Really, New Jersey?

Okay, so it's not all of New Jersey, but a princial from a New Jersey school wants parents to ban their children from using social media outlets such as Facebook. He issued a letter to his students' parents asking them to make their children delete their accounts because, "There is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site! None." He also wants them to quit text messaging. You can read his letter here.

For one, yes, maybe middle school is too early for kids to be on social networking sites, but to ban them completely is absurd. Social media will not stop growing and will not stop being part of our everyday lives. Kids should be familiar with it and kept up to date with today's technology and its uses. If a parent gives their child permission to have a Facebook or Twitter account and let them text, he should not try to take that away.

Apple's iPad: HACKED!

Some geniuses have been able to hack the 3G version of the iPad to work on T-Mobile's network, and get this...they are even able to send SMS text messages. That's a pretty awesome discovery! According to an article on Mashable, they cut down their T-Mobile SIM cards to fit into the iPad's MicroSIM and insert them into the device. Though the connection takes a while to register, it apparently works well - just not on a 3G network.

Though Blackberry has my heart captive, I think iPhones are pretty amazing when it comes to applications. Though you cannot use and iPad as a phone, I'd love to play around with it while it is hacked on the T-Mo network.

Times Square Evacuation

Times Square was evacuated Saturday evening due to a bomb in a car, supposedly unrelated to a terrorist attack. The live webcams that stream video of Times Square 24/7 showed how deserted the always crowded area ended up after everyone was safely evacuated. Thankfully, no one was hurt and the bomb did not go off. I'm so happy everyone was safe and nothing happened. While the story is still developing, I hope the person who left the bomb in the car is properly questioned so nothing like this will have to happen again.

Here are some pictures taking during the evacuation from the webcam (more here):

Before
After
Scary!

How to be sneaky using social media!

Ever wanted to follow someone's tweets without them actually knowing you're following them? If yes, your wishes have come true! TweetStalk is a website started by people from a website called Sitening, where they make other cool web applications. All you have to do is download and install the Firefox add-on and BAM, you can 'stalk' tweets. You can even set up an RSS feed of the people you are stalking.

Have fun ;)

As YouTube would say, 'broadcast yourself.'

My social media professor has provided my class with two sites to study that help with press releases and communications campaigns that I thought I'd share. PRNewsWire definitely has a lot of offer, for a price, while some of PRWebDirect is free.

From PRNewsWire's official website:

PR Newswire provides our customers with the greatest opportunity to engage their target audiences through:

1. the largest network of media, bloggers, and Web sites
2. the highest-trafficked and most search-engine referred Web site in the industry
3. the most comprehensive social media sharing capabilities and search engine optimization for all press releases
4. unparalleled multimedia production and distribution capabilities

From PRWebDirect's official website:

For a fraction of the cost of traditional press releases or internet advertising, you can send your news release through PRWeb and accomplish the following:

1. See your news on top-tier news sites like Yahoo! News
2. Increase your visibility and rankings in search engines like Google
3. Get your news to top journalists and media outlets
4. Drive qualified, ready-to-buy traffic to your Web site

If I had enough money and I was writing a press release and wanted to make sure it got out to everyone, I'd get the most expensive package because the offers on these sites are great. If I had to write a press release right now as an undergrad in college, I'd click the "free publicity" link on PrWebDirect.

A press release how-to

Do you know how to write a press release?

If you ever need to write a press release and have no idea where to begin, check this site out. Brian Solis uses simple directions (and provides examples) of how to compose a direct, thorough, and to the point press release. I love how he covered all bases of a press release and provided the links to help.

Another site that offers tips as well as another how-to is PRWebDirect. This site gives great advice and describes how a press release should be formatted.

What's the trend?

What The Trend's Week in Review show Twitter's top 100 trends. The trends on the website are ranked, have points, the time they were trending is shown as well as their peak index, category, and description. According to the site's notes on the top 20 list, "this list includes both the top 10 regular and hashtag trends, plus a few extra this week. Thus, you can derive a full list of hashtag-related trends, and a full list of non-hashtag-related trends from this chart." The picture below shows the top 5 trends.
I found this site very interesting. It is great to see what the trending topics on Twitter are, why they are trending topics, and how long they have been trending topics. As a Twitter user, this is definitely going to be a site that I frequent.