When we were two, we’d be busy watching Teletubbies and having tantrums because we had to go to bed at 7pm, never mind browsing on fashion websites and having opinions on style. But the life of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s daughter North is, er, pretty different to say the least.
The mini fashionista is such a dab hand with her iPad that she’s been getting familiar with style blogs – and even follows fashion-focused Instagram accounts like @indiaroseco and @AlealiMay – and now she wants her own fashion blog. Yes, really!
Six years ago, Chiara Ferragni (@ChiaraFerragni) was an Italian law student posting avidly about her personal style. Receiving so much support she decided to start her own blog, The Blonde Salad. Now age 28, Ferragni runs two companies worth a total of $8 million, neither employing anyone over the age of 30.
When Bruce Kramer, a Minnesota professor of education, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) - or Lou Gehrig's disease - in 2010, his world exploded. He knew what the diagnosis meant: progressive bodily atrophy, from a disease whose causes are little understood and that has no known cure.
Kramer began writing a blog [Dis Ease Diary] to capture the agony of his physical deterioration and his struggle to hold onto the splintered pieces of his life. He described his disease as "death by a thousand paper cuts," and it was an apt image: ALS was making changes that, day by day, could be all but imperceptible - but the overall effect of these small setbacks would be cataclysmic. At the same time, there was something that posed an even more immediate threat: unchecked anger and resentment, which could poison the time he had left to relish his life and loves.
At best it's ignorance and at worst it's discrimination: Regardless, it's egg on Twitter's face!
Twitter Engineering Manager Leslie Miley, the only Black engineer in a leadership position at Twitter, just publicly announced that he has left the company. In his post, he says his reasons for leaving have everything to do with the way Twitter is addressing diversity and inclusion.
Changes are afoot at Twitter, hence for its users. What exactly are we talking about? Talk is, Twitter will allow for longer that 140-character tweets. But that's not at all certain yet, despite the declarative article title Twitter Plans to Go Beyond Its 140-Character Limit. The crux of the matter is that Dorsey needs, desperately so apparently, to attract more users. But the tough question is, What maneuver(s) exactly will realize this end?
As a full-time blogger, YouTuber, host and newly married wife - a day in my life can get a little crazy! I thought it would be cool for you guys to see how busy my day can get. I think there's this misconception that bloggers sit around all day and take Instagram photos (ha!) but that's totally not the case here!
Everyday for me is different than the last and that's what keeps me going. This video will give you a good idea of how crazy a day in my life can get. Enjoy!
Today's Be Your Own Boss [BYOB] web-isode shares my personal advice for finding your style and mastering the content you create in the digital space. Think: outside the box.
In today's Be Your Own Boss [BYOB] webisode, I'm uncovering some helpful tips behind photography. As a blogger, I think mastering the imagery of your brand is a key component behind your success early on. Of course I can't take all the credit, so I'm bringing in someone who has been taking my photos for years. Hope you'll subscribe to my channel and comment below if you enjoyed watching this video.
Now that you’ve figured out your brand, it’s time to create an image online. Let's face it, the internet can be your best friend and also your worst nightmare. In today's Be Your Own Boss [BYOB] video, I will share some of my helpful 'Saz tips' to keep you focused and on the right track!
[Be Your Own Boss (BYOB)] Today I'm sharing with you guys the pre-production phase before stepping into the digital game. Fear is a big distraction when you're trying to build an online presence. It's important to face your fears in the beginning so you can focus on your goals.
[Be Your Own Boss (BYOB)] As many of you know, I've been blogging longer than YouTubing, so in the video I refer to the term "blogging" a lot. Generally I speak about blogging, but as the series goes on I will dive deeper into the digital world outside of blogging.
"They can hit a younger audience, and these guys have the street cred to be able to access them," Laura Lee points out, and she is the YouTube Global Head of Top Creators.
According to a McKinsey Report, word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions. Its influence is greatest for first time purchases, or when products are relatively expensive.
McKinsey also reported that word of mouth “is no longer an act of intimate, one-on-one communication”. Rather, it operates on a “one-to-many basis: product reviews are posted online and opinions disseminated through social networks."
The ephemeral nature of Snapchat promises to do something different: To capture life in all its messiness, as it unfolds in real time. Emoji, optional.
If indeed censorship is ultimately impossible, and I would like to believe it is, then oppression, restriction or prohibition is also doomed to fail. Human will and ingenuity perhaps trump any efforts to tamp these down. It's a very curious point, isn't it.
Does every person across the world have the right to healthcare and education, shelter and fresh water, a decent living and personal dignity and freedom? The answer, of course, is yes. But is internet access on par with these key life provisions?
To me, the immediate answer is It depends. It depends on the nature of their crime and of course the subsequent punishment. It also depends, I imagine, on time served and behavioral progress. Prisoners in general are carefully guarded on what they communicate and what information they access, especially with the world outside prison. Perhaps the law or regulation governing prisoners needs to be reviewed vis-a-vis the radical developments in media and technology, information and communications over the last decade or two.
There are such ideological, such cultural, such human differences between some countries, that it is easy I suppose for a Westerner like me to frown upon, and scowl at, an Eastern policy and practice. The answer is no, of course, from me. But then it becomes a matter of understanding the reasons behind the decision to censor, that is, without judging it or expecting otherwise. It is also a matter of the Chinese, for example, to weigh in with their support for or rejection of such censorship and to decide what to do and how to do it.
I suppose this question is at the heart of Social Contract à la Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. The people agree to surrender some their freedom and rights to the ruler, in exchange for a host of protections of their broader freedom and rights from said ruler and the governing body. I'd say it's a complex balance, and how this balance is reached and maintained very much depends on the relationship between the government and the people: Is it trusting and respectful, or otherwise?
What should be the case - equal access, equal opportunity - runs head to head with how it is. Just as there are sociopolitical and socioeconomic matters in many countries, so there are sociotechnology quandaries as well. It makes sense to rally and advocate for such equality, but I believe entrepreneurs and philanthropists have a better chance of solving the issue than corporate titans or government officials.
These men and women speak to a host of complicated, weighty matters concerning privacy. There is, for instance, that give and take of social media: free use for data use. Where do you weigh in on these matters, and how do you navigate them in your personal and work lives?
This is a fundamental dilemma in media and technology: Obviously the ability to track mobile phones can keep citizens safe, including young people, but in the wrong hands the very same technology can endanger or take advantage of citizens. Unfortunately we cannot always trust that companies or individuals with know-how and access to tracking will use technology for the good.
Answer: Not without customer consent. But the question is, How clear or user friendly are privacy policies? The ones I've seen are couched in such legalese as to be too obtuse to read meaningfully.
Isn't it the case in the US that unless the police have probable cause, they cannot simply scope out information from just any particular or anonymous citizen? Of course it is their charge to pinpoint wrongdoers in their jurisdiction, but I believe they must do so without improper breach of citizens' privacy.
The challenge for any researcher investigating human behavior is that letting people know they're being investigated can prompt them to alter their behavior. Information and consent can therefore confound research. Ah but that's the very charge of researchers: that is, provide information and seek consent, as they must, and still protect the integrity of their methodology. They need to draw on their ingenuity to strike this crucial balance. So the answer to this young lady's question? No, Facebook shirked its ethical, perhaps legal responsibility to its members.
A Party Gone Wrong can certainly be distressing for a teen and her family, but we can imagine far worse actions by someone masquerading as anyone of us on social media. It is one thing to set policy or law against such behavior, but another thing to investigate and enforce it. Regardless, though, I believe that sites ought to have some fair and reasonable responsibility to prevent masquerading and to intervene accordingly. Otherwise we'd have cause to question the integrity and intent of a site and its members.
What these men and women speak to are a prompt for reflection and conversation. Shame, though, that The British Library didn't engage a wider diversity of nationality and age for these interviews.
I suppose this is not just a clash between liberal and conservative schools of thought. Values matter to people, and there is a melange of them, which defies dichotomies. Sometimes these values collide in very personal, complicated ways. Those in authority or those with influence may determine which ones are left standing, at the end of the day.
I find this question to be a terribly complex one. On the one hand, if one has paid his or her dues, and by law a past transgression is no longer a matter of consideration, for example, for getting a job, buying a house, or obtaining a credit card, then why should it remain available? On the other hand, I personally appreciate having any old information available on any person or topic of interest to me. This is how I learn about the background of actors, for example, and how I probe more deeply into their filmography. So the question comes down (a) morally to the freedom to move on with a clean slate and (b) pragmatically to the means with which to determine how ought to be, and ought not be, removed.
The answer in this situation iseasy: No. What is difficult, though, is finding answers on to how to stop cyberbullying. It requires patience and fortitude to do so, that is, in our working to get a better grip on the problem and what underlies it and on the perpetrators and what drives them. It requires empathic understanding: not to be confused with sympathy or compassion, but with the ability and willingness to probe into emotional, psychological layers.
At first I took umbrage at the idea of anyone petitioning to get artistic work taken offline. But perhaps in this case, it makes sense, especially as we don't quite know who might be viewing sensitive (albeit artistic) photos online and having whatever unsavory, obnoxious thoughts about them.
Audrey Dimola is the poet behind the inspiring Gillette Venus ad campaign*. Unlike some poetry slam, hers is loud and clear without having to be strident and hers is impassioned without having to be melodramatic.
there are no words to say how grateful i am to be part of a campaign that hones in on something i believe in SO strongly: being bold and multi-faceted in the face of labels – overcoming all those gatekeepers that are CONSTANTLY trying to hold us back or pin us down. it’s all about making people FEEL something.. and reading the comments from friends and strangers alike is truly heart-stirring. this is what it’s about – reminding each other why we’re here and who we truly are. that there is no box, no cage, no boundary that can contain us. we are limitless. wild AND smart AND bold AND… :)
*by the way, just in case anyone lands here from elsewhere – gillette venus wrote the fantastic words (not me), then found a real poet to perform it (me!). :)
You are too beautifully complex for a simple label. Venus is on a mission to put an end to one-dimensional labels that limit your potential. Because you can rock an outfit & the stage. Win the race & the crown. Climb mountains & corporate ladders. You are beauty & brains. Grace & guts. Time to show “or” the door and believe in the power of &.Venus invites women everywhere to take a stand against one-dimensional labels and #UseYourAnd.
Gillette Venus joins a growing effort to eye business on what matters for women and girls and see commercial as a viable platform for doing a social good.
Show “or” the door-this is the story of “&”. The story of realizing your true potential.
Put an end to the one-dimensional labels that limit your potential. Because you are beautiful AND smart. You can be an astronaut AND a soccer player AND a ballerina. Your life is composed of many ANDs – an empowering sum of all of the things you are, and all you want to be. Venus invites you and women everywhere to take a stand against one-dimensional labels. #UseYourAnd.
Another ad campaign that I love, for its empowering and inspiring message for girls. This one, from Gillette Venus.
At first, I was, like, a pet blogging conference... are you kidding me? But then I thought the pet industry must be a multimillion dollar business. I was wrong. It's a multibillion dollar business, and it has been for at least two decades:
The question is Should High School Students Be Blogging? Uh, yes (no duh)! There are such opportunities for them to write their thoughts, work through feelings, and find their voices, that their teachers ought to encourage blogging actively. In fact, much of social media and mobile devices are near constant opportunities for writing, so teachers can make learning how to write well very relevant and enjoyable. Imagine having a classroom of high school students pulling out their mobiles and texting each other, say, on a certain class topic, giving each other feedback, and offering suggestions for better writing. That's essentially what I imagine a teacher can do, specifically in relation to blogging: They create their blog in class, use class and home time to write on designated topics, and get feedback and suggestions from the teacher and their classmates right there in the comment section of their blog.
Several years ago, while I lived in Dubai, I got on Robert Kiyosaki's e-mail list, and he'd send chapter drafts of his work-in-progress book to us. We'd read them, and send feedback. That was a time perhaps when blogging was not so prominent in the writing world, and neither was social media in day to day online lives. Fast forward to today, and Dorit Sasson makes a lot of sense in Blogging Your Novel:
Blog your themes
Blog how you overcame problems
Blog about the life of a fiction writer
I imagine this is distasteful or risky for many writers, but those who are game stand to gain a lot from essentially crowd-sourcing their ideas and writing. As Sasson pointed, done well, blogging makes your novel all the stronger and the more popular yet.
I imagine this commercial is painful for parents who've lost a young child to some preventable accident. Still I hope that it prompts parents to do everything they can to prevent such accidents from happening. This obviously is a heavier pull at your target audience's heartstrings, so decide if it makes sense for your ad campaign.
Speaking of Dads, this one is a bit selfish with his Doritos, so his kids have to take matters into their own hands. How about a dash of pepper or a twist of lemon, then, for your promotion video?
As a father myself - of a smart and beautiful young lady - I find this commercial touching and moving. Whatever you're branding or promoting, does it make sense for you to pull at the heartstrings of your target audience?
Kristoffer Howes adds that while it may take Google several days initially to return Tumblr posts in search results, regular posts meant more frequent returns.
Imagine your best content popping up in the Pinterest feed 4 or 5 months after it was first pinned! This is common occurrence on Pinterest.
Compare that to the fast-paced Twitter stream or the hyper-competitive Facebook news feed and you’ll quickly understand the value.
I can definitely vouch for this with T'ai Chi Empower. Many of my posts from a long while back are regularly (re)pinned or liked. Nigel Ohrum found a similar phenomenon as well, testament to the great half-life of posts on Pinterest: 1600 times longer than that of Facebook!
Q&A with Del Harvey, Twitter VP of Trust and Safety: Since not all issues are created equal, the response ought not be a once-size-fits-all. I appreciate this instructive, thoughtful Q&A.
Alice Elliott covers some good Dos and Don'ts on the spelling and grammar of blogs. Regardless of medium, bloggers still have to abide by tried-and-true writing fundamentals. Unless of course, misspellings and off grammar are the nature of their blogs.
Perhaps it's a sign that we have to give up our nostalgic attachment to live-blogging, but technical difficulties and a totally broken live-blog have sent Stephen and me back to Twitter, where we — at @nprmonkeysee and @idislikestephen — will be tweeting at the hashtag #NPRGrammys. Thanks for your patience.
Reference: Live-Blogging The Grammy Awards.
This is the beauty of live blogging: If your platform breaks down, there are alternatives at your disposal. The line between blogs and social media certainly blurs, when we think of Twitter as a micro-blogger. But Facebook and Google+ are just as fine as alternatives, for example, using a page and community.
Chris Soules is the Bachelor! After a bittersweet exit from Andi Dorfman's season of The Bachelorette, the farmer from Arlington, Iowa, is searching for love once again on ABC's hit franchise. Chris, 33, will be blogging for www.PEOPLE.com every week about the women, the dates and the difficult decisions he'll make on his journey to love.
We may not know whether Soules actually penned this blog, but regardless it's another opportunity to fans to get an inside glimpse into the romantic drama they see on TV.
If the Brits ruled over America, Newcastle wouldn't have to apologize for wishing the Brits ruled over America.
Oh, what a thought, eh. What if the New World pilgrims hadn't won the Revolutionary War? This country wouldn't have been called the United States of America, and it probably wouldn't have been called the Revolutionary War to begin with.
One YouTuber takes an insightful slant on this:
I love how stupid us Americans are. We poke and jab and make jokes at almost every country in the world, but someone makes a joke about us and we get all butthurt and start crying. Anyone that doesn't find this funny is just a dumbass. So to all the "patriots" out there, the next time you decide to jab at any other country, remember this ad and how it made you feel. If you can't take a joke about your own country, you don't get the right to joke about another. Good day.
It's an absolutely genius ad to draw on what I'd describe as linguistic reversal or soft-pedal, that is, sorry about not being sorry. It's not a bad idea, either, to engage the beautiful Brit Elizabeth Hurley.
This is for our Best Beer Ad Ever Contest: Actually it's an anti Super Bowl Commercial or spoof. This viral ad features actress Anna Kendrick for Newcastle Brown Ale questioning whether she is hot enough for a beer commercial. What do you think? She's in a dressing room joking about her agent booking her on a big budget Super Bowl ad, but it turns out the beer company can't afford the high ad fees, so she's stuck in the dressing room. Each instance of "Super Bowl" gets bleeped out, as if they are banned from using the word. Anna Kendrick is a cult figure among teenage girls and pre-teen girls for her famous rendition of the "Cup Song" in the movie Pitch Perfect. In summary, as Newcastle states in the ad, this is the mega huge football game ad Newcastle Brown Ale almost made. It's got our vote for hottest Super Bowl commercial of 2014.
Attractive Anna Kendrick describes herself well: She is more the approachable hot, than the beer ad babe hot. Not just that, though, I love her edgy but still girl next door attitude.
The stunt marks the second year in a row that Newcastle is trying to crash the Super Bowl. The technique often is referred to as ambush marketing, where an advertiser tries to capture the attention surrounding a big event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics without paying to be an official sponsor or advertiser.
Last year, Newcastle sparked a viral sensation with its tongue-in-cheek “If We Made It” digital campaign that imagined the “mega-huge football” ad it said it would have made but couldn’t afford. The highlight was a two-minute video starring the Academy Award nominee Anna Kendrick ranting about Newcastle revoking its offer to have her star in a Super Bowl spot.
Pretty Aubrey Plaza is a princess of deadpan comedy, and she is a perfect spokeswoman for a sly, wry Newcastle ad campaign. I wasn't sure that "Band of Brands" was a serious idea, but apparently it is:
Newcastle is introducing a cheeky, irreverent campaign on Monday, in which it will try to recruit 20 to 30 brands to help it break into the Super Bowl advertising melee. In exchange for a cash contribution, the other brands’ logos and messages will be incorporated into a spot crafted with Newcastle by the advertising agency Droga5 that will air online and in some local NBC television markets during the game’s broadcast. (Rival beer advertisers are not invited to join.)
“We don’t have the money to advertise the normal way, so we found a clever way around it,” said Charles van Es, head of marketing for Heineken USA’s portfolio of brands, which includes Newcastle. “With the whole world going to crowdsourcing these days, we figured we could crowdsource an ad.”
One marketer once said, If you have more budget than brain, you advertise. But if you have more brain than budget, you go social media. Kudos to van Es and staff for their ingenuity.
So the big deal about blogs is that they give people like you the power of the media, and created a personal kind of news that appeals to a high number of small audiences.
This is from seven years ago, but it's still fine, succinct tutorial on what blogging is in its essence: the power of the media in our hands. In fact, developments over the past 10 years has put (a) more tools at our disposal to create content, (b) more avenues (i.e. media) to publicize that content, and (c) more buzz in general for others to find our content. To me, and I imagine to you, too, these are remarkable, exciting developments indeed.
You as a blogger may simply want to put your thoughts, experiences and activities out there for others to happen upon (or not) and to read (or not). But if you want to monetize whatever it is you blog, then 6 Strategies for Launching a Successful Blog speaks to fundamentals of blogging as a business. One of those is creating an interactive community: In my experience, social media - Google+ and Twitter, in particular - is the best platform for doing this. You can certainly promote your blog on social media, but I find too many bloggers focused more on promoting than on interacting. So if you are truly intent on an interactive community, then participate in discussions, respond to others' blogs and posts, and ask questions that you're genuinely interested in.
You can’t find the right people until you know exactly what you stand for and are making it clear in unambiguous terms.
This is a crucial point, as it speaks to your purpose for blogging to begin with. If you're just starting out, it may take a bit of time, that is, for reflection and revision, to clarify what it is that you want to accomplish and what message you want to convey. While the science of blogging may be about examining data analysis and taking a systematic approach (e.g. which articles draw the most views, where do many of the visitors come from), the art is about drawing on your intuition and creativity to make it work for you vis-a-vis your purpose (e.g. what do you sense matters most to your target audience, how can you best influence them with your ideas).
