About Rui (Serena) Zhou
NO-CARD
As I was trying to upload my photos from my phone to Dropbox last night, I found out there was not enough space left to upload the photos. Therefore, I clicked on the button “Get more space”. The page in the picture above popped up. The first option is to upgrade your account, and of course, not for free. In order to get 50 GB of space, I will have to pay $99 per year. I was shocked by how much I have to pay to get some online space. If I had to pay $99, I would rather buy USBs.
Without a doubt, I looked at other options. Surprisingly, all the other options were free, and one thing they had in common is that they somewhat requires you to use social tools. First, if you have a Facebook account and Twitter account, by connecting your accounts to Dropbox, you can get 250MB free space right away. Second, by referring to a friend, you can get 500MB free space. In my opinion, one of the most efficient way to refer to a friend is by using those social tools, such as Facebook, Twitter, and email. For example, if you have 300 Facebook friends, and one third of your friends (100 people) signed up for Dropbox through your reference, you will be able to get about 50GB space on Dropbox. In other words, by using social tools, you have saved $99.
First of all, why would companies ever want to make such deals that they don’t seem to get any direct compensation for? In my opinion, this is because they understand the value of social tools. Dropbox wanted its users to be its advertisers as well. This is the similar idea from the video Generation Like. Companies nowadays realize the value of sharing among its users. Therefore, companies like Dropbox would be willing to give up some of its profit to gain potential users and earnings. However, what if all of its users use social tools to get free online space, and no one actually needs to pay anything in the end. Do you think it is realistic and realizable?
“Help us make up who we want to be” is the phrase I constantly saw on some subway advertisement lately (please refer to the picture). What caught my eye at once were not only the amazing make-up looks, but also a girl named Michelle Phan. On the advertisement, it says Michelle had over 5 million YouTube subscribers. This YouTube millionaire girl interested me and I decided to watch some of her videos on YouTube. Surprisingly, when I looked her up on YouTube, her subscribers on YouTube had raised to over 6 million already. Later on, I found out all she used to become a successful woman today is a laptop and a camera. She started with posting make-up tutorial blogs at first, however, as more bloggers requested; she posted her first video on YouTube in 2007” (Wikipedia). Her growing popularity on the internet attracted many beauty brands to offer corporate sponsorship to her, such as Lancôme. In last year, L’Oreal sponsored Michelle to start her own beauty brand “EM” (Wikipedia).
Michelle’s successful career reminded me of Steven, the 14 year old skateboarder in the video Generation Like. Similar with Steven, they are both popular people on YouTube, and they both earned corporate sponsorships by their popularity on YouTube. All they used to become known was a camera to take videos and a laptop to upload videos. It was the power of social tools that made their talents known. Without YouTube and blog, Michelle would probably only become an ordinary make-up artist. It was the social tools that empowered Michelle to reach out to public who may be interested in her videos. In other words, it was the social tools that allowed Michelle to attract her consumers and sell her brand today. Do you have great business ideas, too? If yes, then utilize these social tools to start to build your own business today!
For Michelle Phan’s interview by Australia Sunrise TV Program, click Here.
About two year ago, I participated in a flash mob proposed by a school club called TOM’s. TOM’s club is a charitable club that tries to help the children in poverty by promoting the company TOM’s promise that every pair of shoe you purchase, another pair of shoe will be given to a child who walks barefoot.
The idea of this flash mob event was to raise awareness of our club on campus. We started the club with only 7 officers. Besides having a regular meeting every week to plan for the flash mob, the main way we communicated was through Facebook. By inviting our friends to the Facebook page, our group grew fast. Every Facebook member was updated with the dancing practice time and location, and those who could make it to the practice participated actively.
This reminds me Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody, when he talks about the ice cream flash mob that was formed by using social tools. It was social tools that enabled the ice cream mob to reach out to the large population without alerting the Lukashenko government (Shirky 168). Indeed, it was also social tools that enabled TOM’s flash mob to take place. With Facebook, we reached out to as many students as possible and kept them updated with all the information without needing to text people one by one. At the end, we had about 50 participants in the flash mob and over a hundred members on Facebook. I can’t imagine how the event would turn out without Facebook.
For reference to the flash mob video, click here.
The group of students at the beginning of the video said, “Our generation uses Facebook and claims to want to show one’s true self.” We post our hobbies, likes, and lives on social media. However, is it really that we want people to know who we really are? I think the answer is no. Instead, most people in the video like to post on social media because they want to become popular. The more likes you have, the better you feel. Everyone sees how many likes you get and how popular you are. For example, lots of people posted funny videos just to earn subscribers on YouTube.
Social media is all about sharing, and it give its user the empowerment. For example, Tyler Oakley would probably never been known by millions of people if there was no YouTube. Sharing his videos on YouTube allowed him be exposed to a much larger pool of audience. Another example is Steven, the young skateboarder. Since Steven got thousands views on YouTube and become popular, he started to get sponsorships from lots of brands. Without this platform, it is hard to imagine Steven can be known by any company.
As we use our sharing power to re-tweet or like a Facebook page of a company, we are being a marketer of those companies. For example, when our generation like a pop star, a company, it becomes part of our identity. Kayley Lyn spent hours to re-tweeting for Hunger Games. Essentially, she simply wanted to show her identity that she is actually a fan of Hunger Games. Therefore, we as consumers, can actually become the most hard working marketers for companies. In addition, by looking at who shared, who liked their pages, companies gather demographic data about its potential consumers. Company knows how to use the data to create value for themselves because by getting a re-tweet may help a company for maybe a million sales.
The title of Watts and Strogatz’s article: Collective Dynamics of ‘Small-World’ Networks. They cited 27 sources and most of them are about science, such as physics, math, and biology. In addition, this article was cited 8709 times by others. The top 3 authors who cited this article were Mr. Chen, Mr. Wang, and Mr. Zhou. Most journals who cited the article is about physics. Journals about computer information systems cited them in a moderate amount. In addition, their citations pattern is in a trend going up.
As more and more news websites are made available to us, we can just stay home and know everything that is going on in the world. Timely information is also made available to us since news websites are consistently updating. However, while we read news online, we have to be aware of the credibility of the articles. Especially, be aware of who the author of the articles really is. Native advertising is a form of advertising used in news like articles. they are usually sponsored by companies for its own interest. To be more specific, when we see a news like article on a news website, it could actually be an advertisement article written by a company.
For example, Huffington Post is one of the news websites that employs native advertising. Link When most of us go on Huffington Post’s website, we expect to read news articles written by professional journalists. However, the article linked above was actually written by Netflix for its Thanksgiving promotion. If we did not pay attention to the “Presented by Netflix” above the article title, we could take it as an article written by journalist. There is definitely a difference between a news article and an advertisement because advertisement are usually biased by the interest of the sponsored companies.
Since native advertising can be easily confused with news article on a news website for readers, native advertising should be made more recognizable from news articles. As readers, we have to be aware of the existence of native advertising, so that we do not get “fooled” by companies’ advertisement. What do you think? Should there be regulations in place to separate native advertising articles from news articles?
Robles, Erica, Clifford Nass, and Adam Kahn. “The Social Life Of Information Displays: How Screens Shape Psychological Responses In Social Contexts.” Human-Computer Interaction 24.1/2 (2009): 48-78. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
I found this article by Clifford Nass who is a professor at Stanford University on Academic Search Complete Database. The article argues how people’s behaviors change under social influence.
Did you know Forbes actually publishes computer generated stories? (Forbes article written by robot journalists) When I first found this out, I was astonished by how much technology can do for us today. Narrative Science is one of the lead companies that develops automated journalism software—the robot journalists. “Robot Journalists”, as the name implies, it is a software that automatically generate news articles. According to the Evgeny Morozov (“A Robot Stole My Pulitzer” by Evgeny Morozov), this software are mostly applied in sports, finance, and real estate field. The reason is because these articles usually follow the same pattern and require lots of statistical analysis. Especially, these are the fields that require fast real time information, and robot journalists can easily achieve that. These robot journalists can save much more time and money for the publisher. Although it is artificial intelligence, the quality of the articles written by robot journalists even exceeds the ones written by professional journalists because machines make less errors than human. According to Mr. Morozov, they even can incorporate mostpopular and recent quotes from Twitter.
Despite of all the benefits robot journalists may bring, this technology scares me. When I first read the article generated by robot journalists, except the author’s name was Narrative Science, I did not realize any difference from an article written by a real journalist. Somehow, I felt I was fooled. I found myself real uncomfortable reading a robot written article. Part of the truth might be it was hard for me to admit artificial intelligence could take over human intelligence. At the same time, there are other ethical issues arose, such as the unemployment of professional journalists. Will robot journalists be able to take over real journalists one day? How do you feel about reading an article generated by a machine? 
Prof. Gloria Thomas is my BUS 4444H class’s professor, and I have enjoyed the class so much. After I researched on Baruch College’s website, I found out Prof. Thomas’s expertise is in relationship marketing. She holds a PhD in marketing from Temple University. She not only published a book in information and behavior, but also published articles in Journal of Marketing and Journal of Consumer Research. These articles focuses on communication and interaction between people, which are indispensable elements in marketing.
When I think about the library, I think of studying and books. As a full time student at Baruch College, library has always been the place I spend my time studying at. Studying at library can always help me to be focused and get lots of work done.
Comments:
"Interesting topic. This was definitely not a smart move by Donald Sterling. In my opinion, the protest by Clippers' players was a good one. By simply not wearing Clippers' name out, they did not do anything that violates the physical rules or laws of their team or the society. At the same time, it showed their dissatisfaction towards Donald Sterling's comments. However, to decide if this protest was effective, we have to look at the results. This protest will be effective if it helps Donald Sterling to realize what he did wrong and maybe do something tot remedy his hurtful comments."
posted on Apr 28, 2014, on the post LA Clippers Silent Protest"I agree that we do go to the Internet for most of our questions nowadays. For example, I go to YouTube most of the time for how to use Excel. And you can understand it so much faster than reading a same length instruction from a textbook. For the example in your article, it is such a beneficial tool for people who ever have the same questions with the founder of the website."
posted on Apr 28, 2014, on the post Turn to the internet: It will solve your problems."I agree with your concern about misunderstanding in using technology to deliver a message. When I read messages on my phone or laptop, I tend to skim through it fast without reading it twice, and it causes misunderstandings at times. However, the convenience of using technology to deliver a message is evident. Therefore, it requires us to know what kind of message we are delivering in order to know which way is better to convey it. For example, is the message important or mundane things, complex or simple, long or short? For the complex and important ones, we may then want to talk face to face with the person, and deliver the less important ones by using technology."
posted on Apr 24, 2014, on the post Technology possibly ruins your relationship"Nowadays, we have so much confidence in the technology we use. However, there are certainly areas that still remain mystery, just like the missing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Everyday when we and the loved ones of the lost passengers get on the news website, it is frustrating to know that nothing has been found about the flight. The government of Malaysia and all the entities involved in this incident is now under great pressure by people all over the world. This may be a good thing in pushing the progress of the search for Flight MH370. On the other hand, if this incident happened 50 years ago in Malaysia, the government would probably have devoured so much energy in searching for the flight. How did this change? It is social tools that empowered us! Right after the incident was reported, my friends on Facebook start to talk about it, my Wechat friends start to post articles related to it. Without checking the news, I already knew about the progress of the incident. This reminds me of the Sidekick phone story that Shirky mentioned in the first Chapter of Here Comes Everybody. The social tools empowered Ivan and the loved ones of the passengers to push to government to devour their best effort. It is sad to know that the passengers are still missing, but it is comforting to know that the government is putting an effort in finding the missing flight."
posted on Apr 24, 2014, on the post What do we do when technology fails?"Interesting topic! As in the video Generation Like, it was all about popularity and attention that drives people to want for more likes from others. I think that as more and more people know about bots, they will probably pay to get likes. However, if bots really get popular and everyone is using it, there is no value of getting likes anymore. At the end of the day, those social media that do not allow bots will probably be the winner."
posted on Apr 24, 2014, on the post Bots bots bots!"There is a temptation to do irrelevant things when use a digital device during classes. I am easy to get distracted by using digital devices, therefore I rarely bring laptops or use tablets in class. But I do agree with Jonathan that this really depends on the person who is using it. Although I personally do not take advantage of digital devices in classroom, I see how it effectively helped my classmate to take notes with it when the professor goes really fast. I wonder what will be the classroom look like in 10, 20,30 years. Maybe only digital classrooms will exist in the future."
posted on Apr 24, 2014, on the post Digital devices in the classroom"Amazing material! It would be great if we can have that long last battery. Then phones will probably become more affordable and more in demand. I also wondered why Graphene was not put in use immediately, and I found out in this article (http://www.graphenea.com/pages/graphene-uses-applications#.U1hNkbmYYdU) that Graphene is a conductor without band gap, which means it can not be turned off. Therefore, it is dangerous to use Graphene around places with electric. I hope there is a way to solve this dilemma soon."
posted on Apr 23, 2014, on the post Graphene: The Material of the Year"Your post reminds me of the app "Dodgeball" that Shirky talks about in his book. It is amazing how you can use social media and apps to make connections with others based on the shared interest, background, friends you have, which you would not be able to get access to without social tools. I also agree with you on the disadvantages of the seating service. It is somehow scary for me to know that a stranger sitting next to me knows about my personal life."
posted on Apr 23, 2014, on the post Network at 35,000 Feet"This story just showed me another way of how using social media can be beneficial to us. In the little girl's case, she was fortunate enough to be medicated on her eye diseased in such an early stage. Without social media, she would probably experience great pain when she grow up. This is a benefit to allow yourselves to share personal things on public platforms."
posted on Apr 22, 2014, on the post Facebook post saves girl’s vision"Thanks for the information! (I am downloading the app) Such an amazing app was made meaningful by social media and technology. Imagine 20 year ago, there was no such thing called an app yet. And UNICEF would probably never be made as well known as it is today by the power of social media. Technology is indeed powerful in sharing information."
posted on Apr 22, 2014, on the post DON’T TOUCH YOUR PHONE FOR 10 MINUTES"Great post and creative thoughts! I agree with Jonathan and Miree that bigger and better social tools will be introduced. The assimilation among social media is that they try to copy each other to remain competitive in the market. Just like Apple and Sampson, they copied each other in different ways and they are somehow similar to each other. But at the same time, they are recognized as distinct products with its own brands."
posted on Apr 22, 2014, on the post The Future of Social Media"Interesting article! I believe the 3D bio-printing technique is a great breakthrough for the medical field. It may enable many people with disabilities to become healthy again. Also, with 3D bio-printing, the cost of an organ will become really low, therefore more people will be able to afford for an organ replant. It will be a great accomplishment of human history when the technology matures. However, this technology reminds me of body clones. Indeed, having organs replaced by human-made organs underlies lots of uncertainties. Are they really going to function as a natural organ?"
posted on Apr 22, 2014, on the post Printing body parts?"Reading through your article is like going through a technology revolution. Although I don't have much memory about using all the technologies in the pictures, I do agree that technology have made a huge impact on our lives in the last two decades. Technology had really evolved from being an entertainment to an everyday necessity."
posted on Apr 22, 2014, on the post Microfiche anyone??"Welcome to Baruch Johana! And I strongly agree with you that our library is very resourceful. Especially we have the iPad and laptops loan program to borrow for free! Very helpful if you can not find a computer on campus!"
posted on Feb 5, 2014, on the post Library
