RSS?!

RSS is one thing that I had no experience with prior to this assignment. I signed myself up and was surprised at how easy and intuitive everything was. It's incredibly easy to subscribe and get yourself set up, which is really nice. If you want to follow someone you just have to search their name in the bar and it will provide you with lots of different options for you to subscribe to. Also, if you stumble across a page you like it's as easy as pressing a subscribe key or copy and pasting the web address into Google Reader. You can also import whole lists to your RSS (i.e. your twitter contacts). With all these different ways of adding subscriptions and adding more as you go RSS is very easy to use.



One reason that RSS is incredibly handy is that by compiling all of the sources you usually check on the internet everyday, you can simply go to google reader and have all of those pages updates come to you, so to speak. It's as easy as 1 click instead of 10. However, you don't get to see any other kinds of updates to the pages, and you don't get to view the layout and design of the website which are usually integral parts in each website's 'tone'. Also, there are some kinds of sites that you can't incorporate into your RSS feed. So on one hand I think it's easy having everything in one place but it takes a lot of the character out of things so I will probably not use Google Reader in the future.

I like the fact that the Google Reader is an online program because it's so lightweight and convenient. Most people nowadays have a google account, so all it takes is logging in and you're ready to go. Also since it is online it can constantly adapt and grow, and I'm sure that RSS feeds will continue to adapt and become more and more innovative. If it was a piece of offline software it would quickly become out of date, and need to be replaced, especially since this technology is so new and experimental still.

So in summary I don't think RSS is something I will be subscribing to personally, but I am definitely going to be keeping an eye on it to see where it takes things, and if it leads us into even newer social media innovations in the future.

Tweet Tweet!

Twitter has proven to be a polarizing topic as of late, with some grasping the idea and others simply thinking it's pointless. I've already had a Twitter account for some time now, so I was already comfortable and familiar with it (you can find me at 'www.twitter.com/capt_pike'). I personally enjoy twitter and find it to be a fun social networking activity. It's very different from blogging in the fact that a blog updates you with big chunks of text and information, whereas 'tweeting' is meant for short 160 word chunks of information. This makes the whole experience kind of like a stream of collective consciousness. All you do is log in and dip into the stream whenever you like, finding out all kinds of cool information, funny statements, personal updates and important happenings. It's kind of like looking through a big corkboard, viewing all the announcements and different things people have posted up there for the world to see.



I think that Twitter is useful also because it has really been a successful application on mobile phones. It's portable and that's really the kind of medium that Twitter seems to be made for. The short blurbs of information are quick, easily relayable through phones and can be put down at any time since you don't have chunks of text to read through. While I don't necessarily think that this kind of technology will replace blogs or other social networking, I think that it is innovative and fresh. it's also highly entertaining, so if you're not looking for something too informative or practical, and you can look past the fact that the name alone is whimsical I think that you can get enjoyment out of Twitter.

The Blog-o-sphere

This isn't the first time I have used blogger - having used it once before for an English Literature class project - but even since then a lot of things have changed. One of my biggest problems with was and is the fact that unless you have HTML editing capabilities it isn't easy to customize the website. The interface is not very intuitive and definitely puts a lot of restrictions on your creativity.

The good thing, however, about blogger is how quickly and easily you can create and monitor the blog. All it takes is a couple of clicks to start up and although these blogs may end up looking generic, at least it gives people without the money or knowledge of blogs to still give it a shot and put their thoughts out into the world wide web (or the 'Blog-o-sphere' as it has come to be known by some).



One of the first blogs I examined was the blog of an independant musician Amanda Palmer (blog.amandapalmer.net). She uses her blog to promote her music, her touring and sometimes just to wax poetic. She is a bit of a media mogul, also having a huge twitter following, and this kind of internet based fan community has really worked in her favour. Through her blog and other forms of social networking she has raised money for projects, started communities, performed private online concerts and even has used her fanbases help to jumpstart another young musician's career.



Perez Hilton (www.PerezHilton.com) is another internet success story whose blog I follow. His blog, however, is not used to promote himself as much as to keep everyone informed on media happeningns and celebrity inside information. He has a massive following and has actually become famous solely due to the inside view into hollywood life that he offers through his blog. The blog he runs is essentially the online equivolent of a popular magazine.

Wellington Financial blog (www.WellingtonFund.com/blog) is much more practical and informative than either of the other two, and is actually a sort of news and information blog. Instead of picking up a magazine or newspaper you just have to visit this blog to get all the latest information in the world of business, finance and politics. It's definitely much more official and streamlined than the other two, which can be seen clearly even just by the format. The stark white and black colorscheme is very clean and professional looking unlike the fun pink of Perez Hilton and the black and green of Amanda Palmer.

These three blogs alone show the vast variety of different ways that blogging can be used. It can be used for self promotion, for archiving information, for keeping everyone up to date on news and even just for sharing gossip. If you are creative with the technology at your fingertips the ideas are endless. Blogs are great because unlike newspapers you can literally find blogs that go into extensive detail on any topic you want. A newspaper keeps you up to date on general events that are occuring, but with a blog you get the specific information you need and want to know. Blogs are also superior in the fact that they don't waste paper and don't cost money to read! The only reason you need to be wary is that, like I said earlier, just about anyone can create a blog and put their content out there, so you can't always 100% trust what a blog has to say.

My overall opinion on blogs is that they're fun and simultaneously useful. You read only what you want to read, and you get all the information instantaneously. How can you go wrong?