Adidas All Blacks Jersey Row

Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/

Oh, adidas.

There's been a lot of anger towards them in New Zealand over this past week. But are they really doing anything wrong? Businesses mark up products to exuberant levels all the time, and we New Zealanders are used to paying higher costs for just about everything, compared to everyone else. So why is everyone so angry?

It's been a huge (costly) lesson for adidas in how to manage their pricing structure (and crisis management). Here are some of my thoughts:

• Rugby is the ultimate 'everyman' sport in New Zealand - and the All Blacks are a national treasure. This was always going to be the biggest market for the All Blacks jersey, and pricing should have reflected that. Online shopping makes price comparisons super easy - international price points should have been based off NZ's price point to avoid this issue.

• Yes, they have sunk a lot of money into the sponsorship deal, but since rugby is still seen as largely grassroots, drawing attention to the 'selling out' of the sport was only going to cause backlash towards the brand. Plus, it's given people the opportunity to bring the issue of the sweatshop labour back into the spotlight - not something adidas wants people to associate with the brand.

• Preventing online retailers from shipping to NZ is just plain bullying. Far too heavyhanded - especially to the average person with little comprehension of the distribution and supply chain, and the reasons why adidas was doing this. To these people, adidas is still getting their money - so why prevent this from happening? More anger and resentment = very bad for the brand.

In the end though, I think this will blow over. Adidas is a strong brand, and the goodwill towards the All Blacks brand is huge. I imagine they'll be learning a lot from this experience, and taking notes for next time. It was definitely a big mistep for them.

EDIT: This article in the New Zealand Herald takes all my thoughts on the subject, and puts it so much more eloquently. Plus it features quotes from some of my marketing lecturers at uni - Denise Conroy and Mike Lee. Great read.

Television in the Digital Age

The following is a blog post that was part of my coursework for a paper I did at uni, called 'Technoculture and New Media.' It was definitely one of the most interesting papers I did for my degree, and I thought I'd repost them here in my own blog. You can take a look at the class blog here. It's fascinating to take a look at how much has changed in the short time since I've taken that paper in 2009.

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Piracy of television shows is a widespread practice, with episodes available on filesharing networks hours after premiering on television. The same issue is affecting the music and movie industries, but the difference is that television sales still operate on a regional model. Unlike movies or albums which usually have worldwide release within a month, television series are sold to individual networks who broadcast them at a later date - and that's if a network chooses to buy the program at all. In the age of the internet, for people seeking instant gratification, this is unacceptable, and so they turn to piracy.

By delaying broadcasts of a television series in other countries, networks essentially limit their audience. Especially in the case of returning series - many fans who are already invested in it would have already downloaded and watched it. This leads to lower ratings, and advertising fees for the network when it is eventually aired.

Delaying broadcasts also shuts international fans out of fan communities. For someone such as myself, who is "spoiler-phobic", trying to avoid reading about the current season of a series is becoming increasingly hard. Participation in fan culture is cut to a minimum to avoid coming across spoiler material. Since television is a medium which lends itself to speculation, with ongoing storylines and evolving characters, being unable to participate in the latest discussions ruins part of the collective experience that comes from being part of a fandom, especially for genre shows, where the number of fans are already fairly limited.

The industry needs to realise that once a program has been released in one region, it is impossible to stop it from leaking onto the internet - effectively releasing it in all regions. By minimising the delay between the original broadcast and a regional one, viewers may feel less inclined to download episodes of their favourite shows immediately, and choose to show their support by watching it live.


Originally published here.

Facebook's News Feed

The following is a blog post that was part of my coursework for a paper I did at uni, called 'Technoculture and New Media.' It was definitely one of the most interesting papers I did for my degree, and I thought I'd repost them here in my own blog. You can take a look at the class blog here. It's fascinating to take a look at how much has changed in the short time since I've taken that paper in 2009.

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danah boyd's article, "Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck" struck me as particularly interesting this week, as the release of the News Feed feature actually discouraged me from using Facebook as much as I used to before it was introduced, and even shifted the way I use it.

With every bit of information being automatically published to my whole network, I felt more self-conscious about what I was posting than I previously did, despite the information being no more private than it was before. I stopped to think about how each bit of information would be interpreted by anyone on my friends list - whether they were family, people from high school, or even my boss. In a sense, I restricted the information that I would normally post for closer friends, simply because of the weaker ties that exist on my network who would also be able to view it.

The effort needed to keep up to date with a whole network's worth of information is much less than it was previously. Before, when you wanted to 'Facebook stalk' someone, it was done consciously, clicking through to their profile, and investigating each section for the information you were after. And to keep up to date with this information, this effort would need to be undertaken on a regular basis. But with the News Feed, each update is automatically presented to you upon logging in. There is no need to seek it out. The addition of the News Feed has also made us less inclined to search for information, as we believe all of it is presented for us.

Recently, a girl on my network was admitted to the ICU in a fairly serious condition. Her brother, who was not part of my network, posted a note on her profile. But it was a week before anyone on my network read this notice, as the News Feed negates the need to visit a profile page in order to glean information. When someone actually visited her profile, the information spread throughout our high school network, as the content of this person's comment became visible in our News Feeds. We had become reliant on it to seek out our information for us.

Originally published here.

Reporting of Live Events

The following is a blog post that was part of my coursework for a paper I did at uni, called 'Technoculture and New Media.' It was definitely one of the most interesting papers I did for my degree, and I thought I'd repost them here in my own blog. You can take a look at the class blog here. It's fascinating to take a look at how much has changed in the short time since I've taken that paper in 2009. 
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An aspect of citizen-journalism which wasn't discussed in class, but I find particularly interesting, is that of live-event reporting. Unlike professional reports on events, where editing, polishing and publication can mean a delay of several hours at the very least, reporting on events by average citizens is often able to be found in real time.

This has especially been given rise over the last year with the explosion of Twitter, which allows updates to be sent from a user's mobile phone and viewed in a public search. Hashtags are often used to 'tag' updates, and simplify the search process.

While the restriction of 140 characters may seem to limit the usefulness of Twitter as an event reporter, I think that this frees users from the pressure of having something significant to say, and they can feel comfortable posting a picture of something as mundane as the lines forming outside an event location. Also, the sheer number of users that can contribute to the overall experience of an event gives rise to many viewpoints in real time.

The type of events covered on Twitter range from breaking news (the Hudson River plane crash), to huge scale organised events (San Diego Comic-Con). When someone is unable to experience an event personally, they can perform a search to see what others are seeing, hearing, and reporting back on.

Personally, I've found it very useful for finding out announcements as soon as they happen. Back in July, there was a panel at the Paley Centre for Media that I would have loved to have attended, but not enough to fly overseas for. Using sites such as Twitterfall, I was able to automate the search for several hashtags and discuss the announcements as they happened with others online who were doing the same. People attending the panel were posting pictures of what or who was on stage, quoting key bits of information, and generally providing a way for us to experience what they were, as it was happening.



While definitely not a substitute for professional reporting or experiencing the event yourself (depending on the situation), event reporting by average citizens on Twitter fulfills the need for instant information that we are becoming accustomed to, and even coming to expect.

Originally published here.

Privacy on Social Networking Sites

The following is a blog post that was part of my coursework for a paper I did at uni, called 'Technoculture and New Media.' It was definitely one of the most interesting papers I did for my degree, and I thought I'd repost them here in my own blog. You can take a look at the class blog here. It's fascinating to take a look at how much has changed in the short time since I've taken that paper in 2009.

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Recently, at my younger sister's school, there was quite a bit of drama concerning Facebook. Apparently, some students in her year level had been bullying another student through the site, as well as making derogatory comments about a teacher. In order to investigate this, their year level dean created a profile under an alias, and sent students friend requests. Even though they had no idea who this person was, many accepted the request, making their personal information and comments available for view.

Somehow, the information that their dean had created a fake profile to investigate these claims became public knowledge. According to my sister, everyone who had accepted the friend request felt that this was a huge breach of their privacy. Yet, they had readily accepted the friend request, despite not knowing who this person was, or what their intentions were. If Publish Postyou are willing to give a complete stranger that access to information on your profile, can you really say that they had no right to that information later on, even in deceitful circumstances?

Incriminating information is often posted to social networking sites, which is available to all friends on your list. These friends could be work colleagues, close friends, family, even strangers - yet all have access to the same level of personal information posted. Many users of social networking sites seem to be unaware of this, or simply don't care. They don't restrict themselves as they would in face to face conversation, resulting in some groups of people knowing more about you than you may be comfortable with. With social networking sites encouraging users to amalgamate their connections into one converged network, the boundaries of personal information are being blurred between each group, and the individual identities we keep within these groups are being converged into one.

Originally published here.

Real Time Searching

The following is a blog post that was part of my coursework for a paper I did at uni, called 'Technoculture and New Media.' It was definitely one of the most interesting papers I did for my degree, and I thought I'd repost them here in my own blog. You can take a look at the class blog here. It's fascinating to take a look at how much has changed in the short time since I've taken that paper in 2009.


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There is a huge drive at the moment towards making internet searching capable of reflecting real time information. This ability to sort results by real time has given Twitter a huge advantage over other search engines, even to the point where people look to them for breaking news updates. Their list of the top 10 trending topics, updated in real time, gives an insight into what has people talking. These topics can range from world news, to people posting their opinion on the latest blockbuster, or even a video on YouTube that’s gone viral. Facebook recently followed suit, allowing users to opt-in to a searchable public timeline of their status updates.



A few months ago, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, allowed users to filter search terms according to date. Being able to differentiate results that were posted recently and those from a year ago has the potential to create a new user experience where time sensitive terms will return the appropriate results posted recently. At the moment, results are merely sorted by relevance, which can be frustrating if you’re looking for information on a developing story.

This focus on gaining information in real time is an example in the way that technology is shifting the way in which we process information. Rather than wait for a traditional news media such as newspapers and news agencies, we have become cyborgs, extending our senses so that we may both broadcast and receive information ourselves. However, the paradox is, at the same time, this flood of information means that we are limited in the information we can physically process, and many people will select information based on what others are talking about, rather than sorting through everything.


Originally published here.

Good Morning Starshine!

So, after agonising over a blog address for days, I've decided to go with my name for now. http://defineinteresting.blogspot.com would be perfect, but alas - taken 5 years ago.

Not sure exactly what I'll write about yet. Hence the blog title and description!

• I'm Sam
• 22 years old
• Living in Auckland, New Zealand. I love it here. 
• Just about to graduate from university with a degree in Media Studies and Marketing.
• Enjoys bullet pointing everything.
• Often looks confused, even when not.
• Owns far too many bottles of nail polish.
• Is way too attached to fictional characters, especially those of the Whedonverse (Joss Whedon is my master now).

Welcome to my life.