Socializing With The Media

Years ago you would walk by a newsstand in my hometown in Brazil and would see a group of people reading the headlines of major newspapers and magazines. They would stand there for minutes discussing the news and depending on how busy a person's schedule was, he or she would buy one issue and sit around for hours reading it. It was such a nice feeling that brought people and the media together in a warm and simple way. Nowadays, sadly, I don't see this anymore. What I see is a lot of people looking down at this tiny bright screen, most of the time with their headphones on playing some loud music. Don't get me wrong, I love technology, but there is something exciting about having to wait for the newspaper the next day to learn about what is going on in Japan for example. 

But with technology, news spread much faster and efficient than the 'old days'. A journalist can simple type an article and share with millions at no cost. And growing the audience is easier than it was in the last decade. We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube as one of the main platforms to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world with internet.

Some breaking news websites can make it an exciting games for readers to follow everything they post and make it easy to share the content, creating one of the best "word of mouth" to advertise their news website/publications.

For this assignment we are required to compare two organizations' social media presence, so I decided to pick ET Online and E!Online, two of the biggest entertainment news sites. They both have a TV show dedicated to celebrities and anything related to the entertainment world of music, films, fashion and TV. 

Twitter: 

E!Online has good headlines that make boring news, sort of exciting. They write exactly what would make people either watch the show or click on the link they shared. 

Another point I noticed is that they invite followers and viewers either online or live on TV to comment and share everything on twitter by using hashtags. They create more engagement with the audience and it can be really cool to watch a show and find your tweet mentioned on national TV.

They also do post often daily and retweet followers frequently. They also engage viewers by asking questions on TV and twitter and by posting pictures with a link to the website that make people comment and share.

ET Online is a little different. Their headlines aren't that great and they use boring hashtags. They also don't seem to retweet a lot or engage with followers as they should. They also have a lot less followers on Twitter, an average of 265.000, while E!Online has over 5.5 million followers. 

Facebook: 

ET Online has a little over 700.000 followers on Facebook while E!Online has 2.1 million. But with Facebook ET Online does a better than with Twitter, specially in terms of engaging with the public, they share links, photos and ask questions that get people talking. 

Instagram:

They both have an online presence with Instagram and do a nice job sharing their content with cool headlines and also engaging followers by asking their opinions. But E!Online is still ahead in numbers of followers!

Martha Sachser by Dicky Fung

American Dream turns Reality

       Martha Sachser, a 26-year-old sophomore student from Hunter College, is purchasing her American dream in becoming a full time photographer in addition to landing a job related to Brazilian publications. Being born and raised in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Sachser went from having over 20 pets at her farm which includes dogs, cats, turtles, chickens, goats, horses, and ducks to living in her Astoria, Queens’s home. Her interests include being a photographer and blogging. Sachser’s dream is to land a job in which she will get paid for what she loves to do, which also includes a job of her career choice and finally raising a big family. Never having to face pressure  from her family, Sachser is very driven into succeeding so she can make her father proud. Martha Sachser is fully focused on finishing school in 2 years so she can start her career on full gear.

                Sachser was the first one in her family to come to America. She decided to come because she wanted to pursue something bigger, something she felt like she could not complete in Brazil. Unfortunately, her father passed away 5 months later, as it was the hardest thing she had to ever encounter. So she decided to stay in America, where “Thanks to TV and Internet I was had a strong connection with America and the way people live here.” Sachser felt like she was at home. She could not handle the memories of her father if she had moved back to Brazil. Eventually Sachser convinced her mother and brother to move to New York with her.

                Sachser  loves photography ever since she was little,  she would spend hours digging through her mother’s closet trying to find all the family photos, trying to force her memory to see if she could remember what happened on the day that particular picture was taken. She loved freezing moments forever and she decided to do this for others. What inspires her is her own life and her love for special moments. It is her wish to have every memory photographed so she wants to try to offer this to others and do it with love as if they were her own.

                  Sachser wants to be remembered as a good person, a great family member, and a strong fearless woman who worked hard to achieve her dreams. If you want a chance to meet her, you may catch her taking photographs in her favorite places in New York City which include The Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park, or Times Square. 

Globo x MSN

In today's world I admitt that I check news websites less than I used to before Facebook and other online social network existed. But when I do, is usually through a link that someone shared on their timeline or when I want to understand what is going on in the world or feel like I am missing out on important information. For this, there are two websites that I tend to go, one Brazilian and one very much American. The reason for that is that I like to compare the way they deliver the news, how something that happens here can be translated to Portuguese and keep the information intact.  And also because it's easier for me to understand when the article published is written in my first language. 

Well, I came up with 5  reasons why I like and dislike some of the websites that I check and here are they:
1) The Brazilian website, which is the Globo.com website:
They have the news posted in an entertaining way, with big letters, colors and pictures, so I have a preview of what it is about. It makes it easy to find information and click on what appeals to my eyes.

Another reason why I check them is that they are part of the main Brazilian television channel, Globo, so it ads credibility to what I read. 

Besides that, I like how there is entertainment mixed with hard news and some cool stuff, like youtube videos that went viral or fun technology information. That way, if I don't wanna be upset reading about tragedies and all that, I can click on the next news next to it.

Another good thing is that they have websites linked to it that takes you to your favorite tv shows in Brazil as well as some magazines that have their pages linked to Globo.com. You can also check the weather, and Dolar value on the main page, so it makes it a cool place to get all that you need.

One thing I like is that stories get featured on top of the website according to their relevance in different subjects: sports, soap operas (Brazilians are obsessed with them), crimes, politics...

Things I don't like about it is that they can go weeks delivering the same tragedy story but once people forget about it, they are not good with keeping people informed to What happened to that story. I feel they should do better in this matter. I don't think there is anything major that I don't like about the website, since I always go there to check what is going on. 

MSN

MSN- even though is one of the major news websites, I am not a big fan of MSN.com. To begin with, some of the headlines are too short for me, so I have to click on the link to find out more about the story and sometimes aren't that interesting. They lose points with younger generations that need information fast and they need it now.

Also, the layout in general is not appealing to me, since  I am very into visual, like photos and videos, there should be more images to make it interesting to me and younger generations. But at the same time, maybe this is not the target audience they want. 
And despite the little slideshow/photo animation at the top, it still doesn’t keep up with all the visual required to make news entertaining. 

What I like about it is that it is a credible website. So I might check it once in a while and tend to believe in what they publish.

Another thing that I don't like is that the letters are a bit too small for me and makes me confused when looking for information, it's not very easy to find even though they separate per topics.

A website that also I don’t check much but I could compare to, is Yahoo.com. They do have a better newsfeed with appealing  texts  and photos and the website is somehow organized, fun, making you feel like you can stay there and get all that you need.

Back to MSN, The reason why some stories are featured and others not might have to be related with their target audience I guess. Or even time of the day, etc. Overall it is a good news website, but it doesn't appeal to me, too crowded or too boring some times.