The Troll

Here is Wikipedia's definition of an internet troll:  someone who posts inflammatory,^[3] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response^[4] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

Here is a picture of a troll:

His name is Michael Brutsch.  He is a man with seemingly no sense of "write and wrong".  On a reddit.com website and over the course of several years he posted pictures of underage girls in their underwear, pregnant women, jokes about rape and kinds of other inappropriate material.

Not until he was outed on Gawker.com did he admit to any wrongdoing and even then his remorse was over losing his job, benefits and house, not over anything he did.

One thing that gets me, however, is that at one point Reddit conferred on Mr. Brutsch a trophy for his contribution to the site, most likely because these types of posts - admittedly directed to college students - were creating good traffic for them.  Shame on them. 

The good news to me is that the same media that is capable of enabling such trolls is also capable of outing them.  I will ALWAYS cheer for successful self-policing of any organization.

Here are my Free Holiday Music ad screen shots. I want it to run from October 15 to October 31, so I'm going to go ahead and let it run.  Wish me luck.

What a way to watch a debate?! 

With iPad (tuned in to Twitter) in one hand, and the TV remote in the other, I watched the first presidential debate on Wednesday night.  Here's how it went:

At first I tried watching each candidate's Facebook pages, but couldn't see any new posts until after the debate was over.

While watching, I used hash tags to see what others were thinking about the debates.  I first used "#debates" about 10 minutes before they started.  That brought up several interesting tweets such as offers to follow certain tags that would count the lies of each candidate.  I decided I would come back to that one, but later when I tried to find it again I couldn't.  So I tried #romneylies and #obamalies, which produced comments saturated with heavy emotion.  I was disappointed to see how few - on either side - actually specified anything about the perceived lie, either what the lie was or any evidence that it was a lie.  Most were things like, "I hate this guy. You can just tell he's lying" or "I'm so tired of his lies".  I did try challenging them a few times, asking them for more, but never got any response. 

I also tagged specific issues like "taxes" and "deficit" and usually got tweets from the candidates' own camps.  There were some, however, who did seem to have done some homework and either quoted their own facts or refuted those the candidate was referencing. 

There were a few tweets talking about the venue and  the lack of audience reaction (imposed by the moderator). I found I agreed with them. What was entertaining to me were the tweets about things like neckties and smirks and who touched whose arm.  There are some very funny comedians out there!  The best was the post on FB that came out the next day with a Photo Shopped image of the two candicates wearing each other's hair. 

The tweets I read had a surprising effect on me.  Before this experience I often felt the division between those who support President Obama and those who support Mitt Romney was as wide as the ocean and that there was no in between.  But there was ample evidence that out there in the country somewhere are many, many people like me who see the good in both men and even though we have our reasons for leaning one way or the other, we see that the world may not completely collapse if the election doesn't go the way we want it to.

Did what I saw change my opinions about the candidates?  Yes.  They were made stronger.  I felt Romney won, hands down.  His rhetoric was filled with nuts and bolts of the way things are and the way things could be.  While Pres. Obama had some of that, I felt his responses were based more on emotion and trying to placate the various cultures in the country.  It's the same concern I have with his tenure as president.  The polls may not agree with me, but I still feel Mitt Romney would be the better president.

What a way to watch TV!  I'll be doing it the same way for the future debate.

Lost in Translation

The more challenges I encounter in researching my context assignment the more excited I am about it.  Actually the only real correlation between my excitement and my challenges is that they are happening simultaneously.

Current challenge? Translating everything from FB pages to government docs from Chinese to English.  Heh, heh!  What a way to spend a lunch hour!

In the meantime, I'm trying to implement what I've learned in the class on my web site, Twitter, Linked-In and especially my FB page.  Not that you'll notice, but I'm trying.

Kathleen

It is my goal to activate the social media presence of Music House Publications by doing the following things:

1. Maintaining a live and active Facebook page by posting to it daily a new tip or a link to new or existing music score.
2. Pursuing an ongoing relationship with our customers through interaction on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

I intend to make my pages compelling by frequently adding photos of the title pages from our library of scores and by offering tips on either performance or composition by our composers and arrangers.  This will hopefully help create loyalty between customers and composers.

Finally, it is my conviction to be a good manager of my social media presence by monitoring statistics of visits, likes, etc. and adjusting my plan accordingly.

MHP Mission Statement

It is the mission of Music House Publications to provide 2 services:  giving the general public high quality sheet music scores and giving composers and arrangers an easy and effective way to share their music.

To provide high quality music, each score is checked carefully for mistakes in the rules of theory and form as well as the engraving itself.  We also work hard to provide music which is pertinent to the current needs of our customers in terms of instrumentation and voicing.

To provide a way for composers and arrangers to share their music, MHP allows them to keep the copyright for their scores and requires no exclusivity.  Unlike the paper publishers, we also do not filter our acceptance of new scores by what is currently selling.

Music House Publications' enjoys a friendly relationship with a growing number of customers and composers with whom we share one priority: sharing good music.

Facebook Page URL

Here is the URL to my Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-House-Publications/107351875977379#!/

It needs a ton of work and 6 more likes before I can get the "insights".

Thanks,

Kathleen