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/

" Privacy 2.0: Give a little, Take a Little" from The Economist print edition

In recent time, social networking sites have given the option to let users keep their profiles and information private. As we see on Facebook, these days, we can block basically anything we want from anyone we want to. Some may find this annoying at times when they are trying to FB 'stalk' (you all do it, don't deny it!) and see that someone has made their profile completely private and you have no way to access their page. But, as we approach graduation, we are looking for jobs, and since Facebook has become so widely popular, almost anyone can set up an account and search your name, in which it's better that we keep our Thursday-Saturday night pics unavailable. So, I guess these privacy settings can be a big help for people our age while we are in search of jobs and career opportunities.

But, in this article, we find that many people are using the privacy settings more and more these days, because they don't want everyone in the world to get a peak at their personal information. Most people use this site to connect with their past (i.e. adult users). With this new rage of privacy settings comes a slight downfall for advertisers. Advertisers use peoples information to collect data for their "behavioral advertising", which lets them track peoples activities on the Internet without them knowing. As we all know and can see when we log on to our Facebook accounts, advertisers are sponsored on the right side of the page. They use key words from our profile pages in order to find advertisements that best suit our likings. If we have our pages set on private, the advertisers have no way of collecting the data needed in order to put these advertisements up.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator, advertises a free service with a small price. The cost for this service is "the idea of targeted advertising"; the more information you put out, the better they can get advertisements out. The more profit they make, the happier the advertisers are. But, how happy are you with your information being put out there, when you aren't too keene on the idea in the first place, for the benefits of pesky advertisers? Eh.

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15350984