Monthly Archives: April 2010

Twitter’s Business Model

….What is it?  I just read these two articles:

http://adage.com/digiconf10/article?article_id=143301

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303695604575181163126094200.html

I understand that they are finally going to try to turn a profit, but I’m unsure about their approach to advertising.  It seems like they are trying to catch up to Google as a search engine.  What will a sponsored tweet look like?  Will people start searching twitter more now?  How will the “Resonance Score” referred to in the WSJ article affect advertising in other venues?

Does anyone have an opinion on this?  I don’t yet….

Beatles Rock Band

A prospective student walked in while we were “studying” Beatles Rock Band in class today…this struck us all as ironic–how can something so fun be “academic?”  I’ve watched Project Runway in a sociology class, read magazines in another Film and Media course, and attended screenings of the Simpson’s, Seinfeld, and the Hills.  My friends make fun of me for this, and I often find myself at a loss when it comes time to explain just how one could possibly identify any of these manifestations of pop culture as an academic category.  I have even questioned my own decision to take such classes.  I remember now a reading from the beginning of the semester in which the writer pointed out that fish don’t know that they’re swimming in water, people don’t pay attention to the fact that we are breathing in air, etc…these classes have taught me to pay attention to the world that I and my friends actively consume, but that many of my friends don’t attempt to understand in the ways that we do in these courses.  These classes, while they might sound frivolous or too fun to be worthwhile teach two things: first, media literacy; and second, that valuable learning doesn’t have to be traditional and it can happen outside of erserves and textbooks.

First (and hopefully last) Teleports

Faery Crossing

Not into second life.  Nothing about it makes sense to me…why do I want to be in these virtual worlds alone?  I don’t find the “escapism” that it offers very relieving, rather, it just feels weird.  I was approached by two guys at one point and wasn’t sure what to do, whether they were real, what they wanted, what was appropriate…I just walked away.  They were definitely flirting with my avatar.  It was really confusing.  I don’t know how to go to the places that we were invited as a class (yet another confusing aspect of this bizarre game) so I went to some easter egg hunt that I didn’t know how to participate in and also to Faery Land or something and finally to Atlantis…

I don’t know how to post pictures to the blog…stay tuned.