Totally blogalicious? Are college students reading blogs?

This semester I completed a research project for my COM research class. My group project was centered around one main question:
Are College Students Reading Blogs?

The answer, my friends, is very simple.
And scary.
NO.

Out of the 105 students we surveyed, only 27 said that they read blogs!

We surveyed 25 students at BU's student center and the results we found were very interesting.

• significantly more males were reading blogs. (64%)
• it seems like female students can't actually identify what sites are blogs..."is like Perez Hilton a blog?"
• NO ONE (we surveyed) read more then 10 blogs! (SERIOUSLY!)
• While 74% of respondents spent 10-30 hours on the internet a week, 75% of respondents spent less than 5 hours a week reading blogs.
• Word Of Mouth is an incredibly powerful medium in college circles

These statistics really surprised me. Sure our sample was made up of students from the different colleges at BU. But it really seems that college students either don't want to, or don't have time to emerge themselves in the blogosphere. Although it doesn't surprise me that there aren't students from the health sciences school represented in our survey, I would think that more students from our College of Communication were reading blogs.

My question is how are communications students gonna keep up today's fast paced media landscape?

Sure, I do know some students that keep blogs. But these students are RARE! Most people who know me as a blogger think I'm slightly crazy. Blogs, seriously Danielle?

It's true!

Don't get me started on what they think of Twitter. I explained twitter to my interactive marketing class and people thought that I was nuts!


Should more colleges push students to be active online? Should they introduce students to different social media sites? Should it be integrated into everyone's education?

Are you a college students who reads blogs? What do your friends think?

Marketing, Samples and Sunshine, Oh my!

WHat do I like more then interactive marketing and free food?
Not much more.

This past weekend was Boston's Head of The Charles Regatta.

Please understand that I was in no way inclined to watch the regatta. Sure the crewing is very exciting and all, but big sponsored Row A Palooza -- really caught my attention.

There are about 40 companies that come and just hand out free stuff. Be it ice cream, coffee, chips or juice. Sure, all these little samples were delious. What I thought was very interesting about these samples, is that most of them were products I wouldn't choose to try. So duh, as customers and organizations, don't we just love sampling!

But heres what really got me thinking...
Kashi, Gillete, Best Buy and Nokia had unbelievable tents set up to not only sample a product, but really become one with the brand. I think that is what has made these companies (especially Kashi) so popular and credible.

But, Gilette's booth took it even a step farther. I took a picture in the booth, created my own music, and even passed up a free shave!
All this hoopla and I was engaging with the product for almost 15 minutes. You couldnt buy that kind of brand integration anywhere.
So interesting and so cool! Good Job Gillete!

Who am I?

So I've been thinking a lot about online presence.

I mean, not only am I obsessed with my new media class and for that reason have developed a new blog habit to go along with my constant need to check facebook. But here is my latest conundrum...
Are you no one until you can be googled?
And, since I do believe that is infact the case, when did this shift occur that says that it is socially acceptable (and not sketchy) to use your real name as your online psuedo alias.

Because here is the problem... I didn't get the message! Right now, danilady is my pseudo alias, and my actual name can not be googled.
Is this a problem?
More importantly, are people (and of course, by people I mean potential employers) going to be turned off by this?
Next questions - should I change my whole online persona and adapt it so that I can be googled?

I do think its very interesting that night now, so many people are using their real names online. This idea was so looked down upon only a few years ago, and this may be just another indication of how quickly trends can change. But somehow, I am not convinced. Am I cynical? Or do I just not trust people? The thing is, I really do think the best of most people.


Right now, I don't know the answer to this. But heres my course of action.
Rather then deal with creating a whole new online persona, I have decided (with some help) that being consistant is the most important thing.
Therefore, I Danielle Katz am now Danilady.

or at least for now...