As an Entrepreneurial Studies Major, I wonder what makes a business uber-successful?  I see common characteristics in good business, like financial wisdom and a good industry understanding, but what allows the Googles and YouTubes to dominate like they have?

I believe YouTube fits in perfectly, and is even a premiere contributor, to an American trend of “McDonaldization” — a total expectancy to have anything you want in front of you for a low-cost.

Two years ago I missed a blockbuster performance by Lil Wayne at MTV’s annual award show.  I immediately went to YouTube to check it out, and I enjoyed watching old celebrities get out of their sits and dance to rap music.  All of this I did for free.

Likewise, after Usain Bolt broke the WR for the 100 m dash, I was furious to not find a clip on YouTube.  I had to pay NBC to watch one of the most fascinating feats in sports..ever.  AND IT MADE ME MAD!

YouTube’s success is mostly due to the hard work and foresight of its creators, but its mega-success is due to the sociological expectation that the internet has brought Americans of wanting everything in front of them for free.

Rob is a 25 year old funny-guy, and he is jobless.  One of the most popular and charismatic young men one could meet, yet he has not found a job that either suits him or in which he suits the job.  His larger-than-life personality and witty humor are wonderfully attractive at a party but are not exactly monetarily lucrative in the office.

Enter Twitter.  Recently Rob has received multiple job offers to be a full-time Tweeter.  Organizations want to utilize Rob’s magnetic communication skills to bring as many visitors as possible to their social media sites.  For example, he earns a healthy annual salary from a nationally-renown Pittsburgh haunted house to have his Blackberry Storm on him at all times, Tweeting anything humorous and evocative so as to stir internet conversation.

That job, amongst other Twitter jobs with big Pittsburgh newspapers and news stations, have landed him his own internet show, Rob on the Run.

The unique new industry of Twitter has opened a new platform for the unique personalities of my generation to step forth.  So you hear, “What can Twitter do?”.  I say, “Watch Rob run.”

Here is a video about an easy way to export a comprehensive list of all your Tweets.

If you do not have many Tweets or are just starting your account, then this video might be useless to you.  But since Tweets happen in real time, thousands of Tweets can happen over a year.  So in case you want to keep track of your social media history, listen up to Chris Pirillo.

In a world of too many acronyms, IE (internet entrepreneurship) and PR (public relations) are becoming commonplace names..or letters.  Their relationship is foggy, as the two fields are clearly connected but not so clearly as to what extent.

Working in PR this summer, I have seen the devastation that the economy or at least the recession-mindset has on advertising.  Most magazines and newspaper, the age-old venue for PR, are in the black due to ads.  Since subscriptions are down, meaning less people are reading the magazines, then the incentive to advertise is lower.  Certain industries like water sports engines have gone from 150 trade magazines 5 years ago to 15 magazines this summer.

The basic conclusion of my work this summer is that PR is in a new phase.  If a company wants the public to see its press releases or read its editorials, then the news must go beyond the trade magazines.  Sans the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, widely-read periodicals could be out of business in the next 20 years.  The PR firms which capitalize on IE by creating real-time news release sites will rise to the top in this new era of PR’s relationship to the internet.

In 8th grade, personal websites were the ultimate cool.  If you did not have a GeoCities account, then you might as well have been in the boys’ glee club.  So when Facebook came around for my graduating class of 2006, the simplicity of having a clean-looking, user-friendly was nostalgic and exactly what we liked.

Now though, every time I sign in to my personal Facebook page, I am bombarded by invites to MobWars or quizzes about which Twilight personality I have.  I am uninterested in these side-shows; I want to use Facebook as my personal page — where my information is there for other people to connect with me.

I believe that this lack of focus could be a turn towards the demise of Facebook.  If they continue to develop their “applications” to combat iPhones, they are moving away from their initial selling point of a simple, free, and user-friendly interface that everyone can use.  Facebook has opened the door for competitors to creep in and serve the need for simple, quick, and free connection.  <Enter Twitter, Stage left>.