I Stumbled Upon My ACL

After an exciting ACL weekend I was in search of something to blog about in relation to the festival. As I typed in ACL on Google I was hoping to find an official ACL blog. Well I found one but it had nothing to do with music. In fact it had everything to do with ACL surgery in India.

In recent we have seen the emergence of India as a major player in the world’s medical and research community.

http://www.orthopedicsurgeryindia.blogspot.com/

Is an interesting blog, which advertises the great arthroscopic surgeries of Dr.A.K.Venkatachalam’s treatment center. His center is geared towards American and British patients. On the blog you can check out videos and picture testimonies of English speaking Indians showing the wonderful results of their surgeries. Also, there is an avatar-narrator, Mimi, summarizing the website. Weird but kinda cool. I think it’s fascinating how you can shop medical surgeries through social media. I found the testimonies interesting and realistic and the photos revealing and kind of gross. Check it out.

Corporate Blogging

In class this week we talked about the idea of corporate blogging and how it can be a great way to inform customers on products, and also a way for CEO hot heads to lose their cool and blow their credibility. As I began searching for corporate blogs on the Internet I found that it was rather scarce to actually find one. In our textbook The New Influencers, it is stated that only 10% of all corporations have blogs. But why wouldn’t these corporations want to communicate better with their customers or employees? Take for example Clear Channel, who is the biggest radio corporation, they have no blog.

As of late Clear Channel has had a lot to talk about too. They have officially made the company private. It has been sold to investors and there is now no more public stock. They have also been adamant on stopping the Sirius/XM Satellite merger and it’s estimated that they spent over half a million dollars on lobbyists trying to stop the merger. My father has been a Clear Channel employee for over 10 years and could benefit from a blog. First of all, he had no idea that they had such distaste for the Satellite merger and up until recently had not received details on the reason for the hold on the company going from public to private. It is now officially private and he had been waiting for it to go through so he could sell his stock. Even though some of these issues are private at least a blog would help inform Clear Channel's employees and create a forum for discussing information about the company. Personally I think corporations fear this level of communication and aren't interested in pleasing anyone except their pocket books. Of course they would get a lot of negative comments on their blog since they are definitely one of the most hated corporations in America and it might be hard to manage it in a constructive way.

Webutation

We recently discussed the idea of Googling oneself in class. But what if your narcissism is larger than just finding out if you’re on the web. What if you want to see what people are actually saying about you and what your web reputation is? Then maybe you should check out Twing.com.



Twing is a search engine forum, which tracks individuals and businesses reputations. It has two reputation search engines: Saved Search and Buzz Graph. The search engines mainly focus on forums and find out exactly what is being discussed about you or your business. Need brand management and protection then check out twing.

Kings Of Leon Rock Internet PR

As a musician/music snob it’s rare these days that I find myself inspired and appreciative of a new band. In 2007, The Kings Of Leon released “Because Of The Times” and made the best album of that year and converted me into a super-fan. On September 23rd they are releasing the highly anticipated album, “Only By The Night,” and promoting it with an Internet publicity campaign by releasing a daily video blog.

The videos are highly entertaining and include all things music: with the band in the studio recording the album and shooting a music video for the song, “Sex On Fire.” They also include all things comedy: with the band snorting wasabi, hitting the bong, attending an Oklahoma University football game and exposing their southern podunk family (the band is made up of 3 brothers and a cousin).
Currently you can listen to songs “Sex On Fire” and “Crawl” at myspace.com/kingsofleon and kingsofleon.com

Blogger Gate

As I become more and more fascinated about the circus of emotions that surrounds this election and began a journey to the center of the blog world. How are our 2 presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain using the blogosphere? This medium is essentially a one on one with any person with a computer in the world and a perfect way to explain exactly what you stand for.

First things first, here are their blogs:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Blog/

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog/

After viewing both blogs, my overall assessment would be un-achieving. Neither candidate gives a descriptive answer while their blog acts like an extensive itinerary portraying their political lives. The total amount of self-addressed blogs on their pages is 0, instead just scripter of their speeches, campaign ads and donation links.

By the way this blog is not intended for political debate but for the idea how a presidential candidate is using such a new and sensitive medium.

I’m Royal Raven and I approve this blog

To Blog And How To Blog, That Is The Question

As I take my first baby steps into the blogosphere, and start blogging, a lot of warnings have been issued to use proper etiquette. I have also heard that former students have violated these so-called etiquette rules and been punished by death. So what is blogger etiquette?

Here are a few tips on blogger manners:

1. George Carlin’s 7 dirty words are off limits!

2. Credit your sources. This is probably the No. 1 rule in blogger etiquette. If you got the facts, story, picture, video, and etc., from somewhere, credit that source. To a lesser extent, if you got an idea from somewhere, it would be nice to credit that source as well (though many will say this is unnecessary) (http://bloghelper.is-there.net).

3. Be constructive and honest in your comments.

4. "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you." If you want to people to read your blog then read theirs and leave comments.

5. When leaving a comment on a blog for the first time, let the author know how you found his/her blog, especially if you found it through a link on another blog.

6. Be open to other or outside opinions. Remember that different opinions make the blog go around.

7. Never publish information that you know is inaccurate.

8. Expose unethical behavior of other bloggers.

9. It’s just a blog! Don’t believe somebody had a handicapped baby because you saw it in a blog.

10. Never stop blogging!