Going a little wild with web writing spaces--wiki posts about the adventures of experimenting in web applications
From WRIT-2510 Spring 2007 Wiki
Try out a new technology or writing medium and explain the merits and disadvantages to your peers. You can do something you have experience with—establishing a MySpace or Facebook profile, or sending a text message to someone’s phone using the web, or you might try something more unusual—you can establish your own blog or wiki, find a wiki on a subject of interest to you and edit the page (we’ll be exploring wikis in more detail in unit 2), post a comment to someone else’s blog, use an online chat program to communicate with your class colleagues or me, use a phone to do IM, play around with an e-commerce site (I’m not requiring that you actually buy something, but you should do enough browsing to get a sense of how it works), listen to or create a podcast, join an academic list-serv in your field and “lurk” for a week or two and then report your assessment of the audience, check out an online community like Craig’s List, try a new tool like del.icio.us, flikr, or….???? If you can think of something else and justify it as a form of web-based communication you may write about your experiences using it.
Some things to think about and discuss in your post: How do these tools envision and enact the “writing space?” How is your writing process impacted by them, (i.e, how does something like del.icio.us help or hinder the writing process)? What kind of writing does it encourage?
The goal of these posts is to expose you to the wide variety of genres that get included as web or multimedia communication. For these posts, you will need to introduce your classmates to the genre conventions of the technology, so you will need to explain what the technology is (it is probably helpful to list other examples of the genre), what’s its intended purpose is or was and what it’s actual purpose is (if these things are different), why it is important, who is its main audience, what are the communication issues that it brings up, and what are its strengths and weaknesses. You should also describe a way in which the application could be a useful pedagogical, business, or collaborative tool, or imagine another practical use for it in a professional or educational context. Like option one, you will need to do some research to link to some examples and point to some well-known conventions.
Since there are so many different applications out there, I only want one of you to comment on each of them, so whoever gets to flikr first, well they get to talk about flikr to the class. Of course, this does not prevent the rest of you from responding to your colleagues, but it does give you some incentive to be proactive. You're welcome to do your semesters' worth of posts in the first weeks of class, if you like, though I'd still encourage you to lurk and respond.
You should add your responses to this "article" by clicking on the edit tab at the top of the page, and then using two equal signs (title of your entry, your name) two more equal signs to create a "subsection." You should title your response appropriately and also put your name in the title, so you receive credit for completing your assigment. Each new subsection will have its own "edit" tab. To respond to someone else's comment, you should click on it, hit the "edit" tab that will appear to the right of it, and then use three equal signs (add a title and your name) three equal signs to create what should simulate a threaded discussion. You should use double brackets and the title of the main article to create a "category" which should be put at the end of your response, this way all responses to the same prompt will be grouped together.
We'll see if this works. If you discover a method that works better, then we can reassess how we want to organize our conversation here, but let's give this a shot for now.
[edit] Sample Response: The YouTube Experience by Jan Fernheimer
YouTube is yet another one of many social networking sites, only this one allows you to view and upload videos. I was amazed by the variety and scope of videos one can find on the site—they ranged in content from the poignant and autobiographical to the satiric and funny. The categories seem to be inclusive, and the people uploading videos seemed to include amateurs as well as professionals. You can set up your own account, and in fact must do so, in order to upload videos yourself, but the account is free. As I browsed through the “most viewed” and “most discussed” videos, I discovered that individuals can comment on the videos they viewed, and in fact several people seemed to be keeping video journals and had regular followings. I found myself wondering why someone would want to post the innermost details of their personal life online—what motivates them and what do they get out of it? Does the community one creates there with videos somehow surpass the ones we can create with text in other online forums; i.e., blogs, wikis, list-servs? I'm not sure how I could incorporate this technology into the writing classroom, but I'm certainly interested in hearing what others might think up. Perhaps we could use it to make video tutorials of the technical skills we need to acquire in this class? It was almost disturbing to see people pouring out their lives in front of a video camera. Of course, I find blogs with similar content to be just as painful to read, though somehow without the individual’s face to confront, they seem slightly less disturbing. For a little comical relief you might want to check out this video of an angry professor to see how some professors react to cell phones going off in the class. Now, aren’t you glad I only give pop quizzes? Feel free to add on or edit this sample post.
[edit] Response to Jan Fernheimer's Sample Response: The YouTube Experience by Daniel Wong
I think that YouTube is an interesting and provcative website. On one hand YouTube could be a very powerful resource and reference for class, but on the other hand, the content on YouTube isn't moderated so it's content is highly questionable. I personally think that YouTube is an excellent resource because you can find almost anything you want as long as you know vaguely what the video was about. For example, I might want to watch a music video by a certain artist but can't remember the name of the song. By searching YouTube, I can find the exact video by going through a few videos before finding what I was looking for. Normally I wouldn't have the resources to even begin looking for such a video clip. I think video tutorials would be a great idea as it is already used for some other technical classes offered here at RPI. I think that these videos featured on YouTube represent our cultural and mindframe of the youth today. I think that YouTube is more of a representation of today's youth because YouTube is a recent phenomenon and used more by the younger generation.
[edit] Response to Jan Fernheimer's Sample Response: The YouTube Experience by Kenny Johnson
I decided to go a little wild with this web writing space, and posted a YouTube video myself. In fact I entered a video contest - the prize you win is a date with Disney Channel heart throb Ashley Tisdale. Even though I can't sing, I had a great time singing my heart out to one of her songs and mixing a quick video with my digital camera and Adobe Premier. After releasing my video, I told my friends about it. I sent a link out to the team mailing list at work, and then posted the video on the Facebook. Why? I think my video is really funny, and I wanted my friends to see it! It occurred to me that YouTube is absolutely brilliant. It's a file sharing space: in order to host my video for it to be seen on the web, I had to go to YouTube. On top of that, it's a social network: a draw in posting a video is to collect views and comments. I quickly received feedback from 12 and 13 year old girls who wanted this date with Ashley Tisdale as badly as I did. The comments were actually nice compliments. In any case, as people viewed my video, they were referred to YouTube - I think this is brilliant planning, great advertising, and it's clear that it helped make YouTube a valuable site on the Internet, sold for $1.65 billion to Google! YouTube gets points from me as a clever file-sharing / social network hybrid, and I will definitely continue to be addicted to this site. I will also have to let the class know if I win that date with Ashley Tisdale :)
[edit] Response to Jan Fernheimer's Sample Response: The YouTube Experience by Jeffrey Connolly
YouTube is a very interesting site. It is a site that a person can virtually post anything that they want. It is fun to view people's jokes and funny incidents but YouTube has a good side and a bad side. The good side is being able to reach a very large audience in a way that was once not possible. A person can post a video clip of something they want people to see on the site and anyone that goes to the site can watch the clip. You can watch music videos and use clips for class presentation like I have done in the past. It can be an educational tool and that has been seen in several classes including WWWW. The bad side is copyright laws and infringments upon them. People can record audio or video from a movie or song and post it on this site and make it available to the world. Instead of 100,000 people paying for the movie or song only one person is paying and 100,000 are being able to see or hear it and forcing the recording and film industry to put stricter and more forceful punishment to people who get caught. It is at the person's own risk as to what they do with copyrighted material once they have purchased or obtained it. I know I like the YouTube site and find it very entertaining even when I am not looking for any particular clip.
[edit] Response to Jan Fernheimer's Sample Response: The YouTube Experience by David Crolius
I'm going to agree with Jeff and say that YouTube is an interesting site. You can find practically anything on there, unless it once belonged to Viacom! I know that I go to YouTube first when I am looking for amusing video clips, old music videos, or funy cartoons. With all the randome things that get posted everyday, there is certainly a wide variety of viewing options. Some of those viewing options include copyrighted material, like Jeff said. I know that I have found the Viacom lawsuit against YouTube a trifle annoying. Before the lawsuit, I could go to YouTube and watch any number of old Saturday Night Live skits. Since the lawsuit, these clips have been removed, which is disappointing for me. One other thing that I noticed about YouTube is it's integration with the Google video search. I know that Google purchased YouTube for somewhere around $1.65 billion last year. Since the acquisition, it seems that the Google video search and a YouTube search are one in the same.
[edit] E. Filipov's analysis of the YouTube experience
Taking a glance at YouTube one can see an array of home-made clips, funny adverts and thousands other videos posted by users from around the world. However by looking closer, I have found this to be a complicated system of information with unlimited uses. Like Daniel Wong I have enjoyed viewing music videos online, but believe to have found an even more complete use for this free service. By creating an account and adding videos to my YouTube favorites I have managed to create several play lists that contain a large number of music videos that I like. Furthermore, considering the extremely fast internet available throughout the RPI campus and in my current residence I now have the ability to listen to my favorite music without having to download it to my hard drive. And although people might argue that I can only listen to music where I sufficient internet access, I on the other hand have no need for a single device such as an i-pod to carry my valuable source of entertainment to the other side of the world. In addition to this advantage, looking a few years into the future I will also not have to worry about copyright laws guarding this music as I listen to it on my wireless receiver on my way to work. So my idea here is not that I have found a way to surpass geographical and federal limitations of my favorite audible entertainment, but that YouTube is an extremely flexible media. With this in mind I would like to further discuss the information capabilities that this magnificent tool posses.
About a month ago, while packing for my spring break trip, I performed remarkable research on my destination - Cancun. By using YouTube I not only found personalized reviews (wild spring break videos), but actually a descriptive video of the place’s history and culture. And in preparation for my job interview, YouTube was my guide to answering the “What is your biggest weakness?” question which I had often feared. In addition to these helpers, the site holds information on the African Lion, Windmills, the BMW/Google Navigation network, and dentistry. And also, on “Danny Elfman talking about Charlie and the chocolate factory”, Power tool Drag Racing, and "This is Why Duke Sucks" by Peter "PMD" Rosenberg. So this now leads me to think that this is also one of the broadest databases in the world.
So finally if a picture truly says 1000 words, then at 24Hz, a 6 minute video contains as much content as 270 posts like this one. My analysis of YouTube’s versatility and its capacity leads me to think that YouTube could soon not only be used to spread jokes and laughter to millions, but could also serve as my personal guide, teacher and even friend. What do you think?
[edit] Facebook: The Social Networking Phenomenon by Daniel Wong
“Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.” (http://www.facebook.com/about.php) Facebook is a cultural and social phenomenon that has swept throughout the nation becoming especially popular in colleges and universities. This site allows its users to create profiles, add other Facebook friends, upload and share pictures, send messages and keeps people “in the loop”. Everyone can sign up for a Facebook account, provided that they have a valid e-mail address. Facebook has almost every aspect of networking featured on their website. You could create events and invite all your friends to come. Facebook provides a means to communicate with just one friend or every single one of your friends. Each of these tools in itself is a type of “writing space”. They each provide a means to communicate both textually and visually a whole variety of information. My own writing process has been expanded and widened due to the breadth of options at my disposal. I can choose to include anything and everything about myself. I can choose to upload pictures of my latest adventures. I can even send messages to stay in contact with people or even find friends that I’ve lost touch with. This kind of writing encourages Facebook’s exact purpose: communication. Communication occurs on all different levels and spectrums. One feature of Facebook for example, is the ability to “poke” someone. When person A “pokes” person B, person B merely receives an alert saying that they’ve been poked by person A. This feature allows a type of communication that isn’t readily available by conventional means. This allows the user to initiate some form of contact without having to say or type a word. Facebook is a prime example of how communication has evolved on the World Wide Web.
[edit] Response to Daniel Wong's Facebook: The Social Networking Phenomenon by Kenny Johnson
Facebook has a lot of great functionality, including photo posting and group creation. I really like Facebook's photo functionality - Facebook users can upload pictures, and tag their friends in them. Users can then browse a friend's tagged pictures to see all approved photos of him or her. What do I mean by approved? If a photo isn't flattering, a user can remove the tag, which is a link labeling individuals in a photo by their name. Untagged photos remove the link to a user's name and profile. However, the photo doesn't get deleted - Facebook users might recognize a friend in the untagged image, which still exists in another user's photo album for example. By browsing tags in pictures and friends' pictures, you can easily find yourself in a network of linked images. You may even stumble upon photos of people who you have seen around campus, but never knew their name - if their name is tagged, you can check out their profile and find out all about them!
Facebook members with similar interests can also join groups, which become cross-network forums for discussion and image sharing. By cross-network, I mean students from different schools, who may not know each other can come together to discuss common interests from politics to pop culture. In class, we discussed that groups have even been formed as online memorials, collecting supporters and comments regarding tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shooting.
Given that this is the "Going A Little Wild" Wiki Space, I should mention that it's not a great idea to go too wild with Facebook. Parents, teachers, potential employers, and even campus police have been known to use Facebook as a background check into students' lives. This article discusses the formation of an Ohio State group "I Rushed the Field After the OSU Game (And Lived!)" which, along with tagged photos, made it very easy for campus police to catch students who had taken part in a riot.
[edit] Keve Zoltani's Response to Facebook: The Social Networking Phenomenon by Daniel Wong
I agree with many topics Daniel address and he made several good points. Facebook has seemed to revolutionize social networking all together providing an unimaginable amount of information about everyone and anyone. People no longer use peer to peer talking as the primary way of finding out information about someone. If you are curious about a girls relationship status, Facebook always has the official information, so to avoid speaking with her in person, it is easier to check online. Even on the topic of "stalking" other people, Facebook has enabled tracking of all activities people do so it is easy to keep tab of what everyone is doing. This new writing space is expanding the internet and computers power over us, almost as to make us lazier having all the information within our reaches all the time. Word of mouth still is still an important communication feature, but Facebook has seem to catalyze certain group formations. A new concept to me is the idea of "flash mobs". A flash mob is one which assemble at a designated location at a specific time and conducts some activities and dissipates. Facebook event invitations makes this extremely easy to do, just send out a group event to everyone on your buddy list. Our writing space is evolving and we begin to rely more and more on the internet, but is it the future?
[edit] Response to Daniel Wong's Facebook: The Social Networking Phenomenon by David Crolius
Daniel, Kenny, and Keve all bring up interesting points regarding Facebook. It seems that in today’s college environment it is rare indeed when someone is not on Facebook. I know that when I got here last year and got onto Facebook it seemed to be the cool thing to Facebook friend every person I met. I quickly realized that this wasn’t necessarily the way to go about it. If Facebook is to serve as a social networking site, then your Facebook friends should be more than someone you just happened to talk to for 5 minutes. They should be someone you have at least carried on a couple of conversations with and can remember your name. In terms of a writing space, Facebook provides a few different takes on the same medium, the typed word. People on Facebook are able to write on their friends walls, which allows everyone to see what has been written about a person. People can also write to people in a message, which appears to the other person privately. A recent development is the specialized gift, which can have a message that can be written to go along with the gift. Thses gifts can be both harmles nice gifts, like a teddy bear, or a suggestive gift, like a box with a hole in it. I think that the Facebook craze is here to stay for a while, at least.
[edit] Google: Going Mobile by Keve Zoltani
Google mobile (http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/) is a service provided by Google which allows any cell phone user with text messaging to send a text to "Google" or 466453 with a keyword and Google will message you back with the information you requested. An example would be to text "weather 21093", and it will tell me the weather for Lutherville, Maryland. One of the best features of this service is that it is free. This is yet another example of the evolution of our writing space. With the coming of the computer, people have found more uses for the computer, checking phone numbers, directions to locations and weather on the computer and moved away from phone books and other paper based medians. Today though, people seem to be more on the move than ever and rely on cell phone and hand held media to get information. Google is helping the push to hand held media, even moving news from the television to the palm of your hand. Not only is Google conducting this in the United States but expanding it world wide to where ever you are, "People take their cell phones with them everywhere, and they generally are looking for information in the context of a location." (http://news.com.com/2008-1039_3-6138755.html) With ever passing day, it feels as if print is less and less used with more people reaching for their blackberries for up to date information. Google is part of the writing space evolution, but where will they stop?
[edit] Browsing the Web on a PSP by Kenny Johnson
Anyone who seriously attempts to browse the web from a Sony PSP handheld video game system is going to go a little wild - the PSP is difficult and frustrating to use both for viewing large web pages on its small screen, and for writing text such as search terms, or forum posts using its handful of face buttons. However, some web-writing spaces, designed for the PSP-handheld systems aren't bad. They're not good either, but I see some potential! I decided to explore a few sites, including the Official Sony PSP site listed above, YouTube, and the Marvel Ultimate Alliance PSP-compatible website. The Official Sony PSP home ironically doesn't work right on a PSP. It loads, but some of the fancy Flash buttons don't work. For example, I was unable to navigate from this main site to the American PSP home - I did manage to find my way to the European PSP site through a static link, and I downloaded a game demo. This downloading process was surprisingly easy to do, and I found the game demo conveniently placed in "My Games" list from the main navigation menu of the PSP. YouTube, I discovered was too wide for the PSP's screen. You would have to hold a button and use the control stick to sort of grab the page and pull it around to frame part of it within the screen. Why hold a button? Because the control stick alone moves your cursor around the visible / framed part of the web page. The PSP handheld system has only a few face buttons, so in order to type in text like a URL or a search term in YouTube, I felt like I was sending a text message. This was slow and tedious for me - and it wasn't rewarding to search for a video on YouTube because I discovered that YouTube videos don't play on the PSP web browser. Finally, I checked the PSP-compatible site for Marvel Ultimate Alliance. This site is framed such that its width fits on the PSP screen, but I still had to often scroll up and down a lot to view the page. From the main page, you can only see the site banner down to the bottom of the Featured Player box - you need to scroll down to see any more than this. I painfully typed in my user name and password to check the forums. Interestingly, it only takes one person to post a large image in his or her signature to extend the width of a forum page, and make it the wrong size for the PSP screen. One funny thing that happened while I was browsing - I decided I wanted to check my high scores and instinctively grabbed my PC mouse to open up a new tab in Firefox. Here, I was using the PSP and had it in my hands, with the MUA page loaded up - but I just knew it would be easier to navigate to my scores from a PC. This experience wasn't entirely bad - I was surprised how easy it was to download a PSP game demo and get it running on the system. Navigating to this download link on the web, on the other hand, was the tricky part! I think if some effort were made to make a site that fit on the PSP screen, with no scrolling required, and little need to type text in anywhere, it could be a fulfilling experience to browse from the PSP. The PSP just certainly isn't the best technology for browsing flashy navigation (the PSP Home), YouTube videos (which don't work on the PSP browser), or forums, with a lot of text and long pages to scroll through.
[edit] MySpace Advantages by Cory Anderson
MySpace is a highly evolving social networking site that grows everyday. MySpace has some very key features that make it so popular: its easy communication, its simple photo feature, its fast music feature, and most recently, its basic video uploading. MySpace now not only allows you to chat and browse through peoples photos, but also allows you to watch videos. Because of these fantastic features, many companies and bands all have MySpace accounts to help there advertising. I think this helps small bands and companies communicate with all there fans and customers. For example many bands advertise all there shows on MySpace, by sending out informational messages to all there friends. This of course encourages the fans to check out the bands music, and for companies encourages customers to check out there products. Many companies and bands have videos on there MySpace accounts that help promote there fans and customers.
Most of the writing that takes place on MySpace is informal, however very high energy. In my opinion, weather people know it or not, MySpace helps make there academic writing more active and expressive. The reason for this is it’s hard through text to show certain expressions in small amounts of text, so people have developed different kinds of expressions to allow better communication. I think all social networking sites and programs are making our overall level of communication easier, as well as much more informal.
[edit] Voice Chat Programs by Chris Dromms
I did some playing with voice chat technology. This technology involves using a microphone and speakers to talk to another person in real time instead of typing. Three of the programs I have experience using that do this are Yahoo instant messenger, Teamspeak, and Ventrillo. Yahoo’s one is built right into the instant messenger, and it built more for general use. People might talk to the person they are having a conversation with or talk with a group of people in a Yahoo chat room. Overall it worked but I didn’t really use this more than a couple times. Teamspeak and Ventrillo are both programs specifically used for voice chat. For the most part these two programs are just about solely used by online gamers. They work by setting up a server that people can connect to. The admin can setup different channels inside the server for people to join and talk without bothering people in other channels. For gamers, the main benefit of these programs is that they can communicate with other people without having to type in game. This allowed much quicker organization for a group of people because speaking will take much less time to get the point across than typing. Speaking also lets the gamers still do what they need to do instead of stopping to type out something. I find this is directly related to the remediation of print discussion we had earlier in the class. In this case there is still is a lot of text in the game, but moving some of it to voice chat instead enhances the experience. In this case I’ve found that it is one of the cases where rather than the new causing trouble taking over the old way, the two have managed to mix very well to form a good balance.
[edit] Response to “Voice Chat Programs” by Jeff Connolly
I found Chris’s topic about voice chat very interesting because I have had a lot of experience with voice chat over the internet as well. I agree with the fact that it is a very useful tool and I believe it is very time saving and less costly. My experience with voice chat has been through Skype. It is the equivalent of a telephone except there is no cost. I have had the ability to speak with friends of mine while they were in Australia, Italy and other places in Europe without having to pay enormous charges on my phone bill. It is a great technology that I have noticed catching on more and more especially through working with executives. It is funny to see that not only teenagers and college students are using it but people all the way up to 55 years old are finding use for it making there lives a little bit easier and a little less costly.
[edit] Diigo/Diigolet by Kevin Kelly
Diigo is another form of the social bookmarking site del.icio.us. You can download the Diigo toolbar and have it in your browser when you open it, or you can use the Diigolet form of this social bookmarking software. The Diigolet form is a browser add-on and is compatible with all the main browsers. The way I have been using it is in the later form; it is easy to load everytime I need it by just clicking on the bookmark in my 'favorites' section. I also dont like the elongated loading time created by the endless toolbar options available. To get to the meat of what I like so much about this program is that it allows me to quickly and easily mark up webpages and bookmark specific information within a site for further use. I can also tag each site with keywords which i can use later on to search for specific topics. It also allows me to easily forward all of my highlights, 'sticky-notes', and tags to anyone I want via email. I specifically found it very useful while I was working on a group research project. We were all in the research faze and were trying to solidify the main direction of our project. I used Diigolet to let my colleagues know about specific information within a variety of sites throughout the internet. They did the same, and we used the tags that we created to quickly and easily come back to the information. I found that this site can be used individually with personal success, as well as within larger groups. When I find something interesting while surfing the Internet, I quickly highlight it and make a sticky-note. I then just forward this note to the few email lists that I am apart of. There is then no need to describe in the email where and what you want the readers to find. This efficient flow of information will come in useful in many aspects of the personal and business worlds.
[edit] AIM by David Crolius
AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM for short, is one of numerous instant messaging programs. Examples of a few other similar programs are MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and ICQ to name a few. Instant messaging programs allow two or more people to communicate instantaneously via the Internet. They normally communicate using written text messages. These programs are important because they allow anyone to communicate anywhere in the world, assuming they have this service and an Internet connection. The main audience of these types of programs is anyone who has a computer with internet access. One of the strengths of this type of communication is its quickness. Although e-mail is quite fast, it is not nearly as fast as the communication afforded by these programs. The communication occurs almost instantly, hence the name Instant Messenger. Another strength of this type of communication is its flow. E-mail is very fast, but it is very much like a letter. A person who is using e-mail composes a message and sends it of to the recipient and must wait for a reply. With instant messaging, the stream of communication is more of a flow of thought, very similar to telephone conversations. One of the disadvantages is that unlike a telephone call the inflection of the message is not necessarily transmitted. An example of this would be the use of sarcasm. In a telephone conversation sarcasm is relatively easy to pick up, whereas in an instant message it is much harder to discern. Instant messaging affects our writing and even our culture more than we realize. The acronyms that are used to facilitate the speed of instant messaging worm their way into our conversations. Examples of these acronyms are LOL, NP, etc. A list of these acronyms is available at http://www.aim.com/acronyms.adp#l. In recent years instant messaging programs have evolved to include audio and video chat, as well as a quick file transfer capability. It will be interesting to see how this technology evolves in the future. Will messages composed of text become a thing of the past?
[edit] Response to AIM by Terrence Isabella
David’s piece on instant messaging addresses a very interesting issue. Often, it can be difficult to understand the other persons intended meaning when instant massaging. They may be kidding, or being sarcastic. If the person is a friend it may not matter that much, but if you are dealing with a colleague or a superior in a business environment, it could become a very stressful situation. Writing spaces such as email and instant messaging have become so popular that they have probably surpassed the telephone as the number one form of communication at a distance. I’m not certain that that is true, but it seems like a pretty safe assumption to make. The point that I’m getting at is that these two forms of communication have taken away a persons body language and their voice. Both of which feed us enormous amounts of important information when interacting with one another. It will be interesting to see if we develop a hyper-sensitivity to the written word over time, as we begin to completely eliminate human contact through technological advancement.
[edit] "AIM by David Crolius" Response by Robert Augelli
I think the idea of AIM or similar programs in the future is something that is not discussed enough. Currently as David mentioned, there are many different uses for AIM in everyday life. People most often associate AIM with entertainment or planning. For the most part this is very true, but I think that as time goes on, AIM and the messaging idea will extend much further than merely entertainment.
I have many friends who have graduated and are working in industry, and many of them have mentioned that their companies offer "AIM-like" messaging programs for work. That is, programs that allow one to one communication with other workers instantly. Something like this can help productivity in a way that may not have been visualized 10 years ago. As an example, it would be very simple for person A in building A to quickly send person B in building B an important document. If the two building are across the world, saving the phone call could actually save the company a lot of money. This type of far reaching effect may help shape business as the years go on.
In the same manner, there are many video transfer options available not for AIM and other similar programs. This idea again can be extended to business. Video conferencing can now be as easy as ever. If everyone in the company has all of the specific tools in front of them (messaging program) then it would be very simple to connect to someone across the world and hold a conference. This again could save money that a phone call may require.
In short, most people consider AIM to be an entertaining thing, and while it is, it is certainly not limited to this respect. The ability to extend into the work force may have some great consequences so long as people are open to the possibilities. Who knows how we may be working in the future, only time will tell.
[edit] Response to Robert Augelli by David Crolius
I agree with Robert that AIM has the potential to be a powerful tool in the workplace. I know that America Online offers a version of AIM that has just the bare essentials, which seems to be well-suited for the workplace. Rob's point about how this technology has the capacity for voice conferencing to be especially intersting as well. I remember when chat rooms were a big thing. Reflecting back, a chat room just seems like a conference call with text instead of a phone. For all the advantages AIM may bring to the workplace, there are some disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is conveyance of tone. If AIM is utilized in the work place, then there is the possibility that people who work for the same company, but do not know each other, would be forced to talk to each other on AIM. Since AIM is primarily used for messages made up of text, the tone of a person's conversation may be lost upon the recipient, wheras it might be very evident if they were in a phone conversation. Another potential downside has to do with the use of the phone. It seems that although most people have cell phones, they don't seem to use them for their primary purpose, which is to make phone calls. Instead we seem to get wrapped up in the text messaging, and camera, and video functions. If AIM were to become the preferred mode of business communication, then the art/skill of talking on the phone could eventually become unnnecessary. We already seem to be moving this way with text messages on our phones.
[edit] Writing using Flash by Eric Wyler
We all have some experience designing an effective website in HTML and CSS, but what about in Flash? It may be a different medium, but does that affect the writing process? I decided to learn some Flash and try to make an effective webpage, but entirely in Flash. For those who don't understand Flash very well, the definition of Flash (actually Adobe Flash) is somewhat obscure as it refers to both the actual web development suite and browser plugin for Flash. In short, you can program a Flash movie that will be embedded in a browser. While they're called "movies," the term is very loose since they can very easily act as interactive webpages. Anyway, here's what happened...
First off, it's way too easy to make blinking, animated, gaudy, and annoying animations in Flash. I found myself constantly thinking about how cool it would be to do x, y, or z, but I had to force myself to remain focused on the primary purpose of the movie, which was to act somewhat like a website. It is very easy to focus on the glitter and glam of Flash and ignore the actual content. Speaking of content, I always seemed to want to write very short, quick blocks of text. Flash can be scrollable just like an HTML page, but for some reason the nature of the program (or perhaps my past experiences with it) made me feel as though extensive text was inappropriate. I had to consciously focus on writing like I normally would for a webpage or similar medium.
As far as actually organizing content, that proved to be much easier to do initially, but changes were a little harder. Since the development program for Flash is very visual (much like Dreamweaver), adding and moving elements on the page was very simple. I didn't really have to think about alignment that much since I could see exactly what the page would look like on the screen. As far as changes go, a web page in CSS is very simple to change in regards to background, alignment, font, etc. In Flash, the information is somewhat spread out in various areas, which makes it difficult to make a number of changes without clicking between a ton of different elements and screens. Like I said, initially it was fine since upon creation you already have the element you've just added selected, but afterwards I had to search a bit. There are ways to centralize the information in Flash, but from my experience (which isn't that deep, so I may be missing something) the design of the Flash program leans more towards a decentralized approach.
All in all, I found that Flash is an effective medium, just like a website. Because it is a different program, there is certainly a different "feel" when developing in it, but that is easy to overcome. The biggest obstacle is making sure the content is the focus, not the animations that are abudantly available in Flash.
[edit] Response to "Writing using Flash" by Brian McEvoy
Like Eric, I too have used Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash. As Eric stated in his entry Flash is a common tool for Websites. Whether Flash is used to create the overall site design or the just an embedded animation, Flash brings some uniqueness to the World Wide Web.
Eric States in his post, ” Flash can be scrollable just like an HTML page, but for some reason the nature of the program (or perhaps my past experiences with it) made me feel as though extensive text was inappropriate.”
I agree with his sentiments to an extent. I see Flash as the combination of Html, CSS and more. To clarify, Flash can do just about anything that can be done by Html and CSS in addition to the animated element. With that in mind, I’d say that extensive text in Flash is inappropriate but no more inappropriate than extensive text in an html page. We’re no longer dealing with hypertext and are now dealing with hyper-multimedia. I pose the question; couldn’t a picture, movie or, at the very least, concise text be better suited towards proving the point than gratuitous text? I’d say, in most cases the answer is yes.
Flash is a large step away from simple hypertext. Html did a good job in combing text and images while CSS opened up some options for layout. Flash gives the ability to combine text, images, movies and sound while retaining great freedom. In Flash, you’re not confined by the limitations of the language like in CSS, Flash is like Photoshop in this respect. You, in essence, draw the layout.
The sky is really the limit with flash… or your bandwidth. For all its good qualities, Flash suffers from bandwidth and compatibility issues. I believe it is these issues in addition to a steeper learning curve (for complex sites) that keeps Flash from being more widely used. Despite the few issues, Flash generates a certain ethos for the creator. A Flash website, when done correctly can say a lot about the developer’s sophistication in the arts and technology. Here’s a pretty good example of a quality Flash webpage: http://www.oxygen-productions.com/.
[edit] Internet Relay Chat: Real-time Forums of Sorts by Chris Jaeger
"Just get instant messaging. I find it more helpful." Those were the parting words of a friend of mine on IRC, who decided to abandon the chat room. Certainly, messengers like MSN (the one he utilized), AIM, yahoo, and others are useful in many ways. You can contact people in real-time discussion. There are other methods, like forums, where you can connect with all kinds of people, though not real time. I like IRC, however, because it combines the two. It's where a user can connect with a whole collection of unique people, rather than just your tiny buddy list, but you can talk real time much like any messaging service.
IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is a communication program that uses a series of servers and chat rooms to facilitate discussion among multiple users. To use it, one needs an IRC client, but unlike most messengers you don't need to match anyone else's, you just need something capable of connecting to an IRC server. Examples include mIRC (at mirc.com and the one I personally use), IceChat, XChat, and even Gaim or cellphones have plugins for accessing IRC servers. If a community has a room or perhaps a whole server, they'll usually have some address for the IRC server. For example, the server I visit is a fairly small server that is mostly a few small but tightly knit communities each under 80 users but drawing from everywhere from the US and Canada to India, Singapore, and Finland. Within a server, people can join different "rooms", which are where you can actually see other users gathered. Such rooms could be private, password, or sometimes invite only, and many other options. And entirely non-mechanically, multiple rooms can be held by the same people in related forms, like a community having one room for on-topic discussion and a separate room for all random chat that comes up. The community I'm most in, there are five different rooms for specific topics, and I personally use a private room for chatting with a selection of my friends in that group.
IRC is a fairly unique method of communicating with others, to me. I've been using it since Spring 2004, and became rather strong in it from Fall 2005 onwards. On the advantages it has, it allows quick communication with thousands of people. Someone's liable to have an answer, so when I have something quick I need, I can toss out a question and more likely than not get an answer. Much more convenient than the delay of forums or the limited group of IM services. Also, the rooms are entirely open for talk, what you say is seen by everyone if you're not sending private messages. Which brings the other advantage is that you can control your communication, to talk in specific rooms, gather people into special rooms, and to use a private messaging system to contact individuals that I want private discourse with. Also, an auto-logging function available on most clients allows you to continually keep track of what is said for reference. It has its negatives, of course. It's a mostly primitive, purely text based method that has no form of graphical use, not even smilies like modern IM clients. Second, the room system requires that if you only want to talk with specific people outside of a room, you'll have to use a lot of private messaging, or if you want to make a new room it's quite a complicated and notably undocumented process. Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is IRC servers. Unlike IM clients where you work through communication with specific users and their machines, IRC communicates through a main server that connects to multiple users. If the server experiences problems, everyone disconnects, and in many places the servers are not 100% stable. Fluctuations and pingouts happen, or even mass netsplits. Despite this, however, the ease of communication with large communities, and the connectedness that's more real-time but also more expansive, I find it outweighs its negatives
Like any messaging service, IRC has some varied effects on people's writing styles. It all depends on the community and rooms you go to. A room that's public is liable to have many who will use the shortcuts that are famous everywhere. One that's more private and among friends can be entirely proper writing with even punctuation! Which brings the note, that IRC is a bit dangerous. You tend to forget periods when writing after using it, so make sure you watch out for that!
[edit] StumbleUpon: Adding Channel Surfing to Your Internet Experience by Matthew Fyffe
Over the summer, I’d heard about an addicting new technology for the web called StumbleUpon. The technology lets you rapidly move from site to site and serves as a way for you to find new sites that you might enjoy. Finding myself bored one Saturday, I decided to try out the technology for myself.
The system is easy to install, as after visiting their web site (http://www.StumbleUpon.com), you just click the join link and download the plug-in. Installing the plug-in takes moments and after installing it, you are given topics to choose from including Humor, Science Fiction, Science, News and more. After applying your preferences, the system is set-up and you’re ready to join the world of stumblers.
Using the product is just as easy, as a button appears on the top of your browser with the title “Stumble!” Clicking this button sends you to a random site related to your preferences that you can view, or stumble off again if the site does not interest you. The pages cover a wide range of topics. From my own experiences, after just a few clicks I’d seen “The Ultimate Rejection Letter” in which a student rejects a schools rejection letter, “schmedley.com” which failed to explain its purpose to me, and “Why does hydrogen peroxide foam when you put it on a cut?” on http://www.howstuffworks.com, which explained precisely that.
Experimenting with the site helped me get a feel for its implications to three different groups. The first group affected by this site is the general public who may use this product to surf the Internet. The second group are the web site developers who may receive visits from stumblers. The last group are advertisers who may submit their site to StumbleUpon in order to gain traffic.
In my opinion, the site offers an interesting new method of surfing the Internet. StumbleUpon acts as a remediation of the Internet that makes it closer to the experience of watching television. When watching television, a person may flip from channel to channel to see if something good is on. StumbleUpon does a similar thing by allowing people to “stumble” or simply, to change sites. If a site jumps out at a person as being interesting, they will stop and read the page. In this manner, StumbleUpon is the new channel surfing.
While the site reinvents channel surfing on the Internet for visitors, it creates a new challenge for web site designers. A web site must be able to grab someone’s attention quickly and give the person a feel for exactly what they’re going to find on the site. If the developer fails at this, it is all too easy for the stumbler to change the channel and simply go to another site. Thus, the previously important first impression becomes even more important when visitors are given a toy that reduces their attention span even further.
For advertisers, StumbleUpon is a mixed bag. Advertising on StumbleUpon simply means that when users click stumble, there is a chance it will bring the user to your site. This method of advertising is beneficial in that it actually brings visitors to your site, instead of being a link on the top of the page. Thus, advertising via StumbleUpon helps improve traffic to one’s site. However, the flaw with advertising through the service is that visitors may not care about your site. Many of the users are simply channel surfing and thus, may glance at your page for only an instant before disappearing back into the depths of the Internet. Is it worth paying for a visitor that does nothing on your site?
StumbleUpon is an interesting service that helps expand the potential uses of the Internet. It is easy to use and provides a great way for users to “surf the Web.” Nevertheless, I have to wonder if its contributions are for better or for worse as it only furthers the limited attention span of Internet users.
[edit] Response to "StumbleUpon: Adding Channel Surfing to Your Internet Experience" by Eric Wyler
I have also just recently discovered the wonders of StumbleUpon, and Matt brings up an interesting point about the varied purposes that it can serve depending on whether you are a user, developer, or advertiser. I never really thought about the different audiences it caters to, but it's certainly true. He mentions how your bandwidth could be wasted if users are simply coming to your site and then leaving again, however I feel that the benefits would outweigh the negatives in the long run. If a few people like your site enough to tell others, traffic can quickly be generated by word-of-mouth. The bandwidth toll is a small price to pay for the possibility of a significantly larger audience.
The analogy Matt brings up betweens StumbleUpon and channel surfing is very interesting, because the conventional way of surfing the internet can also be compared to the conventional way of surfing television channels. I'm talking about search engines and website links vs. the good ol' TV guide. When you look at a TV guide, you generally find a show that interests you and procede to watch it. Similarly, with search engine results, you normally read the little blurbs presented about each website before clicking on the one you deem most appropriate. I think Matt is certainly right that using StumbleUpon almost makes you trigger-happy in that you will click the mouse to Stumble! again in a shorter amount of time than if you had explicitly chosen the current site from a list. When I was using it, I noticed that sometimes I would even hit Stumble! before all of the site I had stumbled upon even loaded, simply because it didn't catch my eye. As far as when to use StumbleUpon, it would seem to me that a user would Stumble! when they felt like finding a quick, interesting site. I doubt that most people would enjoy finding a site with extensive text or information to sift through. Like Matt said, there's a certain mindset you get into when new information can be discovered so quickly.
Following from above, even though StumbleUpon may not make you think twice (or even at all) before clicking, it’s still a great way to find interesting sites. I mean, how cool is it to Stumble! on something that you didn’t even know existed?! I found a very humorous (and interesting) article the other day titled "Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth" (http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp.html). It was great, and I found it quickly and easily. The design of StumbleUpon opens up a whole new way to learn random little facts about any topic that you choose.
It would seem to me that, overall, StumbleUpon is a great tool for surfing the internet in a revolutionary way. Whenever I Stumble!, there's a certain rush of excitement (alright that's a little over dramatic, but you know what I mean) that I don't know what's coming next, but I do know that it is likely to interest me. The internet's natural web-like construction is entirely hidden by StumbleUpon, making it a more simple and enjoyable tool to use. I would never Stumble! to find a specific topic, but when boredom strikes, I will always be prepared to fall.
[edit] Instant Messaging by Jeff Connolly
The history and continuing evolution of instant messaging indicates that once people were exposed to free, instantaneous communication; it was almost immediately adapted into the every day routine of communication. Instant messaging didn’t just explode in one part of the world; it became part of the culture of everyone around the world as a necessary and normal communication tool just like the telephone and/or mail.
Today, instant messaging clients are filled with endless options such as file transfers, voice chatting, and inserting graphics. The idea of instant messaging has transformed from a communication device to the way to communicate. Many teenagers and young adults go straight home from school or work, or while in class, and end up on an instant messaging program chatting with many different friends just as though they were one the phone or communicating in person.
My experience with instant messaging has been extensive due to this form of communication being almost instinctively engrained in my culture. Ever since middle school I have used instant messenger to talk to my friends while at home and to distract myself during homework. No matter what I am doing on the computer I am online. Being online coincides with me using and being on the computer. In addition, I must admit that I am subject to the use of the online language and the text emotions. Many times I catch myself typing reports and using the shortened words and lack of capitalization. Being online is basically the only way I know how to communicate with my friends when I am not with them. I rarely use the phone to talk to friends, that privilege is reserved for my girlfriend.
There is little advice I can give for this online communication technology because almost everyone of my age is familiar with instant messaging. The only advice I would have for users is if one has not begun using instant messaging, he/she is missing out and missing the primary means of communication of the younger generation. In addition, don’t let the online language creep into your everyday language. It is quite humorous to hear people actually saying “O-M-F-G” or “L-O-L.”
[edit] Response to Instant Messaging by Marissa Hecker
I find Jeff’s look at how we use instant message to be quite interesting. People are starting to depend on this type of communication due to its ease and simplicity. Another type of communication that I have seen growing in popularity is text messaging mobile to mobile. I agree with Jeff and find it funny to hear people actually saying instant/text messaging language. I recently saw a commercial for Cingular that made fun of those that do this type of funny behavior; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nIUcRJX9-o. Here, a girl communicates to her mother in message language and the mother actually understands it. In fact she even responds in message language at the end to get her point across.
[edit] Response to Instant Messaging By Graham Gordon
It is correct to state that instant messaging has been a staple of our generations culture. The harsh reality is that we're at the point when a lot of people are only comfortable communicating through instant messaging. This is acceptable for social setting. I am interested in seeing how those people who rarely communicate face to face fare in the business world. Face to face conversation is the way to communicate with the highest ethos, so instant messaging also gets us used to accepting statements with lower ethos.
[edit] Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and its role in Modern Society by E. Filipov
Microsoft has developed Exchange Server 2007 which is used for communication within office based companies and other internet based organizations. The server allows employees to manage their e-mails, tasks and calendars and also allows for company data storage and web access. Since over the past decade computers and the World Wide Web in particular have changed business and everyday work for most people Microsoft's 2007 Exchange server promises to provide personal mobility, security, and usability for the entire world.
First of all with the feature of web interface, the system now allows users to log on from their homes, or anywhere around the world and virtually use their office computers for any computing tasks. To furthermore allow users “on the go” mobility, the exchange server allows windows compatible devices to synchronize e-mails, calendars and contacts with the network. And for users who do not own such handheld devices, the Outlook Voice Access option allows users to receive emails and manage their business events with the use of only a phone and their voice.
In addition to its expanded mobility, the Exchange Server 2007 allows users improved communication with their colleagues. The system provides better time management with its improved calendar functions that enable scheduling of business meetings and appointments. The system further allows users to share computer files and company information. In addition to its revolutionary features the system also provides security in all its forms ranging from spam filters to software that can delete crucial corporate information on lost handheld devices. I believe that this software is crucial for today’s fast pace of business and will eventually be integrated throughout the world.
[edit] EditPlus - Giving Web Coders A Break by Andrew La Padula
This semester I was introduced to a great program called EditPlus. It is, in its simplest form, a text editor. However, the program includes specific functionality for a wide range of programming languages including HTML, C/C++, Perl, PHP, Java, VBScript, C#, CSS, and more. This program makes Writing (coding) to the World Wide Web much easier and more efficient than using a standard plain text editor.
For example, when coding in CSS the program will highlight keywords in blue and highlight values in red. If one were to write, "cursor: default;", "cursor" would be highlighted in blue while "default" highlighted in red. If one accidentally typed in "cusror" instead of cursor, the word would not be changed to blue text and the author can recognize this immediately. Similarly, if "defualt" was typed instead of default, the value would not be changed to red text and this can also be seen immediately. When coding HTML, if the writer opens up a set of quotations, all the text to the right of the quote and below will become grayed out until the quote is closed. In the event that gray text is cluttering the page, the author knows that quotations have been opened but were not closed.
When writing code, the highlighting of specific text can be a big help as mistyped or forgotten characters are often a huge pain to programmers. Forgetting a semi-colon in PHP code, mistyping the word "width" in CSS, or not closing a function with a curly bracket "}" in JavaScript can prevent an entire program or website from functioning properly, if at all. Checking for mistakes was often a pain and needed to be done frequently. Specifically when coding HTML and CSS pages, I would need to check the W3C's validator often to make sure my code was correct. Since EditPlus provides multiple, intuitive ways to make sure the code you are writing is correct, it has significantly cut down on my time spent making sure the site will work and gives me more time to make design and interface changes.
One other nice feature of this program is that it is not a developer tool like Macromedia Dreamweaver - it was designed specifically for coders. While the program gives great indicators and feedback of proper code, it will not write any code for you, like closing open tags, as Dreamweaver does. It will also present the code however it is typed and will not jumble it all up into an unreadable source document like Dreamweaver tends to do.
These are just a few examples of what the program offers, and as stated earlier, it houses support for numerous programming languages. It has without a doubt changed the way I develop websites and how I get information up onto the Web. I highly recommend it to anyone that is comfortable with coding who would also like to be more efficient while developing their programs and sites.
You can get it for free (shareware) here: http://www.editplus.com/
[edit] Orb 2.0 by Robert Augelli
Music, pictures, TV, and movies. In terms of media, this about sums up almost every aspect of the word. Sometimes however, we do not want to merely sit alone in our rooms and listen. Even more so, sometimes we don't want to have the specific laptop on us in order to enjoy our TV shows or movies! This is where Orb2.0 comes into play. Essentially, Orb allows users to host all of their media via an account secured by them (so it is legal) and then access this account from any other computer online. Think of it like a web-based email service, but with hosting media instead of sending mail. If this is not enough, users can also host documents as a method of storage, just in case he or she forgets something that is needed. The great thing about the program is that all that is needed is to point to a directory, and every time a user logs in, the list of data (music, documents, etc) automatically updates. So assuming you target the My Documents folder and important data is saved to it, there is a good chance that it will be hosted if you happen to forget something important.
What is required of the user? Simple, the user must install a program on their computer that has the information stored. The program can then run in the background. This program is the governing body of the whole process; this is where the user can select what he or she wants to host. After setting up the program, merely run it in the background and everything is good to go! The user can then access http://mycast.orb.com and log in to the webpage. Here the user will be greeted with a slick interface where he or she can browse through the information needed. This could be a tremendous time saver in class if one happened to forget his or her word file, or on the road when someone wants to access a movie on their home computer.
The program is not without its flaws however. One issue that I ran into was a speed problem. This occurred for me, on bigger files. The problem is that because the media is streamed from the Orb service, the process could be slow if the Internet connection is not the fastest. This problem however is certainly not a limitation imposed by Orb, it is merely a problem with connection speed. As the Internet grows, this problem will certainly disappear.
Whether entertainment is out of reach, or an important work file was forgotten, Orb 2.0 is a fantastic solution to streaming media from one computer to another.
[edit] Sponit by Brian McEvoy
Now-a-days everyone has heard of blogs but what about Spons? Sponit located at http://sponit.com/ is a new Blog like Web app spreading across the Internet. The best way to describe Sponit is a blog, “StumbleUpon” hybrid.
When one first enters the URL they are immediately sent to a random Spon (spontaneous). The whole point seems to revolve around the random aspect. Truth-be-told, there is a certain degree of amusement just seeing what random events, places, ideas etc. people are writing about. This is where the “StumbleUpon” connection comes in. The entire app is viewed in this random fashion and as far as I can tell there is no way to browse or search for individual Spons. In essence you’re “surfing” small blogs. Also, similar to a blog there is a comments section.
So how does all this affect writing? It’s readily apparent that the Sponit users prefer to write prose quickly and for the most part, devoid of grammar. In one Spon the creator writes:
”HAHHHHAHHHAHHHAAHAHAHAHA
i'm neurotically checking my spons b/c i'm addicted to sponit.
here, anyone know what kind of animals these are?”
Certainly not, what one would consider quality prose but I guess that’s the draw. Sponit seems more about the interaction, what’s written (or meant to be) than about how a Spon is written.
[edit] Keve Zoltani' response to "Sponit" by Brian McEvoy
I feel differently about Sponit than Brian does. The site does use an innovative idea of making which blogs you see random, but it is not very amusing but rather frustrating to me. When confronted with a site that has little organization and flashes random blogs, or what feels more like facts or new items, you mostly get uninteresting and not well written entries. After trying Sponit, I read a blog about why girls like mustangs, what Halloween is like in San Francisco and how to make a kitty look cute by folding it ears. Not having anyway of navigating the site makes all the entries you see random and eliminates any chance of personalize or having social network opportunities.
[edit] When Gamers Collide by Michael Princevalli
Now, I am not going to lie; I am an avid gamer. Many a game has sunken its teeth into me, and in response I try to get involved with the community around it and converse with my gaming peers. Nothing promotes this more than the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, or the MMORPG, as it is affectionately referred to. Having played <a href="http://worldofwarcraft.com">World of Warcraft</a> on and off for over two years, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to explore the forums and connect with my fellow WoW addicts. Unfortunately, I forgot a key figure to the equation: when a person is presented with the anonymity that the Internet provides them, they are far more likely to forgo their manners and react to issues as a stuck-up three-year old might: indignant, with their hands on their hips, and screaming as loudly and as best they can using text.
To be fair, I'll say right now that the good majority of the forum-goers are nothing at all like this. Many are content to surf the Web and reply to posts in a dignified manner, holding intelligent discussions about what a particular class can do well, and offering sound advice to the new players who ask politely for it. Nevertheless, it is never the majority which garners the attention of the media, and the forum is no different. Reasonable conversation is drowned out by random gibberish about class superiority, elitist attitude, and completely off-topic discussion about Dubya Bush's hairdo. Even when one finds a topic worthy of viewing, criticism is offered via scathing remarks which inevitably leads to a flame war and a forum moderator going ban crazy in order to keep the peace as best he can. Picture a classroom half-full with children screaming a the literal top of their lungs, while a few sit on the side and rub their aching foreheads and the teacher huddles in the corner crying to himself, and you have a rough idea of the experience.
I have learned interesting and useful things in the forums. I talked business with many other Rogue characters about the some of the more fun experiences we've had playing the class. I learned from the best how to effectively survive hordes of monsters as a Paladin. I discussed the faults and benefits of the various tanking classes and why each was a viable choice. It was all a great deal of fun, I cannot deny. But the sad fact is that these were not the common experience, merely the exceptions. More often than not, I would sit in my chair, shaking my head as I read the topic list and wondering if I had clicked the wrong link.
Here, let me check. Nope, I clicked right. Someone get my Tylenol. It's going to be a long evening.
[edit] Response to When Gamers Collide by Chris Jaeger
While I don't play WoW myself, I do visit many game related forums of many varieties. And Michael definitely has some proper observations. If there's one thing that's most notable when utilizing a forum, it's the number of poor behavior and bad grammar users that just pop in for their information and don't have a care for community. As well, whenever good conversation can be found, people who have no real contribution can pop in with harsh insults and remarks that are useless discussionwise. It's quite the contrast to, say, the very system we use on this wiki.
I'm not an MMO person myself, so my own forum experience is varied to separate degrees. I personally visit the forums for a friend of mine that's an online game developer, the forums for Warcraft 3, forums for the Japanese doujinsoft "Touhou" series that I'm obsessed with and pay big monies to import, and forums for specific groups (I'm a part of a Warcraft 3 clan). In addition, I've looked at others who visit other forums. My hallmates last year, for example, were WoWers and they went to special Guild forums. I think the great thing about forums is that, with the proper knowledge, they're easy to setup. With software that is easily obtained or online hosts for forums, all kinds of communities and even subcommunities within them can get their own forums. And observing my experience with Guild forums, and Michael's with the base WoW forums, there's one key observation that I note.
A lot of the writing style and demeanor of forum goers depends on how publicly accessible the forum is. Even if it's not a subcommunity that enforces grammar (the private forum I'm in has only 20 or so members and we still have some people with horrid spelling), the closed in part closes off the greatest source of havoc: random members. Forums are open and easy to register, and for massive public forums people who are normally very crude and such can easily register an account and demand information and be harsh to opposition all they want. More secluded forums are less liable to be recognized by such users and ergo the general air of the forum becomes lighter and much nicer. More... commune-able, if you will.
[edit] What Are You Doing? by Daniel Jones
Twitter is a website that hosts a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing? The answer is sent through text message from a cell phone, IM, or directly on the twitter.com website. It is basically a Web 2.0 social network. People from all over the world post what they are up to and anyone can read it. An example would be me posting “Hey, I’m writing to my class wiki right now.” A person from California can see this via a phone or website and respond “That’s cool.” This is a creative idea to keep your friends posted on your everyday daily life, but it brings up the issue of triviality.
An advantage of this service is that you can keep your friends up to date on everything going on in your life. This is different from social networks like Facebook and Myspace because it is solely geared to answering: What are you doing? Facebook or Myspace hosts a bevy of information that can divert a user attention from a person status. Twitter on the other hand only handles updates on a person’s life. This is very helpful because it is a quick source to see what a person is up to. An example would be the politicians that use the service to inform their followers of their whereabouts on the campaign trail. Another advantage that can be seen from this service is its informative nature. With such a large network of people that are privy to all text messages, new information could be brought to light. One person could have not known some game has dropped until he saw one of his friends update.
A disadvantage is the triviality factor. Most of the text messages are trivial like “I’m online now” or “kitty play time!” This information is pointless, but people put it to update their status. One can just consider it spam because not all information is useful. It also poses the question of how much information is too much information. Basically how much do you need to know about a person life? It detracts from privacy.
[edit] Not so Dreamy Dreamweaver by Terrence Isabella
This semester I was tasked with building several websites. Sense I didn’t have any experience with html nor the time to learn, I used Dreamweaver to get the job done. Dreamweaver is one several pieces of software developed to assist people in building web pages. Without html knowledge, the user should be able to effectively build a wesite. Although without some knowledge of html and some understanding of how the coding environment works, you may be in trouble. Finding it very user friendly at first, I created layer after layer one inside the other, alongside, and above and below each other. With the import option from the menu, I placed images within my layers, and I included text throughout. I was very pleased with my results and eager to learn more.
After reading Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm, I thought about try something more elaborate. Like developing fluid pages, so I began using some code suggested by Mr. Cederholm. Periodically checking the results in Internet Explorer, I made adjustments as necessary. Everything was looking good, and I was rather impressed. Then it occurred to me, I needed to check the results in another browser.
I opened up my page in Firefox. Sadly, what I found were my layers, images, and text all running into each other. As I began trying to make adjustments, it was extremely difficult to make text and images appear in the same place in both browsers. This, of course, became very frustrating. Still having very little understanding of html, I didn’t know where or how to begin fixing some of the more persistent problems.
Focusing on only one browser, I did what I could. Unfortunately, I had to make many compromises to get the fluid effect I wanted with my pages. Surprisingly, even the design window within Dreamweaver wasn’t very representative of what I would find in a browser. The technology helped get the job done, but it wasn’t very helpful in getting me to the all-browser friendly design I was hoping for.
[edit] Response to When Gamers Collide by Chris Dromms
I find that for me this is a rather interesting and personal observation. Being an avid WoW player myself I regularly frequent the forums as well. Like you, I have notcied how misbehaved the forums are for the game. I'm not sure if you have also noticed something else though. Many times players will link posts from the European forums. These links almost always contain much more complete and better info that what the US forums get. Looking at why this might be the case, it is readily obvious. The European forums have much less of this random people flaming others for no reason. Overall they are much more behaved, and the result are webmasters who are much more open and willing to communicate with the players. In this regard the two communities are much different.
[edit] Response to Orb 2.0 by Chris Dromms
I find this concept rather interesting considering the current legal battle over digital media rights. I'm assuming the reason you mentioned this was "legal" was because only you would have access to your media files. What I would wonder is what sort of level of security is involved to make sure this is the case. In addition, what if people decided to figure a way to pass around a security key so that many people can upload to an account. I'm guessing this would still be hard to do, but not neccessarily out of the realm of possibility. I didn't directly see it in your post, but has the RIAA commented on this at all? It would be interesting to see what they had to say about something like this.
[edit] Craigslist Apartment Search by Graham Gordon
In my search for a new place to live, me and my potential roommate decided to primarily use Craigslist as a means of locating new apartments. Craigslist is community of online advertisements. These advertisements range from personals, apartments, real estate, to internships and jobs. The wide variety of advertisements on Craigslist makes it a very useful website to know about. The apartments section features details about the apartments. The apartments are originally listed by their location, then they are sorted by the date they were posted. The writing of the online advertisements is actually rather interesting. Some of the advertisements will include a great deal of detail, written in prose form. Others will be lists of the price and other details about the apartment. In my personal opinion, the lack of censorship on many of the Craigslist listings makes it very difficult to decide what is worth your time and what isn’t. For example, the use of adjectives to describe a listing is very subjective. Words such as large, clean, and “best in area” are opinions. These opinions may or may not be shared with those who are looking to rent. Craigslist’s writing which focuses on overemphasis of positive features led me to only look at apartments with pictures. If an apartment didn’t have a picture, it was already lacking ethos. The use of pictures to build ethos was rather intriguing. When an apartment is described as large, the picture gives users the ability to give the listing ethos; or deny it of ethos.
