Periodico De Catalunya March 29, 2009

Last week we visited the newsroom of Periodico de Catalunya. We sat down in the conference room and learned about the newspaper through a page by page description. It is a thirty year old newspaper, that was created after the end of the Franco regime. It is the third most read newspaper in Spain, and it has about 800,000 readers everyday. Also, it was the first newspaper in Catalunya. Characteristically, this newspaper is very different from all of the others that are read in Spain. The graphics are a huge part of what makes this newspaper so unique. It was the first newspaper to use color, which makes the look of each story very appealing. Compared to a newspaper like the New York Times, there are clear differences in the layout and overall look of the newspaper. Periodico de Catalunya pays a lot of attention to style, color and design, while a paper like the New York Times doesn’t use color and has a traditional and more serious layout.

What also makes Periodico De Catalunya one of the most popular newspapers in Spain is its accomidation to the public. You can read it quickly in the metro, it is an easy read, although not a tabloid. Also, it is the only newspaper in the world that has two editions: one in Catalan and one in Spanish. It is mainly left side ideology that discusses topics such as human rights.

As it can be seen in these two pictures, Periodico De Catalunya is  much more visually pleasing to look at versus the New York Times. I really enjoyed learning about this newspaper because now I understand why it is so successful.

Corporate Blogs. March 23, 2009

In class we learned about corporate blogs, along with their advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion, I feel that a corporate blog could greatly improve a corporation´s success based upon various factors. Overall, a corporate blog is created by an organization to reeach a specific objective. Currently, all major browsers (including Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7) support RSS technology, which enables readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog, which is very useful for low-volume blogs. After searching the Internet, I have found that more than 12% of the Fortune 500 companies blog externally. Market research done in the first half of 2006 indicated that 34% of large companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2006, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%^.

Continuing my investigation on corporate blogs, I found a great website that lists some important disadvantages. Some of these include, time, representation, measure of success and popularity. I suggest going to this website for more detail on disadvantages. I also found another website that makes a very good point…”This medium represents the missing ingredient that traditional media lacks: the ability to directly connect a company to its customers”. This is where the importance of a corporate blog comes in, because it is a tool that can be used to directly connect a company to it´s customers or potential customers. This website also gives steps that Fortune 500 companies take to create a blog: determine if blogging is a good fit for your company, determine if your company is willing to invest in a blog, create a strategy, ensure that everyone is on the same page, determine the involvment of PR, select bloggers, train the bloggers, writing posts, realize that the blog doesn´t need a tone, editing, establish a commit policy, develope a promotion strategy and establish a measurement program. This website talks about each of these steps in depth, so I highly suggest visting and reading it for anyone else who is interested.

Politics 2.0 March 23, 2009

I feel that one of the most imperative parts in a United States presidential campaign, is the technology that is available to them. Using the television and more recently the internet, a political party can advance their campaign greatly. An important aspect of the use of television is that each presidential candidate must have an equal time of advertisement on news programs such as CNN, NBC and ABC. This is done due to fairness, and keeps the race clean. What I mean by this is, if each political party was able to buy their own televsion space, it would turn into a bidding game and important money would be wasted.

On the other hand, the fact that the internet is now highly used for advertising during political campaigns brings the competition to an entire new level. Aside from websites that belong to major networks like CNN, NBC and ABC, websites like youtube and myspace are overflowed with comments, blogs and video clips of Obama and Mccain, for example, during the 2008 Presidential Election. While there is strict regulation within broadcasting and air space, the Internet does not share any of these regulations. Anyone in the entire world can post a blog, document or video about a presidential candidate, for anyone else in the world to view and analyze.

Visitors. March 15, 2009

This past weekend, many of my friends came to visit Barcelona. My friend Samantha came here for the weekend from Parma, Natalie from the French Riviera and Vanessa from Arizona. It was so good to see them! I took them around the all of the sites in Barcelona, including the Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Also, we walked around Las Ramblas and Passieg De Gracia where we went into the different shops and clothing stores. The weather was amazing, so we also spent a lot of time at the beach and the port. We ate lunch at Opium, which was interesting because the only other time I’ve been there is at night when it’s a club. It was fun showing them all of the things I do in Barcelona, and sharing my life here with them. It was also interesting to hear about Sam and Natalie’s experiences in France and Italy and how they differ from Spain. Sometimes hosting guests can be very stressful, so at times I felt a little anxious because of the huge responsibility I had. Although, at the same time I’m very grateful to be having this experience, as well as share it with my best friends. This weekend really gave me a new appreciation for Barcelona and the culture. Due to the nice weather, everyone was outside and enjoying themselves, and I was reminded of how much I love it here. It is so different from New York in many ways that I have been enjoying a lot. The overall atmosphere is calm and relaxed which I’m adapting to. Many people compare Barcelona to Miami, because of the beach and the nightlife. Personally, I feel that Barcelona is much more enjoyable in many ways including the people, atmosphere and nightlife. The only thing I would have to say is better in Miami is the food!

Social Networking. March 1, 2009

Nowadays, websites like facebook, myspace and twitter are extremely popular among society. It started with adolescents and has now moved on to the adult age group as well. A more formal definition is, “a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual relationships, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade“. Although it is possible to participate in social networking face-to-face it is most popular online. Hence, websites such as facebook, myspace and twitter. There are many positive aspects of social networking. For example, it is easy to communicate with others, relationships can be formed (such as friendships) and for job purposes as well. Some negative aspects to social networking are invasion of privacy, never being off the radar (always being in constant communication with other people), fraud and blackmail. Fraud and blackmail are more serious issues than the ones previously listed because people feel safe enough to post personal information online and don’t realize that others can use this to their advantage. Blackmail can happen for example because people post pictures of underage drinking, that are never deleted and follow them into later years, and prevent them from getting certain jobs, etc. Provided in the next link is a list of popular social networking websites. Also, the next link provided is a good opinion on the positives and negatives of social networking.