My blogging experience

I enjoy blogging and I take blogging as a way to express my own views on different things in life. Everybody is unique and everybody has their own experience with things that they would like to share. Through blogging, it allows internet users easily to do that as it connects people together instantly. People can exchange ideas and get inspirations from each other effortlessly. The limitations of time and space have all gone.

One of favorite posts from my blog would be CatCH ATTention.

                                                                                         From xfactor.itv.com/

This post uses the example of X factor to illustrate the idea of how to get attention. With the use of New Media, like facebook, twitter or simply a website, something or someone can easily be in the limelight. With this post, it really explains to readers how the use of new media helps a singing show become famous. I personally gain a lot by analyzing the show as now I understand how they manipulate the new media to help them promote the show. The example of Susan Boyle video is a great proof of how a similar show, Britain’s got talent, has successfully achieved  its goal.

Here are some comments that I left for other blogs

Tiffany's blog
Serella's blog
Olivia's blog
Jennifer's blog
Wendy Leong's blog

Online writing

People seem to write differently when they are writing on social networking websites like facebook or twitter. They tend to condense everything so as to make things clear and precise. Online writing also depends on the target audience. The use of language therefore is also very important.

We are going to look at two different examples to examine this idea: Sarah Palin’s facebook and Christina Aguilera’s facebook.

From http://images.politico.com/

Sarah Palin, an American politician, is also the Republican Party nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential election.

From http://l.yimg.com

Christina Aguilera, an American recording artist and actress, is also Grammy Award winning singer.

They both carry different identities in society. But how different would they be on facebook?

As you can see on Sarah Palin’s facebook, the use of language is very formal and it reminds the audience she is still the politician that people read in the newpapers. Her posts are mostly written in long sentences. The posts are also related to politics with the events that she participated in. In this post, she talks about vote and debate. This shows she is trying to address her supporters again in order to help her campaign.

However, when we look at Christina Aguilera’s page, she doesn’t write in long sentences, only a few words which carry her main thoughts. She also uses abbreviation and some online terms, like pic for picture and xoxo for hus and kisses. The target audience would be a younger generation as she tends to write in a similar way as them. There also hypertexts used in her posts which could lead the readers to more of her information.

Now every time when we read, we can understand more about why things are written in a certain way. It has undoubtedly a lot to do with the people we want them to read.  :)

Let’s all participate

The internet now creates a participatory culture which encourages users to actively create and share one’s creations. It makes the users all want to contribute as they would like to have as much feedback as they could get in order to improve their works.

Fan Fiction is one of the sites that allows you to use your imagination avidly. In the site, you can choose to write in different genres. Or you can simply appreciate other people’s works and leave them some thoughtful comment for their works. It is amazing to see there are so many genres for the works.

Reviews

For those who have shared their works with people, they usually would get some feedback which is very constructive and encouraging. They are really helpful as they really point out where you need to work on more and how you can improve.

Lastly, what is amazing with this website is you can also find users who are English learners and trying to write in English. This is a really great place for those who want to polish their writing skills or simply learn more English!!

I sincerely recommend this place for English learners!

CatCH ATTention

How do we catch someone’s attention?? How do we make good use of internet to gain publicity? Basically, how does something become famous? We are going to examine all these questions by looking at X Factor, a TV music competition. It is originally from the UK, but now it is a franchise bought by many TV stations in many countries. We have X Factor USA, X Factor Australia or even X Factor Thailand.

Now let’s look at how internet has helped X Factor reach out to so many audiences.

This is the homepage of X Factor UK. So how does the website exactly help the TV show become more well-known?

According to the attention economy, one needs to give attention to get attention. In this case, the website gives out attention to get even more attention. The judges of the show are all famous celebrities, Nicole Scherzinger, Gary Barlow and Tulisa Contostavlos.

They all have their own blogs linked to the website, like Twitter or Facebook. Their fans will then be attracted to the stuff with the show as their idols are involved as well! Sometimes, the stars would also leave some comments on the site and invite their fans to respond. So there are lots of interactions going on. This is totally exclusive and their fans can only get to respond through visiting the site. They even would follow their fans on their twitter to give them attention and leave comments to promote the show!

                                                              From http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/

 Not just for the celebrity judges, the contestants on the show may also already have picked up some fans. For example, look at One Direction and see how many fans they had gained already when they were still competing on the show. The Official website of X factor again is cleverly used to help promote the show as exculsive interviews with the contestants are also posted ONLY on the web.

And of course with the help of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, more and more people would know about the show. This is also the reason why the Susan Boyle audition video has gone viral before. This is what New Media can achieve for us in this new era.

                                         Captured on Youtube

The layout of famous Youtube

I am sure everybody is familiar with Youtube, a video-sharing website. It offers tons of videos of any kinds online. It is surely a paradise for video lovers. But WHY are we so drawn to the website? In this article, we are going to look at some features of the layout of Youtube and try to reveal the reasons behind.

This is the homepage of Youtube. The page is divided into five sessions-top, bottom, left, center and right. At the top, it is the banner of the website with a catchy logo positioned on the top left side. It then comes with a search engine which allows users to search for videos and users can also sign in to access to more features of the site. These are called the new information which users to need provide.

Then on the left column, it is the user menu which showcases some channels for the users to look at in a more friendly manner. This is also called the given information. This is the part that users usually would ignore in my opinion.

Also, on the right column, it is usually the advisements and some videos that are recommended by Youtube.

At the bottom, this is the part which most of the users would neglect as it is about settings and terms and conditions of the website. This is part can also be called the real information. You can also easily see why Youtube intentionally places these information at the bottom as they would rarely interest the users and this is actually a good use of space, leaving the least interesting information at the bottom.

Finally, it is the CENTRE, which is the most important part of a website. This is the ideal information. According to Jakob Nielsen, the readers actually following a F-shaped reading pattern when reading a website. And for my own experience, it is also true that I tend to focus more on the information put in the center of a website. As for Youtube, you can also see that the most popular videos are being put in the center of the site in order to attract the reader to watch them. Those are normally the videos that have gone viral and been shared many times on the social networking sites.

When you click into one of the videos, the layout of the site changes into two main parts-left and right. On the right, again it is the recommended videos from Youtube. When you look at them, sometimes you could be amazed by how Youtube can read your mind!

On the left, of course it’s the video window. And under it is another MAGIC of Youtube. It is the place where people can leave their comments about the videos and there are so many interactions between users and users. It also has a share bottom which you can share the videos through Facebook or any other social networking sites.

Because of this successful design of layout, I notice that some other video-sharing websites also follow the same. Anyway, I am really fond of the layout of Youtube and it is amazing that it connects with millions of people out there in different parts of the world. I just don’t think that anyone can resist the power of Youtube. Most importantly, it saves a lot of money for me to actually buy music concert DVDs as you can easily watch them on Youtube now. Don’t you agree!!??

Digital life

I must admit that I am not really a big fan of social networking sites as there are too many and you don't really know where to begin with. For example, twitter, facebook, instagram, flickr, etc. But still I chose facebook to start with as it seems that everyone I know is using it and I do not want to feel like being left out.

At first, I didn't foresee that facebook would last so long and there are still millions of people using it today! It really surprised me that "connecting with people online" has become so important in people's lives. A lot of of friends of mine are even addicted to it that they have to check the facebook status every 5 minutes. Isn't that a bit too much? Do they even remember how people survived in those days without facebook or even computer?

It is inevitable that new media will continue to have influence on us in the future. It is necessary for us to know what new media can do for us both positively and negatively. We must be aware that new media are not invincible even though they can do most things. I am looking forward to finding out more about new media in this course and having a better understanding of it.

Here is my one of my favourite songs from the musical Les Misérables shared by youtube.Hope you like it!!

New Arrivial

Hello, my very first post!! Yay!