What am I talking about?

The use of the internet as a vehicle of free speech and innovation has always been important to me. As a matter of fact, I started blogging because there were some things that I did not like and I sought to help change those things that I did not like. SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) can be used as an internet censorship tool.

Free speech and the internet matter.

So why, are most major news networks silent on the issue of SOPA?

On Jan 18th, my blog will darken and join the Internet blackout initiative to bring awareness and protest SOPA.

The term Digital Divide gets thrown around with this topic and means to address the lack of access to broadband access based on your ethnicity or income level.

I talked with Dr. Victoria De Francesco Soto who’s an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. Her research focuses on race and ethnic politics, immigration, and campaigns and elections. The following is an overview of our discussion.

Net Neutrality/Digital Divide

Dr. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto wants more people in the US to be able to access broadband Internet and sees the issue of accessibility as solvable. This should be done in the most cost effective and efficient way possible. And the way to accomplish this, Soto believes, is by ensuring sound Internet policy and that there are incentives for the private sector to invest in broadband infrastructure.

As a result of a solid public-private partnership we’ll see more broadband development and extension to reach underrepresented and under served areas in the US. This expansion will benefit Latinos, as well as Whites and Blacks who can’t afford access as well.

Broadband

If the US invented the Internet, why does it rank 18th on broadband accessibility for its population? A big part of why broadband penetration has been so lacking is simply because of the size of our country compared with others (Iceland for instance, ranks #2 in Internet penetration). Dr. Soto says encouraging private investment and helping communities in need will make us #1.

You may notice that we have stated ‘broadband’ Internet access as opposed to the ‘Internet.’ There’s a good reason why. There’s an argument that mobile Internet access narrows the gap on this issue, as many Hispanics are accessing the Internet via their cell phones replacing traditional efforts.

Dr. Soto, does not see this as a trade-off for a home broadband connection. “People need to sit down and read a 35 page document or research for a school project with a full screen – this is not possible with a cell phone,” she says. “Mobile can be a good gateway when you’re on the run, but it’s not good enough.”

The Future

Although the digital divide affects everyone, Latinos especially can benefit since they are most affected by lack of access. We must keep in mind that our voices are not all the same, likewise our access to resources, such as broadband Internet differs immensely.

Dr. Soto advises people to not be complacent, not to settle. She worries about our youth not learning new ways of doing things with technology and hopes that forward looking companies will help to contribute to new technologies and accessibility.

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About Dr. Soto

Victoria M. DeFrancesco Soto is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. Dr. DeFrancesco Soto received her Ph.D. from Duke University in 2007.

She serves as a Board Member at the Alliance for Digital Equality, a non-profit organization that serves to facilitate and ensure equal access to technology in under served communities.
Dr. DeFrancesco Soto’s research focuses on race and ethnic politics, immigration, and campaigns and elections. Her academic research has been widely published in scholarly journals and edited volumes. Her current work examines how Latino political candidates are evaluated by both Latino and non-Latino populations. Her research and teaching portfolio, links race and ethnicity with political psychology to understand how ‘cognition’ and ‘affect’ shape how individuals process information in dynamic political environments.

Dr. DeFrancesco Soto also brings public opinion expertise to understand presidential elections. Presently Dr. DeFrancesco Soto is examining how the 2008 presidential campaign ads shaped public opinion and vote choice. In this analysis, she applies an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) approach to understand how ethnically targeted ads influence political choice. In 2008, Dr. DeFrancesco Soto was Northwestern’s University principal investigator for the Big Ten Battleground Poll, a public opinion survey of voters for the 2008 Presidential Election.
In the media sphere, Dr. DeFrancesco Soto regularly contributes to national media outlets. In 2008, she served as a primary expert and analyst for CNN en Espanol’s 2008 Presidential Election coverage. She has also been featured on the Today Show and NPR.

I remember my first live event: meeting live people…talking with live people…exchanging handshakes instead of emails or comments.  It was a thrill!

When introduced with my real name, I was greeted with a confused look.  On that cue, my screen name was then offered: the Latino Pundit.  It was then greeted with familiarity.

Ever since that experience, I felt that people only new the mask, and not the person behind the online identity.   And it was then the decision was made to make my name a brand, and not a fictitious identity to hide behind.  This is the reasoning behind my Twitter handle, and my blog name albeit it has two names.  I do realize that we still are not fully transparent online – even if we do use our real names – but I feel we are a little closer to humanizing the web by doing so.

So, what is in a screen name?  Well, everything: how people perceive you, recognition, reputation, memorability, relatability.  I’m sure I missed some.

I wonder how many people remember their first screen name, and if they still are using it solely.  That would be interesting!

What’s your take?

(Originally posted on VistaHispano)

Hashtags on Twitter is a simple means of allowing others to chat with one another around a central topic.

Recently, after 69 days of being trapped 2,000 feet underground,  33 Chilean miners were finally rescued.  And you can be sure there was a couple day’s worth of Twitter conversation routing on the event.

There were a couple of more hashtags used.  If you know them, list them here.

This Friday, I’m having an interview with Jose Marquez, CEO of LISTA on net neutrality.

Net Neutrality is a discussion about your stake in internet bandwidth.  In a nutshell, it addresses the issue of measuring the use of internet bandwidth one utilizes and applying a tiered rate based on that usage.

There are proponents and opponents of this approach.  One argument states that Latinos will be affected unfairly, others say that they won’t and this will cover the cost of upgrading of the internet backbone.

Obviously, there are many thoughts on this subject:

“In the climactic scene of the Oscar-nominated film “There Will Be Blood,” Daniel Day-Lewis’s ruthless oil tycoon explains that he has drained all the valuable oil off a neighbor’s land. “If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and I have a straw … and my straw reaches across the room … I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!”

Will your milkshake get drank by someone else?  What are your questions/concerns?  Ask them here and I’ll ask Jose.

Some of the domains are extremely lucrative as their names are perfect descriptions.  For example, LatinosInMedia.com, LatinoReporter.com, HispanicsInSocialMedia.com, LatinoVotes.com and many more.

Manny successfully launched one of the largest Hispanic PR/Social media conferences and has a respectable blog. His recent endeavor is PapiBlogger:

PapiBlogger is the nation’s first bilingual web site devoted to showcasing creative parenting tricks for fathers and mothers.  Together with its popular Facebook fan page www.Facebook.com/papiblogger and its Twitter page www.Twitter.com/papiblogger, the bilingual blog serves as a forum for parents to share creative parenting ideas for children ages infant to young adult.

He is currently documenting his family road trip.  Go check him out.

NAHJ, has ten multimedia journalism training sessions in Texas, Feb 20. Blogging, social media and content creation will rule these workshops.

Very innovative and keeping in pace of a trend in the Latino sphere – from their website: The New Generation Latino Consortium (NGLC), the only professional organization of its kind dedicated to the enhancement of the New Generation Latino audience, is proud to announce ‘The NGLC Media, Marketing & Entertainment Conference’ taking place in New York City on April 5, 2010.

Let me back up a little.

In October, I talked about the importance of publishing your content on a blog that you own versus a social media site like Facebook or Twitter.  I subtitled the post as “Centralized Me,” to build on the concept of concentrating your content to one main platform.

The Comment’s section of a blog is the site’s social component, for without it a blog is only a new media site with a one way conversation void of reader interaction.

Google Buzz, in essence does to your blog’s comments what other social media sites does to your content – spreads it far and wide.  If readers use Buzz the exposure of your blog will be multiplied, which is every blogger’s dream.  But I have to ask, will those who use Buzz also comment on your blog?

Latino Rebranded integrates a button called TweetMeme and if you look, more people Tweet posts than actually comment.  On Facebook, my followers comment or “like” my blog posts, as well as Networked Blogs – a Facebook application that delivers new posts to people’s inbox and utilizes an RSS feed as well.   Now Buzz, can be added to the list.  (I just had the thought that an opportunity exists for a program to pool together all these outside conversations and dump them into one spot – the Comment section.  Maybe it already exists?)

Taking all of the above into consideration, the ‘push-button’ interaction that they all offer will subtly deter comments because in the mind of the reader they already have commented – in the form a tweet, a buzz or a ‘like’.

I’m not saying to not use any of these services, because they are great tools that leverage your blog’s exposure – and that’s what you want!  But, with the awareness of conversations happening outside your Comment section you can start thinking of ways to harness them for the benefit of your blog.