Rachel Ramsey : Social Spotlight
Rachel Ramsey
Graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in Media Arts and Design and a minor in Communication Studies
| Welcome to Social Spotlight! When I'm not covering a variety of technology and communications industries - everything from the cloud and VoIP to customer relationship management and data centers - you will find me on social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, foursquare, YouTube, Tumblr... you name it, I'm there

Social Media

Twitter at the Oscars: 8.9 Million Tweets

February 25, 2013

There really isn’t a major event anymore that doesn’t include real-time tweeting to document and share opinions and memes. The 2013 Super Bowl generated 24.1 million tweets, last weekend’s Grammy Awards saw 14 million tweets and last night’s Oscars rang in 8.9 million tweets – 2.1 million during the red carpet and 6.8 million during the awards show.

Adele’s Skyfall performance was the second top-tweets-per-minute (TPM) moment, with 82,300 TPM. Skyfall winning Best Original Song followed in fourth with 64,000 TPM.

What is Tinder and Why Are People Using it?

February 22, 2013

Snapchat, the Harlem Shake and aiming for one million Likes on Facebook to achieve something are all trends that thousands of people have succumbed to, but we’re not really sure why. The latest addition to the list is Tinder, a mobile app that finds out who likes you nearby, and connects you with them if you’re also interested.

Wait…let me say that again. It shows you who is around you, allows you to scroll through them a la Chatroulette and then chat and potentially meet up with someone if you’re interested in them.

What Would I Do #IfIHadGlass?

February 20, 2013

You may remember Google’s infamous skydiving demo last year to introduce Project Glass, Google’s wearable smart glasses that users wear while relevant information pulled from the Internet is displayed on the screen of the eyewear.

Now, the company is looking for Glass Explorers to test and shape the future of Glass. Using Google+ or Twitter, Google wants users to write what they would do if they had Glass with the hashtag #ifihadglass. Even just reading about the different ideas people have for putting this technology to use is pretty cool – whether you think they look ridiculous or not, it is about to change a lot about how we share things.

How to Land the Ultimate Sports Social Media Job

February 14, 2013

XFINITY is looking to fill its social media spot for XFINITY Sports, so it’s appropriately turning to social media to recruit and invite candidates to apply.

The “Ultimate Sports Social Media Job” is offering one person the chance to become the new voice of @XFINITYSports, where they will post updates to more than 14,000 followers, attend major sporting events with behind-the-scenes access and interview athletic personalities for one year.

Interested? You have until Feb. 18 to apply, submitting a video of your sports knowledge and social media skills.

LL Cool J and The Hashtag Grammys

February 11, 2013

Last night was the 55th annual Grammy Awards, recognizing the top artists, producers, albums and songs in the music industry. Technology made an appearance with Carrie Underwood’s dress-turned-light-show and Frank Ocean’s “Forrest Gump” performance, in which he performed at a keyboard hidden behind a projector displaying running legs in a matching yellow suit.

Ladies Love Cool James, (LL Cool J) hosted the event, and made it clear to everyone he knows what a hashtag on Twitter is.

I get the idea behind this was to promote the Grammy’s social media presence, but unfortunately all they needed to do was display the designated hashtag (#grammys) -- Twitter’s thousands of users know how to utilize a hashtag when they see one.

Twitter Updates Search and Discover

February 8, 2013

Just because you create a successful product doesn’t mean the work is over. With every innovation comes improvements, updates and upgrades. Twitter this week updated its mobile app for Android and iOS, as well as mobile.twitter.com, to emphasize on-the-go usage with a single stream of content.

Updates include a new display for the Connect tab, which now defaults with Interactions to show new followers, retweets, favorites and mentions.

Go Social at ITEXPO Miami

January 28, 2013

This week is ITEXPO Miami, an event that brings together developers, manufacturers, buyers, resellers and top technology company executives for a full schedule of keynote presentations, exhibitions and workshops. The TMC team has arrived and is preparing for hundreds of companies to join us for a great week of networking, showcasing and discussing technology innovations.


To keep up with the conference, make sure you stay tuned to these social media outlets:


Twitter:

Facebook:

LinkedIn:

Instagram:

  • Search the hashtag #ITEXPO for photos of the event.

Foursquare:

  • Check in to ITEXPO Miami to show fellow attendees your location.

 

Facebook Graph Search - First Impressions

January 25, 2013

Thursday morning I was pleasantly surprised when I logged onto Facebook and was greeted with this message:

In case you have no idea what this is regarding, Facebook unveiled this feature, Graph Search, last week. Graph Search is a search engine built into the social network that allows you to search for information about your friends or public information Facebook users share. For example, you can search, “My friends who like football and HBO,” and the search results will be displayed.



Twitter Rolls Out Video Sharing Service Vine

January 24, 2013

“Ok Facebook. We’ll see your Instagram acquisition and raise you a video sharing service.”

Today, Twitter announced a new mobile service called Vine that lets you create a share “beautiful, short looping videos.” The key to the service is abbreviation – “Vines” are the shortened form of something longer. Like animated GIFs, Vine lets you share moving scenes and come with sound, and have a six-second maximum length.

A Very Viral 2013

January 18, 2013

We’re only 18 days into 2013 and have already had our fair share of viral Internet posts. These days, if you want to get something out to the world, it’s not unrealistic to try by rooting a post through social media. If you haven’t heard, a family of seven recently reached the spotlight with the five children’s quest to get one million Facebook likes in order to get a puppy. It only took about seven hours and the page has more than one million likes, and it also stemmed multiple spam replica accounts.