That’s where Party In a Box comes in. When you’re in a pinch, Party In a Box is your end-all-be-all party supplier. In a nutshell, it is a literal box containing everything a college students needs to throw a party.

There are a variety of boxes for a variety of standard college party themes, such as:

• Office Bros and Corporate Hoes
• Tennis Pros and Golf Hoes
• GI Joes and Army Hoes
• Anything But Clothes and Hoes
• A Romantic Night In Paris…and Hoes

Standard party attire

• A foldout bar
• Plastic shot cups (100)
• Red plastic cups (100)
• Shaker
• Deck of cards
• Condoms (2)
• Ping Pong balls (8)
• Disposable camera
• Coozies (10)
• Keg tap
• A costume and decorations relevant to the theme

The box itself has built in speakers and a small LCD screen that only links to Frat Music.com or The Gainesvillains Pre-Game Mixtapes, depending on your tastes.

Expected consumer reaction to Party In a Box

Advertising for such a product would not be that difficult, as long as we could stay up to date with current college party trends. Building some sort of community where Party Boxers could share pictures and videos of themselves using the Party Box, as well as participate in a forum to discuss future Party Box themes, costumes, party supply suggestions, and the like, would allow us to not only stay relevant, but also to build a word-of-mouth aspect to our product. For example, Party Boxers could upload pictures of their parties and vote for who had the craziest picture or party in general. Party Boxers will tell their friends, “Hey, check out this insane picture of two chicks Jell-O wrestling inside one of those Party Boxes at UF,” driving traffic to the website and hopefully showcasing our product in a light that would cause a visitor to buy a Party Box.

There are many other media platforms to be utilized, such as a Facebook fan page, Youtube account, etc, which can all contribute to advertising and marketing for the Party Box, but our most essential tool would be building a platform that would allow others to submit their own content to our site.

Party In a Box – “It’s even better than a party in your pants.”

The internet is used to upgrade life to version 2.0

By “life,” I mean every possible thing that encompasses being alive on this planet, from intellectual, to emotional, to spiritual, and everything in between. The internet is an attachment to life. You could think of it as an extra brain. Its uses are endless, just like uses of you as a person.

These unlimited possibilities tie directly to the issue of freedom of speech on the internet. Unlimited possibilities also means the possibility of vulgar, harmful, and terrible actions on the internet. While there are talks of the government imposing regulation of the internet, I feel like very little has been done. It may be because the government is full of old people who don’t understand the internet very well, and therefore are writing ineffective laws against it. It may also be because the internet is so vast that it would be impossible to stop every offender, so why bother trying? It’s like the police attempting to arrest every underage drinker at a Gator game. In the end, they’re still going to miss 80% of offenders, so why even bother? How do I know? Because I’ve photoshopped and uploaded many pictures of people into obviously fake and possibly offensive pictures, and never once been sued.

This picture of Bernie Machen could be considered slanderous, but it doesn't matter because chances are he will never see it.

I personally feel like any effort to regulate the internet is futile. It’s too large to be regulated. Even though largely blanketed and obvious laws are imposed now (downloading music for free is illegal, no matter how you got it or what you plan to do with it), there are too many small websites that will go ahead and just do it, because they know they probably won’t get caught. That’s why I’m not really worried about government regulation of the internet. If they make something illegal, we’ll just do it anyway. Once you’ve been spoiled with total freedom, there’s no going back.

While everyone is told as a child that they’re special and entitled to their own opinions, there are still scores of people that shouldn’t have the ability to speak or be seen in public. However, it appears that those people tend to make up the majority of UGC contributors. It only takes one pube to ruin the whole pizza, as is the case with many platforms designed for UGC. There are many examples of such failed platforms, but I’m going to focus on the newest contender entering the ring: Chat Roulette.

Chat Roulette is a website that connects random users together via webcam…and that’s it. There is no censorship, no sign up, no roadblocks. The website has limitless possibilities. In one minute you could be discussing politics with another college student across the country, to igniting a romantic relationship with a woman who happens to live near you, to getting a free concert from a musician looking for any audience who will listen. However, this is not a perfect world. In reality, Chat Roulette offers you only three things: bros with their shirts off, 14 year old girls, and naked old dudes playing with their pants hammers.

A typical Chat Roulette experience

The third typical user mentioned easily makes up about 80% of Chat Roulette. It’s become such a problem that it has its very own website dedicated to tracking the amount of chubs caught on camera, and has even spun off into its own drinking game. The website tries to give users the ability to report other users for behavior that violates the terms of service, but unfortunately Chat Roulette has placed the button right next to the offender’s video feed, forcing you stare at his hairy marbles if you want to serve justice. However, it’s just easier to hit F9 and move on to the next video, allowing these sad old men to continue ruining others’ evenings just like they ruined yours.

The good news is, not all is lost; UGC has helped many people and businesses using platforms like Facebook and Twitter to deliver greater customer service and brand experience. It’s tough to find examples of great pages, since many awesome ones were covered in class, but one Twitter page that does it right is Tampa Rap.com. Tampa Rap is a website owned by a high school friend of mine, Joey. It’s essentially a user-generated community designed to allow Tampa rappers and rap fans the ability to promote and collaborate with each other. He constantly updates the twitter feed with links to local Hip Hop events, mixtapes to download, and opportunities to participate with the website in filming music videos and the like. He also constantly engages with fans, and retweets other local rappers’ tweets to help promote local artists and build up the Tampa Rap community. While he may not have an incredible amount of followers as of the writing of this post, he has only just recently started utilizing his twitter correctly, and it’s only a matter of time before he gains the followers he deserves.

Cash Money artists successfully convert viral mixtapes into ice and loose women.

But how exactly can one measure the success of a conversion marketing strategy? When someone checks out on your online shopping cart, there is no obvious sign that they completed a sale thanks to your easy to navigate website. That’s where analytics comes in, and more specifically, Google analytics.

Google Analytics is one of the most widely used web analytics tool on the internet, and it’s what I use for my blog, The Gainesvillains. While it contains a variety of parameters to peruse, I personally feel there are only 3 useful statistics for a blog like mine: bounce rate, traffic sources, and average time on site.

Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is a measure of what percent of visitors to the site never come back ever again. Essentially, the lower the bounce rate, the more repeat readers you have. This is especially important for a blog, because if people come to your website and never return, you either have only one important piece of information on the site that everyone wants to read, or you have terrible content all around.

They must have read my post on Lil Wayne's conversion marketing techniques.

Traffic Sources
Knowing where readers are coming from is incredibly important to a blog’s success. There are various ways to promote blogs online, such as commenting on other blogs’ posts with links to your blog, or from having a popular Twitter feed. While you may think all your web spamming is bringing in tons of viewers, it could turn out that no one ever progresses to your website from your Facebook fan page. Knowing your traffic sources allows you to accurately measure the effectiveness of your online marketing presence.

Average Time on Site
Maybe you get a ton of visitors all over the web. This is great, but why do they only spend an average of 3 seconds on the website? You could have a great online marketing strategy, but when people come to your site, they might be instantly turned off by your ugly design and layout. Maybe they only come to your site because you’ve accidentally become a viral sensation for being such a terrible website, and visitors stick around long enough to laugh at your weak posts then leave forever. ATOS is a good measure of the quality of your blog content. If people stick around on your site, they probably like what you have to say.

These three statistics are the most applicable and most important to my blog. We only create profit through increased awareness of our music and promotion services. If readers don’t want to come to our blog and explore our content, then we might as well market ourselves by sitting in my mother’s basement and complaining about why we aren’t famous yet.

Fonzworth Bentley keeping Mr. Diddy nice and cool.

The history of “holding umbrellas for people more important than you” is longer than you’d think. Umbrella holders have been found throughout history, ranging from the Renaissance:

Charles Le Brun enjoying an average day in the park.

To modern art:

Rapper Chamillionaire captured at the height of his reign.

The industry remained fairly stagnant for the past 4000 years. Then, one man came along and revolutionized it all: Fonzworth Bentley. As I mentioned before, Fonzworth was hired to hold P. Diddy’s umbrella, because Diddy doesn’t have time for manual labor, and his hands are too pretty to get dirty. Fonzworth seemed like just an ordinary man holding an ordinary umbrella for an extraordinary man, but what set him apart from the pack was his impeccable style, particularly steadfast forearms, and his natural hustling intuition.

Within a year, Fonzworth Bentley went from a critically acclaimed umbrella holder to a critically acclaimed umbrella holder with a record deal and line of personally designed umbrellas. He has been frequently called the “Genghis Khan of shade.” His success is so great, he even has his own umbrella holder.

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Fonzworth has set the bar high for potential umbrella holders, but his one drawback is his ability to innovate. He may have revolutionized the abilities of an average umbrella holder, but his position is quickly becoming obsolete thanks to advances in industry technology.

While the long-term future remains hazy, the short-term remains bright. The industry as a whole is very unprofessional, and very few are trained in the fine arts of umbrella holding.

Doing it wrong.

It’s clear, I’m destined to become the guy that gets paid to keep celebrities from getting too tan, or in Diddy’s case, from getting too sweaty as he’s enjoying a fine glass of Cambodian breast milk. I can only hope my Finance degree here at the University of Florida trains me adequately to become the most useful member of a successful person’s entourage, and by “Finance degree,” I mean “Tutoring Zone lectures.”

• Dollars earned
• Time saved
• Awareness raised
• Puppies present

It all depends on who you are, your environment, and your perception of reality. Our group decided to measure our success in entertainment value. As per the instructions, we had about an hour to create something of value with a stack of sticky notes. Nick Lamberth came up with the brilliant idea of covering his roommate in sticky notes and filming him dance to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.”

As soon as we described the project to Nick’s roommate, his immediate response was, “Why don’t you write something about donating to Haiti and post them up around campus?” After about 5 seconds of awkward silence, our group agreed this video would be just as thoughtful. The sticky notes provided a costume that surprisingly looked exactly like something from Lady Gaga’s wardrobe.

While we may not be saving babies trapped in rubble, we are giving your brain a 2 minute break with this video. That has to be worth something, right?

1. His techniques make him likable as a person
Dynamic, energetic, informative, entertaining. There are all positive adjectives that describe Steve’s presentation techniques, and to be honest, would also be great qualities to have as a human being. You hate it when your professor drones on about Economics in a monotonous voice, right? Same thing applies to how you talk to your coworkers, your friends, and members of the opposite sex. If you keep failing at the club, I suggest getting close to a girl, gently grab her by the waist, and whisper in her ear, “I want to put my laptop in your envelope.”

2. His techniques allow him to succeed in the business world.
Looking to climb the corporate ladder? See yourself as the future CEO? Managers need to be leaders, motivational, and good communicators. If you can’t show that to your boss, then enjoy the next 40 years relating to Dilbert comics.

3. His techniques are highly mimicked
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s a good feeling to be adored and copied by others. I’m sure you’ve met someone with terrible presentation skills in your life. No one wants to be your Financial Accounting TA, but everyone wants to be Steve Jobs. You should strive to be the type of person other people want to be. Be less terrible, and more amazing.

There you have it. As a college student, I have to say my favorite kind of “job” is a Steve Job, and I hope it’s yours as well.

Shaan Saigol

I’m Shaan Saigol, and I’m a second year Finance major with a minor in Mass Communication here at the University of Florida.  Outside of the classroom, I am heavily involved with my fraternity, and I am currently working towards my goal of becoming a world renowned DJ, musician, and blogger.

I have always had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I taught myself HTML in 6th grade, took various web design and graphic design classes in high school, taught myself how to use many digital audio workstations and how to program synthesizers, and recently started my own online blog with a couple friends called The Gainesvillains, a blog discussing everything about being a college student, and more specifically about being a college student in Gainesville. You can also follow us on Twitter, Youtube, and Myspace. Feel free to also add me as a friend on Facebook, just let me know who you are.

I am fascinated with sociology, technology, music, and how they all work together. I hope to gain more insight as to how these ideas work together, and to hear real world examples and results that I can possibly apply in my own ventures as a blogger, musician, and DJ. On a side note: my favorite company is Google. I feel like they are the most innovative company of our time, and not only are they ahead of the curve in terms of technology, business practices, and corporate culture, they are creating the curve as well. I’m also a fan of their very simple aesthetic designs and simple to use applications.