“Do u wanna laugh for a while and/or feel embarrassed?
Watch the new advertisement of #Loewe” by @pathernando.
“The documentary about special education of
#Loewe is great” by @cot_julia.
“All of you hate #Loewe’s new
advertisement, but, all of you talk about it. Do you know what viral marketing means?” by @October_Lee.
What does viral marketing mean?
Viral marketing means advertising, it means
money, interactivity, and above all it means social networks as means.
Just imagine a virus. A simple flu will
serve. Yesterday you went to a hospital and you, unknowingly caught the virus.
Later, you went out with your fiends whom you, unintentionally, transmitted the
virus. They came back home and transmitted it to their families. Parents went
to work and brothers and sisters went to school. We already have an epidemic.
All infected.
Now, replace the flu with an advertising
message and the hospital with Youtube. The key: to transmit = to share. Like.
This is viral marketing, an advertising
strategy that seeks the rapid spread of a message to potential
consumers of the advertised product.
Viral marketing is no new. Do you remember mouth-to-ear (word-to-mouth)? These are the roots. Nowadays, mouth have been replaced with “Notification
on your wall” and ear with “Share on a friend’s timeline” or #let’screateaWorldwidetrend. Today, the
Internet and social networks are the mean and the propagation is quicker and
more effective.
A company hides an advertisement within a
provocative idea in video format that make viewer’s opinion came up et violá!, for the modest price of a video uploaded to Youtube for
free, it got to manage to thousands of people. And everything without
paying for spots on TV or radio. Economic ¿right? Yes
it is, and much more when traditional media publish pieces of news about
the success of the viral campaign. Total media convergence. Just
one text, many media.
This is precisely what Loewe, the
Spanish firm of luxury goods, has achieved. Let solve the unknown
factor. A company: Loewe. A message: gold collection 2012. A
provocative idea: try to represent the Spanish youth with a
sample of "supercool” young people."The results: #Loewe, Spain trend in Twitter,
730,000 views on YouTube, hundreds of posts on blogs, articles
in national newspapers, parodieson YouTube... and most
important, thousands of young Spanish people speaking about
Loewe, even if it’s only to criticize and satirize. But... how true the
idiom 'let them talk, well or bad, but talk' is?
Throughout the centuries ever since a new medium would enter the society, the panic about it would follow. This trend dates back to as far as the Ancient Greek times. One of the most famous philosophers of the time Plato commented on the ability to write in this manner: “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks“. Moreover, the publishing J. W. Goethe’s masterpiece “The Sorrow of Young Werther” resulted in a chain of suicides, as young men in the 18th century found the course of action of the hero of the book worth following (Werther, the main character, killed himself because he loved a girl who loved someone else). These tragic deaths forced the governments all across Europe to ban the book in the 18th century. In later publications, Goethe addresses the reader with the words “Be a man, do not follow my example”. Similarly, there were fears surrounding the 19th century dime novels and dance halls about 100 years ago. There are some more recent examples as well, regarding every single medium one could imagine. Reality TV, explicit music lyrics, movies like Clockwork Orange or Child Play 3, video games – you name it, every one of these had difficulties with entering the scene without causing a heated discussion. These types of societal reactions are called “media panics”. In this post I will try to take a look at media panics that were caused by the internet and its many applications.
But before doing so we have to define what a media panic is. Oddly enough, however different the mediums might look from one another, the panics about them are quite similar. As Danish professor of the field Kirsten Drotner once put it, media panics always happen in the same manner, they have the same cycle. Firstly, the discussion starts, then some sort of governmental or industry self regulation is introduced and finally the panic disappears. This pattern can be applied for all the above mentioned panics. Another similarity is that these fears are always caused by the introduction of a new, unseen media that more often than not are created for the entertainment purposes. Finally, media panics are always about the young users.
Media panics arise from reports about the shocking cases of a possible abuse of new mediums. To make this clearer, let’s take an example of Columbine school shooting. 15 people were killed and 24 were severely injured when two students arrived to the school armed to the teeth. Until this day the general opinions make out that the killers were influenced by a first person shooter video game Doom. Many other factors – such as drugs used by the perpetrators or their acquisition of guns – are left aside. This tragedy was a big hit to the FPS developers’ industry and not to pharmacy or gun industries.
So by now the reader probably understands what is meant by the term “media panic”. Let’s take a look at the internet. Created in the second half of the 20th century it started to become massively used in 1993 with the introduction of the World Wide Web and the internet browsers. The internet firstly was looked at as a perfect field for communication. It was a place for virtual communities to be established, people could experiment with their identity and the possible reach of it was not seen ever before. However, it was not too long until the first panic took place.
“Researchers find sad lonely world in cyberspace” – shouted a press release from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The quote was immediately caught by the New York Times, CNN, BBC and other press corporations. In the year of 2009 it was used in 1633 academic papers! “The Internet has the potential to make us socially isolated, lonely and depressed”. Well, of course it has! A cat has a potential to kill its owner in his sleep but is it likely that it will do it? It was also found that the internet usage may result in decrease in family and social contacts and that the teenagers are the most vulnerable societal group. It is vital to know that in 2002 the participants of the survey of 1998 (on which the results were based) were revisited and had to answer the same questions. It was found that the aforementioned effects of internet usage are not likely to happen. This second research that denied the results of the first one did not get a press release. Ever.
Current academic consensus on the internet usage stresses out that online communities build on offline communities; online contacts are related to offline contacts; and that family and friend networks are maintained. The internet is seen as reinforcement to strong and weak ties rather than a thing that can make us alienated and lonely. Its importance for dispersed groups (such as migrants or homosexuals) is invaluable.
Rarely a talk about internet and its’ many evil sides can happen without mentioning online predators. In the USA an extremely popular show called“To catch a predator” has been broadcasted on the national television. You can watch an excerpt from it here to see what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZhsfT9wGp0 . Even though this show seems to be doing a good job of hunting down possible peadophiles and other types of bastards, it usually draws away from facts. It is a proved fact that most of the cases when teenagers meet adults that they met online, they know what they are doing, they know that they were talking to someone who is a lot older. The problem about chatrooms and online predatoring is a bit different thatn adults hiding behind the curtain and pretending to be of the same age as their victims. The real problem is that the teenagers are curious about meeting these people. And again, it‘s not the internet that is to blame for that, is it? According to, for example, UK law (where this problem has been in the spotlight for a long time) cases like that look more like statutory rape ("consensual sexual relations that occur when one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior”) than predatoring.
And finally, we move to our beloved Facebook and friends. In April 2009 several publications were printed in the British newspapers (Daily Mail, The Guardian, and Sunday Telegraph), causing a media panic about social networking sites. “Social network use may alter the brain structure” – said Susan Greenfield: a member of parliament, a professor and a baroness. Moreover, Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster said that “Social network sites produce transient relations that can cause trauma and even suicide when they collapse”. I would suggest to focus on the words “may” and “can” in both quotes. It basically is the same argument once again: social networking may make you feel lonely and depressed (like the internet itself in 1998) and can alter your brain structure (like the video game that has been blamed for the Columbine tragedy). Even though this panic is still happening and the cycle is not yet finished, one can try to foresee its finish. There will probably be some industry self regulation (it is already happening with, for example, checking of photos that are uploaded on Facebook. I simply am expecting the wider range of these actions). There will probably be some tragic event that SNSs will be blamed for (actually, one already took place in Lithuania this winter, when a psychologically unstable teenager killed a girl. You can guess where they met each other). And in the end this panic will die out. It always does! Who knows, maybe we’ll hear people talking about the harmful effects of Nintendo WII (“it teaches our kids the robotics of unwanted actions like shooting a gun”), maybe the new iPad will be torn apart. I will conclude by simply putting it this way: the developer of The Next Big Thing, brace yourself and be ready to be under attack. Because you will be.
Learning new languages develops human beings. It is a kind of a bridge to fantastic opportunities of the 21st century. By knowing a foreign language we can entertain ourselves in much more interesting way. We can read new and fresh media, books, watch films in original languages. It is very helpful and useful to know as much languages as possible for our career too. Every company needs to have at least a few workers who speak different languages. If you know a foreign language you are able to get access to much more information in the internet space, to play an active role in various trainings and also to lead business correspondences. You can meet interesting people. In other words, you open new opportunities for your business development and you get a chance to experience a new culture and heritage. Do not forget about travelling! Any foreign language will help to: buy food or book a table in a restaurant, find your way or some place, buy tickets, and again to meet and communicate with new different people.
There are traditionally several methods of learning foreign languages. Among the most well-known is the teacher-student method where there is a lecturer teaching one person or a group of people. Today due to new technologies and mainly the Internet we can witness the rise of new methods and approaches. Not so long ago a professor of psychology at Loyola University in Chicago has developed a so-called Community leanguage learning (CLL) method.[1] Generally the idea of CLL is that students (those who want to learn a new language) work together during the whole process of learning. They decide together which part of the language to learn and revise. In CLL the teacher plays a role just of an adviser or a councellor. In other words, the students contribute to language learning of everybody, while the teacher simply observs them and time to time steps into the process and helps if necessary. The most interesting thing about this method is that the students are becoming «co-authors» during the learning process. They work together and finally form a product which all of them benefit from and this expirience could be used by other people too.
There are several companies that provide us with the CLL method of language learning. Some of the most famouse are: Babbel, English Portal, Language Kompis, Penal Parade, Fluent Future, Livemocha, Language for Exchange, and others…
The leader in community language learning is Livemocha (www.livemocha.com). Here what the official site of Livemocha says about itself: «Livemocha is the world’s largest online language learning community, offering free and paid online language courses in 35 languages to more than 9 million members from 195 countries around the world».[2] Already the numbers tell us that Livemocha is really popular among language learners. The following languages are avialable at present: American English, Spanish (Castellano), Persian, French, Hindi, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Icelandic, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, European Portuguese, Greek, Dutch, Estonian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Urdu, Catalan, Swedish, Hebrew and Esperanto. And also, it is possible to vote for new languages to be introduced, which makes Livemocha flexible for changes and modernization.
Generally, Livemocha offers grammar instructions, reading comprehension exercises, interactive role playing and both live and asynchronous interaction with other native speakers within the Livemocha community. When learners submit coursework for peer review, native speakers in that language can provide feedback on how that learner is progressing. Users can aid others in learning the languages that they are proficient in while learning other languages themselves.[3] There are usually four types of exercises in each lesson. You first learn new vocabulary by reading and listening to new words. By the way, all recordings are made by the average users as us. After that you are offered to check whether you remember new vocabulary by a short quiz. Then there is usually a writing part where you are working only with those words that you have learned so far. And finally, and here is probably the most interesting thing about Livemocha, there is a talking exercise. You simply have to record yourself reading a few sentences (possibly adding a few words in some places). It is interesting because after you are done with all four exercises a native speaker will check your work.
Also, the Livemocha web-site tells us: «Global interest in language learning is exploding. Trade, immigration and travel are conducted across countries and continents like never before in human history. The result is a powerful desire shared by people around the world to communicate with one another and understand different cultures. Not surprisingly, the size of the language learning market is estimated at a staggering $50 billion USD. In a world hungry for new language skills, and increasing broadband Internet access and VOIP adoption, our mission is to provide a more accessible, affordable, and engaging way to learn a language. Livemocha allows people around the world to help each other with language learning, and provides our community with opportunities to learn and practice new languages together».[4]
The last two paragraphs shows us some of the elements of collective intelligence. I do not think that all CLL method based establishments are part of collective intelligence, but I believe that Livemocha is defenetely one of them. There are almost 10 million users of Livemocha. They all contribute to language learning both in the interests of themselves and in the interests of others. Together they (we) build a huge platform which is avialable for everybody.
I also believe that another concept is used in Livemocha. With the internet growth and the boom of social networking technologies Livemocha is able to take advantage of the Web 2.0 concept of information sharing and collaboration tools, for which users can help other users to learn languages by direct communication or mutual correction of proposed exercises.[5]
Livemocha partly takes after popular social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. It allows its users to create profiles so as to communicate with others on the website. You can edit you profile, add images and add friends, which is again a very useful tool to practice a language.
Livemocha is partly connected to the transmedia storytelling concept. It uses many ways to attract people who search for learning languages. It is fully connectable with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Youtube, and others… There are many articles about Livemocha written in newspapers, blogs, forums. Also, if you will search on Youtube, you would find many videos both official made by Livemocha's team and also amateur made by its users. The result of such work and such «transmedia storytelling» is that when you search (or simply google) information about language learning then Livemocha is in the top of the list. That means that Livemocha is highly popular and that search engines view Livemocha as a reliable sourche of information.
In addition to that, the official web-site says: «Livemocha is proud to have two of the world’s leading language publishers as partners. With unsurpassed educational publishing expertise, our partners provide Livemocha with world-class language learning content. The first is Pearson Education – the international media company. The second is Collins – the leading brand for bilingual dictionaries in the UK and Europe».[6]
To conclude with, there was a recent scholar research regarding studying new languages. The research has shown that language learning changes the brain density the same way as physical exercises develops your muscles.
I encourage you all to learn new languages bucause due to foreign languages you can easily travel in the ocean of information, opening new continents and islands, meeting and communicating with new people. It is up to you whether you will use Livemocha or something else.
Written by Bulat K.
[1] Richards, Jack C. (1986:113) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching
Jari Silomäki, young photographer from Helsinki school, produced his project "My Weather Diary" in 2001 to 2007. Here is my favorite picture, using long exposure.
This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four. (Mark Twain)
Tradition of April Fools' Day brings stream of fake news in the media. For one day, all news-sites feel like The Onion. And every year, by selecting the topic for their spoofs, journalist show us quite poignantly what we are interested in, what we believe is possible and what upsets us.
Viral marketing is no new. Do you remember mouth-to-ear (word-to-mouth)? These are the roots. Nowadays, mouth have been replaced with “Notification
on your wall” and ear with “Share on a friend’s timeline” or #let’screateaWorldwidetrend. Today, the
Internet and social networks are the mean and the propagation is quicker and
more effective.
