This past Tuesday marked a historical moment in all of American history. Senator Barack Obama won the race for the 2008 President Elect position. Chances are if you took a peek at your Facebook friends' status updates post election you may have encountered some surprising responses. I know in my news feed I saw a number of anti-Obama comments like "oh no, the socialist won - time to move to Canada or Europe" and that's no where near the worst of it.
We've been discussing the campaigns, the candidates, and the election in every one of our classes to the point that many of us are tired of hearing about it but people are still going to have things to say. Facebook is a place where people know they can sound off. I do feel as though everyone should have the right to voice their opinions whether it be via their Facebook or elsewhere. I found this editorial on Jezebel which brings up some interesting points on the aftermath of post election facebook status updates.
Status updates, the Facebook method of broadcasting one's thoughts or mood out to the world, became filled with hateful rhetoric, putting some Facebook users in an incredibly awkward position: "Do I de-friend this person?" "Do I engage this person?" And perhaps the most puzzling question of all, "How did I become friends with this person in the first place?"
So what's a Facebook friend to do? If you really feel so inclined to de-friend someone because their political views may not match up to yours, then do so. But if not, just realize that all social media is an open forum for people of all different ways of thinking to interact and join in on the conversation, especially of such important issues as our next President.
The free video sharing website, Hulu, has prooved to be a big social media success. Hulu was launched just over a year ago, in August 2007. Neilson Online has reported that the website had over 142 streams in the month of September, it's highest numbers yet.
Hulu not only lets you watch free movies and tv shows, but also has kept up with Election 08' footage. Obama's acceptance speech and McCain's concession speech were posted immediately after the live delivery, courtesy of MSNBC. Hulu also provided much of the debates and other commentary in their coverage.Hulu is supported by advertisements which media buyers are definitely paying attention to. Web TV Wire reports that currently 93% of Hulu users are content with the amount of advertising they see while using the website. This is good news for Hulu now, but the number of ads will surely continue to increase. I surely hope it's not a matter of time before ads take over this website, too.Websites like Hulu are changing the way we watch entertainment. Along with other media devices such as digital video recorders, which allow us to record programs on television and watch them later, as well as give us the ability to fast forward through advertisements, social media is changing everything. You don't even need to own a television set to "watch tv" anymore. If you have a computer, a high speed Internet connection, and a good screen and speakers.. you are good to go.I have to say that I absolutely love Hulu. It's great to be able to watch entire seasons of shows and movies that I haven't seen yet at no cost to me. The advertisements don't bother me at this point, but like I said earlier, I hope they don't increase too badly as the website begins to become more and more popular.
Do you think a website like Hulu can ever hit YouTube status?
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