Wednesday, September 26, 2007

HW:13 Bloggers in Business

Is business the main importance of blogging?

Blogging has been proven to have an impact on individuals for creative expression, social ideas and political ideas. Recently suggestions have been made for businesses to jump aboard and create blogs for customer feed back and questions that may be able to be answered. This is a good idea and if done correctly will be good towards satisfying the customer so they will continue to make purchases or whatever the case may be. Are blogs more important for companies or social and political ideas? I believe as of now the Political ideas are more important than business blogs. There are certainly a lot of them and its what many bloggers are interested in. in fact the book states, “Many of you don’t visit blogs--or haven’t since blogs became a sensation in last year’s Presidential race. According to a Pew Research Center Survey, only 27% of Internet users in America now bother to read them,“ Baker and Green, pg222). It’s clear that blogging increases around the time of campaigning and can have a big impact on the people. Yet it still is a good idea for businesses it will not have a huge importance and wont bring in the money they are looking for.

Monday, September 24, 2007

HW11: OhmyNews

http://english.ohmynews.com/

The blog I chose to view is technically not a blog. It is actually a kind of online newspaper called OhmyNews. It looks like any other newspaper webpage as it has headings of main issues that are going on and popular stories. However, according to Rebecca MacKinnion, the newspaper has professional editors who take in thousands of submissions everday from ordinary people. She also states that it was largely because of OhmyNews that president Rohm Moo-hymn of South Korea was elected. In my opinion, MacKinnon made the site sound as if it were strictly devoted to politics and when I looked at the site for myself there were a variety of topics just like any other newspaper. There was however a place to go and chat and tell your stories to the editiors but the stories still were not political. Someone who disagrees with me might say that there are plenty of politically based articles on the website and that Hominess is a newspaper that has a variety of stories simply because its what the people talk to them about and want to hear about.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

HW:9 Huffington Interview

“Punching Holes in Faded Mirrors” Arianna Huffington

After reading the interview of Aranna Huffington, the creator of the Huffington Post, I realized there are some points made that I both agree and disagree with. I agree that blogs can make a difference when talking about political establishment in the United States because the amount of online political blogs confirms it. There are many blogs on politics where people can find answers to there questions about particular people or parties. On the other hand, Huffington states that today’s mainstream media suffers from attention deficit disorder and can only focus on one story at a time. She also claims that while mainstream media is covering a story its as though nothing else exists. I disagree with this because from my views of the mainstream media I believe they do cover a significant amount of material. They may, at times, favor a certain story or stories but that is only because they are the stories the public is the most interested in hearing about.

Monday, September 17, 2007

HW7: Should parents monitor

Emily Nussbaum’s “My so Called Blog”

In this chapter of Blog the question that comes up is, should parents monitor everything that their middle-school children write online? I believe it is a good learning experience for kids to write online. With today’s technology and the importance of computers, it will help them to become more familiar with ways to gain information and find helpful resources. Parents should acknowledge this and give the children space when concerning these areas of the internet. In the case of blogs, it will allow children to start a journal and express themselves in ways they hadn’t been able to before. However, there are different ways to one can view this. Expressing themselves can be good and bad depending on the situation. It can help them show there emotions and feelings in a healthy way or it could be in the form of argumentation and cause problems. Nussbaum’s article states, “ It’s a drama heightened by the fact that journals are linked to one another, creating a constant juxtaposition of posts among the students.” (Nussbaum, pg 355) If the children are going to use the blogs and cause arguments then yes parents should monitor their internet usage and make sure it is used correctly. Otherwise, the blogs are just creating drama and we all know how much drama already exists in the schools of today,

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

HW:6 Inerest Statement for Semester Long Project

Interests

I have not had much experience with the social computing technologies of today. However, since I have been in college I have been using these types of programs a lot more. The main application I use is instant messaging. This is great because it allows me to keep in touch with friends and family that are not close by. I am also interested in e-learning so I can take some online courses this summer to get a few extra credits. Last but not least, I am interested in blogs and am currently taking a course about them. Some issues I am interested in learning about in this course are overcoming sexism, overcoming racism, and overcoming ageism. These are all common issues that I have heard about but not in great depths. I believe these issues will be very interesting to learn about and it will be very useful knowledge because the issues have become very important in today’s society.

HW5b: Applying Graff to "I Blog, Therefore I Am"

“I Blog, Therefore I Am”

On page 239 of David Kline’s book entitled “Blog!” I found a paragraph that I disagreed with. Starting at the top of the page, the reading starts off by saying that blogging will mean the death of the so called Big Media. After thinking about this statement I quickly made a decision to deny all access of the information I had just read because to me it just didn’t seem right. I believe the Big Media such as the papers and news reports are being underestimated and have a larger affect, than that of blogs, on the public and will continue to have that effect. I would like to acknowledge the fact that blogging is becoming more popular and people have become less tentative to the papers, but the bottom line is that these papers are being read and seen by far more viewers. Kline’s book is a good way to learn about the impact of blogging but the information of this paragraph I certainly question.

Friday, September 7, 2007

HW: 4 Option 2 Old Spice

Option 2

As I walked into my room the first thing that I spotted was a stick of Old Spice Deodorant. Old Spice is a very common brand of deodorant and has been around for a long time. Within seconds of glancing at it I saw in big bold letters “High Endurance” and “Long Lasting Stick.” I then went online and visited http://www.oldspice.com/products_new.html. It was here were I found how long lasting it actually is. The exact words were “Whether ascending Everest or in a marathon chess match - Old Spice High Endurance Gel Solid Deodorant provides all-day odor defense.” Clearly Old Spice is promising a long lasting and fresh scented deodorant. From my experiences the fact that it smells great definitely holds to be true and I would highly recommend the Pacific Surge or Arctic Force scents. I also would agree that it is a long lasting deodorant but when ascending Everest you would probably want to apply more than once.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

HW3: Political Influences

Summary and response to David Kline’s essay pages 3-24.

The chapter opens with two examples of blogs concerning the topic of influence on political campaigns. The blogs are opposites of each other and set a great example of how they encourage polarization and can be very extreme rather than up for debate or understanding. One of them favors the use of blogs and claims the rest of the media lies and the other believes the media is a much stronger source and more influential to campaigning. The rest of the chapter tends to be a little biased in favor of blogs. Kline claims that media tends to lie and is a poor source to receive certain information from. He also states the importance that blogs have toward political campaigning. During the elections in 2004, political blogs were viewed by millions of people and had a historical impact on their opinions. I believe there is still some debating to be done. Blogs certainly have potential to impact political campaigning more then the media because it may be a more reliable source. However, as of now I don’t think this is happening. Many people still don’t even know what a blog is or that they even exist. The papers, magazines, and televisions are things that are seen everyday by everyone and therefore they have a much greater chance to influence the people even if they do lie.

HW2: Posting to Your Reading Response Blog

“From Cave Painting to Wonkette” (Kline and Burstein xxi-xxvi)

My assignment was to connect one of Burstein’s 12 key ideas in “From Cave Painting to Wonkette” to an interest, issue, or commitment of my own. After reading over these key ideas to blogging, I decided to choose idea number nine. The idea states that, “The numbers of bloggers will continue to grow because the numbers of knowledge workers in our societies are continuing to grow.” I completely agree with this statement because I realize that new businesses are being born every day and blogs are a great way for these businesses to get in contact with others. The blogs may consist of employees or other businesses that can suggest ways to help each other out. Blogs can be great for any job. For an example, my dream job is to become a hunting guide for whitetail deer. If I owned a guiding business I would be able to keep track in my blog daily as to where I saw the deer, what the deer looked like, the time of day I saw it, and the temperature and weather conditions of that day. I would also have my employees do the same. This way we would be able to find out where the big deer are and when they will be there. It would improve my business a great deal just as it would for other businesses as well.