Viral Marketing

The dictionary defines viral marketing as a marketing strategy that focuses on spreading information and opinions about a product or service from person to person, especially by using unconventional means such as the Internet or mail. Viral marketing has become an extremely popular for of advertising is todays society that revolves around the internet and social media. When a piece of viral marketing is sent out it goes from person to person but does not have to come from a person you know. With viral marketing people are being exposed to the media from connecting to things they like or for websites they frequently visit. Viral marketing's greatest feature is being able to reach a vast array of people. With traditional marketing you are limited to advertising that is right around the customers; A specific ad in a paper or a commercial on a channel that the customer watches. With viral marketing is can be sent out so fast and go through so many different people that it has a much further reach. 

Blog 4: Fair Use and Transformative Use

I think that Girl Talk should be fair use. If Girl Talk is not fair use than a DJ profiting off their music would not be considered Fair Use. Girl Talk is not trying to take credit for something that has already been made, they are using already produced music to make new music. In this situation I believe that the music that is mashed up could just be the equivalent of sounds. Any music producer out there has used pre-recorded sounds to create new music. What Girl Talk is doing and what any other DJ is doing is producing the regular music that has evolved, they are building off of ideas. As Girl Talk himself put it, "sampling is his instrument." I believe that as long as he is not saying that he built his instrument it should be legal. I could see this being a problem if he illegally downloaded that music that he uses. In that case the original creator would've made no profit and it would be like Girl Talk had stolen his instrument. Transformative Law I think is a good way to support DJing in general. There is a public interest in DJing as a genre in music. There are plenty of DJs today releasing music that uses part from other musician's work.
In a communications law class I took we talked about the case of Campbell vs. Acuff-Rose. This lawsuit was on a parody of the song Pretty Woman by 2 Live Crew. They used the music from the song pretty woman but had all new lyrics. 2 Live Crew won this case because it was different enough from the original to constitute their song to be their own work. I think that Girl Talk's music should be fair use as well because he is using many different parts of songs, not one song in particular, as his instrument. In the end he has something very different from the original.

Blog 3 - Interactivity

This article discusses a study on interactivity in shop window displays. In a world with so much information coming at us at once this study faces the same problem as everyone else; catching the attention of someone just passing by. The article cites three things that need to happen to have successful interactivity: (1) notice the display, (2) understand that it is interactive, and (3) be motivated to interact with it (not necessarily in this order). These three thing definitely translate into internet communication. With so much content available to us through the internet 24/7 we first need to be able to draw the attention of a user. Also, if the user does not understand what is supposed to be interactive they will move on. And finally, one way to motivate a user is through ease of interactivity. A person cruising the internet isn't usually going to stick with something they don't understand or can't figure out how to operate.
For the article's study they came to three conclusions that can be related to internet communication. One, content gains more attention from a user by personally relating or mirroring the user. Two, gaining attention can take time. For a user to really interact they may have to visit the site more than one time. And finally, attention from other users can be enough to get another user's interaction.

Müller, J., Walter, R., Bailly, G., Nischt, M., & Alt, F. (2012, May). Looking glass: a field study on noticing interactivity of a shop window. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 297-306). ACM.

http://www.joergmueller.info/pdf/CHI12MuellerLookingGlass.pdf

Network Laws- Entry 2

1) With which one of the network laws do you most agree? Why? I agree with Metcalfe's law. The law states," the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users." Metcalfe's law really applies to the way we currently get information from the internet. One example I found that used fax machines as their example really explained the law by basically saying that one computer with internet really has no value. The value comes from the more connections the internet has. When more connections are made the system is gradually building a community. The connections This law creates a web that I believe is a perfect description of how the internet connects the world. We use the internet today for virtually everything. The internet is involved in everything from socialization to shopping. The connections that are built from the internet are so vast that a person in North Carolina can instantly talk for free to someone in China. The Metcalfe law is very similar to Reed’s law. Reed’s law applies more to connections through social media, in a sense that you have closed connections to different individuals. Users can have privacy settings that make the connections even more closed as it is a finite number of connections.

 2) How you think people might get their information five years from now? In five years I believe that we will still be getting information from virtual connections. The ways we currently get information is through personal connections like through the internet. In the future I believe this will be strengthened and even bigger. The changes will probably have to do with how quickly we can obtain the information we are looking for. The information will probably come to us as all possible connections at once.

Generation Like

1.) Groups and people are engaging in things like facebook and using it in their daily lives. The Hunger Games girl is able to interact with all things to do with the Hunger Games. Even interact with actors. She is also able to reach,. She tweets and engages when she shows up in these places she reaches new people gaining followers. 2.) When I like something on facebook it is because I have had some sort of positive reaction to it, or I want to show support for something I care about. 3.) If a lot of people are liking something I am more likely to see it and look on it favorably. 4.) The influencer is anyone people are paying attention to. This could be anything from a popular blogger to an advertising firm gain followers for a brand. 5.) Oreo used the cause of same sex marriage to show their support and show up on the radar of everyone who also supports same sex marriage. 6.) Taking data on what people are liking or seeing and using it to sell companies and products. 7.) Marketers are engaging more directly with their fans which ands trust between consumer and producer. 8.) Celebrities engage with fans and fans want to follow whatever they do. Content can be generated through what the celebrity likes and what you like. 9.) A brand will finance or support a person or cause and get their name associated with it. The guy trying to be a singer has a music video that features the Ford Fiesta. 10.) Marketers are being invisible when marketing with the new technology. In cases like the celebrities fans really have no clue that someone is pulling the strings behind the scene. 11.) In the Hunger Games the contestants who were "liked" were sent advantages in the games. People who are liked in social media have a sort of fame. Game masters are the equal to marketers. Unseen but pulling the strings of the game.

First Blog