Tag Archives: news

News Consumption in Today’s Digital World

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The average human attention span is roughly 8 seconds, according to a New York Times Source, so it seems logical that the mobile applications that have concise, bite-sized content are most popular. Two perfect examples are Snapchat and Instagram that both have content short enough to keep the users engaged and coming back for more. It would make sense, then, that news apps with short content would be preferred methods of consuming news, however a recent Pew Research study draws other conclusions. Pew Research discovered that long-form journalism will not go extinct despite society’s obsession with digital technology. Longer articles attract an equal number of mobile visitors as shorter news articles do, demonstrating that bite-sized news does not trump full-length articles. With that being said, Pew Research also reported that only 22 percent of Americans trust social media as an accurate news source.

Pew Research’s study is in line with a recent article by Business Insider that points to headlines involving Facebook’s fake news and how “messy” the digital world is. Situations like Facebook’s create additional trust issues among users who question the accuracy of the news they read. A very interesting statista chart included in the Business Insider article shows the percent of Americans who trust each news source. The data depicted in the chart should be a slight relief for print newspapers and broadcast TV who don’t have to be too threatened by social media entering their news landscape due to the fact that 59 percent of Americans trust broadcast tv over 15 percent who trust social media.  This is a chart depicting the percentages of Americans who trust news from different sources. It shows that 59 percent of Americans trust broadcast tv while 15 percent trust social media.

So even though we have shorter attention spans than goldfish (New York Times), we still prefer full-length articles from credible sources like news apps over finding news on our social media apps. This information is meaningful to almost anyone in the business world because of digital media’s relevancy in all facets of business. The knowledge that full-length articles and apps other than social media are preferred methods of getting news should influence  how businesses establish themselves in the digital space.

To read more about short attention spans click here .

To see Pew Research’s findings click here .

Will The Comcast-Time Warner Deal Affect Communications Infrastructure?

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Close to Sealing the Deal

Close to Sealing the Deal

Another major merge between the two largest cable companies is creating a setback, especially for our wallets. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company wants to buy Time Warner for $45 billion dollars. If this communications merge were to happen, Comcast would shovel 70 million subscribers, which is about 30 percent of television viewers in the United States. So, why is this an issue?

The last time a deal like this was announced was in 2011 when AT&T tried to merge with T-Mobile, which affected the communications infrastructure. That deal fell through when the Department of Justice sued to block the deal. The Department of Justice “argued at the time that the AT&T deal would decrease competition, hurt consumers and squash innovation.”

The Comcast proposal creates another threat, placing a strange hold on several growing businesses such as internet services and broadcast television. Essentially this proposed merger “would create a behemoth of a monopoly, crushing networks, broadcasters and any content provider looking for a path.” Continue reading →

Social Media Changing the Way News is Received and Olympic Games Prove It

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Social Media Takes Over the News and the Olympics 

In the past, news was only accessible at strict times determined by the media channels.  If you wanted to watch the local news, you had to tune in at the right time or it was gone forever.  Social media has greatly changed this.  Because of social media, you to never have to pick up a newspaper or watch a television again in order to be updates on the news.  Social media has given consumers the power to access news when they want, where they want, and from whichever sources they want. Continue reading →

Rapper The Game Uses Instagram To Promote His Charity

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The rapper, The Game is using social media platform Instagram to promote his charity “The Robin Hood Project.” His goal is to give away $1 million of his own money by Christmas to people in need. His Instagram account, is filled with Polaroid like photos of people he has given money to. The photos caption includes the amount that was donated and why. It varies from $50 – 20,000. Check out The Robin Hood Project  Continue reading →

Extreme Social Media Fails Done By Young Adults

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As college students, we are constantly told by others to think before what we post on social media. We are told this because everything we post on the internet is permanent, even if we delete. Many of us who are preparing to graduate and begin looking for a job, have become cautious on exactly what we put out there on the internet. In the last month, two stories of two young adults  have gone viral after they posted their wrong doings on social media. We can witness how these two individuals had extreme social media fails.  Continue reading →

Gettin’ The Info On That Graphic

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Ever wonder why infographics and data visualization have become so popular over the last year or two? Here are some reasons using the data

Short Attention Spans

Nowadays all our society is “diagnosed” with ADD. This is demonstrated by the fact that most people will decide to leave a website or continue exploring it in the first 2-4 seconds of seeing the page. With very little time to convince people to stick around, infographics and visualizations are a more effective way to literally catch peoples’ eye.

Information Overload

With the worlds information currently doubling every two years, it is no wonder people experience information overload. With smartphones, tablets and the ubiquity of the internet, people are constantly receiving, analyzing, sharing and creating new information. Due to this overload you need to stick out to get people’s attention. Creating a compelling visualization of data or information can make it really stick out from all of the other noise of day-to-day life.

Easy to Understand

As humans, we are very visual creatures. Our ability to quickly interpret visual information is far greater than that of written words. By creating visualizations you can make complex information easier to understand.

Reading Retention

People have horrible retention rates for the information they read. According to the data sited in the infographic on data visualization below, people only remember about 20% of what they read.

More Engaging

With such a large volume of new content published every day, people are inundated. By creating something that is visually compelling, people are more likely to be engaged.

Infographic-of-infographics

2 Social Media Tools for Political Campaigns

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Social media is revolutionizing the way that political campaigns track and target voters. New technologies are constantly being invented to track support for candidates. A few of the newer ones that can influence the 2014 elections are Zignal Labs and Tracx. Continue reading →