Blog 4 – Are Cell Phones, the Internet, and Social Media taking over TV?

The internet and social media have flourished over the last 40 years and exponentially in the past 20 years.

Look at how far we’ve come!

During Expo 1967, I recall visiting a kiosk where they had a landline telephone. When you made a call from the landline, you could see your face reflected on a monitor screen in front of you. I recall thinking to myself we would, in the not-so-distant future, walk around with a portable phone and be able to see the person we were talking to from their phone. Fast forward several decades later, that insight has become a reality.

From Audio to Video

After Alexander Graham Bell discovered the telephone in 1876, research and development into a portable videophone became his focus. Although he had the intuitive idea and insight on how it should function, he never achieved that dream. Others eventually forged ahead with this idea. This notion progressed into the invention of television.  Subsequently, a video conference from a landline phone

Evolution of television 1920-2020

with a video camera combination came about. According to Wikipedia, it would seem that the first portable videophone created by a Japanese company in 1983 came on the market sometime around 1986. This portable videophone could be attached to a television monitor for clearer video reception. For more detailed facts about the advancement of television and telephone (landlines, vehicular, and portable units), check out this great article. Approximately 25 years later, around 2010 facetime, (portable video conferencing) became available.

Black & white television – Pexels by Andre Moura

Fast forward to 2021, we can now watch television programs, movies, documentaries, have two-way or group video chats, send and receive email communication, text messaging all on our smartphones, tablets, and personal computers, instantaneously.

Zoom group call – Pexels by Anna Shvets

How much more can we expect?

We live in an electronic world. Television manufacturers are continuously improving visual and sound quality to make their units more attractive and enticing to consumers. You can purchase ambient televisions that morph into your background wall color, while others are as thin as a credit card or roll out of a cabinet, and some even double-sided. A large screen television gives you the feeling like you could step into it and partake in the program. Television stations and manufacturers have inter-married their products with electronic devices, having all sorts of streaming capabilities. With all of this available technology, people are multi-tasking. We are obsessed with television, all the while scrolling through our portable phones or tablets. We have become enslaved to television, never letting go of the remote, and constantly surfing stations – it is an addiction. We are tech addicts. Television is not going anywhere in the near future.

TV and hand holding remote – Pexels by JESHOOTS.com

What’s your thought on this? Do you think that TV will become a dinosaur and alternately replaced by social media, cell phones, and the internet?

REFERENCES:

Will the internet replace TV? | Trigger Happy Remote

Why the Internet Is About to Replace TV as the Most Important Source of News – The Atlantic

History of Mobile Cell Phones | The First Phone To Present Time (bebusinessed.com)

History of videotelephony – Wikipedia

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Can you foresee TV surviving? https://bit.ly/3sai5Nf

Will TV survive? https://bit.ly/3sai5Nf

Make it or Break it. The Bottom Line

For every business, the bottom line is profits. How can an enterprise ensure they are going to make it? If you are a small business, and you haven’t hired an outside agency to monitor things for you, then expect to spend countless hours trying to decipher where you stand. Larger institutions have in-house staff to take care of this or hire that work out to a social media monitoring conglomerate. 

How do I do this? Where do I go?

Pixabay – Woman with question marks around her

It can be overwhelming if you are in the process of establishing a new business. Where do you begin? Well, GetApp.com looks like it might be the answer if you didn’t know where to start. It is a brand management software company that helps you decipher what would work best for YOU. Their website states “Best comparison List of Vendor Application and Tools”. The first two paragraphs of their home page deliver a brief outline of what they offer. Below that information are questions to help businesses narrow down what suits them, as it is never a “one size fits all” situation. Here is a breakdown of some of those.

• the number of people in your organization 
• industry type
• filters if you want free access or varied subscription options for their software
• what types of devices you would like to support for monitoring purposes (phone, laptop, computer)
• organization types. Are you a private, not-for-profit, small business
• is it a global or more defined demographic
• most important, to me, would be star ratings of the various available monitoring platform from prior customers

YouTube video – What is Social Media Monitoring?

Similarities

It operates similarly to an on-line holiday booking platform like Travelocity, Cheap Flights, or Trivago with all of its filters. You get to pick your destination, hotel, star rating for your hotel, airline transportation, time of departure, and so on. When I decide to book a holiday, I usually do it through a travel agency. I always check prices, location, facilities, customer comments, and star ratings before booking my holiday.

Relax!

Do you think this is a fantastic option for businesses? Would you invest your money into this type of monitoring marketing platform? Why not take the guesswork out of the equation. Wouldn’t you rather be doing this? Hire a professional.

Person sitting on top of mountain overlooking a lake

REFERENCES:

How Brands use Social Media Listening to Measure Success – YouTube

Brand Management Software 2021 – Best Application Comparison | GetApp®

Travelocity | Cheap Hotels, Flights, Vacations & Travel Deals

Flights Deals under $99, Airlines Tickets Under $99 (cheapflightsfares.com)

trivago.ca – Compare hotel prices worldwide

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Blog # 3 – Social Media Measurement and Monitoring

Social Media’s Bottom Line for Businesses https://bit.ly/3rPDD1s

Select Your Perfect Social Media Monitoring Platform. https://bit.ly/3rPDD1s

COM0011 – Blog 2 DO WE LOVE THOSE EMOJI, EMOTICONS, ANIMOJI and MEMOJI?

Do you feel like I do? When I think of an emoji, emoticon, or animoji, it takes me back to my elementary school days, when you got rewarded with stickers from the teacher for your accomplishment. 

😊👍💖😘✨🎁🐱‍💻🌹😎🤞😁👩‍🦰🥨🥓🥗🚲🧭🏝💥☮🛑✅🆗

Do you think that today’s virtual on-line presence of the use of emoji, visually express different emotions and reflections of fulfillment? Do you think emoji (depictions of faces, people, animals, nature, food, drinks, activities, travel, places, objects, symbols, and flags), viewed daily, on various social media platforms, create a whole new on-line interpretation and relationship? Think of it another way – what has on-line conversations with the inclusion of emoji been able to project? Are you physically feeling an emotional response with the addition of an emoji in a text? 

A face to face conversation is expressive. When you add facial expressions, emotions, and different pitches to your words, it takes on a whole other meaning. It could insinuate judgment, acquiescence, opposition, ridicule, amusement, to name a few. You know, the phrase “giving you the look”, or the “eyes give it all away”. Do you believe these emoji bring a whole other dimension and perspective to non-verbal or non-word communication rather than the written word?

THEIR HISTORY

First came Emoticon, then the Emoji, and now Animoji (animated emoji). Did you know that half of all Instagram posting now contain some sort of emoji, emoticon, or animoji? The iPhone 11, now allows your animoji to act and look like a robot. You chose your animoji or a memoji, record your voice message, forward it in a text, and it plays back with capabilities that mimic your body movements and facial expressions that you projected while speaking and recording your message. What can we expect next in the virtual world?

You Tube – How to Use Animoji with iPhone 11

The first emoticons appeared in one of the issues of Puck magazine in 1981. 4 faces were published in the magazine, which were meant to convey astonishment, joy, indifference, and melancholy. They were called “typographical art”.

The first use of an emoticon online dates back to1982. Scott Elliott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University proposed “:-)” to be used as a “joke marker” in a message.

Emojis, smiley faces, hearts, winking eyes, were created in 1998 by Shigetaka Kurita, an engineer at the Japanese phone company, NTT Docomo. His job was to create a way for customers to communicating using icons. His efforts resulted in the creation of 176 icons, which he called “emojis.” the name is driven from 2 Japanese words “e” (picture) and “moji” (character)

As of March 2020, there were 3304 emoji, and another 217 scheduled for release in 2021 as per Unicode Standard. You can view all of the emoji on the Unicode Standard page.

Emoji, when uploaded to various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google will differ in look based on the font used in each platform or app.

ENTERTAINMENT, “We’re no. 2”

You Tube – The Emoji Movie – Official Trailer (HD)

How about that “Emoji Movie”, with all of its colorful emoji depictions and cuteness geared to the younger generation. Having seen the movie myself, with my grandchildren, it made me laugh. However, it also made me feel agitated and worried. It was perfectly accomplished by the emoji parents’ characters in the movie. When you type a word, an approved emoji will pop up to insert in your text, rather than a word, but it might not always be the one you would use to express what you want to say. Choosing that memorable emoji can be a challenge for an effective online presence, and that is another type of internal battle in itself. I am a mature adult, and I wonder what it’s like for the younger generation. Do they feel the same, or do they simply take it in stride? It is a whole new visual vocabulary, as a code per se.

WHERE IS THIS TAKING US?

Presumingly, this new tool, created back in the ’80s, was harmless and intended for fun. However, like some technologies that started by being unoffensive, have been diverted and sent down an unrelated path and used for a different purpose, to the detriment of mankind. Hopefully, emoji tool will remain creative, playful and entertaining only, with no secondary hidden agenda.

References:

Why Do We Use Emoticons and Emojis? Science-Based Facts. – Pinngle blog

• Chart: In 2021, Global Emoji Count Will Grow to 3,353 | Statista

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DO WE LOVE THOSE EMOJI, EMOTICONS, ANIMOJI and MEMOJI? https://bit.ly/3pAw91R

DO WE LOVE THOSE EMOJI, EMOTICONS, ANIMOJI and MEMOJI? https://bit.ly/3pAw91R

COM0011 – BLOG 1 WHY TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE?

February, March, and April are usually problematic months for me mentally. I think I suffer from the seasonal affective disorder (SAD), although I never received this diagnosis. I decided to enroll in a 10-week intensive Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) class to keep busy. I have used some Chinese herbs for about 30 years. I thought it would be informative to explore and further my knowledge in TCM. Health and wellness are of interest to me, and using Chinese herbs, in the past, has always provided beneficial results. So why not?

The course required reading a book called The Web that has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. When I started reading and studying this book, I was intrigued by the subtle differences between Chinese medicine vs. diagnostics used by Western medicine. 

WHAT AND HOW DO YOU TAKE IT

Chinese medicines made up of herbs, sea material, bark, some animal parts that are either boiled into tea, tinctures, come in tea pills, capsules, tablets, incense, patches, oils, and balms.

Traditional Chinese Medicine cabinet – Pexels

Western medicine treats conditions. Doctors usually prescribe the same remedies across the board for everyone based on their symptoms. TCM looks at the person as an individual case and tailored-to-remedies given to their patient. A TCM practitioner will look into all of these features and more to make their assessment.

• seek information about birth, when, where, what season they were born in, what type of pregnancy/labor 
• although they don’t look at a symptom per se, TCM looks more at what meridian is affected and its connectivity to other pathways. The organs happen to be in that pathway or meridian
• ask them to recount their experience; when did it begin, how long, how has it affected their life 
• listen to the spoken words or not, relayed emotions, tone, and strength of voice
• what part of the body does it affect, not the organ but the effect it has on a specific organ
• is the body displaying hot, cold, dry, moist, or wet sensation
• in what season are they more affected
• does the wind, cold, heat, water affect them
• what type of foods do they prefer to eat (salty, sweet, bitter)
• how often they void, color, smell
• facial color
• how does the individual smell
• how do they move

A Beginner’s Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine – Food Stories (YouTube)

YOUR PULSE TELLS A LOT

One of the two most important diagnostics in TCM is your pulse. There are around 29 varying pulse types in TCM. Practitioners place their first three fingers at three positions just above the right wrist (heart, liver, kidney-yin) and left wrist (lungs, spleen, kidney- yang). See “Pulse Position Correspondences” (p. 209).

Woman in White Dress Shirt Sitting Beside Girl in White Long Sleeve Shirt taking child’s pulse – Pexels

WHAT’S WITH THAT TONGUE?

The second diagnostic tool is your tongue, and this may be the most important one. Your practitioner will examine your tongue to determine its color, coating, whether there are cracks in it, its shape, and movement. Examining the tongue is a roadmap to the inner-workings of your body. “It is often the clearest indication of the nature of a disharmony and its pattern, reliable even when other signs are vague and contradictory”. (p. 181)

Picture of tongue

HOORAY FOR ME

The instructor provided us with various websites to conduct our searches, to determine what herbs would be beneficial, each herb’s specific interaction with various parts of the body, and their contraindications. We also had the opportunity of doing six case studies of some of the students in the class, examined pictures of their tongues to decipher what they revealed about their bodies, and have our instructor comment on our examination skills. It was a formidable experience. 

Clapping hands – Pexels

Based on what I learned in class, I decided to use an herb blend called “The King of Combinations” (Bu Zhong Yi Qi Wan) to see if it would help with my blood pressure (BP) issues. I needed to wean off my diuretic pill as there was a contraindication indicated on the label. After doing so, over a period of two weeks, I commenced taking this new herb combination. Over the past six months, I have maintained my BP, my skin has softened, my leg cramps and burning sensation, and my coughing side effect from the diuretic have vanished. I no longer get up several times at night to void, and best of all, the last two months, I have noticed that my hair is slowly returning to its original color – my grey is disappearing. Do you think I have found the fountain of youth?

Reference:

Kaptchuk, Ted J. (2000). The web that has no weaver: Understanding Chinese medicine (2^nd ed).

The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Traditional Chinese Medicine – Ancient becomes new

What’s new with ancient Traditional Chinese Medicine