How Social Media is Taking Over the News Industry

This article is about how social media is quickly becoming the most popular source for people to find their news. It shows an infographic about how social media has changed over the years as far as relaying news to people, it gives a chart of where social media places against the other news outlets in terms of where people get their news, and it tells a few top news stories that people have first heard about through social media.

The downside to using social media to get your news is it's not alway correct information. The article says that "some 50% of news consumers have received “breaking news” via social media, only to find out later it was erroneously reported." The article got their information from an online education portal schools.com.


I am by no means surprised that social media is taking over the news industry. I, for one, get my news from sites such as Twitter. When I first heard about the Osama killing, I saw it on Twitter, but before I believed it, I went to the television and watched the news to see if it was true. The article says that television is still the number one source and that is the reason why. People know that news on the television is true. Social media is growing at an amazingly fast pace and it will continue to grow in the future and I wouldn't be surprised if it surpassed television for the number one news source.

Sofi

This article is about a new program called Sofi. Sofi is a program that allows alumni of colleges to help current students with college tuition. The alum invest money in to their school's funding and current students apply for the loan just like they would any other. The alum will eventually get a 5% ROI. Sofi also created a social network where alumni could see the students they are helping and check out what kind of classes they are taking. The alumni and students can also chat with each other; Dan Macklin, co-founder of Sofi, believes that since the students know the person who is lending them money, they are less likely to default on their loans.

Sofi started at Stanford University last year and raised $2 million from about 40 alumni and was able to help 100 students. They are planning on expanding to 40 more colleges soon. Macklin says that the program has helped to build relationships between students and alumni that wouldn't have existed otherwise.

I believe this is a great idea. Tons of students are always in need of financial aid and if people can find more ways to help students, it's great. One thing that was not mentioned in the article, however, was for one, weather or not every student who applies would get funding and two, if not how do they decide who would get funding and who wouldn't. If the program works as good as it sounds like it does then it seems to me like this will be a great new way for students to receive loans and bridge the gap between new students and old students.