It's Viral

            What’s that new video everyone’s been talking about? You’ve seen people in class watching them, and they’re telling you that you HAVE to watch it. People have posted it on your facebook wall or sent you links to it. When you clicked it, there were already hundreds of thousands (and sometimes millions) of views. What makes these YouTube videos so popular? Is it its entertainment value with something weird like unusual talents? Is it because it’s really funny or relatable? Or is it the hottest new song with an awesome music video? Whatever its significance, its addictive to watch and instantly “viral”.

            Marketing companies have seen the appeal in this, and have made it their source of promotion. Some PR companies like The Commotion Group specialize in viral video marketing. They take the product of their clients, and try to make a viral video with it. If the video does not reach at least 100,00 views, they won’t charge for it. The co-founder of The Commotion Group, Dan Ackerman Greenberg, gave tips for making a video viral.  First off, content is not necessarily king.  It’s great if your video has excellent content, that’s what will bring people back to watch it; but if you want to get it “out there” first it’s good to “keep it short, design for remixing, don’t make an outright ad, make it shocking, and use fake headlines.” Secondly, you need to get your blog on the “Most Viewed” page. That’s particularly difficult if you just post a video, and let it sit on the Internet gradually collecting views. You need to advertise. Advertising is becoming less of a challenge in the modern world with help from social networking sites. You today have countless resources; by posting your YouTube video to your facebook or twitter page, linking it on your blog, or sending out e-mail lists or just showing it to your friends in person. Lastly, make what the viewers see before they click, interesting.  You need a catchy title; something that will bait people into wondering what your video is about. Also, put up an tempting thumbnail. If your title doesn’t cut it, the picture just might.

            Let me leave you with this thought. How do you personally hear about viral videos? What sort of ideas do you have we could use for promotions and advertising? (i.e. Events at school or products at school)The idea of viral YouTube videos has caught the attention Saturday Night Live. Watch the video as they make fun of all of its “viral” aspects.

Source:

Secrets for Viral Videos

Everyday is an Alex Day

I just wanted to take this post as an opportunity to talk about how much in love I am with Alex Day. His blog is the first, and only blog that I am a regular follower of, and his music and humor complete me. Trust me, I could marry this guy. He was first discovered on YouTube with his hilarious biography of his English life, (The accent makes everything he says about 140% better) and documents his success with his indie band, that have climbed the charts in the UK and sold quite well on iTunes. He has recently become more popular on YouTube with his "Alex reads Twilight" channel, where he summarizes and critically pokes fun at the teenage obsession of a "book". Alex has 276,482 subscribers, and has an astonishing 35,100,400 total uploaded views for his videos on his channel Nerimon. He definitely has a "viral" quality to his videos, which is something I have planned for a blog later this week...

da Vinci's Greatest Work?

They call it da Vinci Surgery. Robotic surgery at its height. A doctor controlling the arms of a robot performing surgery, with accurate precision and minimal evasiveness. The medical field accredits it with more reliance than traditional surgery with quicker recovery time. Impressive? Very. They've even successfully performed open heart surgery with it, and are on the brink of "tele-surgery". The idea is a surgeon could perform surgery via robotics in a completely different state! I'm not sure how reliable this is yet, but I know I haven't completely given myself over technology yet to have that done. I do believe, though, that I could trust robotic surgery for some minimal procedure. My only concern with this, aside from technical difficulties that could occur, would be the doctors. Would they have to school for longer or less? Would this put more people in the medical field out of work because a less number of surgeons are required in the operating room?  What are your thoughts or concerns?

(P.s. The robot has a mustache!!!)

Auburn Tigers vs. Gamecocks

In my last post, I surveyed my Communications class to see who the college football fans were. It turns out about 41% people were Dawgs fans (LOVE that) when asked favorite SEC Eastern division team, and the same amount of people were Bama fans for the SEC's Western division teams. The most important question, however, was who the majority thought would win at the GA Dome. Results?......59% thought AUBURN TIGERS are going to take the Gamecocks. I'm sure it'll be an interesting game, so I'm personally going on record, saying I don't know who WILL win, since both teams have had an incredible season this year.

SEC

Very Sneaky Zac...

This week, we learned about crowd sourcing and what it basically was. It's a form of advertising with the input of the people you're trying to appeal to. In my opinion, it's a really effective way to grab people's attention and make them feel like they have a say. A lot of forms of crowd sourcing is as a poll, where a question is asked, and people vote in their choice. This poll is about Zac Efron…with a mustache. The two very best things in the world!

RAVE TO SAVE

Invisible Children came to visit our school last week, and if you're not familiar with their organization, you can visit their website for more information. The purpose of their visit was to help raise money for their Schools for Schools program that aids children soldiers who have escaped from the bush army in northern Africa, and educates and rehabilitates them. My heart genuinely goes out to them, and has in the past from their earlier visits. This is why my friends and I have tried to come up with ideas to help raise money for our school's contributions. Rave to Save. It's as simple as it sounds. We'd charge $7 admission fee, while selling glow sticks for $1 each (while buying in bulk of 500 for about $50) and selling bottles of water for $1. (Thank goodness for Costco!) We're still in discussion stages, but I think it could help raise a lot of money. Any thoughts? As a bonus, our high school raised over $1000 last Friday from our tailgate and generous donors. We have big plans for this organization, and hopefully we'll be able to take it a long way.

(The mustache picture above is the 'Invisible Children, Uganda Africa' shirt)

Stalk It

 

This is my screen cast of myself being creepy and stalking our class through our school that follows...us? While I follow it? I hope that makes sense because I believe I just made a circle.

It's Called...Pimp My Search?

Google Magic My Friends
I was searching screen casts in my Communications class, and this video was the most interesting one I could find. This guy is basically showing you how to personalize your own search engine with you name, while giving you a small migraine from zooming in and out of the screen cast. I understood the purpose of the assignment though; teaching others with a screen recording of your computer with voice over. Hopefully this guy doesn't use that application in his job...P.s. PimpMySearch does in fact NOT work, and you do have to go to ShinySearch if you want a "pimped out" Google.

"I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween." -Charles Schwartz

Happy Halloween everyone! I am proud to say I counted a fair amount of mustaches tonight while I did my neighborly duty and passed out candy to minors. Whether they were Mario's or pirates, I complimented their 'stache and gave them an extra Starburst and a creepy wink. Just kidding. In all seriousness, I finished two of my college applications while eating the M&M's I hoarded from the distribution basket. Since I live on the main road in my neighborhood, we ran out of candy to about 400 trick-or-treaters in roughly 2.5 hours. Impressed? You should be; I've contemplated changing the tone of our doorbell or just plain ripping it off the wall in my house. Oh I'm such a sucker for the holidays! By the way, go here for some more Halloween jokes that will make you cringe and wish you were younger so you could get a cheap laugh. Happy Halloween!


(Refer to picture: Too bad this wasn't my pumpkin; I'm just too lazy...actually, I don't think I even carved our pumpkins this year. Anyway, I pulled this picture off of this site.)

Life is short. You’ll never get back the years you spent wearing a mustache.

The title of my blog post today is to commemorate my senior photo album "Life is short, and so am I." on Facebook. I decided to blog about it today because it's homecoming week for my school, and today's dress up theme was NERD DAY, and we took a ton of pictures. Too difficult? Never. My "costume" is comprised of about 95% of the school uniform, with added suspenders and 3D glasses. (P.s. I think it's safe to say that everyone keeps those glasses and just punch out the lenses because I've seen about a bajillion people wearing them.) I'd also like to add that Madison WON Homecoming queen at UGA, and I'm so incredibly happy for her! Also, my fellow missing mustacher is back, and we had a blasty blast coming up with a nerdy 'stache for today :{)

I Spy a Missing Mustacher...in BAMA!

So let me start of first by saying that my friend, Erin, is not here to help me with a mustache picture today. She's at Bama this weekend with her sister for their homecoming game, and so that is why Mavin is my MIT (Mustache-in-Training) today. Let me also say that this week has been one of those where you want to shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-if-you-get-one-more-assignment type of week. With everything that's going on in my life right now, I feel like I basically live for the weekends. This is my composited list of Poopie-Things-That-Make-My-Week-Difficult: 1)School/Homework 2)College Applications 3)Cross Country practice after school every day 4)Piano that I get yelled at for not practicing 5)Uhhh my job? But this weekend is something I'm totally excited for; ATHENS!!! I absolutely love going up there to see my friends, and the UGA vs. Vanderbilt game tomorrow is particularly exciting because one of my best friend's sister is on Homecoming Court! (See here for a list of all the nominees) I'm so excited for Madison, and I hope she wins!  Anyway, I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and remember: MADISON ASEF FOR UGA HOMECOMING QUEEN 2010!!!

Can't Tooch This

So today in my Digital Communications class, we were basically asked to put our blogs into perspective. The sad thing is, I really didn't have to think long about this because I already feel that the majority of my blog has been dedicated to mustaches. It's embarrassing; considering I'm about to go to college in a year, and I'm pretty sure by then, I'll deny this blog's existence. But, for the time being; this is what I like, and this is what I want to do. I'm also on the fence about changing the blog's name...maybe to "Please, Call Me Pheebs...with a Mustache"? Not sure, but it's a work in progress. P.s. Props to Katherine for jumping in with her 'stache.

Mustache, Mustache, Mustache...

I'm pretty sure that the majority of this blog so far is comprised mostly of mustaches...and that's tragic. I've decided that Erin and I are not very original people. I'm also not completely sure what to write about. It's Monday? I hate everything having to do with Mondays? Except Digital Communications of course. ;) But after an entire period of scheming for new blog ideas, I'm pretty sure that me and Erin will start something fun with our pictures tomorrow. It might incorporate Mavin...

It's a Friday..can't you tell??

So the last thing I want to do right now is blog for this class, but luckily I have really good friends in this class to help me get by. We've decided to try and take pictures for as many blog posts as possible, while we slowly document our progress in here. I guess my Friday is pretty slow so far since it's only the second class of the morning and I feel like time has stopped. Awesome. Oh well, at least the weekend's almost here and I can FINALLY start my college applications. Guess who's on the ball?

Starting out...the process

Hi. My name is Phoebe, but you can call me Pheebs. Let me say, first off, that the production of this blog was because of my Digital Communications class and so the beginning process of making this blog was pretty slow. (Refer above) Right, so back to what I was saying. My name is Phoebe, and this is my senior year in high school. I enjoy a good run now and then, music, my friends, and paying attention in class. Obviously. I actually hope to get a little something from this blog because I recently looked back at my tragically sad Xanga page a few weeks ago, and I was pretty embarrassing 11 year old. That just goes to show you, I was clearly not ready for the internet.