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The Castle Island from Pinterest

3/30/2013

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The supposed Castle Island in Dublin, Ireland is an image that is often pinned and repinned on Pinterest. It is making the rounds again.
I find it disappointing that so many people pin and repin fake images on Pinterest with statements that they hope to visit there someday.  The truth is that they will never be able to visit it because it does not really exist.  Someone created this image for a contest on www.worth1000.com. So perhaps if they see the two images that were combined to create the one that is misrepresented as a castle in Ireland, then they might at least realize that they cannot visit this location and see a castle atop a rock pillar in Ireland.
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Lichtenstein castle in Baden-Württemberg, Germany was originally built in 1200 but has been destroyed twice.  Today it stands atop a rocky crag overlooking the Echaz Valley.  The current castle was built in 1840-1842.  The castle and the grounds are available to the public.

Ko Tapu island in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand
Ko Tapu island in Phang Nga Bay, Thailand
This beautiful photo is of the real location called Khao Phing Kan (Thai: เขาพิงกัน) or Ko Khao Phing Kan (เกาะเขาพิงกัน) which is a pair of islands off the west coast of Thailand in Phang Nga Bay (Andaman Sea). 

Before 1974, the island was a little known paradise.  The 1974 James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" featured the island as the hideout for the villain.  Unfortunately, the sudden popularity of this indigenous area resulted in pollution and litter spoiling the scenic area.  The government established the Ao Phang Nga Marine National Park in 1981. The park has many limestone and karst features alone the Andaman Sea.  It is feared that Ko Tapu may collapse due to the weight of the island is supported by a 13 foot diameter (4 meters) at the water's edge.   In an effort to protect Ko Tapu from erosion or damage due to tourist boats, the Thai government has outlawed access to the island. 

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Chinese Social Media explained

3/8/2013

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The Chinese home grown social media channels that have sprouted up in the vacuum created by the Chinese Great Fire Wall challenges marketers to understand which channels might reach their target audience. 

Douban is an open forum popular among college educated market for movie, music and book reviews.  The majority of the content is accessible by unregistered users; therefore the 60 million+ registered users may be representative of a portion of its use.

Jiepang is a newcomer that is similar to FourSquare as a location based social media.

Momo is a recent entry in the Chinese social media landscape.  Momo is a dating app.

QQ Instant Messaging service (800 million approximately) is popular with the under 18 target audience.

Qzone is a social networking site where users can write blogs, share photos, and listen to music.  It is popular with the under 18 age group.

Sina Weibo:  A cross between Twitter and Facebook, this microblogging platform allows users to include images and video, as well as longer comments.  Weibo has more users than Twitter has world-wide. Approximately a quarter of Chinese citizens are members of Weibo.

Renren is considered China's Facebook is very popular with college students and the college educated market. Although there are 147 million registered users, only 31 million are active each month.

Wechat formerly known as Weixin is the up- and-coming social media channel to watch currently. As I walk around China it seems everyone has at least one cell phone.  I won’t get into the differernces between the mobile market of USA versus China, but this   — is a mobile voice and text app with social features like “friend discovery."

Youku and Tuduo are video sharing (aka YouTube) that merged last year.  Interestingly, Youku is not constrained by copyright laws in China so they commonly have copyrighted feature films available to view in Mainland China. 

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    Author

    Dr. Linda Ralston (alias UTourDoctor) teaches at the University of Utah in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. My blog on emarketing is designed for my students just beginning the journey of exploring the world of electronic marketing.

    Check out my other blogs:
    eLearning Blog
    ePortfolio Blog
    Responsible Tourism Blog
    Sabbatical Blog (2009)

    Linda Ralston

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