Sr. Project – Headway…I think…

Alright, so I am finally starting to make some good headway on my community site for my Capstone FaireCircuit.com portfolio site. Unfortunately for me, I kind of had to work a bit backwards on this one. Since I am using an open source code for a social community I had to do a lot of research on how it all worked. I think I am finally starting to get it. I would post a link to it, but it is actually a bit of a live site since it is on my personal server and I do not want the link available to the general public just yet. If people start signing up to join then it will bombard my personal email account with sign-up requests since it is directed to me. However, I will show those who would like to see it tonight in class.

So like I said, it is pretty much a live site, people can register, log-in, join, create their own profile, post and much more. It’s actually quite cool. I finally got everything uploaded and installed this weekend on my server. Talk about a meticulous and time consuming ordeal. I wish I would have been able to find this open source code a while back ago, but hey I think the design aspect and ideas will actually start to make a little more sense and flow easier now that I have something to go off of.

Apparently I like this back-end stuff…PHP, MySQL and all that. I never actually realized it until this weekend though. Now, I just have to get good at it, because I personally do not think my skill level is adequate enough at this point. There is still quite a bit that I do not understand, but I think by the end of this project, I will probably have a pretty good grasp on it…at least I really hope so.

Well, for those in class…I’ll see you soon. For those following along, check back from time-to-time and I’ll keep you updated.

Now, I just have to figure out exactly how the framework operates. I know that I should not have any limitations as to my design layout, but in a way I do feel that I do have some limitations at this particular juncture because one – the layout seems very particular and common to many social networking sites, two – I do need to figure out how some of the things work that are currently there as to not go and start messing stuff up when I start to make any changes.

Sr. Project – Location Awareness Technologies

My first resource for this topic of location aware technologies was the Location Technologies Primer. This article really did not tell much about the implementations of the technologies, rather it listed out the basic principles of mobile Location-Based Services (LBS) that are emerging quickly. Over all it describes those different types of technologies and, as I understood it, the strengths and weaknesses of them.

The second resource, Location-Aware Networking: We Know Where You Are, talks about the emerging technologies and their opportunities to find critical people or resources faster to simplify the user interface for mobile voice and data functions, and improve the security and effectiveness of Wi-Fi networks.

The third resouce, How Your Location-Aware iPhone Will Change Your Life, was an article written about the Apple iPhone just before some major releases. The part I wanted to focus on here is the part about Social Networking. Apparently by the point of the article there were a lot of location-based social networking applications for the iPhone, but only if they were jail-broken. Now, looking into many of the applications on Apple’s site, you no longer need you iPhone / Touch to be jail-broken because since then there have been several dozen applications that track the location of your social networks, like Twitter, Twinkle, FaceBook, and more. As well, there are other applications that can help you decide where to go eat nearby, or where to find a store with a certain item that you are looking for, all by location awareness.

All that I have read, I think that location aware technologies could fundamentally change social networking, business, and advertising. For the most part we have already seen the uses of location aware technologies for a number of years serving purposes for Driving directions, tracking things such as cell phones, cars (lo-jack) or stolen merchandise, all with the use of GPS, but now with the new technologies coming into play, such as Windows Network Location Awareness (NLA) which collects and stores network configuration and location information and notifies applications when this information changes, are more specifically geared closer towards what is more important to our industry we are starting to see an exponential rise in the mobile location aware technologies, interfaces and even more. The location awareness is now not necessarily taking place miles above our heads, but just within a few feet of where we reside or visit our favorite restaurant or coffee shop.

Studio – Video Lessons…

This post is in response to Video Lessons: How the Barack Obama Won Using Digital and Social Media.

Now, to me personally this video mentioned nothing new to me. I guess that I expected something more. Not sure what, but something. The information presented was nothing new to me.

I view this video as something for someone who is new to the process of full functioning integration of digital media and social networking. I guess that something could come out of it for me, but I have watched it three times now and still feel the same way about it. Like I said, none of this is a new concept. In fact a concept such as this has been for a long time. It just took one person who happened to be important in the public eye to make it popular apparently.

The overall implementation of this video really is not much different than my previous post about the Business Impacts of Social Networking, except that we are seeing a more direct outcome or the effects of using social networking and digital media.

At the very beginning of the video, he explains that these are “Business Lessons that we’ve learned from Barack Obama’s campaign” and rightly so, it most certainly was “the most effective marketing campaign to integrate the use of the internet in its’ execution.”

The key thing that stood out to me that was mentioned, was the key point made…”Having people who understand who live and breathe digital social media leading these projects.” and that “Not everyone in the organization is going to get it.” In other words, it will take a team of those who already know what they are doing and have  a better understanding of how to implement the tools available to them. Though, is that not the way it should be for everything. I mean, there is a reason why people “specialize” in certain parts of their field and that is because no one person can do it all. President Obama, knew this and was just smart enough to have a good team to carry out his ideas.

The other idea that it is not about “you” or “me” but it is about everyone else,  “them” & “we”… again, nothing new. It has really always been about the consumer in anytime of success. They make you who you are or become when you are looking to exceed in popularity or in business. The thing is just getting those people (the consumer) to listen to what you have to say. That’s where we saw this campaign use the social networking and digital media to their advantage. The fact that it was a very important topic to the general public helped a lot too.

I am not bashing the video. In fact,  I think it is great actually, but more in laymen terms to explain to those who do not know how the campaign or more specifically how social networking and media work. However, I do have to say…of course it worked!

We are, without a doubt, in a new age of social networking and in a rapid growth of digital media. This kind of stuff has been building for the last few years at a rapid rate. We just happen to witness a public figure that was a Presidential Candidate who was, for the first time in all Presidential elections, a tech-junkie for the most part. Obama is the first President who has ever been allowed to carry his own cellular phone and personal computer. Why? Because he understands the technology better then the previous and knows how to use it. Plus he was smart enough to delegate the things that he did not know to those who did. That is what made him successful…the fact that he was unique in everything that he did. He is “New School” as some would put it.

I think that it is safe to say that, yes as the video states, this campaign will probably be studied for the next four to five years as a way to learn about the implementation of new applications for the business world, but more as a example to base their already progressive developments on. A way to make tweaks to existing ideas. I am curious to see how the business world will expand in the social networking and digital media world. We are seeing changes now.