Internet Culture in the Information Society

When looking at the hypertexts I have completed, one thing that comes to mind is that I could have done them better.  Not because I didn’t try hard enough the first time, but rather because there was not enough time allotted for the correct process to be completed.  However, I do feel that the content for at least the first 2 projects are well done.  Some things that I would have improved on would be the design of my pages.  Being a web designer, I’m a little embarrassed by how my site came out.  I’ve never had a schedule be so tight before and that is why that part has slacked.

As for what I did do, my design choice was to be simple, yet visually pleasing.  I wanted the user to be able to read all my work and see everything that I have done.  With that in mind, I had to make it easy for them to navigate through my site and all my pages.  I already knew most of the things we did as far as the design process.  The only new thing was using Kompozer in which I feel indifferent about.

For the third hypertext, I am mostly focusing on the website, so I hope to make it look better than the other pages I have produced since I can focus my time solely on the look and feel of the site.

Overall, I learned a lot with the hypertext projects.  Coming into the class, I didn’t even know what a hypertext was, so I feel that I have come a long way.  I also learned about writing for the Internet, but got a little confused coming into the second and third projects.  At first I thought the idea was to be concise because we learned that viewers did not like to read a lot of text on the page.  However, for the second project I was criticized because there was not enough essay element in my writing.  Maybe I am just interpreting the instructions wrong.  But now I know that writing for the Internet varies.  It depends what you’re writing about, who you’re writing for and on what platform.  This is the main thing I can improve on-my writing and knowing who and what and why I’m writing.

As far as revising, it is mainly revising the essay portions and adding captions to images so that they are more easily understood.  Furthermore, I want to redo my homepage just to make it stand out a little more.

Please view my homepage, it is the portal to all of my projects.

After reading an article today about a study that was conducted to see whether shoppers use retail apps or the mobile web to do their shopping when on the go.  Just for clarification, a retail app is an application that you can download onto your phone that allows you to browse merchandise as well as purchase merchandise.  Using the mobile web is just like browsing on your laptop, except that it has been optimized for the mobile screen.

The reasoning for this result was that users spend more time on shopping apps when downloaded onto their phones therefore resorting to just browsing through the mobile web.

Personally, I was a little shocked when first reading this.  I like retail apps because everything is organized and easy to go through.  Also, it loads very fast because it is just an app.  The downside for this is that you don’t really know when or how often the app is updated.  As for the mobile web, I think I just have a bad experience because it always loads so slow for me, especially when I try to view pictures.

Overall, it is true that I probably spend more time on the app due to the availability of it, but compared to time waiting for the mobile web, I would rather spend my time shopping.

With over 100 million views, who hasn’t watched the KONY2012 video that went live on March 5th, only a week ago.  I remember that morning when all over my facebook was these reposts of something called KONY and all I thought was “what is a KONY”?  Seeing that the video was half and hour long, I didn’t immediately jump on the bandwagon.  However, after hearing a few friends tell me about it and seeing involvement from other YouTube famous people, like NigaHiga who gave a short summary, I decided to watch the video.  It was extremely moving and immediately got my follow for the movement.

What I think upsets me the most about this video is not that people are hating against it, but more so that some of the information is apparently not true.  It’s cool how these guys are using social media to get the message out, but not cool if their message is corrupt because of the volume of people it is going out to.

Read here about how viral the video really is.

Read here about why the video is causing outrage in Uganda.

I did my first podcast last week on the Santa Clara Caltrain.  Initially I thought, how hard could it be to just talk about the caltrain for at least 10 minutes.  Man, was I wrong.  You definitely need to have a plan before you start talking unless you want to do a bunch of editing, which is what I ended up doing.

Going to the site, it was a bit awkward at first to just be talking to myself.  Thank goodness it wasn’t too crowded or I would have felt even more awkward if people could hear me.  However, once I started getting into it, it wasn’t that bad.  Topics would just come to mind and I would just start talking about it and describing the scene.  I kind of felt like a news reporter.

When I finally got the confidence to interview people was when I got really nervous.  However, the man and the girl were really nice and willing to help me with my project.  I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to, but I gave them a bit of an overview of what I was doing and what I potentially was to ask them once I started recording.  I think that this helped them the most because it’s hard to be recorded on the spot with no preparation.  I found myself editing the interview parts the most because there were a lot of blank spots when either I or the interviewee was thinking.

Compared to the entire project, I think the podcast portion was the easiest.  I thought the essay wouldn’t be to bad, but I didn’t understand the directions well enough to do it right the first time.  As for the editing, I tried to add music in appropriate spots and sort of a break since my podcast is around 20 minutes.  I also added music to the beginning and the end.

Overall, I think it was a good experience. I’ve never really done work in the field before so that was new.  I learned that I really don’t like listening to myself speak.  With that in mind, I don’t think I will be doing another podcast anytime soon.  Although, I am very proud of the work that I produced because it definitely took a long time and required a lot of effort!

I just downloaded and experienced Second Life for the first time.  I have read about it before and discussed the uses of it, but have never actually “played” in the virtual world.  The setup was like a normal game, you pick a name and an avatar–both which you can change later, not the username, but the avatar name.

My avatar is a lion and I called him sir lion.  He enjoys playing in the fields and just socializing with other people and creatures.  He is originally from the jungles of Madagascar and now is just cruising along and exploring the new adventures ahead of him.

My first impressions of the environment is that it is not really graphically pleasing.  The images are a bit choppy as well as the navigation.  It is easy to figure out how to move your character, but it lags a bit so you always turn or move too much.  This definitely gave me a headache so I advise others to be prepared for this if you are new or get motion sickness easily.

I am not too sure how this game works yet besides being able to socialize with the other creatures.  It seems that there is some kind of task you can solve to earn something.  I am not sure yet since I have only played the introduction before getting a headache.  The one thing I am confused about is how you can be a vehicle as an avatar.  It is a little strange to me, but I guess that is how the game is overall.

Reading the article “Five Social Media Trends that are Reshaping Religion,” the author Elizabeth Drescher who is a professor at Santa Clara University and is also a regular commentator about technology and religion.

What I thought was the most interesting points of this was trend 2 and 3.  Trend 2 was about how ministers are always “checking-in” on apps like Foursquare so that they can see other ministers in the area or for people to keep track of where they go.  This is a very unique way of using this app.  I thought it was kind of like Yelp where you go to places, check-in and then write a review on it.  Apparently I was wrong.  Foursquare is an app that allows you to keep track of where you go and where your friends go and see what is going on around you from your friends’ check-ins.  In this concept, it is a good resource for ministers to see what other ministers are up to and either meet up or cover more ground.

Trend 3 was about how smartphones are getting all these new religious apps.  I think it is awesome that developers are creating things like virtual Bibles, spiritual practices, and prayerbook apps.  However, it also says that there is some new confession app.  I think that this pushes it a little too far.  How can one know if these apps are serious about religion or if they are just poking fun at religious customs.

Read her article here.

Reading tips on doing good podcasts, I came upon this blog by Carson McComas, a web guide for startups specializing in ecommerce, and online marketing.  I figured if he does a lot of things online, he would know ow to determine a good podcast from a bad one.  In his blog, he gives 20 tips.  Here are 5 of them that I found interesting or that I will apply to my upcoming podcast.

1. Don’t be too serious.  McComas described that the best podcasts are more fun which makes them more enjoyable and easier to listen to.

2. Put music in between segments.  I think this is an excellent idea.  Some kind of music breaking up your talking will make the listening easier on everyone.  It also gives them some time to think about what they have been listening to.

3. Be organized.  I originally thought that for podcasts, you just go right in with an initial topic and just talk or interview.  Obviously I’m a rookie.  It seems that the better podcasts are always organized and laid out before the recording even starts.

4. Have more people be in the podcast.  Listening to some podcasts of only one person speaking can get a little boring, especially if they are not engaging. Having a variety definitely makes things more interesting.  This way there is some kind of dialogue and also more perspectives.

5. Be natural.  For me, this will probably be the most difficult thing to try to do.  It’s hard recording yourself for the world to listen to when you are not an expert, just an observer of a certain issue or subject matter.

The California Legacy Project’s main goal is “to raise public awareness and appreciation for our state’s cultural legacy and to encourage faculty and students in their creative and scholarly interest in Californian culture.”

This project is trying to bring the culture of California more online so that it can establish a greater identity.  With that, they are producing book series and radio podcasts.  The site keeps noting that it is the California Legacy Project for a digital age, but it doesn’t really seem like they describe what they mean by that.  Personally I think that all it means is that they are trying to conserve and convert items that can be lost like books and making things that will last forever, like podcasts.

Listening to a few podcasts, they are all sort of like reviews or a promotion of essays/books/articles written about California or by notable Californians.  Each podcast also has a snippet of the story played out within the podcast.  At the end of each podcast, the announcer gives a bit of a background about the author.

This collection is pretty neat in the sense that if anyone is interested in the culture of California, they can go through these podcasts and find exactly what they are looking for.

Here is their website.

In this article, the discussion of how Twitter was a main news source for events like the Egyptian Revolution.  Twitter has definitely come a long way since it’s time of being useless updates of someone’s life.  It is now used for way more important information.

This article describes Twitter as being the main outlet for the people of Egypt to know what was going on in their own country due to laws banning them from finding out elsewhere.  You would think that the people spreading the big news or updates would be organizations, but they weren’t.  A lot of the news were coming from in from the organizations, but it was the individual accounts that made them reach so many people.

Nowadays, teenagers, young adults, and even educated adults look to Twitter for their daily news and updates.  Most companies have also turned to Twitter to market their products or announce events.  Twitter, having such a simple concept, has blown up to be this game-changing service.  It will be interesting to see how it evolves and how it’s users will evolve with it.

UPDATED

Read the full article here.

I listened and watched a podcast by Etsy about the history of glitter.  Etsy is an online website that promotes handmade goods.  You can sign up for an account, create a store, and instantly sell your own goods.  Their podcasts are aimed towards learning about the consumer and things that matter in our everyday lives.  They also often feature some of their sellers.

I wanted to listed to this podcast because who really knows where glitter came from and what is it made out of?!  I learned that glitter has supposedly been around since the neanderthal days because shiny rocks existed, and when then rubbed up against anything, glitter was produced.  However, not until right before the second world war, a farmer used materials found in landfills and cut them up really small to make glitter.  It was originally used to deter radar devices for airplanes.  Now, glitter is mass produced for dozens of reasons ranging from celebration to makeup.  It is coated plastic and aluminum that is chopped to desired size.

I find podcasts like these to be very interesting.  They aren’t related to the date they were posted and they don’t have to be watched in a certain order.  It’s just random knowledge that someone may want to hear more about.