Broadband Challenge Make-Up

I’ve been using online as my main source of movies and television for the past 3 years. When I decided to go back to school, I decided to get rid of the expense (both time and financial) of cable. It was a year into school before I found ninjavideo.net … my hub for television/movies/and cartoons. They have a bunch of different ways to load content. Now that I’m finishing up at school, I’m just starting to consider whether or not I should get cable again. You know what? I’m thinking I don’t really need to get it. And I haven’t listened to radio, really, since first year when I worked as a cook in a pizza shop (and radio was the background noise).

Online TV is better than regular TV because there are hardly any ads. Some websites show pre-roll ads or ads every 5-10 minutes. But not the ones I use. On occasion, I’ve watched shows with pre-rolls, and I found it pretty annoying. For me, I don’t mind watching an ad as long as it’s short. If it’s entertaining, so much the better, but I don’t really care in the end. I just want to watch the content.

The only real drawback to watching TV online is where I’m sitting when I watch it. I’m usually condemned to sitting in my office chair. Every once in a while, my girlfriend and I take my entire computer (Apple desktop) and put it on the foot of my bed so we can relax and watch in comfort. It’s a really clumsy situation, though, and there’s always the clean-up process afterwards. It’s probably just another of the reasons behind the trend towards integrating Internet connections into televisions.

The only chance I get to listen to music is in the morning at work (where we collectively choose between songs on YouTube) or on my CD player when I’m doing housework. In each case, I avoid advertising completely (we avoid the YouTube pop-ups because we only use the music as background sound … we don’t watch the videos).

Mobile Moron? Well, Maybe.

I have to admit, I’m a mobile vergin. I’ve never owned a cell phone, and I’ve only ever looked at or dialled the cell phones of a couple of friends. And now, I’m at a loss. I’ve always resisted the idea of being accessible to anyone, anywhere I go. But I realize now that it doesn’t have to be like that at all. And I also realize that the benefits of a phone can be significant if you apply it to business (like scheduling and easier contact with home base). Since I’m trying to become an Account Manager/Executive, this has huge relevance to me. One application I’m really interested in is the iPhone iCal ap. I love the idea of having a compact, easy-to-edit calendar that I can sync up with my computer.

So, no, I’ve never experienced a mobile campaign or any location-based marketing efforts. And I don’t really have any privacy concerns about the medium, though I assume there’s a certain decrease in privacy and obscurity when you sign on to a cell phone. One concern I have about location-based marketing is how many people are likely to buy in. From what I understand, a lot of this type of marketing relies on having Bluetooth enabled on your cell phone. But I’ve also heard from many cell-carrying friends that they never enable their Bluetooth because it drains the battery really quickly. And yet there have been clear successes in location-based marketing efforts, so someone’s taking part. Maybe it only happens in truly International metropolitan areas (where cell phone use and technology is at its highest). I think it will still be a while before location-based marketing is adopted fully in Canada. Though cell-phone use is high, we’re still really limited in how we use them.

Assignment 3 Make-up: Obama Campaign

Barack Obama’s use of social media as a tool of his election campaign is well noted to date. But let’s recap. He used a combination of blogging, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and communal Wiki (a private website that all members of a group can edit). The team used Wiki’s to organize volunteers and update each other on new happenings. A combination of the rest were used to keep supporters actively updated and mobile. Though Obama has admitted post-election that he’s never personally Twittered, on the day of the election the Obama Twitter account had 118,107 followers compared to McCain’s paltry 4942 followers. And by election day, Obama had 844,927 MySpace friends compared to McCain's 219,404. And really, I think these numbers are indicative of youth. The demographics of social media users back then tended to fall in line more closely with those of the Democratic voters. His most active supporters were among the heaviest users of the medium. These users were also huge generators of branding for Obama. They created iconic images and held events and spread it all around.

This whole campaign also illustrates an important lesson brought to us by Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message. During the campaign, social media was still just starting to boom, and mostly it was used by younger people. Since Obama used social media almost exclusively, he became known as a more youthful and energetic candidate, one who was on the cutting edge. It also helped that he was a bit of a blank slate.

An Ottawa brand that’s been using social media really well is the Ottawa Fringe festival. They use a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, and YouTube. And it makes a lot of sense for a theatre festival. Facebook’s used by the festival and the artists to create groups and communicate show times. Twitter’s used by everyone to update when a show has sold out or a line up is getting long. Flikr is used to show pics of the people having fun at the Fringe tent. And YouTube is used as a publicity page where artists can upload promotional videos and create buzz.