I thought more about what I said about how I thought the Internet could serve as a helpful tool in spreading the word about my experiences in Juarez. Interesting enough, I found a particular blog that directly coincided with the issues surrounding poverty. I thought that the people I met in Juarez would benefit greatly from what the Internet has to offer. They could gain so much knowledge from just one tool. It still strikes me to think about the digital divide where not everyone may have access to the Internet, let alone a computer. Going to Juarez and applying the digital divide to my particular situation was very eye opening. There are many benefits to being on a college campus, and having access to a computer with the Internet is one of them. However, this advantage has allowed me to take this for granted.
The Internet is a valuable tool to keep individuals informed about not only how the power of the Internet can spread awareness, but how blogs can be a part of this whole spreading awareness idea. Blogs are becoming an essential tool for voicing opinion about endless topics.
This blog is pretty simple, but links to interesting worldwide stories about poverty...countless I suppose.
http://povertynewsblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/advocates-seek-help-for-poor.html
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Juarez and the Internet
After a recent return from my spring break trip to Juarez, Mexico, I have experienced a reality check. Most of the population in Juarez has been left behind by their own government, in which they have scarce resources, making it very hard to survive. Challenges include femicides (murdering of women) on the border, globalization or imperialism, land wars, etc.. However, applying the whole concept of my concentration (CMC) to their economic situations partly leaves me with hope. After spending time in Juarez, I realize what a powerful tool the Internet can be. I look to the Internet now as a resource to help spread awareness and outreach about the challenges the people of Juarez face...
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Digital Promotion in Travel
Video-share sites for travelers
Story Highlights
Video-share Web sites specifically targeting travelers are springing up
Travelistic gives an embed code for most postings, so others can post the clip
Revver pays users half the revenue it makes from ads on their submissions
By Steve Friess
(Budget Travel) -- Hard as it may be for anyone under 30 to imagine, there was a time when people used to shoot eight-millimeter films while on vacation and then show them to friends and family gathered around a projector in the living room. Nowadays, capturing video is far easier (whether you use a video camera, a digital still camera with video capability or even a cell phone), as is the sharing: YouTube has proved that millions of folks have learned to upload video to a computer and instantly e-mail a link to family and friends.
Whether you use a video camera, a digital still camera with video capability, or even a cell phone, capturing video has never been easier.
While YouTube remains a popular venue for sharing vacation videos, Web sites specifically targeting travelers are also springing up. The quality of the applications and usefulness of the content, however, vary greatly. We tested four to see which are easiest, which have bugs to work out and which can even help you offset your travel costs.
Travelistic
For anyone just getting the hang of online video sharing, no-frills Travelistic -- founded by veterans of Condé Nast, iFilm and MTV -- is a good start. Before you upload a video, Travelistic directs you through a simple registration process and asks you to write a short description of your clip. When the video is posted, you can e-mail friends to tell them to watch it. You can also create a profile page to list your videos, add links to other people's clips and indicate on a world map where you've been and where you'd like to go.
Cool: Similar to YouTube, Travelistic gives an embed code for most postings, allowing anyone on the Internet to add the clip to his or her own Web site or blog. Likewise, YouTube videos can be embedded into Travelistic.
Not cool: No registration is required to leave comments on other people's videos, leading to spam. Travelistic also doesn't restrict who can post videos, so some material on the site comes from tourism promoters.
Upload time: Painfully slow at 20 minutes.*
Don't Miss
In Depth: Travel Companion
BudgetTravel.com: 9 hotels you won't believe
BudgetTravel.com: How to take better sunset photos
BudgetTravel.com: 15 places every kid should see
Revver
Revver is a general-interest video-sharing site with a category devoted to travel clips. Its process for uploading a video is similar to Travelistic's, but the personal "dashboard" is much more sophisticated. You can collect friends, à la Facebook, and add other people's videos to your playlist (a compilation of favorite clips). There are also more ways to share your videos: The site allows you to use embed codes to link your videos to social-networking sites, and your friends can download the clips as podcasts in iTunes.
Cool: The site affixes small advertisements to the bottom of every video, usually promoting something germane. (For example, an ad for a Miami hotel is attached to a home movie of Miami Beach.) Revver then pays you half the revenue it makes from the video ads -- the total depends on how many people view the ads or click on them. You can track how much you've made in your dashboard, and you're automatically paid through PayPal once you've earned at least $20. Earnings can be substantial. The creators of an extremely popular Diet Coke and Mentos video on the site have made $50,000.
Not cool: Editors screen all of the videos to ensure that no obscene or copyrighted material will be posted to the site -- the process can take several hours or even a day. If your video has more than 10 seconds of a Beyoncé song in the background, for instance, the editors could consider it a copyright violation and block the clip's posting.
Upload time: Five minutes.
Tripfilms
Founded by four friends in New York City, including former IgoUgo chief executive Tony Cheng, Tripfilms is geared toward people who think of themselves as filmmakers, professional or otherwise, with higher-quality and more informative clips than those on other video-sharing sites. But that shouldn't deter the novice videographer; Tripfilms's videos may be slicker than those on other Web sites, but the site isn't necessarily more exclusive. The staff posts all videos submitted by users unless the clips are offensive. There are also tips on producing better videos, such as finding an opening or closing shot and writing a more natural script.
Cool: The site has a Film Your Trip program in which people pitch ideas for video travel stories to the editors and -- if their ideas are accepted -- are paid at least $50 for each clip they produce. If you ask, the staff may edit your video to make it look more professional or give advice on how to do it yourself. The site also occasionally gives away an iPod Nano to the creators of the top videos.
Not cool: Tripfilms is less than a year old, so traffic is low. There are just 700 videos on the site; only a handful have more than a few thousand viewings.
Upload time: Six minutes.
Zoom And Go
Zoom And Go sees itself as a combination of TripAdvisor and YouTube. The site allows users to not only upload videos and photos, but also to write reviews for hotels, destinations and attractions, and to search for hotels in certain cities. Navigating the site, however, can be slightly problematic. When you click on a city like London, for instance, you can add it to your Trip Planner, but that just creates a list of bookmarked places -- there's no actual planning function yet. The site also has a tool to check hotel availability, but clicking on the link to book the room in both Firefox and Safari led to an error page.
Cool: Zoom And Go doesn't attach ads to videos, but it's launching a system that'll award points for every video, photo and review posted on the site. The points will then be redeemable for money that'll go to the charity of the user's choice. Videos will be worth 30 points apiece; every 100 points accrued will earn $1. The editors also say that all content is provided by actual travelers, not tourism promoters.
Not cool: Although Zoom And Go claims to have the largest collection of travel videos on the Internet (more than 14,000), the clips are rarely longer than a minute, providing just a cursory glimpse of a hotel lobby or a tourist destination.
Story Highlights
Video-share Web sites specifically targeting travelers are springing up
Travelistic gives an embed code for most postings, so others can post the clip
Revver pays users half the revenue it makes from ads on their submissions
By Steve Friess
(Budget Travel) -- Hard as it may be for anyone under 30 to imagine, there was a time when people used to shoot eight-millimeter films while on vacation and then show them to friends and family gathered around a projector in the living room. Nowadays, capturing video is far easier (whether you use a video camera, a digital still camera with video capability or even a cell phone), as is the sharing: YouTube has proved that millions of folks have learned to upload video to a computer and instantly e-mail a link to family and friends.
Whether you use a video camera, a digital still camera with video capability, or even a cell phone, capturing video has never been easier.
While YouTube remains a popular venue for sharing vacation videos, Web sites specifically targeting travelers are also springing up. The quality of the applications and usefulness of the content, however, vary greatly. We tested four to see which are easiest, which have bugs to work out and which can even help you offset your travel costs.
Travelistic
For anyone just getting the hang of online video sharing, no-frills Travelistic -- founded by veterans of Condé Nast, iFilm and MTV -- is a good start. Before you upload a video, Travelistic directs you through a simple registration process and asks you to write a short description of your clip. When the video is posted, you can e-mail friends to tell them to watch it. You can also create a profile page to list your videos, add links to other people's clips and indicate on a world map where you've been and where you'd like to go.
Cool: Similar to YouTube, Travelistic gives an embed code for most postings, allowing anyone on the Internet to add the clip to his or her own Web site or blog. Likewise, YouTube videos can be embedded into Travelistic.
Not cool: No registration is required to leave comments on other people's videos, leading to spam. Travelistic also doesn't restrict who can post videos, so some material on the site comes from tourism promoters.
Upload time: Painfully slow at 20 minutes.*
Don't Miss
In Depth: Travel Companion
BudgetTravel.com: 9 hotels you won't believe
BudgetTravel.com: How to take better sunset photos
BudgetTravel.com: 15 places every kid should see
Revver
Revver is a general-interest video-sharing site with a category devoted to travel clips. Its process for uploading a video is similar to Travelistic's, but the personal "dashboard" is much more sophisticated. You can collect friends, à la Facebook, and add other people's videos to your playlist (a compilation of favorite clips). There are also more ways to share your videos: The site allows you to use embed codes to link your videos to social-networking sites, and your friends can download the clips as podcasts in iTunes.
Cool: The site affixes small advertisements to the bottom of every video, usually promoting something germane. (For example, an ad for a Miami hotel is attached to a home movie of Miami Beach.) Revver then pays you half the revenue it makes from the video ads -- the total depends on how many people view the ads or click on them. You can track how much you've made in your dashboard, and you're automatically paid through PayPal once you've earned at least $20. Earnings can be substantial. The creators of an extremely popular Diet Coke and Mentos video on the site have made $50,000.
Not cool: Editors screen all of the videos to ensure that no obscene or copyrighted material will be posted to the site -- the process can take several hours or even a day. If your video has more than 10 seconds of a Beyoncé song in the background, for instance, the editors could consider it a copyright violation and block the clip's posting.
Upload time: Five minutes.
Tripfilms
Founded by four friends in New York City, including former IgoUgo chief executive Tony Cheng, Tripfilms is geared toward people who think of themselves as filmmakers, professional or otherwise, with higher-quality and more informative clips than those on other video-sharing sites. But that shouldn't deter the novice videographer; Tripfilms's videos may be slicker than those on other Web sites, but the site isn't necessarily more exclusive. The staff posts all videos submitted by users unless the clips are offensive. There are also tips on producing better videos, such as finding an opening or closing shot and writing a more natural script.
Cool: The site has a Film Your Trip program in which people pitch ideas for video travel stories to the editors and -- if their ideas are accepted -- are paid at least $50 for each clip they produce. If you ask, the staff may edit your video to make it look more professional or give advice on how to do it yourself. The site also occasionally gives away an iPod Nano to the creators of the top videos.
Not cool: Tripfilms is less than a year old, so traffic is low. There are just 700 videos on the site; only a handful have more than a few thousand viewings.
Upload time: Six minutes.
Zoom And Go
Zoom And Go sees itself as a combination of TripAdvisor and YouTube. The site allows users to not only upload videos and photos, but also to write reviews for hotels, destinations and attractions, and to search for hotels in certain cities. Navigating the site, however, can be slightly problematic. When you click on a city like London, for instance, you can add it to your Trip Planner, but that just creates a list of bookmarked places -- there's no actual planning function yet. The site also has a tool to check hotel availability, but clicking on the link to book the room in both Firefox and Safari led to an error page.
Cool: Zoom And Go doesn't attach ads to videos, but it's launching a system that'll award points for every video, photo and review posted on the site. The points will then be redeemable for money that'll go to the charity of the user's choice. Videos will be worth 30 points apiece; every 100 points accrued will earn $1. The editors also say that all content is provided by actual travelers, not tourism promoters.
Not cool: Although Zoom And Go claims to have the largest collection of travel videos on the Internet (more than 14,000), the clips are rarely longer than a minute, providing just a cursory glimpse of a hotel lobby or a tourist destination.
Monday, March 3, 2008
373
Hello Everyone!
I am new to this whole blogging idea, and eager to communicate with others who are interested in my field of work, post college. Please feel free to stop by whenever your in the mood for just browsing around! I expect to be making comments/responses on my blog about topics covered in my Digital Promotion Management class...:)
Adriana
I am new to this whole blogging idea, and eager to communicate with others who are interested in my field of work, post college. Please feel free to stop by whenever your in the mood for just browsing around! I expect to be making comments/responses on my blog about topics covered in my Digital Promotion Management class...:)
Adriana
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