I had an appointment  in Amsterdam today, I live in Zwolle which approximately an hour with the train. I always like to take the public transport because when you go by train you always hear, see or experience something remarkable. You overhear people’s conversation and start wandering about it while probably putting their story in a completely wrong context.  Or you can just stare out of the window and get into sometimes pleasant other times more annoying conversations with your fellow travelers.

So this morning when I got into the train I was looking forwards to another exciting trip. It was busy on the platform so there were enough people conversations to be made and enough conversations will take place to accidently overhear. Fortunately I was able to find an empty seat and there we went close to each other in the full train. Every passenger took his/her time to settle in, get their coats off, put their bags in a comfortable position. By the time we crossed the Ijssel my coupé was settled. However there were still no voices being heard… Although I did not hear any voices, it was very noisy in the coupé. I think everyone except for me and an old woman, who fell asleep and woke up after a few minutes, did not carry around a smartphone, a Nintendo DS, an iPod or another electronical device to entertain us during the ride.  For 45 minutes I have been listening to a mixture of Turkish, hiphop, pop sort of jazz bluesy music while phones were ringing and people received heaps of text messages. I am usually not very fund of the mornings, but my experience so far always was that after an exciting trip in the train with a cappuccino from the kiosk and all the diverse people and stories around me, I had a good start of the day. Well, the beeping and all the iPods, mp3’s and 4’s were driving me nuts.

I was happy to finally arrive in Amsterdam to get out of that coupé and instead of listening to whining beeps of an iPhone I was glad to be able to listen to the Dutch whining, that we Dutch people are such experts at. If there isn’t something wrong with the train, its either the weather or something completely unreasonable. I walked to tram one and together with me a group of primary school children who were probably on their way to school got into the tram with me. I smiled and sat. then I was amazed by what happened next. Those children who might have just turned 11 all took out their blackberry’s and started gaming, listening to music, pinging. I thought I had turned crazy. I walk around with solely a secondhand Nokia which is at least 5 years old and there those young children are with their brand new blackberry’s. Where do those children get 40 euros a month in order to be able to afford such thing? Is it also time for me to buy myself a smartphone in order to stay into conversation with my surroundings? Are we from now on talking to each other through ping, whatsapp or another instant messaging option? If yes, please warn me. I have a lot of interesting things to share.

Fact check! For the ones who are interested in some facts concerning the usage of smartphones, check this out: 

So, let me know.. Do I NEED a smartphone? 

Cheers!

As seen in earlier blogs, the design and layout of a website are very important. Another way to make sure that customers and/or users can see your website as the ideal one is UX (user experience). We talked about this in class, but I never really got, what it is.  Magnus Revang writes in his blog about the user experience (ux):

My father is turning 60 coming October, he has never been really interested in computers, the internet and all that technological stuff. I don’t know whether that is because he has more and more difficulty reading the small letters, because he does not have a clue how it works (although he doesn’t admit that) or because he is truly not a fan of it. First, I thought my dad was not sensitive for all this trendy stuff, he wanted to read his book, a real  newspaper and he certainly didn’t want any of his personal data on the internet (which is practically impossible today). My mother on the contrary is very well informed about new gadgets and despite the fact that she also isn’t too sure about how to actually use it, she loves to have all the gadgets. So she had just bought the family a new computer, but then she realized she really, really needed a laptop for work. AND THEN the offer of the NRC Handelsblad (Dutch newspaper) came to my mother’s attention.  The offer entailed a two-year subscription to the newspaper and as a welcome present you would get an iPad 16g for free. We had a subscription to the Volkskrant (another Dutch newspaper) to which my father is very attached, but that was canceled within no time! Usually my parents are all about discussing everything with each other, but here my mother immediately took the lead and decided that we were getting subscribed to the NRC.

My father was very skeptical towards the whole idea, another stupid, useless electrical thing in our household. However, the ‘thing’ has been in the house for a month  now and slowly he is starting to like the iPad and its applications. He discovers all kinds of interesting websites like TEDtalks and the links famous jazz musicians send you on twitter, that you can then immediately read?? Although he has a hard time admitting it he actually likes some of the endless opportunities of the internet. Sometimes he hits the wrong buttons with his big hands and starts to jeer at the little black flat device. Then I would have to explain again (and again and again and again) what this website is called again and how you find information on that subject again.

Now I’m curious, how are your parents getting along with all these new technologies? Please comment below! 

While I am working on new blog posts I always keep my Twitter account switched on and my Facebook page open in case something new happens. It causes me to spend a lot of time uselessly browsing the internet and I drastically suffer from an information overload but it also gave me inspiration for this blog.

When I opened my Twitter account one of my friends tweeted something about one of his teachers putting the answers of his test online before he did the exam. I read this, giggled and moved on with my work. Then suddenly a tweet with the same message was posted by the weblog of the city of Zwolle, the message got my attention again and I thought to myself ‘too bad for my friend he’ll probably has to do the test again’. Than the newspaper of Zwolle tweeted about the event. And all of the sudden I see @nosheadlines tweeting about the occurrence on the Windesheim and the news had reached national level. That is funny, I have just seen the news spread live over the internet.

Apparently one of the teachers had or had not selected an option on the blackboard page of the school which caused the answers to be accessible before the test. The students started sending out tweets about this after they finished the exam. Unfortunately, the Windesheim  picked up the tweets and hundreds of students now have to re-do the exam.

Within just a few hours, the tweet of some random Windesheim student has reached national level. A great lesson can be learned here, except that one should be careful about what they tweet since this occurrence proves again how fast news can travel. BUT an even more important lesson: If those digital immigrants accidently post answers online, do not tweet nor post it on facebook but support your fellow students and keep quiet!

What do you think: Stupid teacher or stupid student? 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8295219/Egypt-crisis-Google-launches-speak-to-tweet-service.html

There is this Dutch comedian called Youp van ‘t Hek and a few months ago he caused a lot of revolt through his twitter account. His son has a telephone contract with the provider T-mobile. There was some sort of a problem with this telephone and he tried calling and calling the helpdesk who send him from pillar to post. Since that did not work he tried stopping by at the T-mobile shop where he did not book a lot more result after waiting for an hour. His mother tried calling, his father desperately tried calling.. I think you get the picture, we have all been there. That is why Youp van ‘t Hek thought it was enough. He send out an angry twitter message about T-mobile and within half an hour he had a director of T-mobile calling him and the problems for his son were solved.

Youp van ‘t Hek already has a reputation concerning the wrecking of brands. The last time that happened he did not even need a twitter account to reach his 40.000 followers he just made a joke in his new year’s conference on new year’s eve. He made a joke about the people who drink the alcohol free beer Buckler, three years later the brand was not sold anymore. So T-mobile, and all the other helpdesks in fact, are warned.

This is where Youp started the revolution against those lousy help desks. The comedian has a column in the NRC Handelsblad which is a popular Dutch newspaper and he was invited to television programs to come and talk about the issue. The issue has got a lot of attention, van ‘t Hek is now collecting everyone’s complaints and is going to publish them in a book.

This is solely one example of the power of social media. imagine, with less than 140 characters people can actually have an impact. Now this is an example of a celebrity in the Netherlands. However, if a random person sits behind his computer and either thinks of a catchy phrase or an issue that just includes a lot of people the internet can be a very powerful tool.

Did you ever have bad experiences with help-desks? Or was one of  your messages accidently widely spread? Let me know! Please comment below!! 

When our teacher at the Windesheim Honours College started talking about the ‘word of mouse’, I first thought he was like my German neighbor who just pronounces –th as an s. This turned out to be not entirely true, it appeared that the ‘word of mouse’ is some sort of an upgrade of the familiar ‘word of mouth’.

Everyone in the world copies one another. We all think it is really important what others think of us and about the things that we do. Some people pretend not to care, but somewhere within all of us we keep the opinion of others in the back of our heads. This not only goes for our behavior, this also counts for the products that we buy and the services we utilize.

Including the reason mentioned above the ‘word of mouth’ is a successful marketing strategy. If someone enthusiastically starts babbling to his or her friends and family about a certain product he or she has used than those people might get curious and will try the product themselves. Therefore, the word of mouth can be a powerful marketing tool, nevertheless it usually is rather innocent and small-scaled.

The word of mouse on the contrary can evoke a huge impact in a small amount of time. As this example of a few students in Britain proves:

Word of mouth is a very common and successful marketing strategy, it is about sharing either good or bad experiences one had with a product of service. One could state that the ‘word of mouth’ was an innocent concept, today however the word of mouse has taken mouth to mouth marketing to a different level. The ‘word of mouse’ concept is about sharing your experiences online. This could be done from person to person by electronic mail, for instance. Nevertheless, as you all know there are tons of other opportunities today to share a message on the internet. Especially now with the web 2.0 the impact of the ‘word of mouse’ can be incredible. Therefore it is of importance for a company to make sure a positive message about your company is circling around in the world wide web.

More and more use is being made of review websites, forums and social network sites. Consumers start using the sources more often and thereby force companies to follow their behavior in order to keep up. As a company you want to be one step ahead of the consumer, but with the internet it will be a neck to neck race.

So, what do you think? Are you sensitive for peer pressure? Does the word of mouse marketing have an effect on you?

Egypt is on the move. Well that is what the people want. The Egyptian government wants to stay in power. In their efforts they even blocked the Internet.
Enjoy the very first (and probably last) episode of MediaMayo as we explore what this situation would bring about in the Netherlands.

Cheers,
Vera, Marieke & Elise

(download)

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blogvid.m4v (22.64 MB)

With the title of this blog I am a content contributor to the amount of ‘Happy-hits’ on, for instance, Google. During our Online Media course at the Windesheim Honours College we were made aware that the spread of positive messages happens more frequent than the spreading of negative messages. I, and I think many people with me, were a little surprised though glad to receive this news. After hearing this I searched the phrases ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ on google to make the same discovery.

Happy: About 500,000,000 results (0.14 seconds)

Sad: About 194,000,000 results (0.15 seconds) 

Isn’t that a pleasant surprise? In this busy days, with the crisis and the global warming and all these other horrors hanging above our heads.

Apparently people like to share happy messages rather than promote sad message. I don’t know how that is in your social environment, but I often detect the people around me (and myself to be honest) on complaining about as much as possible about as many things as possible. Fortunately this is not the case on the net. Face book now even has a page to keep track of the ‘Gross National Happiness’ (GNH) which is, in the opinion of some people, even more important than the Gross Domestic Product of a country. The GNH is developed to measure the quality of life and Facebook is collecting information on it. Which seems to me a nice addition to the big pool of happiness on the internet. This discovery made my day. It is nice to have the feeling that the online world is looking at the bright side of life. So, that I’ll do! How ‘bout you guys? 

Your closest friends are the most important people in your life. They are the ones who do things for you, they are there for you. Although, this may sound strange but your acquaintances may be more of use to you. This idea was provoked by me by the concept of ‘the strength of weak ties’. Mark Granovetter thought of this theory in the 1970s. Although this is an old theory, it is a hot topic today. Due to the popularity of online social media. The question that deservedly often arises is ‘why’ should be have over 500+ friends on our Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. This can be rectified with the theory of ‘the strength of weak ties’. You could define weak ties as people you speak to minimally once a year and maximally once a week. The ‘inner core’ of your friends are often people that are all strongly connected to each other. You and your best friends are often in the same group of friends. Where your acquaintances are in a different ‘inner core’ and that is how your network is extended. The strength, importance or dexterity of a person’s weak ties are often underestimated. Together with friends you live in a little bubble, you share the same interests, the same opinions, you visit the same places. The people with whom you do not have a strong tie, also live in an equal bubble,  that is however different from yours. This might introduce you to new insights or maybe just a nice new restaurant that has opened up. But, what also was the foundation of Mark Granovetter’s theory, weak ties often turn out to be a great introduction to new personal economic developments. In the 1970s Granovetter found out that 65% of the people find their new jobs through the people that they are not in contact with that much. Imagine that was the case back then, how is that today? With all the online media which enables you to maintain weak ties all over the globe?
In western societies these contacts are seen as important, companies might even have special pr-officers to make sure the company maintains its weak ties. The relevance of these ties may be less recognizable for people in developing countries, who find it more important to make sure their close contacts are maintained. This may contribute to a slow development. does this have an influence? Are these kind of cultural differences of great enough impact to slow down development? Or am I overreacting? 

Lately, a couple of Arab countries are going through some turbulent times. In Tunisia it started with a single young man, who put himself on fire out of desperation. In Egypt 26 January, 2011 was called out to be the "day of rage". Demonstrations, unrest and protests are not unusual in our world of injustice, corruption, oppression and so many other human flaws. What makes the ongoing unrests so special for this blog is the fact that social media plays a role in it. During the last couple of days nearly every news report - in both print and visual media - I have seen, talked about the importance of social media in these conflicts.

The message

According to the social media forum of mashable, the following message has been sent to students of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs:

From: “Office of Career Services”

Date: November 30, 2010 15:26:53 EST:

Hi students,

We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

Regards,

Office of Career Services

The message implies, that students that use the services of Wikileaks or engage in any way with this platform via Twitter or Facebook are not being considered to be able to handle 'confidential information' Students doing that will then not be considered for jobs in the federal government.

What?

When I read this statement, which the Huffington Post says to be no real official statement, I somehow was not really surprised, and still shocked. Of course, everyone knows by now what different things Wikileaks showed of the American way of working intergovernmental and we also all know how not amused the American government was with the openings of the online platform. First they forced Amazon to quit the work with Wikileaks, now they also force their people to do so.

It is somehow understandable, that a government does not feel like spreading more information like that and it is obvious, that they are searching for strategies to decrease the influence of this platform.

Nevertheless, in my opinion students should be able to follow everyone on Twitter. Following Wikileaks does in no way show that you can't handle issues responsibly and confidentially, it just shows your general interest in international happenings (and students of International and Public Affairs should definitely have this interest...)

For me, this letter is a way to suppress the freedom of speech and expression for these students and I think that the state goes to far with doing that...

But what do you think?

Laura

The most common and spread communication tool in the world is probably the cell phone. In some countries people have even more access to phones than to proper sanitation. That is the case in many countries in Africa and Asia.

Tanzania might be not the best example to underline the previous statement since the sanitation rate is slightly higher than the mobile penetration, but you will get the point anyway. In Tanzania 75 % of the population lives in rural areas and of them only 57 % have access to "improved water sources", as the United Nations Development Programme states (UNDP). Whatever that is supposed to mean. On the other hand 50 % of the Tanzanian population has a cell phone, if not even two or three with different carriers.

Hi again!

This time you are getting an audio podcast about the weird traditions in the Netherlands.

Enjoy

Sinterklaas.wma

(download)

Click here to download:

Sinterklaas.wma (3.19 MB)

Do you have any weird rituals and traditions in your country? Share them with us!

Happy Sinterklaas,

Angela & Laura

Yeah, right, Facebook shoes! Well, if you don't like Facebook that much, there are also Twitter shoes...

Like almost every woman, I love shoes! I could buy a pair every day, if I had the money and time for that. Well, I'm a student, so that's not possible... But when I read about the social media shoes on Mashable, I also didn't really regret that... Mashable states that these shoes are unfortunately not for sale yet. Well, unfortunately?

The Internet is taking over the world

We already talked about the fact, that Google seems to be trying to take over the world or at least take away your privacy as much as possible. Google is also already designing clothes....And we also already noticed that the Internet is everywhere, and everywhere we don't have it, we miss it.

You can take the internet everywhere, be on Twitter on Facebook 24/7 and now, you can even dress their way.

These are the shoes by designer Gerry Mckay. 

(download)

Click here to download:

show-your-addiction-wear-facebook-shoes-oaygkFwIfuxcqHzpjnlC.zip (418 KB)