Break ups, pizzas and 'that' text..

So recently, an article became quite popular over the internet, with thousands of shares within a minute. Being my curious self, I decided to open it and see what the hype was all about. The title was "This Guy’s Live-Tweets Of His Neighbor’s Breakup Are Hilarious And Heartbreaking" and was more than enough to give you a hint of what the article contained.

We've heard about live football updates, live reality show updates and even live A1R Jamboree 2013 updates. But have you heard of live breakup tweets? Well, what really happened here is a real-life update on a break up that was happening on a rooftop somewhere in New York. Could it be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or perhaps the contrary?

Comedian Kyle Ayers was probably in an awkward situation when his ordinary hangout at his flat's rooftop was 'invaded' by an arguing couple. With only his phone with him, he decided to live tweet the breakup to his followers. With the hashtag #roofbreakup, his tweets were retweeted several times and people around the world were all into the moment of truth between Rachel (girlfriend) and guy (boyfriend).

The power of social networking was really put to use on a whole new level. Who would have thought that you could be able to actually get a live update of what could be someone's worst day ever. Yet, you can't help feeling entertained by them. Yes, if you were to scrutinize on the whole thing, you would probably be wondering, relationships, or rather the end of relationships should be something confidential or private and usually not done out in the open but in this case, the top of a roof on a flat in Brooklyn really isn't that private now is it?

The minute-by-minute update given by Kyle was really entertaining, added by his own narrations of the scene, which can be seen in the article link below. It got even funnier when the "text from a co-worker" came in and a whole lot of other comebacks that followed.

I'll leave it to you guys to read through his tweets on the break up and make your own conclusions as to how "ethical" it really is. For me, it really isn't a big deal as it was a public place and the couple had already noticed that they weren't alone.

Check out the links below to find out more about this awkward, sad and funny (not a good combination) story and don't forget to comment below! :D

http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/this-guys-live-tweets-of-his-neighbors-break-up-are-hilariou
http://www.kyleayers.com/post/67277872092/roofbreakup

Peace out!
Anna

How much of ‘you’ are you willing to give (or have given) to the Internet?

As how most of us are guilty in permitting ourselves to every social networks available today, there’s got to be a point where we wonder, what if the information provided got to the wrong hands? What if some awesome-unemployed photoshop editors exploited our selfies?

Although several individuals prefer to be transparent online, there are still many Internet users that are in favor of appearing anonymous. Regardless of how annoyed we are to the habit of using k-pop celebrities or anime or any kind of emblems by some people on their facebook profiles, we must realize that they might just being cautious of the virtual world’s odds. Stolen identity is not a new problem in the new media ground. There are still huge majorities of people that choose to give only to certain authorized people, the access to their online profiles – simply because they care more about themselves rather than exposing unnecessary knowledge.

We have come to the stage where everything is possible to be used back against us. Emails, phone numbers, address, friends, hometown, and favorite restaurants – these details might just be the exact materials needed by anyone who has extra “interest” in you. However, this problem does not only caused by our openness, I must say. Often we are obligated to give them out in order to access certain applications or websites.

It is scary for the fact that the assurance of keeping our information protected is no longer effective. The Internet is indeed too wide for us to track all the information that we’ve passed. And as how the Internet has grown and outsmarted us humans, we are getting less capable in controlling the flow. We have become so comfortable and vulnerable, too, that we tend to bear every circumstance caused by the Internet. For instance, we still don’t bother to log out our emailtwitterinstagramfacebook accounts on our phone even though we have been hijacked several times by our friends – just because we don’t think smartphones work that way.

Looking back through all the years you have spent on the Internet, it is hard to deny the amazing medium that allows us to search for anything in the world. Despite the intensity, we would never consider to get rid of it. Internet is just too good to be neglected. We want to be part of it. Hence the photo sharing, the tweets, the videos and etc. No matter how dangerous the Internet is, it is extremely irresistible. Having a love-hate relationship with the Internet is just too fun for some, if not all. This endurance may just due to the ability of the fast-pace Internet to provide us the thing that we’re all often craving for – the attention.

Written by,
Shila Suhaimi

Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/09/yes-internet-your-citizens-still-want-their-anonymity/

New Media and the Government Relations

After web 2.0 and the web 3.0, PR 2.0 and now we are moving to other public relations that not everyone look deeper and interested to this world of public relations, which are government public relations. This field of public relations also moving to another stage of the public relations which is gov2.0 as after the new media are born in this world.

According to the Social Media Guide, Social media is user generated content that is shared over the internet via technologies that promote engagement, sharing and collaboration. In another view, media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, thus social media would be a social instrument of communication

Social media offers numerous opportunities for public relations practitioners to interact with the public while adopting new forms of technology and integrating them into their everyday lives.

The use of social media is so viral, there now are several recently published books that explore how blogs, social media and other new technologies are changing the way organizations communicate with strategic publics such as employees, customers, stockholders, communities, governments and other stakeholders.

Social media somehow plays a big role now as a form of communication because of its convenience and benefits, it is such a widely use method of communicating. Public relations Practitioners should try to make full use or the most of social media. Failure to do so might result in disappointments later on.

Speculations are raised when the government party faced a loss in the 2008 General Election 2008 all because of the use of social media. The 12th Malaysian general election witnessed a drastic change until it was named ‘political tsunami' had hit the nation (The Star,2008). The National Front (BN) lost quite badly to some opposing parties in Terengganu, Penang. But nevertheless, these were all just speculations and word of mouth from people.

Social media became more viral as after these incident. All the politicians start to use social media to react and get closer to the public. As well government departments, they also started to use social media in order to disseminate information towards the public as they realize these is the best medium in these new technology advanced era.

The social media can be used in many situations including crisis management, promotions, marketing, persuasion, publicity and many more. Do the practitioners apply the use of social media in all of these aspects?

This may be implied in the Malaysian government as well which leads to the low level of social media usage compared to private sector. The process of adopting new tools and managing the related changes in work processes and policies is not easy for any type of organization.

Governments at all levels are beginning to put more exertion into deciphering social media devices that includes investigating better approaches for working and moving correspondence designs. It likewise includes the production of new arrangements and guidelines to urge fitting

utilize and to alleviate the dangers of social media instruments. Not surprisingly, given the emergent nature of social media, relatively few U.S. governments actually have a formalized set of policies to guide their own efforts, as well as for others to draw on or learn from.

As a consequence, governments are faced with reinterpreting and applying old policies that govern the use of the Internet or creating completely new policies (Hrdinová, Helbig, Peters, 2010).

As more people start to be familiar with the simplicity and convenience of communicating through social media sites, the use have expanded to the work place. In the last few years, governments have seen more and more requests by their employees to use social media to do their work. Recognizing the different reasons government employees engage in social media use and how they sometimes overlap is valuable in creating a social media policy. This is where the fret is raised because organizations are afraid practitioners or employees will misuse social media for their own benefits. However, many government agencies are still adapting to these new trend of communicating and efforts still needs to be done.

In the Nutshell, The development of media from traditional to new media has exposed many people to adapt to changes including Public Relations Practitioner. Social media not only allows public relations practitioners to reach out to and engage their publics in conversation, but also provides an avenue to strengthen media relations and also get closer to their stakeholders.

Written by,
Aizad Osman

Article review based on

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/01/government-20-how-social-media-could-transform-gov-pr005/

http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Digital-Citizen-Social-Media.pdf

http://forbesindia.com/blog/technology/governments-love-hate-relationship-with-social-media/

WhatsApp, SnapChat And LINE: Why Mobile Messaging Apps Are Taking Teens Away From Facebook

When mobile messaging apps such as WhatsApp first emerged in 2009, they looked like a threat to mobile carriers. Mobile operators are at lost due to messaging apps, which host free instant messages through a phone's data connection, which these days is often unlimited. Now these apps are becoming a threat to established social networks too.

Part of the reason is that gradual encroachment of the grey-haired ones on Facebook. Another is what messaging apps have to offer: private chatting with people you are friends with in real life. Instead of passively stalking people you barely know on Facebook, messaging apps promote dynamic real-time chatting with different groups of real-life friends, real life because to connect with them on these apps you will typically already have their mobile number. The trend flies in the face of recurring criticism of young people that their social lives are largely virtual when many more are in fact embracing the virtues of privacy and services like WhatsApp, which shun advertising.

The final, big reason why young people are gravitating towards messaging apps is that many of these apps no longer do just messaging. They are social networks. The best examples come out of Asia, with messaging platforms KakaoTalk (South Korea), WeChat (China) and LINE (Japan). All have a total of millions of users, with WeChat boasting more

than 200 million, and take their services beyond offering straight messaging to games, stickers and music sharing. Often users choose stickers instead of words when they need to express themselves. It's also known to have helped couples get over fights more easily by offering multiple stickers to say sorry.

In the race to become platforms with extra frills, the big exception is WhatsApp. That is a somewhat conservative approach compared to most other messaging platforms, yet WhatsApp is still quietly broadening out. In the same way Facebook first rolled our Facebook Connect in 2008 to allow people to use their profiles to like or comment on other websites, WhatsApp recently unveiled an instruction set known as an API that lets other mobile apps share content through WhatsApp too.

The future for these messaging apps is still uncertain. Some in the industry expect buyouts from big internet companies like Google, which was rumoured to have flirted with WhatsApp earlier this year. Facebook already has its own popular Messenger service, while Apple has iMessage, both are popular, but lack the gaming ambitions of Asian chat apps. Still, it is hard to imagine these players consolidating to create a global social network as big as Facebook.

Written by,
Suzianna Zarei

Article link: http://www.ibtimes.com/whatsapp-snapchat-line-why-mobile-messaging-apps-are-taking-teens-away-facebook-1464804

Twitter, Facebook and Social Activism

The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns. When ten thousand protesters took to the streets in Moldova in the spring of 2009 to protest against their country’s Communist government, the action was dubbed the Twitter Revolution, because of the means by which the demonstrators had been brought together. A few months after that, when student protests rocked Tehran, the State Department took the unusual step of asking Twitter to suspend scheduled maintenance of its Web site, because the Administration didn’t want such a critical organizing tool out of service at the height of the demonstrations. “Without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt empowered and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy,” Mark Pfeifle, a former national-security adviser, later wrote, calling for Twitter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools. Facebook warriors go online to push for change. “You are the best hope for us all,” James K. Glassman, a former senior State Department official, told a crowd of cyber activists at a recent conference sponsored by Facebook, A. T. & T., Howcast, MTV, and Google. Sites like Facebook, Glassman said, “give the U.S. a significant competitive advantage over terrorists. Some time ago, I said that Al Qaeda was ‘eating our lunch on the Internet.’ That is no longer the case. Al Qaeda is stuck in Web 1.0. The Internet is now about interactivity and conversation.”

These are strong, and puzzling, claims. Why does it matter who is eating whose lunch on the Internet? Are people who log on to their Facebook page really the best hope for us all? As for Moldova’s so-called Twitter Revolution, Evgeny Morozov, a scholar at Stanford who has been the most persistent of digital evangelism’s critics, points out that Twitter had scant internal significance in Moldova, a country where very few Twitter accounts exist. Nor does it seem to have been a revolution, not least because the protests—as Anne Applebaum suggested in the Washington Post—may well have been a bit of stagecraft cooked up by the government. (In a country paranoid about Romanian revanchism, the protesters flew a Romanian flag over the Parliament building.) In the Iranian case, meanwhile, the people tweeting about the demonstrations were almost all in the West. “It is time to get Twitter’s role in the events in Iran right,” Golnaz Esfandiari wrote, this past summer, in Foreign Policy.“Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”

Article link: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

Now social media like Twitter and Facebook are the new tools to communicate with people out there.  These tools are vital nowadays that it has been used for political activities. For example in Malaysia, Twitter has been used to persuade people and disseminate information. Many politicians used Twitter to beg the ‘rakyat’ attention. By using twitter, the followers would be retweeting the post if they are supporting that particular person. It helps, but sometimes it would bring to a greater confusion.  By using Facebook and Twitter, the power of the political authority can be easily toppled, making it easier for the powerless like the citizen to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns. Moldova in the spring of 2009, protest against their country’s Communist government, the action was called the Twitter Revolution, because of the means by which the demonstrators had been brought together. . Mark Pfeifle, a former national-security adviser said  “Without Twitter the people of Iran would not have felt authorized and confident to stand up for freedom and democracy,”, and later calling for Twitter to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It means that there in Iran people used social media as their weapon to fight for the truth.  I agree with this, that sometimes politicians used social media to propagate what they feel and the sometimes not true information. They just publish the statements, and people just retweet their words either to support or to counter back. There are pro and cons in using social media, it would bring more peace or the other way round.

Written by,
Raja Fazureen

Line, WeChat: Asian social networks move to conquer Europe

As you all know, world nowadays, everything can be controlled by your own fingertips. To search information, to connect with friends and family, to share pictures, send documents and what not, they can be done through INTERNET. The Internet brings us into globalization era. With the presence of Internet, a lot of social networking sites emerged. It is not been utilized through computers/laptops only, even now it can be fully utilized with your smartphone.

Before this, we have Facebook, Twitter and Skype, now on our mobile, we have Asian social networks such as WeChat (from China) and Line (from Japan), who become rivals to Whatsapp. Both can allow users to make free calls, send instant messages and post funny short videos and photos. They are actually take attributes from Facebook, Skype and messaging application WhatsApp and roll them all together.

Last month, Line executives went to France and Italy for a public relations offensive. It was aimed to raise awareness of their mobile application. It is a success, because the app already downloaded by 230 million users around the world including 47 million in Japan itself.

The app is already known and widely used in Europe. In Spain, Line has built partnerships with football clubs such as FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Other than that, they are also partners with other brands such as Coca-Cola or tennis star Rafael Nadal. For FC Barcelona, at their homepage of the app where they posted several photos, has already attracted more than 8.2 million friends. Apparently, Line obviously expands their wings when they have their own permanent office in Spain, where it counts some 15 million users already.

After a brief research, it proved that one of the main selling points for Line is its "stickers", which is a funny, cartoon-like figures that express emotions in a way deemed far more original and fun than traditional emoticons.

Same with WeChat, users can post figures or cartoons/characters that can dancing, blowing kisses or cry to express the feelings. Both social networks (WeChat and Line) are also supply a selection of "stickers" that users need to pay for. This is how they satisfy the users and at the same time generate profit by it. This can be proved when users bought eight million euros (RM35.16mil) worth of stickers. Other than that is through sale of games integrated in the mobile app and from partnerships and products on the side.

Enough with Line, WeChat is also equally impressive as Line. It has been translated into 19 languages, the social network has 500 million users, including 100 million outside of China, and plans to launch in France towards the end of the year.

While Line has Real Madrid, WeChat has enrolled the help of Argentinian football star such as Lionel Messi. Messi has been chosen by WeChat as their ambassador of the brand.

Renaud Edouard-Baraud, who heads up an Asia consulting branch of the BNP-Paribas bank and advises WeChat said “The French of Chinese origin or the Canadians of Chinese origin, for instance, are the bridge between China and the rest of the world.” There you go, you can see their strategy right?

Both of this application can replaced traditional text messaging and also seen as the simple type of Facebook and Twitter. If China and Japan can do that, we are also can come out with our new version of mobile application that can beat them. Do not be surprised if in the future, Asia controls the Europe!

Source : http://www.thestar.com.my/Tech/Tech-News/2013/10/01/Line-WeChat-Asian-social-networks-move-to-conquer-Europe.aspx

Written By,
Nur Amalia Adlin

Diesel India Celebrates It’s 2nd Anniversary Via Social Media

On completing its second anniversary recently, Diesel India planned to celebrate and so it organized an April sale for the employees and their near and dear ones. They had done it last year too and this year they wanted to continue it but had a very short span to promote it.  Social Media came to their rescue. Diesel India along with digital marketing agency, The Glitch derived a cool campaign that not only got the desired Diesel fans but also gave the maximum amount of buzz of loyal fans to the store.

In sync with this, they also designed a microsite where the employees could avail discounts through QR codes. Within the short time span this campaign got more than 5000 signs ups, creating the maximum exposure and required buzz.

Watch this video: http://www.whatistheglitch.com/index.php

Diesel India spoke to Rohit Raj, the Co-Founder of The Glitch for the collaboration. They planned of doing a flash mob on Facebook on April 26th 2012 to create the buzz in a short time spam, along with 500 people, which included the employees of Diesel India and members of Diesel’s Facebook community. Rohit and his team had sent mailers and organized the flash mob which they changed their relationship status from “Single” to “In A Relationship” on Facebook. The plan worked and as we know, people are interested to know on someone’s personal life and change in status anyways could bring an attention in regular life. Along with the status change, the agency attached a small Facebook message to be part of India’s largest digital flash mob, providing a link to the website: Dieselturnstwo.com

The website was the “Plan B” for the campaign where the agency had planned to drive the traffic to the website. The website which smartly uses Facebook connect to log in is a micro site which has been built for the anniversary celebration. As soon as you log in to the website, it offers you a 50% discount on Diesel products. A QR code is generated which you could save and produce at the Diesel outlet or you can take the mail that you would have received once you generate the QR code. The campaign has seen more than 5000 sign ups by fans and is an achievement on it’s own. 

This campaign impressed me firstly because it was targeted towards employees and their friends and family and secondly because it succeeded in drawing the loyal fans of Diesel into its stores. Many times brands forget that employees are also their public and executing campaign like this where you make them as an important part of your anniversary celebration can help you build long lasting relationship with them. And for an under-develop country like India, such campaign is a big success using the social media. Social media lets us reach people more directly, whether it is through Twitter and Facebook and an ever-growing array of new platforms.

In this campaign, the power of social media is undeniable in today’s world. Facebook, is one of the main hero that have transformed the way our entire society functions. It has revolutionised the ways we interact with our colleagues, friends and family. In this campaign, social media used are Facebook and The Glitch website. It did create a wide interaction when the “status change’ happened on someone to expand the awareness of the flash mob. 

Other than that, the Flash Mob on Facebook ensures that the brands message keeps moving, creating brand exposure and grabs the attention of key influencers in its sphere. It did happened when they got alot of customers came to their store. This can be seen as a snowball effect in the form of likes and when someone “Change Status” on Facebook. Essentially the bigger the snowman, the more exposure you get for your brand. That happened on this campaign as it can be seen that it got 5000 sign ups for the flash mob.

In my opinion, the change status on Facebook effort is like killing two birds with one stone. More than that, this campaign got faster and widespread coverage when they use Facebook to promote the flash mob. And as a PR practitioner, it is important for us to maintain the good visibility of our organization. In this campaign, Facebook is used to help Diesel India on getting the public’s awareness that the Flash Mob is not only to show appreciation to the customers, but not forgetting the internal public of Diesel which is their own employees. Overall, for me this campaign built great visibility of Diesel and can create more trust from the public.

Regards,

Nur Isnabila

Article link: http://lighthouseinsights.in/diesel-india-celebrates-its-2nd-anniversary-via-social-media.html