New Technology Assingment

               The new technology that I believe will affect social media immensely in the future is virtual reality. I was reading an ARTICLE by Mark Schaefer when I came across this idea of virtual reality being merged with social media and creating something called virtual spaces. This ARTICLE describes these virtual spaces as places where people can create their own avatars and interact with other people’s avatars wherever they want to be. Basically, people can create a better life than what they actually have in their virtual space and escape their normal lives into an amazing world of their own. They can meet people in these worlds and develop relationships through this virtual reality technology.

               When I heard about these virtual spaces I immediately thought about the movie “Ready PlayerOne” that is now playing in theaters. When I saw the previews for the movie it seemed so far-fetched, but what’s crazy is that after reading about virtual spaces, it doesn’t seem so unrealistic. The movie is basically about a boy who transports out of his normal life into a video game that is virtual reality. He has his own avatar and interacts with other people’s avatars. I haven’t seen the movie, but it would be interesting to see the difference between his actual reality and his virtual reality within the movie.

               The reason that I say that it would be interesting to see the difference between his actual and virtual realities is because Mike Elgan predicts that these virtual spaces will be “the most addictive experience ever introduced.” The reason he says this is because when people aren’t happy with their lives they can just transform themselves into another life and live that life instead. It isn’t hard to see why that would be addictive if you weren’t fully satisfied with your actual reality.

               Elgan also predicts that these virtual spaces will be both a good and a bad thing, just like all other social media. Like other forms of social media, Elgan says it will bring people together in the virtual reality but will further isolate us in the real world. I personally think that these virtual spaces sound really cool, but I think that overall they would have a negative effect. I think that giving people that space to create a different life, will just make them less satisfied with their real lives. What people need to do is focus on making their actual life a better one, not their life on social media or their life in a virtual space.

Reflection on Social Media Case 12: United Breaks Guitars

               Honestly, the more cases that we study like this the more I wonder why companies don’t just put the customer first. Anyone can post their bad experiences with a company on social media, and that’s exactly what Dave Carroll did when United Airlines mishandled his guitar. Except Dave Carroll made a whole song and music video about the incident, which received 18 million views. However, he tried to get United to remedy the situation for a year, and when nothing was done he made the video. So United Airlines definitely had it coming.

               United not handling this simple problem caused them a much bigger problem which caused them bad publicity and a loss of revenue. Just a simple search on Google of the song title “United Breaks Guitars” brings up many different news articles on the whole situation. One of the articles that comes up is from FAST COMPANY and they quote The Times of London, saying that the bad PR cost United 180 million dollars from the plunge in the stock market. Although there’s no proof that that price is entirely accurate, I’m sure it did cost them way more than it would have if they would have just addressed the problem in the beginning.

               Dave Carroll even wrote a book on the whole situation which you can find on AMAZON. His book is titled “United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media.” I think that the title of this book says it all. One voice really does have so much power on social media and it’s not just the voices of people with power and money, but the voices of normal everyday people. This is why it is so important that companies provide their customers with good customer service, because any of their customers could be that one voice that shares their bad experience, causing the company more problems than it had initially.

Reflection on Social Media Case 11: OK Go Gravity Song

My initial thoughts after reading about this social media case is why there are so many people reporting on OK Go choosing Facebook to release their newest music video “Upside Down & Inside Out” rather than YouTube. It seemed to be a really big deal to a lot of people and I honestly didn’t really see it as such a big deal. However, Facebook and YouTube did seem to be in competition with their video services with Facebook trying to prove that videos posted on their site can go just as viral as those posted on YouTube. HERE is an article on one way that Facebook is trying to compete with YouTube.

               I definitely think money was involved in OK Go’s decision to post this video on Facebook rather than YouTube, even thought they said it was for creative purposes. I also think that views were involved as well. Apparently, when this whole incident happened, you couldn’t share the link to YouTube videos and so there was less of a reach. However, with Facebook, people could literally share the video to their feeds, which would result in more views, making the video more viral. HERE is more information as to why OK Go chose Facebook to release their video.

               What is very interesting to me is that the company that they worked with to make this video, S7 Airlines, posted the video to YouTube and OK Go got upset about it, resulting in the video being taken down. There were no legal actions taken, but later OK Go actually ended up posting the video to their YouTube page after the initial release on Facebook. This makes me wonder if OK Go actually did have some negative feelings towards YouTube, which was mentioned briefly in some articles that I read about the whole issue.

Reflection on Social Media Case 10: Miracle Mattress Twin Tower Sale

 The ‘Twin Tower Sale’ commercial was created by Miracle Mattress and was overall very tasteless and just plain wrong. The 15^th anniversary of 9/11 was soon approaching and it’s obvious that Miracle Mattress was trying to use this event as a promotional deal on their social media. The whole video is very disturbing and you can find it HERE. This video went viral and the company received a lot of backlash, but it’s pretty clear why it did.

So many people were in the wrong, and it makes me wonder why no one thought that just maybe it might be offensive and probably isn’t a good idea. It will definitely take a lot of work on the company’s behalf to recover from this commercial that has gone viral. So many people have made comments on their Facebook page about how disgusted they are with the whole thing. Some people were forgiving, but the majority of comments are how disgusted people are with the people who made this video. There were even people saying how much they hope that they go out of business for it.

Mike Bonanno, the owner of Miracle Mattress, wrote an APOLOGY LETTER addressed to all of the victims and families of 9/11. I think that the letter was written very well and was a crucial step to recovering from this incident. However, the letter isn’t enough to make up for the wrong thing they have done, which he states within the letter.  

Miracle Mattress closed their doors after the whole event happened, and I’m sure during this time they went over many different policies and things the company could do to regain a positive reputation. However, even with the apology letter and the different things the company has tried to do to regain their reputation, what’s on social media will always be on social media. They are still getting bad reviews today because of the whole incident that happened years ago, which goes to show how hard it is to recover from something like this, especially in the age of social media.

Reflection on Social Media Case 9: Ponderize

               This case is very difficult to understand for me personally because there a lot of factors that go into it. This is about an LDS General Authority, Elder Durrant, who spoke in general conference on “ponderizing”, which is pondering the scriptures and memorizing a verse from the scriptures. I thought that the whole “ponderize” term is very clever, and apparently Elder Durrant’s son thought that it was clever too, so much that he created a website where you could buy merchandise that had “ponderize” on it, as well as a Facebook page on the subject.

After this website and Facebook page were created, there was a lot of backlash from people who were suspicious and saw the whole thing as a way for them to make money for personal gain. After this happened, his son made a post that said that all profits would go to a missionary fund. This only caused people to be more suspicious, questioning why that wasn’t said in the first place. The fact that the statement was only made after the backlash also makes me question if all profits really were intended to go to the missionary fund. You can read more about the whole scandal HERE as well as what was done by Elder Durrant to address the issue.

This whole social media case is just another example of how fast something can spread on social media and how fast there can be negative reactions if you aren’t careful. Things like this happen all the time on social media and this article from CNN presents many different incidents of it happening with celebrities. Overall, this can be a lesson for everyone to always think of what can happen in result of whatever you post on social media for everyone to see. The fact that everyone can see it, and not everyone will think of it as a positive thing, should always be in the back of your mind.

Reflection on Social Media Case 8: Pastor's 10% to God

 

This social media case is about a pastor who ate at Applebee’s with a group of friends and when it came time to pay the bill, the computer automatically added an 18% gratuity tip because it’s Applebee’s policy. Pastor Bell apparently didn’t agree with this because on the receipt she wrote “I give God 10%. Why do you get 18.” I also found it interesting that she crossed out the automatic 18% and wrote 0 in the blank space for a tip. One of the serves saw the receipt and posted a picture of it on Reddit. Supposedly this server got fired, but what I want to focus on within this case is whose reputation was damaged more.

I personally think that the pastor’s reputation was damaged more, but that the server and Applebee’s got more negative repercussions. Posting confidential information can be super damaging to your companies reputation, and can result in the employee that posted it getting fired, like it did in this situation. You can read more about how companies can get their reputation damaged HERE. I don’t think that this particular situation was damaging to Applebee’s reputation, but I do think that it may have been damaging to the employees reputation. However, I think that the pastor’s reputation was ruined the most.

What this pastor wrote on the receipt is distasteful, but what I think is most damaging to the pastor’s reputation is the fact that she didn’t even want to leave a tip. This is just wrong and a tip should always be left for the server. If the pastor didn’t want the whole world seeing what she did then she probably should have thought of that before she did it. Here is a link to a letter from a restaurant worker on why you should always tip at least 15%.

Reflection on Social Media Case 7: Anthony Weiner's Post

           The Anthony Weiner case is a perfect example of how someone’s reputation can be ruined through social media, especially when they deny the truth. Anthony Weiner was a U.S. Congressman who was accused of sexting. He initially denied the accusation, but because it was on social media, news stories dug deeper into the case and he eventually admitted that the accusations were true. His reputation was ruined, which is obvious when you do a Google search on his name. Most all of the top search results are about the whole scandal and there is even a whole Wikipedia page devoted to his sexting scandals. I can’t help but wonder if the negative effects on him would have been lessened if he would have admitted to the whole thing in the beginning, rather than lying about it.

               There are definitely many things that can be learned from Anthony Weiner, such as admitting to something that you did, especially if it is being talked about on social media. This is especially important if you are a political figure being as you are constantly being watched by the public. Anthony Weiner brought “degradation upon himself” according to The New York Times. I believe that part of this self-inflicted degradation was the fact that he didn’t admit to everything that he had done until it was too late, and of course, the fact that he sexted multiple women, including an under-age girl is the main cause of this degradation. Although I do wonder if the effects would have been lessened if he admitted his faults earlier, I don’t believe that he would have gotten away with the sexting. He would have had to face criticism and many other things, but I don’t think it would have been as bad as it was. Lying and hiding things will only make matters worse, no matter who you are.