Utah State's PR Conference

I attended USU's PR Conference on the 13th. I didn't really know what to expect since I'd never been to anything like that before but I left impressed at the way things were organized along with the speakers who presented. I learned some valuable things about the PR industry and all the options that are available upon graduation. It really was a an eye opening experience for me. Utah State did a great job, which was important because this was the first one they've done. If they had messed up I guarantee next year they wouldn't be able to get as many high profile speakers to come, voluntarily, and present what they know about public relations. But from everything I saw and heard it was a big success and most of the speakers have blogged or put something on their company websites about what a great experience they had at the conference. Good job USU.

Twitter

I still don't get it. I thought Twitter was useless when I first heard about it and confusing when I first tried to use it. I didn't want to just "tweet" about what I was doing, I wanted conversations with other people. But as New York Times reports, Twitter is becoming more and more popular as well as useful.

"In 2006, when Twitter was just starting, the three men felt a small earthquake in San Francisco. They each reached for their phones to twitter about it and discovered tweets from others in the city. At that moment, it dawned on them that Twitter might be most useful for something else — a frontline news report, not just for friends, but for anyone reading.
Indeed, the news-gathering promise of Twitter was most evident during the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November and when a jetliner landed in the Hudson River in January. People were twittering from the scenes before reporters arrived. "

Companies are even scouring Twitter now looking for "tweets" about recent products and what people think about them to get a general feel for the market. And it's free, it's the biggest tool for market research and it's being given away by every person who thinks the world care's about what they're doing.

Internet and sports

-7.52 million unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand video player (2008 figure was 4.76 million -- 58% growth)

-8.6 million total hours of live streaming video and audio consumed -- (2008 figure was 4.92 million -- 75% growth)

-515 thousand total hours of video and audio were consumed during the semifinal and championship games of the 2009 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, a 51% increase over 2008 figures.

-2.77 million clicks of the "Boss Button" (2008 figure was 2.5 million for entire tournament)

Those are incomprehendable numbers for most people and huge percentages of growth in a year. The internet and its ability to allow media to interact with the public is making an enormous difference in the amount of coverage sports are getting. And these figures are only for one tournament. It's just a glimpse, I believe, of what social media will do to all of media. It's gonna make it easier to get whatever we want. And that equals big money, and growth for the major players in media.