Social media management platforms can certainly save time. In this case, Hootsuite, plays a major role for companies and individuals that have a presence on multiple social sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The primary skill one learns within the course is the freedom of connecting with many social networks, all in one spot.
After going through the different courses, I began to understand how easy it was to learn the software, through the use of instructional videos. The exams and quizzes reassured me that I was using the software properly, but the training process also encouraged me to get more innovative and creative whenever I begin to interact and share with the public.
Anyone taking the courses and resources will definitely gain the knowledge to effectively use social media within their messages and interactions. Being a part of HootSuite experience also built my confidence in order to get involved and teach others what this resource has to offer. The best part about this whole process is that one is able to get on the fast track to improving relationships and sales amongst a business.
Kevin Systrom at a conference, regarding Instagram updates.Co-founders of Isntagram, Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger.Instagram’s Headquarters in Manhattan, NY.
Kevin Systrom
Born in San Diego, California in 1983, Kevin Systrom is the son of Douglas Systrom and Diane Pels. Douglas Systrom, was Vice President in Human Resources at TJX Companies and Diane, a marketing executive at Zipcar, also worked at Monster and Swapit during the first dotcom bubble.
Systrom was introduced to computer programming as a kid attending Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. His love for gaming added to his interest and his passion grew. While in high school he worked at Boston Beat, a vinyl-record store in Boston.He later attended Stanford University and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in Management Science and Engineering. A member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity, Systrom spent the winter term of his third year in Florence, where he studied Photography.
His first taste of the startup world came when he was chosen as one of 12 students to participate in the Mayfield Fellows Program at Stanford University. His participation later led to his internship at Odeo, the company that eventually gave rise to Twitter.
Systrom, after graduating Stanford, joined Google where he worked as a product marketer with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets and other products. After two years, Systrom left Google out of frustration of not being moved into the Associate Product Manager Program.
BURBN
Nextstop, a location recommendation startup founded by ex-Googlers, was where Kevin would stay for a period of time, after leaving Google, until it was acquired by Facebook in 2010. He then thought of combining location check-ins and popular social games and that led to building the prototype of what later became Burbn, which he later pitched it to Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz at a party. The idea arose while on a vacation in Mexico when his girlfriend was unwilling to post her pictures because she felt they didn’t look good enough when taken by the iPhone4 camera. He thought of using filters to hide the qualitative inferiority of the photographs and the work saw him developing the X-Pro II filter that is still used to date on Instagram.
After the first meeting, Systrom decided to quit his job in order to explore whether or not Burbn could become a company. Within two weeks of quitting his job, he received $500,000 seed funding money from both Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Kevin, along with friend Mike Krieger, while in San Francisco, built Burbn, a HTML 5 check-in service, into a product that allowed users to do many things; check into locations, make plans (future check-ins), earn points for hanging out with friends, post pictures, and much more. They then thought back about their studies in Mayfield Fellows Program and concluded that Burbn contained too many features and that perhaps users did not want such a complicated product. They began to focus on one specific feature, photo-sharing. That was when the development of Burbn led to creation of Instagram. Just one month after launching, Instagram had grown to one-million users and a year later Instagram hit more than 10-million users.
Instagram
Instagram, coming from the words “instant camera” and “telegram,” was co-founded in 2010 by Kevin Systrom, along with his friend Mike Krieger, in San Francisco, California. It’s a photo-sharing and, later, video-sharing social networking service.
In April 2012, Instagram, along with 13 employees, was sold to Facebook for $1-billion in cash and stock. Due to his ownership stake in the business, Systrom received $400-million off the deal, according to multiple reports. He stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the pros of becoming a part of Facebook were that they got to pair up with a juggernaut of a company that understands how to grow, understands how to build a business, has one of the best, if not the best, management team in tech and we got to use them as our resource.
“Instagram is a new form of communication that’s an ideal fit with the always-with-you iPhone in today’s social media world. Instagram’s a social network built around photos, where people can quickly comment on or ‘like’ photos and share them on Twitter or Facebook,” Systrom stated in an interview with Forbes.
Under Systrom’s leadership, Instagram did really well and developed key features. He hired former Yahoo Vice-President James Everingham, as well as Kevin Weil, who formerly headed product development at Twitter, as high-ranking executives at Instagram. One of the decisions Systrom made, along with Krieger, was to implement a system to overcome bottlenecks and slow decision-making in the company by scheduling meetings in which only decisions are taken. This approach was informed by Systrom’s interest in academic business theories, in particular Clayton M. Christensen’s concept of The Innovator’s Dilemma.
Challenges
There are times when interviews can bring out the real person out of someone. In this case, there was an interview between Jemima Kiss and Kevin Systrom. During this interview, it was clear that he had a passion for changing people’s life. Regardless of the amount of effort and discipline he needed, it did not stop him from developing a life changing system.
In an article with The Guardian newspaper Systrom shares the enormous sacrifice he and his partner had to go through during the development of Instagram. He says, “Weekends didn’t exist. Mike and I set up an alarm on our phones if the servers were overloaded and went down, and that went off every four or five hours. Then as we grew, it went off every hour, or every 15 minutes. To this day, I have a Pavlovian response to that alarm: simultaneous nausea and anxiety. But it was also a sign of growth, which is a great problem to have.” His passion has always been stronger than his obstacles.
Another great trait Systrom revealed was his integrity, trust and respect towards his employees. As a result, his employees flourished with creativity. It is said thatInstagram conducts anonymous surveys to check the health of its staff, and is respectful of weekends and families. During the same interview with Journalist Kiss he also explains and assures the amount of passion and dedication one must have to be part of his team. “There are many professions that don’t require that sort of time. But people sign up because they want to make world-changing differences, to build something that affects millions of people. These are the companies that in just a couple of years can change entire industries.”
It is safe to say that Systrom’s life was not the only one that would be changed, business wise. There are other people who have been able to make money from the site. Many “Instagrammers” claim to be earning a significant income, including Dutch fishmonger Bart Olphen, who has used its 15-second videos to build his cookery brand, and New Yorker Liz Eswein, who has 1.2 million followers and claims to charge advertisers $1 for every “like” on a sponsored photo.
Systrom assures the true benefit of Instagram for people and says “Calling Instagram a photo-sharing app is like calling a newspaper a letter-sharing book, or a Mozart grand era symphony a series of notes. Instagram is less about the medium and more about the network. If you’re a business, we have a product so you can buy ads. If you’re a consumer and want to entertain, you can record a 15-second looping video. If you’re an artist and want to do a piece of conceptual art, there’s a place for you, too.” This explains the different roles that one single platform has been able to do on people’s life. It sure has been a life changing platform for many people.
September 24, 2018, it was announced that Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger officially stepped down from the Instagram industry, claiming that they are starting a new chapter, finding their creativity and new challenges to make a difference in people’s life.
One of the first things that stood out to me during his speech was the amount of people they served on a daily basis. USPS has 157 million delivery points every day. The amount of exposure one can get, if one was to get affiliated with them is very high. Direct mail is the main channel that they offer to businesses in order to reach out to potential customers. Based on the numbers Grech showed, this form of advertising gives great results.
Another thing he pointed out, was the relationship people build with mailmen. As a result people feel less intimidated by direct mail. Sometimes it is believed that social media and online advertising can turn out to be intrusive. Therefore, this reaffirms the success businesses can have with direct mail. Moreover, USPS has come up with a new strategy known as augmented reality within the mail. People will definitely start to get more involved as it can be a fact that people can hate spam emails more.
One last point that stuck out, was the fact that direct mail can show more accurate results on how successful a campaign can be. Sometimes when things are bought online, you don’t necessarily know if the customer was influenced by a tv commercial, a printed ad, or any other channel. Not only will someone obtain accurate results but businesses also have the ability to have targeted audiences. I did not expect for direct mail to be this efficient but Its reach and precision of its targeting make direct mail very powerful.
The Zappar application brings the interaction aspect one can have with a product to the next level. People are required to take action, in order for you to get something, such as getting a video or just more insight of a product.
Exploring Zappar
While exploring the Zappar app, it opened up a whole new perspective of how things can be presented to an audience. As a traditional designer, where everything is created just for print, I was amazed how this platform allowed for things to come to life. I felt more involved with the product, as well as encouraged to take further action to either buy or keep reading the article. The only hassle I encountered was the need to download the app in order for the animation to happen. It was an extra step that most people will not take since it can be time consuming.
Other Zaps
The Disney and the Coca-Cola shirt are two of the Zaps that I was able to find on the web. Each one of them worked in different ways with some cons and pros when interacting with them. The Disney shirt was much more simplistic since the only outcome was that it allowed you to play with the spinning discs. In comparison to the Coca-Cola shirt, which was much more complex. This particular shirt had more potential to being successful, until I encountered an issue. When zapping this shirt you were given an option to play a song before unlocking the other option there was. After playing the song, you were encouraged to play a game that connected with the song playing, if you completed this task you were awarded the option to take a picture with the sunglasses and headphones that the can of soda was wearing. This is when the issue appeared, it did not work. As a result I left this zap.
UB and Zaps
When it comes to anything that is printed, it is very hard to show all the visual elements that you might want to show. A big portion of this takes place when you want to use videos. When attempting to reach prospective students, I believe there are different ways where the Zappar app can be useful. One way is to include a video of the look of the campus, in order to give the students a better idea of how the atmosphere can look when attending at the university. Another way to use the application, is by showing achievements of graduate students. Playing a video after someone zaps an image of a graduate student, showing their success while being at the university.
Originally born and raised in Ecuador. Moved to the U.S. at the age of 10 and began the journey as an artist at the age of 17. Winning different awards and recognitions from Stamford High School and the Stamford Art Association. Decided to pursue the career of a graphic designer. Enrolled and successfully obtained a Graphic Design A.S. degree. Continued the journey as a graphic designer. Currently a senior at the University of Bridgeport hoping to obtain a Graphic Design B.F.A. Various works and projects were developed through my education which kept building my strength as a designer.
After taking Intro to New Media, I am hoping it reinforces the skills one must have in order to be successful in the social media arena. Being able to come up with effective plans to bring a business to life. As well as keeping an industry up to date with current strategies that will catch the right audience. I’m also looking forward to learning new programs that will facilitate the work flow when solving media problems for different clients.
As I approach the final stage at the University of Bridgeport, I am expecting to land in a design firm or industry that will allow me to show my skills as a designer. Some of my preferable jobs would be clothings brands such as Nike, Zara, Vineyard Vines, etc. Another dream job would be a travel agency that has some relation to Ecuador. There is also one last option which would be to continue my education and pursue a master’s in design management.
What was your opinion of the Code Academy interface and describe your experience using it?
My overall experience with the Code Academy interface was better than expected. One of the main reasons was because it did not allow me to get lost. It provided clear instructions, as well as extra help. It also gave you the option to look at the correct answer while still guiding you. Due to its friendly interface, it became easier to adapt. The arrangement and organization of the elements also helped for my experience to be less complicated.
There was multiple strategies and factors that I was able to absorb and learn. Giving immediate feedback was one of the most successful strategies they had. Wether it was an automated response or an actual response from an agent. Another strategy I picked up was the different options you were given before using the platform. Not only did you had the option to use the platform by paying but you also had the option to use the service without any payment involved.
As a graphic designer, I believe the skills taught in Code Academy would be very useful. The skills would make it easier to communicate and become more familiar with the development of how a website is made. There can also be the possibility of being able to fix or update basic data when needed, without the help of a web developer. As a result, there will be less money spent, since there won’t be a need to pay a web developer to update or fix basic data within website.
Opera lovers will be able to watch Carmen, one of the world’s most popular productions, at Dubai Opera from 6-8 September. The Armenian National Academic Theatre Opera and Orchestra will bring to life the dramatic tale of the doomed love affair of a soldier, Don Jose, who falls for Carmen, a fiery gypsy.
Written by French composer Georges Bizet, and first performed in 1875, it features arias including ‘Habanera’ and the famous ‘Toreador Song’. It has also gone on to become one of the most frequently performed operas in the world- playing at the New York Metropolitan Opera more than one thousand times.
Saul Bass created countless sequences, including for Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), and West Side Story (1961), and dominated the scene for nearly five decades. Among his many emulators were Maurice Binder and Robert Brownjohn, who worked on the James Bond film credits. Edgy and sexy,
Binder’s and Brownjohn’s animations made the most of black backgrounds, female forms, extreme cropping, and abstracted geometry—visual codes all established by Bass.
During the 1970s, a number of opening sequences eschewed narrative elements altogether and used type exclusively. Three examples stand out: Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a hilarious spoof of Swedish films; Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, a no-nonsense directory set in elegant Windsor letterforms; and the opening sequence of Alien, a minimalist typographical puzzle of chilling exactness. Meanwhile, live-action openers were gaining popularity. Referencing Orson Welles’s 1958 single-take sequence for Touch of Evil, Robert Altman’s tracking shot for The Player (1992) was a brilliant, almost eight-minute overture.
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