Legal, Policies, Ethics

Sometimes, it’s best to just keep some thoughts to yourself.

Arguably the best and worst thing about the internet is that it gives just about everyone a voice. Once upon a time all you could do was rant about the Raiders’ offense to three of your friends – now, you can get on a message board and say something deeply poignant like “CARSON PALMER SUCKS!!!” and get 15 responses in an hour. The upside is increased feedback, efficient communication and instant responses. The downside is that a phrase like “CARSON PALMER SUCKS!!!” is Shakespearian compared to 90 percent of the drivel you will come across on any open internet forum.

As I said earlier, some thoughts are better off left unsaid. This American Life recently reran one of my all-time favorite episodes, “Right to Remain Silent.” The first segment of the program focuses on Joe Lipari, a man who became infuriated with the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City and made his anger abundantly clear in a Facebook post later that day. After watching the movie Fight Club, he posted a paraphrased quote from the movie that said, among other things, that he might “walk into an Apple store on Fifth Avenue with an Armalite AR-10 gas powered semi-automatic weapon and pump round after round into one of those smug, fruity little concierges."

One of his Facebook friends saw the post and reported him to the police, and it wasn’t long before he was visited by the police and charged with two felonies. He has spent the last few years in and out of courts fighting the charges. Although the ordeal appears to be over (a judge dismissed the charges in February), he definitely paid a price.

Lipari was obviously being sarcastic. But sarcasm doesn’t come through on the web quite like it does in person. Additionally, it’s probably a good idea to avoid any sort of references to pumping rounds of ammunition into people.

Extreme cases like Lipari’s are the exception and not the rule. The First Amendment is thriving in today’s era of social media, according to an editorial in the Dallas Morning News. In 2006, 45 percent of students surveyed said the First Amendment guaranteed too many rights. That number dropped to 23 percent in the 2011 survey. The increase in use of social media has also led to increased tolerance of opposing views. A group called the Knight Foundation “found a link between social media and tolerance of unpopular opinions; daily users were the most tolerant and infrequent users the least.”

Let’s just hope these people eventually come up with something cleverer than “CARSON PALMER SUCKS!!!”

Apps

Apparently, one screen isn’t enough to keep us entertained any more.

A recent article on CNN.com says that numerous studies show that 80 percent of TV viewers of all age incorporate a “second screen” – laptop, smartphone or tablet computer – into their viewing habits.

The most likely reason for this trend is that people like to talk about TV shows and event while they are happening. Zeebox is an app developed to take advantage of this scenario. It “determines what show is currently being viewed and then provides streams from relevant social media, as well as offering targeted links to spin-off products, and background information about the actors, music or writers drawn from online resources.”

I appreciate the concept behind this service as much as anyone. I’m always going to the internet during shows to see what other movies/TV shows such and such actor has been in. During a sporting event, I like to see other people’s responses to the ref’s last call or Coach Jackson’s decision to go for it on fourth down.

But, the old man inside of me worries about whether this type of technology will dumb down TV. For example, my favorite show of all time is Lost. I would turn my phone off while I watched an episode, and if anyone ever tried to talk to me I would pause it. It’s too cerebral of a show to allow yourself to be distracted by apps or any type of second screen. Since Lost went off the air, I have been worried about whether I will ever see a show like it again. Now, as shows try harder to be second screen compatible, I am even more worried.

In addition to being fun and neat, apps can be genuinely useful. Jayne O’Donnell wrote an article for USA Today about how apps can help consumers save money as the Christmas season approaches. eBay has its Red Laser app and Amazon has its Price Check. Both are price comparison apps that quickly tell consumers where else they can get Good A and at what price.

Ms. O’Donnell offers a few other tips on how to use apps to help you shop smartly. One of the coolest apps she highlighted was Lemon, an app that keeps track of receipts. As someone with no organized method of keeping receipts, I can quickly see how that app would make my life easier.

Search Engine Optimization

Last month, I interviewed a USU graduate student named Rain Christensen for a story I was writing for the Huntsman Post. Rain started and runs banktruth.org, a website that evaluates banks and provides detailed information about them. After a great deal of sacrifice and hard work, the website has become a remarkable success. During the interview, he typed “best banks” into Google, and his website was the second result to come up out of nearly 300 million.

A lot of our discussion centered around search engine optimization (SEO). Phrases like “best banks” and “bank rankings” are typed into search engines thousands of times per day, and most people don’t look beyond the first set of results. Having your website appear in the top three is like owning beachfront property.

Rain told me there are three things that Google and other search engines look for when they rank websites:

1.     Contain quality content

2.     Updated frequently

3.    Engage social interaction

All three of Rain’s suggestions for better SEO performance were mentioned in an article on forbes.com by Eric Savitz. Savitz also says internet marketers should watch out for trending keywords, create sub-topic landing pages and properly tag and categorize content.

In addition to all of this, there is one other thing that drives SEO performance: blogging.  Savitz quotes Hubspot Director of Brand and Buzz Marta Kagan as saying that companies that blog get 55 percent more traffic. Kagan explains why this is in a blog post called “12 Mind-Blowing Statistics Every Marketer Should Know.” Savitz summarizes it by saying, “the more you blog, the more pages Google has to index, and the more inbound links you’re likely to have.”

As web use continues to shift over to smart phones, people will be even less likely to see what search results lay beyond the first page. SEO ought to be one of the main focuses of every marketer. It is a relatively new field, and so I am excited to see what innovations lie in the future.