GOP Google Debate

 

Regardless of whatever political side you fall on, there was something pretty cool about the GOP debate that was held last week. Fox new, who hosted the debate, partnered with Google to make the Republican National Debate a first of its kind. According to Fox News “The partnership between Fox News and Google for the debate enabled the viewing public for the first time to weigh in with votes on questions they want asked. All the submissions can be viewed on the YouTube.com/FoxNews website.” (Fox News) Finally, a debate where people could get the views of potential Presidential Candidates on questions they actually care about!

            This debate is a perfect example of emerging media being used, Google allowed people to submit questions via YouTube and people could go on and view all the questions that were submitted and then vote on them! It is exciting to be part of a generation that maybe will actually get to have more control over the types of people we elect. Candidates are now being challenged to be more accountable for what they stand for. People are going to have to start answering to the people, which is how the government should have been all along. It’s hard to poll people and get questions when we are calling landlines and things of that nature.

Now with text messages, Youtube, Facebook, and all the other emerging media out there people can finally ask the hard questions. You can’t say that media is asking one sided questions anymore because people now have the chance to submit the questions and then vote on which ones are being asked. It’s a really exciting time and I can’t wait to see where else we can go!

Another really cool emerging media feature Fox News did was they created a word cloud that, Fox explained “Now, here for a preview of what’s to come, let’s take a look at what’s called a word cloud. It shows the words that were used most often in all of the questions you asked about immigration. The bigger the word, the more often it was used.”  It’s cool that they analyzed what people were saying on each topic and then created a word cloud to show what was most important. While, using the word Illegeal caused an issue the fact that they created a word cloud based on the most commonly used word in that question sequence was very interesting. I think this debate was very cutting edge and it was a nice change from a more traditional debate. Again, I am excited to see what they can think of next!

 

 

 

To watch some the debate please go to the link below:

http://video.insider.foxnews.com/v/1174642073001/raw-video-bret-baier-takes-you-behind-the-scenes-at-the-fox-newsgoogle-debate/

 

References:

Fox News. (2011) Fox News-Google Debate Draws Nearly 20,000 Viewer Questions. Fox News.com. Retrieved September 27, 2011 from: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/21/fox-newsgoogle-debate-draws-nearly-20000-viewer-questions/

Media Matt. (2011) GOP Debate Puts National Spotlight On Fox’s Use Of “Illegals” Slur. Media Matt.com. Retrieved September 27, 2011 from:  http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/201109230019

Marketing Short Films… pretty cool!

For this weeks class assignment we had to choose marketing short films to look at, I personally had never heard of a marketing short film. The one I ended up writing about was a really cool Nike Short Film that was action backed thriller which involved Kobe Bryant, and Kanye West! It was a pretty cool way for Nike to get its products out there. However, I am not sure how to market those. The way I found the short film was by Googling it and I saw it in a sports blog! Talk about using Emerging Media Markets! I think these films are  really cool and these companies should Tweet about them or post them on their facebook pages to get them more exposure! Or even show a clip as a commercial and then direct people to find out what happens next online! Even in the film they joke about how “product placement gives us a bigger budget, and a bigger budget gives us bigger explosions!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TO4yeUIPWE 

While looking for short films I also came across the BMW series which is actually 8 short films all about the BMW driving performance featuring Clive Owen. Someone else in my class wrote about them but I actually loved them! The first one I watched was with Madonna and it was really funny but also did some really cool things to show off the car! I like the films and I think they are a great marketing tool. Again, I wish companies would do a better job about getting these things out there!

Here is the Madonna one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrLYQnjzH7w

 

 

Website Design: The good, the bad, and the Google Search

 The lesson this week was a rather interesting one, website design. As someone, or rather a part of a generation of someone’s, who use the internet everyday I have never really thought about website design and my opinion of them… or have I? I suppose my opinion on website has been formulated in the past but I didn’t really realize I was weighing in an opinion before. There are some websites I love and go to all the time and others I hate because they are complicated and overall just turn me off. Being part of what I like to call the “right now” generation I like everything to be at my finger tips, and easy to use. If I have to search for more than a few minutes to find something then I have already moved on to the next thing. If I am looking for something and it’s not listed within the first two search pages on Google then I have changed topics or search words. How often do people go to the 10^th page on a Google search?

 The Good

For me personally I love when a website has everything I need in one easy to use place. When I was thinking about different websites and their design the one that kept popping into my head for the “good” is Drudge Report. Drudge Report is a wesbite run by Matt Drudge who complies all the “biggest” news stories of the day from various news outlets into one page (www.drudgereport.com). While many critics of Drudge claim the site has a conservative slant I find it to be extermely easy to use and if you go to Drudge and then watch the news at night almost all of Drudges headlines are the evenings top stories. In an article on U.SNews.com Paul Bedard exams Liberal vs. Consverative media based on Tim Groseclose book Left Turn.

And in further analysis sure to enrage critics of conservative media, Groseclose determines that Drudge, on a conservative to liberal scale of 0-100, with 50 being centrist, actually leans a bit left of center with a score of 60.4. The reason: Drudge mostly links to the sites of the mainstream media, with just a few written by Matt Drudge himself. “Since these links come from a broad mix of media outlets, and since the news in general is left-leaning, it should not be surprising that the slant quotient of the Drudge Report leans left,” he writes. (http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/16/book-liberal-media-distorts-news-bias)

In my opinion Matt Drudge’s website, Drudge Report is the perfect example of a well designed well laid out website. It offers everything I need in one place. Drudge goes out and does all the hard work for me. Instead of having to search multiple news sites to get all the stories around the world Drudge does it. The site is easy to use, doesn’t have multiple tabs have take you to pages you didn’t want to go to in the first place, has minimal ad’s, and overall just offers the information I am looking for.

 

(www.Drudgereport.com)

The Bad

Macy’s website is one of the most confusing and difficult to navigate. I spend a lot of time, more than I should, online shopping. Whether I go on too actually buy something or “window shop” I spend a good deal of time looking through various stores websites. I have always found the Macy’s website to be confusing.

 (www.Macys.com)

 It appears that Macy’s is trying to help its customers out by highlighting things like a sale and what’s new for fall, but in reality it just appears cluttered and overwhelming. The fact that they are displaying the sale section and breaking it out by category is great, but Macy’s is running an online sale almost every day. It would appear less cluttered if they mentioned the sale and linked you to a page where it was broke out like that. If you go on there just looking for a woman’s shirt it can take a while to even find the section. I think Macy’s should spend some time re-designing their website to be a little more simplistic and user friendly.