skip to main |
skip to sidebar
(source:viaterra.net)Blogging is an activity that I have been doing on and off since 4 years ago. I used to blog in Xanga, however I stopped because I lose interest in it. I always think blogging is a complete waste of time and somehow revealing our personal life to the world.However, blogging for this subject is different compared to regular basis of blogging. Though very time consuming, but it made me learn more thoroughly about the characteristics of weblogging and issues of publication design. Apart from that, I learn about the importance of including audience, purpose, and context in creating a good document design.A few issues that I have done have already been discussing about the combination of pictures and texts in a document design. Hence, according to Schriver (2006) explains that prose and graphics are integrated as a part of the body text in order to help users represent the content.Apart from that, copyright infringement is also an issue to weblogging and document design. People tend to copy materials from others without citing them. Hence, Walker (1997) implies that in addition to citing the source of texts, any graphics, audio or video files included in a student's work should include a proper citation. I have learnt to cite every single quote that I have found from articles or websites. In fact, I have even cited all the pictures that I have uploaded in all my postings to avoid any copyright issue.To conclude this discussion, I believe that I have induced a lot from this assignment. Learning how to manage my time to look for researches for each issue and learning to manage a blogging system is not an easy task. With that, as this assignment completes with my final post, which is the Reflection of what I have done, I know that in future, blogging will most probably to be back as my regular basis.
Thus, in order to end this blog proudly, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who has the opportunity to read this blog. Thank you very much!References:- Schriver, KA 1997, 'The Interplay of Words and Pictures', Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, Chapter 6, pp.361-441
(source: deliverability.comYahoo! can be referred as a internet content provider that allows its users to browse for almost everything ranging from webs, news, images to blogs. Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo but was only incorporated in March 1995 (Wikipedia, 2009). Apart from that, Yahoo! also invented Yahoo! Mail where users can sign up email addresses using it and Yahoo! Messenger where users can chat with one another using its online chatting system. Labrou and Finin said Yahoo! provide a huge hierarchy of categories that touch every aspects of human endeavors.
(source: Wikipedia)
"Yahoo! is testing to redesign its homepage, emphasizing news feeds and applications as well as search results." (ZDNetAsia)
Methods in designing a homepage
Redesining a homepage acquires various kinds of methods. Jakob Nielsen (1993) introduced the heuristic evaluation method that allows a good guideline in designing a home page. It is also the least expensive method and conveniently useful.Home Page = Document DesignIn the case of Yahoo!, a home page equals to a document design. Nevertheless, redesigning a good home page means a good document design is needed. Reep (2006) implies that document design refers to the physical appearance of a document. Yahoo! needs to acquire both printed words and good visual presentation on its home page in resulting to a great home page design. As illustrated by Reep (2006), readers do not only read printed words on the text, they also "read" the visual presentation of the text. Hence, Yahoo! can design a webpage allows the good flow of virtual presentation and texts.GenreGenre can be defined as ways in which we make sense of types of texts, as culturally defined and expected combination of field, tenor and mode (Schirato & Yell, 1996). The genre that can be implemented in Yahoo! is Public (Wikipedia, 2009). This implies that Yahoo! provides a great usage to anyone as it does not contain materials that are not allowed in the online community.Home Page Design PrinciplesApart from that, a good home page design comes with principles. Thus, according to Reep (2006), the most essential way into creating a home page is to have balance, proportion, sequence and consistency.A good balance in a page should have the comparable visual weight on both sides of a page while a good proportion to a page design should have the appropriate size and placement of text, graphic aids and format elements on the page (Reep, 2006). Apart from that, a good sequence in a home page refers to the arrangement of the design features. Readers read from top left corner to right bottom corner. Lastly, consistency means presenting the features consistently such as fonts, typeface, margins and identation.
The latest design of Yahoo! homepage Printscreen (source: Yahoo!)My Personal OpinionThe latest home page redesign that Yahoo! did was just 3 months ago, which is March (ZDNetAsia, 2009). I am already very much satisfied with its current home page, and if it keeps redesigning it, it can lead to confusion in utilizing it because most people would spend more time in getting used to new home page. In other words, it is time consuming.
(source: www.feld.com)References:- Reep, D 2006, 'Document Design', Technical Writing, Chapter 6, pp.133-172
- Schirato, T, Yell, S 1996, 'Framing contexts', Communication and Cultural Literacy: an introduction, Chapter 5, pp.90-117
(source: Netbanker)MySpace.comMySpace is a social networking site that rivals Yahoo!, Google, eBay and MSN for the top spot among visitors in the internet (Alexa, 2006). MySpace can defined as a vlog and photoblog. MySpace derives from a form of multimodal texts. Walsh (2006) implies that multimodal texts are those texts that have more than one mode so the meaning is communicated through a sychronisation of modes. Multimodal modes can be inclusive of written and spoken language which in MySpace, it relates to the music page, combined together with moving or still images which is the vlog or photoblog and that are produced on a paper or electronic screen.What happened?MySpace used to be one of the leader in site of choice for musicians and music fans keep track on their local scenes. Artists and musicians ranging from amateurs to veterans such as Rascal Flatts, Taylor Swift, Kenny G, Britney Spears and etc use MySpace.
Printscreen (source: MySpace)It maintained as a strong social networking until Facebook arrives. However, the CEO of MySpace, Owen Van Natta expressed his concerns in saving this website. There will be a few aspects to be taken care of in order to save this social networking site.Steps into Saving MySpace..
1. Core mission- MySpace has too many features. For example, the one with music postings and videos are just too much. Why would people have to go to MySpace to upload videos and songs? Hence, MySpace should get rid of the MySpace Music and musicians should allow themselves to make music to all users fairly.
2. Availability of free music- MySpace seacrh engine for free music has becoming less and less efficient. Listings of searches seemed to appear irrelevant to what users are looking for hence, we suggest that if MySpace would want to save itself, they should try to figure out how their competitors get such good deals in music downloads and sign up with those deals.
3. Fix the Advertising- It has become incredibly annoying when big banners of irrelevant advertisements such as bank mortgage kept popping up in the MySpace page. Comparing to Facebook, the advertisements are more relevant and it relates to the current happenings. Thus, MySpace should reduce the size of their ads and advertise more relevant ads that suit the users preferences.
4.Fix search- The search system for MySpace is inefficient as what you type out in search does not results to the same meaning of it.
5.Let geeks run the company- Do not let the marketers or salespeople to run the show as the problem with MySpace right now is the development platform of better usage of technology.
Solving the issue.Therefore, what needs to be improve it the notion of literacy practice in MySpace. Scribner and Cole (1981) describe literacy practice as the use of "combination of technology, knowledge and skills" and the application of this "knowledge for specific purposes in specific contexts of use. Besides that, MySpace would seem to be more approachable if the right context of situation is applied. As according to Malinowski (1923, 1935) cited by Halliday et. al (1985), the context of situation is the environment of the text. Hence, language and culture are also important in the context of MySpace. Different users interact in different kinds of language and cultures. It is good to provide the most appropriate materials to every users without being biased. Hence, the universal language such as English should be used in MySpace. Based to the culture of MySpace, teenagers are the main users. Chandler and Robert-Young (1995) said that MySpace can be seen as a more interactive alternative to a personal homepage for many of its teenage users.My Personal OpinionMySpace has been operating around the online community longer than Facebook. However, it's lack of efficiency such as the advertising, search engine system and features showed that Facebook is slowly overtaking this social networking community. I use both MySpace and Facebook and I personally admit that Facebook is a better choice. Hence, MySpace needs a lot to do to save their company from failure.MySpace Homepage Design : New vs. Old 
(source: Montparnas) 
(source: econsultancy.com)References: - Walsh, M 2006, 'The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37
- Schirato, T, Yell, S 1996, 'Framing Contexts' Communication and Cultural Literacy: An introduction, Chapter 5, pp.90-117
- Halliday, M.A.K, Hasan, R 1985, 'Context of situation' Language, context and text: aspects in language in a social-semiotic perspective, Chapter 1, pp. 3-14
The article discussed interprets the usage of emoticons and the importance of email etiquitte in the world these days.Emoticons :) :| ;(
(source: www.thirdeyehealth.com)How it begins?Funnell (2007) explains that emoticons were invented by Professor Scott Fahlman who suggested to his university collegues that when they make a joke online, they should put a little sideways smiley face at the end of it. From then onwards, emoticons were know universally through out the world.Define Emoticons..Thompson and Foulger (1996) describe emoticons as "pictographs" and their use in virtual community to express emotions or as surrogates to nonverbal communication.Why emoticons are used?Rezabek and Cochenour (1998) explain that the use of emails eliminates visual cues such as head nodding, facial expression, posture, and eye contact that can be found in face-to-face communication. With that, emoticons are replaced as virtual cues to augment the meaning of textual electronic messages.
For example, let's compare these two sentences, with and without emoticons.- "I am happy for your good results."
- "I am happy for your good results :)"
What difference does both sentences illustrate?Well, with adding one smiley emoticon at the end of the sentence definately interprets a more honest gesture as compared to the other one. Professor Fahlman who was interviewed by Funnell (2007) says that it is useful today to have icons that act as emotional makers in the electronic communications.
(source: istockphoto.com)Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) argues that meaning of images is always related to, and in a sense dependent on, verbal text. Thus, emoticons interpret a set of verbal text written as well as the emotions of it.Apart from that, Shriver (1997) explains that research showed that people's comprehension may be improved if key points are presented in both words and pictures, allowing readers to acquire information visually and verbally. Therefore, emoticons and texts in an email must be combined together when reading. A ":)" emoticon with a positive good sentence from the writer showed that he/she is positively agreeing with his/her statement in the email.Email etiquette: What makes for good and bad email?
Define Email Etiquette..
According to Baker (2003), etiquette can be referred as the rules governing socially acceptable behaviour. Therefore, we can conclude that email etiquette is proper way of writing an email professionally without any errors. Schwalbe (2007) explains that most of the emails are garden variety, without the proper direction to the main topic.
Issues discussed: What makes for good and bad email?
Based on the article 'Emoticons and Email Etiquette (2007) discussed that back to the olden days, people started off an email with Dear Sir, or Dear Madam. Fortunately, this etiquette has not disappeared yet until now.
To further elaborate, the definitions of good and bad emails are based on the intertextuality and genre of the particular email. Intertextuality refers to the process of making sense of texts in reference to their relations with other texts (Schirato and Yell, 1996). Genre depends on how we make sense on the type of texts, as culturally defined and expected combinations of field, tenor and mode. Thus, an appropriate genre for the email with the combination of an appropriate intertextuality of an email will lead to forming a good email.
The cultural factor of an email sender also influence the types, culture and context of email written. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) implies that the interpretation of the message or writing is highly depend on the cultural and situational context of the readers. For example, Westerners might find it difficult to understand the overly formal emails from the Asians due to the differentiation of cultures.
My Personal Opinion:
By using emoticons will affect the email etiquette. This is the same as small capitalization and wrong ways in adressing the reader. Emoticons will show an email to be seen as less formal, thus it leads to producing bad emails.
References:
- Kress, G, Van Leeuwen 2006, 'Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication', Reading Images
- Schirato, T, Yell, S 1996, 'Framing Contexts', Communication and Cultural Literacy: an introduction, Chapter 5, pp.90-117
- Baker, A 2003, 'Email Etiquette', West Virginia University
- Rezabek, L.L, Cochenour, J.J 1998, 'Visual cues in computer mediated communication: Supplementing texts with emoticons', Journey of Visual Literacy, vol.18, pp. 201-215
- Thompson, P.A, Foulger, D.A 1996, 'Effects of pictographs and quoting on flaming in electronic mail', Computers in Human Behaviour, vol.12, pp.225-243
- Schriver, KA 1997, 'The Interplay of Words and Pictures', Dynamics in Document Design: Creating texts for readers, Chapter 6, pp.361-441
(source: smartdevicefreeware.com)Mobile Video Blog can be defined as video blogging using a mobile device. The article discussed by Simmons (2008) stated that, "since the marriage of webcams and broadband, the videoblog has become a familiar sight.". However, these days people seemed to be leaving the webcams behind and start video blogging with mobile phones. Mobile video blogging is essentially easier because it is faster and more convenient, at anywhere and anytime.
Live Broadcast!Advanced mobile phones such as the LG's Viewty, Nokia N95 and Motorola Z10 include features such as video editing and audio mixing. Mobile bloggers can send their videos straight to the web after blogging and touching up the editing parts. Mobile video blog can be transformed into many different kinds of multimodality. Walsh (2006) defined multimodal texts as synchronisation of modes which are written or spoken language, still or moving images, they may be produced on paper or electronic screen and may incorporate music and sound. Mobile video blogging includes modes such as moving images and with spoken languages or without through mobile devices. Hence, mobile bloggers can send videos straight to the scene using MMS for smaller clips that are lesser than 30 seconds. For longer clips, mobile bloggers can eventually attach their videos to mobile e-mail service provider. Live broadcast or direct streaming is another activity in mobile video blogging. Simmons (2008) describes that once an application is downloaded, it is pretty simple to "go live". In another story, Hans Cronberg, Chief Technical Officer of Play Mobile in Poland describes that "videoblog is a new service, enabling Play subcribers with YouTube account to upload movie clips by making a 3G video phone call" (Wind Mobile). 
(source: Wind Mobile)My personal opinion:Blogging has becoming a daily life activity to most bloggers. Active bloggers blog daily to satisfy their readers. Some bloggers even took up blogging as a job in which they earn profits from it. With that, I strongly agree that mobile video blogging is a great idea for bloggers who blogs at anywhere and anytime. Trafford (2005) implies, "there are existing patterns of activity that ought to be very amendable to blogging, such as habit of Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging which can be any place, any time. Hence, in order to best realise working off site, the blogging was made mobile."
(source:Digital Tech News)References:- Walsh, M 2006, 'The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts', Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, No.1, pp.24-37.
YouTube is one of the new form of media publishing that allows users to express themselves freely through video postings. It is categorized as Vlog where videos blogging occurred in YouTube. YouTube was created in 2005 and it is a form of videosharing website where users can upload and share videos (Wikipedia, 2009). YouTube now has emerged 40 million videos ranging widely in any types. According to Cheng et. al. (2007), this great achievement not only lies on the content-rich videos but also most importantly, the establishment of social network.
YouTube can be formed into a semiotic system. According to Halliday et. al. (1985), a semiotic system can be formed by language and culture. Halliday (1985) explains again that language in unclear, and cannot be defined. Language can also constitute a human culture in which language is served to express. Hence, with the expression from a language, we can literally see the type of culture this language is.
In Malaysia, politician, Jeff Ooi is known for promoting his election campaigns. Hence, examples of videos will be uploaded on YouTube by MalaysiaKini. Based on the videos of his campaign, we can see that the language expressed by him is very much political and cultures surrounding him are full of positive environment.
(source: Youtube)
Issue with YouTube
However,Jones (2007), initiates that it is common to YouTube to experience copyright lawsuit and people tend to post videos without rights to do so. This is one issue that YouTube has always been facing due to its wide and rich video contents.
In fact, it is a copyright infringement for YouTube. According to O'Brien and Fitzgerald (2006), states that it is also neccesary to consider video sharing websites like YouTube can be held liable for authorising copyrihgt infringement through the content they provide.
Many issues have been raised up by YouTube, such as the political and legal issues. An example would be China banning its nation from watching Youtube. In March 2009, China banned YouTube usage to its nation because it carries negative messages and image of China as its soldiers beating up monks and other Tibetans. News about this issue can be read here.
Other new forms of Media Publishing
References:
Classification of Blogs
According to abc.net, Funnell (2008) discussed that there are 9 types of blogs classification such as pamphleteering, digest, advocacy, popular mechanics, exhibition, gate watcher, diary, advertisement and news blogs. In my own opinion, the most popular classification of blogs as discussed in abc.net would be the digest, diary, advertisements and news blogs. This is different as compared to Wikipedia as it classifies blogs through , status of publisher, genre, device and media type.
- Status of publisher: personal blogs or corporate blogs
- Genre: political, fashion, travel, project, personal, educational and etc.
- Device: By using mobile device that is called the moblog
- Media Type: vlog comprising of video, linklog comprising of links, sketchblog containing of portfolio of sketches, and photoblog which comprises of photos.
However, many blogs are combination of styles. This made identifying unique types difficult. Hence, comparisons between Wikipedia and abc.net could come up with a good conclusion on it. The 9 different blogs classification by abc.net can be illustrated in the types of blogs genre by Wikipedia. This can be looked into the style and format of blogs.
Krishnamurthy (2002) proposed a classification of blogs in four basic types, along with two dimensions which is personal vs. topical and individual vs. community in which looked into the audience of the blogs.
(source: www.ics.udi.edu)
Blogging Community
Blogging community can be defined as a group of similar interests people sharing their passion through a community. According to Kinkeldei (2007), blog communities has no borders that they are not bound by certain providers, country borders or age.
Creating a Blogging Community
- To create a blogging community can be done by simple bullet-lists of hyperlinks to article summaries with users provided comments and rating (Wikipedia, 2006).
- People post up comments on blogs and leave on their blog links will eventually create blogging community as well.
- Chin et al (2006) explains that this form of interconnections between different kinds of blogs will create a social hypertext that leads to hyperlink information and blogging community.
Types of Blogging Community
White (2006) illustrates that there are three forms of blog based community:
- Single Blog/Blogger Topic Community
- Central Connecting Topic Community
- Boundaried Community
Example of a Blogging CommunityOne of the example of blogging community that I am familiar with is BlogMalaysia.
BlogMalaysia is the Malaysia's Bloggers Directory which falls into the Boundaried Community. Bloggers in Malaysia are welcome to submit their blogs and advertise it to gain higher publicity worldwide.
References:
- Krishnamurthy, S 2002, 'The Multidimensionality of Blog Conversions', Internet Research 3.0, Maascricht, The Netherlands, viewed 13 June 2009
- Chin, A, Chignell, M 2006, 'A Social Hypertext Model for Finding Community in Blogs', viewed 13 June 2009
As we know, freedom of speech has been rampantly known these days. People blog to interact with others regarding their views on certain issues. According to Gumbrecht (2004), blogs are a communicative medium.
Blogging Phenomenon
Surveys done by Technorati (2008) implies that comScore MediaMetrix (August, 2008) allocated 77.7 million blog users in the U.S itself. Apart from that, eMarketer (May, 2008) has done research that 94.1 million U.S blog readers in 2007 and 22.6 million U.S bloggers. Lastly, Universal McCann (March, 2008) states that there are 184 million Worldwide users who started a blog, 346 million Worldwide users who read blogs and 77% of active internet users who read blogs. These researches have determined that there are more blog readers as compared to bloggers.
Blogging Trends in Europe, Asia and Malaysia
(source: Technorati, 2008)
Graph above showed that the North America region conquered the biggest blogging phenomenon globally with 48%, followed by Europe with 27%, Asia 13%, South America 7% and America 3%.
.jpg)
(source: Technorati, 2008)
The first table above showed that most bloggers in Asia are Male with 73%. Asian bloggers are more to younger generation where 1/5 are students aged 18-34. Research also showed that Asian blogger are most likely to blog about music and less about politics. Asian bloggers are also more concerned about their identity and they most prefer to blog to earn profits.
Hence, the 2nd table discussed about the European bloggers in which it concludes that there are more male bloggers than female bloggers. European bloggers blogged a lot about music and computer while they blogged lesser about personal musings and religion topics. 60% of European bloggers blog for fun and they focus less on monetization.
In Malaysia, the blogging trends are wide, such as personal, political, fashion, humor blogs and etc. Thus, according to sabahan.com, 28% of Malaysian bloggers write about personal stuff, 16% about political views and another 16% about the latest technology.
Benefits to the Community
In the economical factor, blogging is the latest form of money making platform. Many bloggers have started investing in blogshops selling apparels to electronic appliances. Besides that, blog advertising community such as Nuffnang, allows bloggers to register under them and earn profits through every clicks on the ads featured on their blogs. Influential blogger in Malaysia such as Kenny Sia earned thousands of dollars through blog adverts as compared to less influential bloggers who might earn 10 times lesser. Allen (2005) states that whilst most blogs earn in tens of dollar per month range, some of the more popular blogs reportedly earn thousands of dollars a month.
While in the political factor, politicians such as Lim Kit Siang and Jeff Ooi shared their political views with their readers. Hence, the community does not only reads the papers to know about the current politics situation but they are able to read it from blogs directly from the politicians.
Blogging helps interaction. Through blogging, bloggers and readers interact with each other by just posting comments and feedbacks. According to Perera (2008), blogging has contributed by creating a powerful online community.
References:
(source:viaterra.net)
.jpg)
