Marijuana-Smoking Elmo: the Netflix/Qwikster/Twitter Conundrum

Anyone who had a Netflix account over the summer of 2011 holds a distinctive, inert distrust for the company. Not only did they hike their prices that summer, but the Netflix also attempted to completely separate their DVD-by-mail services from their online streaming services. The new DVD spin-off business—now known as one of the biggest […]

Professional Social Media: Hire Experience Over Age

Let’s say I’m starting a business: an independent video rental emporium. My knowledge of accounting pales in comparison to my knowledge of rare videocassettes, so I decide to hire someone to head my business’s finances. The two candidates for the job are as follows: a recently graduated 23-year-old who holds two MBAs (one in economics, […]

Queer Geosocial Networking and the 2012 Election

In class, we discussed how one can use different forms of social media to professionally market oneself. People can also use social media as a tool to market themselves on a personal level…in some cases extremely personal. For the queer community, this is where mobile apps like Grindr come in to play. Grindr (and similar […]

Socialization, meaningful human connection, and creepers

At its very base, social media is a tool to further human connection. Though sites like Facebook, Twitter, pinterest, and youtube all have the ability to be professional tools (especially in terms of marketing and PR), the “social” part of  the phrase social media has a distinctive recreational connotation to it.  Social media is a […]