JH. S

“This is the year of mobile,” People always say, “So is next year.”

Press Release 03/29/19

GAINESVILLE, Fla., March 29, 2019 (swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) – Nowadays, who doesn’t have a mobile phone in his or her hand? Walking on the street, everyone is holding a small, rectangle device and calling, texting or listening. Those devices have already completed a successful invasion of people’s life. Contributors on MediaInsider started a discussion about the relationship between mobile device and the life last week. They mentioned several Apps that are strongly connected to the daily time, disclosed their development and analyzed people’s reaction. As the carrier of Apps, mobile’s tomorrow must be bright and promising. But it does not mean that people are facing the same future as it is.

“My So-Called Mobile Life” is an article written by Cory Treffiletti, which talking about his own understanding of his life with mobile phone. The phone today is powerful and important because of Apps. With those softwares, people have access to tons of things such as the lights, music player, files and any electronic contents. In other words, mobiles can control all of them including people themselves, because people are attracted to keep using them. Cory realizes this point and gives a reversed idea — “Anyone has access to you just as often”. Spams, robocalls and ceaseless pop-up notifications, they are distracting the users’ attention, wasting the time and forcing themselves to be more meaningless in people’s mind. Moreover, security is an ambivalent factor that all users have to deal with. Passwords are utilized to protect information, meanwhile, they let people make extra effort to remember them. “Sometimes I choose not to use an app simply because I can’t get into it,” told by Cory. But fortunately, the rise of biotechnology is solving such problems. Cory believes that in the near future, facial ID and fingerprint scanning may be able to replace the traditional password entirely, and the mobile will create more miracles for human beings.

Mobile phone now is as crucial as personal identity. It and its content can represent a person’s background, personality and relationship. It allows people to touch the world anywhere at any time. Unquestionably, its progress will never stop. Its future seems to be predictable, but in fact it is not. It is hard to say whether people will be controlled more intensely by technology as time passes. At least we are human beings, not artificial machines.

Mobile phone is becoming more “attractive”. Is this a good tendency for human beings?

Press Release 03/15/19

GAINESVILLE, Fla., March 15, 2019 (swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) – Human beings are greedy and lazy. They explore technologies ceaselessly and tend to make the life more convenient and comfortable. But at the same time, people would get into trouble on controlling the time spend on those high-techs. “The digital world, as we’ve designed it, is draining us”, Jesse Weaver, a design director, states. This issue is discovered by those experts and discussed a lot recently on Media Insider: How can people balance the usage of technology and its influence on the daily life? What solution can they have? As time goes by, will people finally regret overexploiting technology aggressively in the past?

In the journal “Less Tech = Fewer Regrets”, the featured contributor Gord Hotchkiss mainly adduces the personal experience of college student Kendall Marianacci and the survey conducted by Center for Humane Technology to evident that “the reality is becoming more ‘tech’ and less ‘world’”. People are living in the life trapped by small screens. The constantly updated software keeps attracting the users and seducing them to be addicted. This phenomenon seems like a conspiracy of product designers. In Gord’s words, the products are addictive because they are so useful. That is true. However, the results of addiction are diverse. Different apps would lead to opposite emotions to customers. The survey lists ten apps that gave users negative feelings and ten apps that left positive moods. The daily usage length of the first group is over six times longer than the second one. Based on this observation, the author reminds the anecdote of Facebook and figures out a theory, “The less we worry about the time we spend on Facebook, the less we will think about it at all.  The less we think about it, the more time we will spend. And the more time we spend, the more we will regret it afterwards.” This should be his definition to “addiction” as well.

Speaking of addiction, people usually think about drugs and tobaccos. But in this era, a more serious, ubiquitous factor of addiction called technology is depriving people’s energy, time and health. And the way to find antidote is tough. Not everyone has the ability and courage to travel and really live without mobile phones like Kendall Marianacci. Moreover, technology brings people choices and freedom. It allows them to make more decisions on their own and have stronger rights to manage the life. Nevertheless, in fact, the situation becomes out of control due to human nature. Better technology may take human beings to a higher living level, but meanwhile, it establishes a solid trap above their heads, letting them hurt themselves over and over again.

The Media Insider is one of the branches under traditional media category of MediaPost Communications. The company has been the biggest and most influential media, marketing and advertising website since 1996, offering news, blogs, directories for the 150,000-member community. Every year, it holds more than 30 industry conferences and events countrywide and in Europe.

People are influenced when they want to be influencers.

Press Release 02/22/19

GAINESVILLE, Fla., February 22, 2019 (swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) – Speaking of media and society, advertising must be mentioned. This week, the featured contributors of Media Insider are enjoying talking about this full-of variety media. It has extremely strong connection with human beings and exists every corner in their daily life. Nowadays, the popularization of social media gives unlimited opportunities to enterprises and brands for advertising placement. While this commercial activity is enlarging, not only business entities, but some individuals as well are getting huge benefit from it.

Advertisements are so close to people. Besides native advertising, influencer marketing is another new significant advertising approach. This strategy usually utilizes the positive impact from people who have high reputation or large number of fans. In other words, the audience of those influencers’ works will also be the viewer of the ads. The writer Gord Hotchkiss takes the Youtuber “Kyler and Mad” as an example in his article “Influencer Marketing’s Downward Ethical Spiral”. This family owns over 3 million subscribers on Youtube and 2.4 million followers on Instagram. “A single branded photo on their feed goes for sums in the five-figure range.” (Hotchkiss) It implies the great commercial value this kind of advertising would bring to the market, the brands and the influencers. Based on this environment, Gord points out that influencer marketing is much darker, vaguer and more immoral than regular advertising with clear, direct trades. Those influencers are trying to show a perfect “reality” to the public, while the brands are offering them confidence, rights and money. The market is not pure and transparent any more.

Indeed, social media makes advertising more complicated. It doesn’t make people’s life easier as well. Not everyone can live like the Fishers family. The influencers create ideal life to the audience. At the same time, in a negative perspective, they are “using” their fans to take advertising business and making profit. This phenomenon is inevitable during the development of social media and technology. But is this a positive effect or not? Probably only time can prove that.

The Media Insider is one of the branches under traditional media category of MediaPost Communications. The company has been the biggest and most influential media, marketing and advertising website since 1996, offering news, blogs, directories for the 150,000-member community. Every year, it holds more than 30 industry conferences and events countrywide and in Europe.

Nobody is absolutely honest. 

Press Release 02/08/19

GAINESVILLE, Fla., February 8, 2019 (swampstratcomm-sp19.tumblr.com) – “Privacy” is one of the most controversial issues in the new era of technology. This week is Facebook’s 15th birthday, so all the experts in telecommunication field are full of enthusiasm to talking about its stories, scandals and history. So do the authors on MediaPost. From its financial report to users’ experience and advertisements, Facebook is exposed and criticized entirely. Yes, they are all negative information.

The latest journal that has been shared a lot is written by featured contributor Ted McConnell. He states two really interesting paradoxes. First, “Americans, being Americans, say that it matters, but they behave in a way that doesn’t indicate that it matters.” The “it” here refers to the privacy on social media. Indeed, people always comment about how those technology companies abuse their data while using them obsessively. Sometimes they would even be more serious when catching the stalkers than when realizing their privacy are sold or stolen by others. The second paradox, in a larger scale, is that the authority like General Data Protection Regulation has the right to penalize the company if the customer data it preserves are stolen. That is, “the victim gets fined.” At the same time, “the victim” usually has to solve the lawsuit as well. Both of the cases sound ridiculous and illogic. However, they are the truth that all modern people are facing.

No one has perfect integrity. No law is definitely equal. The world can’t stop developing because human beings are extraordinarily greedy. They are gaining new technologies, more money and more convenient life at the expense of time, privacy and health. Obviously, the payment is huge, and increasing as well. But this phenomenon must be inevitable for people to grow, to evolve, and to be satisfied. Now, the personal privacy is nearly given up. What will be the next?

MediaPost has been the biggest and most influential media, marketing and advertising website since 1996, offering news, blogs, directories for the 150,000-member community. Every year, the company holds more than 30 industry conferences and events countrywide and in Europe.

Use your privacy to exchange infinite convenience and fun, is that fair enough?

Press Release 01/25/19

GAINESVILLE, January 25, 2019 (MediaPost.com, “Media Insider”) – Social media is invading people’s daily life. It is not a news nowadays. But it’s never late to think about the factors and consequences of its “accomplishment”. This week, at least three journals posted on Media Insider are about social media, one of the best friends of human beings in this century. In “Dear Facebook: It's Not Me, It's You”, the author asserts that he feels in an abusive relationship while using Facebook because this application is not treating users’ personal information properly. People maintain relations with others by only a mobile phone; Meanwhile, the phone is recording their privacy and making income. This new business opportunity has been popular since 2018. Technology companies develops free app willingly that brings ordinary people huge convenience and happiness. The cost customers need to pay back is their own data. Such “commercial activity” is really usual at present, but still no one knows where the baseline should be.

The featured contributor of Media Insider Steven Rosenbaum expresses his anxiety about individual’s privacy on social media in the article “Digital Danger Ahead”. To show how media affects people’s decision, Steven gives several common examples: We have Uber and Lyft for a ride; We have Gmail to communicate with one another; We can use Facebook and Instagram to share everything we want. Even though people know that they are tracked by those apps, no one actually get rid of it. “We sign up for free services and give away our personal data because the apps make our life easier, more connected. And mostly, we don’t give it a second thought,” stated by Steven. This is a very interesting fact, is also the reality we are living in. In addition, ironically, he points out that this phenomenon is one of the few things consented by both Democrats and Republicans. But they still need to take a long time to work on this brand-new legislation under high-speed developing technology.

In fact, data is not the only price we must “purchase” to those apps. Referring to the instance given by Steven Rosenbaum, the health insurance rates might raise silently as one person is searching about illness online. Therefore, not only the media can earn money by selling users’ data, but the relevant companies are able to find revenue opportunities as well during the entire use process.

Now social media has completely penetrated into human being’s life. Before the new, accurate law system comes out, app users can hardly get a way to protect their information thoroughly. Firms can access potential customers’ information easily and catch every chance to obtain profit from them. Meanwhile, people no longer treat privacy as a precious thing that needs to be protected perfectly. Metcalfe’s law is mentioned in one of the journals. “If you’re the only person with one, it’s useless. If everyone has one, it’s invaluable.” In this era, personal data can be shared or abandoned, but social media can’t.

MediaPost has been the biggest and most influential media, marketing and advertising website since 1996, offering news, blogs, directories for the 150,000-member community. Every year, the company holds more than 30 industry conferences and events countrywide and in Europe.

From the visual image, Apple’s advertisement is always clear, simple and effective. I’m really fascinated by this style and believe that it’s one of the reasons why it succeeds. Like the poster shown above, Apple’s print ads only have three components on the white background — the name, a short phrase of description and a picture of the product. This kind of design makes the key point very explicit and allows all groups of the audience learning the product’s information at the first glance.