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