Although I enjoy lots of different subjects at heart I am a fully fledged, Doctor Who sock wearing, geek. So I hope you all have a great 2010 and I leave you with my website statistics for 2009. Not entirely accurate since several months were not counted due to a technical error but on the whole they are quite interesting. Especially several of the most popular search terms!

Unique Website Hits: Greater than 11,412
Number of Visits: 37,079
Number of Page Views: 178,633
Bandwidth Transfer: 106.91GB

Top 3 Web Browsers

-          Firefox
-          Google Chrome
-          MS Internet Explorer

Top 3 Countries

-          Great Britain
-          United States
-          Germany

Top 3 Referrers

-          Twitter
-          Facebook
-          Stumbleupon

Top 10 Search Terms

-          mikewhite
-          mike white
-          94u
-          pittville campus
-          sex2008
-          paul bowler gloucestershire
-          pittville campus closure
-          pittville campus closing
-          leaf jokes
-          Stephen fry itunes festival

Before a company can implement a successful social media strategy it is critical for them to analyse how they are to manage their own reputation. To represent your client online requires you to wear the mask of your client. Due to this you must accept full responsibility to act on the part of your client on the side of promotion.

Social networks are no longer a question of the scripting languages being used but instead concerned purely upon the relationships between individuals. Each social network is different as the medium changes the message. Sometimes a particularly social networking site may not be suitable for the class of client you are attempting to promote. If anything the reputation of that client might be harmed because you implemented a strategy involving the wrong mediums of social media.

Individuals online change. This is one of the most important overlooked facts which can lead to reputation errors. When communicating online we have the option to change who we are. Our writing style conveys the formality of who we are and semiotics can speak a thousand words.

Do not forget that we are talking about “SOCIAL” networks. The idea is to be social on the internet. Don’t implement a pathetic viral strategy aimed on catching people out otherwise your reputation will plummet. Work to the rules of the social networking site you have chosen, communicate with the community.

Apart from the misguided companies social networks are largely used to be social. Being social usually involves a form of casual conversation and nothing is worse than a company ruining the party by avoiding those personal pronouns.

Remember that I said each social networking site is different? The same goes for the individuals who reside within each of those networks. It is not possible to tarnish each social network with the same brush. Each network acts individually and the users within those networks are different too. They all share one thing in common though. They are on that network to be social.(…)

There is so much worry which is inflicted upon a young person’s mind. From those early years at school when you are required to read and write efficiently but also learn basic maths. Basic maths? Does such a mathematical arena really exist? The problem with schooling is that every pupil is classified into individual categories. Ranging from those who struggle, to the pupils who have brains like sponges. Something that is always forgotten about sponges though is that they are porous and full of holes. Those who are observant will evaluate that the majority of those ‘so called’ fast learners at school just stored all that knowledge into their short term memory.

The category system at school is simply misunderstood. Those in the lowest group were not dull, dim or disinterested but instead slower learners. The brain needs some extra time to grasp a comprehensive understanding but then would retain that learnt knowledge. What I am trying to get at is that those categories at primary schools stick in the subconscious. The good old British class system even extends into our Primary Schools teaching children from an early age that we are not all equal.

It will be of no surprise to you that we are not equal which would suggest the class system to hold some validity but let’s approach life as if we are all equal. There is no harm in that. So what if somebody answered a question incorrectly? At least they had thought about the question before providing their answer. That is the only important skill which schooling requires of us. It is to think independently. To walk through life as if we are the only focus and to maintain a public image unafraid of being open and honest.

It is amazing about how many details about our childhood may influence our older years. For this I am thankful for. I have had a good childhood, although I was not fully aware of it at the time. Of course(…)

Apparently there are 15,740 social media experts on Twitter of who take the forms of gurus, consultants, stars, experts and ninjas. I am not entirely surprised and as Mashable observed this self-accredited title is just hot air. Surely the only way somebody can be truly convinced of your worth is through the voice of another?

Notice how on my Twitter profile I have avoided cliché terminology. There is nothing worse than those who big themselves up on Twitter without any experience or content to prove their worth. Just because you Re-Tweet social media posts doesn’t make you an expert; it makes you a regurgitator.

I am not an expert but instead a ‘web 2.0 enthusiast’. Even though I am only a student I have been surfing the internet since the age of five and have built similar social media websites which have received  so much hype today. I am an enthusiast, passionate about the subject and can see potential as well as flaws.

So forgive me as I walk the controversial path into what could be considered short sighted and simply wrong. Social media is experiencing a frenzy of attention at the moment. Rather than personal attributes people are being viewed by how many followers they have on Twitter and the amount of websites they have heard of. I am getting fed up with this hype.

In one breath I can name over a dozen different websites which will help share content from your website. Methods to spread a company’s word into the different sections of the heterogeneous audience in which social networking has created. I did a presentation to a client at the beginning of this month and they were more interested in a social media strategy surrounding Facebook than considering ‘old fashioned pr’.

It is in my opinion that the world has gone crazy. Of course there is value to using social media but let’s all calm down about this. Just because a PR firm has offered social media in their pitch doesn’t(…)

Only a few minutes ago I decided to set up a PR Student Wiki. I have absolutely no idea if this project will work but since it hasn’t really cost me anything I haven’t lost financially if it flops. It just occurred to me that if this PR Student Wiki works it would be a very potent resource for students and professionals alike.

http://www.prstudents.co.uk/

Feel free to share your blog posts on it. Perhaps create useful lists of resources which others may find useful. This Wiki is for you.

Although this Wiki is a secondary project of mine over this blog please don’t consider it property of my own. This blog is mine and is only full of my content. This Wiki is for you and only if you get involved by providing content and opinion will it work. Later on today I shall start adding some materials which I have found useful on my PR course. Your support would be greatly appreciated.

Don’t be so surprised. Now that two blogs have become one I am forced to write mundane articles such as this. The build up to Christmas is not only readying everybody for a periodical anticlimax as Christmas day occurs and the rain fell just as it did the previous. For those of us who would rather just avoid the Christmas period altogether conversations occur with stunned strangers who cannot bear to believe that a single individual could ever not like Christmas. Personally I feel compelled to try and rethink my views each year concerning this holiday period but there is no solace. Just a winter solstice, which, by chance, started today. The Earth is on its tilt and unfortunately the Christmas decorations haven’t fallen into the dark abyss of space.

It isn’t like I don’t try. Yesterday I decided to attend the carol service at my local Church. It was good. Well… I didn’t like it when the pastor started talking about the love of Jesus. Apparently I was the only one in the Church who arrived just because I wanted to listen to the choir and sing some songs. Is this the desperate non-spiritual materialistic monster I have become?

In all honesty Christmas day is jolly good fun. Just look at me trying to dig myself out of this hole? Family, that’s right. Family is what is important about Christmas. There is a problem though. Call me lucky but I see my family quite often. I only saw them last week and now I’m going to see them again on Christmas day. Presents are good fun but saying thank you with that complacent smile makes me want to gag on my mince pie.

The most ridiculous plan was when my mother decided to hang mistletoe in the porch of our house. Not carefully thought through since the family were due to arrive the next day. Mistletoe is by far Christmas’ worst creation. I couldn’t care less about the history behind it, just please, for the love(…)

After having read Barbara Ellen’s worryingly inaccurate article in The Observer this morning, “Why I rage on behalf of the ordinary Joes”, I have been convinced to spur into a Rage Against the Machine article of my own.

The fog of chart war first began to form when the Facebook group “Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No.1” appeared on Facebook. The group was formed after X Factor winner Joe McElderry was predicted a Christmas number 1. Why shouldn’t he get the number 1 spot at Christmas? For the last 5 years the X Factor has been at the top of the charts at Christmas. As of writing this article the group has 948,854 members which isn’t taking into account the other numerous fan groups which have since appeared. The only group I can find in support of Joe is, “Lets Get Joe McElderry to Christmas No.1”, which boasts just over 1,100 members.

At first it was easy to become sceptical about the whole matter. Personally I am fed up with how the X Factor dominates the charts and how fame descends upon the chosen individual as some sort of divine power. The more pressing problem is how Simon Cowell was rumoured to be benefitting from the whole rebel outbreak against the X Factor. Apparently Cowell has shares in Sony but research as shown me that this is in fact untrue. Whilst Cowell did establish Syco Music, this is a division from Sony. So Sony did very well out of this debacle, the only extra profit Cowell may have made would have been through some extra sales of Joe’s single but other than that everything is OK.

The best news about the Rage Against the Machine campaign was when it was announced that the profits would go to the charity Shelter. This not only made Rage Against the Machine a rebellion choice for unhappy people to select but also the charitable one. So far Shelter has received over £60,000 of donations.

A confident HMV spokesman(…)

As we come to the end of a decade I have also reached the end of an era. The first blog which I set up on the internet, asuperfluousramble.com, has now ceased to be. It was set up February 2006 and acted as a giant diary detailing my steps through life. Steps are not always physical though and the multiple articles discussing my thoughts upon religion and philosophy dominated its readership and gained an impressive following.

Those of you who have followed my journey through the blogosphere will know that as I have grown older my writing style has changed which impacted upon how I was viewed as an author. It isn’t that my interests no longer remain in religion and philosophy but instead that people change.

I consider it no personal obligation that I should hide what my views of the Universe are. Those who know my writing well will know that I am an atheist. Some of you will know of the academic reasons to what swayed my thoughts in such a direction. Asuperfluousramble.com ended up being a blog almost entirely focused upon atheism.

As my journey through the blogosphere has progressed, the years have grown upon me and I have come to a point which I consider more mature. I am in no position to criticise the beliefs of any individual. It would be wrong of me to do so and at times my previous blog stepped over the line of civility to what I would regard as irrational, rude and indecent. Some of the posts were reaction posts and for those I still support. I cannot help it if my academic musings cause offence to the targeted individual. Only that I am comfortable with the beliefs in life I have reached.

The game of keeping a blog entirely focused upon religious/secular matters is immature in many ways if the sole purpose of it is to criticise contrary members of the online community. Nothing is achieved as each post is simply a decry(…)

As a keen user and avid supporter of Wordpress I thought I would share with you my top 10 WordPress plugins. All of which are being used on this blog. Enjoy!

1. AJAXed WordPress – A superb plugin which allows for the neat ajax expanding feature for posts on this blog. It also has the ability to make your whole WordPress ajaxed. In many cases it can make blogs load quicker and become more responsive.

2. WP-SpamFree – Without this plugin I may have left the blogosphere for good. It has stopped 100% of spam messages penetrating this website and has made my life a lot easier.

3. Lifestream – This is also known as the “Social Stream” on this website. All you do is type in the URLs of your different social networking accounts and then it will list all of your activities. I find it far more effective than just choosing specialised plugins for single social networking websites.

4. WordPress PDA & iPhone – I only installed this plugin a couple of weeks ago and so far I have been very impressed with it. View this website using an iPhone or a PDA and you will see why!

5. WP Super Cache – 7 months ago a lot of users were sending me emails saying that the website was taking ages to load. Turns out that the pages were loading too much bulky php code. This plugin caches all of your blog’s pages and converts them to html for quick loading. There are various settings to allow caching intervals.

6. podPress – A very clever and useful plugin that creates an RSS feed of all rich media content. All the podcasts on this website are managed through podPress, including the ability for the flash streaming applet.

7. NextGEN Gallery – If you have taken lots of photos and want to show them off in a stylish way then this is the plugin for you. The admin side of things takes a little bit to get used to but this is by(…)

In light of the Guardian news iPhone application it seems appropriate for me now to discuss my ideas with how Journalism is changing in the 21^st Century. Perhaps more appropriately how we will see journalism change as we reach the end of a decade.

As John Stuart wrote in the second chapter of his essay ‘On Liberty’ it is necessary for journalists to have the right of free speech as long as there is not a breach of the Human Rights Act of 2000. As of yet there is no formal constitution in the UK to stop the right for free speech and the only possible opposable would have been the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. Although many prosecutions were not carried out and were not done in the name of limiting free speech but instead focused on the liability of published articles.

It is undeniable in my view though that although the law will act as reinforcement against articles which may breach certain ethical guidelines it will ultimately be the power of individuals who will control the reactions towards published articles. We saw a few weeks ago that the Daily Mail journalist, Jan Moir, was ridiculed by the communities of social networks for her homophobic article concerning the late Stephen Gately. It was not the Daily Mail which became under attack by users but instead the journalist herself.

This suggests that journalists in the 21^st Century will be required to brand themselves as brands of their own specific type of journalism. The Guardian news iPhone application has highlighted this with the ability to favourite certain journalists and view their own content. In many ways this change could be likened to how authors have to act within the blogosphere. A blog is not only known for the subject it tackles but usually, especially in the case with smaller blogs, who the author is behind each post.

Rupert Murdoch has explained that the days of free news content on the internet are over as online(…)