436 understanding e-branding

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Competing against the “Cat Playing Piano” in the classroom

April 11, 2012 By ZahraJamshed 1 Comment

Learning How to Cook – An Optimistic Outlook on E-learning.

April 10, 2012 By Eleni 1 Comment

When did online learning or what is now more commonly known as e-learning receive such a bad reputation?

I’ve personally always thought of online learning as a wonderful tool mainly because I look at it in a very broad sense of the word “learning”. Do I want to learn how to play guitar, I can. Do I want to learn how to put on my make up by a smoking hot girl, I can. But perhaps most importantly, do I want to learn how to cook, you better believe it, I can. Anything I’ve ever really wondered has been available at my finger tips … why isn’t that a good thing? Oh yeah because it threatens the fabric of our society. Let me explain ..

While endeavoring to read the most recent online research on what is now being regarded as this new “phenomena” (its actually been around for years) of e-learning one can get easily lost in the fabricated world of what is known as “i-learning” through apple and ALL there numerous products like ipods, ipads, and macs and read/ get lost in numerous articles on how educations is being ruined by free online universities/ courses/certificates. At first the whole notion of online anything seems overwhelming due to the sheer plethora of information one gets, but beyond that intimidation lays in this overall negative aura that online education has received.

Through my research I’ve realized that there seem to be two main concerns when it comes to e-learning. Firstly, the concept of receiving what is known as a “online education” without an institution’s approval upsets both the institution and the people who uphold its reputations. If everyone can get a degree for free where does that leave all the cushy 40,000 dollar Queen’s degrees, everyone is suddenly on a level playing field something that is undoubtedly not fair to those who just lost their shirts paying for a degree that can be gotten in a moment for a fraction of the price is not for free. Secondly, a question of accessibility arises as e-learning can be seen as a privilege for the elite. If one can’t afford the online tools to access the education being demanded by our North American Society, how is that fair to newer generations? Well obviously it isn’t and this idea is illustrated in the article USA Classrooms (K-12) Moving Towards Digital Textbooks Over the Next 5 Years? an article by a blogger named Juli for padgadget.com, that explains that if educational systems are making the switch to more tech savy school supplies then clearly this notion of e-learning needs to be understood and taken seriously as it is being utilized for new generations.

I mean its not only children we expect to be tech savvy … we expect current working industry professionals to be constantly connected … as mentioned in the article “If Twitter Is a Work Necessity” by Jennifer Preston for the New York Times …

“For midcareer executives, particularly in the media and related industries, knowing how to use Twitter, update your timeline on Facebook, pin on Pinterest , check in on Foursquare and upload images on Instagram are among the digital skills that some employers expect people to have to land a job or to flourish in a current role.”

If being technology savvy is now an expectation not just an extra cool skill a person may or may not have/need, how can we question that there is a need for children to learn electronically. This is not to say that there is no problems with e-learning, like all good things, if exploited or overused, then chaos could arise, rather a combination of conventional in class learning and online learning is inevitably the future.

I mean kids (or more honestly, this eleni) can’t just learn to cook online, you need to practice in the kitchen with real food to get it right, like all things, its about compromise.

I mean, it’s been proven that online learning tools can and have helped with all sorts of different types of subjects but now that online tools are being utilized for subjects like math, science, and commerce subjects conventionally taught at the highest levels of our education system many feel threatened. Why? Well because if one movie can show children what hours and hundreds of dollars with a tutor/teacher can then clearly that’s money taken out of the institutions pockets. This idea is elaborated on eloquently in the article “What’s in a name? The value of a good university brand” by Victoria Nuemark for the Guardian.

I think if one looks past what the institutes want and focuses on all the wonderful things they’ve learnt on the internet, for example, for me learning how to cook some of my favorite recipes, there doesn’t really seem to be a threat with online learning. In reality my mother taught me a lot of what I know about cooking but when shes not available you know that internet is where I turn to not my roommates.

Finally what I found perphaps most interesting was Maria Anderson’s “Where’s the ‘learn this’ button” video. Maria Anderson is a learning futurist from the LIFT Institute at Muskegon Community College. She in general argues that education in needs to evolve with current technological standards, and that learning can, should, and eventually will be measured outside of educational institutions.

What do you think ?

e-learning worldwide

April 7, 2012 By Lauren 4 Comments

E-Learnin with J Coolio and the Tik Tok Killa

April 6, 2012 By Justin 2 Comments

Passing Notes Could Get You More Than Detention

April 5, 2012 By Samantha 8 Comments

Image by: Brendan Dean [Flickr]

You overslept. You were sick. You just had to finish that paper that’s due this afternoon! Whether for legitimate reasons or not, students will all eventually miss a class. The internet seems to have the answer for this now though- instead of skimming textbooks or hoping a friend will lend you their notes (that may or may not be legible) you can now turn to the internet to buy notes. Many note sharing websites are appearing that reward people for uploading their notes so their peers can buy them; Queen’s University students have started Loopnotes where students earn back 60% of their selling price while the site keeps the rest. Other websites have incentives like movie tickets to encourage people to sign up and share. It seems like a fairly harmless idea that encourages students to take detailed notes- but like everything else on the internet it’s not quite that simple.

Students at the University of Southern California are among the first to receive a harsh warning by their administration for participation on the websites. In the article “Selling Notes Could Earn Disciplinary Action” by Amanda Coyne, she quotes the school’s coordinator of academic integrity Keven Kozee: “Students could potentially violate the Student Code of Conduct, the Honor Code or both by using Notehall.” But how does note sharing violate the code- aren’t these the students who are paying for the information anyway?

Technically, the information on the notes and the course framework are not public property- they are the intellectual property of the professor. It would be easy for another individual to take the notes and to build an identical course. It is the same as having someone take your essay, change the name, and hand it in as their own. While the intent of the professor is to teach, that information is the result of many hours of work and research. The information on those notes is their job, and in many fields you want your ideas to remain on the cutting edge. Plus, if you do the work you want to get paid. When your information is spread the value of the professor and that course can be lost.

The other issue these websites present is the question of whether or not the notes contain the correct information. Someone could easily upload incorrect notes as the moderators of the site (and the professors who teach the course) cannot monitor this. In another article, Jill Jacobson, an associate professor at Queen’s University identifies this problem and states “If it’s offsite, I would have no idea it was happening.” The intent might not be malicious either, someone could just be wrong in their own note taking.

While these websites do not necessarily condone plagiarism, or have the intent of stealing information from professors there are individuals who could take advantage of these websites. “With all the paper writing sources that are now there, I’m not surprised that there are services like this” Jacobson says. The movement to share information cannot be stopped, but if you’re planning on uploading your notes it might be worth thinking again before you hit the submit button.

Is Technology Really Making Our Kids That Much Smarter?

April 5, 2012 By Nina 3 Comments

image credit: flickingerbrad (Flickr)

While many out there herald the iPad as the saviour to the education system (which has been virtually unchanged for 300 years) there are also many who do not believe this to be true. As our society moves more and more into the online world education is being questioned and many are seeking to change and adapt it using today’s technologies. In Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon’s article in The Wall Street Journal, “Online Education: My Teacher is an App”, they note that at the time of printing (Nov 12 2011) approximately 250,000 American kids in K-12 are now enrolled in full-time online schools, a number which has increased by 40% within the past three years. This trend is not confined to the United States and Canada is seeing more and more virtual schools pop up like Linkonlearning Canada’s first virtual elementary school. To me this is a disturbing trend, what happened to the old days of attending schools with real teachers and where schools were not only a place of learning but of socialization. Are the next generation of kids really going to benefit from spending hours on end staring at a screen instead of at another human being?

A disturbing quotation that I came across in my research was from Scott Stienberg, the author of “The Modern Parent’s Guide” series, who began with this consideration: “Consider that kids aged two to five are better able to play video games and download apps than tie their shoe laces or ride a bike.” Does that frighten anyone else? What good is a child that can only interact virtually but cannot even preform some of the most basic physical skills? These days parents seem to have replaced the babysitter with an iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. While there are many educational benefits that can be found on such devices as the iPad should these really replace a human? It seems that at least some people believe that an iPad or even just the internet itself can replace not only a babysitter but a teacher as well. Many companies are creating startup non-traditional online approaches to learning not only for the university set (Khan Academy, MITx, Udacity, etc.) but the high schoolers and elementary kids as well. Pearson is developing a new teaching tool for kids using a Zynga style set up. The gamified learning system, Alleyoop, is set up so that kids can access already existing content on the web through its interface and then it monitors their progress and rewards them for completing challenges and tasks with virtual currency or Yoops. Money comes into play for the edu-game when kids want to access extras like one-on-one tutoring by paying for more Yoops required to pay for the online content also some of the hosted content is not for free and requires a payment to the third party provider (though Alleyoop would take a profit cut). Currently the Beta version is only for 13-18 year olds seeking help in Math but they hope to expand to other subjects and age groups. “If we can use game mechanics to get kids hooked on virtual-currency powered farm fields, why not learning.” When did education become a game?

One problem the USA is seeing so far with online courses is that the kids just are scoring as high as their traditionally schooled counterparts in every subject on standardized tests, according to Banchero and Simon. So not only are the kids not being socialized they are not as proficient or progressing any better. As great as online learning may sound it may not be the best environment for young kids who are easily distracted. The web provides many distractions (as any university student knows, why listen to lecture when your BFF just posted a hilarious new batch of photos on Facebook) and kids already don’t have the best attention spans especially this new hyper connected generation of kids. Online learning when left on its own can lead slacking cause there is less accountability. Rosie Lowndes, as social studies teacher at Georgia Cyber Academy, provided a good observation on online schooling in The Wall Street Journal article previously mentioned, “Basically letting a child educate himself, that’s not going to be a good education ‘experience’. The computer can’t do it alone.” At home kids are left with their parent to turn to for help with their online courses but not every parent remembers everything they learnt in grade school and may find themselves unable to help.

When online education is paired with traditional face-to-face teaching that is where it will find its success. One school that is way ahead in the technological field while still incorporating teach face-time and the pratical socialization experience of high school is iPrep in Miami. The charter school currently only has 50 Junior students and three teachers but they plan on expanded to all four grades with three teachers each. Every iPrep student is promised a MacBook provided by the school which they use to complete their homework as well as attend online classes. The students spend the morning interacting with live teachers who use web tools to complement their material and then their afternoons are spent in online classes. The school also provides the kids with nearby internships within the community. The entire campus is out-fitted with the latest tech from full WiFi access to a Wii in the student lounge. iPrep truly is a 21st century school and one that actually sounds like it could produce results because of its guided and supportive environment where the students still get to benefit from the traditional aspects of high school like homecoming and school dances.

Education is coming to a breaking point, do we stick with the old ways of the past or do we try and adapt to the 21st century and the hyper-connected kids of tomorrow? Will teachers be able to keep up to their students? Do iPads really belong in the classroom? There are so many question to ask and only time will give us the answers.

The Book who Lived

March 31, 2012 By Nicole 2 Comments

It’s A Book (Trailer)

March 29, 2012 By Kaiti 6 Comments

Screen Shot of "It's A Book" movie trailer by Lane Smith (from YouTube.com)

On this blog, there have been many discussions about the marketing of book to film adaptations, such as Whitney’s “The Hunger Games: Efficient and Effective Social Media Marketing” and Leanne’s “Breaking Records: ‘John Carter’ vs. ‘The Hunger Games’”. But a topic that I believe has been overlooked is the marketing of these books, before an adaptation is even discussed. How are books marketed? So often, people are directed towards a certain book through word of mouth, or a best-sellers list. But realistically, a great deal is put towards the marketing of a book in order for them to be placed on a best-sellers list. Furthermore, many authors are creatively innovating these practices, and demonstrating ways that marketing incentives allow great opportunities for self-publishing.

Take book trailers, for example. Have you seen one? Most likely not; however, you’d be surprise to know that they have been produced since as early as 2002. The first book trailer to be shown publicly was Dark Symphony by Christine Feehan, screened at a book convention in Louisiana. But ever since online video sharing websites (like YouTube) emerged, book trailers have found a medium to be distributed through, and a growing audience to watch. Thus, book trailers became a prominent marketing tool. As Danyael Halprin describes in her article, Judging a Book By Its Trailer, book trailers can be as simple as “a slideshow of stock images or videos with author interviews,” but they can also be animated, interactive, or simulate full-on cinematic experiences with THX sound and special effects. Interested? Check out Lemony Snicket’s book trailer for his children’s book, 13 Words here, or a trailer for the non-fiction, comical “self-help guide”, The Worst Worst Case Scenario Pocket Guide: Breakups here.

This affective marketing tool is also essential for authors hoping to self-publish, or at least save some money during the marketing process. Take Calgary author Craig DiLouie for example. For his second novel, The Infection, DiLouie made his own trailer using CyberLink PowerDirector. With licensing and copyright frees, DiLouie’s trailer cost him a mere $350, significantly less than any marketing a big name publisher would offer him. Watch The Infection trailers here.

This is also significantly less than best selling author Tim Ferriss, who spent $12,000 on the book trailer for his second work, The 4-Hour Body. On his blog, Ferriss describes the process by which he made his book trailer, including contacting filmmaker Adam Patch and passing ideas back and forth with him. Despite the high cost, Ferriss believes the trailer was a success: he recognizes it for taking The 4-Hour Body from near #150 to #30 on Amazon, where it later climbed to #1. Watch the trailer here. However, it is important to note that it was the success of his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, that allowed Ferriss the high budget for his second book’s marketing. Rather than spending $12,000 for the marketing of The 4-Hour Workweek, Ferriss embraced the potential of social media and did all his marketing from home, free of charge. He credits followers and bloggers for making him into a New York Times best selling author.

New technology, and the accessibility of these creative programs, offers so much for individuals considering self-publishing. Digital media has innovated publishing by providing numerous platforms on which authors can not only distribute their product, but market it. Craig DiLouie describes it best when he says, “today, a guy like me can write a book, see it published without an agent, promote it through blogs and websites and social media and book trailers, and sell more than 10,000 copies of it in a year. That’s an amazing thing.”

Cutting Out the Middle Man

March 29, 2012 By Ben 6 Comments

Social Media and Fashion Blogging

March 28, 2012 By AlessCivit 5 Comments

The new way of the fashion world? Internet Bloggers. Internet Blogging is a relatively new trend that is beginning to get widespread attention. There are a few blogs off the top of my head that have become the go-to for fashion advice, trends, gossip and photography. Not only are blogs for personal purposes anymore, companies use fashion blogs to promote upcoming collections and interact with customers online.

Coach was in fact the first company to collaborate with a blog to promote their brand. “As a brand, Coach was one of the first to partner with bloggers to design, style and blog about new product and to have them appear in its ad campaigns. To date, the brand has launched nine blogger-centric programs—the first of which occurred in November and December 2009, when 30 bloggers participated in holiday-themed posts” (via thenextweb) Social media is the new way to advertise your company, especially in the world of fashion. CoCoPerez.com is one of the most famous fashion blogs- a spinoff from his celebrity gossip blog PerezHilton.com. Perez is the leading Internet blogger of our time. The fashion industry’s integration with social media can only be a factor that positively affects the fashion world.

Since blogging has become such an influential factor in fashion, there are sponsored fashion blogger awards by various magazines. Cosmopolitan and UK based fashion magazine Company put together a gala event called the Company’s Style Blogger Awards 2012: Blogger Style. Featured in the awards is well-known fashion blog, 5InchAndUp. 5InchAndUp is based in the UK and was started by a fashion student named Sandra. Now after three years of beautiful photography and showcasing new styles of clothing, 5InchAndUp is one of the most well-known fashion blogs. Clothing companies, for example Levis, lend their clothes to Sandra so she can photograph herself wearing the different styles. Not only are outfits well put together advertising a specific brand, but also the photographs are so beautifully taken. She is now under the radar of many modeling agencies.

BlackMilk clothing is another clothing company well known for their social media. Being solely available online, they use social media as a way to communicated with their customers. They have successfully build and online family of “Sharkies” (what they call their customers). People post photos of their BlackMilk clothing on the Facebook page and receive mass amounts of comments and likes by many of the 110,000 fans. BlackMilk is a company that is very interactive with their customers and encourage engagement. I recently purchased merchandise off the site. The letter that came in the mail told me to go Facebook page if I had any trouble wearing the items so I could see how other “Sharkies” wore it. I look on the BlackMilk page every time I am on Facebook because I like to see the photos people post. I also like the witty comments BlackMilk writes on the pictures. They created an intimate online family that share their stories and ask opinions of other online fans.

Social Media and fashion are one in the same now. You must be readily available online if you want your brand to be successful. You must embrace fashion bloggers and create an online community where people around the world can feel connected. Please check out BlackMilk’s Facebook page and 5InchAndUp’s fashion blog for great photos and tips!

Breaking Records: ‘John Carter’ vs. ‘The Hunger Games’

March 28, 2012 By Leanne 8 Comments

image credit: bedgur (flickr)

March 2012 saw the release of two “pure Hollywood” films: The Hunger Games (03/23) and John Carter (03/09). The first made a whopping $155m domestically ($214 globally), which made it the third highest opening weekend ever. The second turned from an epic sci-fi to an epic failure brining in only $30m domestically ($71m globally). What is most shocking is that the first, The Hunger Games had a production budget of $100m while the second, John Carter had a marketingbudget of $100m and an overall production budget of $250m. While both films broke records, how did one do so well and the other so poorly?

Both films are adaptations from popular novels. Written by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games became an international best seller in 2011 (which in part can be attributed to early marketing of the first film, released in 2012). John Carter acts an interpretation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ century-old novels that influenced the creation of films like Star Wars (1977), and Avatar (2009).

image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures

So what did The Hunger Games, a film do in the world of social media that John Carter didn’t?

Jason Boies outlines a number of lessons to be learnt from the failed marketing of John Carter, all of which were employed by those marketing The Hunger Games (though not all will be covered here). The first, make the titles catchy and informative. John Carter seems rather boring compared to a title like The Hunger Games, which leads to questions like “what are The Hunger Games?” The second lesson, don’t rely on the latest bells and whistles to sell the film. Boies argues, “just because you’ve created your brand pages on the hottest new social media platform doesn’t mean your audience will flock to them or share your content with their networks.”

The Hunger Games started early in its social media marketing. There were 13 Facebook pages representing each of the districts in the film (and novel). Online, it was made so that fans could become virtual citizens of each district. Various scavenger hunts were also implemented on social media sites for fans to participate in with the hopes of winning tickets the premiere (see also: “The Hunger Games Wins Big: A Social Phenomenon”). Furthermore, with the help of thismoment.com, an online company offering social content management for brands (working also with Canon, Buick, and Dell), websites were made to bring audiences into the authentic world of Panem (authentic in the sense that no references were made to The Hunger Games as a film, rather, the Hunger Games was made into an event and marketing by actual people living in The Capital).

image couresty of Lionsgate Pictures

There was no equivalent for this with John Carter, whose trailers and TV spots failed to communicate a unified storyline and whose Facebook page (with 220,453 likes) has double postings of the same images with the same uninspired captions (i.e., “What John Carter character was the most exciting to see on the big screen?”). Tweets and updates on Facebook for The Hunger Games (with 3,559,510 likes) were saturated with insider references and creativity. Three weeks after its release, John Carter’s only Twitter account topped out at 9,400 followers with only 240 tweets. In comparison, The Hunger Games (on its main Twitter account – yes, there are more than one) has roughly 3,500 tweets to date and 393,221 followers.

Finally, one of the most important lessons presented by Boies, monitor the buzz: “A strategy for monitoring social media conversations will capture the online sentiment surrounding a marketing campaign’s initial launch.” For John Carter, the largely negative reactions (and lack of reaction) could have been a warning sign for Disney to step up their marketing game. As argued by Erik Hauser, “this is a perfect example of the high level executives being completely disconnected from their consumers. If they had a better grasp on the needs and wants of their consumers then they would have wound up with a much more desirable product.”

Today, Lions Gate […] is reaping the rewards of a well planned, well executed release campaign while Disney is busy trying to erase the stigma of its John Carter debacle and hope that its stock prices continue to hold firm in spite of one of the greatest blunders in cinema history.” (Michael Sellers)

The Hunger Games: Efficient and Effective Social Media Marketing

March 28, 2012 By Whitney 6 Comments

Image Credit to KendraKaptures (flickr)

Social media has had a major impact on the film industry. The perfect example of this is the marketing campaign that surrounded the premier of the global phenomena, The Hunger Games. This past weekend the first of four films was released taking in $155 million, a revenue record for a non-sequel film. The popularity of the books alone would be enough to make the movie a hit but the effective integration of social media into their marketing campaign propelled their success through the roof. The Hunger Games team developed a comprehensive social media presence including Facebook with 3.2 million likes to Twitter with more than 330,000 followers and YouTube, which 20 million video views. According to the article Hunger Games’ Social Media Lesson? “the key to The Hunger Games‘ social media success can be attributed to the use of real-time input from fans and a healthy lead time to build momentum for the film.”

Many of the most effective promotions for the movie were interactive, which allowed for maximum fan participation. For example last December, the marketing team began a scavenger hunt for fans. They took 100 cut up pieces from the latest film poster and scattered them among 100 different websites 100 days before the movie release. The objective was to find the pictures and put the puzzle together, the hunt proved to be both enormously popular and successful. Another example can be seen on the website designed for the Capitol where users were invited to create their own ID badges and then join their districts on Facebook. In the article The Hunger Games: Using Social Media Marketing to Bring Fiction to Life, Ann Marie Taepke states “By giving enthusiasts responsibility to participate in this alternate reality of Panem, The Hunger Games is able to push its message further than it would through one channel for fans of the book and upcoming film, they have provided huge incentive to play along by rallying behind a District to gain a sense of community and get exclusive content”. This tactic is used to build enthusiasm and get people excited to see the story come to life on the big screen. In addition, it allows them to feel like they are personally connected to the craze.

Social media platforms can be useful to films in another way that is not directly controlled by their marketing team, the social media –made critic. The Hollywood Report’s Social Media Poll: How Facebook and Twitter Impact the Entertainment Industry states that “The study found that 72 percent of respondents post about movies on social networking sites after watching a film, while 20 percent post before, and 8 percent post during a viewing.” All last weekend Facebook news feeds and Twitter trends were jammed with comments about the movie. Fans went straight to their preferred platforms to comment on their experience. For fans, it allows them to feel connected to the film and voice their opinion over something they care about. For the film, it is a kind of instant advertising and the more frequent the posts, the more buzz is generated. It is a form of word of mouth advertising on extreme level as it reaches many millions of people simultaneously.

Social networking platforms are here to stay and it is up to the film industry to actively embrace this new outlet and use them in their marketing strategies. The Hunger Games is a primary example of how efficient and effective marketing strategies online can be if implemented correctly. In the next few years we should all expect to see bigger, more ambitious interactive and entertaining marking campaigns on social media platforms.

The Social Shopper

March 28, 2012 By Carly 4 Comments

Image by alles-schlumpf [flickr]

The fashion industry has embraced social media. In her article Macala Wright Lee discusses how branded content online is rapidly becoming, not only a long-term, but also cost effective marketing strategy that the fashion industry will benefit from as various brands and retailers search for new, innovative methods to connect with consumers online. Like many other creative industries, the fashion industry is taking full advantage of social media platforms for distribution and consumption purposes. Luxury brands such as Burberry, Armani and Louis Vuitton has jumped on the social media bandwagon and broadcasted their fashion shows live – bringing the exhilarating atmosphere of luxury fashion, and the show itself, to anyone who owns a computer. But it doesn’t stop there.

Online, mobile and social technologies have paved the way for consumers to have that same intimate shopping experience that one would get from walking into a store without ever having to leave the comfort of their home. Fantasy Shopper, a program designed as a hybrid between gaming and the real-world activity of shopping, is an excellent example of an innovative online source of marketing which helps promote products while simultaneously giving instant feedback from potential consumers about what is likely to sell. In the article The Buying Game Chris Prescott, Fantasy Shopper’s founder, emphasizes that the main appeal of these social shopping firms is their potential to transform fashion retailing by producing a wealth of data on consumers’ tastes. While it may be true that these innovative technologies provide consumers with convenient methods of online shopping, can they not also be seen as a potential threat to consumers themselves? – Not to mention their wallets. Have these innovations within the fashion industry made it simply too easy for consumers to splurge on luxury items they may not be able to afford or make an impulse purchase they do not need? Has advertising companies and market researchers pushed the boundaries too far for the sake of potential consumer profit?

Consider the ‘shopaholic’. What does one do in order to avoid the temptation of making unnecessary purchases and transactions in a store for a brand they can’t afford? They stay at home. In this ‘online era’ however, avoiding this temptation is, arguably, becoming more and more difficult for today’s consumer. Take the LOVE ROCOCO site for example. The website’s ‘webcam mirror’ provides the online customer with the opportunity to “try on” clothes to see if the product is right for you. As it states on the site itself, “LOVE ROCOCO gives you that “at the rack” experience online”. In this ‘online era’ it is widely accepted that online social technologies are reshaping distribution and consumption in the creative industries – but to whose benefit? Would you agree that these new and innovative methods of online shopping are, first and foremost, a convenient luxury for today’s consumer? Or rather is it just another way to swindle online shoppers out of cash they can’t afford to spend?