These days, you can use it not only to text somebody, but to send all manner of attachments, and most importantly to phone long distance.
The beauty of a WhatsApp message is it doesn’t have the invasiveness of a phone call, and it’s more direct than the multitude of emails we all get in any given week.
It is a blessing for those of us who deal with multiple time zones. There are people who for some reason can’t digest that there are 38 time zones in the world and that the U.S. has 11 of them.
WhatsApp is testing the water with “new features.” Background noise suppression? Sure, sounds great. The rest of it, well you can pick what fits your needs and ability.
WhatsApp is offering “usernames, allowing users to connect without sharing phone numbers.” The example Meta uses is “Thomas Stewart” who has the username “TomHoops.”
I have 11 individuals named Mark who I communicate with on WhatsApp. Any of you want to reach out under the username MarkHoops and expect to get a reply? For those of you less familiar with AI, you can read more in the Commentary pages further into the paper. AI is a tool I’ve been experimenting with. It’s great for research, though you do have to fact check, and there are other possibilities. AI is still new territory. Can work largely created with AI be copyrighted? A case making its way through the courts in California will deliver a decision on that.
And it’s also mildly irritating to be spammed with a pitch clearly composed with AI.
Post-Typhoon Bavi in July we had a surge of events to cover in Guam in August, some of which were postponed due to the typhoon.
Congratulations go to Mary Rhodes, president of the Guam Hotel & Restaurant Association and the team that organized GHRA’s Pacific Hotel and Restaurant Association Expo at the Hyatt. The event was packed and offered a picture of products and services available, as well as food and beverages for tasting. A multitude of connections were made.
The Guam Chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management brought food for thought to HR professionals and others at its packed annual conference at the Dusit Thani.
Aside from that there were ribbon cuttings and mixers that have kept the news team and me engaged with our community, and in some cases allowed us to sponsor such happenings across our media platforms.
Attending an event has news value for you, our readers and audiences.
Receiving a press release about an event after the fact is rather like being shown a carefully created cake, told how wonderful the ingredients are and how tasty it is, and then being told you can’t have a slice.
Events we’re invited to in real life receive more coverage, though we appreciate adequate notice. We also have a team of correspondents around the islands equally happy to cover events.
I personally attended Artspace Guåhan’s Reframed Photography Exhibition last month. I know some of the photographers and was treated to a tour of the property in Tamuning, and an education in Artspace’s offerings for the community from activities for children to adults seeking to fulfill creative urges. The event generated some purchases for professional and amateur photographers — sometimes the unsung heroes of the media world — and you can see what the evening offered in our Photo Gallery. mbj
— Maureen N. Maratita is the publisher at Glimpses Media. Glimpses Media includes the Marianas Business Journal, Guam Business Magazine, The Guam Guide, Wave 105.1 FM, Power98 and Route99.
