I feel that I’ve learned quite a bit in this class. One thing that I’m certain is that I will continue blogging; it’s a great outlet for creative ideas and keeps me in the loop on emerging media topics. If you’ve become a reader of this blog, I hope you’ll stick around. (Feel free to let me know if you maintain your own blog!)

On an emerging media note, does anyone have any information on Swagbucks and how it uses paid placement/inclusion? For a search engine to pay users in rewards, someone must be paying to be listed…for this I am sure. I’ve made $40 this year by searching alone. (What is Swagbucks, you say? Its a search engine, claiming to be fed by Ask and Google, that randomly rewards you with “bucks” for searching. These bucks can be redeemed for actual prizes, like Amazon gift cards.)

This week, we talked about paid placement and paid inclusion on Internet searches. The fact that companies bid on keywords in order to appear in searches, no matter the true relevancy, is somewhat ridiculous. Do these advertisements really streamline your searching, or does it just create more nonsense to wade through?

There are a few valid points to paid placement – customers on a mission (and who are lucky enough to want the keyword match item) can find what they are looking for quickly, small companies can appear fairly high in search result rankings without much of an Internet presence and online users can continue to search for free.

Is it weird and unethical that this practice occurs?

Furthermore, would you go out of your way to use a search engine that accepted no paid placement of any kind?

An update to a previous post

This personalized Lexus ads still turn me off a bit (they list your full address and look like a computer inserted them from an Excel spreadsheet), but the content this time was much better (probably because I picked it.) Has anyone else subscribed to Mine yet? I recommend it for a quick read, but it’s not really worth paying for 5 articles plucked out of random magazines (especially if they aren’t the ones you asked for in the first place!)

Has anyone else noticed this on Facebook, or is it just me? I mean, I’m going to enjoy planning the big day…but do I really need Facebook to constantly remind me that I’m slacking off?

According to Facebook’s advertising page, advertisers can get more bang for their buck by “attaching social actions to your ads to increase relevance.”

I can’t wait to see more relevant ads…

Creativity seems to be the main point in setting a site apart, but how do designers feign creativity for each site they maintain, as well as form and function? Is a web team just one person typically, or is there a whole team that works to maintain a company’s online presence?

What sets a web experience over the top for me? I like it when a Web site is fairly intuitive and allows for visitor interaction. I love all the rating features of Amazon.com and how it suggest items – whoever worked on that Web site is a bit of a genius, in my book. (Does anyone know who that might be?)

Said TechCrunch:

Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed – whatever they grew from, they morphed into a realtime CMS for the emerging media. Twitter, not RSS, became the early warning system for new content. Facebook, not RSS, became the social Rolodex for events, casual introductions to RSS’ lifeblood, the people behind the feeds. FriendFeed, not RSS, captured the commentsphere. RSS got locked out of its own party. Today, RSS is a shell of its former self, casually subsumed as the transport for 140+ content into the social stream.

I agree with TechCrunch – RSS is not as useful as it once was and nowhere near as instantaneous as my daily Twitter feed. If only they would have credited me for their thoughtful blog post.

As a consumer, being able to dictate the amount and type of information I absorb seems like a great power to have. As a marketer, this idea scares me. What good are public relations plans and marketing channels if we no longer influence where people go to get their information?

A fleeting, scary thought…but one that could be helpful to marketers if answered soon and ahead of the curve.

To me, this does not seem like Internet segregation, but smart, targeted marketing. You could have a Web site directed toward different genders, ages and ethnicities and their particular interest – letting the consumer decide what they want or need out of your Internet page. The downside to the personalization is the expense…but would the benefits outweigh the costs? The idea is so out there to me, at the moment, that I have more questions than answers!

Some companies, such as Kraft, have implemented wonderful minority-oriented Web sites. Others, such as Apple and Aetna, still have a long way to go. If they want to be big in the new media game, the need to make an effort to reach all of their publics through the same channels.

Seriously. Coverage of the swine flu can be found online via any outlet imaginable. Web sites that currently run little to no health content are providing swine flu information. I’ve provided a list of examples below.

The expected Web sites:

• CNN.com
• American Red Cross
• Center for Disease Control

The unexpected Web sites:

• Order Swine Mask (a truly real site) Also, is this ethical? Should companies be able to thrive in ridiculous ways when a pandemic is in the air?
• Twitter (have you ever seen so many people tweet about the same thing?)
• Swineflupedia … does this really exist?

I suppose now is the time for companies to develop an online crisis communication plan if they didn’t have one before…

I’m still trying to grasp the concept of Twitter. The millennial age group seems to be the slowest adopter of this technology so far, which absolutely befuddles me. How are our parents communicating in such small amounts of words, and so frequently? I thought our generation was the master of the short form communication (blog entry, text message.)

The world of technology changes so fast.