Going before the judge? Keep photos off Facebook.

According to CNN 20 year old Josh Lipton from Rhode Island got into a crash with Jade Combies in October of 2006 that left her hospitalized for weeks. Josh was charged with drunk driving because he started the three car collision that lead to her hospitalization. Two weeks after the crash Josh went to a Halloween party dressed in a jail bird costume.



Of course the photos eventually ended up on Facebook. Another victim of the crash came across the photos and gave them to the prosecutor in the case. Jay Sullivan, the prosecutor assembled the photos into a PowerPoint presentation.

"One image shows a smiling Lipton at the Halloween party, clutching cans of the energy drink Red Bull with his arm draped around a young woman in a sorority T-shirt. Above it, Sullivan rhetorically wrote, 'Remorseful?'

Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini said the prosecutor's slide show influenced his decision to sentence Lipton.

'I did feel that gave me some indication of how that young man was feeling a short time after a near-fatal accident, that he thought it was appropriate to joke and mock about the possibility of going to prison,' the judge said."

Source: CNN

CNN states that this is not the first time photos have helped defendants or prosecutors prove their case. Physical evidence like photos are easily accessible to those who are in your network on social networking sites so you should think about what is on the site and delete what you think may bring problems. Even if they are not legal problems.

A friend of mine added her mom to her Facebook network. When her mom looked through her pictures she commented that the photos made my friend look like a party animal and a drunk. Don't put up any photos you think may cause problems in the future. Post photos of you doing positive things, not only the party pictures. You may regret it in the future.

What's a tweet?

Today I had the lovely Anne Hadley from MarketingProfs send me a comment about my blog post. When I checked out her personal blog I came across a post that mentioned all kinds of software I have seen while checking out the blogosphere. To get an idea about what all this stuff is and to find out how to use it I went to all their sites and have put together some briefs about what each piece of software does. For those who are immersed in Web 2.0 this will be pretty rudimentary but for others (like me) it will be pretty interesting.

Twitter: My friend Droo sends tweets through Twitter (snippets of information) daily about his life in London and Nassau as a graphic artist and illustrator. When I saw his tweets over Facebook I didn't really get it. In fact, until I visited Twitter today I still didn't really understand what the whole thing was about. Twitter lets you send short answers to the question "What are you doing?" to your contacts. The software keeps you connected with those who care to read your tweets. So family members can know you just downed a latte, got a new pet, basically whatever you wish to tweet about.

LinkedIn: I barely use LinkedIn even though I really need to get more into this service. LinkedIn is an online network for professional purposes. It's perfect for expanding and managing your professional network. Professionals who you wish to contact will probably take you more seriously if you do so through LinkedIn instead of Facebook for example. So far I have found one other Bahamian marketer on LinkedIn but I am connected to many of my classmates and professors at WVU.

Feedburner: Why did I just find out about this software? This is definitely something I could have used from day 1 of writing this blog. Feedburner allows users of blogs, podcasts, and publishers to feed their information via RSS. Basically you can "Promote, deliver and profit" from you content through Feedburner. Here's how it works, your content is fed automatically through many online publishing sites (blogger for one), Feedburner lets you run that content through their application to get more out of it. So let's use a blog for example, Feedburner lets you publize your content so more internet users will know about it, optimize your distribution so anyone can read it, analyze your blog traffic so you know who reads it, and place ads to make money from it.

Flickr: Share your photos and video with subscribers through Flickr. You can share your photos through your Flickr site, RSS feed, e-mail updates and blog posts. Others can help organize your photos and tag them.

Technorati: I saw this logo all over the blogs I checked daily but had no clue what it was until today. Technorati is a blog search engine that tracks links bloggers make and the relevance of their blogs, photos, and videos. You can configure your blog to 'ping Technorati' when you have updated it so the update sends automatically to the search engine. Technorati also looks at the tags you put on your blog and takes that information to measure what are the current hot topics.

Let's Google it!

Everytime I'm in a conversation with friends and a disputed fact arises I normally say "Let's Google it". As an 11 year veteran of the internet I have become conditioned to use the Internet as my information source instead of turning to books or other printed material. Over at theAtlantic.com Nick Carr wrote the first article I have ever read about the effect of the Internet (specifically Google) on our thought processes.

Carr tells of his recent problem of not being able to get into a book. He spoke with collegues who are writers and they told him they are beginning to have the same problem. In fact, I thought about my reading habits and noticed I to have the same issue! I usually get bored after a few pages and have to force myself to stay interested in what I'm reading.

Carr states that "media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought." Hmmm...very interesting. With reading on the internet there is constant stimulation from hyperlinks, banner ads, e-mail updates and all kinds of other information being sent to your computer screen. How can one keep their concentration together to fully interpret the information they are reading.

Carr found that many internet users read content by skimming the material. I am guilty of this and I find myself doing it not only when I'm reading on the net, but when I'm reading journal articles, books and pretty much any piece of printed material. He found that we do not process the text as easily as we could and our ability to reflect and contemplate the material is diminished.

So, are we being dumbed down because of the internet? Carr thinks so. After reading his article it's hard for me not to agree with him.

Elections & New Media

Today on Disinfo.com they posted this video about John McCain calling his research for potential vice presidential candidates "a Google".


One of my fellow classmates wrote about Barack Obama's extensial use of new media during his 2008 campain. Have you been to BarackObama.com? They provide information to voters through video (they even have Barack TV!), tons of articles, email updates, connections to 18 social networking sites, mobile updates and a blog. John McCain is doing the same efforts but his viral campaign is well executed but not as extensive as Obama's.

The Political Web reviewed hits for both candidates through a number of websites, Google, YouTube, Yahoo and more. In each area Obama emerged as the top candidate, in some areas by an extremely large percentage. Here are the percentage differences for each area reviewed.

Finance: 143%
Google Results: 46%
YouTube Videos: 230%
Web Pages Indexed: 2824%
InLinks: 178%
Blog Search: 74%
Daily Searches: 75%

Last year we held our elections in the Bahamas. Internet marketing was not at the forefront for either party, their sites can be found here and here. There are three political parties who nominated candidates and all of their websites basically use the same technologies. Because of budget differences the websites of our political parties cannot be compared to those of Obama or McCain but there are a few things that can be done to provide more information to voting Bahamians.

To give some background, our elections are based on the British system. We have a two-party system and our House of Assembly is comprised of 40 seats. The party who wins the majority of the seats in the House wins the election and takes office for the next 5 years. If I were the marketing director for any of our political parties there are three ways of distributing information that were not included in this election.

1. Streaming video: We have rallies that are heavily attended. Musicians and speakers take the stage in front of crowds that have been estimated to reach 90,000. Why not set up a camera, film the rally and post it online so the elderly and others who could not come can watch it at a later date?

2. Blogs: Each candidate should keep a blog about their life on the campaign trail. Or, if not all 40 candidates at least some of the key candidates should. Especially those running for the office of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

3. Social Networking Sites: There needs to be more of a presence of our parties on the social media websites. Bahamians do use Facebook and MySpace. Both would be a good place to start a social media campaign.

How many friends do you have on Facebook?

I'm admitting it. I know way too many people who are addicted to Facebook. They talk about applications, privacy settings, photo upload problems, stalking profiles, friend numbers and the list just goes on. I use the software regularly to keep in contact with friends and to stay in the loop with events on the island. I like to share links over Facebook to friends who will appreciate the knowledge.

One thing I have learned is that everyone knows a Friend Nazi. These are the people who monitor their popularity by reviewing the number of friends they have on their list. I do have a lot of friends but I don't ever know or care what the number is. If you are on Facebook, please forget about how many friends you have and just enjoy using it to stay in contact with those who you want to. Also, use LinkedIn for business associations. The site is professional and perfect for networking.

An article over at the New Media Institute provided some statistics and information about tweens, teens and the internet. I was surprised to find that 36% of teens have friends on social networks they have never met. At first I thought this was ridiculous but then I thought about my geeky yet lovable brother. My brother is really into gaming and torrenting. Through these two mediums he has friends all over the world that he has never met but is connected to. I think the New Media Institute should include another question in their next survey about this topic that reviews how the teen initially met their friend.

Check out the New Media Institute to keep up with trends in the industry. I've just subscribed to get their updates through e-mail. Why isn't this site about new media using an RSS feed?

Blogs, blogs, blogs

Since beginning this course I have learned a lot about other new media vehicles available in the world. One medium I have used constantly since starting is my Google Reader. I have found a number of blogs that are pretty interesting so here's some of my favorites:

Cracked.com: A humor site that has lots of entertaining articles. This week there were a few surrounding the new Batman movie (which rocked!) "Bat Battle: Who's the best movie Batman?", "Why all the cool kids want Dark Knight action figures" and "20 Everyday items if they were designed for Batman".

Seth's Blog: Seth Godin, one of the world's most renowned marketers updates daily about marketing tactics. His style is easy to read, direct to the point and informative. He speaks conversationally while passing along his marketing knowledge.

MarketingProfs: If you work in marketing you should at least get a free membership to this website. The staff at MarketingProfs provide daily stratetic and tactical marketing knowledge through online newsletters, blogs, articles and seminars. Currently I am setting aside money for their annual membership to have unlimited access to the website.

Trends in Japan: CScout a trend hunting company in Japan updates daily about new products, services and events in Japan. I like subscribing to this blog because it expands my creative thought and reminds me to always think outside of the box.

Yes, Bahamians do use the Internet...

When I was living in the U.S. I would always have people ask me questions about the Bahamas. Some of my favorites are:

Do you wear grass skirts?
Do you live in huts?
Do you have electricity?
And last but definitely not least...Don't we own you?

Besides us wearing clothes, having homes with lights on in our independent nation we also use the internet. As I said in an earlier post, we have access to both cable and DSL internet. Another way Bahamians use the internet is through Web Shops that are set up to provide internet services and to sell numbers for an illegal lottery. The Web Shops are currently overlooked by law enforcement so locals can go there and connect to Nassau Games or Island Games and purchase their lottery tickets. Besides going to these sites people do use the provided computers to surf the net.

To put into perspective how many Bahamians go online I gathered up some site statistics through StatBrain for local websites I felt were popular. To put things into perspective here is some basic demographic data that was gathered in 2007:

Population: 305,655
Employed: 171,490
Unemployment rate: 8%
Percentage with Bachelor's, Professional, A-level, Master's or Ph.D certificate: 16%
Access to computer:

To answer the question about whether or not Bahamians are on the internet I gathered the visitor statistics for some of the most popular local websites. I did not include bahamas.com since this is mainly a tourist targeted website. So, here are the top 5 websites with the most daily visitors of some of the most popular sites in the Bahamas.

Nassau Games: 6,365
Online local illegal lottery

Bahamas Government: 3,018
Basic government information, departments, laws, news etc.

Bahama Journal: 2,276
Online website for daily newspapers (see why I think our local newspapers can benefit from being online?!)

Island Games: 2,108
Second online local illegal lottery website

Bahamas Issues: 1,700
Local discussion forum where topics include politics, youth, church issues, government etc. One of my favorite local sites.