October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Last year, non-profits employed social media to raise awareness by asking girls and women to update Facbook statuses and share where they like to leave their purse, which inevitably led to sexual innuendos, thanks to sentences such as “I like it on the floor.”
This year, rethink Breast Cancer has taken to YouTube to spread the message about the importance of check-ups and my, have they done an *ahem* charming and entertaining job at that.
Bell Social Portrait
Bell has introduced a very exciting contest, Social Portrait, which creates a word cloud of your Twitter or Facebook posts in a creative portrait!
My social portrait is here and I would really appreciate your votes! Please click the link to help improve my chances of winning the grand prize, which includes my portrait featured on a billboard in Toronto!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUHDFafqykI
I know there was already lots of hype about this commercial right after it aired during the Super Bowl, but it’s still an incredible new technology. I remember reading about some new gadgets that car manufacturers will be adding to the dashboard within the next few years (after I clicked a few links while researching the consequences of texting and driving), but it’s much more powerful when you see what’s already available. This Chevrolet video makes me wonder about what features I’ll have at my fingertips when I buy my first car.
The bachelor’s excitement about a machine reading aloud his friends’ Facebook status updates also demonstrates how much Facebook continues becoming a, dare I say, ‘fundamental’ part of our lives. Surely this will make people who have disabled their accounts second guess this choice and make those who have not yet created an account feel even more out of the loop.
Compared to how thankful I am for having a smartphone and Internet access to occupy me while in waiting rooms, I don’t think it’d be as enjoyable to have a robotic sounding voice tell me what people have tweeted.
You can already listen to whatever artist, song, or radio station you want in the car. Is it really necessary to mute the radio commercials long enough to learn that your friend just landed in Miami while you’re driving around running errands?
It turns out all that hype about the pop star’s visit to Facebook’s headquarters this afternoon was leading up to this announcement to promote her summer tour.
I suspect plenty of girls will be wearing red lipstick to the show’s 8 stops in Canada and her performances elsewhere. If this tour is anything like the last, then perhaps fans will be tossing around beach balls in the general admission area too.
Canadian dates:
June 30 | Toronto | Air Canada Centre
July 2 | Montreal | Bell Centre
July 3 | Ottawa | ScotiaBank Place
July 13 | Regina | Brandt Centre
July 14 | Winnipeg | MTS Centre
July 16 | Calgary | Saddledome
July 17 | Edmonton | Rexall Place
July 19 | Vancouver | Rogers Arena
Tickets go on sale on Saturday. I recommend visiting Ticketmaster here for more details, as Katy’s website is very slow.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In other news, cast members of Glee just performed “Teenage Dream”. Nicely done, boys.
Upon reading a friend’s witty status update, it seems natural to click the ‘like’ button to notify them that you feel the same way about something or find their comment amusing.
This reaction is logical because it’s classier (and quicker) to click the like button, than to write a comment with an emoticon at the end and pretend to be simultaneously winking and sticking out your tongue. You can see for yourself how ridiculous this looks in real life the next time you’re standing in front of the bathroom mirror (possibly with a digital camera in hand, if that’s something you like to do with your friends before uploading said pictures to Facebook).
With the proliferation of SMS-inspired abbreviations and acronyms, shorthand language is becoming increasingly appealing. So instead of saying “That’s funny” or “I agree”, now all it takes is the click of a button to alert your friend that you share similar interests. As Facebook continues taking over the Internet, our use of technology continues changes as well.
Instead of texting or calling someone to say that you empathize with them, you can simply say you “like” their comment (or link etc.). Friends disagree with each other too, which is precisely why people join groups advocating for Facebook to introduce a ‘dislike’ button. Facebook won’t do this anytime soon though because it would lead to too much negative feedback for their invaluable advertisers. Thanks to the ‘like’ button, people who haven’t seen each other in months can maintain a bond they established months ago, without needing to organize the necessary logistics involved in making plans.
As virtual forms of communication become more popular, fewer people need to co-ordinate which friend’s house to go to, where they’d inevitably spend time deciding what to do together. Smartphone apps designed to locate the nearest coffee shop are only useful for someone who actually meets their friend there (or who goes on their own and rudely carries on a phone conversation while placing an order). Secondly, online communication becomes even more enticing, once Internet users recognize the convenience of video chatting on Skype, while wearing pyjamas during a blizzard. As much as Facebook helps us stay in touch with acquaintances and classmates, it is also cultivating a culture of laziness.
No longer is there the same motivation to sit in a friend’s living room and flip through a photo album of vacation snapshots, as this can all be done online now. Sure, there are cords available to connect computers and cameras to big screen TVs, but are people really inclined to do this during family reunions? With Picasa and other web albums, friends and family can view photos at their own pace, read any captions the photographer (or Web 2.0 savvy curator) includes, and comment as often as they like, regardless of geographical distance.
Clicking the like button is an easy way to be friendly, without the social awkwardness of tapping someone on the shoulder and randomly saying hello, so it’s clear why people like it.
As depicted in The Social Network, the Facebook team brainstorms many nifty tools during their late night sessions and I’m curious to see what they release next.