Bloggers Paradise

After reading, “Take an Obsession, Then Feed It!” Nick Deonton interview, it helped me understand blogging from a creators point of view. There where many points that where brought up that helped me answer a lot of my own questions of how blogging works. It started out with bringing up topics such as, blogging and the risks of careers involved, companies that deal with blogging, blogging being a powerful tool for business, the benefits of technologies, patterns created by companies making the best of web-logs, Google being a challenging competitor, and how providing a service for free goes about. However, By the end of reading through each of these interview topics, it helped me develop an understanding from a point of view of a creator who took the time to look into these areas of research and provide feedback to the public. As a result I was able to read these areas with interest and understanding.

After reading the artice ”Blogs Will Change Your Business” by Stephen Baker and Heather Green, I feel that what appears to be more important to me is the impact of blogging on communication that is not business- or profit related. Simply because after reading the text. It appeared to me that there are so many blogs out there and not everyone is going to click on the same one. As stated on page 222, the last paragraph, “Many of you don’t visit blogs– or haven’t since blogs became a sensation in last years Presidential race. According to a Pew Research Center Survey, only 27% of Internet users in America now bother to read them.” This is what makes me feel that there are not enough people that are using these blogs sites to have an impact on a business. Where blogs that are not containing business in them may be more appealing to click on and interesting.

One of my favorite blogs that I have posted, is the blog that we covered when we had to respond to “The Voice of The Customer” A product that I had chosen was Crest Whitening Strips in the link, <a href=”" title=”"> <abbr title=”"> <acronym title=”"> <b> <blockquote cite=”"> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>. This post was interesting to me, because I wouldn’t think to go online and look at a website of a product that I use daily and look at the customer responses and success stories. On the box it states, “Crest Whitening Strips a part of the crest dental plan healthy, beautiful smiles for life” and upon reading this and looking online, I wouldn’t have thought anything other than this product must work. I think the reasoning for this being one of my favorite posts is the fact that I am able to relate to this subject and it appealed to be interesting to me. This was one of the easier posts for me to relate to and I found the subject very interesting because its not a daily thing for you to look at something like this and take into consideration the effects it has on the business itself and the customers point of view.

The blog that I have chosen that has appealed to be the most interesting to me is an article,  “Ain’t I a human?”  by, Joan Dawson that was published in 2008 Oh My News, I have found this on the website, http://english.ohmynews.com. When you first open this article the ffirst thing that I did was scroll down and look at the pictures. After every paragraph or so their was a picture followed by text. All of the pictures really just about brought tears to my eyes. The pictures seemed to be taken in wealthy, nice areas around the world, and showed all different homeless people that were living on the side of the streets, under bridges, park benches begging for gods help, and those who needed to support their families by selling papers every week to support their families. One point that was brought up of which really touched me and I support fully, is the fact of normal people who support their own daily lives, how are they able to pass by some of these struggling cases. Don’t get me wrong not every homeless person deserves the support but their are those out their that simply have nothing and under certain circumstances cant help themselves. This is a very sad and upsetting topic to talk about. This article started out with a man Ronald who has been homeless for two years, he was laid off of his electrician job and needs money to support his family. He has gotten attacked by a pit-bull and has no health insurance to take care of himself. His point of view is that he isn’t able to get hired by an electrical company when all he talks about is suicide. Along with Ronald, their are many other different individuals that are mentioned. At the end of this article I completely agree with Joan Dawson and he brings up a good point, “Indeed, many people look down on homeless individuals as if homes and, indirectly, money should be the root of our worth. Value should be inherent on being a human being, not on being in a home. We need jobs that are secure and that pay a living wage in order to afford that home. If we are homeless because we lack work; we lack work, not worth. The two should not be dependent. We Americans tend to define ourselves based on our jobs first, our human qualities second. I say we are humans first, employed “productive” citizens second.” Basically what he is saying is that those that are homeless and would do anything for a job should be able to be provided with that job to help themselves and prevent more peoples lives to be ruined. This is a huge issue that most don’t even take into consideration and I feel that something should be done. So many people are rapped up in their own lives today that homeless people are looked down upon and not provided the help they need.

After reading MacKinnon’s statements, I feel that this blog takes a look at his point of view. From the reading what I got out of it was that he was looking for ways to take all of these conversations and make people aware of what is going on around the world, and try to make a movement with it and look at it through a political point of view. He cares about looking at peoples stories so that we can get a better insight of their lives. I feel that this article he would support, and it corresponds to my understanding of the reading “Making Global Voices Heard,” because not only does it target individuals stories, but their is a variety of stories that are covered. One of his major targets is understanding people and their stories. This article does a good job of doing so.

Someone who may disagree with me might look at this situations differently and think to themselves that this article is just trying to make homeless people look like they are good people that deserve a chance in life. Don’t get me wrong not all homeless people are in the same situations there are a lot out there that have completely messed up their own lives with no hope due to drugs and other circumstances. I am not saying that every homeless person deserves a chance, but from this article clearly their are those out their that could use a little support to get back on their own two feet.

After reading “A Weblog Saved My Life Last Night,” an interview with Ayelet Waldman. Throughout most of the article I agreed with her and what she was proving. However, when she states on page 309 that “the blogosphere has become a way for woman to experience a social community that I think has been really rejuvenating, particularly for woman that are not working or are not full-time. It has a whole different meaning than the blogosphere as a political blogoshphere.” Although I do agree with Waldman up to a point, I cant conclude that it only applies to woman who are not working or full- time, because this is open to everyone who is interested, and although some people may not have as much time on their hands. They are still eligible to take part in a discussion.

After reading Emily Nussbaum’s “My So-Called Blog,” (Kline 349-261), It has made me develop an understanding of teenagers and their uses for blogs. Before reading this passage, I didn’t notice how much blogging really is used upon teenagers as more of a personal journal and place to write down their thoughts, feelings and emotions. Maybe I feel this way because I haven’t personally been using blogs as a way of keeping a life journal through friends growing up. However I don’t agree that parents should monitor everything that their middle school children write online. Before blogging most middle school children would keep a journal or secret journal that they would write everything they were feeling or things that have happened that they felt was important to write down, especially the girls. I feel that now with technology growing and more children being exposed to online that blogging is very similar to a personal journal and I know personally I wouldn’t want my parents going through my diary. So why would I want them to go through my online blog? As Emily states in  “My So-Called Blog,” “Many teen blogs are short-lived experiments. But for a significant number, they become a way of life, a daily record of a community’s private thoughts– a kind of invisible high school that floats above the daily life of teenagers.” I feel that this quote explains and supports my opinion of parents shouldn’t monitor what their middle school children do online. In the sense that their online journal is a way of expressing their own private thoughts and exchanging them with teenagers of their own age. I don’t feel that it would be right for my parents to listen to every conversation that carry, or me expressing my feelings to my friends. Overall I feel strongly that parents should be parents to the point where if their child was to get into online trouble they would then take action but especially as a teenager by that age you should be able to take responsibility for yourself.

After taking a look over the  social computing topics the three that I find  the most interesting are file sharing, (music, photos and videos), mash-ups, and social networking. I have chosen file sharing because I tend to use this the most often, between sharing peoples music, and looking at others photos. I haven’t experienced much file sharing of videos but find this topic very interesting. It is one of those things that you don’t think about you just do it without thoughts about the process and how it works. Another topic I chose is mash-ups. Before class on Tuesday, I didn’t know the name for what mash-ups although I have watched some before just never classified them. I find them very interesting and think it would be a fun topic to work with. The last topic I have chosen is social networking. I feel that there is so much that could be covered under this topic from face-book, craigslist, myspace, e harmony, and other dating services like match.com. Aside from being a social networking service relationship wise, I feel that there are a lot of job offers and ways of meeting people that can open up opportunities for your own life.

Empowerment of marginalized groups that I am most interested in finding more information about is, abuse survivors, nontraditional families, and poverty. I have chosen Abuse survivors, because everyday people go on with their lives and are so wrapped up into themselves without even noticing some of the peoples lives around them. There are so many people that would do anything to reach out to others and help them, but being unaware of the situation can cause it to be a lot harder. I find learning about peoples stories especially after the fact would be very interesting. Another topic I have chosen is nontraditional famlies. I don’t know a lot about this but there are so many different lifestyles and different ways of living. I just feel that it would be interesting to find out what the typical traditional family is and compare it to other families around the world. The last topic I have chosen is poverty. After traveling to many different areas from islands in the caribbean, St.Martin, St.Thomas, Bermuda, Tortola, Domenica, San Juan, Barbados, to Italy, and the Carolina’s, California, Chicago, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Boston ect. It has always interested me to watch the poverty and lifestyle of some people. Everywhere you travel or go to today has some sort of poverty and it is ashame to see this in such beautiful areas around the world. It fascinates me to watch certain areas that are possiably the most beautiful areas of the world and have so many people suffering who cant afford healthcare, housing, or any sort of lifestyle.

Geographic areas that I am most interested in are Europe and North America. I have chosen these two just because I know more about these areas then I would any of the others. I also feel that picking an area that I have traveled to before would help me relate my topic to.

After Reading David Kline’s, ” Therefore I Am”  I feel like he is consistently bringing up topics of which he is supporting blogging and taking situations and bringing up good points to really explain his feelings and different perspectives of blogging. However I don’t agree with some of his statements. On p.249, he states, ” The trust is that these are not just the tiresome ramblings of the boring written to the bored. Though for most part not professional writers, bloggers are often eloquent in the way that those who are not self-consciously polished often are raw, uncensored and energized by the sound of their new awakened voices.” If you go online today and look up blogs you can find a blog on just about anything and over half of the ones that are being looked up may get off subject or may not even be on topic. Although there are also many blogs that are helpful and informative to businesses, the public, and people all over the world. So although Kline may search for blogs of which are helpful and informative to him himself. There are just as many that are off topic and useless to the point of almost being comical. My question for Kline is if you where to look on the internet and pick a blog on a certain topic would you get the blog you are looking for right away everytime?

After reading David Kline’s essay, ”The Voice of the Customer” I found it fascinating that blogging really can have a huge effect on the businesses success and failure. One thing that was brought to my attention that I hadn’t realized before was that some businesses post fake blogs and stories about their product to try to get more people to use or buy this product. While looking around my room and choosing a product that I use often Crest White Strips it made me interested and wonder what they have to say about their product. Especially with the catchy phrase, “Crest White Strips a part of the crest dental plan, healthy, beautiful smiles for life.” So after visiting their main website, http://www.whitestrips.com/en_US/home.jsp and clicking on the heading success stories. It made me wonder if they posted any negative stories with all of the good ones. Obviously, you would think to yourself why would they? and it is true all of the posts are shown with people who have the perfect whitest teeth, and talk about the confidence and life changing results of this product. From my experience I have had very good results and continue to use this product. I would definitely recommend Crest White Strips to friends and family, and feel that overall I would write my own success story if I could.