Recent advancements in technology has allowed more people to communicate, discuss their ideas, and stay connected with the rest of the world. Through social network websites like Facebook and Myspace, its members can stay in touch through comment boxes on individual profiles, or by tagging friends in pictures. Youtube users can record video blogs, while Xanga still offers the traditional form of blogging through words. Flickr offers a completely different approach to communicate with others. It took me awhile, but when I realized what the "Flickr experience" is about, it is actually quite refreshing.
When my group members initially alerted me that our project was going to be about Flickr, I had my doubts. Its intentions was not quite as obvious to me as the previously named websites. I had never heard of this website, and what its objective is. It never occurred to me that a website dedicated specifically to people uploading primarily photographs has any correlation to the concept of "staying connected.". Only after an hour of surfing through Flickr did I begin to understand the concept behind it. Flickr's slogan is "Share your photos. Watch the world." It also has 4 main options new users can choose from, two of them very similar to that of the website's slogan: "Share & stay in touch" and "Explore...". These phrases gave me a much clearer understanding of this kind of networking.
Instead of leaving a one sentence comment on Facebook, or taking a picture with a "myspace pose", Flickr users can truly be who they are. Some people takes pictures of themselves, friends and complete strangers that interests them, while others take artistic pictures of objects. Sharing photos and forming groups is how Flickr users communicate. The website revolves around the pictured uploaded, and only those picture. While there is a comment box on the bottom of each picture for people to comment, what makes this website unique is that it allows people to choose a specific section of a photograph by cropping it and commenting on just that section. With Flickr, people can once again become individuals. In the world we live in today, many people choose to criticize others based on who they are and not by their personalities. Many users has nicknames to stay anonomous and disguise their identity so they can truly express themselves without the fear of others recognizing who they are. This way people can critique each others work (photographs) rather than criticizing the person behind it.
Recognizing the intended audience for this particular style of media has multiple parts to it. Very straight forward, they are people that share similar interests in photographs; whether it is the use of lighting in one photo, or the complete randomness in another. However, as I further explore this website and read some of the comments of certain people. The intended audience is for anyone who uses Flickr. Initially, I prematurely assumed that the only people using Flickr are those who truly felt they have something to express, but I noticed that some people just want anyone to see their photographs. I would like to refer these types of people as attention seeking individuals since they do not belong to a specific group but rather seeks attention from everyone. Lastly, there are the unintended audience. These individuals bombards photographs with useless and distracting comments like "you're so hot, I just want to marry you" and takes away the focus of the author is trying to express in her photograph.
The medium for Flickr is definitely different than other forms of media. It creates a virtual world that allows people to be whoever they wish to be without the fear of being noticed by others. Its users all have different identities, and with each different identity, there is a specific intended audience for the most part. Still there are the unintended audiences who disrupts the focus of the intended audience.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Google Smoogle
So this week in class, we continued the topic of technology. The article for this week was about google. The article talks about how the convenience of the internet is why we are so heavily dependent on the internet, and especially google. This is perhaps the most attractive aspect of google. With a company filled with researchers, developers, and engineers, google is making it easier and easier for its users to find informations just by typing in a few words on the search tool bar. As great as that is, google is more than just an online search engine. Its website, though simplistic in its layout with just a search bar, offers many other countless applications. Gmail, news broadcasting, live satellite, google sports, etc are all found on google. So now, instead of just relying on google as a search engine, other aspects of our lives are also taken over by google. This is both good and bad. Instead of paying for newspapers, we have free news on google, but do we really want to sit in front of the computer every waking moment of our lives? For myself, google has been a huge aspect of my life for the past couple of years. I admit, there are times when instead of going to the library and researching for articles and books, I would just type in a search word on google and get the information that way. Gmail, google's version of email, is another google application that attracts me to google. I had multiple email addresses in the past, but email was never really a huge part of my life until i found gmail. Yahoo and hotmail both carry decent email applications, but their emails are always bombarded with thousands of junk mail that it came to the point that it became too overwhelming to figure out which emails are actually from people that I know. I probably spent more time deleting junk mail than actually reading the ones that matter. With gmail, there is a filter that automatically blocks all junk mail. For the junk mail that does reach my gmail address, gmail provides a separate folder titled "bulk mail" to hold all the junk mail until I delete it all with just one simple click of my mouse. However, the biggest thanks I have for gmail is that instead of receiving phone calls from my parents every waking moment about something as small as remember to go to sleep early, they can just email me instead.
Google recently added another addition to their countless features, Youtube. Youtube is very interesting, not because of the the videos people post on there. Youtube ranks the populartiy of users based on the number of people that subscribes to a particular user. KevJumba, the 6th highest rank on youtube is going to be an incoming freshmen to UC Davis this fall. In one of his videos he brought up the subject of girls. He describes that even though he is so popular in this virtual world with a huge fan base and lots of girls who find him attractive on the internet, in real life he is having a hard time with the ladies. With that said, google is not making us more stupid, but is changing our lives dramatically.
Google recently added another addition to their countless features, Youtube. Youtube is very interesting, not because of the the videos people post on there. Youtube ranks the populartiy of users based on the number of people that subscribes to a particular user. KevJumba, the 6th highest rank on youtube is going to be an incoming freshmen to UC Davis this fall. In one of his videos he brought up the subject of girls. He describes that even though he is so popular in this virtual world with a huge fan base and lots of girls who find him attractive on the internet, in real life he is having a hard time with the ladies. With that said, google is not making us more stupid, but is changing our lives dramatically.
Friday, August 8, 2008
I first came across Mypace during my junior year in high school. In the beginning I was reluctant to participate with this so so called "social networking" website because my initial reaction was that Myspace is just another fad that will surely lose its popularity after a few months. As senior year approached, the majority of my friends had a Myspace account. So not to be left out, I finally created a Myspace account of my own. According to the New York Times article, the majority of Myspace users are over 18 years old. Myspace's Jamie Kantrowitz was quoted saying '"I think there's a huge potential market for luxury advertisers,"' This is interesting because the duration that I was an active participant of the Myspace community, I hardly focused on the advertisements. My biggest concerns were the amount of comments I received everyday, what pictures to display, and who was worthy enough to deem a spot on my top 8 friends list.
Cartier's decision to be one of the first few luxury brands to advertise on Myspace is a bold, but smart move. First, creating a web page on Myspace is virtually free, a dream come true for any business. Second, since most Myspace users are lower to middle class, these are exactly the kind of people Cartier should advertise to. I know it may sound strange, but let me explain. I recently attended a senminar about the difference between class levels. In this senminar I learned that the majority of Americans are lower or middle class. These are the type of people that would most likely spend their money on "stuff" instead of investing them. Sure, there are families who does save a substantial amount, but does not become rich because investing their money is too much of a risk for them. Instead, all the money goes to materialistic items. Cartier is smart to realize and capitalize this notion from a business point of view.
Here is a quote from my friend, "The next big item I'm saving up for is a Cartier watch."
Technology is one of the topics heavily discussed in class this week. Blackberry mobile phones was the example used. I, myself, have been a fan of technological advancement for quite a while. While some may believe that technology is a corruption that is responsible for pollution, and our general laziness among other factors, I would have to disagree. Technology is truly a blessing that enriched the lives we lead today. During these recent years, more and more motor companies are developing hybrid vehicles. This not only lessen pollution, but at the same time, does not disrupt our daily lives of getting from point A to point B. Some may disagree and suggest taking public transportation or simply walking is the way to go. That is an option, but if this is the case, we would have to be more flexible with our lives and there are people who just can afford to be that flexible.
One topic about technology that I find interesting is that most people tend to think that technology is taking over our lives. Many tasks that we used to do ourselves are instead replaced by technology. For me, this is a something positive rather than negative. I admit that I bring my cellphone with me everywhere, so whenever I need to call someone all the phone numbers are stored in my cellphone. This is a much better method than memorizing all 100+ phone numbers i have stored, or even carrying a bulking phone book with me. The point of technology is accessibility and most people tend to lose track of this. Mp3 players are also another great example of technology. I used to have a Sony CD player, and a expensive one at that. I loved it because it was a gift from my parents, but more so because now I can take my songs on the go. The only problem is that I have to choose 20 tracks out of the 10,000 songs on my computer. When Apple introduced the ipod for the first time, I brought one asap and ever since that day, I never missed a beat. Technology has made my life much easier and happier, and I for one does not have anything negative to say about it.
Cartier's decision to be one of the first few luxury brands to advertise on Myspace is a bold, but smart move. First, creating a web page on Myspace is virtually free, a dream come true for any business. Second, since most Myspace users are lower to middle class, these are exactly the kind of people Cartier should advertise to. I know it may sound strange, but let me explain. I recently attended a senminar about the difference between class levels. In this senminar I learned that the majority of Americans are lower or middle class. These are the type of people that would most likely spend their money on "stuff" instead of investing them. Sure, there are families who does save a substantial amount, but does not become rich because investing their money is too much of a risk for them. Instead, all the money goes to materialistic items. Cartier is smart to realize and capitalize this notion from a business point of view.
Here is a quote from my friend, "The next big item I'm saving up for is a Cartier watch."
Technology is one of the topics heavily discussed in class this week. Blackberry mobile phones was the example used. I, myself, have been a fan of technological advancement for quite a while. While some may believe that technology is a corruption that is responsible for pollution, and our general laziness among other factors, I would have to disagree. Technology is truly a blessing that enriched the lives we lead today. During these recent years, more and more motor companies are developing hybrid vehicles. This not only lessen pollution, but at the same time, does not disrupt our daily lives of getting from point A to point B. Some may disagree and suggest taking public transportation or simply walking is the way to go. That is an option, but if this is the case, we would have to be more flexible with our lives and there are people who just can afford to be that flexible.
One topic about technology that I find interesting is that most people tend to think that technology is taking over our lives. Many tasks that we used to do ourselves are instead replaced by technology. For me, this is a something positive rather than negative. I admit that I bring my cellphone with me everywhere, so whenever I need to call someone all the phone numbers are stored in my cellphone. This is a much better method than memorizing all 100+ phone numbers i have stored, or even carrying a bulking phone book with me. The point of technology is accessibility and most people tend to lose track of this. Mp3 players are also another great example of technology. I used to have a Sony CD player, and a expensive one at that. I loved it because it was a gift from my parents, but more so because now I can take my songs on the go. The only problem is that I have to choose 20 tracks out of the 10,000 songs on my computer. When Apple introduced the ipod for the first time, I brought one asap and ever since that day, I never missed a beat. Technology has made my life much easier and happier, and I for one does not have anything negative to say about it.
Monday, August 4, 2008
blog 1
Blogging is not something new to me. I had multiple blog accounts throughout middle school and the beginning of high school. However, I was never able to commit to blogging. At most I would post some blogs for the first couple of days my account was set up, but after a couple of weeks I would never log back in. Recently I created yet another blog account just to write down some thoughts. Though each entry was not relatively long, it did help me organize my thoughts and clear my mind. Blogging for me is much like a public diary for anyone to read. It is not personal whatsoever unless you want to make your entries private. Then it becomes more of a diary rather than a journal. Whenever i remembered to post a new blog, I never held back on my feelings and expressed everything that I needed to get out of me. Ultimately, blogging for me is a great resource to write down ideas and express emotions
Writing is not my strong suit. I struggled in my English classes throughout middle school. In the past, many of teachers criticized me on my sentence structure. However, I did learn to become a better writer in the past couple of years, and did quite well in my English classes within the last couple of years. Sometime when I have an English assignment due, I would look back on my previous assignments for inspiration.
Writing is not my strong suit. I struggled in my English classes throughout middle school. In the past, many of teachers criticized me on my sentence structure. However, I did learn to become a better writer in the past couple of years, and did quite well in my English classes within the last couple of years. Sometime when I have an English assignment due, I would look back on my previous assignments for inspiration.
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