aids.gov, 8% of U.S. Internet users use Twitter on a typical day, 20.6 million U.S. adults access Twitter at least once a month and there are over 177 million tweets sent every day. You can access Twitter via a mobile device, tablet or computer.  Because of the easy access that Twitter allows, a message(Tweet) will likely be seen instantly. Mobile devices allow for users to get notified when a tweet is posted or shared. The more followers a user has, the better the chance their message will be seen and shared. If you have a million follower, more that likely a good majority will see that messages. Things can get sticky with Twitter because there can be good and bad tweets. If an athlete throws a tantrum on Twitter about a bad call, teammates or coaching, that messaged can be retweeted by a follower causing more and more people to see that message. In other words, you have to be very careful and very responsible on Twitter.  There are good and bad messages that can reach an audience, so be mindful of what you post.

Please check out the links below:

www.blogger.com to go to Blogger.

www.twitter.com to go to Twitter.

                                                                      

Blogs. (2013). Aids.gov. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/blogs/

Mobile. (2013). Aids.gov. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/mobile/

Social Network Sites. (2013). Aids.gov. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://aids.gov/using-new-media/tools/social-network-sites/

Unrestricted Web Publishing

According to Nicholas C. Burbules, "....the Web is not an ordinary reference system; it poses some unique and, in many respects, unprecedented conditions that complicate the task of sorting out dependable from undependable information--and even complicates the notion that we have a clear sense of that distinction. Burbules is a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign with the Department of Educational Policy Studies.

For this weeks blog, my goal was to find an article from Time Magazine and challenge the validity of the sources referenced in the article. According to Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources, developing a keen sense of the credibility of sources, based on such clues as connection of author to the subject, audience, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence,  can also help you evaluate print and other types of sources.

The article I chose to challenge the validity of its sources was called U.N. Launches ‘Unprecedented’ Mission to Combat Ebola by Alexandra Sifferlin, again pulled from Time Magazine. The first thing that I decided to do was to find out some information about the author and her background. According to her profile on Time, she is a graduate from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. I also checked LinkedIn to see if her profile pulled up, and it did. According to LinkedIn, Sifferlin began her career as a journalist in 2009, working with several magazines, covering a variety of topics.

According the article, the UN has indicated that cases of Ebola hit 5,335. I did some additional research to see if there were any more figures regarding the outbreak. I found that a Bloomberg article indicates the according to the CDC ( U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the worst case scenario has the number of cases at 500,000. An article on CNN.com quotes their numbers from the World Heath Organization. The WHO indicates that across three regions, there are 909 confirmed cases and another 414 probable or suspected.

My original article from Time, indicates that the death toll from the Ebola virus has reached  2,622  in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea regions alone. The Bloomberg article has the death toll at 1,618, and this is according to the Emergency Operations Center. Lastly, the article on CNN. com has the toll at 729. That number is out of the 1323 confirmed or possibly infected. That number covers the regions of Sierra Leone and Liberia and Nigeria.

So, What did I find out? I found out that, although the numbers across all three articles differ, there is not much of a gap to raise a flag. Not only that, but the sources used in all three articles are for the most part are reliable and trustworthy. We are all familiar with the CDC, the UN as well as the World Heath Organization as they are the sources often used when it comes to heath related statistics.  I also learned that a little extra work makes a lot of difference when it comes to validating information.  Again, sources are more credible when there is a connection to the author of the subject, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence.

References

Chen, C., Greeley, B., & Gilblom, K. (2014, September 20). Ebola Worst-Case Scenario Has More Than 500,000 Cases - Yahoo Finance. Retrieved from http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebola-worst-case-scenario-more-040100868.html;_ylt=AwrTWfw7Gx5UK34ACRnQtDMD

Cullinane, S., & Thompson, N. (2014, September 18). Deadliest ever outbreak of Ebola virus: What to know - CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/ebola-virus-explainer/index.html

Sifferlin, A. (2014, September 18). U.N. Launches New Mission to Combat Ebola. Retrieved from http://time.com/3399532/united-nations-ebola-mission/

The Social Media In Me.

    When it comes to the world of social media, I would have to say that I learned what I know through trail and error. I started of on Myspace and then graduated to Facebook. I remember think how great Myspace because you could create your own page and have music playing once it was accessed.  The more features that were made available for to Myspace, the more my page evolved. Then I got wind of Facebook and in the beginning I thought what a drag the site was. It didn't have all the bells and whistles that Myspace had, and so I didn't really used Facebook that often. I started hearing about how Myspace was tailored for the teenage crowd and how Facebook was for a more mature audience, so I decided to leave Myspace and make the journey over to Facebook. 
    
    After my Facebook transition, I realized how much I really enjoyed my experience. I was able to reconnect with people that I had not seen in years. I found many of my old classmates ranging from elementary school to high school, old co-workers and even family. What I have learned about social media in general is that it is a great way to connect with people that you may not normally speak with on a day to day basis, but still want to have some type of connection to them. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram seem like sites that allow for a "laid back" style of social networking whereas LinkedIn allows for a more professional style of networking. The social media experience will vary from person to person depending,  on the wants and needs of the individual. I know many people that are not on Facebook, but are on LinkedIn because they want to be able to connect to the CEO's and Presidents of companies, and should an opportunity arise for employment, they would have a connection to reach out to.

    Here is why Facebook is beneficial for me. I am friends with people that I want to be friends with. I have my page, for the most part tailored to my needs. I follow certain media outlets as well as organizations that I like. When my friends comment on certain situations, especially media related, that they could be stating an opinion, or it could be that what they post is actually true. Facebook is often the way that I find out about the death of a well known figure, get updated on sports scores, or something extremely crazy that has happened in the world. Now Facebook is a great way to find out what's going on in the media, it is not my one and only outlet for news. I do follow certain news outlets such as CNN or MSNBC because I know that not everything that you read on social media is accurate. If something is posted and I don't believe in the validity of the information read, I will always check other sources for accuracy. There have been many times that I have re-posted articles without checking to see if the information was true, and I have been called out as well for doing so. 

    Social media should not be used as a way to obtain credible information unless the source is trusted and reliable. Social media is an outlet to connect with and share information with peers. Again, my experience with social media is to stay connected with people that I generally don't speak to on a daily basis. I know that anything that is posted by my friends on any social media site may or may not have validity and ultimately I am responsible for the content that I read and the message received.

What forms of new media do you use daily? How has new social media influenced your perspective of events? Are these positive or negative influences?

I must say that I am a Facebook-aholic. The first thing that I do when I get up in the morning after I do everything else that you do is check Facebook. I love being able to connect with my friends and family on a daily basis. When I am on Facebook, I feel like I am reading a book of stories. Someone is always posting about what is going on in their world, good or bad. In a way, it removes me form my own experiences, good or bad. I guess what I am really saying is that sometimes I can relate and other times I can't. I can say that I am enjoy staying connected to my Facebook family because under any other circumstance, I can't say that I would have reached out to so many of my friends in any other capacity. That's the great thing about social media itself. You are able to connect with so many people at any given time. The downside is that you are least likely to be as engaging with friends on social media as you would with those in your personal circle.  What social media does is takes away the ability to have much needed face to face interaction. Yes it's easy to post and respond to post, but I feel that you still lack the intimacy that face to face allows.

I don't really uses any of the other social media sites such as Twitter or Instagram, although I do have accounts with both, I am more into Facebook. Other sites that I enjoy are LinkedIn and Amazon. What I have noticed about my internet usage is that I don't really frequent websites to check the news. I go to AJC.com for local news, but not so much world news. Oddly enough, I do follow certain news feeds on Facebook. If anything is going on, it pops up on my timeline. I find that very convenient because if there is a story that I am interested in, I can click on the link and read that particular story.  So on my timeline, I might follow CNN and MSNBC.  I also may follow local news feeds as well. I may not go to a particular site, but I can still follow them on Facebook and get the same information. I really like that.

I would say that my experience with social media is pretty positive. The only thing that I dislike is the lack of intimacy. Social media can be very impersonal sometimes. I really enjoy that one on one time that I get with people in my personal circle. I also like being able to tailor my page to fit my personal needs. I can follow whom I want to follow and be friends with whomever, and it is all up to me.