March 2010 Archive

Here at RFI, we believe that social media is a wonderful thing.  It connects us, entertains us, mobilizes us, educates us, sells products to us, gets us into college, and opens up new worlds and opportunities to us.  The other side of the social media coin, however, can be extremely dark.  We’ve long known that criminals can make use of the web’s broad reach to break into bank accounts, prey on young children, and otherwise perpetrate crimes from behind the anonymity of the internet.  But in recent years, as the web gets more and more social, and as young students have fewer and fewer restrictions online, cyberbullying is proving to be a new and insidious danger.

The most recent example is the tragic case of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old high school freshman from South Hadley, Massachusetts, who committed suicide in January after months of verbal and physical abuse from a group of schoolmates.  An attractive “new girl” who had recently moved with her mother and sister from Ireland, Phoebe is said to have aroused the ire of other students by briefly dating a popular senior football player, thus presumably stepping out of her prescribed social position.  Some of the bullying took classic forms: Phoebe’s classmates shunned her, called her names, and, during the last hours of her life, threw a Red Bull can at her from the window of a moving car.  Other forms of abuse took a more modern twist: Phoebe was allegedly subjected to expletive-laden text and Facebook messages insulting her and threatening her with physical harm on a several-times-daily basis.

Phoebe Prince

Are tragedies like Phoebe’s unavoidable byproducts of a culture in which all of us have unbridled access to one another via digital media 24-hours a day?  Is this just what happens when the universally cutthroat, high-drama, hormone-addled high school social scene stays open on Facebook and Twitter and MySpace long after the school doors have been locked for the night or the weekend?  And who, when the administrators of social networks do everything they can to maintain the privacy of their users, is responsible for monitoring the digital hallways in which Phoebe took so much abuse?

This case may turn out to set an important precedent with respect to future anti-bullying legislation, both online and otherwise.  On Monday, nine South Hadley High School students (two boys and seven girls, ages 16 to 18), were officially charged with a package of accusations, ranging from statutory rape to disrupting a school assembly, in connection to the death of Phoebe Prince.  School administrators, who were reportedly aware of severe bullying in the school and had some knowledge of Phoebe’s situation, have not been criminally charged.  This suggests that this early example may lead future cyberbullying cases to be considered lapses in personal responsibility, rather than lapses in adult oversight.

Obviously, instilling principles of kindness and humanity in young people should be our society’s first priority, and this should be the front line in the fight against bullying.  But should it be the totality of this fight?  What protections, if any, should be put in place to prevent abuse of the privilege of un-moderated, non-stop communication that social media offers us?

What do you think?

I’m sure by now you’ve read more than one article about Nestlé’s“PR fail” that took place yesterday on Facebook. It all started with a status update from Nestle requesting users to not post using an altered version of any of their logos as profile picture as they would be deleted. What this was primarily referring to is a picture of Nestlé’s logo with the word “Killer” inserted instead of “Kitkat.” This logo was devised as a protest against Nestlé’s use of palm oil, which endangers animals and creates greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia.

Now, it’s to be assumed that there would be those who would consider this comment rude and post retaliatory remarks on the page, but what really caused the outrage were the responses posted back by Nestlé.

Nestlé @Paul Griffin – that’s a new understanding of intellectual property rights. We’ll muse on that. You can have what you like as your profile picture. But if it’s an altered version of any of our logos, we’ll remove it [from] this page.

Nestlé Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider  yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the  rules, it was ever thus.

Nestlé Oh please .. it’s like we’re censoring  everything to allow only positive comments.

Finally culminating in my personal favorite:

Nestlé This (deleting logos) was one in a series of mistakes for which I would like to apologise. And for being rude. We’ve stopped deleting posts, and I have stopped being rude.

Undoubtedly, most of the articles you’ve read have probably been negative towards Nestlé, scolding them for conducting bad PR and telling them that they’ve missed the point of social media. But I disagree.

I think most of the people wagging their fingers at Nestlé have forgotten what social media is all about. In the beginning, social media was a tool to connect and interact with your friends virtually, all the while, being yourself. Granted, the entrance of corporations and businesses into the social media space has changed a few rules, but they must remember why they chose to market on this platform in the first place. If it was merely to create a brand presence, then this isn’t relevant, but if it was to interact with their audience and create a dialogue that would make them relevant and current, then they’ve lost sight of their goal. As a consumer, I have no desire to be redirected to other sites, and if I wanted to read PR, I would find a press release. I seek out authentic discussion with the face of my brand as I’m sure most other consumers do or they may have not chosen Nestlé’s Facebook wall to launch a protest. With all that being said, I realize the importance of brand equity, and I do strongly agree that the person sitting behind your Facebook fan page should be the ideal representation of your company and brand. Maybe Nestlé didn’t chose that ideal person. Even if they did, social media is risky because people make mistakes, but if it will eliminate reading canned messages and mindless PR, I can be very forgiving.

Although I have known of the Wikitude World Browser for some time, my research into the travel social media space allowed for a thorough investigation of this insightful app. The Wikitude World Browser provides travelers with an experienced, educated travel guide that fits in their pocket and has limitless knowledge about the world over. This app could even change how we view landmarks, monuments, and notable sights.

Using augmented reality (virtual data on top of real-time camera views from a smartphone), GPS and the compass feature built into the Android and iPhone 3GS, Wikitude displays information about your surroundings. Facts, distance from your current location, and names of landmarks, monuments and other points of interest pop up as you scan the area with your phone’s camera. Check out a demo video from one of the developers here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EA8xlicmT8 .

Wikitude.me is what makes this app truly innovative. Members of the Wikitude.me community are given the power to “embed unique points of interest (POI) and location-specific, hyperlinked media content which can be viewed on the WIKITUDE World Browser.” This tool enables users to “Geo-tag your world,” by adding content to the Wikitude and viewing it through the Wikitude browser. As far as I understand, once these user generated points of interest are part of the Wikitude, they are viewable by all users of the Wikitude World Browser.

This revolutionary idea has the potential to transform our views of what we consider monumental and noteworthy out in the world. For example, if I am using the Wikitude World Browser in Puerto Rico and see that the sight where the Battle of San Juan was fought is just half a mile away from me, but Melody G. from North Carolina has used Wikitude.me to tell me about the best snorkeling she has ever encountered, including a giant sea turtle sighting, only one and half miles away where do you think I’m going?

Let me know if you have expeience with the Wikitude World Browser, or any other cool travel- related apps!

As a hardened, wizened 23-year-old, I regularly shake my fists at young people who don’t know how easy they have it (“What do you mean everyone in your preschool class had their own laptop?  In my day …” etc.).  But my bitterness at having been born slightly too early to reap the benefits of a fully-computerized childhood reached a new height when I read the New York Times report last week that Tufts University has become the first college to solicit YouTube videos as optional supplements to its undergraduate application.

Nearly everyone who’s gone to college in the last few decades knows that applying to colleges is one of the hardest, most humbling, and consequential processes that occurs within the larger hard, humbling and consequential process of adolescence.  How do you get the admissions staff at your dream school to understand what you yourself know very well: that you are the smartest, coolest, best-looking, most interesting person who has ever existed?  Armed with only a stack of papers detailing your dubious contributions to your high school literary magazine, letters of recommendation from the teachers who maybe weren’t your favorites but were the ones you were least afraid to ask for a recommendation, and a couple of essays you’ve proofread so hard you don’t even know what they’re about anymore, you’re expected to make a lasting, favorable impression that stands out among thousands of students.

Enter YouTube.  Everyone loves it: the perennial time-waster, the medium that vaults Taiwanese teenagers and overweight housewives to their fifteen minutes of fame with equal momentum.

It’s no great surprise that Tufts, a top-tier university noted for its unorthodox essay questions (this year’s options include “Are we alone?” and “Kermit the Frog famously lamented ‘It’s not easy being green.’  Do you agree?”), is the first to give new media a place beside the traditional written essay.  It’s also no surprise that students have been eager to take advantage of the video option: about 1,000 of the 15,000 applicants for Fall 2010 have submitted links to their videos.

The videos are as various as the applicants themselves.  One student performs a rap about her recent jaw reconstruction surgery – through clenched teeth, because her jaw is still wired shut.  Another edits himself into an interview with James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio.”  Another builds a remote-controlled flying elephant and videotapes it flying around his backyard.  But whatever the subject matter, the videos all have one wonderful thing in common: they each showcase students being themselves from their own homes, speaking in their own voices, doing what they do best, and showing what makes them who they are.

The questions that come to this jealous college graduate’s mind – oh, to have been born in 1992 and spared the agony of trying to fit my academic personhood into a 9×12 envelope! – are: what does this mean for the future of college admissions?  And what does this say about the present wave of college applicants?

The second question is easier to answer.  Kids who are seventeen and eighteen in 2010 have probably never known a house without a computer inside it.  They probably learned to type before they learned (or instead of learning) to handwrite.  YouTube and Facebook have been staples of their lives since they were about twelve.  The first movie they saw in theaters was probably something like Independence Day (which doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but it makes you feel ancient, doesn’t it?).  In other words, it’s now totally reasonable to expect a teenager to pick up a camcorder (or their cell phone), create a one to two minute video that says something about him or herself, and upload it onto the web for the world to see (some of the videos, such as Amelia Downs’s performance of her “math dances,” have received tens of thousands of views on YouTube).

The answer to the first question is anyone’s guess.  In the Times article, Lee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admissions at Tufts, is careful to emphasize that the videos are optional and the written element of the application is still the most important.  Even if the supplemental YouTube video does become part of other schools’ applications (my guess is it will), it seems unlikely that it will replace writing entirely as a means of evaluating prospective students (as well it shouldn’t).  While some people may have reservations about the intrusion of new media into an institution as traditionally analogue as a college application (in an interesting letter to the editor appearing in the Times a few days after the Tufts article, a high school counselor from Mamaroneck expresses concern that the videos will be absorbed into the lucrative admissions industry, saying “Video producers and directors can now join private college consultants, SAT tutors and essay editors raking in high fees from families willing to pay whatever it takes to gain an advantage in the college admissions race.”), I think that including a video option is fair and realistic.  We all know that the kids who look best on paper are not necessarily smarter or more interesting or better community members than the kids who didn’t get the best grades in high school, or don’t happen to be as good at crafting short essays about themselves.  If the point of a college application is to give a student an opportunity to present his or her accomplishments in the best possible light, it makes sense to play to the very modern strengths of a new generation.

By now I am sure everyone has heard about the devastating earthquake that shook Chile to its core over the weekend. How did I find out? Through Twitter of course!

It’s no secret that social media plays a HUGE role in how we receive information. Pew Internet just released a study that found that 75% of people find their news online through email or social media, with 52% forwarding news through those same means.

The implications of this study were epitomized as this weekend saw a surge of tweets as information about the earthquake became more readily available.

Illustrated above is the number of tweets surrounding Chile over the last week. On Saturday, February 27^th, almost 4% of the entire Twittersphere mentioned Chile in some capacity (according to Google, this is approximately 77,500 tweets; however I think it may be more).

Twitter has always been relatively quick to change and seems to be embracing its role as an organic news outlet. Brief statements (140 characters or less) are now posted when you click on the majority of trending topics. Sourcing info from whatthetrend.com gives users some context about the trend.

Is this a lasting means to obtain news? Only time will tell. It concerns me that anyone with a Twitter account can be deemed a “news  source”; however, individuals can be key in providing timely updates in situations like this.

What do you think? Should we trust Twitter as a news source or hope that, like a trending topic, this will eventually fade away?