Final Post... eerie

I finally made a LinkedIn account! Just to clear up our discussion about free accounts versus paid...

Your Account is Set Up — Choose Your Plan Level

What Do You Want to Do? What's this? Hover over the benefits below to get more detailed information on these features.	Premium	Basic (Free)
	Choose Premium $24.95 per month	Choose Basic Free
Create a professional profile and build your network Establish your professional identity Your LinkedIn profile is the key to your professional identity online, connecting you to trusted contacts and an extended network of professionals.	Yes	Yes
Join industry or alumni groups Pursue your interests with a community Develop new contacts, collaborate, or keep in touch with individuals of similar interests by joining one of LinkedIn's many professional groups.	Yes	Yes
Search & apply for jobs Job Search Tools Search through jobs posted on LinkedIn and find inside connections at the companies you want to work for. Get insight into hiring trends with LinkedIn's Company Profiles.	Yes	Yes
See who's viewed your LinkedIn Profile Who's viewed your profile? Get insight into who's been looking at your profile. You'll see a person's title, company, location and/or industry. (Premium accounts see the full list. Free accounts see 5 results.)	Yes	Limited
View the professional profiles of over 85 million people Get more info on people's profiles When you're trying to find the right contact or prepare for a meeting, seeing additional profile details can give you a leg up. (Premium accounts get access to job and education history, recommendations, and groups. Free accounts see a limited profile.)	Yes	Limited
Send messages to people you aren't directly connected to Directly contact decision makers Get your message directly in front of the right candidates or prospects with "InMail", our Premium messaging tool. InMails are 30x more likely to get a response than a cold call because your LinkedIn profile is attached.	Yes	No
Premium search filters & automated search alerts Find the Right People, Faster The business partner or candidate you're looking for is already on LinkedIn and Premium users get access to more search results and advanced search tools like search alerts and filters.	Yes	No
Save profiles into folders Build List of Interesting Profiles As a Premium member, you can save profiles into folders and build lists of important contacts and prospects.	Yes	No
Add notes & contact info to any profile Add notes & contact info on any profile Write private notes, visible only to you, on the profile of any LinkedIn member, not just the ones you're connected to.	Yes	No
Reach out to over 85 million users Find partners, candidates, & clients With direct messages, more search results, and access to more profile info, Premium members can fully take advantage of being on the world's largest - and fastest growing - professional network.	Yes	No

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Wow! $24.95 sounds like a lot each month! I guess if a person is really involved with the site then it makes sense but that's still crazy. I guess I'll go with the free account. I also brought the gild.com site to my friend's attention because they seem like the type of person that would like a site like this, kind of a gaming competition to get a job. All of these sites are really interlinking the world! It was interesting what one of the authors of an article we read for today's class said about "back  in the day" when business networking meant you bugged a friend in a Human Resources Department to hand off a resume to someone in the business and maybe a person could try to get a lunch with someone they wanted to work for. Now it seems like really anyone can connect on these forms of sites bridging possible location gaps in jobs. I also see this a lot with phone interviews. I know a few people who have had phone interviews with people in businesses across the United States since they're here at school. It's really amazing to think companies and organizations are able to interview via phone or Skype. Gives people a lot more opportunities to advance in the work force.






It's been a great semester! I hope everyone has a good winter break and good luck to all us seniors taking comps in January! (we just finished our LAST undergraduate fall semester...)

Giving in to the Apple vortex

For a Christmas present this year, I asked for an iTunes gift card.

I have never received nor bought an iTunes gift card and have probably only bought 3 songs on iTunes (maximum) in the 6+ years I've had an iPod. Why? Because I never had to. There were always "other" ways of getting the music I wanted onto my iPod without paying out of pocket. Now it's not even worth it to take that route, partially because those routes are shut down. 


Ok, so I'm lazy and would rather out the $.99 per song off a Christmas gift iTunes gift card than bother poisoning my computer with viruses and illegal torrents. What about the rest of the music consumption population? There has to be more passengers in this Lazy Boat than just me, so why hasn't iTunes taken recent torrent shut-downs as a marketing technique? In the "Store" and "Gift" sections on the Apple website, iTunes gift cards are a tiny little link on the side bar. I get that that's probably not Apple's major revenue, but I think it'd be great marketing to feature little slogans like "Do it legally" or something clever to promote the potentially higher number of music buyers on iTunes now that many websites and softwares have been shut down.


Also, who really cares if the Beatles are on iTunes? They had their own Rock Band game before iTunes, that's more shocking to me.

WWYD? (What would you do?)

These people I know own a beach house and over this past summer a renter downloaded the movie, The Hangover illegally on their computer using the house’s wireless internet. The owners received information from a government piracy prevention fining them for illegally downloading a movie. Luckily the internet provider had a date for the download and the owners were able to track down the renters to pay the fine. It's interesting that although the renter downloaded the movie to their personal computer that the person that pays for the internet service takes the heat. Everything worked out in the end, but I guess it makes it a little awkward calling a renter asking for a couple thousand dollars for a movie…

I wonder what happens when college students use campus internet to illegally download files. Do the schools get a free pass? What would you guys do if our school billed you $3,000 for an illegally downloaded song?

Webisodes?

In class we’ve been talking about web television and how it begins on the internet and thrives from online viewership. A thought came to my mind when we discussed these kinds of shows because it sounded very similar to “webisodes” of television programs. I’ve never personally watched them, but there are mini-bits put together of shows like “The Office” that begin a scene and encourage viewers to log onto the website to “watch more”. They are 30 seconds to 2 minute episodes created especially for the internet but come from a full length television show. Does that count as web television? Another example are the commercials that different companies put out to create a narrative for their product. For example a cell phone company creates a 30 second commercial beginning a narrative then inviting the viewers to “go online to see what happens”. Strange marketing but I guess if it gets people on your site and gets them to buy products, good job.

Vlogging at the vineyard

So I found this vlog Vineyard Vlog. I don't look at it but I thought it was really interesting. It looks professional, nice graphics, clear to read, a mix of the author's own videos, youtube videos, and written blog portions. He's been blogging, and vlogging, for a while, at least a year and has lots of comments on his vlog from readers/watchers. He co-developed a wine accessory brand and says about himself, "I consider myself brand savvy, architecturally “hip”,  and when it comes to wine I am a mid-level sommelier" ... whatever that means... There's a lot of information in his biography section about his resume, where he studied etc. but not much on why he's doing this, or what makes him a good source. I guess I would have to look at his early b/vlogs to figure that out. Either way, this is a nicely put together, formal vlog that you all might find interesting too.

Wouldn't want to roll over THAT in my sleep...

For Thursday's class we read Nicholas Carr's article, "The Net is Being Carved Up Into Information Plantations". This article was written May 2007, surprisingly, almost 4 years ago. I decided to look at the blog he keeps and he posted this interesting fact on October 1, 2010.

Touch me

OCTOBER 01, 2010

Yesterday, the NPD Group released the results of a survey of iPad owners. The most intriguing finding was that "20 percent of users’ time with the iPad was spent with it in bed." One has to wonder what other sorts of activities are being displaced by the nocturnal stroking of the iPad's highly responsive screen.

I find this fascinating. I don't have an iPad and I don't know anyone that I immediately interact with that has one but my understanding of the iPad is that it's an "on-the-go" product, one that people can substitute for a lap-top or trying to surf the internet on one's cell phone. I don't really see the "on-the-go" small, compact, light use for use in bed. Why not just use a lap-top? I know I see people on the metro every day using iPads so how much time a day are people really spending on their paper thin devices? I may sound like an old-timer when I say this but technology is taking up so much of our time, what happened to human interaction? As parents limit their children's computer, video game, and telephone usage adults need to step up and limit the amount of technology they let into their daily routine. 

Some Bing commercials... Makes you wana switch huh?

Interesting advertising concept - bad searching is contagious and a social and economic issue


Family in Car (Guest appearance from Orbit's cootie queen)
Teens' Jeans
Santa torments child (Guest appearance from Teens' Jeans!)
Raptor and parrot