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Last week, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, in a speech at an Americans For Prosperity forum, made another distinctive gaffe, calling President Obama a “snob” for believing that everyone should go to college. While Santorum was mistaken about the President’s beliefs (the President believes that training programs and vocational schools are included under the umbrella term “college”), we still take issue with Santorum’s implication, that attending a four-year college designates someone as a snob. Santorum’s original point was that people have dreams and goals for their lives that don’t include four-year colleges, and we understand that sentiment. Four years at a university, and the education it provides, isn’t for everyone, and there are plenty of jobs that you can get without going to a school like Wash. U. However, that doesn’t mean that choosing to attend a four-year institution makes someone a “snob” or implies that he or she is more qualified for “real life” than someone who decides to attend a trade or vocational school. We at Wash. U. all chose to spend four years putting our lives on hold in order to better ourselves, and get an education that we deem valuable enough to be worth all that time and money. As the type of “snobbish” students that Santorum was referring to, we take offense at the idea that we are somehow trying to make ourselves better than anyone else by going to college. Yes, we are trying to better ourselves, and make ourselves more valuable to the world, but never do we believe that we are trying to make ourselves into a class that is better than any other.
Business can plug directly to Facebook users
Facebook unveiled new ways for businesses to plug their brands, including to mobile users for the first time, allowing them reach its 845 million users directly across all devices as it races toward a multibillion dollar IPO. With new “Premium on Facebook” features, advertisers can even push messages directly onto users’ newsfeeds on both computers and mobile devices, giving them a presence on valuable Internet real estate at the risk of alienating users with intrusive ads. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg led a major charm offensive on Madison Avenue advertisers, touting revamped pages or mini-websites and timelines that marketers can use to promote brands and businesses. Other new features let companies, as well as celebrities and brands, create self-contained mini-websites within Facebook using the Timeline format it introduced for users’ profile pages earlier this year. Facebook Pages will be available for smartphones starting later this year, executives said at an event attended by hundreds of advertising and marketing executives. Businesses initially seemed to like the expanded marketing arsenal, particularly the newfound ability to target a growing population of cellphone-toting media consumers. “Mobile Facebook ads are huge. We’ll be all over this,” said Jason Goldberg, chief executive of online designer retailer Fab.com. “We’re already seeing more than 40 percent of our daily traffic to Fab from mobile. Being able to reach Facebook mobile users will only increase that.” Facebook is vying with Google, Yahoo and other online publishers for a slice of the estimated $76 billion that companies spend on US television and magazine advertising each year, according to research firm eMarketer.
OFT warns wallet-raiding debt collectors over web ads
Debt management companies have been warned over their use of the internet and social networking when promoting themselves or their services to consumers. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said the firms risk losing their consumer credit licences if they offer misleading information to consumers through the mediums. The regulator has issued new guidelines on what companies should do to avoid such action. “Before using internet based and social media marketing, licensees should consider whether they can exercise adequate control over its content, whether it is an appropriate medium and whether the appropriate information, warnings and caveats, can be included sufficiently prominently, such that the information conveyed is sufficiently legible, accurate, truthful and not misleading,” the OFT said in its guidance. The regulator said it would be “unlikely” for it to be “appropriate” for debt management companies to use “search engine sponsored links, certain contextual adverts and online messaging forums which limit the number of characters” to offer services. This is because the platforms probably would not provide consumers with “sufficiently balanced and adequate information on how to deal with their debt problems”. “Licensees should therefore take appropriate care to ensure that when promoting themselves or their products or services in this manner, the information conveyed, in isolation, is accurate, truthful and not misleading,” it said. Companies wishing to provide debt management plans, counselling or debt adjustment services to consumers must hold an appropriate consumer credit licence in order to do so, regardless of whether they wish to offer services on a fee-charging or not-for-profit basis. Under the Consumer Credit Act the OFT is required to ensure that those licenses are only given to firms that are fit to hold them. The Act requires that the firms do not engage in unfair or improper business practices. The OFT said companies that send unsolicited marketing text messages, emails or voicemails will be considered to be engaging in an unfair practice. Firms that use financial incentives that might encourage staff to offer unsuitable debt management products to consumers which would allow those staff to gain personally also risk losing their consumer credit licences, it said. Licences could also be revoked from businesses that make false or misleading claims about their status, the OFT said. Examples of such unfair or improper activities include operating ‘look-a-like’ websites that are designed in such a way to “attract consumers seeking free, charitable or government help or advice”. The OFT also said it would consider businesses to be acting unfairly or improperly if they use keywords and “descriptive text” that is false or misleading. Using disingenuous meta data tags, embedded links or website or webpage addresses when promoting or advertising online could also land firms in trouble. “This new guidance clearly sets out the standards we expect from debt management businesses,” David Fisher, director of the OFT’s consumer credit group, said in a statement. “All too often it may be particularly vulnerable consumers who fall victim to poor quality debt advice and we will continue to take action against businesses that fail to follow our guidance,” he said. The OFT has previously raised concerns about misleading advertising and the quality of advice provided to consumers in the debt management sector. It conducted a review of the industry in 2010 and since then has issued 129 warnings to debt management businesses over their behaviour.
Voters prefer candidates with a deeper voice
Voters in elections are more likely to pick candidates with a deeper voice, a new study has suggested. Researchers at two US universities made recordings of both male and female speakers and then altered the pitch of their subjects’ voices. In the study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, listeners “voted” more frequently for the “candidate” with the lower voice. Researchers now want to test their findings in a real political situation. Previous research has found that the pitch of a human voice can strongly influence how people are perceived. This study looked at how it may affect the way we choose leaders. Seventeen women and 10 men were recorded saying the phrase: “I urge you to vote for me this November.” Each of the recordings was then modified electronically, changing the pitch to create pairs – one higher and one lower than the original. Both were then played to the “voters” taking part in the study. Researchers found that those listening to the recordings were more likely to vote for the candidate with the deeper voice regardless of whether the speaker was male or female. One of the authors, Casey Klofstad from the Department of Political Science at the University if Miami said “Candidates already know about this and they have been using vocal coaches to enhance their electability and what we have done is proven the folk wisdom that the structure of the human voice matters and actually shown that scientifically.” A different study published last November also found a preference for lower voices. Rather than playing recordings of hypothetical candidates it used archive material of former US presidents. Researchers say there is a chance that in the earlier work participants might have recognised the voices or based their choices on political preferences.