Passing Time

This is just a quick blog on my favourite Facebook pastimes.  If you didn’t read my last post, it explained that we all know there are a lot of applications on facebook for everyone to use freely.  With more than 500 games alone on facebook you could never be bored.  The amount of traffic those games bring to facebook is in the 100 billion.  The games on facebook improve as the public requests.  The games change like any other trend in the world.  I also post; The FarmVille Way.

The current top games are different from my all time favourite pastimes.  I am surprised that some other games are not in the top 25 but I guess I have a different taste in video games than the average world.  Some of the games on my list will be old a few are even gone.

Top 11 Facebook Pastimes

Runner ups
3 – Franchise Basketball - could us a skip options.
2 – FarmVille - lost interest
1 - FrontierVille - losing interest

Top 8
8 – My Shops - Could use more in the game.
7 – CSI: Crime City - Good Game but Xp system is a little unfair.
6 – Restaurant City - Good Game but to  much loading, to slow loading.
5 – Cafe World - Good Game But to  much loading, to slow loading.
4 – Mafia Wars - Really Good Game but I quit to long ago to restart.
3 – CityVille - Amazing Game but it needs new a lot more new missions.
2 - Ponzi - Epic Business Game but  has disappeared.
1 - Backyard Monsters - The Best Game on Facebook in my opinion, not much time need to play the game and is a lot of fun.

The CityVille Swarm

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Facebook, created for a way to communicate, is used for much more now.  We all know there are a lot of applications on facebook for everyone to use freely.  With more than 500 games alone on facebook you could never be bored.  The amount of traffic those games bring to facebook is in the 100's of billion.  The games on facebook improve as the public requests.  The games change like any other trend in the world.

For a long time FarmVille had the number one spot for monthly active users, I personal didn’t think anything was going to replace it.  It was not my most favoured game but it was to over 81 million others.  I am not 100% sure but I would guess Mafia Wars was top before FarmVille but I am guessing FarmVille set records for Facebook.   In December 2010, Farmville dropped just over 2.5 million active users, but was still was in the number one spot with 53.73 million active monthly users.  Following Farmville was Texas HoldEm Poker with 34.7 million and FrontierVille with 29.27 million active monthly users.  all three games were created by Zynga.

The unthinkable happened January 2011, FarmVille was replaced in the number one spot for monthly active user on Facebook.  The game that had replaced FarmVille was not even on the list of the top 25 Facebook games of December 2010. The new game was also created by Zynga and is called CityVille.  Facebook users swarmed to CityVille in January 2011. 

FrontierVille Gained almost 900 thousand users totalling 30.11 million and in fourth for active monthly users.  Texas HoldEm Poker gained almost 700 million sitting in third.  FarmVille gained 4.11 million active monthly users but was not enough to beat the CityVille swarm.  CityVille took first place for active monthly users totalling 80.01 millions, which they gained 99.987% of those members in January 2010. 

Well in my opinion CityVille is better than FarmVille and FrontierVille.  Congrats Zynga.

Here is the link to December Stats & January Stats.

My FarmVille Post; The FarmVille Way

Blogging Stats

This is just quick blog to recap on everything for this blog site.

The site started as a class project and has been come a past time of mine.  The lesson was so well I have, rubbed off on others.  No one in my class has blogged as much as I have.  Most will never blog again.   As for that my list is deleting on the side titles fellow PR blogs, as I look for new interesting blogs to follow.

My greatest successes from this blog in my opinion are the number of Google search I have had.  I have been found on Google so many times, I now commonly show up at the top of the search, I am the only Loyalist PR student I can find using Google.  If you even Google "Loyalist PR", my blog appears above all others, I love it.  The other great success I get from this is just the personal skills, I have obtained.

There are many things that have changed and most will continue to change on my blog.  My skills have spread, which is why I have been helping promote a new local blogger.  “http://www.uneekvids.blogspot.com”. 

Blogging has been fun and time consuming, I would like to thank you all for the views and your support.   I will always hope for more.

I have only been blogging for three and a half months now.  There were 63 posts in 2010 and another 11 this year.  I hope you have time to read them all and look forward to the next posts.  I broke the 5000^th page view not too long ago, I am totalling 5318 page views now, thank you all again.

A Couple Good Blogs

Blogger Report: Where Attention is Needed

Record Breaking Loyalist PR

The FarmVille Way

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This brand has done so well its unexplainable.  FarmVille, I am not sure how to explain it? Most don’t need any explanation; they already know what FarmVille is.  FarmVille is a game that is online, Facebook provides the Application to allow their members to play the game.  The game is one of the most commonly played games on Facebook.  I have personal walked into my college computer lab and seen 85% of the computers logged into FarmVille, with users/students playing the game.  The FarmVille craze over my school had made me try the Facebook app/game.

FarmVille has shown itself as a growing trend and business.   Dozens of things being added to the game each month and monthly events within the game, has shown the game to be an addictive game for some.  Not all option can be accessible by playing the game, but there are options within the game that make FarmVille income from it users.   FarmVille incomes come from sources such as game enhancements, level risers, customizations, personalization, and more option available within the game that’s users pay for with cash to obtain them in the game.  FarmVille always provide other ways to obtain these “FarmVille Cash”, without buying them, such as each time you level or surveys that could be filled out, but most people pay for them as you obtain more than one or two “FarmVille Cash” and is much fast and easier way to access the “FarmVille Cash”.

Thing that got me was when I had read this article titles “How social games make money lesson from FarmVille”.  I talks how if FarmVille makes even one penny for each user that they have and what the outcome would be.  Te end factor is amazing, it says enough for itself.  $ .01 X 365 days in a year = $ 3.65 from each user, each year.  $ 3.65 X 31 million users = 114 million dollars a year. That would be if they made only one penny, what they really make is unknown to me.

FarmVille has over 81 million monthly users, so do the math; 3.65 X 81 = ______.

New Advertising and Branding Tactics

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This does not come to a surprise to me.  I have always been interested in video games, ever since I was a young boy.  Video games are one of the few things I have done my whole life with-out getting bored and quitting forever.  Becoming my favoured past time that settles me down.  I never thought I would look at them as a tactic to sell a product other than the game itself.

In the past you would need to pay anything that you had used in your game, now you have people pay to be in your video game.  I am a strong believer that facebook has increased the amount of people whom play video games and the amount people play video games.   Either way the business of game developing has changed majorly.  Increase the possible income from creating a video game in the masses.  The process in which a video is create is something i done understand but I am sure this is the best thing that ever happened to the video game market.

I have found a few interesting links below that in force what I have been saying, you should check them out.  They say the amount of in game adverting will triple in the next three years, and the income from the ads will produce more than history has ever seen.

How much will this effect?  I am not sure, if commercial go away it may be the only effective way offline.

Today In-Game Stats

http://www.emarketer.com/Reports/All/Emarketer_2000485.aspx

Tomorrows In-Game Stats

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/In-Game-Ads-To-Reach-1-Billion-In-Spending-By-2014-17762.html

Effective Brand Advertising

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Advertising can be a hard task in the world today.  We all know how much we hate commercials, it’s most commonly used as a break, to get a drink or use the washroom.  Most people would say TV commercials are a waste of money, when advertising for that reason.  Not many people will talk about commercials but this one was discussed in classrooms.

Last year Old Spice came out with one of the most effective commercials of the year.  Most people will already know the commercials I am talking about as it was previewed at the Super Bowl last year.  I did not watch the Super Bowl but had seen it on TV a few days later.  The first commercial was so successful they had made a few more, like a series of commercials.  I had not known how big it was until it was taught in my Loyalist PR class.  The lesson was in semester one but it has just stuck in my head ever since, than I saw it again the other day.

I am not 100% sure what made this advertising so successful.  It could have been the fact that it confuses you, which gives you the need to watch it again to understand it.  Well that was how it affected me the first time I had saw it.  Maybe it was what he was saying, or maybe the way he looked, Im not 100% sure.   In my opinion, it was the most effective commercial for Old Spice and the funniest commercial of the year.

I know of five commercials, one which is the good-bye video, which I have not seen viewed on television.  I am not sure if they are done with these commercial, but I am sure they became less effective with time.  It does make me wonder how Old Spice plans to create a better commercial.

The You Tube Video of the first commercial was only 33 seconds long, was posted eleven months ago and has already been viewed 29 millions times.

Commercial Links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7e_igiPIUI&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpUrz9RvuPk&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtF13U5t8xE

Good-bye Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwjJ-573njU

New Local Sports Blogger

This is just a quick blog to bring some attention to a new local sports blogger.

Blogging is a part of public relations, but you don’t need to be into public relations to blog.  The internet has given humans a lot more opportunities in the in life.  Social media took the work with storm, and it is only going to get bigger.  Blogging is available in anyone, provided my many different websites.

Sports are another interest of mine.  A friend has started a sports blog, anyone interested in sports should check it out.  http://www.uneekvids.blogspot.com/ is the address to the site.  I have found the blog site interesting.  Although the site and blogger is recently new, i hope the best for the blog site and hope you all enjoy it.

The blog site started January 17/2011, which is a week ago.  The sites post popular post is about the Upcoming Super Bowl (Click Here).  The blog sites like to predict upcoming a events.

Toppers Poor Customer Service

What started as a night of movies and ordering out, had became a stressful night.  I was in the mood for pizza, and had not had Toppers pizza in a while.  I was already not a fan of their service, as they have messed up my order the first two times I have ordered from them.  Although I had only ordered from them three or four times, their pizza was good.

We decided to order from them, despite our history. 

After a forty-five minute wait, our order had arrived.  To come to no surprise, we did not get our whole order.  We call Toppers to report, we had not gotten our whole order, and they had asked if we would like a credit on our account.  After asking not for the credit but for the rest of our order, they rudely stated they would send another driver out.

After waiting another ninety-five minutes, we had called back.   They had said the driver was on their way.  We continued to wait for the rest of our order.

That was last night; I still have not received my full order.  This morning when I had woke up, I had called complaining, the manager had told me, she was working in the kitchen last night and had remembered my order, and also heard nothing about my requests.  They continued offering to credit my account, but after having three failed services and this, who would use a service like this?

In my opinion, Toppers Pizza has the worst customer service. I don’t understand how I never got my full order, in more than Twelve hours of waiting.  It was bad customer service, failed employee communication, and bad branding.

I was not happy.

Stupidity at Its Finest

Earlier this week I was researching other blogs, checking out different lay-outs and setups.  While I was searching I had found an interesting blog.  The blog shocked, angered and left me speechless.  The subject of the blog had made me scratching my head.  The only explanation I had was their uneducated.

I am not that old, my teenage years were not that long ago.  Thinking the world was in my hands and setting the rule, being a teenager was the best.  We all know what it is like as a teen, doing some of the dumbest things of our lives as a teen.  Teens these days are doing some of the dumbest things I have ever heard of; with things like “the choking game” I don’t know where their common sense has gone.  As a teen, I would have laughed if someone told me they were doing that.

This blog I had found is titled “Ashes to asses, dust to dolts”.  It tells a story about earlier in this week, in Miami.  Five teen burglars had been arrested while committing a crime.  The five teen were later linked to a similar crime in the neighbourhood.  In that burglary there was electronic equipment and jewellery that had been taken along with two urns. The urns were containing the ashes of the owner’s father and her two Great Danes.

After a brief investigation it was learned that the five teens had mistaken the ashes for cocaine and sniffed them.  After realizing it was not cocaine, the remaining ashes we thrown into a lake, after the teens feared their fingerprints were on the container.

I am speechless; all I can say is crime is getting to out of control.  The law needs to get stronger; it is losing the control of their people.  We all know the laws and life have changed over the last 50 years, they are nothing alike.  Nothing is right about this situation but honestly, stealing urns? Where did the common sense go?

Learning Interviewing with a Painful Interview

If you think about it, you are your own brand, and an interview is kind of like selling yourself. 

Interviewing or being interviewed could be one of the hardest things to do successfully.  I simply think the word adds stress to the situation.  This week in Loyalist PR, we had an eye opener on how bad some interviews could get, while learning interviewing skills.  An interview could make or break the situation.  People should always think before they speak.

There have been many funny interviews in the news in history, Sarah Palin having a few. There were a few videos that had been viewed by our class including hers but there was one video that we had watched, which is the worst interview I have ever seen.

The video below is the shorten version of the interview.  The interview was with Billy Bob Thornton and his band.  There is a full version of the interview, but the shorter one gets to the point.

The video is kind of funny in my opinion.  Their tour was cancelled after this interview.  Billy Bob also did a public apology.  The reasoning was because they had talked about his movie career, but later had said it was all a joke.

Here is the full interview.

A Crazy New Year

The year has started with a storm for me.  Now that this is a new year I have tried to set new goals for myself.  This year I want to start getting on the path of my career.  To achieve that goal I needed some experience, so I had volunteered to do some work for the Belleville Bearcats, just to get some experience.    The work was not too hard but with Christmas and the New Years, there was not much left of my holiday left. 

As we started the second semester in Loyalist PR, I was slammed with seven group projects and no class time to work on them.  The semester does not look fun, it may be when it is all over but there are too many things due within a two week span.  To add to everything there are more little assignments, the weather, the flu, daycare and time table problems to deal with.   It is so hard to adapt at the beginning of the semester, and I feel the college never cares in semester two.

I find it odd that Loyalist College says they are there to do everything possible to help you succeed but their daycare closes before classes even end but if you leave or miss a day you lose marks, which is so helpful to me.  Their solution for me is to bring my child to class with me, so I ask how I will get my work done.  Just think about it a four year old girl, which is always hungry after school, going to sit in a computer lab, not touch anything and be quite, it’s not possible, no one will get any work done, I’m sorry Loyalist College but I’m not that disrespectful to other students, as I can see you don’t care.

The semester maybe busy but I have many project to blog about, so the post may come a little less but please continue to read them, I am almost at 5,000 page views.  This month has been a little slow for blogging but I will try my best to get them in there.

To add to the status of my blog, I will also be working on the design and layout of my blog, so feel free to email me at k.benjamin87@hotmail.com, let me know what you like and what you don’t like about my blog.  I hope everyone a good and safe new year.

Loyalist PR Is Back With a Bang

Now it is 2011, which is now a new year, with new classes, and a new semester with Loyalist PR.  There was no slow start to semester two.  No easy first week.  Semester two came with a punch and our Public Relations class had to start off running.  The semester had made us look like a whole different class.

With some groups carrying over from last semester, the semester started with client presentations to find out what the rest of the group would be this semester.  The class had gone from a split two sections to one whole class, which you can read in "Loyalist PR Sections Are Going To Merge". Now our class has seven group projects on the go, which have different people in each group, there is not much time to fool around.

This semester does look to leave no surprises, as our whole semester had been given to us at the beginning.  I do like having my work ahead of time but I wish my groups were more similar and were given more time to work in our groups.  In my opinion, it is hard to meet with 4-6 other people and their schedules with work, day-care and everything else.  With half our days not ending until 4-6 PM, I don’t know what to think about this semester with Loyalist PR.

The semester looks full and it is shortened due to it ending with our internships.  All I can look forward to is the internship.  The semester does look full of stressful but fun events and assignment we will be working on, but I have never planned seven things at once.  There is more than the seven projects. we have other smaller assignment too, but not to many.  This semester is nothing like the first.

Blogger Report: Bearcats Are Looking To Increase Their Pack Size

The Belleville Bearcats are always welcoming others.  The Belleville Bearcats are a non for-profit organization that provides females of all ages the chance to participate in all aspects of ice hockey.   The Belleville Bearcats  Hockey invites all ages with many division from novice A to senior A.

The teams are always looking to increase in size by always looking for new members for all divisions.  The Bearcats are friendly, nice people that play competitively in tournaments against other teams from across Ontario.  The organization provides the team with training, practices, tournaments, and enjoyment.

I have always promoted sports for youth, as it always will provide more to their life than just a sport they play.  Adult Sports are also important but youth need it more in some communities, in my opinion.  I highly promote the Belleville Bearcats Rep Hockey for any females, any age to look into the Bearcats.

The most important thing is that this organization would not be available to the public if it was not for their volunteers.   I thank them all for providing this service.  The most important part of this blog is the Bearcats will always be looking for more volunteers, so please if you are interested contact them. They will always need volunteers.

The Belleville Bearcats Want Your Attention !!

Belleville Girls Rep Hockey Tournament

New Years Classic

The Belleville Girls Rep Hockey will be hosting their annual New Year’s Classic Tournament.  The tournament is held in Belleville, Ont. and is hosted by the Belleville Bearcats.  The Belleville Bearcats are a non for-profit organization that provides females of all ages, in the Quinte area the chance to participate in all aspects of ice hockey.  The largest tournament so far in the over 15 years that Belleville & District Girls Minor Hockey Association has been hosting.

The New Year's Classic is a three day tournament.  It starts on the January 7 and ends on January 9, 2011. The New Year's Classic Tournament hosts 77 teams from Novice A to Senior A.

The tournament is sanctioned by the OWHA (Ontario Women’s Hockey Association).  The opening ceremony is at 11:00 AM at the Yardmen Arena.  Invited dignitaries are Mayor Neil Ellis, Mayor John Williams and Colonel D.C. Cochrane.

Three Belleville Arenas, Three Other local Arenas

·         Yardmen
·         Dick Ellis
·         Wally Dever
·         RCAF
·         Wellington (former Dukedome)
·         McMullen - Frankford

Vendors will be available at all arenas.  Special events will be going on all weekend, such as 50/50, silent auction, professional photography, and concussion awareness.

Corporate Sponsor is Deerhaven.

Other Sponsors of the event are Qunite Mall, Medigas, Wendy’s, FourSeasons Sports, Investors Group.