Biden Apologizes for Keeping Reporter in the Closet

Here's the link to ABC News story: Closed Press: Orlando Sentinel's reporter kept from high-profile guests at fundraiser!

Wal-Mart Faces the Big Box of Class Actions

The Supreme Court will soon decide the fate of a million-worker class action against the retailer.

"Employment cases are just the tip of the iceberg," argues the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

More than 20 companies have filed court papers in support of the big retailer's position. They include Altria, Bank of America, Intel, General Electric, and Microsoft.

For more information, go to: Bloomberg Businessweek.

The Externalizing Machine: The Corporation

An enlightening, disturbing, and thought-provoking film about the excesses of corporate entities.

A must-see for everyone concerned about our economy, our nation, and our world.

Particularly poignant since the 2008 Wall Street Bailout, 2009 Housing Crisis, and 2011 Japanese Tsunami.

The film synopsis: Click here!

Music Non Stop--Last.fm

As part of his degree project at Southampton University, Richard Jones started tracking what he and his friends were listening to on their computers with a project he called Audioscobbler. At the same time, Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel who were running an online record label, had a vision for personalized radio that learns what you like...similar to Wikipedia for music, Last.fm provides personalized music and content in many new and interesting ways.

A free phone app is available as well.

Last.fm

Awards: UK Digital Music Award, Mashable Chip Award, etc.

Who Dominated Social Media at SXSW?

AUSTIN, Texas -- With 10 official sponsors, dozens of parties and countless startups, blogs, apps and ambush marketers vying for attendees attention, South By Southwest Interactive 2011 was a marketing maelstrom. But which brands came out on top in social media? The results may surprise you.

Ad Age teamed up with People Browsr, a social-media analytics firm, to gauge the impact of 30 key brands' reception at SXSW -- everyone from ambush marketers to tech companies to the conference's official sponsors (Chevrolet, Pepsi/Pepsi Max, Brisk, IFC, AOL, Microsoft, AT&T, Samsung and Monster Energy among them). The custom analysis from People Browsr analyzed total mentions on Facebook and Twitter from around the globe in connection with SXSW from March 10 to March 14. The results are filtered, so no FourSquare badges or check-ins and no Tumblr photos, and then scored based on sentiment.

Based on the brands submitted, the top 10 most-mentioned brands were Mashable, Twitter, Google, FourSquare, Facebook, CNN, GroupMe, Tumblr, Microsoft and Instagram. Prominent brand marketers such as Pepsi (No. 12), Samsung (No. 13) and Chevrolet (No. 14) ranked just outside the top 10, while AT&T (No. 11) was cited both for its sponsorship and complaints of iPhone reception among attendees. Unofficial ambush marketers such as Nikon (No. 19) and Friskies (No. 26) also popped up, as did hot startups such as Hashable (No. 17), SquareSpace (No. 20) and Loopt (No. 23).

Mashable scored top honors in total filtered mentions, with 6.1 million compared to No. 2 Twitter's 4.6 million. The tech blog teamed up with Facebook for "Facebook Live," an online news series that was updated throughout the conference, and also streamed coverage of the conference on its popular Twitter feed. But GroupMe was the big winner in terms of sentiment, as 59% of its social-media mentions were positive.

In fact, the social sphere was by and large a fairly gentle bunch -- none of the top 10 brands had a negative sentiment ratio higher than 3%. Neutral opinions were far more prevalent. Google got lots of buzz but 90% of it was neutral, while photo app Instagram had a 15% positive and 85% neutral ranking. CNN had the closest split, with 44% positive mentions and 55% neutral.

For complete article, click here.

Inside Job

Click here to see a preview for this important Academy Award Winning documentary

Media Education

Everyone,
Today it is more important than ever to stay informed and current on what's going on in the world. With so many media, political, and technological changes occurring at such a cataclysmic and exponential rate of speed--we must all be vigilant...Stay informed...here's a few ways to stay ahead of the curve:

Blood and Oil

Independent Media in a Time of War

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Importance of unions in the U.S.

This is a very important examination, by PBS, on the critical factors leading to the development of unions in the US:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/teachers-resources/triangle-guide/

For further information on the American Experience: file:///Users/deborahyoung/Desktop/americanexperience.html