Posts Tagged internet
Happy Birthday, the Internet!
This week is the 40th anniversary of the internet, when ARPAnet was created in 1969 almost no one could imagine a world of email evolving into Google and Wikipedia, much less Facebook. Last week New Media Strategies celebrated their 10th birthday as well, some small eternity of life on the internet; among good company like Google and Amazon this Word of Mouth marketing (WoMM) and online PR agency has thrived in two dotcom booms (and busts).
Coincidentally 2009 marks the first 10 years I’ve been using this network of computers we call the Internet, in many ways I could have never anticipated using. Yet somehow New Media Strategies knew where things were heading years in advance.
This summer I had the unique privilege to gain hands on experience at NMS as an intern/online analyst, learning first-hand what online brand promotion and protection mean today (and some ideas about the future). Working with corporate clients from both Fortune 500 companies and Non-profits alike, I learned how Word of Mouth marketing carries influence; I was called a “Social Media Power-User”. Working with NMS was different than any other internship I had heard of, especially since I was given all the same responsibilities they expected of their entry-level employees.
Most importantly I contributed valuable research and report writing along with my team members, using online communication as a sort of public focus-group style audit to measure opinion and perception, and on at least one occasion to avert a crisis. These experiences were my primary responsibility at NMS, and helped me understand how to identify (and sometimes create) discussion in many valuable and unexpected venues; in many cases the majority of conversation took place outside of Facebook, and most of it cannot be found using a simple Google search.
Working at New Media Strategies I also met great people, who I’m looking forward to recognizing for their work, as I will describe in upcoming case studies of our work with clients. In the meantime I would like to thank NMS for the unique opportunity they gave me, and to congratulate them on their first 10 years on the Internet.
News, Notes, and Interviews
I recently had the privilege of being interviewed by a colleague (Zhamilya Gafurr) from Voice of America Russian Service about how young people in the United States use the internet. Since I’ve been using the internet for at least half of my young life, I tried to explain why 9 out of 10 Americans expect major disruptions to their daily life without the internet. While I wanted to explain how reliant our society is on the internet, you’ll see that something must have been lost in translation back to English:
Says Matthew, “ I’m probably one of those people who panic when their smartphones sits battery, because without a mobile GPS, I can and the city lost.” Morning of Matthew begins with checking e-mail. Light lunch – and Mr. Hurst had to stop in anticipation of the bus. Make sure that the site of public transport District of Columbia has no information about the delay of its route, he can afford to read the latest press.
Earlier this year I wrote about promoting my favorite non-profit cause, People To People, who also posted an interview with me. In addition to discussing my work with them in fundraising, we discussed the impact my years traveling as a student ambassador has had on me intellectually and personally. You can read the whole transcript on their Facebook fan page, where you can learn more about their work to create peace through understanding.
Thanks again to my esteemed colleague Gabe Bullard for the personal recommendation on his blog, which features his expert insight into media and culture that serve as a source of inspiration for this blogger. I’m also looking forward to sharing interviews from my alma mater (Webster University) and the video we shot for People To People, which I’ll be happy to share here once they are both published.
American Forum
@aCarvin and Katheryn Montgomery
“Are Media Making Us Dumber?” The question may sound like an oxymoron in an age where information is instantly accessible, but ubiquity of human knowledge does not always equal individual understanding. So how are media changing the way we learn and communicate important ideas?
I went to an American Forum last night to hear different perspectives on the issue and try to get a few answers. Although consensus was difficult to reach in this panel discussion between academics and communications professionals, I think everyone agreed that people read a website differently than a book or newspaper article. Read the rest of this entry »
The Resume Website
I knew it would help to build a website with my resume, but I didn’t realize how much. Ever since publicly launching this site less than a month ago, I have been humbled by all the positive feedback from colleagues, classmates, prospective employers, and on social networks.
A few have even asked me to help build their own websites, although I haven’t decided how much to charge. The truth is that almost anyone is able to build a website like this one. I had never learned how to buy a domain name, web hosting, or to set up the website until I tried it for myself.
I am a firm believer that blogs are capable websites for almost any purpose, so I devised my resume website as a Wordpress blog (this part is free). By hosting my own blog (not necessarily free) I needed to set up Wordpress in their famous 5-minute installation. This open-source software gives me the ability to customize by adding features and designs to my blog. And since this is a blog, it doesn’t take any advanced knowledge of codes or programming to build it; making this website is as simple as writing with a word processor.
I would be happy to make a few bucks helping my friends build a nice looking website, but I think they might learn some valuable skills by trying it for themselves. At least a few of my friends have been doing just that on their own websites. And until this site makes the first page of Google search results for my name, it’s going to take a lot more to make my own name stick out from all the other Matthew Hurst’s of the world.
Building this website has been an ongoing process, helping me to consider how it could be improved by incorporating feedback. There is almost always a better way to do this work I really appreciate all the feedback so far, but I have trouble taking credit; after all it’s just another Wordpress blog.
In Your Hand (an Internet)
You have seen them walking along the street with their heads down and their hands out in front of them, thumbs fidgeting on a handset that looks less like a phone and more like a mobile computer. And you wonder what they see that could possibly be so interesting that they’re about to walk into a streetlight (or get mugged).
Although you can’t tell if they’re reading an important email or just texting their boo, there is an increasing chance they are reading a website. In a Pew study of mobile phone use before 2008, at least 19% of Americans had already used a cellphone or PDA to access a website, and since then use of cellphones like the iPhone that can access web represent an increasing portion of any website’s visitors. Because these devices use a smaller screen, and mobile websites might be loaded for different purposes, communicating on a mobile website is different.
Some differences seem more obvious than others: like most writing for websites, a mobile website should be succinct, with catchy hooks that make you want to click through and read the rest of the story. Most mobile web browsers will only display around 50 to 75 words of legible text on screen at a time, so you’ll need to make the point quickly. The screen itself promotes sites that are easy to navigate with narrow vertical scrolling, as opposed to the wide horizontal columns used on monitors for navigating most desktop web browsing. And because people are using the web on the go, they are visiting sites for different reasons; one trend is location-based information services that take advantage of GPS and Google Maps (which should be the subject of another post on this blog of its own).
This website is specially configured for reading on mobile browsers, including the iPhone and Blackberry handhelds; simply visit the site on your mobile device and it should look a little different. By utilizing a plugin to Wordpress, you will be able to use most of the features in this site on your mobile device, including the latest blog posts, sending an me an email, leaving a comment, or just searching the site. I would like to welcome any feedback you might have about my own mobile website, so that I can make adjustments for these rapidly changing communications tools.