LAST BLOG POST!

I am finally done my blog! It took a lot of time and effort, but I am finally finished. I learned a whole lot through this process. I feel like I can confidently say that I am very knowledgeable in the area of blogs. I also know much more about Wikipedia than I did before I took this class. This was one of my favorite classes here. It was not torture going to everyday like it is for some of my classes here. Professor Brown always made classes interesting and very informative. I especially liked his touch of humor, his phrases from England, and his self proclaimed obsession with Barbaro! I am glad I was able to take this class with him and not another professor because I do not think I would have enjoyed this course as much with any other teacher. All in all, I enjoyed this class very much and I wish the best of luck to Alex in whatever he does after his days at the University of Delaware! Thanks for everything!

Evolution of the Fuze Beverage article

I chose to edit the Fuze Beverage Wikipedia article because one of my friends was doing a project for food marketing at her school and she gave me the idea to edit the Fuze Beverage one. The Wikipedia article actually was redirected to this link, so it is not the same link as I had been referencing before. I had the most problems with this article and I will explain it all in the end. It started out as a very weak article with the types of beverages and the official website. I had many options of what to add and I was just going to keep going with what was already there.

For the first edit I chose to keep it simple. I saw that they had listed the flavors of Fuze Beverages, but there was one missing so I added it. It was Fuze Vitalize and I added that it contained vitamins A, C, and E. Later I found out that you are not supposed to list these, but I had no idea seeing as how that was basically all the article consisted of when I first looked at it.

The second edit is where I added some background history of the company. I included the founder, how and where it was created, and how it became successful and spread across the country. Again, I think that sharing the company's history is very important and can be helpful for someone curious about Fuze Beverage and how it came to be.

For the third edit I decided to delete the whole article. I was curious to see what would happen and how the Wikipedia community would react when they saw that this article was no longer there.

There were several edits besides mine. One edit was that they changed the slogan, did some maintenance, clean up, and made some small changes. Also, they redirected the article's url because it was better used to describe electrical fuses. Then they started saying this article was spam (saying: "Yeah, the subject matter may be legit, but the way this is written sets off my spamdar, big time.") and they said it was advertising because you are not supposed to list the flavors because then it seems like it is advertising the product. Someone even wrote this in the history, "Have you seen the state of this page? It's about as encyclopaedia-like as this comment." Pretty harsh and by the way they did not even spell encyclopedia correctly. So that is when I decided that this article is hopeless and it should just be deleted. So I erased the whole thing. Surprisingly exactly 12 minutes after I deleted it I got a message saying that I was not allowed to delete it without having a good reason. Then in the history when they undid my deleting they said it was "blanking silliness." I thought that was pretty humorous. I have no idea why they would even care if the article was there or not since it was such a bad article that they criticised for everything about it. Instead of criticising it they should have deleted the advertisement things and added more substantial information that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia to make the article better.

Since this is my last comment on Wikipedia I thought I would share my overall thoughts about it. First, the Wikipedia community seems rather weird to me. They seem very particular about what they want in the article and do not like new people and outsiders messing with the proper rules of Wikipedia. Second, I do not think this should be used as a primary reference source because of the fact that anyone can edit it. Third, I believe this only works for articles in which many people have high interests in. In this case many people will be continuously looking at the article trying to improve it and edit the errors put in. Finally, I think with more and more users everyday, Wikipedia does have the potential to be great, I just do not think it is at that point right now.

Evolution of the Villa Maria Academy article

I chose to edit the Wikipedia article for Villa Maria Academy. An article did not actually exist before I chose to edit it so I created one! I thought it would be rather hard, but it was actually just as easy as editing an already existing article. I chose this subject because this is the high school my sister and I went to. I was surprised that there was not an article for this already. I would think that the high school would have been teaching how Wikipedia works to the students and would have suggested they create a Wikipedia article for Villa Maria Academy, but that was not the case. I was eager to jump in and get this article up and running.

The first edit for Villa Maria Academy started with me creating it. Like I said, this was really easy. I started out by just explaining what the school was. Then I listed some things that the high school has to offer. Some of these aspects included music, athletics, and guidance. Then I gave some more brief information of the school. I also listed the address and phone number for VMA. I thought this was a good start because it was the basic information that I thought the article needed to get going.

For the second edit I added some information that was a little more detailed. I listed a bunch of events and activities that take place at the high school. From pep rallies to dances and other memorable and traditional events, I thought that this would be a nice addition to the article. It shows more about the high school than boring facts that you might normally see in a traditional encyclopedia.

The third edit I added the box of information that I also did for the MGIC article. I did it for this article first before I did it for the MGIC one. I got the idea from another Wikipedia article of high school that is all boys near Villa Maria Academy called Malvern Preparatory School. I thought that VMA deserved to have a similar article, so I helped it to get to that level by adding that box with the brief, quick information.

There were two main users that contributed to this article, besides me. They erased the phone number and address. They also categorized the article because I did not do that, but supposedly you are supposed to when you create an article. Also they fixed and cleaned up the article a little because I guess I was too descriptive and not as information and straight to the point as an encyclopedia edit should be. I think I did a pretty good job laying the framework for this new article. If I had more time I would expand on it to make it a great article to properly represent how much that high school means to me. Hopefully someone else will become motivated and take over the article and make it an impressive one. There is many more thing that can be added to it, so that should not be a problem. Like I said before, maybe the students will even be directed through a technology class to work on this article. I am proud that I was able to create this article. I think it is was more rewarding to create this article from scratch as opposed to editing the other already existing articles. I hope someone else finds it just as rewarding as I did as they make the article better!

Evolution of the MGIC article

The reason I decided to edit the Wikipedia article for MGIC (Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Company) is because my dad works for this company. Although my dad does not work in an MGIC office, he is a contract underwriter for MGIC in a Sovereign Bank office. I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the company and be able to personally contribute some more useful facts and information. When I first looked up the MGIC artcile I noticed that it was not very developed so I saw that as a great opportunity to improve upon it.

For the first edit I had just heard that MGIC announced a major change in their business. I wanted to add that to the article. The change was that premiuims are now tax deductible with MGIC. This was a significant advantage of the company and I thought that it should be available for people to see in the article.

In the second edit I added information about the company history. I explained how the former real estate agent and founder, Max Karl, realized his clients would benefit from insuring only the top portion of their mortgage. I think the company history is important for any subject matter. It is always good to know how a company or product came about.

I decided to add a summary box of the corporate profile for the third edit. I really like this feature because you can look at the box real quick for some fast facts without having to read paragraphs of information. This is very useful for people who just want to know a little bit about the company and it easily directs you right to the corporate website where you can find tons of information on the company.

In the end, no one really contributed much to this article. There were a few edits before I started editing it. These of course were the start up edits and then some people added some extra information. The article was still pretty lacking in some information before I started editing it. It was interesting to see that the people who began the article did not add anything to it after their initial edits. Within my edits there were only two additional edits. Thankfully again, they did not change anything I wrote. They just added to the categories of the article. After my edits there is still plenty of information that can also be added. I am curious to see if the other people who added information will add anything more. I will probably be checking back in the history even though I am done editing the MGIC article to see if this happens. This article has great potential and maybe it will even be comparable to the corporate website. I also enjoyed editing this article and I am glad I chose it as one of my four articles to edit on Wikipedia!

Evolution of Forever 21 Wikipedia article

To reiterate, I chose to edit the Forever 21 Wikipedia article because I worked there over winter break. I wanted to see what the Wikipedia community had to say about Forever 21. I found the article to be very interesting and very informative. I learned a few things by reading it. Also, the article was not too long so I knew I could find several things to add to it.

My first edit I just added other stores that are in the Forever 21 chain. Those are Heritage 1981 and Gadzooks. I did not add a lot at first because I was still getting used to Wikipedia and did not want to push the limit too far right away.

For the second edit to the Forever 21 articles I added a little about the history of the company. I explained where the first store was and how the size of the store and number of them increased dramatically.

The last edit was a little harder because I felt that the article contained all it really needed. I decided to add that you are able to shop online on the Forever 21 website. I thought this was a useful piece of information.

After looking at the history there have been many edits that were done in between mine. Most of them were by three different users. The others I guess did not log in and there were about four or five that only edited once. Thankfully none of the things I added were deleted. I guess I was right that my additions were helpful and useful to readers of this article. The article is still not very long, but I think it contains all the useful information that this article needs. If more was added I think it may get turned into an advertisement in which I will definitely be blogging about concerning my other Wikipedia article edit. I enjoyed editing this article. There was only one problem, when I would look on the official Forever 21 website for ideas on what I can add to the article I would get distracted by looking at the clothes. I think that will stay my favorite store for a long time. I was happy to be able to contribute to this article and hopefully more people will find the interest to make this article even better than it is now.

Last Wikipedia Edit for MGIC

Finally, I am on my last edit of my last article! For this MGIC edit I decided to add another box with general information on the right of the page as I did for the Villa Maria Academy article. I do not know why, but I really like this feature! Included in the box, I added the corporate profile. I thought this would be useful for people who just want a quick summary. It seems as though the information would be good for someone who is looking to invest in the company or may just want to know some general financial information about MGIC.

I added this exactly:
Name Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation
Headquarters Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Symbol MTG on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
Index Included in Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index
Principal Subsidiary MGIC, the nation's leading private mortgage insurer
Financial Strength Ratings Standard & Poor's, AA; Moody's Investors Service, Aa2; Fitch Investors Service, AA+
Company website www.mgic.com
Investor website www.mgic.com/investor
Industry website www.privatemi.com

I do not know if all this information is relevant, but I found it on the main website so it should be useful to at least one person. If it is not, I know by now that someone on Wikipedia will definitely fix it.

Last Wikipedia Edit for Fuze Beverages

The third and final edit to the Fuze Beverage article which was redirected to this link consisted of me deleting the whole article. Now you may be thinking why would she do that? I have a good reason, do not worry. First of all, like I mentioned above, someone redirected Fuze Beverage's Wikipedia article and made the old one into an article about electrical fuses. In order to do this you must give a reason and apparently it was because the current Fuze Beverage article was horrible. Second of all, Wikipedia said that the article looked like an advertisement. I am not sure how just listing the flavors is advertising, but to them it is. I must say though that they were already there before I started editing, I just added one flavor. The other thing I added was some history and I do not think that was advertising either. Third of all, I think that maybe because the article was so small and underdeveloped that another article was allowed to take over the site. So, I will wait a couple days to do my final wrap up of the Fuze Beverage Wikipedia article so I can see if anyone cares about it enough to put the information back or to improve on the article. We will see...

Last Wikipedia Edit for Forever 21

For this last edit I decided to only add two additional lines of information. The Forever 21 article is already well developed and I did not want to enter lots of useless information just to make the article longer. I ended up adding, "Also, to compete with competitors, the website for Forever 21 contains the online shopping feature. Customers can purchase additional items that may or may not be found in the physical stores." I thought this would be good to add because it never before mentioned that you can order things online. Most companies have this feature, but some still do not. I thought it would not hurt to mention that Forever 21 is one of those participating companies. If someone was to read the Wikipedia article without going to the website after they may not have known that you can order online also because the article discussed the development of the physical store and not its switch to the Internet. This is not exactly an essential contribution to the Wikipedia article, but I thought it was something extra that may be helpful to people who read this article. Another reason why I added those things was because when I used to work at Forever 21 we always had so many people come in the store and ask where they could find the white dress with pink polka dots, for example, that they saw on the website. Several times we had to explain that just because they saw it on the website does not mean that it will be found in the stores. This is because some items are found solely on the website or only sold in stores in particular regions of the country, not necessarily at your local Forever 21. So although this was not a huge addition to the article, I feel that it may still be helpful for some people.

Last Wikipedia Edit for Villa Maria Academy

For my last edit to the Villa Maria Academy Wikipedia article I decided to make a minor change. I wanted to do something different than just adding more text since I already know how to do that. I looked through other Wikipedia articles to find out what other features are capable with Wikipedia. I went to the article for Malvern Preparatory School, an all male school about five minutes away from Villa Maria, to see what their Wikipedia article looks like. That article was extremely well done and I thought that Villa Maria's Wikipedia article has the potential to be that good. The first thing I saw was on the right hand side of the Malvern Prep article. It had a rectangular box that summed up key points of the high school. I thought that it made the article look more professional and I wanted Villa Maria's article to have that same feature. I went to the history portion of the Malvern Prep article and I found out how to do that. I simply copy and pasted it into the Villa Maria one and I even kept Malvern Prep's address the same at first by accident, but I quickly corrected that after.

Specifically I added:
Name Villa Maria Academy
Address 370 Old Lincoln Highway
Town Malvern, Pennsylvania, 19355
Established 1872 (at present location in 1924)
Community Suburban
Type Private (Independent)
Religion Roman Catholic
Students Female
Grades 9 through 12
Nickname Hurricanes
Colors White and Blue
Web site vmahs.org

It seems complicated, but all you need is the first line which is:
{| id="toc" style="float:right; width:220px; margin-left: 1em;"
followed by a series of these: |- and end it with this: |}

I really like this feature because you can go to this article and find quick facts right away without having to read all the text which may be quite boring. If I were to make another Wikipedia article I would definitely add this cool feature again!

Global Neighborhoods article comment...last one!

I am finally on my last comment on an article from one of the required blogs. I found one that ties into what we are doing in this class. We are all well familiar with Wikipedia. So, when I found the article titled Wikipedia. Just how popular is it? I thought it would be perfect to talk about because it incorporates the other aspect of our blog project.

The article says that Steve Rubel found that one-third of Americans that use the Internet have used Wikipedia as a source. Also it is used more than all written encyclopedias combined. I find this interesting because I have never used Wikipedia before this class. I have heard of it before, but for some reason I remember hearing that it is not really a reliable source so I stayed away from it. Rubel also says that more young people than old people take advantage of what Wikipedia has to offer. He also mentioned that him and Robert Israel used Wikipedia as a main source when writing one of our class books, Naked Conversations, believing it to be 100% accturate. Lastly, Rubel discusses something called “Wisdom of Crowds.” I did not know exactly what that term was so I looked it up on Google. Ironically enough the website that was first on the list was the Wikipedia article for it. Basically I found that it means that when a group of people work together they usually come up with better and more accurate information than a single person working alone. Rubel feels that this idea is correct and it helps that Wikipedia can be corrected by anyone and improved on by whoever is interested.

I actually do not agree with Rubel on some of his points. I do think that Wikipedia can be a good source, but it has its faults. When I read that Rubel said more young people use it he attributes that to the fact that young people are more technologically advanced and into the new trends. I do not think this is the reason. I think it is because younger people do not exactly understand the concept of a wiki. For example, in my Communication in Business class in which we create and deliver speeches, my teacher told us that we were prohibited to use Wikipedia as a reliable source. Most of my classmates had no idea why we could not use Wikipedia and when I told them what Wikipedia really was they were very surprised. They really did not know anyone could add or subtract from those articles. Also, I was amazed at the fact that Rubel said he and his coauthor used Wikipedia as the main source for Naked Conversations. I think it is acceptable to use it as a secondary source to simply verify the information that is found on a reliable source first, but he said they used it as a primary source. As long as they checked with other sources to make sure the information on Wikipedia was the same, then I think that is all right. The only problem would be if people did not check with other sources believing that Wikipedia was nothing but accurate information. I do not agree with Rubel when he said that it was 100% accurate. It is possible that the articles he used were accurate, but I am sure that there are plenty that are not. For articles in which people have a lot of interest in, people are motivated to make it accurate and keep it accurate, but for articles in which people do not seem to care about it is extremely probable that they are not totally accurate. Finally, I kind of agree with the “wisdom of crowds” theory. This seems correct, the only issue I have with it is that it takes one person in the crowd to ruin things for everyone so that is a problem.

All in all, I am glad I found and read this article. I am very surprised about all that Rubel said. Maybe I will change my opinions later to match his as more people become familiar with Wikipedia and understand what exactly it is and learn to respect it and only add accurate information to it. As for now I will just stick to using Wikipedia to finish up my blog work.

Amazon's Associate Program

I finally became a member of Amazon's Associate Program. I started to do it before class today, but I got nervous at the billing part where it made me give my social security number. I got to class and talked to some people about it and we decided that since it was Amazon it is a pretty secure company and website and they probably would not use that number for anything else. It explained it needed to know it for tax purposes which is understandable. Other than that it was quick and easy to do. I chose the two books from our class, The Search and Naked Conversations. I also added The Devil Wears Prada because I love that movie and I always wanted to read the book to see the comparisons, but I never got around to it. The other thing I added was a collection of the Shopaholic books. My roommate reads them and I have heard of many other girls who have read them so I thought I would add that too. All in all, it was way more intimidating than it actually was. It is a great way to earn some extra change which I doubt I will ever get, but at least I know how to do it!

4th and Final Class Material Content Post

In class today we talked more about promotion including sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, and media changes. With sales promotions we went over how coupons, contests, and free trials are now all available online. An example of the coupons online is that DealCatcher website that the owner came in and talked to us about. I found a website with many contests and sweepstakes with this link. I have also come across many free trials throughout my searches.

With public relations we learned that it is no longer command and control. Buyers want to participate and be involved in the sales process from the beginning to the end. This means that there are going to be alot more blogs and user generated stories or opinions about products on the Internet. The people responsible for public relations of their company should try to track down these user generated sites to monitor what is being said about their companies. All the money being spent on advertising and marketing by the company can be canceled out by these user generated sites, so making sure they are saying positive things is extremely important.

We discussed with personal selling how the traditional salespeople are being almost replaced by online retail. I do not think we will ever not need traditional salespeople however because I feel like I can trust someone in person much better than what something says online. We also talked about fragmentation, integration, time shifting, and mobile media which are all examples of changes in the media.

Also, we read over an article titled, Mixed Media: Traditional companies are feeling threatened. I say, bring on the changes. This article talks about how in the past there were very limited options. For example, there used to be only one movie that played at the one theater in town which guaranteed its' success. Now there is a huge variety of entertainment so marketers cannot use the same techniques as in the past. Today the buyers are not passive, but active in the buying process. Also former ways of advertising are not as effective as they used to be. With TV commercials there are DVRs in which one can fast forward through the commercials. With newspapers there are many that are simply online or in print, but online also. I found one example of a newspaper website called onlinenewspapers.com. Professor Brown mentioned earlier in the year that there is a newspaper in England that stopped its' print version and is solely available online so this makes newspaper ads real difficult to continue their effectiveness. One last thing that the article mentions is that people want to be more active in getting their news. They want it right now, continually updated, and they want to discuss it with others online. This is a huge change from when newspapers were simply just in print. Like the article says, it is a challenge but also a great opportunity to allow the audience to be more active. Instead of being intimidated by these changes, the author Rupert Murdoch, suggests that companies take advantage of these changes and use them to benefit the audience and therefore your company or product.

One last thing...I think it is great that Professor Brown is getting the recognition he deserves for his great Barbaro website, Tim Woolley Racing. From being mentioned on tv to being featured in an article on ESPN, I think that it is quite exciting. All that hard work and tons of time spent on his website and Barbaro is really paying off! Congrats!

and ps. stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela beat that Andrea haha... I'll track your stiuqxela progress through this link... stiuqxela: Andrea's BUAD477 Blog. maybe it will help Google finally crawl your site. I don't know why they haven't in so long especially after your lovely note to them.

2nd Comment on Teammate's blog

I was looking through my teammates' blogs and I came across Andrea's blog and her posting from a ClickZ article titled "Trust is at the Core of the New Web Marketing". The article discusses how Web marketing is changing as consumers or searchers have become smarter. It talks about trust because now, in order for a business to have a successful website searchers have to be able to find it easy, fast, and first. Also the trust is important because once the searchers find the site they have to also like it. The most important thing is for the company to gain enough trust from the searchers for them to spread their admiration of the site and continue to frequent it themselves. Unlike websites before, they used to just rely on people somehow stumbling upon their site. This is not the case anymore.

As we talked about in class today and as Andrea mentioned in her post there are new sites that have helped change the way Web marketing is carried out. The one site we focused on was Digg.com. This site revolutionizes Web marketing. The site takes articles from other websites and displays them on their web page in order of popularity. If it is not popular than you can "bury it" and make it go down the list. If you like it you can "digg it" and keep it at the top or move it up. This has everything to do with the searchers and not the people who own the websites. That shows that if searchers trust the website they will "digg it" and searchers will visit those sites more than any other sites.

This seems like a great idea because this way it makes it easier for searchers to avoid irrelevant websites or ones that are not truthful or credited. As Andrea mentioned this also shows how search has changed. With Google Juice, rankings in the Google search list make all the difference. I do not think anyone goes beyond the first or second page of search results. So, it is very important to gain more Google Juice in order to have your website come up at the top of the list. One way as Andrea mentions is to utilize Google's sponsored links. Websites can pay Google to have their websites sponsored and they will appear at the very top of the search list. I do not know why but for some reason I never click on those links. I even asked my roommate and she said she did not even realize those sponsored links are there. It may be because they appear smaller and are just highlighted in a very pale color. It also may be that they kind of appear to just be ads or popups that we have just been accustomed to ignore. I am sure that many people do click on those first, but for people who are not so technically advanced I do not think they realize what sponsored links actually mean. Also now that I know what they exactly are I probably still will not click on them first because I kind of do not think it is fair that those companies in a way pay off Google to have their site be the best. This is how traditional marketing has worked because for companies with the most money they can utilize the best and most advertising which puts their product at the top.

So, all in all, there are some major changes in marketing as technology advances. The marketers and advertisers must be aware of these changes and be able to change their marketing strategy to incorporate those chances. Also, that is great that Andrea was able to find the news that JPMorgan was opening a branch in Boston through her Bloglines. Just one more proof on how technology continues to change the way people are doing things and getting news!

and Andrea I match your stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela and raise you 6 more stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela stiuqxela haha

Second Wikipedia Edit for MGIC

With my second Wikipedia edit to the MGIC article I chose to add more to the company's history as I did for my other Wikipedia articles. I added, "He was a real estate agent whose eyes were opened unto the troubles his clients had with paying for their new homes. They did not quite know how to save for the down payment. [[Max Karl]] believed that it would be better if there was a company that could insure the top part of the mortgage not all of it. Support from friends, family members, and executives led to MGIC's continuing success for almost over 50 years providing customers with low down payment loans." This is a very brief history, but I thought that that is all the article really needed. The history given on the website was also not too specific because it seemed like it was just a thought that turned into a great company. There was nothing too exciting about the process of how it came to be. Also, the company website probably did not add alot about the history because it wants to show off its products and the features and for this type of business the history does not have a huge impact if people will use their service or not. I still think that it may be interesting for people to know how it started so that is why I added it to the article.

VA Tech...Class Material Comment

I thought I would write about the article we talked about in class concerning the horrible incident that occurred at VA Tech and how computers and "instant tools" could have helped warn people alot sooner. The thing that most people are concerned with is that fact that the first incident occurred at 7:15am, but students were not informed of this until 9:26am through an email. Students who had classes before 9:30 had no idea what went on just hours earlier and so they went to class not knowing that there was a gunman on campus. Now even though they sent an email not everyone checks their emails before going to class. The article we discussed in class explains how there are so many tools out there that students use in which information is sent to them instantly.

One such thing is text messaging. I think by now 98 or 99% of college students have cell phones and text message daily. If the school somehow had an emergency system that sends an alert to students in a text they would have seen that news right away and maybe would have not gone to class which could in effect possibly have saved those 30 lives. I heard on the news that Drexel University was trying to implement this text alert system and I think it is a good idea. One of the setbacks though is if all those cell phone numbers got into the wrong hands somehow. Could our cell phones turn into email in the way in which we get spammed? Or could cell phone numbers get leaked out to people such as stalkers who will use the numbers for harm not good?

The article also mentions that students started making blog posts by 9:47am which shows how instant and viral blogs and Web 2.0 can be. The school took 2 hours to send an email to warn students about the first shooting, but blog posts were up 2 minutes after the second one. This is a perfect example of what we are learning in class. We have such great technology out there, but not everyone is aware or involved in it. I am also sure that the majority of students visit Facebook.com several times a week, maybe even everyday. I thought it was interesting how on the top of the sheet we got in class it says, "Virginia Tech: If You Are OK, Please Update Your Facebook Profile." I thought this was a very good idea because students go on Facebook for just about everything. I myself looked up one of my friends from high school on Facebook to see if she was OK and she had over 200 wall posts saying how they were glad she was OK so I knew her status through that in a matter of seconds.

I would not have imagined that a domestic fight would have continued 2 hours later involving 30 more innocent people. Because of this I do not think that the school is to blame for this incident, but I think that they should have researched better ways to warn students if something like that were to occur. Hopefully this event will raise awareness of every school, business, organization, etc. I think that they are even giving RAs here on campus extra training on what to do in a similar situation. Everything happens for a reason and as horrible as the VA Tech incident was, maybe it will prove to be good in the fact that it helped other institutions to realize that things like this can happen to anyone anywhere and they should have the best possible plan set up in case of emergencies like this one.

For more on the story, mainly about his supposed girlfriend and the courageous RA that went to her aid and was killed in the process you can go to the website here.

Second Wikipedia Edit for Forever 21

For my second Wikipedia edit of Forever 21 I added a little about the history as I did for the Fuze Beverage Wikipedia article. I added, "The first store was on Figueroa Street and was only 900 square feet. The store became so successful that the founder was able to add new stores every six months. By 1989, the first Forever 21 store was placed in a mall and increased from 900 to 5,000 square feet." I also clarified that, "These [Forever XXI]stores are typically 24,000 square feet, a huge increase as compared to the first store's size of 900 square feet." I think that after reading those facts that someone reading this article will realize how successful the company has been. Also it shows how the store has grown and developed simply by noting the drastic increase in the square feet of the stores. Something I found a little strange was that on the Forever 21 official website it does not mention Don Chang and his wife as the Wikipedia article states. The official website just says the founders. I wonder if Mr. Chang for some reason wanted to keep his name secret because I could not find his name anywhere on the website. If I find that out I am sure I will blog about it later!

oh and by the way stiuqxela

Second Wikipedia Edit for Fuze Beverage

I decided to edit the Fuze article in Wikipedia because all it had was that it is a beverage company and it listed the four types in which I had previously added one. I chose to add the background of the company. I thought this would be useful because knowing the background of a product often helps the consumer be more connected with the company and understand the hard work and great ideas from which the product got from a basement in this case into their hands. I specifically added, "Fuze is a brand of beverage that was created in the year 2000 in the basement of Lance Collins, an experienced man with a passion for beverages. He teamed up with Paula Grant, a designer who helped give Fuze its unique and popular look. The two enlisted the help of Joe Rosamilia and Bruce Lewin, two exceptional businessmen who took the dream and visions of Collins and Grant to make Fuze the successful and growing company that it is today. The company started off in Northern Carolina in 2001 and it grew to a real office in 2002 with more than 30 employees. In 2003, Fuze was sold on both coasts and even as far as the Caribbean representing the success of the company. Fuze spread to Asia, South America, and Europe selling millions of bottles showing the world's craving for energy drinks. In 2005, Fuze was offered in all major places that similar beverages are found and also featured in several sporting events and concerts. Fuze's slogan, "Refreshingly Smart" , is applied to Fuze beverages, but also to the creative ideas of its creators." I think that showing the company history made this Wikipedia article more interesting and useful to those who are curious about Fuze and want to know not just of the flavors, but about the company itself.

John Battelle's Searchblog article comment

As I was looking through my bloglines I discovered an article that caught my eye in John Battelle's Searchblog. The article is titled Google and AFP Settle Dispute. I was attracted to this article because at first it reminded me of the article we talked about in class. This article was the one where Viacom, who owns MTV and Comedy Central, sued Google for "massive intentional copyright infringement" on its YouTube. The article or a similar article on the Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit can be found here. Google ended up making some changes in order to stop users from adding Viacom material to YouTube. They avoided totally erasing the Viacom clips by telling Viacom that they are responsible for alerting Google when they see their material on YouTube. This is sort of an impossible task for Viacom, so in my mind Google kind of got away with what they did.

In John Battelle's Searchblog article he discusses another lawsuit against Google, but this time they have even defended a company in a different country. The Agence France-Presse (AFP)is a global news agency headed by Pierre Louette. This Paris based company has also sued Google In March 2005 for copyright infringement. This dispute does not concern Google's YouTube, but it concerns Google's GoogleNews. The AFP argues that GoogleNews was publishing news summaries with headlines and photos from AFP journalists without the permission of the AFP. The argument settled and the "deal will allow Google to use headlines and photos on Google News and other services that drive online traffic to sites displaying AFP news." They did not disclose the financial outcomes of this deal, but from such a large company as Google, I am sure that AFP received its fair share. The article also mentions a separate lawsuit with The Associated Press from August 2006. This dispute also end with Google agreeing to pay the AP for its headlines and photos.

After reading about all these lawsuits I think that Google should be a little more careful about how it deals with other companies. At the time Google probably knew that what they were doing was violating copyrights, but they were probably going to continue its practices until the other companies found out or spoke up. This does not seem ethical at all. I am not saying that that is what Google was doing, but after seeing just three of probably many more lawsuits of the same issue, copyright infringement, I feel that Google was well aware and could have made more changes concerning this after its first lawsuit of this type. What I find funny about this situation is that John Battelle's Searchblog links his readers to an article that covers this lawsuit found in Yahoo News with the headline Agence France-Presse, Google Settle Suit. I am sure that Yahoo jumps on the chance to publish any downfalls of its' competitor. From all the lawsuits I found involving Google, Yahoo has many opportunities to point out Google's flaws.

Second Wikipedia Edit for Villa Maria Academy

I made my second Wikipedia edit for Villa Maria Academy. I added the following, "In addition to the offerings listed above there are also many events held by Villa Maria. In the beginning of the school year there is a picnic for all students to kick off the year. There are several assemblies held throughout the year including liturgies and the ever popular Magazine Drive assembly. A few pep rallies are held before athletic games and some concerts are performed frequently during the year. A Mother Daughter Tea is open to all students and their mothers towards the beginning of the year. There are also several dances that are always highly anticipated by the students. They include a Soph Hop held for Sophomores and Juniors, a Father Daughter dance, a Winter Formal held for all grades, and a formal Prom for Juniors and Seniors. There is also an Auction held annually in the spring in which proceeds are used to improve the school. Towards the end of the year are Daisy Chain and Senior Sing, two longtime and very memorable traditions." I thought I would add this because I wanted to show that the highschool is more than just academics and athletics. By showing that there are enjoyable events held throughout the year, I thought that the school would seem much more appealing to people and show another positive side of the institution. There are also other events held at the highschool, but I figured these were the most popular and memorable. If I can think of any others I can always add them later, a very helpful and useful feature of Wikipedia!

Search Engine Experiment

For this class we are attempting an experiment that shows just how powerful blogs can be. We are to write about a made up word that before the start of the experiment came up with no matches when you searched for it in Google. When we write about it the keyword, which is stiuqxela, we are to link it to the official Green Bay Packers website which is www.packers.com. Whose ever site is at the top of the search result list at the end will win a prize. After doing this we hypothesized that if enough people do this the Green Bay Packers website will show up in the search results for stiuqxela. Some people already started doing this and it already worked because the Packers website came up as the last search result for stiuqxela. I also wonder if someone does this so well will their website with the stiuqxela posts come up in the Packers results when you search the Green Bay Packers? We'll see!

First Wikipedia Edit for Forever 21

I added just one sentence to the Forever 21 Wikipedia article. It lists Forever 21, Forever XXI, and For Love 21 as other store names of the Forever 21 chain. I worked there over break and I remember when I was filling out the application there were more names than that at the top of the sheet for other Forever 21 stores in the chain. I looked it up on a job opportunity site for Forever 21 and found that Heritage 1981 and Gadzooks are two other stores in the chain. So I added this to the article, "Heritage 1981 and Gadzooks are also parts of the Forever 21 chain." Not a huge contribution to the article, but I am sure people might find this interesting. There is a Gadzooks in the Christiana Mall right near us and some people might wonder if it is owned by the same company because the clothes and accessories look like Forever 21 things. Now they can go to Wikipedia and look at the Forever 21 article and find out for themselves!

Slashdot Article Comment

As soon as I read the title, Internet Curfew for College Students? ,I knew I wanted to comment on that. Just the title is ridiculous. The article talks about a prestigious Indian engineering school, IIT Bombay, which decided to block students living in the dorm from Internet access at night. They said that the Internet is hurting their "academic performance, personality development, and extra curricular activities." They feel that if students do not have access to the Internet at night they can use that time to study, socialize in person with others, and join in on extra curricular activities. Also the real reason may be that the Internet is being used by students more for gaming and talking online and not for research like it is intended to be used for.

I just cannot believe this. An Internet curfew for students is just silly to me. I could not imagine if the Internet was disconnected at night. I do not think this is right. For one thing I sometimes do things last minute because I have a busy schedule. If I had to research something online to write a paper or something that was due the next day I would hate it if I had to finish it by a certain time at night. I would feel too pressured by the time limit and would be nervous that my Internet would turn off as I am in the middle of my paper. Also many people do use the Internet to socialize and talk to people through instant messenger. Sometimes conversations go so well that they continue late and night and it would be a shame if the Internet shut down in the middle of it. Another thing is that the Internet makes it possible for people around the world to connect and communicate. There are different time zones everywhere and what if a student's family members lived somewhere where talking online at 2am was convenient for them. That is not fair and you could say they could call them but the Internet is way cheaper than telephone calls. Additionally if they want students to interact in person and not at their computers why not disconnect their phone usage. That is still not in person and you could spend all night talking on the phone, so why not disconnect that too?

I could go on forever with more reasons why this is ridiculous. If you have technology available you should not limit its use. These students are smart which is proven by the fact that they have gone through an extremely competitive process in order to attend this school. They are also smart enough to budget their time wisely. They probably are doing so much work during the day that they deserve to have some fun at night. Cutting off the Internet to them does not seem like a fair or reasonable solution at all to me. Finally, during the day the students will probably play games and talk online instead of doing work because they were not able to do this at night. This may be because when things are taken away from people they tend to go overboard with them when they get a hold of them again, kind of like the same effect prohibition had on people. So overall I think this is a horrible idea!

Comment on Andrea's Blog

So I was reading Andrea's blog and the article on Subliminal Advertising caught my eye. I also have taken other courses here in which we discussed subliminal advertising. The whole idea of it seems to be very dishonest and manipulative. I agree with Andrea in that people want to be in control of their own lives and an advertising technique like this would probably only appear to be a good idea to the companies using it and not to the prospective consumers. I do not know of anyone who would appreciate someone secretly sending information to their brain that they are not aware of and that may affect decisions they make.

While many people have done studies and researched this technique, some proved it to be effective and others proved it to be only a little effective or not effective at all. The example I learned in my Buyer Behavior class is that let's say you were really thirsty for some soda. You like Coke and Pepsi equally and do not have a preference for one or the other. If there was a Coke vending machine right next to a Pepsi vending machine and each was the same price then subliminal advertising might work. If you had been exposed to subliminal advertising urging you to buy and drink Coke then you probably would choose Coke in this situation. If this is true and that is the most effective subliminal advertising can be than I would not really have a problem with this technique. In this case it would only be an issue for the two competing companies, not us the consumers because they have something to gain or lose but we did not care if we were drinking Coke or Pepsi because they were equally good decisions for us. So great article, Andrea, I enjoyed elaborating on it!

VALS Survey

I just took the VALS online survey. The results were that I am a striver/experiencer. These types were described with words such as trendy, fun loving, young, enthusiastic. Some of these are true, but then it also said that I spent too much time and spend all my money on shopping, which is totally not true. It also says that I lack skills and focus to get ahead which I also do not think is true. I never really believed surveys like this. I look at them as being like reading horoscopes. They put some stuff in there for each type that could characterize any personality. This survey was very easy to take. Just a few clicks of a mouse and it was done, but like we mentioned in class it has some set backs to the paper type. With the paper type I could have asked the proctor to clarify some questions which may have helped me to not be evaluated incorrectly. On the other hand, the online type is very quick and easy and also cheap. I probably would not have taken that survey if I had to go to some place to take it, but it was convenient to take on my own computer. I have also taken surveys for classes through Survey Monkey which I would have never done if I had to take them in person because that is just not convenient. So, in my opinion, online surveys are very good and useful innovations in technology.

1st Wikipedia Edit for Villa Maria Academy

I wanted to add my own Wikipedia article for Villa Maria Academy since one did not exist already. I went to high school there and thought it would be a good idea to create my own article for it. It was just as easy to create a whole new article as it is to edit a previous one. I started the article small and put general information on it so I am able to edit it later. I started by saying, "Villa Maria Academy is an all-girls Catholic college preparatory high school located in Malvern, Pennsylvania. The school was formed and carried out by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Growth and development is key to this institution whether it be spiritually or intellectually." Then I just listed some aspects of the school like music and athletics and things like that. Then i just added some more brief information saying, "Villa Maria's 44 acre campus includes two academic buildings and another building with the gymnasium and a connected auditorium. It specifically can be found at l370 Old Lincoln Highway Malvern, PA 19355. Contact Information phone number: 610-644-2551." I also added a link to Malvern's Wikipedia article. Then i added an external link to the official website and a website with the directions.


[edit] External Links
Official Website

1st Wikipedia Edit for Fuze

I just edited the Wikipedia article for Fuze beverages. This article does not contain much information and does not get updated frequently. There is a new line of drinks called Vitalize so I added that plus the ingredients of Vitamin A, C, and E and the links to the Wikipedia articles for the vitamins. I also saw that they list the website as www.fuzebev.com but when I searched Fuze on Google I was directed to the website called www.drinkfuze.com which actually is the same site. I just added that website link and said that it was another name for the official website so people did not get confused. You can follow this link to the full article.

Engagement/Free Marketing example

As suggested by Professor Brown I researched engagement marketing to try to find examples. I had a small idea of what it actually was and I found that it is basically a new form of marketing in which you get the consumers involved. It is more of a two-way system instead of the traditional one-way method. Companies utilize techniques to encourage the consumer to contribute and form a community of interested consumers in things like company blogs and chat rooms. I found a very interesting website related to this which shows a negative side of free marketing or engagement marketing for consumers. The website is called Blogsvertise. This website pays bloggers to positively talk about products and services of participating websites. Simply mentioning the product in your blog can earn you money through pay pal because it give them publicity and exposure from the "consumer" who people look more favorably to when considering purchasing a product. This seems very wrong to me. This idea basically is to manipulate the public's attitudes. Whether the blogger likes the product or not they talk highly about it. I think this is actually quite unethical. Consumers usually trust the other consumers more than the companies selling the product because the consider other consumers to be honest. This site makes me think that almost no opinions can be trusted anymore because they may be speaking on behalf of the company or website in their favor. They realize that word of mouth Marketing and two-way Marketing are more effective, but they are taking it too far and taking advantage of that which I think is very deceitful.

ClickZ article comment

I was looking through bloglines and I went to ClickZ Network's site. I came across an article by Dorian Sweet called Is User-Generated Video Poised to Flame Out?. I read this one because it talked about YouTube which has been mentioned in class a couple times. He firsts begins by talking about how YouTube is now going to pay people for the number of views that their videos get. Sweet is very cynical and does not believe that paying the people would make it better because there is still a greedy major force who is making a huge majority of the money. He uses a great analogy describing his thoughts saying "I never knew an art gallery to go big time unless its artists became hyper-famous."

He then goes into talking about how he thinks that some videos on YouTube may not actually be user-generated but may be made by the competitors. He uses the example of how he found a video bashing PlayStation3. This may have been from a competitor as a type of online marketing and not created by a user. Sweet makes sure to mention that this type of medium can be very useful and successful like Craigslist.org. He thinks that the YouTube trend may die down a little bit showing that having users be the marketing tool may not be the best idea. Sweet ends by warning online advertisers to be cautious and use their gut instinct when dealing with personal media.

I thought this was a very interesting article and I agree with him and I don't think it is fair that the owner's of YouTube are making money off of everyone contributing to their site. Compensating them for their videos seems like it will work as long as they follow through with that announcement. I also agree with how some videos may have been planted on the Internet by competitors as a form of advertising so I think it is important to not always believe what you see when you're not exactly who the source of something is.

1st Wikipedia Edit for MGIC

I just made my first Wikipedia article edit. I chose to edit the MGIC article which is the mortgage insurance company my dad works for. They recently acquired Radian, another mortgage insurance company, so I was going to add that in but someone beat me to it. I looked for something else to add and I found that mortgage insurance premiums are now tax deductable which is very important news for MGIC. So I added these sentences: "MGIC has announced that mortgage insurance premiums are now tax deductible as a result of a bill that President Bush signed in 2007. To qualify for this 100% deduction, the household must have an adjusted gross income of $100,000 or less and the purchase and refinance loans must be closed on or after January 1, 2007." You can find the whole article for MGIC here.

Purpose of my blog

I am currently a Junior at the University of Delaware. I am a Marketing major and I am taking a class called Information Technology Applications in Marketing, also known as BUAD477. For this class we are each required to make a blog. Throughout the semester we have to develop our blog with a few different things. For example, we have a team of about four classmates in which we post comments and react to their blog articles in our own blogs. We also have to record edits we make in four Wikipedia articles and follow up on how others respond to our edits. A few times we read articles and react to them in our blogs. Many of us are not at all familiar with blogs so this project should help us understand how to use blogs, the purpose of them, they power they can bring, and the overall impact they can possibly have on the Marketing world. If you wish you can check out the main class blog for my BUAD477 class.

So I just came back from my night class and it definitely should have been canceled! The roads are a mess, but luckily we made it there and back safely. I just got off the phone with my sister and she told me about this really cool website about shopping! If you like to shop this website is perfect for you and you can find tons of stuff on it! If you're bored take a look...enjoy!

Ok let's hope I didn't do this wrong...