Writing for New Media

I’ll admit it. I had my doubts about this class at first because I wasn’t too sure about having a twitter page and what not. But as I look back at it, I really enjoyed coming to this class.

I made a twitter page. For the longest time, I fought it. I didn’t want it. And it took me a while to figure out how I could use it. I know that a lot of it is sharing stuff from your life that no one cares about, but from experience, I have learned that it really is a good way to get news quickly. The other day when my cell phone was acting up, my friend good on twitter and found out that a tower was down close by and that’s why my service wasn’t working.

As far as facebook is concerned, again, I didn’t know how it would fit into an academic setting. It wasn’t until the viral marketing campaign that I learned the power and influence of facebook. I made a facebook campaign for the weekly radio show that I co-host. We got up to 182 fans from all over the US. Today, we got a request from one of my high school friends who goes to college in California. It is amazing how facebook can keep people in touch.

My LinkedIn is still in its infancy. I know that it is more a professional site, so I think it is somehthing I might come back to when I am trying to go into the professional field, but not something that I will use right now.

I was pretty happy with how my website turned out. I was able to include my resume, some of my social networking sites, and some clips from the newspaper. I thought this was the most important project we worked on in the semester. It’s something that I can maybe include when I email perspective employers and say, hey, look at my work. It is convenient for them and me.

It’s good that we did some blogging in the class, but I would have liked to do a lot more of it just to get more experience under my belt. Here are my blog posts. When I went to interview for internships for the summer, they asked me if I had blogged before. Luckily I could say yes because of this class, but it is something that I really need more work at if I want to be good at it.

I think the best thing about social networking is that it can be used in a personal and professional setting. Businesses use it to connect to and advertise to whomever they think will use their products. Other people use it keep in contact with old friends or to keep up with current ones.

For my viral marketing campaign, I decided to raise awareness about the radio show on wwec 88.3 fm that I host on fridays with my friend, Mike.

We made a fan page on Facebook and called our show “The Brunch Hour with DJ’s Mike and Gav.”

When I first started out, I wanted to get at least 100 people to join. We have been very lucky and have gotten 166 likes/fans (as of 3:43 p.m. 4/22/10). We kind of wanted it to be another way for people to request songs and give us some feedback. I can also be used to set up guests.

In order to get people to join, we talked about it over the air last friday. Mike and I have also been sending out suggestions to our friends on facebook to join in on the fun. I also tweeted about it. But just once.

It has been successful so far in getting 100 people to join. So that is good. As far as fan interaction, we are lacking in that. Big time. We have a couple requests for songs on our discussion board from my friends suggesting ridiculous songs.

But, Steve let us know he wants to be a guest over the page. So that is a positive. We need more of that.

I think the page has potential. One thing we want to do is have some updates leading up to the show to get people thinking about it and sending in requests.

http://users.etown.edu/n/nevillt

Outside of Com 315, I have had very little experience with the Web and Web design. I was a little confused at first as to what I was supposed to do. I had trouble when I started out because I started copying my stories from the Etownian into blank documents instead of into the template like I was supposed to. Once I figured that out, I was able to copy and paste a few stories. I liked that there was enough space that I could have as many samples of my work as I wanted. It was also nice using the template because that simplified everything. I didn’t like that I had to reformat all my stories, only because that was more work for me.

So far, I have finished my bio page, which includes a picture of me, and links. I also finished about 10 pages with my writing on them. I started a page where I would have links to my different stories. I had a home page where they were all listed, then when you click on one, it will take you to the specific page. I set up a links page where it would link to the newspaper’s Web site as well.

I have put in most of the clips I want to use, and that is about the extent of my portfolio so far. As far as what I still need to finish, I know I need to go back and make everything look presentable. On some of the pages, I just slapped down all the content without worrying about how it looks.

There was a lot that confused me about the website designing world. I’m not exactly sure how to get my different pages to interact, if that makes sense. I have pages that I want to be links to each other, and I still need to do that.

Twitter scares me to death. As someone who wishes to pursue a career in journalism, I understand how important it is to be connected to the world. But for me, I am having a tough time getting into twitter. It is something I need to work on before I leave college.

Every time I think of twitter, this commercial pops into my head.

Twitter is a great platform for the sharing of inane details of one’s life. Personally, I don’t care what celebrities, or non-celebrities for that matter, do on a day-to-day basis. I know it may be important if I get into a field where I need to be updated on their lives, but for now, I am okay with not knowing what Ashton Kutcher thinks.

I read a story titled, “‘Twittervertizing’ inflates celebrity affluence,” in the Etownian.It talked about how celebrities like Lauren Conrad can make $10,000 for every tweet about a product. There is enough traffic on Lauren Conrad’s twitter page, the she has sold her tweets to advertisers. $10,000 for 140 characters or fewer. Not a bad gig.

As far as a tool for journalists, it can come in handy when a person of interest is unavailable for an interview. Recently, the Philadelphia Sixers traded Royal Ivey to the Milwaukee Bucks. Comcast Sports Net had a story about the trade in which they included the Sixers’ Andre Iguodala’s tweet saying, “shout out to my man @ROYALTIVEY 1 of best t’mates i ever had. didnt get to show what he could do this yr but will show and prove GOOD LUCK!” In this case, twitter was helpful because it got a former teammate’s opinion on the trade without having to actually take the time to set up an interview.

When it comes to using twitter as an emergency communication tool, at this time, I would probably try twitter only if smoke signals didn’t work. I say this because I do not know many people on twitter. If my parents or the police were to check their twitter, it would be a more realistic option in the case of an emergency for me.

At Elizabethtown College, we use blackboard and e-mails to communicate back and forth with professors and each other. However, there is no reason that the same communicating can’t be done over twitter, especially when it is an announcement that is important to the whole class.

Fads come and go. Eventually, twitter will go the way of the 8 track and become obsolete. But for now, it seems like celebrities, athletes, and everybody else can’t get enough of it.

Gavin Nevill is a junior Communications student at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA. He is expected to graduate in spring 2011 with a concentration in mass communications and a minor in religious studies. After college, he plans to work as a sports journalist or a sports information director.

Gavin is currently an assistant copy editor for the Etownian, Elizabethtown’s student-run newspaper. During fall 2009, he studied at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on an exchange program where he worked as the associate features editor for Ka Leo, Hawaii’s student-run newspaper. Gavin is a member of Alpha Lambda Delta, the freshman honor society, and a member of the Society for Collegiate Journalists. He was a member of the Elizabethtown College men’s soccer team for two seasons.

Gavin was born in Coopersburg, PA. in 1989. He attended Southern Lehigh High School in Center Valley, PA before he began his career at Elizabethtown College in fall 2007. In his free time, Gavin likes to watch and play sports. He also enjoys spending time with friends and family.

Truncated Version

Gavin Nevill is a junior communications major at Elizabethtown College. He is concentrating in mass communications and is minoring in religious studies. He hopes to pursue a career as either a sports journalist or a sports information director. Gavin lives in Elizabethtown, PA.

Ahhh. Coopersburg. You may have heard of it. Some consider it the capital of Pennsylvania, and the western hemisphere for that matter. Located about an hour north of Philadelphia, Coopersburg is where I have lived since I was four years old. It is where I spend my youth, learned to ride a bicycle, and even survived the awkward middle school years.

I attended Southern Lehigh High School, which had about 1,000 students. Where I come from, soccer is king. Mostly because our school team was so good. 

By the time I was walking, I was kicking a soccer ball. Part of the reason I wanted to come to Elizabethtown was for the soccer team. While Etown and Messiah have their marshmallow game, my parents experienced firsthand what a marshmallow game was. When my dad was coaching for a rival high school, and my mom was in the stands, pregnant with my sister, a Southern Lehigh fan hit her with a frozen marshmallow. All in good fun. 

I’ll be honest with you, there isn’t a lot going on in Coopersburg. My summers were spent at the Southern Lehigh Community Pool. I was a regular visitor here for eight summers or so before I started working in the concession stand and eventually as a lifeguard. 

As I got into my later high school years and into my first couple years of college, it became more apparent that there was nothing to do. Case in point, most nights ended at the Quakertown Family Restaurant.

One of the few places that is open 24-7.  

I really can’t complain though. When you think about what is your hometown, it isn’t defined by where you were born, or where you lived most of your life. Your hometown is where you are most comfortable, and for me, that place is Coopersburg.