Fashion Tweets

Can you influence the world with 140 characters or less? Twitter can. 

Twitter combines social networking and blogging together for entertainment and informational use. While I am not a Twitter fan I certainly see how it benefits a company or a brand to "tweet" about themselves. 

For those that are very much into fashion they choose to "follow" certain companies or brands for the simple reason of staying in the loop and never falling short of knowing everything to know to stay trendy. For example, Lady Gaga...... now her fashion sense may be a little out there for most but in places across Europe, Lady Gaga is a fashion icon. One of the companies that Lady Gaga follows is London Fashion. London Fashion (LDNFashion) tweets about models, launches of new collections, and the people in the entertainment world that are wearing the latest and hottest trends. They serve as fashion news and style advice. Lady Gaga can be seen in many of their "twitpics". 

If you're really into a certain type of category, such as fashion, movies, gaming, etc., my question to you is does following a company really have an affect on you? Think about it...... You're constantly seeing their name, their activity, and the many name droppings they use to get your attention. 

Big Box Bookstores & Social Media

I spoke earlier about some St Louis-area indie bookstores and how they're implementing social media, and I've been thinking about the big chains. What's their presence on Facebook, Twitter, or blogs? Here's a rundown:

Twitter:
None of the searches brought up actual accounts from any of the major retailers, but they are being talked about. Oh, wait: the Borders Facebook page includes a link to their Twitter feed. It includes a good mix of random thoughts, article links, replies to others' comments, and retweets; 35,000 followers. Pretty good.

Facebook:

• Barnes and Noble seems to be doing pretty well:  nearly 50,000 fans, author discussions, guiding you to their website, 500+ comments to wall posts such as "Finish this sentence: All I want for Christmas is _____"
• Borders: the first hit on Google is for a England-specific fan page, but the second hit is the real deal. And it appears to get the process, with 90,000 fans; comments about the holidays; video clips of authors' appearances; book excerpts

Blogs:

• There is a Borders blog website, but so far there are only two: one for science fiction (Babel Clash) and one for romance (True Romance), and it's hard to determine who's blogging for them. For Babel Clash, it may actually be authors, but again, it's not specifically mentioned (or if it is, and it's now archived, it's not easy to see). Additionally, it was hard to find the blogs in the first place, and they're very narrowly focused--and they don't appear to be popular (no or very few comments).
• I can't find anything for Barnes and Noble blog-wise

Overall: both get good points for Facebook, and Borders is ahead for Twitter. But I don't know what's worse: the fact that Barnes and Noble doesn't have a blog, or that Borders has blogs that are somewhat problematic.

Ever wonder what you would look like as a Zombie?

If you haven’t seen the movie Zombieland which came out on Oct. 2, 2009 I suggest you get onto your computer and find the nearest theater that is still playing it and go see it. After you do that I suggest going to the movie’s website: http://www.zombieland.com/. Here you can check out things from the movie such as the rules, zombie kill of the week, and you can take the quiz to see if your loved one is a zombie. The Best part of this website is the zombify yourself. There you can upload a picture and then add all of the wonderful components to make yourself into a zombie.

All the News That's Fit To Print (or Blog)

For quite some time now, traditional news sources have had websites to publish more up-to-date news stories. Newsweek, The New York Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch--all have websites which update on a regular basis throughout the day. This allows traditional publishing times to fly out the window.

No longer does the Post-Dispatch only print stories that happened yesterday, or Newsweek only stories that happened in the last six days. Stories can be updated as they unravel, completely changing how print media works. No longer do the television news sources have the up-to-the-minute breaking news advantage.

Some news sources exist only in cyberspace. Some are blogs, run only by one or a few people, others are fully actualized news websites, the only difference between them and "traditional" sources being the lack of actual printed content. Slate is a good example of the latter.

In addition to constantly updated websites, news sources now push their content into their readers' awareness. Email updates, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook all allow readers to get informed of news stories without even opening a browser and checking out the website.

Another benefit of the online presence is the ability to publish content only available online--it's not featured in the newspaper or magazine. This can range from further commentary to related slide shows to articles not picked up for inclusion in the published version.

Some printed versions will acknowledge the online content, and others will merely assume that the reader will seek it out if interested. Newsweek has a small section in each weekly magazine of what the most popular online stories were for the previous week.

Additionally, some news sources permit the general public to read an article for only a limited time--a few days, a week--and, in order to view older articles, one must be registered. The registration may be free, may be included with subscription to the print version, or may require a specific subscription.

These innovations are great for the consumer--easy access to updates, more current information, access to additional information--but they may quickly spell the end of traditional print news.