9-1 Blog: Multimedia Tools

Another interesting blog assignment this week, and a very important one for bloggers and journalists alike.
Our task: How does multimedia enhance our messaging? Are certain multimedia techniques more effective than others? Provide examples using multimedia tools and post the links to the blog to support your thinking.

Adding multimedia to a blog or article can significantly enhance its effectiveness and how the story connects with the reader. As Zachary Snideman puts it, "A website without multimedia is like a cupcake without icing: Functional but lacking," (Sniderman 2010). I couldn't agree more. You can still get your point across, but why not add some frosting to hammer it home? 

Multimedia such as photos, video, audio, and graphs, can have a tremendous impact on readers, especially those who learn more efficiently with visual tools. For example, when talking about the power and enormous reach social media has, I could simply write that social media is now the number 1 activity on the web! Or I could tell you that 14.4 million people used social media last year to find a job, and that one million new blogs come online every month, (social media Revolution 2014). But, these numbers and dramatic stats may come across more clearly and pronounced in a fast paced graphical video. See below! 

   

I also enjoy when bloggers and writers utilize audio and podcasts to covey and disseminate information. These can easily be embedded into blogs to give readers additional information about topics and links to other sources. Below is an interesting podcast via SoundCloud from AskPat.com which talks about blogging, websites, and other marketing issues that could be helpful to those seeking more information on utilizing multimedia.



Last week I blogged about an L.A. Times writer and blogger who utilized multimedia brilliantly in this article about a unique antique and collectibles store in Los Angeles. The blog utilizes great photos, a photo gallery, a video, and pull quotes which could easily be shared on social media. In my opinion, this was an ideal use of multimedia in a story. The video featured an interview with the eccentric store owner, and shows many more images of his unique collectibles which really gives the reader a sense of almost visiting the store themselves. The use of video I feel is the greatest multimedia tool in regards to providing a different and often times more accurate context of a story. Video I believe is the most effective multimedia tool, but when that's not a viable option, other multimedia like audio and photographs should be utilized whenever possible.


Zachary Sniderman (2010). How to: Add multimedia to your blog. Mashable.
http://mashable.com/2010/07/28/add-multimedia-to-blog/

YouTube (2014). Sociall media 2014 revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYedZth9ArM

8-2 Blog: Best Practices

This week's blog assignment is another fun one for me. Our task: Choose a blog and analyze the functions and substance of the blog as a form of writing and information delivery. In your opinion, what are the “best practices” when creating a blog to ensure appropriate form, function, and substance? Provide a link when responding to classmates and post your opinion along with your rationale.

It took me no time at all to pull up a recent blog in the L.A. Times that immediately came to mind. The writer, Nita Lelyveld, is a metro feature writer for the prestigious paper. The article is titled "Nick Metropolis has a serious case of jumble fever." It's about a very unique store in Los Angeles that sells antiques and other hard to find items and collectibles. The story-telling is great, and with the addition of the multimedia, it's as if I visited Nick's place myself!

I really enjoyed and appreciate the use of multimedia via photos, a photo gallery, and a video. The blog also utilizes and uses links to sources, and pull quotes that can be tweeted. There are many visuals aspects to pull in the reader and keep you reading, learning, and watching. The blog utilizes a large picture (see below) at the top of the story (under the headline), which immediately pulls you in with an image of the iconic Hollywood sign, and plenty of other interesting pieces and on-lookers in it.

Also embedded within the story is a 14 picture photo gallery which shows other great pictures and really helps accentuate the story and its uniqueness. The best part of the blog though, is a three minute video that features an interview with the eccentric store owner in which he explains his interesting marketing techniques and sales strategy, which includes negotiations no set prices. The video really provides insights into the store and its owner, that photos and print can not provide. 

The use of all these different multimedia platforms helps tell the story and provides an emotional connection for the reader that could not of been achieved with print and a few links alone. This piece is a fantastic example of a highly effective blog in the online mass media platform.   

7-2 Blog: Paterno Press Release

Penn State Athletics Department

University Park

State College, PA 16801

Press Release

-For Immediate Release-

1/22/12

STATE COLLEGE-- Longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has died at the age of 85. Paterno passed away Sunday morning from complications with his ongoing battle with lung cancer. Penn State offers its sincerest condolences to the Paterno family, and sincerely thanks “JoPae” for all his generous dedication to our student-athletes and this community over the many years he worked at the university. His family was with him at Mount Nittany Medical Center and released a statement on his passing.

"He died as he lived," the family said. "He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community."

Paterno started coaching at Penn State in 1950 as an assistant coach with the football team, and was named head coach in 1966. He led the team to five undefeated seasons and two national championships (1982, 1986) while head coach. In total he took the Nittany Lions to 37 Bowl Games in which they won 24. In all, Paterno and his teams collected 409 wins under his leadership. More than 250 of his players went on to play in the National Football League.

Paterno leaves behind his wife, Sue, and their five children. Information regarding a public memorial service will be released later in the week.

###

Facebook post: My facebook post would be simple and straight forward. I would not try to write a creative or catchy headline in hopes of getting web hits and likes. When dealing with death and tragedy its best, and most ethical, to be straight forward and not try to capitalize on the tragedy. It's disturbing to me when news organizations use that tactic.

I would simply post the link and write, "Very sad news to report today. We are greatly saddened to pass along that coach Joe Paterno has died. Penn State offers its sincerest condolences to the Paterno family, and we thank "JoPae" for his many contributions to our university over his long tenure with us."

6-2 Blog: Social Media Tools

Another fun assignment this week for this blog. My task: Choose three of the Social Media Tools presented on this website to try. Post links to your attempts. Share your thoughts about which new social media tools will reach audiences most effectively. Explain your rationale.

I selected to use Twitter, Instagram, and widgets. I used all three over the week, and have been using them for a long time both personally and professionally. As a public information officer for a school district, I utilize social media to help our communications efforts and reach, and I started using social media years ago as a news reporter.

I believe Twitter is very effective in reaching large audiences. It doesn't have the reach of Facebook, which has many more users, but it still has a great reach and provides the power of tweets going viral. I posted a tweet (see below) of a picture of a peacock I came across while running. It was not only delivered to my more than 1,000 followers, but since I used the hashtag #mydayinla, it was retweeted to another 37,500 followers, and some of those people also retweeted it to their followers. So my reach with one tweet was well over 40,000 people. That's great reach, especially considering I only have about 1,000 people following me. The key to twitter, is knowing how to properly use hashtags and utilizing pictures.

 

Love seeing these #peacocks on my runs! Beautiful colors. #mydayinla #arcadia #running #LosAngeles pic.twitter.com/xFHudYppD3
— Ryan Foran (@RyanPForan) July 26, 2014

Instagram can be considered the Twitter for pictures. It's a great social media for those who are really into photgraphy. It's similar to Twitter with the use of hashtags, which can help your photo be discovered and get a wider reach, but its down side is that there is no comparable retweet which limits your reach capability. You'll notice the same peacock photo was liked by just 13 people, and clearly seen and reached far fewer people than my Twitter feed. Instagram is a fun social media, but the reach and ability to go viral, especially for businesses, is far less. Instagram will need to add a sharing option for it to compete with Twitter and Facebook.

Widgets are great tools to add to any blog, like this one, and very effective to help with reach. You'll notice on the right side of this blog are a couple of widgets. One is to my Twitter account,  the other is a link to my blog archives. The other widget I added for this blog was one to add "pages". It was very easy to setup, and allows me to post more information on these pages (About, Twitter, Linkedin, 510 Class Blogs) to help inform my readers and classmates. It makes this blog more like a website, and allows for greater flexibility and customization. You can also use widgets to promote your social media sites, show calendars, web hit calculator, clocks, etc. I've used several widgets on my superintendet's blog to help promote our district's social media sites and other links of interest, including his Twitter account. I've found widgets to be very useful in expanding reach, and would recommend any blogger or web host use them to their advantage!

3-2 Blog: Unrestricted Web Publishing

Another interesting assignment this week that concentrates on sourcing, and examining the source of the source if you will.
This week's task: Choose an online news article published by Time, The New York Times, or The Huffington Post and track its cited sources. Visit each source online and evaluate its credibility based on the guidelines set in Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. Draft a blog post that briefly states a potential impact of unrestricted web publishing through mass media as it relates to this article.

With the World Cup still in full swing, even though the Americans lost, I selected an article titled
This Is What Team USA Eats During The World Cup in the Huffington Post. It was interesting to me for a lot of reasons. I also found it interesting that there was no byline at the top of the article, rather this post at the bottom of it, "This interview has been edited and condensed. As told to Sarah Klein. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Courtesy: Huffington Post

It appears this interview was done by a writer who used excerpts of the article, and maybe not necessarily by Sarah Klein who conducted the interview. A lot of news stations, particularity in television, will have one person do an interview, like a producer or videographer, and then a reporter or another producer write or put together the story. I have done this on several occasions, and I'm not an advocate of it at all. Messaging gets lost, and it's often difficult to contact the source of the interview to go back and ask follow-up or clarifying questions. Unfortunately this technique is used to save time and resources, especially with scheduling issues. For this story though, it's fairly straight forward and nothing too significant seems like it could be lost or jeopardized in translation. 

At the top of the article it does state the person who is being interview for the piece and her credentials on why she is an expert and being interviewed, which I did find extremely helpful and it gave the story more credibility. 

It read, "We spoke with team dietitian and Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics member Danielle LaFata, RD, a board-certified sports dietitian, about what it takes to fuel Team USA."

The link to her name went to her Twitter profile which I thought was a nice touch and further added credibility to the story. On her Twitter page you could read more about her and see what she is tweeting about.  

According to the standards from "Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources" (Montecino 1998) this story does seem to be compiled with information from a credible source. One of the criteria listed is, "Is there any evidence that the author of the Web information has some authority in the field about which she or he is providing information? What are the author's qualifications, credentials and connections to the subject? 

The above examples with the dietitian's information and experience does satisfy the standard that she is an authority in the field, and has the proper credentials to speak to what the U.S Soccer Team's diet is.  

The potential impact of unrestricted web publishing through mass media is dangerous and irresponsible. It happens a lot now, especially since mass media desires more and newer content as soon as possible, and is competing for quantity over quality when it comes to web traffic which drives advertising. Shortcuts on the web are made for that reason all the time, with the theory of less sourcing and more content. Sourcing often doesn't sell, it consumes too much time, but an extra few articles might. That's why it's consumer beware in the ultra competitive times of mass and digital media. 

Virginia Montecino, 1998. Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources. http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

2-3 Blog: Social Media and Truth

We continue to dive into social media and how valid and accurate the information we acquire from it is. This week's prompts for this blog post:
How do you know what you know? Name one new thing you learned using a social media site today and explain why you believe it is true. What source did you use to acquire this information? At times, are social media sites reliable for obtaining credible information?

One unfortunate thing I learned from social media today was that a missing Arcadia Firefighter was found dead. I saw a few tweets about the story and then went to a link via Twitter to the Pasadena Star News with a story about it. I usually trust the sources I follow on social media because most of them are legitimate news stations that I trust. This particular story also attributes information to a sheriff's official, "The body of missing Arcadia firefighter Mike Herdman was found Friday by rescuers in the Sespe Wilderness, Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Dan Aguilar said." Attribution of sources make it obviously much easier for me to trust a story and its sources.

#BREAKING — Missing Arcadia firefighter's body found, authorities say. Story developing here: http://t.co/31BWLFr77d
— SGV Tribune (@SGVTribune) June 27, 2014

I believe most of the times social media sites are credible sources of information, at least the ones I follow. Again, I tend to follow mostly well-known media outlets and organizations that I trust. I also follow reporters and journalist that I've worked with or am friends with. Social media is full of legitimate news organizations, and if I do follow a "blogger" or an individual, I always get a second source, at least, to confirm any information I'm interested in or doing research on.

1-5 Blog: Influence of the Media

I use several forms of new media on a daily basis, most of which are social media. I use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram everyday both personally and professionally. I also have a LinkedIn account that I browse once every few days. In addition to those sites, I also created my own website, www.ryanforan.info (needs to be updated) several years ago as a resume website. I thoroughly enjoy social media and appreciate its power and impact.

Social media has definitely changed my perspective on events. I was first introduced to Twitter when I was a news reporter about eight or nine years ago. The immediacy of being able to not only gather news, but to disseminate it, was remarkable and profound. Since then, my experience and use of social media has grown significantly. As a news reporter it was a requirement as a part of my job. I also started two different social media campaigns for schools districts, I have, and do work for. The results have been significant with the amount of people we are able to reach and engage with. My current district is thrilled with my social media outreach campaign and what we’ve been able to accomplish in the ten months since I started here. I also use social media to stay in touch with family and friends, and as a news junky, to get the latest breaking news and trending topics.

My personal and professional experience with social media has been very positive. There have been many people hesitant when I suggest social media as an additional form of communication for a school district, but once they see the results, “how did we live without this before” is often heard. Do negative things and interactions occur via social media? Of course, but the positive impacts greatly outweigh the negative. At least in my experience thus far. I’m excited to dive deeper into social and digital media in this course.