"Pandora and Facebook: So Happy Together" By: Eliot Van Buskirk

It wouldn't be my last blog of the semester if I didn't end it on a Facebook note. Our favorite online radio service and social network are teaming up together! Pandora and Facebook are collaborating to make music fans really, really happy.

"This joint announcement is twofold. One part involves “Like” buttons that Facebook and others will embed on its own site and partner sites around the web using the Open Graph API Facebook announced yesterday. Whenever you click one of these buttons, that information gets added to your Facebook Graph, which Pandora can then tap in order to present you with stations based on what you’ve liked on Facebook and around the web."

What makes this new service on Pandora so great is that those who use both Facebook and Pandora will be able to stream their music from their usernames from both sites and share music with their friends and others. This allows users to branch out on the current tunes they're listening to now and explore the wide variety of music out there. Their friends can link songs to each other via the email they use for both P and FB. This new exploration will let people socialize through these two media's to talk about their favorite songs or share music, or even recommend music they think fellow friends would like. Connecting these two sites will be a revolution for these extremely popular Internet services!

Here's How to Do It:

To activate Pandora’s optional Facebook integration, go to Pandora then click the Friends’ Music link at the lower right:

If you’ve already used Pandora’s own social networking features to add friends, they will show up here. Click Add Friends to proceed to the part where you integrate Pandora with Facebook (names truncated below to protect the innocent):

Then, click the Connect With Facebook button. Nothing appeared to happen, but when we reloaded Pandora, our Facebook friends appeared alongside their Facebook profile pictures, their most recently played station, and the songs they’ve liked most recently. I can now make my own stations from any of that music:

To activate Pandora’s optional Facebook integration, go to Pandora then click the Friends’ Music link at the lower right:

If you’ve already used Pandora’s own social networking features to add friends, they will show up here. Click Add Friends to proceed to the part where you integrate Pandora with Facebook (names truncated below to protect the innocent):

Then, click the Connect With Facebook button. Nothing appeared to happen, but when we reloaded Pandora, our Facebook friends appeared alongside their Facebook profile pictures, their most recently played station, and the songs they’ve liked most recently. I can now make my own stations from any of that music:

Enjoy my Friends and Have a wonderful summer!

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/pandora-and-facebook-so-happy-together/

"Billy Joel's First-Ever Commercial Music License Spawns YouTube Hit" By: Kiran Aditham

Way to go Billy! Billy Joel is getting in touch with advertising by licensing his song in a commercial for a retailed in the UK. This Youtube video got 130,000 hits in 6 days! Imagine the sales that location got after this aired! What I think is so great about Billy Joel letting his music out for advertising purposes is that not only will people go to this retailer, but they will also go out and buy Billy Joel tickets, albums, apparel, anything. I'm sure he doesn't need the money, but the fact that he, of all people- a huge star- is licensing his music for ads. is a big step and change in times. You don't hear a lot of the great artists of all time's music in commercials or any other type of advertising, so I think it's really great that he lent his song out. Not to mention, this is such a sweet video!

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/celebrity/billy_joels_firstever_commercial_music_license_spawns_youtube_hit_161155.asp

"Swipley Enters the Social Shopping Field" By: Brad Stone

This is fun. A site that allows you to link your recent, fabulous purchases to share with your friends and shoppers alike, designed much like that darn Facebook. Swipley, this social shopping network "lets user link their credit and debit cards to their sites and share information about everything they buy with their friends or with the wider Web." UT-OH. That does NOT seem safe. But the network wants its users to go on and chat about their latest finds with everyone else who is on it, and basically the Universe. (I mean, putting your card information on the Internet just to talk about your purchases!- If I'm reading this article correctly, please don't sign me up.)

In the article, Stone explains that a site much like Swipley, Blippy, had a similar site in which users can talk about things they have bought. Blippy shows how much people spent and where, whereas Swipley is more concerned about what people bought in order for them to talk to others about great buy's or saves, and ultimately create a place for advertising products and brand names. Okay, well it's all in good fun, but not for long. Blippy caused a scandal by "inadvertently exposing" peoples card numbers via Google Index. No thanks, really. This is where the Internet becomes our enemies. I might just break my computer and end it all. HAHA. NEVER!

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/swipely-enters-the-social-shopping-field/?ref=technology

"The Facebook Privacy Wars: What is Personal Data?" By: Curtis Silver

Obviously this topic is pretty hot, since its probably my third blog about it. But really, when is it gonna stop? When is the day gonna come when we don't have to worry about our "personal data"? I'm starting to wonder if we have any privacy at all.In this article, we learn that this ongoing fight to keep our information on the Internet private is stirring up a lot of chatter; but are we at fault? Is it our laziness that keeps us from reading the fine print which tells us that our personal info. is spread around the Internet?

"The thing is, as Loren mentioned in the video, no one reads the terms of service contracts. When you click the little check box and hit continue, you are agreeing to pages and pages of legalese that pretty much state you don’t have any personal data and you have absolutely no privacy on that site. They own it all. This isn’t true for every site of course, but a good majority of them."

Okay, side story: When I was in High School, my friends (the great people that they are), went on a random website that talks about..... (i'm sorry if you're offended)..bowel movements. They made up funny poems about our other friends and myself, but never told us. A few years after, I was playing around on the Internet and I googled my name. Random things popped up, nothing about myself, but then I came across this one site, so I clicked on it, and died laughing. Not only was my name on it, but so were my other friends, so it wasn't too embarrassing. And still today, IT IS ON THE INTERNET! But anyways, moral of the story is no matter what we put on the Internet, once is it up there, saved, okay'd, it is up there forever. For anyone to see. It's a scary thought; we really have NO idea what is up there.

Now that Facebook has given us the options to keep information private, we really need to go through the setting and figure out what you don't want for everyone to see and what you don't mind people seeing. Once information is out there it can be taken by anyone at any time. Social networks are for sharing our information with each other, obviously, but do you really want every single person across the globe locating your information?

Change your settings people.

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/05/the-facebook-privacy-war-what-is-personal-data/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

"Privacy advocates target online advertisers" By: Jessica Guynn

This was an interesting article I found in the LA Times. The gist of it is this:

"A coalition of consumer and privacy groups is taking its fight for online consumer privacy to Capitol Hill. In their sights: online advertising practices and behavioral targeting. In a joint letter to Congress, the groups warn that tracking and targeting of consumers have reached 'alarming levels.' "

I really don't like how our information is pretty much very accessible to anyone in the world via the Internet. It's pretty scary if you think about it. Anyone, people you have no idea that exist can locate your most personal information with a bit of research, and can basically screw you over, if you're lucky enough for them to pick you. We never really think anything of it, that our records are on here, our birth dates, relationships, basically anything and everything you put on the Internet, advertisers can find, as well as creepy strangers.

I agree with this article, and the fight that the coalition is putting up for us. As consumers, I feel we have the right to manage how our information is being used, where it's being used, when it's being used, and by WHO. I don't want people taking my information without me knowing, and I'm sure no one else care for that either. The article also states that Facebook (oh, Facebook, you never cease to amaze me) has gone out and done something about privacy recently, and has given its users the options to keep their information secure from outsiders.

Technology is starting to get quite scary as it progresses.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/05/privacy-advocates-target-online-advertisers.html

Old Spice "I'm On A Horse" Commercial Raging Internet By: Meena Kar

Bet you're all glad I didn't find a Facebook article!!

Since the Superbowl, commercials that aired during the game have continued to make appearances on TV as well as the Internet. The highly popular Old Spice "I'm On A Horse" commercial has been viewed by nearly 6.5 million people since its first airing. I know that in a few of my classes I have watched it on more than one occasion via YouTube, but I can honestly say I have never seen it on TV, not to say that others have not.

Anyways, what this article states is that since this commercial has been viewed by so many people who first saw it during the Superbowl, it has continued to make a big impact on viewers as they talk about it through social networks and such. Kar says that this commercial actually provoked people to go out and buy the product (which is good being that its an advertisement trying to sell something! ) And, the commercial not only targets males, but it is also geared towards its female viewers and consumers since they do have a high percentage of buying the male products [for their loved ones].

I think it's great that Old Spice really got the attention of their audience and actually got many of them to go out and try their product because it shows that ADVERTISEMENTS REALLY DO WORK. This advertisement spread like wild fire all over the Internet and had so many people commenting about it that it brought sales up so much for the product and the brand itself. I guess being outrageous is a good way of gaining a following, and I think Old Spice shows that with their commercial advertisement. Good for them.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/entertainment/old-spice-im-on-a-horse-commercial-raging-internet_100343745.html

"Twitter Ads Test Billion-Dollar Valuation" By Ryan Singel

Twitter Update: Advertising Services Coming to the Tweet Spot.

Another new edition to the social networking world. Advertising is growing on the Internet and placing themselves in the right spot, where the people are. People are checking their Twitter pages at every minute of every day. Who's saying what, who's doing what, etc. With 22 million users, why not promote some advertisements on this huge success? These advertisements are more like promotions for products, such as Starbucks who have jump started this new phenomenon. I went on Twitter to see how it shows up, and when you type Starbucks in the search engine, you see this (below) as the first search result.

They use this to promote a product or a service, then provides a link that brings you to their page. This is a great way of advertising because it engages the audience of certain types of products or services and helps attract more and more people to their sites. I know a lot of us get bugged by advertisements on the Internet (I do, SORRY) but, this is a way of luring these audiences into interests of what these promoted ads. are doing.

“The one thing we are most excited about is these are simply tweets, not ads,” Buzzo said. “There is one big difference between a promoted tweet and a regular tweet. promoted tweets must meet a higher bar — they must resonate with users. This means that if users don’t do the things with promoted tweets that would normally do with a regular tweet such as reply to it, favorite it, or retweet it and so on, the promoted tweet will disappear.”

So, that's a plus. If we aren't interested in these certain tweets, they will be non-existent. But don't refer to them as "Ads" to Twitter; they're 'promoted tweets', so get it right. I guess this is worth a try for Twitter. As this article ends, Singel adds that this will be the testing point to see if Twitter is worth all of its dough and can produce more than what they have now or if its just a place for people to vent their every single thought.

Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/twitter-tests-worth/comment-page-1/