In-Text Citations and Works Cited--Again

At this point you have had several opportunities to refresh your knowledge of copying MLA format. It ain't neurosurgery. It doesn't require thinking.

Many students have done well. Some have confused past MLA formats with the current, which is understandable. Finally there are those who by all appearances of their work don't give a damn. You should because a poorly maintained, work-cited paper could cost you at least one letter grade, a waste. Citing works is an act of generosity that could save a reader hours of research and that takes only a minute of clerical time for the writer. In other words, if you don't give a damn about the works you have cited, you don't give a damn about the reader. If you don't give a damn about the reader, you probably won't write nearly well enough for the reader to care about what you think.

Format for Words Cited Page for the NYTimes article in the "Where's Waldo..." Posting:

Brustein, Joshua. "Tag-Along Marketing." NYTimes. 7 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Let's presume the NYTimes did not give the article a byline. Here's how the Works Cited listing would appear:

"Tag-Along Marketing." NYTimes. 7 Nov. 2010. Web. 10 Nov. 2010.

Can you vary the punctuation at your pleasure? Sure. Can you capitalize words as you see fit? Why not? There would be a problem, though: You would be wrong. Your grade would suffer. 

Should I quote Brustein, how would the in-text citation appear?

"Everything is in place for location-based social networking to be the next big thing" (Brustein).

What would happen if the article did not have a byline? Keywords from the article's title.

"Everything is in place for location-based social networking to be the next big thing" (Tag-Along).

Deadlines for Semester's End

• Plain text and Word cover letters/resumes--Nov. 10 at 11:59 pm.
• Draft of long report--Nov. 13 at 11:59 pm.
• Final version of long report--Nov. 29 at 11:59 pm.
• PowerPoint Presentation (should you want to present using PowerPoint or Impress)--Nov. 30 at 11:59 pm.
• Presentations. Attendance mandatory. Dec. 1, 6, and 8.
• Final versions of resumes and cover letters as well as extra credit assignments--Dec. 8 at 11:59 pm. Nothing accepted beyond that deadline.

Where's Waldo? Where's Wanda? Where's Walter? Finding People with Mobile Devices

"As of August, only 4 percent of American adults who used the Internet also used location-based services, which allow people to “check in” to physical locations via their cellphones to earn coupons or keep up with friends, the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project reported last week," writes New York Times reporter Joshua Brustein. "And only 1 percent of Internet users are on such services on any given day, an indication that those who do use the services still have not integrated them into their daily lives." The question is why? Do they know about the services? If yes, then is it a privacy issue?

Users Limit Facebook Fav's

"More than ever, social media users are including brands in their list of friends and follows but according to the 2010 Cone Consumer New Media Study, five is the magic cutoff number," according to Cynthia Boris of MarketingPilgrim.

"So, who cares?" goes the non-inquisitive, short-sighted, wanna-be business executive, posing as a student.

Marketers do. They do not want their products or services to be number six, thereby not making it on someone's likes, missing the opportunity to be noticed by some 100-300 Facebook "friends." It's not missing one site, marketers fear. It is not being posted on scores or hundreds of sites.

So with the release of the study, marketers using social networking sites will find themselves not only  competing with their competitors, they will be competing with any company promoting any product on the same social networks for a slot on individual's likes list.

Different Way of Looking at Sites

"Today, the paradigm has flipped. No longer is the marketer's site the only destination and often it is not even the primary one," according to ClickZ. "Site content and traffic are used to multiply traffic and expand potential customer base through a host of powerful social tools to encourage sharing and other "social" behaviors that build audience, sales, brand equity, and loyalty. While there are clearly powerful strategies, tools, and programs to engage with your customers socially, 'socializing' your site is a critical component of an overall social marketing strategy."

MySpace Attempts to Revive Itself

ClickZ reports that "even as it labors to reverse audience declines through a sharpened focus on entertainment content, MySpace hopes new investments in ad products and consumer research will keep brand advertisers interested."

McDonald's Twests McRibs

"McDonald's purchased Twitter's Promoted Trend for Friday to push its "McRib" sandwich, which has been momentarily reintroduced to its menu. According to industry sources, an all-day Promoted Trend purchase costs around $80,000," according to ClickZ.

The Digital Divide Finally Getting Bridged

eMarketer released a study showing that "The infamous 'digital divide' is finally showing real signs of narrowing, as more and more research gives evidence of rising home broadband usage among black adults. Earlier research already showed this market owned more cell phones—and used more of their features—than other demographic groups."

Meanwhile "Pew Research Center says online Hispanics use location-based services more than any other demographic, as 10 percent of those surveyed had recorded a check-in. That number is noticeably higher than black (5 percent) and white (3 percent) online Americans checking in," according to a ClickZ post.

Gap Giving Away Jeans on Facebook/And Others Such as McDonald's, Starbucks, and Others

"One day in the near future, Facebook says, Gap will give away a free pair of jeans for the first 10,000 check-ins via Places. And that's how Facebook today announced - among other measures - a 'Deals' platform for business promotions that was recently rumored to be in development," according to a ClickZ post. 'In the coming weeks, the self-service platform will be made available to the thousands of businesses with a Facebook Page,' according to the Palo Alto, CA-based social media giant. In addition to the Gap promotion, Facebook said The North Face will give $1 to charity for any user who checks in at a store or a national park. Other launch partners include Palms Casino Resort, Alamo Drafthouse, and the NBA's Golden State Warriors. After unveiling the five premiere launch partners, Facebook showed a slide depicting 22 brands - from a wide variety of niches - that it says will soon be using 'Deals.' They included McDonald's, Starbucks, H&M, Macy's, National Park Foundation, the NFL's San Francisco 49ers, and universities like Texas Tech and Nebraska...."

Google Expands Its Ad Network into the Mobile Market

ClickZ reports that "A year after it agreed to buy mobile ad network AdMob for $750, Google has taken its first step to integrate the unit with its own ad business. AdMob's Android and iPhone application publishers will soon be able to fill their unsold inventory with Google AdSense ads, letting advertisers extend their mobile campaigns across AdMob’s network."

Will Streaming Movies Clog the Net?

The possibility exists. Concern is rising that as companies such as Netflix offer streaming videos, the Internet will not have the broadband capacity to keep up. Think it will not happen. Just remember the end of last semester. Demand for access to the Web increased. Students were researching papers, running their IM's and Twitter accounts, downloading songs, listening to Internet radio, watching videos, reading emails, playing online video games--all of which is data that must be transmitted. Transmission slowed, frustrating you especially when you needed to download something now. Why did it slow? The transmission cables can handle only so much data. As demand for data increased, the system slowed. Imagine that problem on a national scale, which is precisely what happened recently in Canada.

Slate reported the following:

On Sept. 22, Netflix began offering its streaming movie service in Canada. This was Netflix's first venture outside of the United States, and because the company wasn't offering its traditional DVD-by-mail plan to Canadians, its prospects seemed questionable. How many people would pay $7.99 per month (Canadian) for the chance to watch Superbad whenever they wanted?

A lot, it turns out. According to Sandvine, a network management company that studies Internet traffic patterns, 10 percent of Canadian Internet users visited Netflix.com in the week after the service launched....Netflix videos quickly came to dominate broadband lines across Canada...At peak hours (around 9 p.m.) the service accounted for more than 90 percent of the traffic on one Canadian broadband network.

It's not just Canada. Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth, too, and it probably won't be long before it comes for the rest of the world. That's one of the headlines from Sandvine's Fall 2010 Global Internet Phenomena Report...According to Sandvine, Netflix accounts for 20 percent of downstream Internet traffic during peak home Internet usage hours in North America.... [Netflix] seems sure to keep growing....

Over time, we've shifted away from "asynchronous" applications toward "real-time" apps. Every year, that is, we're using more of our bandwidth to download stuff we need right now, and less for stuff we need later." Sandvine's 2008 report (PDF) showed that all the applications that saw big increases in traffic were dependent on real-time access...

What does that mean for Internet marketing? Should the Net slow or clog, creating long waits that were common years ago before broadband, people will not use the Web as frequently as they do today, giving them less opportunity to see the ads.

Creating a Super [Vertical] Blog from Other Blogs--Something Like This

WordPress.com, a supplier of free blog space much like Blogger, created a "vertical - a site called FoodPress in which it aggregates content written by its food bloggers [, meaning bloggers who use WordPress].  Each day, FoodPress will feature snippets of food-related posts." That is the report from MarketingVox. Why would WordsPress want a blog about what's already blogged? Convenience for the reader, much as this site aggregates content from Websites and blogs. With the greater diversity of content and the more selective the content, WordPress.com hopes to generate readers, which will attract advertisers.

Stats Indicating Growth of U.S. Internet Marketing

"Ads on Facebook reached almost two thirds of U.S. Internet users in September, according to data from comScore. The online measurement company estimates 62.4 percent of all U.S. users were exposed to Facebook ads over the course of the month," says a ClickZ report.

In a separate story the website noted, "Online video ads reached almost half of the U.S. online population in September, according to data from comScore. The measurement firm estimates 45.4 percent of users viewed at least one video ad over the course of the month, but were exposed to an average of 32.2 each."

Meanwhile comScore also says that "Yahoo's [ad] network continues to reach more U.S. users than any other, with 85.9 percent audience penetration. AOL Advertising and Google's Ad Network follow it, with 85.7 and 82.7 percent, respectively, followed by ValueClick and Turn Media," according to another ClickZ posting.

Finally, "Google and Yahoo sites continued to attract the most unique U.S. users to their properties in September, according to comScore. Yahoo saw a slight drop in traffic versus August however, while Google saw a gain, handing the latter the top spot for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued its growth among U.S. users, reaching 148.4 million of them over the course of the month."