MSNBC and Olbermann

Tweet

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Countdown with Keith Olbermann is was the only news show I regularly watched on MSNBC. I have always preferred CNN over MSNBC.

I'm feeling a little under the weather today, so I didn't have the T.V. on so you can imagine my surprise when suddenly I started reading tweets about MSNBC and Olbermann parting ways (to put it nicely).

If you missed the show like I did, here's a clip I found online:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And here's MSNBC's statement.

MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.

Am I the only one who wants an explanation? Somehow that statement above doesn't seem enough. I am hearing it has to do with the NBC and Comcast merger deal going through

P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Earth Hour 2010

Tweet

This is what my twitter default photo switched to automatically during 'earth hour' today:

Something so small, but every little thing helps to raise awareness for such a major problem we are all facing with the climate.

This is something similar to what Google did two years ago, and I blogged about that too. Read that here.

This time though, people got to choose to participate in it themselves through their social networks. Facebook had something similar. This was a great thing for those people who want to do something for the cause, but don't know what.... just by raising awareness.

Last year, we closed off all of the lights and turned off all the unnecessary electronics and left our house to go to a public place, but this year we had guests over so we could not shut off everything.

Did you guys participate this year?

I did not use my computer for several hours and had it turned off (purposefully) and my cell phone was turned off (not on purpose... it just kind of happened), which are TWO major things for me!

Read my blog posts from the past two years on Earth Hour here (2009) and here (2008).



P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

School Lunch Project

Tweet

I just found this blog via twitter, and it's definitely a blog of interest. It's a teacher who plans to eat school lunches every school day in 2010. She makes a note of what she ate that day and adds a photo in her daily blog posts as a part of her 'School Lunch Project'.


She says:

It's very challenging to teach students when they are eating school lunches that don't give them the nutrition they need and deserve. Oftentimes what is served barely passes muster as something edible. And after a meal high in sugar and fat and low in fiber, they then must pay attention in a classroom.

From what I can remember from when we were in school, most of the food was junk. Fries and pizza were what was considered to be a 'lunch meal' daily for most students. Worse, when students got tired of that - they resorted to cookies instead to change up the pace.

It's no wonder students have a hard time concentrating. I like this teacher's idea... what a creative way to get a sense of what's going on.




P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Why I Like Twitter

Tweet

When I originally joined twitter, I played around with it for a few hours and then gave up because quite simply - it looked too complicated and I didn't get it.


Months later, I was convinced to give it a second try. And I'm glad I was intrigued to do so because now is it probably one of my primary sources to get the news (I talked about this here). This was just around the time when it seemed as if all the journalist and broadcast news organizations were creating twitter accounts as another way to stream the news. At this point, it's been about a year since twitter became really popular amongst journalists and news reporters and other public figures.


What I love about twitter is that I can follow whatever I am interested about from my laptop or my phone ... or anywhere else where I'll have access to twitter. Say I'm sitting in class or in the student center in between classes and can't watch the news coverage of something I really want to be watching. Chances are someone many people are tweeting quotes or paraphrasing the content of whatever is currently happening that I am missing.


For example when the whole 'balloon-boy' fiasco was happening, I was sitting in a class done the assignment I was supposed to be doing and suddenly I started getting tweets about the whole mess from the start and through all of its twists and turns.


Twitter has not only been great for news - sensational, real or otherwise, but it's great for having interactive discussion with others who care about what you care about. If you agree, great... if you don't - I think it's even better.


As I was watching Obama's SOTU address, I was following the trending topic and getting to read other people's thoughts live and have a conversation about something I care about with other people who care about the same thing. I don't know about you, but I feel like in my social group, very few people care about the same things as I do. It puts new media to a whole new level.


Not only that, nowadays, I probably access most of the articles I ready daily off of twitter from what others share in their tweets or what organizations like magazines tweet. Instead of going to different websites to find articles that are of interest to me or anything like that, they are all brought to me in one central location.   


As 2009 drew to an end, it was even cool to look through "Top Twitter Trends of 2009" which summarized what we as a collective groups of people from across the world found most important and worthy of attention across a variety of categories. 


It always amazes me when people compare twitter to facebook because they two could not be any more different and have two completely different purposes.


Do you use twitter? What do you like most about it? Or what do you use it most for? If you don't use it - is there any particular reason or you just don't see a need for it?



P.S. Don't forget to leave me a comment below on your thoughts! As always, I'd love to hear from you.

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

Tweet

Happy New Years!

Anyone else think 2009 just flew by? It seems like every year goes by faster and faster than the year before.

There are so many things i'm looking forward to this year - graduating from rutgers in may being one of them - and i'm quite excited to see what this new year brings.

I was just telling my parents and my aunt and uncle about a week or so ago how crazy it is that it was TEN years ago when there was so much pandemonium about the new millennium and the Y2K bug. I've been thinking all week about Y2K (and all the havoc it caused). It seems like it was so long ago, yet at the same time - it feels like it was just yesterday.

I was reading some of the 'tweets' on twitter with the hashtag '#10yearsago' earlier, and it was so interesting to read some of the responses. My personal response: i was 11, in the 6th grade, living in Canada (but moved later that year to New Jersey).

It's crazy how much times have changed. For instance, texting didn't exist ten years ago - and i can't even imagine not being able to text or accessing the internet all the time.

I can remember when we were younger and the internet was new (and was connected to our phone lines), our parents would only let each of us go online for half an hour each day (unless we had homework or something, of course). Nowadays, I am always connected to the internet on my laptop and can access it no matter where I am through my phone.

I wonder what was 'big' that year? Except all the hype and the drama the Y2K craze caused, of course.

Anyhow, Happy New Year! I hope it's full of wonderful things for everyone and brings great things your way.

Do you have any resolutions for this year?

UPDATE: I gotta add this. My brother wrote this on facebook, and i thought it was nicely written:

'What a strange decade. We went from the panic of Y2K to a digital decade. In 2000 text messaging didn't even exist. Facebook/Twitter/Youtube and the likes weren't even dreamed of yet by their founders. Most people didn't own a cellphone. High speed internet in most homes was still years away.'

Isn't it crazy to think what will happen in the next ten years?

Trending Tweets in Review: 2009

Tweet

As the year 2009 quickly comes to an end, in ten short days, there have been articles everywhere online about "2009 in review" - just like there are every year. This year, however, i came across a new list - one that hasn't been so widely available in the past, and which i found quite interesting. I feel like it captures all the other sources and information all into one.

It's called "Top Twitter Trends of 2009".

In essence it's everything everyone was talking about and discussing throughout the year. It's what we, as a collective groups of people from across the world, found most important and worthy of attention.

Do you agree with this assessment? What would you rate to be the the 'top three' in each category? The ones you found most important. Did any one of the aforementioned surprise you? Or, are there any other you would have included?

Twitter - the new facebook

Tweet

Is it just me... or did twitter suddenly become really big this week (for news reporters)?

It seems as if all the journalists on the major news channels (at least the ones i watch most often) have joined it this weekend and keep talking about it on their shows. It'll be interesting to see in the next couple of weeks. Even though I've been using it for a while now, I'm not sure yet of all the terminology (I think a person who uses twitter is a "tweep", and the message is a "tweet"... they sound like insults :/), but so far i like getting all of my news updates all at one place. So far, not many people i know personally have joined in on twitter, so for now it's just a news source.. and it'll be interesting to see twitter grow as more and more people join.

It'll be interesting to see if twitter becomes as big as facebook.. or even bigger (it has definite potential).

For those of you who are beginners at twitter, here are some tips to start you off:

1. Shrink Your URLs
Since you only have 140 characters to work with, instead of sharing a long URL, use one of several URL-shortening services to shrink that link, like tinyurl.com.

2. RT = Retweet
To copy and paste someone else's tweet, just put "RT @name" in front of their tweet and post it yourself so you give the original tweeter/tweep(?) credit for it as well.

3. @ Sign
To reply or someone on Twitter, place an @ sign in front of their Twitter name at the beginning of the message.