The Last Stand: A Look Back on the Semester

I said in my first blog post that I’m somewhat of an internet junkie. I have been one for a while, and combined with my creative writing, blogging, and website building (oh Angelfire, and Geocities!) background I was reasonably confidant that I could write well online. I was not wrong. However, the reason I took Writing Live was not for an easy A; I knew I would enjoy the class, and learn more about a medium of writing I had only used informally before. Again, I was not wrong, but I also developed my online writing voice which was a bonus I had not expected.

I have enjoyed making this blog and the website especially, even if the overly helpful templates and whatnot frustrated me to no end. As a result, I have also learned how to work with what I’ve been given and make it awesome despite the hurdles. I now have tools that I did not before, tools that enable me to conquer the internet—or at least the ability to contribute to it coherently with knowledge of what not to do, and which small things can make all the difference. I feel more confident about using my net nerd skills in the workplace now, if there is ever a need. I do not doubt that there will be need; being able to use and work with the internet is an invaluable skill now, and seems to be growing in value everyday. Perhaps the publishing industry will go paperless in the future; if I keep developing these skills, I bet I could step into the transition easily (and keep my job, if I’m working in a publishing house by then).

I shall continue writing for the web. For now, I will start by maintaining my website. Perhaps in the future I will start a new blog, or sign up for a Twitter account. I may even be hired to write web content and to that I say “Bring it on!”

Testing 1, 2, 3…

My Halloween website is nearly complete; the pages have been written out, designed, and posted (sans the remaining spooky food recipe pages that need typing up), and the usability testing has been done. The next step before going public is to look over the testing data and see what I need to change, take out, or add based on what my testers said.

A Brief Summary

I chose four friends to test my site on because I felt more comfortable asking friends than complete strangers. This made meeting up to actually do the test relatively easy; we either did it at my house, or at one of their houses on a Saturday hang out night. During the latter, I tested them individually for more conclusive data.

Initial response was positive, especially when it came to the design and layout of the site. One friend who is a software engineer for web-based business applications was very happy with the easy and well-organized navigation. Other friends enjoyed the interactive elements, such as the slide shows and the quiz on the home page. When asked to do a task, such as find the page you would click on if you wanted to plan a party, or find the materials needed to make Chocolate Truffle Mice, completed it without a problem.

At the end of the test, I asked the testers two important questions.

1. Would you come back to this site?
2. Do you have any suggestions for other pages you would like to see on the site?

All the testers said yes to the first question. More specifically, they said they would come back during the Halloween season. One tester said that if he were more interested in what the site offered he would definitely come back.

For the second question, most said they would like to see more subpages for the party planning page. Costume ideas, theme suggestions, and party games were suggested.

Based on this information, I plan on adding another page under Party Planning by the end of the week, and more in the future. If I were to do usability testing in the future, I would modify my approach by testing a larger group.

How the internet is changing one aspect of our lives in 140 characters…

Keitai shosetsu: unrealistic romance novels now available straight from the author’s mobile. Will I be the Old School lady writing with her laptop in ten years?

A Weenie For Halloween

Halloween was this past weekend, which means that I was busier than Macy’s on Christmas Eve. Our house takes Halloween very seriously—that is to say, our decorations and creepy music made small children cry and we tried not to cheer. So when I had to choose a subject for a website project a few weeks ago, I was already in full-on black and orange mode and hard pressed to come up with anything more engaging.

Halloween mode has therefore been extended by two months! Instead of prepping and cooking weeks and days in advance, there is research and design! I begin with a reconnaissance mission: what do other sites about Halloween have going on? What can I learn from them?

A quick Google search of Halloween brings up these choices:

Halloween .com

History of Halloween, ala The History Channel main site

Halloween Online

I’m going to start small and concentrate of homepage design for now. Looking at the homepages of these sites I see a lot of things I like, a lot that I don’t, and I’ve come to some interesting conclusions about attractive design. For instance, while the History Channel’s site has many things to look at, the layout and color scheme do not make my eyes jump and confuse my brain on what to concentrate on first. Halloween.com’s site, however, is not so sleek and slimmed down; there are at least three dozen links in the three column layout, as well as extras in the header and footer. Borrowing a term from Jason Beaird’s article The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, there is not much stable continuance in Halloween.com’s layout unify it in an effective manner. My eyes shudder, tire, and then prompt my hand to click the back button, away from it all.

Halloween Online seems to be the middle man here. The layout is centered, sorted and divided well, the color scheme is decent, and nothing is offending my eyes too terribly. I just wish more emphasis was put on the navigation; I am not instantly drawn there and I spend some time searching for what I want.

So far, I’ve learned a handful of useful information. I’ll split it up into a list of Dos and Don’ts.

DON’T:

• Use neon colors on a black background; find a complimentary middle ground
• Overuse links
• Make one layout section compete for attention with another

DO:

• Unify the layout
• Put emphasis on the navigation
• Organize content

And I’m on my way to a successful design!

Identity and Privacy on the Net: Where a Tag-a-Long Isn’t Just a Cookie

The class topic this week has brought on a lot of interesting questions and concerns. What does it mean to have an identity on the internet? No one can see that embarrassing photo of last year’s New Year’s party I deleted…right? Do I really know who my friends are? Just how secure are those social networking sites?

Facebook

Well, I know one result of our discussions: I edited my Facebook profile and tweaked the privacy settings…even though it seemed futile. The editing was for potential employers who may have a special back door deal with the big FB to check me out. The privacy settings change was to lull my mind into a false sense of security. While only my friends can see my profile now (supposedly), Facebook still has the means to stalk its users when they go to other sites:

“Facebook in November introduced a marketing program called Beacon to keep their users on the site longer. In this feature, Overstock.com Inc., Fandango Inc. and dozens of other companies agreed to notify Facebook every time one of its users made a purchase on one of their sites. In turn, Facebook began notifying those users’ friends of the purchases,” (Vauhini Vara).

Beacon was released in November of 2007. Angry users forced the third parties involved to pull out. However, Facebook Connect is a more recent, smarter (and optional) brain child of the FB big wigs. Facebook Connect is a little more interesting; not only can users do nifty things like share their movie ratings, but the sites the users frequent can gather information from the user more or less without their knowledge (because let us be honest, who reads user agreements and privacy statements in full, if ever?). Douglass Macmillan’s article on Facebook Connect creates the big picture:

“Announced last July, Facebook Connect has already signed up more than 8,000 partner sites, many of which plan to use data collected on Facebook members for their own purposes. Joost, a video-viewing site that integrated with Facebook Connect in December, checks the ages of viewers entered on their Facebook profiles to give its own content partners — CBS (CBS), for example — a better idea of which Joost users are watching CBS programming.”

Creepy.

Macmilan also provides this gem of a quote that I find wonderfully (in that ‘HMM, makes you wonder’ way) ironic: “Digg Chief Executive Jay Adelson, who says his site has no plans to target ads based on users’ Facebook profiles, concedes that the possibility exists. “There is the opportunity for using profile information for advertising,” Adelson says.”

Really, Jay? That’s interesting. The Minnesota bar and restaurant ads on my profile must be just a coincedence. I feel so much better.

Google Me!

Have you ever Googled yourself? I have! There was nothing–well, almost nothing–interesting. Not too surprising, since my friends have a hell of a time simply finding the right ‘me’ on Facebook. Who knew my name was so common? Google, apparently. Hundreds of me-but-not-mes clog up the search enough that only some professional photos of me-me popped up.

Shrug-worthy, but I don’t worry less that something horrible and extremely embarrassing will show up. I’ve been careful over the years, only using my real name sparingly, and usually only nicknames (as you can see on this blog). However, sometimes even supposedly secure website content can be revealed by the Google machine:

“Google turned up detailed monthly expenses and employee salaries at the National Speleological Society’s site, caves.org. Says the group’s president Scott Fee, “That ain’t supposed to be up there.” [...] All manner of personal correspondence, including transcripts of intimate instant-messaging exchanges, can be unearthed by search engines. Pamela Dixon, a privacy advocate at the World Privacy Forum, tells of an elementary school teacher whose contract was not renewed with a Solano County, Calif. school district. This item appears in the minutes of a school board meeting. The announcement still comes up second upon Googling her name,” (David Whelan).

The internet is a big place. If I tried hard enough I could find something nearly forgotten.

Blog you!

So I’ve been looking at blogs this week, and I’ve notice that there are two types of blogs: your typical blog (one author, conversational voice, journal like theme or one central subject theme), and websites disguised as blogs. Now, I understand the blog phenomenon and it’s evolution, but when (and WHY?) did blogs become the new .com?

My mind has been successfully boggled.

Blogging has become trendy. I get that. Blogging is a great way to bring attention to yourself (and your business, if you do not already consider yourself as a commodity to be marketed).  It gives interested surfers a unique, in-depth look into what you’re selling (because you’re selling something whether you know it or not). Makes sense.

But why do some websites dress themselves up as a blog…and so badly? Take LA Style, for example. Typical fashion and shopping site–great! Now check out their blog of the same name.  It’s mostly product highlights, promos, and coupon offers–not much (if any) content of the blog variety. Glancing at both (and seeing the images featuring the same models, logo, similar layouts and colors) my brain instantly categorizes them as websites.

Maybe it’s just me, but I go to a website for clear cut info, some links related to what I’m looking at, maybe some professionally written articles. When I’m in the mood for blog reading, I’m in the mood for a closer look. I want a “Hey! How’s it goin’? Check this out! I thought this was pretty interesting. What do you think?” or “This has been on my mind for awhile…” This blurring the line doesn’t do it for me. I disagree with the statement “a blog is a hard thing to define” I got from Michael Conniff’s “Just what is a blog, anyway?” article. People, you are thinking too hard.

Here are two fine examples of blogs: John Green’s Sparks Fly Up, and Hal Duncan’s Notes From the Geek Show. Both are blogs of published authors. Both have relevant announcements about their book tours, links to their books, and extremely thought provoking ramblings. Not all blogs are like theirs, but the core idea is in accordance with amateur blogs. The point is they say something and actively connect with their readers rather than just act as an aesthetic display for the purpose of getting you to buy products.

When your content is limited to pictures, blurbs, headlines, and links, you are a website. A blog can sport all that, but should be centered around the author behind the blog posts. The personal content is what makes a blog unique, and most importantly, interesting. I do like this bit from the Will-Harris article:

There’s a “personal” aspect to web-based content that doesn’t apply to printed material. People see this content on the same screen they see their own work, so they tend to feel that content is even more personal and directed just at them.

Sure, all of the  “How To” articles we’ve read for this class have advised us to be concise,  slap on some pictures, and fiddle with links and bold text for speedy readability, but how much can be sacrificed in the name of Blog and still be a  blog?

A Generational Perspective on Technology: An Intro

As a 21 year old college student, I don’t think much about technology—that is to say, I use it everyday, but I don’t think about using it, and I don’t think about thinking about it. I use the internet for hours a day (much more than is probably healthy), checking email, Facebook, forums, blogs, YouTube, buying music on iTunes, and playing World of Warcraft online. My laptop is (pathetically) a lifeline; one of my greatest fears is that a fire will start in my house and eat my poor crappy lappy, leaving me stranded with no connection to the internet and worse, without my precious Word document files containing years of creative writing and homework, photos, and music mp3’s. My flash drive is my only backup; the silver product logo is nearly worn completely away from frequent use and living on my keychain. It goes everywhere I do. If I lose my laptop and flash drive at the same time I will go insane, fall into depression, or probably both.

After such a reflection, I have to ask, “Why am I so obsessed with technology that I barely give second thought to?” Is it because my generation was the first to grow in time with the development of personal computers and the internet? Or is it just a consumer reaction, like taking microwaves for granted? In this blog I hope to explore this question and many more throughout the semester. For now, I would like to look at the word ‘generation,’ what that means to me (if it is an effective term, and whether it should be used), and what it means in relation to technology (using it as a measure of tech and social development).

Briefly, what does the word ‘generation’ mean? Dictionary.com says:

the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time: the postwar generation; a group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes, etc; a group of individuals belonging to a specific category at the same time: Chaplin belonged to the generation of silent-screen stars.

In other words, it’s a general lumping together of people with certain things in common. My generation could be known as the Nintendo and Oregon Trail generation. (Weren’t those green screens awesome?) I think I’m ok with that. But then I think of what I would call the generation next in line. You know, the 24-hour texters, the little bastards talking smack on Halo, the Twilight worshippers. Yeah, I’m definitely happy being in a separate group than those kids; but the problem is that not all of them are like that. Maybe it’s the tech that brings out the overuse of ‘ur gay.’ Of course, some kids are just jerks, and there are jerks in every generation. Siva Vaidhyanathan’s article on the problems that arise with such labeling particularly rings true in my mind:

Talk of a “digital generation” or people who are “born digital” willfully ignores the vast range of skills, knowledge, and experience of many segments of society. It ignores the needs and perspectives of those young people who are not socially or financially privileged. It presumes a level playing field and equal access to time, knowledge, skills, and technologies. The ethnic, national, gender, and class biases of any sort of generation talk are troubling.

So then is ‘generation’ a useful term? In a vague, unthinking way, yes. I am of the generation that sent Mario jumping on turtles and over lava, and shot way more buffalo than was necessary on Oregon Trail. But some kids from my ‘generation’ never played either of those games. ‘Generation’ is not an accurate way of measurement, of time, technology, or anything else. Therefore, lumping people together superficially is never a good idea if true meaning is to be pulled out. The term is as useful as the nostalgia the labels can induce.