LO1: Task 2 - Analyse social media products under the factors of how the product serves its purpose (Communication, instant access to friends - base personal experience) and what social problems could be posed when using the social media (obsession, bullying, trolling, isolation, obsession with digital technology.)
Twitter:
A) Positive:
Twitter is able to communicate to a wide range of people within an extremely short amount of time. Users are also able to send direct messages between each other and can be used a quick and short form of sending messages to people from farther away. Twitter can also be made as a form of advertising events and their brands to an audience which can share this promotion through the retweet and like function. Users are also able to advertise their services i.e. art comissions
B) Negative:
Twitter only provides so much space for messages considering what it was made for; short messages. People can get obsessed with using Twitter, having the constant need to post messages for no real reason which can result to being constantly stuck to their phones and computers on Twitter. Twitter can also be an area of cyber bullying and trolling (although trolling is more or less obvious), there are also cases of defamation and impersonation.
Facebook:
A) Positive:
Facebook allows long distance communication, assuming that both users are able to access the internet and Facebook. People are also able to connect with family and friends from faraway and there are able to share photos and videos to each other. Facebook also has a feature that gives people the choice to create groups which other people are to join. Not only does this create more connections with others but it also can mean that certain people can become more sociable outside of Facebook through learning how to be socialise in a virtual space with people they are not likely to meet face to face.
B) Negative:
Facebook can be addicting to certain individuals and can cause certain negative impacts on their mental health. Some people may become unsociable due to their influenced way of thinking; people can becomes depressed, easily aggravated, envious etc. because of the way they always look at what other people are doing and not what they are doing for themselves and with others instead. There has been events of controversial manner on certain subjects of bullying.
Instagram:
A) Positive:
Instagram allows users to connect with other users purely with just photos and short videos. Being able to communicate with friends and other users almost instantly with others. People are actually able to give a more visual form of what people could be doing in their everyday life. Instagram has quite a few ways in protecting its user's security and prevents users who are not following them cannot access their feed (photos and videos). People can also block certain people from seeing their feed if by any means that they are offending them in any way.
B) Negative:
There are ways that can cause privacy issues; features such as 'location hashtags' which would be very dangerous for minors as people who have no good intention have a way of finding out a location through these location hashtags. There is also a direct messaging/photo sharing that has had issues of sexting which quite a few parts of the userbase does due to it being a new feature. Hashtags are also quite a danger since it can be used to find certain tagged photos and videos which people of ill interests use to find places.
Friday, 15 January 2016
LO1 - Task 1 - Understand existing social media products
Research and write about the following points for existing social media mediums:
A) Purpose
B) Content
C) Target User/Membership
D) Sources of Revenue
E) Legal and Ethical Issues
Existing social media:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Snapchat
- Vine
- Instagram
- Tumblr
- DeviantArt
- SoundCloud
Twitter:
A) Purpose:
The purpose of Twitter is to share small messages between people. With the follower system that Twitter uses, when a user posts a message that they want to share, his/her followers will be able to see that message. Messages can be favourited and it can also be retweeted which is just repost function. Twitter is also often used for promotional uses for small and big companies.
B) Content:
Twitter features a lot of available content for all users. There are several promotions from companies that advertise their services, photographs and videos that people upload and each of the messages that are shared by the users can be considered content due to the different messages shared.
C) Target User/Membership:
The targeted users for Twitter usually involve the majority of people. Certain cases such as corporates making an account that they can use for advertisement and promotion. Considering that it is aimed towards the majority, both genders are equal targets for the use of Twitter. It has several connections to other social media such as Vine, Facebook and Instagram.
D) Sources of Revenue:
Corporate pages are a common subject on Twitter and even asks their users to use their promotional services. This 'service' that Twitter provides to the general public allows them to gain revenue and in turn provide a way for people to promote their brand. Twitter doesn't use banner or impression advertisement as all their revenue is made from people promoting their brands on other users through their feeds.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues
Twitter has had a few legal and ethical issues which include a series of defamation, cyber bullying, stalking, impersonation and the use of spreading groundless rumours which has caused quite a few incidents in the past. However, Twitter has been cutting down on aforementioned issues and has since enforced their privacy protection, messsage filtering, verifying accounts to stop people from impersonating and defamatory messages blocked and most likely deleted.
Facebook:
A) Purpose:
Facebook serves as a social medium for people to share, communicate and connect with other people. People create a user profile which is used to connect with other users to add them as friends. With this user profile, people are also able to message each others feeds, send direct messages (know as private messages since only the 2 users communicating will see the conversation), share photos, videos and status updates. People can also choose to get notifications when their friends do the mentioned features. Users are able to join groups that share a common interest and are even able to make their own groups to share their interests with other people who may want to join (if said group doesn't exist). There is also a feature known as 'Pages' which allow people to create pages for brands, subjects of interests and for sharing information.
B) Content:
Facebook is used a form of 'blogging', sharing things that people do in their day to day lives. People share photos and videos where people are able to like and add a comment on it. Facebook also allows users to talk to other users through the use of an in-built browser-based instant messenger. This also includes voice calls which instant messaging programs provide, although not the same quality that of a program focused directly on instant messaging and video and audio calls. Facebook also provides a 'Marketplace' for people to post advertisements.
C) Target User/Membership:
The demographic statistics for Facebook is mainly female in the age range of 18-34. Males are included more heavily in the 18-25 age range but have a exponential decrease towards older ages. Facebook is popular globally, mostly in the United States, Europe, Middle Eastern and SEA (South East Asia). It is also used in different parts in Africa. Facebook is linked with several other forms of social media, which includes Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat and several blogging services.
D) Sources of Revenue:
Facebook has several forms of features that allow them to produce revenue and that also includes surprisingly popular browser-based games. Facebook has a series of microtransactions and forms of advertising and promotion around the website. Another small source of revenue that Facebook has is a 'gifting' service which can be used to send friends and other users a virtual gift that allows people to write a personalised message to give along with the gift.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues:
Several legal and ethical issues surround Facebook due to the way social media interactions are done. Minimum age requirements and data protection acts have been breached before but since the discovery of said things happening, Facebook has been working towards preventing any further breaches from happening. With the rise of celebrities and icons using social media more often than before, impersonations and defamatory comments do happen more often than it should and policies such as the "Real-name policy" which means that people have to verify and confirm that they are who they actually are on Facebook; this prevents impersonation and causing less confusion and controversy when a certain impersonator writes a out-of-character message to people. However, these new policies did cause certain problems such as people who go by their stage names as to mask their identity and to keep it a secret in the first place.
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Instagram:
A) Purpose:
Instagram is a multimedia sharing platform under the guise of a social networking medium. People share photos and videos. Instagram is a very popular social medium, much like Vine but with a selection of other features that Vine doesn't provide, albeit Instagram existing before Vine did. Instagram is available through te App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store.
B) Content:
Instagram allows their users to upload photos and short videos, follow other users and get update of their feeds whenever they upload new photos and videos. A feature that allows to find other users can be through the use of the Explore tab, which is a section of Instagram that lets a user look through trending subjects, popular users and specific users (as long as the profile has been set as a public profile).
C) Target User/Membership:
The main target audience demographic would be 40-60 male to female ratio and mostly in the the 18-25 age range and even in the 17 and younger age bracket. Instagram has also adopted in a business model of sponsorship and promoting brands after every other message or so.
D) Source of Revenue
Instagram in itself does not produce revenue but after being acquired by Facebook, they have been using an advertisement and brand promotion system that allows people to advertise their brands through sponsored videos and images on user feeds.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues:
Instagram has had several issues with legal and ethical controversies. Terms of uses changes such as people "...agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display tour username... in connection with paid or sponsored content... without any compensation to you." Instagram has had a problem with illicit use of the service, pertaining drugs.
A) Purpose
B) Content
C) Target User/Membership
D) Sources of Revenue
E) Legal and Ethical Issues
Existing social media:
- Snapchat
- Vine
- Tumblr
- DeviantArt
- SoundCloud
Twitter:
A) Purpose:
The purpose of Twitter is to share small messages between people. With the follower system that Twitter uses, when a user posts a message that they want to share, his/her followers will be able to see that message. Messages can be favourited and it can also be retweeted which is just repost function. Twitter is also often used for promotional uses for small and big companies.
B) Content:
Twitter features a lot of available content for all users. There are several promotions from companies that advertise their services, photographs and videos that people upload and each of the messages that are shared by the users can be considered content due to the different messages shared.
C) Target User/Membership:
The targeted users for Twitter usually involve the majority of people. Certain cases such as corporates making an account that they can use for advertisement and promotion. Considering that it is aimed towards the majority, both genders are equal targets for the use of Twitter. It has several connections to other social media such as Vine, Facebook and Instagram.
D) Sources of Revenue:
Corporate pages are a common subject on Twitter and even asks their users to use their promotional services. This 'service' that Twitter provides to the general public allows them to gain revenue and in turn provide a way for people to promote their brand. Twitter doesn't use banner or impression advertisement as all their revenue is made from people promoting their brands on other users through their feeds.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues
Twitter has had a few legal and ethical issues which include a series of defamation, cyber bullying, stalking, impersonation and the use of spreading groundless rumours which has caused quite a few incidents in the past. However, Twitter has been cutting down on aforementioned issues and has since enforced their privacy protection, messsage filtering, verifying accounts to stop people from impersonating and defamatory messages blocked and most likely deleted.
Facebook:
A) Purpose:
Facebook serves as a social medium for people to share, communicate and connect with other people. People create a user profile which is used to connect with other users to add them as friends. With this user profile, people are also able to message each others feeds, send direct messages (know as private messages since only the 2 users communicating will see the conversation), share photos, videos and status updates. People can also choose to get notifications when their friends do the mentioned features. Users are able to join groups that share a common interest and are even able to make their own groups to share their interests with other people who may want to join (if said group doesn't exist). There is also a feature known as 'Pages' which allow people to create pages for brands, subjects of interests and for sharing information.
B) Content:
Facebook is used a form of 'blogging', sharing things that people do in their day to day lives. People share photos and videos where people are able to like and add a comment on it. Facebook also allows users to talk to other users through the use of an in-built browser-based instant messenger. This also includes voice calls which instant messaging programs provide, although not the same quality that of a program focused directly on instant messaging and video and audio calls. Facebook also provides a 'Marketplace' for people to post advertisements.
C) Target User/Membership:
The demographic statistics for Facebook is mainly female in the age range of 18-34. Males are included more heavily in the 18-25 age range but have a exponential decrease towards older ages. Facebook is popular globally, mostly in the United States, Europe, Middle Eastern and SEA (South East Asia). It is also used in different parts in Africa. Facebook is linked with several other forms of social media, which includes Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat and several blogging services.
D) Sources of Revenue:
Facebook has several forms of features that allow them to produce revenue and that also includes surprisingly popular browser-based games. Facebook has a series of microtransactions and forms of advertising and promotion around the website. Another small source of revenue that Facebook has is a 'gifting' service which can be used to send friends and other users a virtual gift that allows people to write a personalised message to give along with the gift.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues:
Several legal and ethical issues surround Facebook due to the way social media interactions are done. Minimum age requirements and data protection acts have been breached before but since the discovery of said things happening, Facebook has been working towards preventing any further breaches from happening. With the rise of celebrities and icons using social media more often than before, impersonations and defamatory comments do happen more often than it should and policies such as the "Real-name policy" which means that people have to verify and confirm that they are who they actually are on Facebook; this prevents impersonation and causing less confusion and controversy when a certain impersonator writes a out-of-character message to people. However, these new policies did cause certain problems such as people who go by their stage names as to mask their identity and to keep it a secret in the first place.
Instagram:
A) Purpose:
Instagram is a multimedia sharing platform under the guise of a social networking medium. People share photos and videos. Instagram is a very popular social medium, much like Vine but with a selection of other features that Vine doesn't provide, albeit Instagram existing before Vine did. Instagram is available through te App Store, Google Play and Windows Phone Store.
B) Content:
Instagram allows their users to upload photos and short videos, follow other users and get update of their feeds whenever they upload new photos and videos. A feature that allows to find other users can be through the use of the Explore tab, which is a section of Instagram that lets a user look through trending subjects, popular users and specific users (as long as the profile has been set as a public profile).
C) Target User/Membership:
The main target audience demographic would be 40-60 male to female ratio and mostly in the the 18-25 age range and even in the 17 and younger age bracket. Instagram has also adopted in a business model of sponsorship and promoting brands after every other message or so.
D) Source of Revenue
Instagram in itself does not produce revenue but after being acquired by Facebook, they have been using an advertisement and brand promotion system that allows people to advertise their brands through sponsored videos and images on user feeds.
E) Legal and Ethical Issues:
Instagram has had several issues with legal and ethical controversies. Terms of uses changes such as people "...agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display tour username... in connection with paid or sponsored content... without any compensation to you." Instagram has had a problem with illicit use of the service, pertaining drugs.
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