The Importance of Blogs

When we first started this semester, I was really unsure about the whole blog thing. I thought it was just another thing that we were going to be graded on and didn't know how important it would end up being in the long run. For me, I always associated blogs with people who didn't have jobs and had a lot of extra time on their hands. However, I was clearly wrong.

The biggest problem I first ran into was not knowing what to blog about. I didn't think that I had any thoughts worth blogging about, but then I realized that all thoughts were worth blogging about. Throughout all of our readings, I'm pretty sure each have mentioned in some way either the importance of blogging or the authors' experiences with blogging. In all, they talked about how important it was in maintaining a blog and being an active blogger.

Through my experience this semester, I can see how important they can be. It's a way where I can engage not just my peers, but others in the cyber world. It allows for multiple opinions to be shared and a good way to bounce ideas off one another. In addition, I think it can be an important resource when trying to get a job. It can be used as a good example of what we can write about and our ability to positively maintain a social media platform.

For me, my blog is something that I might keep doing past this class, but what about you guys; is the blog going to be something that you guys continue after this class? Or once BU464 is done, is your blog going to be done too?

Twitter T-Shirts

The other night, my roommate was showing me this website that will sell t-shirts for you and take a big percentage of the cost for selling the shirts. I think his t-shirt cost $24 dollars to buy and for every t-shirt that was sold he would receive $1. Now this doesn't sound like anything new, however my roommate was putting his Twitter name and some of the hashtags that he uses on the t-shirts.

For a little background, my roommate has one of the obnoxious Twitters where he tweets his stream of conscious; regardless if they are good thoughts or bad (it's definitely not the most professional Twitter that we have talked about in class). However, he has something like over 700 followers and his goal is to get over 2000. For him, he uses his Twitter rather than a promotional tool, but more for a social presence. From what it sounds like, it sounds like he is trying to brand his Twitter. As you probably would have guessed, he is marketing his t-shirts through his Twitter.

Personally, I think it was a waste of his night making a bunch of t-shirts that no one will sell. Maybe I'm wrong and he's going to be throwing hundred dollar bills in my face, but I doubt it. What do you guys think?

Free Cone Day

Earlier this week, Ben and Jerry's held Free Cone Day, where just as you expected, they handed out free cones of ice cream. I remember going down freshman year and standing in line forever to get my cone. I did the same thing again my sophomore year, but after waiting for so long I decided it wasn't worth the wait. So this year, I stayed true to my statement and didn't go downtown to get one.

I was hanging out in my friend's room when a few of our other friends came in and said that Ben and Jerry's is giving out free ice cream. We told them that we knew it was Free Cone Day, but they responded by telling us there was a truck outside. To our surprise there were a ton of kids swarming the truck as Ben and Jerry's workers handed out free cups of ice cream.

I guess they had been driving around all locations in Vermont handing out free ice cream. I don't remember them doing it previously, but think it is a great marketing strategy. By them taking an active role in their marketing, they reached a lot more of their market than they would have.