Mike

Name: Michael Lifshitz Website 1: [] Analysis: The site that I chose for my college was UNC. They are in the process of redoing their website, so first I will talk about the one that is available right now. Their website is not that flashy and does not have any fancy animations or videos. It does have pictures of students and teachers and buildings. These pictures refresh every time you visit the website. These pictures give you an idea of college life and make everything seem very interesting to people who may be interested in going to the school. They do have Facebook and Twitter, but they are not labeled and are rather low down on the main page. One thing that is interesting about the location is that the links for their Facebook and Twitter is right above the “Give to Carolina” link. This placement is very strategic. They probably expect a lot of alums to become Facebook friends or Twitter followers, so when they try to find that they will see the link to donate and they will decide to donate some money to the school. They also use their Twitter to provide information about events at the school. They also have an iTunes U account where you can find lectures from the school. Not only does this allow the kids at the school to see lectures again, but it also allows prospective students to see what the lectures or teachers are like. UNC also has a Youtube page. On this page they have a variety of things. They have interviews with staff members, videos of athletic events and even a commercial with Tyler Hansbrough. This shows prospective students that the school is about more than just academics and has many other student activities. Another interesting aspect of their website is how different the page for athletics is. It has videos and pictures and advertisements. This shows that Carolina seems to put more money and emphasis on their athletics. Their new website has many more links and is flashier. It has pictures of student activities at the bottom and at the top it has major stories about academic happenings. It also puts the link for “Give to Carolina” much higher up and in bigger font. There are links on the right side events on campus. The links for the Facebook and Twitter and Youtube are all still somewhat low down on the page, but now they are labeled and it is much easier to find them. It is harder to overlook them. Also, in the background of the website there is nice nature picture of the school to make it seem really pretty. Another new media aspect of the website is that they are allowing people t comment and voice their opinions about the new website. This is possible because of blogs. Also if people, such as alums, feel their opinion is being heard then they may be more likely to donate money to the school.

Website 2: [] Analysis: The website I chose for my wild card was The New England Revolution's website. They have a very intense website with pictures that draw you in and make you want to find out more. They have areas that ask you questions as if you are part of the team. There are also spots for you to contribute and a live game feed. All of these things combined make you want to spend more time on the site and poke around and find things. Their Facebook and twitter links are somewhat low down on their page. It is possible that they did this because they were looking for the most devoted fans. Something else that they did which is interesting is that for the Facebook link they actually have part of the Facebook page right there. They have a random sampling of people who are fans on the Facebook page. On this link they actually have a button that will allow you to become a fan without actually going to their Facebook page. This makes it much easier. Their Facebook and Twitter links are also right next to the link to the store where you can buy Revolution gear. On their Facebook they mostly have videos and interviews with the players and the same on their Twitter. They do not provide any links back to their main site, which is very interesting. Their Facebook and Twitter seem to be mostly for the fan. They are used to keep the fans interested even when there is no game and the season is over. This allows them to keep their fans. Through Facebook and Twitter they probably get more fans by word of mouth. They do not look like they are trying to sell anything on their Facebook and since there are no links back to the main site it looks as if it is mainly a discussion between fans and almost a way for fans to interact with the players. Since this allows them to keep more fans and probably gain new fans they then sell more tickets during the season. Even though it looks as if they are trying to make no money off of the Facebook they are actually probably making a lot of money in ticket sales because of Facebook. With their Twitter link they actually put posts from people on their main site so you can see what they are talking about and see if you are interested in becoming a follower. They also have a whole page devoted to podcasts videos and pictures. This is all new media and again it is used to keep fans interested but also to keep fans on the site for long, which could possibly lead to more money being spent at the store.

Website 3: [] Analysis: The site that I chose for my business was Movietickets.com. This site uses Facebook and Twitter and Youtube. They use them in almost the opposite way the the Revolution use them. This is a site that clearly gets a lot of on line traffic, but the links for their Facebook,Twitter, and Youtube are all located near the bottom of the page. It is almost as if they do not seem convinced that anyone wants to see their Facebook or Twitter. I think they assume that if you are visiting their site is is because you want movie tickets and do not really care about anything else. Even though they probably do not focus on their Facebook and Twitter, they still use them. They use them to advertise the movies that they are selling tickets for. They use their Youtube for showing trailers of the movies they are selling tickets for, they are using their Twitter to provide links trailers and contests you can enter. On their Facebook they advertise the movies they sell tickets for, but also since people can comment it is almost like a review for a movie. People can comment on the movies that are out if they have seen them and can say what they thought about them. What is interesting is that even though they are using their Facebook, and Twitter and Youtube to advertise not very many people probably realize this. I was the same way. When i first looked at it i did not really think much about, but now that I look at it I can tell it is all about advertising. You would think people would object to this but they do not even notice. We are so used to seeing advertisements wherever we go nowadays we do not even think twice about it. This wrong we should be noticing these things and thinking to ourselves “how could this be happening”. This really says a lot about our society. In comparison to the the Revolution's website, they use these different technologies completely differently. The Revolution did not use either of theses technologies to advertise and Movietickets.com uses them almost exclusively to advertise. The Revolution used it to keep fans interested and maybe make money that way, but that is not the way with Movietickets.com. UNC tried to make money off of it in kind of a sneaky way by putting the links to their different sites right above the donation link. They also used the technology to try to sell their school to prospective students. So it seems that in all of these cases the new technology is working as an advertising agent for all of these different sites and probably bringing in more money for them than before.