WEB206 - Week 12: The Future of Web Publishing

"DIY media are engendering a shift in popular taste. No longer is professionalism assumed to be the norm and standard of quality. The notion that do–it–yourself amateurism can stand on equal ground with media industry professionalism signals a democratic challenge to hierarchies of aesthetic value. And at the same time that amateur media are gaining ground, so is the communitarian alternative to traditional, top–down mass media distinctions between production and reception" (Newman, 2008).

As Internet connection speeds have increased and broadband has become commonplace (at least in most developed nations), the use of audio and video as publishing tools on the Web has increased in popularity. As the early Web shifted the balance of power away from print media conglomerates, so too are audio and video publishing beginning to have an impact on our perceptions of media as amateurs around the world now have the tools to not only create footage, but to see that footage distributed to a global audience.

This week's readings/viewing:
Podcasting in Plain English http://www.commoncraft.com/video/podcasting

An anthropological introduction to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU
Berry, R. (2006). Will the iPod Kill the Radio Star? Profiling Podcasting as Radio. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 12(2), 143-162.
Available through the Library database.
Crofts, S., Dilley, J., Fox, M., Retsema, A., & Williams, B. (2005). Podcasting: A New Technology in Search of Viable Business Models. First Monday, 10(9). Available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1273/1193
Newman, M. (2008). Ze Frank and the Poetics of Web Video. First Monday, 13(5). Available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2102/1962
McMurria, J. (2006). The YouTube Community. FlowTV, 5(2). Available: http://flowtv.org/?p=48

Activity - Discussion Questions
Consider the podcast you listened to this week:

How did the content compare with traditional radio in terms of professionalism of presentation?
How did the level of professionalism affect your enjoyment of the content?
Is the content that was covered available through conventional radio?

I chose to listen to a blog presented by the Australian Businesswomen's Network entitled Social Media Policy for Small Business Explained.

I found it to be similar in style to talkback radio - which unfortunately I don't like that much! To me it was a bit too girly chatty and I kept zoning off and losing interest. But that's partly because I'm a visual learner and I prefer things I can see, with links, rather than an auditory experience.   Which probably explains why I've never really gotten into the whole podcast thing. :-)

Do you think that these digital models of production and distribution are a threat to, or a companion to, traditional media forms such as radio and television?
 
I would say it is more of a companion to traditional media forms. There is probably not a large enough audience to put this type of content onto a traditional radio network, but podcasting enables the content to still be accessible by those who are interested.

As is clear from Wesch's presentation, different people use YouTube in a myriad of ways and invest the site with a varying degree of importance in their lives. What does YouTube mean to you?
 
Not as much as some of those people!

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WEB206 - Week 11: Flows

"Though the 140-character format is a constraint, it need not be seen as a limitation; while participants often shorten and otherwise modify tweets to fit into 140 characters, this characteristic of Twitter can also be seen as an advantage. The brevity of messages allows them to be produced, consumed, and shared without a significant amount of effort, allowing a fast-paced conversational environment to emerge" (boyd et. al., Forthcoming).

We are increasingly swimming in a river of information and nowhere is this more apparent than in current trends in social media such as Facebook and Twitter. The constant flow of information that is available to us and the ability to update others with information you think may be relevant to them is creating a media environment where the ability to communicate effectively in a concise way is of growing importance. This week we are going to be looking at techniques for publishing to the Internet that eschew the lengthy paradigms of traditional print media.

In a recent Pew Internet Survey, 11% of Americans indicated that they used some form of microblogging service. Microblogging refers to posting very short text or multimedia clips, often from a mobile device. By all indications it is likely that the use of microblogging will only increase. Although for many microblogging is merely a way of distributing stream-of-consciousness, "what are you doing right now?" style posts, the form can also be used to maintain conversations on specific subjects and to distribute information on a topic.

Given the nature of this course, one question that arises is that of whether we can really consider Twitter and similar services as a 'publishing' platform. Certainly there is an ephemeral feel to them that feels more akin to a personal conversation. However, microblogging is a clear indicator of the way we need to reconsider our ideas of what publishing entails in the context of new media. Notably the term 'publish' is derived from the Latin 'publicare' - "to make public", and this is what we do as we post into the twitterverse, whether this be a summary of what you had for breakfast, a pointer to an interesting link or a part of an ongoing distributed global conversation on a particular topic. The restriction of 140 words forces us to think about exactly what we want to say and how we can use such a small amount of text to grab the reader's attention.

This week's readings/viewing:
Nielsen, J. (2009). Twitter Postings: Iterative Design. Retrieved September 14th, 2009, from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/twitter-iterations.html.
Boyd, d., Golder, S., & Lotan, G. (Forthcoming, 2010). Tweet Tweet Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. Paper presented at the HICSS-42, Persistent Conversation Track.
Marwick, A.E., & boyd, d. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114-133.

Activity - Discussion Questions
 
Although termed 'micro-blogging', how do you think Twitter differs from blogs in terms of the practices, conversations and experiences it produces?
Twitter enables quick, real-time conversation and the distribution of up-to-date information. I've encountered several events in the past year where I've found out about it on Twitter first. A lot of news reporters and outlets are now monitoring Twitter as a basis for news. The 140 character limitation means that it is quicker and easier for a lot of people to tweet than is is for them to blog. And the fact that all Tweets go via twitter.com means it is easy to engage with a wide variety of people (via hashtags etc.), as opposed to blogs where people need to go to that particular place to participate.

Following Johnson's article, what do you think of the various claims he makes that contribute to his assertion that "Twitter will change the way we live"?
I'm not sure that Twitter specifically will change the way we live, but I think it's fair to say that social media and the Internet in general already has. Although perhaps if you were living somewhere like Egypt earlier this year, where social media is generally credited as being behind the political uprising, then perhaps you might agree with Johnson that Twitter has changed their world. :-)

What influences do you think have given rise to the enormous success of Twitter as a communication platform?
Twitter is very simple to use, and there are many different ways of accessing it because the Twitter API is openly available for developers to access. I also think that the openness of the system has helped its success - the ability to follow anybody that interests you, including "famous" celebrities, sporting personalities and politicians, means that individuals can feel more connected to these people. As well, I find that the immediacy of topics and information, via the use of hashtags, means that I can quickly engage with others who share the same interests.

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WEB206 - Week 10: Links

Up until now we have largely focused on how you can use your own creative skills in order to build up an identity on the Web. This, however, is only half of the story in terms of building an audience for your work. As Web technologies have advanced, the act of creating an identity on the Web is increasingly tied to your use of social media as a platform for communication. As you will see in the readings this week, Web 2.0 has given rise to an environment wherein reciprocity and participation play a significant role.

Becoming a part of the Conversation
As you develop your online identity, you will need to engage with others who are also writing about your area of interest. There are a number of ways that you can foster this type of connection through the hub of your web presence.

Blogrolls
Blogrolls are the list of linked-to blogs and sites that appear on the sidebar of blogs. As you saw in Topic 1.1, the sites you select to link to in your blogroll form a part of your online presence inasmuch as they indicate to readers who you are reading and the types of discussion you are following. There is typically a degree of reciprocity in blogrolling (i.e. "you link to me, I link to you") but you need to be selective in the sites you link to. Once again, the question to ask yourself is "What does linking to this site say about me?".

Comments
As you will see in the readings over the next two weeks, as social media platforms have evolved, they have become increasingly 'conversational'. The main way that these conversations are manifest in blogs is through comments and trackbacks. Engaging with other writers through comments, you can not only expand your own understandings of your topic, but also become involved in a broader discussion that will enhance your web presence.

Trackbacks
Implemented in a variety of ways by different blogging softwares, trackbacks operate as a kind of automated comment service. If two blogs both have trackback active, when a post is made to one blog and that post is subsequently linked to by another, a notification appears in the comments of the originating article. Although trackbacks are being largely superseded by shifting conversations to other media platforms (E.g. Instant messaging, Twitter), a large number of blogs still use the feature.

This week's readings/viewing:
Hendriks, N. (2009). From Social Media To Human Media - critical reflection on social media & some design methods to design social environments. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/nielshendriks/from-social-media-to-human-media-critical-reflection-on-social-media-some-design-methods-to-design-social-environments
Ali-Hasan, N. F., & Adamic, L. A. (2007). Expressing Social Relationships on the Blog through Links and Comments. Paper presented at the AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, Boulder.
Available:http://www.icwsm.org/papers/2--Ali-Hasan--Adamic.pdf
Herring, S., Kouper, I., Paolillo, J., Scheidt, L., Tyworth, M., Welsch, P. et al. (2005). Conversations in the Blogosphere: An Analysis "From the Bottom Up". Paper presented at the 38th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Available: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1385453&;tag=1

Activity - Discussion Questions

Has your own Blog/Web presence hub attracted any comments beyond those of other students? How do you think you might encourage conversation through your writing?
So far my blog has only attracted a couple of comments from other students. However, I've put links to some of the posts onto my business Facebook page and Twitter accounts and there have been a couple of "Likes" and an email so I was a bit happy!

In your own tracking of Blogs on your chosen topic, how much of the conversational nature of the blogosphere have you directly observed?
To be honest, not a lot! Granted, a lot of posts have a lot of comments, but in general I don't see a lot of replies to THOSE comments by the original poster, which is what I would consider would make it a real "conversation".

Given the broadly social and participatory nature of Web 2.0 technologies, is the term media still appropriate to describe these emerging forms?

I realise that academia hates Wikipedia as a reference but I thought the Wikipedia article for "media" was quite informative!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media

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WEB206 - Week 9: A New Media Audience

The nature of media consumption has shifted dramatically in the era of personal computers and the Internet. No longer are audiences made up of passive consumers who select from a small range of media channels. Now, faced with a seemingly endless variety of sources, readers have become far more selective and discriminating in terms of the media they consume. Furthermore, as audiences have become familiar with the interactive nature of digital technologies and the publishing platforms available, there has been a significant shift towards organic, community-driven content. The nature of audience expectations and engagement with texts has moved towards a participatory model where readers are actively involved in creation and remediation.

One of the results of this has been the emergence of communities on the Web that attract readers and contributors who are interested in specific niche interests, or in a particular 'angle' or political approach to general news. The 'audience' is made up of individuals who have a strong interest in the topic and who communicate that interest through a variety of platforms. Becoming an active voice in this environment requires a good knowledge of the topic you are writing about along with a willingness to engage with others in thoughtful dialogue rather than emotional argument.

This week's readings:
Cover, R. (2006). Audience inter/active: Interactive Media, Narrative Control and Reconceiving Audience History. New Media & Society, (8)1. Available from the library database.
Shirky, C. (2003). Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality. Retrieved October 14th, 2009, from http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html.

Are you actively involved in any online interest groups or communities? What elements do you think define engaging writing in this context?
I'm afraid I've been too busy the last few years to spend much time participating in online communities. I lurk around a few different Facebook groups, Whirlpool and a couple of other geeky places, and a couple of AFL forums (go Hawks!), and I have a couple of distinct circles of people that I interact with via Twitter, but that's about it. Back in the 90's I did the whole IRC and Usenet newsgroups thing, but that was Before Children. :>

Are there approaches to, or styles of writing that actively encourage conversation and dialogue from an audience?
I tend to respond better to people who are clear and articulate, and who can demonstrate a decent grasp of spelling and grammar. I also tend to respond well to people who can use humour effectively, and who discuss things in a way I can relate to. I agree too with Kym's point about conversational writing, as this encourages people to respond.

What sorts of impact can the audience have on online media texts such as blogs? What difference does this make to the media landscape in general?
I found Shirky's analysis of power law distributions quite interesting - that merely by one person choosing a blog, another person is more likely to also choose that blog. This also happens with things like Twitter - as soon as you read that Ashton Kutcher has a million followers, people will go and follow him purely based on that fact, even if most of what he says is complete tripe. Another side of that is that Ashton may then start tailoring his tripe to suit those million people, whereas perhaps before he didn't. So not only is the audience influencing who people should follow, but perhaps they are also influencing what is being said.

Writing Task - Entering the Conversation
As we have seen, the increasingly participatory nature of the Web calls upon publishers to become actively involved with their audiences. As both a publisher and a member of the audience, you will need to engage with others who are working in your particular area and become a part of a distributed conversation.
 
You should now have found a variety of sources that relate to your chosen topic. Select one of these sources that provide functionality for responding to an original piece of writing. (Eg. blog comments, discussion forums).
 
    Write a considered and informed response to a post of your choosing.
    This response should be no longer than 200 words.
 
As a part of this exercise, you will also need to consider how you are going to keep track of and monitor the impact of your commentary. The conversation that emerges from your commentary (or the lack thereof) will prove valuable in preparations for your final assignment.
 
Apologies for the delay (again). So far I've managed to run a week behind for approximately 7 weeks of this unit! Every time I think I'm getting back on top of things, something else pops up and bites me in the backside!

Anyway, I attended some seminars at the Melbourne Internet Show on Monday/Tuesday and heard a social media expert give a brief talk which I found quite interesting. I then tracked her down on Twitter and her blog. Much of what she talks about is relevant to my own blog so I thought it would be good both for this exercise, and also just for my networking in general, to comment on one of her posts.  Here 'tis:

http://thesocialskinny.com/11-simple-things-you-can-do-to-get-more-twitter-followers/

Cheers,
Nicky

ps: When I posted my comment I entered my email address, which is not published but is used to notify me of any replies.
pps: Her presentation from Monday's seminar is here if anybody is interested.

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WEB206 - Week 8: The Attention Economy

The Web has brought with it a number of challenges for the professional writer. How do we present information in an age where there is an overabundance of it? How do we engage readers when another page is just a click away? And, of course, the big question of the moment - "What happens to news organisations and media institutions when everyone is potentially an author?".

As the media landscape has changed, so too have audience expectations and demands. Traditional media outlets can no longer rely on dedicated and restrictive channels that ensure a captive audience, but must instead contend with everybody else in what has been termed the 'attention economy'. Over the next two weeks we will be looking specifically at ways in which writers on the Web can tailor content and respond to changing audience expectations.

This week's readings:
Shirky, C. (2002). Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing. Retrieved October 13th, 2009, from http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html.
Anderson, C. (2004). The Long Tail. Retrieved September 9th, 2009, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html.
Kelly, K. (2008). Better Than Free. Retrieved October 24th, 2009, from http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html.

What is your reaction to Shirky's claim that the Web and Weblogs have made publishing a "financially worthless activity"?

How might the ideas Kelly proposes be relevant to your chosen topic/field? Can you think of examples of people working in this field who have used some of these ideas?

In what other ways do you think it might be possible to add value to information for your readers?

This is quite funny on reflection, but reading Shirky's article actually set me off thinking again about an idea I'd had last year that I'd abandoned due to lack of time. After spending the best part of last week nosing around looking into a whole bunch of stuff that had very little to do with "Web Publishing" - I'm now back on Blackboard! Sorry about falling behind (again). They say that study opens the mind - right?! :>

Anyway - after thinking about it and reading the other posts here, I'm now not so sure about Shirky and his "financially worthless" suggestion. While it's probably true that not many people are making much money today based on current models, the models themselves are changing too. Tying that in with Kelly's ideas about immediacy, personalisation, etc. - you only have to come up with a new way of doing or presenting something and everyone else will be off and running trying to catch up. Look at smartphone apps, for instance - I'm a recent adoptee of "Draw Something". Nobody says anything, nobody does anything spectacular, one of the silliest games I've ever played - but the creators of that game recently sold it for $200 million, after almost going broke! http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/19/zynga-is-in-talks-to-buy-draw-something-maker-omgpop/. Imagine even five years ago, somebody suggesting that anybody could make $200 million out of a game on a phone. If you then add in Kelly's "1,000 true fans" ideas - well, I just think, never say never.

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WEB206 - Week 6: The Public Voice

If what we are seeking to do in online publishing is to establish a recognisable Web presence then two issues are of particular importance: Authority and Ethics. Authority is established in part by knowing your topic well, but you can also read over Topic 1.2: Sourcing Information on the Web to understand how authority is established by effective linking to other sites that cover the same ground. Ethics, on the other hand, is a matter of personal integrity - long-time blogger Rebecca Blood offers some advice in the readings about how you can maintain an ethical stance in your writing.

Over the last few years there has been a rise in what has been termed 'citizen journalism'; topics that in the past were written about by dedicated professionals have become the domain of amateur writers who establish their popularity through engagement with their audience and a sense that they know what they are writing about. This does not mean that 'anyone' can become a successful blogger (or online writer of any kind). The most successful of those amateurs, the bloggers who have managed to establish a reputation within their particular field of interest, are not in that position by chance. As much as the Web is a democratic medium, it rewards those who can utilise the platform effectively. Writing for a public audience is a skill that is learned through practice and observation. This week, we are looking at how you can develop your writing skills in the context of a blog post, but the advice offered here applies to most kinds of online writing.

This week's readings:
Lomborg, S. (2009). Navigating the Blogosphere: Towards a genre-based Typology of Weblogs. First Monday, 14(5).
Available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2329/2178
Blood, R. (2002). Weblog Ethics. In The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Perseus.
Available: http://www.rebeccablood.net/handbook/excerpts/weblog_ethics.html
Rowse, D. (2008). Nine Signs of an Effective Blog Post. Retrieved September 9th, 2009, from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/07/10/nine-signs-of-an-effective-blog-post/.

Do you agree with the suggestion in Walker's article (last week's readings) that the blogosphere can be seen as a revitalising influence on the public sphere?
I found Walker's paper really interesting.  The idea that the cultural effects of print and the rise in literacy created a separation into private and public spheres in the last couple of hundred years, and that blogging is now collapsing that divide, is something I hadn't thought about before but it does make some sense.  So while I'm not convinced that "revitalising" is the right word, I can certainly agree with Walker that blogging is having a profound effect on the public sphere.

Setting aside the Internet, in what other areas of your life do you contribute to the public sphere?
Last year I became involved in a local community group that was created in response to the local council's draft redevelopment plan - although, my contribution to date has mostly been the Internet side of things - website, email lists, etc.!  I also get involved in my kid's school but again, I tend to get involved in ways that I can contribute via my computer.  What can I say, I'm a geek. :>

What blogs do you read for informational purposes? Why?
I've tried RSS feeds and never really got into it - my tool of choice is Twitter, which I use as a sort of pseudo-RSS feed to click off to a variety of different blog posts and articles from there.  I use a Twitter plugin for Firefox called Yoono which sits on the side of my browser, so I don't have to have any extra windows open.  I have a number of lists setup within Twitter and also have a few different Twitter accounts, which can be loosely broken down into work/web-related stuff, footy (go Hawks!), study-related, funny things and friends.

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WEB206 - Week 5: The Personal Voice

As we move through this course we need to consider how online writing is influenced by the platform on which it is to be published and by the narrative mode/genre of the piece. Over this week and the next we are going to consider how blogs (the platform) can be used to write personal narratives and/or informative pieces created for broader public consumption. Each of these modes produces different effects for readers and consequently attracts different audiences. Thus, we need to think about the context in which we use them and where one is more suitable than the other.

Problematically however, in the context of the Internet, it quickly becomes apparent that any clear distinctions between personal and public writing are blurred. As we have seen, anything we write on the Web is effectively public. Given this, we need to consider how personal narratives and disclosure affect readers and work towards the creation of an online identity.

This week's readings:
Luders, M. (2008). Conceptualizing Personal Media. New Media & Society, 10(5).
Available through the library database.
Walker, J. (2008). Blogs, Literacies and the Collapse of Private and Public. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 16(2-3). Available: http://jilltxt.net/txt/Blogs--Literacy%20-and-the-Collapse-of-Private-and-Public.pdf
McCullagh, K. (2008). Blogging: self presentation and privacy. Information & Communications Technology Law, 17(1), 3-23. Available through the library database.

In what way do you see the function of traditional mass-media and so-called personal media as being different?

Traditional mass-media is one-way, broadcast media, which is very passive for users - all they need to do is read. The media do the filtering and present what is newsworthy. In contrast, personal media is two-way and invites the user to participate.

Today's blogging and other participatory media requires readers to be writers and writers to be readers simultaneously. While there is still a large element of solitude in reading and writing online, we see the conversational and social aspects of this literacy increasing steadily (Walker, 2008, p8).

Walker, J. (2008). Blogs, Literacies and the Collapse of Private and Public. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 16(2-3). Available: http://jilltxt.net/txt/Blogs--Literacy%20-and-the-Collapse-of-Private-and-Public.pdf

In what way do you see the form of traditional mass-media and so-called personal media as being different?
In some ways the form is similar - for example, Walker compares pamphlets and periodicals from the 17^th century with today's blogs and notes that neither are published in episodic format (Walker, 2008, p4). However, the digital aspect of the presentation, and the readership base are very different.

Walker, J. (2008). Blogs, Literacies and the Collapse of Private and Public. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 16(2-3). Available: http://jilltxt.net/txt/Blogs--Literacy%20-and-the-Collapse-of-Private-and-Public.pdf

In what way do you see the reliability of traditional mass-media and so-called personal media as being different?
Because traditional mass-media is professionally produced, there has always been a sense that the information provided is reliable, just "reporting the news", without opinion. However, in recent times there has been a shift to making items more newsworthy, which has resulted in more sensationalism, opinions being presented as fact, and politically-skewed information. As well, traditional mass-media is filtered by those organisations, and the most newsworthy events are broadcast. Personal media, while not "professional", could in some ways be viewed as more "honest", and is generally more unfiltered. For example, McCullagh says that in a survey, over 60% of people said that their reason for blogging was "to document your personal experiences and share them with others", and less than 2% said it was "to make money" (McCullagh, 2008).

McCullagh, K. (2008). Blogging: self presentation and privacy. Information & Communications Technology Law, 17(1), 3-23. Available through the library database.

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WEB206 - Week 4: Narrating the Self

Everything we publish on the Web says something about who we are. Whether it be the photograph we choose to represent us on a social networking site, the biography we include as a part of our blog, or the nature of our conversations with others through communities, message boards and comments, as we contribute to the Web we are establishing for ourselves an online identity.

The accumulated content of your contributions to the Web is known as your Internet footprint. As a publisher of Web content, this is something that you need to be in control of, so that when people search for your name, the results provided will give them an appropriate idea of who you are and what you do.

In this light it is worth considering whether you wish to have two established presences on the Internet, one that is public and another that is private. You need to consider whether you want your (professional) web publishing to be connected with your private social networks.

This week's readings:

Turkle, S. (1999). Looking Toward Cyberspace: Beyond Grounded Sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 28(6), 643-648.

Schau, H. J., & Gilly, M. (2003). We Are What We Post? Self-Presentation in Personal Web Space. The Journal of Consumer Research, 30(3), 385-404.
Walker, J. (2005). Mirrors and Shadows: The Digital Aestheticisation of Oneself. Paper presented at the Digital Arts and Culture Conference.

To what degree - if at all - do you see yourself playing different 'roles' on the Internet?
I've been using the Internet since 1993 and back then it was a lot more about being anonymous online. I had one of those scary personal homepages with flashing gifs and the entire thing referred only to "Nicky", with very few other identifying features.  I found the Schau & Gilly reading really interesting because it made me realise that although the links I put on that homepage were there because I liked them, they were also there because having them there portrayed the type of cool geekgirl online persona I was striving for at the time. :>

For that reason, I found MySpace and more particularly Facebook to be quite confronting, and I deliberately held off on participating for a long time.  I still struggle with the concept of privacy online and although I've opened up a lot more in recent times, I've still made a fairly conscious effort to draw a line between what can be public and what should stay private.  My Facebook is fairly locked down by some people's standards and is probably the most purely "me", bad jokes and all.  I also have a professional LinkedIn profile and a public Twitter account and anything that goes on those is usually with "big picture web presence" in mind, so while they do demonstrate my humour and interests, there's very little that would be offensive to anybody.  I've also set up a completely separate Facebook business page and Twitter business account so I can keep those things separated. Initially I did this so that I didn't bore my friends & family with professional stuff, but it's now worked well in the opposite way too, to keep my professional contacts separated without the family photos.  This is the area where I plan for my new blog to slot into.

How much do you find user avatars contribute to your perception of the people behind them?
How is your perception of people affected by avatars within different contexts (i.e. discussion forums, games, instant messaging, social networks etc.)?
I find avatars interesting from the perspective of how that person views themself.  But I tend to base my perceptions of people more on what they write, or how they play, or how they react to certain situations, because I think those observations give me a clearer view of the person.  I've always viewed avatars as more like a snapshot in time, of what a person WANTS to be, rather than what they really are.  It's possible that I think that way because when I first got online, almost nobody had a photo or an avatar and you had to learn to form views based on on other things.

How do you think the lack of recognisable avatars within the Blackboard environment affects your relationship with others in this course?

I personally don't have a need for avatars, as I tend to form my views based on what people say and how they go about things, rather than what they look like.  But for those who do like them, here's my current Facebook picture.  I only recently changed this, I'd had the previous photo for 2 years but after my husband took this a few weeks ago I changed it because I liked the idea of being public but hidden behind sunglasses!

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WEB206 - Week 3: Copy/Paste & Copyright

"The infinitely replicable nature of digital 'texts' has raised important questions about intellectual property, ownership and the nature of creativity within our culture. Where previously the technologies required to copy a text were relatively cumbersome, personal computers have made this task essentially trivial. Coupled with the enormous power of the Internet as a medium for distributing and sharing information, we have entered an era where established ideas of copyright increasingly need to be reconsidered and re-evaluated."


This week's readings:

Snapper, J. W. (1999). On the Web, plagiarism matters more than copyright piracy. Ethics and Information Technology, 1, 127-136.
Available: http://www.springerlink.com/index/L215064QJ8KK1331.pdf
Lessig, L. (2004). Creators. In Free Culture: How Big Media uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Strangle Creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin.
Berry, D., & Moss, G. (2005). On the “Creative Commons”: a critique of the commons without commonalty: Is the Creative Commons missing something? Retrieved September 4th, 2009, from http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1155/pdf.

In the light of the information here and the readings you have done, what license do you anticipate using in your non-academic work? Why?
If I license content that I put online then I generally license it as Attribution Non-Commercial so that others can remix my work non-commercially, as long as they attribute it to me. However, as this is a business blog then I intend to license it as Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works, which means that others can copy and distribute my work non-commercially but are not allowed to alter or transform it.  My blog is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, to supplement my website development business and help to build my brand. As many of my clients are older, small business owners who have never had a website before, I'm hoping that existing clients will not only benefit from the information I present, but also pass it on to their own networks, which will hopefully result in additional work for me.

Do you agree with the assertions made by advocates of Creative Commons that copyright is restricting culture?
I think that today's copyright laws are not entirely applicable to the digital world. I really liked Lessig's example of the Causbys and the aeroplane problem - I thought it demonstrated exactly how the law and new technology don't always meet. While it is important for creators to be able to financially support themselves if they choose to - perhaps important work would never be created if individuals did not choose to devote their life to it - and copyright goes some way in protecting those people, I think the current "lifetime plus 70 years" concept of copyright is ridiculous and has gone way too far in support of the producers, not the creators - it is not benefitting any individual in their quest to create, 70 years after they've died.
I just finished watching a Keynote address by Lessig that discussed copyright, spectrum and broadband which I found quite interesting: http://blip.tv/lessig/recognizing-the-fight-we-re-in-6047323

Lawrence, L. (2004). Creators. In Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity (pp. 21-30). New York: Penguin.

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WEB206 - Week 2: Sourcing Information on the Web

"Before the rise of the Internet as a publishing medium, sourcing accurate and reliable information was a far simpler matter than it is today. Indeed, it was often the case that the fact that something had actually been published was enough to ensure a certain degree of reliability. However, with the sheer volume of information published on the Web and the variety of topics covered, locating and tracking reliable sources is an important skill in today's media environment.

As you establish your public web presence, you will become an informal "gatekeeper" of information on a particular topic. Individuals and the networks they (and you) are a part of will use your authority as a measure of the credibility of information. In order to perform this role effectively, you will need to know how to locate and critically evaluate your sources. Your ability to do this well will be reflected in the quality of your writing.

Over the next two weeks we are going to look at a variety of ways of finding and tracking sources, establish some methods for evaluating their credibility and consider what you can and can't do with that information once you have it."

This week's readings:
Van House, N. Weblogs: Credibility and collaboration in an online world.
Available:http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~vanhouse/Van%20House%20trust%20workshop.pdf
Warnick, B. (2004). Online ethos: Source credibility in an "authorless" environment. American Behavioral Scientist, 48(2), 256-265. Available through the Library Database

Discussion questions:
1. Warnick lays out six criteria cited by lay users as indexes of Web site credibility (Table One). Which of these criteria do you feel you have typically relied upon to determine the reliability of a site in the past? Why?
2. Do you agree with Warnick's suggestion that the emphasis on the author might be replaced by one based upon "skillful design, image quality, usability, information structure, comprehensiveness, absence of self-interest, [and] usefulness"?

TABLE 1: Criteria Cited by Lay Users as Indexes of Web Site Credibility
Criterion Percentage
1. Being able to trust the information on a site 80
2. Being able to easily navigate and find what you want 80
3. Being able to easily identify sources of information on the site 65
4. Knowing that the site is updated frequently with new information 65
5. Being able to find out important facts about the site 50
6. Knowing who owns the site 32
SOURCE: Princeton Survey Research Associates (2002).

I think the criteria for assessing a particular website is completely dependent on the topic of that site.  For instance, I sometimes read articles on the Mamamia blog, via links they post on Twitter. The blog is mostly opinion-based articles aimed at women, Mums, etc. and I personally find the navigation awful and many of the opinions very one-sided, but it has a large reader base who comment frequently, and the blog itself is updated frequently too. A lot of the time I'm more amused by the comments than the article, and I don't really care too much about the authors or who owns the site. But I also read several small-business based blogs, and with those I am more interested in the credibility of the authors and the information they are providing, and the sources of that information.

My blog is going to be primarily a small business blog, focussing on existing clients and also new clients that are in a similar situation. Often they are older, small business owners who are experts in their own field but have very little idea of where to start or what to do next when it comes to their web presence. One of the things that my existing clients like is that they find me approachable and I can explain things in a "non-geeky" way, which results in referrals, so my plan is to make my blog mostly about the first 3 criteria in the table, but customised to the environment I've already created for them and therefore with a bit of a personal touch.

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WEB206 - Web Publishing

Back to studying this week, after 3 study periods off due to various personal challenges last year.  All a bit daunting but it looks like a fun subject - web publishing, basically, blogging.  I spent this week getting approval for and creating a new blog - it's still very much a work-in-progress but check it out at https://www.websolutionz.com.au/blog

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