More things above and on our desks...

 The pink and purple feather magnet is confused by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Don't worry magnet, none of us every really understood them...

Yoda <3s Reese's Pieces.

 Welcome to our superhero (cough, nerd, cough) department...

Desk gnomes! Enough said.

Do not even consider stealing this desk! We mean business when we write upside down on napkins. 

 That's right!

Come back next week for more funny things from our newsroom! :)

Things above, on and below our desks...

A balanced diet: diabetic shakes and sugar-loaded soda. Yes, these are under the same desk.

Not as creepy as the troll, but still pretty weird.

  
Hello, Maggs.

More flags and trinkets please!

Always watching...

TWITTER 

The term "tweeting" has become a verb commonly used in the social media world. While "posting on Facebook" is still something we discuss doing regularly, it has come to be that "tweeting" is the most common social media maneuver there is. 

In the last year, Twitter has taken off immensely. The simplicity of it has helped a lot.  

It's simple, I promise. You can only use 140 characters - so no long, whiny statuses like Facebook. 

You 'follow' instead of 'friend.' People tend to socialize with people they know more on Facebook than on Twitter because Twitter isn't as strict, but also people don't post the same types of things on the two sites. It's more of a newsy-network, more information than personal postings about what someone had for dinner.

Twitter is great for journalists. It short and sweet. Post one sentence and a link to a story. Done. People are reading.

Then they can 're-tweet' your story, showing it to all of their followers, which in turns helps you gain readers.

One of the complaints I hear most about Twitter is that it's not personal. You can't directly talk to anyone on there - which is false.

You can tag someone in your tweet and it will show up on their page. You can also send a direct, private message.

The other big complaint is that it moves fast, which it does, it moves VERY fast. There is a constant flow of new information. You can't read everything posted if you follow a lot of people. The alternative is to create lists. I have a 'news' list created that I use at work. That way, instead of reading 800 peoples' posts, I'm only reading 45 peoples' posts when I need news only. 

The Hashtag (#) is fun. It creates a chat-room type of feel. You can Hashtag any word you want, the popular ones create a 'trend.' Yesterday when we found out that Victor Martinez would be out the whole season (Tiger's Baseball) there were trending hashtags that were #VMart and #Tigers and #ACL (he tore his ACL).

That way you could go see what everyone else is saying about that specific topic. It's fun and pretty entertaining depending on who you're following! Even if you're not following someone who uses the same hashtag, you can see what they post and then choose to follow them. I find a lot of new people to follow from trending hashtags.

Twitter has without a doubt taken off. "Friend me" (Facebook) is starting to fade and "follow me" has picked up.

In fact, on our press badges our Twitter handle (name) is listed.  

The site considers itself "a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting." That is exactly how I see it as well. You can include photos and videos in your tweets. It's a great promotion tool. My sister's high school cheerleading coach uses Twitter to tell them what the schedule is. 

Last week, I called Facebook the King of Social Media, which true. However, I think Twitter is the Prince of Social Media and is completely ready to take over the 'King' title when his father dies. 

With that, follow me on Twitter! @EricaPerdue 

I love a good bagel. I like bagels with cream cheese, butter, bagel sandwiches, etc.

A friend of mine had been to a Big Apple Bagels several times by her work and had talked about it. When I started at The News-Herald I realized there is one at West and Allen Roads and I immediately went it to get a sandwich.

And oh my goodness what a sandwich it was. It became my favorite lunch.

The people inside are great, too. When I'm indecisive they are patient and when I have a large order for work they're always generous. 

There were a few tables of people in there this morning when I went to get bagels for everyone at work. 

It's delicious and the owners/employees are incredibly nice people.

My suggestions:

The cinnamon raisin, cinnamon or cinnamon crunch bagel with apple cinnamon cream cheese (the apple cinnamon cream cheese is the best bagel topping I've ever tasted!)

For lunch, turkey and havarti on a wheat bagel. They pile so much food on the bagel I can't ever eat a whole one at once but it's so good I usually end up eating it later that day because I can't wait any longer.

All of the other menu items are on their website if you want to check it out before heading inside.

This is the perfect place for bagel lovers who want the cozy, small-town feel. 

Happy dining!

Just some things posted around the newsroom...

Stripes and plaids being worn together is strictly forbidden in the newsroom. People do it so often, we have reminders hanging throughout the office...

Stop playing with the sharp needles! No one wants your blood in his or her coffee.

Diet Coca-Cola is only $.75 while the original is $.90. Mountain Dew is just flat-out confused.

We're not used to having multiples of things, so pluralizing words isn't our strong suite...

For being coffee addicts, we're sometimes illiterate when it comes to brewing the stuff.












Come back next week! :)

Social Media Mania Blog

Today starts a new weekly addition to my blog! Every Wednesday I will be doing a blog about a different social media site. I'll provide a little background about the site, who uses it and how it can best be used (especially for journalists). 

I'll start with the big ones. Eventually I'll probably even touch on some of the sites that have died down since their climax.

Now, let's begin.

FACEBOOK

Well, most of us know about it already. If you don't use it I'm sure you've heard plenty about it.
This social media craze was founded nearly eight years ago. It was started by college students and those were the only people who used it for a few years. Since then, it has taken over and in a way created the social media phenomenon we live in now. 

From posting your own status about anything you want, to creeping on pictures of an old high school classmate to seeing what comments are being made about pretty much any topic in the world - Facebook captured the attention of students, adults, professionals, businesses and worldwide corporations. 

It connects people who are far from each other and allows men and women to choose to let others invade his/her privacy. 

However, it has become an immensely important tool in the journalism field. That became a big statement last year with the Tunisia and Egypt revolutions and the uprising that Facebook created during those times. 

Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim told CNN after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down that he credits Facebook with the success of the Egyptian people's uprising.


"I want to meet Mark Zuckerberg one day and thank him [...] I'm talking on behalf of Egypt. [...] This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started [...] in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content. We would post a video on Facebook that would be shared by 60,000 people on their walls within a few hours. I've always said that if you want to liberate a society just give them the Internet."- Ghonim in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer

Wild, right? It's remarkable really.

Now, back here at The News-Herald, and at every news source across the country, we're using it to promote our stories.

The "sharing" tool moved that right along. By posting a story on Facebook, it can be comment on with ease while people are scrolling through the news feed. It can simply be "liked" or it can be "shared." When it's shared, it posts onto the person's Facebook wall who shared it. Then that gives the story more opportunities to be read than if it just on one wall.

We gain a significant amount of viewers when we post stories on Facebook. 

It's also a great way to communicate with readers, crowdsource and gather an idea of what a majority of our readers are thinking/feeling.

Facebook has been the social media hit for the last several years. However, it has mentioned talk of advertising showing up in news feed, which will immediately turn people off from it.

How long will Facebook be the King of Social Media? No one can really say. But, there's no doubt that it has held the crown for years and changed the way we communicate, relate and - in a way - how we live.

I got back from court today to find out that a body had been found dead in a hospital parking lot. Turns out it was a Border Patrol agent who committed suicide. 

How sad. I'm one of those people who has a hard time understanding suicide, even though it's happened close to me a few times. With the new reports revealing that the Ann Arbor firefighter who was hit and killed by a car on the freeway in Farmington was actually a suicide and then hearing this, it's devastating.

What really saddened me was talking to the police department handling the investigation and hearing the tone of their voices, how upset they were by this.

As a journalist who covers police and fire, I've developed relationships with several of the officers/officials/servicemen. You get to see a whole different side of the police and firefighters at this job. Granted, sometimes they hate you for asking too many questions or prying to get a story.

There are some detectives and police chiefs Downriver who are spectacular people and who are more than willing to work with me. There are firefighters who call me with details after a fire and who are trying to gather items for families who lost items in a fire.

And most of them are just downright good people. There's a Downriver firefighter who messages me on Facebook occasionally just to say hi and that he looks forward to reading something of mine. After being reamed by people who don't like your work, it's so nice to hear that someone does.

A few of the detectives and chiefs have taken time to ask about my background and want to get to know more things about me and what I want to do. They know that I have to ask certain questions and don't get angry about it. They know that I'll write most any story they give me and that's their way of getting some stories out in the open. It's a working relationship that I've come to treasure, as a journalist and a person.

Hearing another serviceman was in such a tragic state of mind is such a terrible thing. There's no other way to describe it, it's just really damn sad. 

I hope the serviceman/officials who I work with regularly know how much they are appreciated. Journalism would be a lot less of a career without the help from these men and women. I'd be less of a person without knowing them and the world would be a hell of a lot worse if they didn't care so much.

"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot." - Eleanor Roosevelt