NDM 50

Social media – a shining light in F1 amid the darkness

Article

For all its problems however, F1 has got one thing right at least - embracing social media has saved the sport from further penury. Bernie Ecclestone has always been vocal in downplaying the importance of social media, but the 85-year-old has had to finally give in and grudgingly start to use the medium to reach out to fans.

The teams and drivers already use social media widely, and fans have flocked in numbers. The platform certainly has its pros and cons, but the onus is on the user to make the best use of it.

For the teams and drivers, social media became an easy way to not only promote themselves but also reward the average fans for their continued support. And for the fans, the medium has given them a chance to voice their love for the sport and get recognised for their involvement.

NDM 49

Will Baltimore Use Social Media to Prosecute Rioters?

Article

"I don't think that there is a strong popular push in Baltimore for further rioting arrests," says David Jaros, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore. "I have a very strong suspicion that the mayor's comments about using social media to arrest more rioters is something that is going to quickly fall by the wayside as not necessarily the most effective use of resources."

Baltimore police wouldn't need to rely solely on tips from the community and have previously used facial recognition software to identify suspects by comparing online images to more than 2.1 million pictures on law enforcement databases. 

Services such as NetClean are also developing ways to help police track down offenders by helping identify connections between crimes and media posted on social networks. NetClean product manager Johann Hofmann says metadata from images and video can show the exact GPS coordinates of where an image was taken, the serial number of the camera being used, and the exact time the shot was taken. The service also uses a Microsoft facial recognition tool called PhotoDNA, which can help match faces in social media postings to images in a large database. The service, according to Hofmann, is already being used in Baltimore and other jurisdictions around the world in child abuse investigations involving online images.

NDM 48

IS SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE DECLINE? TWITTER, YELP, AND LINKEDIN REPORT STAGNANT USER BASES

Article

All told, hundreds of millions of people across the world use the major social mediasites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. This suggests a robust user base that gives the impression that social media is still in demand, yet last week’s earnings reports, which shed some light on user engagement, from three of the big players in the industry suggest otherwise.

Last week saw Twitter and LinkedIn come out with earnings. Yelp — which isn’t traditionally regarded as a social media site, per se — was among those companies that issued reports. The common trend among all three major names was that data on their respective user numbers was disappointing. Accordingly, investors punished the companies’ stocks with strong selloffs after the earnings were released. Only Facebook, which released its earnings back in April, seemed to be doing well.

NDM 47

How social media hijacked the Met Ball

Article

People on Social Media, went crazy after seeing the outfits of a few celebs. Beyonce (pictured) received a good reception from twitter users, however, Rihanna didn't get a good a good reception as they said her dress looked like a condom, pizza and even an omelet.

NDM 46

Conservatives give BBC warning of licence fee freeze

Article

The Conservatives are looking to freeze the prices of TV licence, which will save the consumer money. TV Licence cost about £145 a year, and the conservatives vow to keep that price the same, giving the consumer more money to spend on other things. Also, this will affect the BBC because they may have less money in real terms because of inflation and may not be able to give services the same services that they did before. 

By doing this, local newspapers will benefit as BBC news may have to go because it does not generate any money. This is a strategy to get news corp back more money, which they can intern invest in the conservative government.“Local newspapers are an important source of information for local communities and a vital part of a healthy democracy. To support them as they adapt to new technology and changing circumstances, we will consult on the introduction of a business rates relief for local newspapers in England.”

NDM 45

#NotSilent: join the social media campaign to remember Anne Frank

Article

As today marks the 70th anniversary of Anne Frank, instead of having a minutes silence for it, the Anne Frank's trust thought it would be fitting for them to read out sections from her book and post to on social media with the hashtag 'Not Silent.' This seemed very fitting as Anne Frank had to be silent, when in hiding, but used writing as her way to let things out. 

Wineman stressed the importance of Frank’s testimony: “At her age, she was absolutely brilliant: to speak the way she spoke about everything, and to keep her courage the way she did … she would have gone on to be a great fighter and a great human being.”

NDM 44

Labour vows to protect media plurality and implement Leveson proposals

Article

If Ed Milliband gets elected, he will but a stop to large business owning the media. The labour part do not want people like Rupret Murdoch and News Corp to own most of the media, giving them an advantage of getting their views across and making the most profit from the media. They will be setting a cap of 34% This means that News Corp will have to get rid of one of their products. This challenges Pareto's law as it now can mean that more companies can make more profit and it leads to more competition in the media industry. 

“We made a promise to victims of the phone-hacking scandal. We stand by that promise and will keep it.” Due to the phone hacking scandal, labour wants to protect people from that happening again, and in order for them to do so, they think they should cut out the monopolies in the media.