Tweet Tweet

I first joined twitter in 2009; I only created an account to see what the hype was about, a couple college students at my job talked about it a lot. At the time Facebook was the top social site, so it took some time for me to get the fill for the tweeting concept. At first I didn’t like twitter; I felt that it didn’t have enough interaction between users. Comments couldn’t be placed under tweets as they could with Facebook; so it’s hard to see where the interactions were taken place.  Once my followers began to increase, the objective of the site became clear. My timeline had more diversity and I could see how users interact with other account holders by simply tweeting.

 My first followers where my close friends who had joined the site around the same time I had. Once word about twitter began to spread, it wasn’t long before more of my high school peers began to join the site, and I followed them. Students who hadn’t said one peep in classes began to fill my timeline full of babble, and it seemed as if this was the new way to connect with one another. Most followers were added just from me liking the content of their tweets. When the popularity of the site added celebrity interest, verified accounts allowed for followers to follow actual accounts from their favorite celebrities. Drake was my first celebrity follow, I enjoyed following music artist because it made them feel more human to me. Just as I was; the artist would tweet about their lives, making me feel more connected with them. Soon actresses and reality stars where filling my timeline with their tweets. During show episodes the stars’ would tweet their comments or feelings about the different scenes. My whole timeline will be full of discussions about episodes and it felt as if you were in a room watching the show with all of your followers. It wasn’t long before I was hooked; tweeting my every thought, socializing with anyone who tweeted something that sparked my interest. Trending topics helped with engaging my interactions as well. I can recall summer nights of where my whole twitter timeline would make tweets referring to trending topics; it was cool to be a part of topics being tweeted about all around the world.

By 2011 everything had a twitter; it made sense for more and more companies and organizations to market consumers via twitter since it had such a huge usage. Users can tweet via the Twitter website, applications (for smartphones or tablets), or by Short Message Service (SMS). Beyond socializing; connections can be made into productive working relations by seeing what people are interested in. For example:  a journalist might tweet about a specific topic for quick feedback from a diverse group of people. The reaction from twitter can be used for desired material for a project. Organizations can also use twitter as a tool to expand professional networks. Taking notice to @ messages directed to your company; the business will be able to see the status of your product and how it impacts who you are working with. If the discussion is interesting enough, a company might find someone they’d like to follow on Twitter… and eventually work with.

Twitter is unique within the social media category. Short tweets; Being but a collection of thoughts are limited to 140 characters and as a result communicating in a lenient field. Blogging remains mostly a main focus, the material is more comprehensive and the creators spend a generous amount of time building. Twitter is something used as a tool to support blogging, if a link gets tweeted consistently it can drive many visitors to a blog post. Both mediums influence a purpose to bring discussions among readers and its success is dependent on how fondly relations are made.

For three years my twitter usage increased dramatically. Downloading several twitter applications allowed me to send my every move to twitter at any time of the day. The immediacy of Twitter and the fact that it is a system that can spread word of a story, idea, question or news quickly worldwide to thousands of people very quickly makes it exclusive. Beyond socializing twitter is the fastest, simplest way to stay close to important news you care about. Today we’re far less dependent on newsletters, or new stations, because we hear about world updates all day via Twitter. For example: I hadn’t found out about the passing of Whitney Houston until someone had made a tweet on it, and it appeared on my timeline.  

Just as every other social network, twitter has its shortcomings. The enthusiasm from site can cause users to abuse the actual purpose of twitter. You can check Twitter updates from your phone and send updates from anywhere. This over usage conducts many people use Twitter as an escape from their own surroundings, paying more attention to twitter updates. Social skills began to be lost, as people feel they can only be heard via twitter. Privacy is absent with the new twitter era. Sure identities are often mixed up with rigid settings. Many people mistake the following a person as having an actual relationship with that person. Twitter has grown into to carefree venue; major topics have lost their importance due to the loose remarks directed towards severe topics. Where people become uncaring to human sorrow and, perhaps, even find interest watching train wrecks as they happen. The motive is that information is passed too quickly through the Twitter platform.

Twitter, a website for sharing what you are doing at any given moment with other people, and also to network online. All things considered, twitter is a powerful podium for both business and personal use.

Post-Production

Pre-Filming

It’s extremely difficult filming a video about your self, and even more difficult to collaborate the video with two other peers. Not only did all our films have to flow together, but also a portion of the film had to display the three of us collectively on-screen. Throughout my college career I have had several film projects, but none compared to this one. As with any group project, no members have the same availability, so we worked in class to decided what direction we wanted to go in. Provided the theme: politics, personally I had no clue what I could bring to the table. I soon discovered the feelings were mutual among my partners, after the first meeting.  I had come up with a central idea of what I thought politics consisted of: money, power and respect.

 Since a share of the film had to go towards a set group time, we wanted to get a gist of the visual path we were going to take. Since our individual projects could be done on our own time, we wanted to complete our group portion as soon as possible.

The next group meeting was nothing but confusing. I thought that we all had an understanding of the “money, power, and respect” idea, but Katie didn’t see how that related to politics. After spending over an hour trying to bring everyone on the same page, we decided misunderstandings’ are indeed part of politics; from this point the structure of the film was decided. The thought process existed from what we had been doing for the entire meeting, trying to explain what politics meant without really understanding ourselves. Our film would be about two students teaching another student what politics are. Still using money for my focus, and power for Matt, we would use abstract words relating to the topics and our personal video’s to demonstrate.

Our first filming gathering took place inside of a study room in the library. The room had a dry-erase marker which was perfect for the classroom environment we were looking for. Our first footage displayed Matt and I writing different words on the board pertaining to politics. Different color markers, fancy script, and symbols were used to make the writing seem not only fun, but also time consuming. The footage was going to be fast-forwarded, so what actually took 15minutes will be viewed in 2! Matt and I used this system for our individual topics, as well as Katie drawing a huge question mark; that would conclude the film. We shot footage of Katie inside the room looking confused; we would use this footage for cuts, to give the viewers the impression that we were real students trying to teach a lesson.

 Filming was stress-free, and didn’t take long at all. We each had an understanding of our roles, but we still helped each other by giving words for the board or critiquing acting.  We filmed all of our introduction, and crediting with-in this meeting. To keep the same setting we wrote our credits on the board just as we had done for the topic, and subtopic. We walked out of the library with our assignment a third completed, and feeling good!

For inspiration the class was encouraged to look at other students take on the project, but none of them helped with theme content. However the videos’ did show several effective ways I could convey a message visually.  What I took most from the films’ were the different scene shots; weird angles, focus’, and music where all elements that I would use to put the abstract into my film.

I wanted to show not only how I spent money, but how society perceives money as well. I did not want my subject matter to be obvious; I wanted the viewers to come up with their own conclusion of how money should be spent. I looked for friends for inspiration; they are always good at throwing ideas in my head. After an hour of discussion, we concluded our reasoning on why people spend money: to be relevant. I ran with this idea, and decided to base my portion of the film on what makes me relevant.

Before presenting what I spend my money on I want to show viewers where my money was coming from. Using my iPhone, I shot footage of me working, leaving work, and picking up my check. I was hesitant about putting my check on film but I wanted viewers to see how very little money was coming in. Next I wanted to show what I did with my money. Shoes, clothes, jewelry, car, phone bill, name brands, all superficial things that I spend my hard earned money buying. Since a lot of the materials were in my room I didnt have a hard time filming. What I did have a hard time with, trying different angels and techniques to make my film seem as cool as the examples my professor had provided. My iPhone only allowed me to do so much, holding a phone physically doesn’t give you lots of options. To make up for my lack on video equipment, I would use editing to exaggerate and make fancy.  The final shots were to be the ridiculous overpricing throughout our campus. I got hassled at the bookstore but I was not leaving until I got my final footage! I wanted to show how most necessities cost ridiculous prices, but we still buy them to be relevant.

 I thought the storm was over and it was smooth sailing after my footage was done; WRONG! At the start of our next class, we were told that the project had been pushed back a week. I thought this was great, seeing that I was the only person in my group who had their footage completed. When the week had finally come to start editing our footage, I was the only person who had it forage to work on. For two classes I alone had worked on editing my portion of the film. This project had been assignment a month ago and I was tired of it being dragged along. What upset me the most was instead of completing the topic there were complaints about the topic! Regardless it still needed to be completed, and I felt like I had been dragged along when it could have been done a class before it was actually due. The final class before it was due not only did we have to piece the whole project together, we found that the introduction and credits footage had been erased. Thankfully we were given another day to complete it, we had to re-shoot the classroom footage and finally piece it together. By the final editing you can tell were annoyed with each other, but the project was complete and that’s all I cared about.

The end result turned out great! You couldn’t tell the project was extensive and hectic in binding the production, but displayed was an visual narrative of how three college students trying to interpret politics. 

YouTube V Viemo

People enjoy watching videos; they add value to websites and blogs giving the viewer more to participate in.  Keeping the reader interested will keep their concentration on your message. With all charactesitcs involving web 2.0, it only makes sense that You-Tube and Vimeo are the top two video hosting sites.  Together the sites’ contain streaming software for browsers to find closely related material linked to their topic of interest. Social media has caused for both sites to be visited by millions daily, allowing universal interactions. Personally I have much experience with YouTube and none with Vimeo. I looked into some facts to decide which site would be best for posting my self-portrait video I produced for a class project.

YouTube

First off YouTube liked with Google; has an enormous search engine. This is useful when seeking for materials on a precise subject matter. With up to 1GB of data and an unlimited amount of HD uploads, mass amounts of videos’ are available for display. The huge amount of data has caused over 450 million visitors to the site a month, creating a huge community of viewers. The bigger the population, the bigger the exposure; posting videos’ on YouTube establishes more opportunity for your video to be visited. YouTube aware of their high exposer, and they take advantage by promoting all types of billboards.

YouTube being seen by the masses, come with unpleasant sacrifices.  Companies take advantage of the large audience that the site facilitates, flooding site with advertisements anyway that they can. Supporters of YouTube have said that they suffered behind steering through video clusters and overly injected ad placements.  YouTube also arranges “related and recommend” material that might take away from exposure to your video.

Vimeo

Under 17 million monthly consumers worldwide, Vimeo is less recognized than YouTube, and has less circulation. Vimeo is more of a branding hosting site, ensuring the company they can expose their principals anyway they see fit. The investments of companies are at stake, so the qualities of the videos’ are higher than those on YouTube. In efforts to lesson traffic on the site, limitations of 1 HD upload a week are applied. Seen as a flaw compared to YouTube, the community is undersize. Small communities tend to keeping visitors on the page, because there is less to distract the user from the material they are viewing. Vimeo does have a cost that companies, but the site attributes No-player ads to compensate for the fee. The removals of the ads give the videos a more skilled looks; allowing you to implant your emblem and stamp it onto the player itself.

When choosing the top site to host your videos, take into account if your goal for the viewer is to observe or take action. Where YouTube has more powers is in its popularity and status, so you could expect more views. Vimeo is a more professional and seen on a high podium so you could expect more engagement from your consumers.