BG shooting and Xanga

Yesterday there was a shooting in Bowling Green involving a police officer. He shot and killed someone. I heard about it so I Googled it. It had happened so recently that there were no formal reports about it but I found that a lot of people from Bowling Green were tweeting about it. I clicked "latest" news and thats how I found out more information, peoples tweets popped up. Social Media helps get news out extremely fast. People tweeted about it literally 15 minutes after the incident.

My friend and I were just talking about blogs and xanga came up. When I was in middle school all my friends and I had xangas. It was a blog. I tried to find my old account but I couldn't. We found out in our promotion project that blogs take a while to catch on but it didn't seem like back in the day it was very hard. All my friends and I were connected through our blogs. I just think its a generational thing. At the time having a xanga was the cool thing to do but now there isn't one central blog website that everyone has to post through.

StumbleUpon

So I got the idea of what StumbleUpon was all about in class but my friends boyfriend kept talking about how he spent hours "stumbling" and how he was so distracted by it. So I asked him to show me a little more about it. Well now I have been "stumbling" and 30 minutes and am still very entertained! It is so neat that a website can help you find things that you are interested in even though you hardly give details about your specific interests. Just thought I would add a little more information about my StumbleUpon knowledge from my previous posts about it.

BGFEST

This weekend was supposed to be BGSU's attempt to throw its first "fest." A few guys started a Facebook event a while ago to try to get people interested and to participate in the event. There was around 4,000 people confirmed that they were going to be taking part in the eventful weekend. They reached a large amount of people by using social media alone. There were said to be a ton of cops out all weekend and the liquor patrol as well. The weather was awful so I think that had something to do with its failure but in the BG newspaper today it said there weren't any more arrests than any other weekend. I never really look at the Blotter but I did today just to see if there were a lot of people getting in trouble. I thought there seemed to be more people that got in trouble but I'm not all that sure how many people get arrested on a normal weekend. If the weather was nicer I bet a lot more people would have been out and there would have been a significant amount of arrests but unfortunately it was cold and rainy all weekend. Guess BGSU isn't cut out for such huge parties like Ohio University.

Also the Red Wings are leading the series 2-0 right now :) and the other night before the game an octopus was thrown on the ice! Turned out to be good luck as usual.

Our event that we are promoting, Fli Life Entertainments 3rd annual basketball tournament was pushed back a week because of the cold weather. It is still on for next weekend so hopefully the weather is a little bit nicer and we get a good turn out!

NHL playoffs - GO WINGS

The NHL playoffs kick off this week. Even though there aren't that many people who are big hockey fans this is my favorite time of the year. I have grown up around hockey and my dad was always a Detroit Red Wings fan. My favorite player growing up was Brendan Shanahan, he was the assistant captain and #14. Shanahan is the only player in NHL history with over 600 goals and 2,000 penalty minutes. He has since retired but is still very active in the NHL.

Not all of the regular season games are on television but around playoff season they all get broadcasted. The Red Wings will be taking on the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round. The wings have won the most Stanley Cups of all the teams in the NHL and hopefully this year they can bring home another one! It used to be a tradition to throw an actual octopus on the ice during playoffs for good luck. However it has since been looked down upon and it doesn't happen often anymore. The Red Wings typically do very well in the playoffs and if they do get knocked out my only hope is that the Pittsburg Penguins don't win the cup this year! The first game in round one for Detroit is set for Wednesday April 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Man got jumped in bg?

Friday night/Saturday morning apparently 5 people reportedly got jumped and beat up. One guy was left on the street unconscious and was flown to Toledo hospital where he was on life support for a while. Here is a link to the article ABCnews wrote about the incident.. Man survives brutal attack at Bowling Green bar

When I think of Bowling Green I never think about people getting beat up but I think it happens more often than we think. Since I have gone to school here three of my friends have been jumped. It's not as safe as everyone thinks. Even a 23 year old man isn't safe. After I go out my friends and I always walk home, after hearing how brutally these people were beat up it makes me a little hesitant to walk home with just a group of girls.

The Social Network

The Oscars were this past Sunday. I didn't catch all of the awards show but I was curious as to how the movie "The Social Network" did. This is an article I found on Mashable about the results.
The Social Network

I watched the movie Monday night and I wasn't that impressed by it. Although it was interesting to see how it all came about and that it wasn't targeted towards anyone else but Harvard students. It was supposed to be an exclusive website. It is crazy that people are that smart to be able to hack into Harvards data base, especially drinking the whole time. The idea definately grew fast and became an ultimate success. The story line was sad, Zuckerburg, the creater of Facecook, was taken advantage of and ultimately screwed himself over. He is still a successful business man but he had a rough time finding his way.

Findlay Flood 2011

These are videos of my hometown from Monday February 28, 2011. This is the third really bad flood since August 2007. The blanchard river, which is what over flows and causes the flooding, runs through a valley in my backyard. Luckily this time we didn't get water in our house but the other two floods we had 4 feet of water in our basement.

ABC news

Findlay Flood 2011

StumbleUpon and Digg

I had never heard of these two sites but they are both kind of similar. I think that StumbleUpon is a little bit easier to use. All I did when I logged on was "check" a category I was interested in and a few websites came up about that subject. If a company needs help researching a certain topic this site can come up with websites that relate and are relevant. It can also be used to search your company and see what other people are saying about you. Its fast, quick and easy. Another thing I liked about both of these website was that you could log in through Facebook, Twitter or Google. This made it easier to log in and you don't have to remember as many user names and passwords. On Digg you can share websites that you chose to follow with people that you are Facebook friends as well.

Also, I found that the people I'm following all write different amounts but all the content if pretty much the same as far as how the things we are learning about can benefit a small firm. All the blogs are easy to read and most have cool backgrounds.

Goalie Fight

This was a fight between the New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins goalies on February 2, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0G3Jft1KXQ

TinyURL and LinkedIn

A firm could use TinyURL to make their companies website easier for people to remember. You can take a long website and cut it down to a few simple words, which could make a more direct connection to what your company name is so that people don't have to type in a long web address.
LinkedIn is a business oriented social networking website. It can used by professionals in a firm to connect and stay in touch with other people. You can create business connections with people on this website and post job opportunities and look at potential employees.

YouTube Video example

flilife can put videos like this one on youtube to help promote events like basketball tournaments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pllRI0PTzMU

Wikipedia, YouTube and Delicious

Most people have heard of Wikipedia and YouTube but not as many are familiar with Delicious. Wikipedia is a "free encyclopedia" that anyone can create a topic and edit the information. Many times when you "google" something the Wikipedia link is usually on the first page. I use Wikipedia often to learn random information, although the information is not necessarily correct. Anyone can edit the information and usually if it is incorrect information it is corrected fast. A firm can create a page to put information about the company so that people can learn about it. It is a free and easy way to market.
YouTube is a website that people can post videos on for the public to view. A firm can post videos about their company to promote the firm. This is a more interactive way to advertise and a lot more entertaining than reading a dry, boring article.  If a video sparks peoples interest and many people view it, it could end up on the front page of the website or in the "most popular" link. This is even better for the firm because then more people will be exposed to it and learn about the firm.
Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows you to tag, save and manage different websites on the web instead of only on one computer. The more people tag and save a certain website, that site ends up on the front page of the website or most popular under a certain topic. A firm can become recognized if more and more people tag their site.

Social Media Tools

Three good examples of how a small firm can use Business Week, business.twitter and Technorati would be that they are public blogs that can be used to advertise and promote a small firm. Anyone can read the information for free. They can be constantly updated and accessed by the small firm so most of the information would be current.

Three bad examples of how a small firm uses social media tools is that since it is a public blog anyone can create a blog and speak their mind; this could negatively affect the small firm. People can also create fake blogs that don’t represent the firm. There are also a lot of small business firms trying to get their name out there by blogging so it is harder for them to make their sites individualized.

Twitter, Facebook, Blogging

Facebook, twitter and blogging are all social networks that can help promote small businesses. Facebook can be used to advertise for different companies. A company can create a facebook page to promote their business.  Famous people can "make a tweet" about a business to help promote it. People can mention businesses in blog posts that help promote their small business.