Google…….I mean Orkut

Orkut was a google owned and operated social media company that was founded in 2004, and was actually named after a google employee, the founder Orkut I honestly don’t even want to type his last name because it is too long. The platform was created as a way for people to connect with new and old friends, and grow relationships.

Orkut, unlike Facebook, originally allowed any of their users to visit any profile, even if they were not friends with that person. As one could imagine this was a poor idea and Orkut quickly changed their ways and allowed users to set their profiles to private so only their friends could view or set it so open, which allowed anyone to view their profile. Orkut was highly popular within the Brazilian community, so much so that Google decided that the headquarters for Orkut would be stationed within the country, because that was where the majority of their users were located. Only makes sense…..right?

Orkut went through the normal social media network troubles, of fake profiles as well as racism. The Brazilian government even required Google to pay 23k per day until they released the information of users that the government believed were using the site to sell drugs. This eventually became a platform that the benefits did not outweigh the problems, and Google decided to completely terminate the platform on September 30th 2014. While the platform had a good run of fourteen years, it never really picked up traction here in the United States, which maybe could have been enough to keep Orkut up and running……we will never know.

Everything in the Palm of Your Hand

In this day and time it seems that everyone is on social media, except for myself. The ease of being able to stay connected through a variety of apps and share your life with others is an amazing thing that draws people to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Having said that China may have discovered the future of social media that combines all of these popular platforms into one app, and even more. Weixin was created in 2011, and the app allowed users to use free in app texting features, like Facebook to communicate, as well as post memories or photos to share with their followers like Instagram, and also provided news updates like Twitter.

This was just the beginning, as Weixin has even provided their users to send and receive money in app, like paypal. They were turning this app into a one stop shop for anything that the user would want in a social media platform. The way that they kept expanding the app to stay ahead of all of the other platform, and basically taking what all users loved from each platform and combining them into one making it all available at the click of a button on the users smartphone was brilliant, and really changed the game for social media.

The app has expanded to other areas of Asia and has even began to gain some momentum in America, as the app has hundreds of millions of users around the globe. I know myself, I love when things are easy and this app makes everything about social media easy, if I want to open a news link I don’t have to pull up a new page it simply expands on my current page which means I never have to leave the app. It is the simple things like this that really attract me to the application and platform. This is the future of social media, and I see the platforms that are highly popular in the United States following this model in the near future.

Breast Cancer: What does it MEME?

I know that many people have been affected in some form or fashion by breast cancer, and we as a society have really supported October as being breast cancer awareness month. The color pink goes hand in hand with breast cancer awareness, and can be seen in every major sport throughout the entire month. The nfl does a great job of supporting this cause and their players buy in and wear as much pink as possible. This was great for raising the awareness for males, as we tend to watch more football and seeing our favorite players wearing pink cleats and gloves for the cause was a great way to draw the attention of males who were previously not aware. With that said, I was not aware of the meme that went viral that was having women simply post their name on a pink background on Facebook. I am not a person who uses social media so naturally I missed this, but like many good ideas social media took this positive awareness meme and pushed it into a more sexual direction. Women started posting that same pink background and answered two simple question, the last place they sat their purse and how long it takes them to fix their hair. The first questions answer would follow the statement I like it, and the second answer would be followed by the word inches. So a woman may post I like it on the chair and the next line would read 15 inches. While these posts were not specifically sexual the women were told not to explain to men what the posts meant. This created a sexually fused post that was trying to gain awareness for breast cancer, which is not the proper way to promote awareness for a life threatening disease. This meme, while having good intentions, missed the mark in my opinion. The idea was genius but the failure to correctly associate the memes with the cause is why this idea never really reached its true potential. Using social media to gain awareness and reach millions of people is a great tool for organizations but the proper planning and attention to detail must be utilized to ensure the right message is coming across.

Warby Parker: The new name in eye fashion?

In today’s world everyone seems as if they are in a hurry and time is a major factor in everyday life for the working community. Enter Warby Parker and their innovative online platform for ordering eye glasses that allows users to skip the visit to the doctors office that not only costs valuable time, but also can cost a significant amount of money. This up and coming eye glass company allows users to choose from inexpensive frames and lenses that can save them a great deal of money and also allow them to save the time that could be better spent elsewhere instead of going to the eye doctor. If you are like me then you try to avoid going to any form of doctor as much as possible, as the only time I go to the doctor at all is in the case of an emergency or if I run out of contact lenses and have to get a new prescription to obtain the contacts that I need to function in my everyday life. The hassle and time that is spent by going to the doctor is time that has to be either taken from work or taken from spending time doing something that I actually enjoy and would like to be doing. While we should all have our annual check ups and go to the dentist and eye doctor on a yearly basis, the truth is that most of us do not do this. In fact, my group of friends never go to any of these doctors, as the hassle without a problem to be fixed is not worth taking the time away from work or other activities. This company provides users with the service of ordering our frames and lenses online for prices that are significantly cheaper than those that we would receive at the eye doctor, which makes one question, Why even go to the eye doctor? What are the actual benefits of the eye doctor, barring an injury or significant medical issue? The answer may well be nothing, and Warby Parker is showing us that affordable and fashionable eye ware is available to us at the simple click of the mouse, which to us in today’s world is very important and the ease and accessibility of a source such as this will be utilized for many years to come.

References: Mahoney,M., & Tang. T (2017). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change. Retrieved from:

https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#books/9781118556900/cfi/6/2!/4/2/4@0:0.

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