My Feeling towards Blogging

If somebody asks me, ‘Do you have a blog?’, I can answer confidently, ‘Yes!’. I don’t know why I’m so proud of having my own blog, maybe because I have my own space to share my thoughts to the whole world, and I feel so pleased when I received some comments from my classmates. I think this is why people love to continue writing their blogs. I’m glad that I have chosen this as my university language fulfilling course because I can have a taste of creating my own blogs, making the remix, videos and games. I think I would never learn this skill after my graduation (I’m already a final year student.) Learning how to write for the new media makes me feel that I seemed to know nothing before. But now, I’m confident to tell others I know something about blogging.

Evaluation of my best blog

In the following, I will use one bad example, “A Thoughtful Thought of Recent Talk”, and one best one, “Online Game, a Space?!”, to illustrate how I make my progress during the past six weeks.

In the “A Thoughtful Thought of Recent Talk”, as at that time, I was not so familiar with how to write a blog. I just wrote my reflections on the lecture, and came up with my views on the three areas, ‘multimodality’, ‘different types of layouts for certain kinds of web pages’, and ‘be critical for hyperlinks’. But after another lecture, I found that there were too many aspects, pictures, hypertexts, and words in one single post, which lost the focus.

I want to make an improvement! I want to avoid the above mistakes! And here is my best post: “Online Game, a Space?!” Why I choose this as my sample post because I think this topic is interesting to grab people’s attention. I've also applied the knowledge learnt during class, like participatory culture, online affinity space, externalities, social languages and online identity. I also avoid making the same mistakes, like last time. I think this is my best post after all.

For my first evaluation, I think ‘online game’ might somehow encourage people to continue reading my post as it’s not a too heavy topic and it’s quite interesting I guess, which can grab people’s attention, and I deliberately used some questions at the beginning to trigger people’s response. This time, I only focus on one particular topic, which is more focused and detailed. For my second point, I have applied the learnt knowledge in this blog. The most obvious one are participatory culture and online affinity spaces, because I want to share these two concepts to the online- game addicted. As what I think is you can know more about why you have such behavior, and not just only play the game. I tried to write in an informal way, so that my readers might not stop reading it because of the serious tone.

Another thing I've learnt is externalities, like the hypertexts and images. I didn't overuse them this time because I have learnt a lesson before. As a reader, too many external resources wouldn't help boost the quality of the blog, but really discourage him/her to click on them. Also, I have attributed the images to the origin, so that I will not infringe the copyright (I seemed to violate the law in my first entry.) Being too lengthy isn't good, as people are not expected to read thousands of words in a blog and this time I think it’s appropriate.

More than that, I have used some social languages, for example ‘haha~’ and all the short forms to lessen the seriousness of the tone. For the online identity, I think I have demonstrated as a student to share something I've learnt to the readers, but not like a lecture. It also shows that I’m a social science student as my blog’s format is probably like a research paper, like my research question: to examine why online game players are always being addicted, by illustrating the concepts and applying some examples.

My feeling towards blogging

I think it’s quite difficult to write a good blog because it’s hard to criticize the new media in a unique and interesting angle Therefore, we dare have to compete with others; otherwise no one would like to read your post as it’s so ordinary among all ordinary posts. More than that, how to write in a way to prompt readers to respond is a big question. I think your own popularity deserves much and I think the number of comments and views are somehow an indicator to reflect whether you have written a good blog or not.

My initial impression towards blogs is something like Xanga (I used it during my secondary school life to just record what I’d done during the day), which I think exactly is a ‘Hi Diary’ book, but in an electronic version. However, after six lectures of introducing what blogging is, I changed my mind of the concept of blogging, as blogs, including Xanga, are definitely much more than just a physical diary. They can be like feature articles or advertisements, as we can promote some products underneath, for example some tips of make-up (somehow these kind of sharing might be fake though). Besides, we can also express our thoughts on current news. But what is the difference between writing in the letter to the editor and blogs? Probably the tone should be softer in blogs because it should be so relaxing when reading blogs; people are not supposed to read a heavy piece.

What’s more? Giving feedback and receiving comments from others are very pleasurable because you know at least somebody is reading your blog and you don’t know where the power crops up to urge you continue writing your blogs. Being interactive is, therefore, the soul of blogging. The followings are some links that I have commented on my classmates’ blogs:

                                                                                                

Chan Chi Hin's blogs: my digital live 3, my digital life 4 and this is my blog

Connie Wong: digital life, commercials-attracting audience and Collaborative projects

Marques Fields: My digital life, skype and  Even Apple's not Perfect

Kelvin Fok: Urban Dictuionary, Internaet Privacy: Think before You Post,How Does Collaborative New Media Influence Journalism and A Period for this Blog Assignment

By the way, I love writing blogs as I can share what I love to my readers, and I feel more satisfied when I received people’s comments. Thanks for exploiting this space for all the people in the 21^st century to enjoy such ‘freedom of speech’, no matter who you are, which ethnic groups you belong to and which part of the world you are in.  Blogging! Hurray!

Online Game, a Space?!

Have you ever played any online games? Did you think you would be addicted before playing the game?

Before I started playing Restaurant City (a Facebook online game letting us run a virtual restaurant and to serve as many customers as possible), I thought playing online game was totally a waste of time, and I wondered why both of my nephews could stay in front of the screen for a whole day. Until I played Restaurant City, I knew the answer - now, I know the reasons why online games have such a mysterious power making everyone addicted like drugs and alcohol.

Participatory culture.

It’s a kind of informal mentorship that the experienced pass their knowledge to the less-experienced through non-face-to-face communication. It is just like a chatting channel like MSN for the players when playing the game or the knowledge is passed indirectly through making your creation in the game to serve as an example for other participants. You may ask -  why are there lots of fans playing the same game then?  I dare say, it is because of the magic of participatory culture, as you care about your own contribution and others' perception. In other words, you want to be the veteran in the game, showing other people your brilliant creation and teaching the inexperienced. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal, you'll unconsciously devote all your efforts to playing the game. Sooner or later, you become one of the 'gameholics'.

Online games are also a kind of space, known as 'online affinity spaces'. Why is it a space, not village or city?  This is because people can always come and leave anytime they want; there is no boundary among game participants, as Christoph said. This really inspires me as it tells the attitude of the players, including myself. People will gather in a particular virtual space in which everyone is sharing the same interest.  You just don't want to leave as you see tens of thousands of similar people like you.

To further explain why, I'm going to use my Restaurant City as an example. I played it because all of my friends (not necessarily all, but really a lot) played it and, when I saw they were in a very high level, I wanted to compete with them in order to become the 'mentor'. I don't want to be a novice while most of my friends are the experienced. This's of course the main driving force to keep me playing all the time. What is more, in order to become more experienced in the game, you have to cooperate with other players. I loved to seek help from others by sending my friends text messages via the chat box in the game or imitating others on how to allocate the tables in order to serve the maximum number of customers  After a week, I was able to steal somebody's coins as they forgot to put something behind their doors. (haha~I learnt this because I had been a victim) By the way, I have played it for three months and why I left was because most of my friends left, I was no longer interested in playing it afterwards.

                                                                               From isheat.com

 

                                                            From Rockfu.net

I remembered I've played 'It Girls' also, a Facebook online game that allows 'you' to dress in different clothes and battle with other girls.  But this experience was very different from playing Restaurant City. I just played for a few days because my friends no longer played it. I couldn't seek help from them and I really didn't know how to play. I gave up finally.

                                                                    From www.xzjpzx.com

                                                                                   From vator.tv

What I think is that it's so essential to have the social connection in the virtual life (in the real life as well in fact), not only seeking help from others, you'll also build your passion in a particular space, and gradually you'll be addicted to it until you found it boring or until most of your friends stop playing it.

Participatory culture and online affinity spaces can thoroughly describe and explain why we'll become addicted. It's not only for the purpose of being entertained, but more than that, our social networking.

What’s the meaning of YouTube?

A mixed word of “You” and “Tube”? It’s more than that.

It’s a channel for all of you to share your own clips. Wait! Still more than that.

It’s a cluster of Wikipedia, blogs, news report, TV drama and whatever clips you can think of. Why? Like Wikipedia, but it teaches you through videos, for example, how to use certain software and recognize different accents. It’s also like a blog, because we can leave comments, share other blogs or videos, and form a seemingly conversation. We can find news report, either funny or serious one. Hey! You’re not only the recipient, but you can be proactive: upload your own clips to this “free zone”!!!!!

(Is it really free? Worth discussing.)

You can even make your own channel. Like my friend’s channel: thehongkongshow’s channel, to show your interest to everyone in the world. It functions like Wiki, a tourist guide to let others know more about Hong Kong. Truseneye92 is another channel that I like most, because I can learn and imitate different accents from different part of the world. They are entertaining and fantastic!!!! Some of them are in serious tone, like BarackObama.com, talking about the political views of President Obama (though they are carefully filmed). Through these examples, it is clearly to identify what kind of person you want to present to us.

Thanks Arland!!! He is tasting different types of HK strange food!!!

P.S. the one next to him is my Boyfriend :D

The big controversy about YouTube is maybe the control of sexual and violent sources. It’s hard to deal with, though you have to sign in first and there is a warning on top of the videos:

Warning: This article contains material which may offend and may not be distributed, circulated, sold, hired, given, lent, shown, played or projected to a person under the age of 18 years.

Is it enough??? A person under the age of 18 really won’t watch them???

What else? Copyright. Some people just think it is a free public zone and upload some copyright clips. They can definitely get attention because people want to watch them free of charge, like the Korean drama series and the MTV. But these infringe copyright definitely.

What I think why it names as “You” and “Tube” is for your original work: you share your own clips to this free public zone, not upload the copyright one. This is the essence of YouTube. So, I think when you click the “upload” button on YouTube, think about its name “You” “Tube”, whether the uploaded clip is your original work or something with copyright. 

My favourite: The English Language in 30 accents!!!! So funny!!!LOL

Thoughtful Thought of Recent Talk

Multimodality boosts credibility?!

After the lecture, I was thinking about the word “multimodal” and trying to link it with the information I’ve heard on the radio that morning. The DJ said in these days, all the text had to be integrated with pictures and videos, otherwise, there is no news. He used a secret video of Romney, Republican presidential candidate, as an example to show that the ‘conviction’ was simply non-defendable by Romney. Imagine if there was only text supporting the news, the news could not be a scandal at all, as not many people would believe it as it’s been.

The tricky thing was that at the same time, a historian from Harvard found a passage showing that Jesus had a wife and people were debating over it, or even trying to use it as a legitimate reason for priests to get married. This really shows the contradictory picture- only text, not multimodal- can create more rows. So, I believe that multimodal representations are far better than just dull text because it can, of course, increase the credibility, but also can intrigue all readers to read through your whole passage – is that your ultimate goal?

What do you think about multimodality, or you just want to read the text instead, to grab the main idea without any room for ‘imagination’, given by videos and images?

Maybe the smartest answer is “It Depends”.

Without video and image support, do you think Gangnam Style can 

be that well-known overseas, and even have lots of remix versions?

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Specific Layouts for certain types of Sites?!

‘Different layouts convey different meanings,’ said Christoph. I was surprised that there are different names and types of layouts – what is more surprising is that different types of websites use different types of layouts.

The most frequently-browsed website of mine must be Google. In fact, it seems to have the most complex layout compared to others, because it is centre-margin dominated, but clusters with left-right (Search, Images, Maps and so forth) and top-bottom (the search engine separating the top and bottom). The trickiest thing is that most search engines choose this type of layout, like Bing and Baidu (maybe they just copy Google, who knows.)

The top-down layout is so common among all extravagant fashion labels, like Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Gucci.

‘Shopping For Labels, Shopping For Love…’

It really only appears on those big brand names? Maybe the so-called relatively lower class labels, like Bossini and Uniquo, are using this type, but maybe so much information is on top that blurs readers’ eyes. Personally, I do love the websites of ‘Extravaganza’s brand names’ because they are so elegant and grand. This is truly a type of layout that can catch readers’ eyeballs. Maybe those relatively lower class labels can imitate this type of layout to attract more customers.

The typical left-right layout always pops up on the ‘log on’ page of your emails. Have you ever noticed it? No matter what accounts you are using, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail or whatever mail, you can find this type of layout. Maybe some experts have found some clues that people are get used to this type of layout for logging on their emails.  

It’s so interesting to find out they are all using the same type of layout, but is it possible to interchange their typical layouts? Let’s say, Louis Vuitton is using the centre-margin one, while Google is using the left-right one only.

Will we get lost??!!!! I think it is still possible for us to navigate, maybe.

An innovative blog's layout is like classic newspaper.

to see more innovative blogs' layouts: click here

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“Be Critical!” Hypertext said.

I’ve learned that there are various internal and external organizations on a web page, like hierarchical, hypertextual and linear structures. And what I am surprised is that most of the websites of newspapers’ organizations, like SCMP, have mixed all these various types with external links, like ‘people may also read’.  There is also a ‘Comment’ box for all the readers to type what they feel about the current issue, which is really amazing as it’s no longer one-way, but two-way communication between the writers and readers. What a fascinating deed NEW MEDIA can make!!!!!

Although hypertext can guide us to explore more, it has its own bias that readers should pay attention to. This is also what I was inspired a lot throughout the lecture-criticism on hypertext. Like the example of Diaoyu Islands, it’s interesting to find out that the position of a well-known online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is pro-Japan, as it deliberately named the Islands as Senkaku Islands, and when I flipped through the references below, most of them are in the US and Japan’s perspectives. But ironically, if it is in Chinese, it will say as ‘Diaoyu Islands’. That’s the trickiest thing.

What I’ve learned is “Be Critical”!! No matter how the hypertext links you to whatever websites, “Be Critical” of every simple click on the blue text, otherwise, you’ll be trapped, misguided, confused and bamboozled.   

                                   To know more about criticism of hypertext: click here 

My digital life – Facebook links you, changes you and shapes you

Do you think Facebook is an incredible invention in the 21^st century?

Facebook, agree or not, is like drugs or alcohol that you will soon be addicted to it - think about what you'd do every time when you are doing the reading. You'll uncontrollably scroll the Facebook homepage to refresh and to know what is happening among your friends. It seems meaningless, but it really works to refresh your brain and give you energy.

Why is Facebook that tempting? Linking you is one of the reasons. I mean, for example, we always love to ‘add’ our primary school classmates as ‘friends’ because we want to know what's happened to them, like whether they have changed their status to ‘in a relationship’ or ‘married’, though we have never ever talked or even ‘chatted' on Facebook. But I think it’s really a fantastic way to keep ‘contact’ with those ‘friends’ or you can say 'acquaintances' (In fact, FB added this category few months ago.) Like, I have a primary school friend, who was just married to her Taiwanese fiancé in Hawaii, and two of my primary school classmates became couple!! You can see how amazing Facebook is!!!

Facebook does change you. It changes not only the way you talk to you friends, like Facebook messages, and writing on your friends’ walls, but also your mind - say, when there is current news that influences us a lot, a lot of ‘friends’ would post it on their walls and the posts turn out to be on ‘News Feed’. When you roll down the scroll bar, you'll definitely wonder why so many friends of yours post the same news. You don’t know what force drives you, but hey, you'd ultimately read it. I always think that is the most powerful magic that Facebook contains; that’s why a lot of politicians love to use Facebook to contact their supporters. I'm one of them - I have also subscribed Claudia Mo’s Facebook to keep myself updated to her most recent posts, because I think her political views are so similar to mine, and this definitely will change my perception of local, Hongkongers issues, like the recent national education dispute. Facebook, therefore, I think is a marvelous tool for all the ordinary people, like you and me, to changes others' minds.

Facebook shapes you. Your cover and profile pictures, your chosen uploaded photos, the information that can be 'seen' by everybody and the privacy setting can definitely reflect you. Not just the information you wrote on the 'information' page literally, but the way do you perceive privacy issue and how many 'friends' you have also tell something about your personality, that you might be unconscious of. And that's exactly what I want to show the power of Facebook and why people are always addicted to it.

Facebook is really a brilliant invention in the 21st century for all people to share their own thoughts to everybody without geographic and time constraints, like you work as a journalist. If you don't buy my idea, think about the pictures shared asking for donation and help, or even just an emotional picture of a white guy trying to feed a physically disabled yellow stranger. For most of the time, it helped the dying people to find their loved and lost ones; it helped the fragile one to get money donation or organs; and it triggered our indifferent attitudes towards the needy. Are these the things that we could do in the past?

Facebook, of course, is one of the media we get used to, but there are a lot of new media facilitating communication we have not been familiar with, like digital game and digital video. I felt so excited and curious when I first knew that I could learn how to communicate with others using such innovative way. I think I can learn how to write in such specific genre creatively, so that I can appeal to many players and audience (at least they won’t feel confused or frustrated with what I wrote :P). Writing in a more creative and emotional way to the new media, therefore, is what I indeed want to learn in this course.

To know more about my interest:

 http://www.scmp.com/photos/recent/all/1029076

Community of Equality

Do you know more about me? Can you guess what my major is ?

Yes! Bingo!!! I'm a social science student!!! :)))

     

Hi Dear~

It's my first time to have a blog here. It's so exciting to write a blog to share my interests and viewpoints of new media. I am not so familiar with blogging. See how I can be familiar with it later!!! :)