Final Blog Post

This semester upon entering the commenting culture of journalism has led to many ups and downs. I had trouble getting through to radio stations and posting things onto the internet, but eventually after tweaking some settings most would eventually work. I enjoyed doing the little assignments such as adding to the Wikipedia page (even though my post got removed after a couple hours) and contributing to Yelp.com. Those were the posts that I felt like I was really diving into the commenting culture and adding my voice. I like knowing that I gave positive feedback to where it is deserved and to a business that does a good job with customer service and helping them attract more customers.

The big projects weren't always a success, yet they did give me a firsthand glimpse into the world of commenting and viewer feedback. The first project, "Letters to the Editor," was my favorite. Although none of my letters were printed, at least to my knowledge, I enjoyed voicing my opinions and sending them in with the tantalizing expectation that they may be printed and that other readers could read what I have to say and that they might agree with me. For this project I tried to change my voice, depending on what publication I was sending it in to, and what topic I was writing about. This project was a high moment for me during this semester.

The second project, "Calling In," was perhaps my most frustrating moment during this semester. I would try to get on and then wait, and being an impatient person, that did not go over well with me. Finally, when I did get on with "Matty in the Morning," I either got hung up on or disconnected and after that I admit I did lose my enthusiasm for getting on to talk radio. However, I can say that as a listener I do enjoy when other people are able to get on and offer their opinion or request.

The third project I thought was fun, and a bit frustrating. I can say that Pictory.com is a frustrating website and I will probably never use it again. I ended up using youtube.com and this finally worked once I had a camera that I could upload a video with, since youtube.com wouldn’t accept any videos that I already had on my phone. Unfortunately, I did not receive very many comments on this video as I would have liked, and I think that unless you have a very popular video with a specific title it can be hard to draw in commenter’s.

Overall, I enjoyed the commenting experience and I will continue to be a commenter because I feel that it is important for people to comment on stories and videos that they find intriguing or worthwhile. People can comment and add to the interest of any story.

Third Project

I am having some trouble either finding a video that will be accepted by youtube.com or finding a picture that has enough pixels for pictory.com. I first tried to make a slide show off of a separate website that I could upload to youtube of a Coldplay concert that I was able to get great close-up pictures from. However, that website ended up wanting to charge me 50 dollars after I created the slides how. After that I turned my attention to pictory.com and tried to upload a picture from the same concert. The first setting that I chose to try and upload a picture to was the phoot camp 2011, however, that one didn't work. Then I tried the setting local legends and that one said that my picture would be accepted because it wasn't 1000 pixels wide. Then I tried to email two videos of my dog after a bath from my phone to my student email address and then try and upload it to youtube.com. However, neither one of the video URL's were accepted by youtube.com, so now I think I'm going to have to try and take a video from my camera and then try those to upload to youtube.com.

I was finally able to upload a video that youtube.com would accept and here it is! This is my roommates dog who has come up to visit for the week. She is sore from all the playing and swimming that she has been doing this week but gives it her best to do the tricks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_14Fej37d0

Here is the picture that I was trying to upload to pictory but it wouldnt be accepted...

Yelp Blog

Here are the two links to my reviews:

1) http://www.yelp.com/review_share/o0TAwpCisYySjkIEn9iJvQ/review/ERAPD2w8YTbeXvKioB_TVg?fsid=5ZvElwyw15e0DM5igAJJMw

2) http://www.yelp.com/review_share/YI4U5Qew95gxkbs_RjO89g/review/77c3k9tkRTcJ5ZNSa5MHFg?fsid=tYRR1a5PF2A8-of9lwj1gA

I wrote a review for two places within Amherst, Ma. I thought that the experience of writing a review was easy and not difficult at all. I actually enjoyed writing the reviews. I liked being able to say whether I liked something or I didn't like something. I was able to tell the public whether or not a restaurant/ clothing store is worth while or whether its expensive and what the parking is like. I chose to write two positive reviews about places that I have recently discovered due to my friends or other online reviews. I thought that other people should be exposed to theses places because they are fun to go to and a great way to spend an afternoon or night.

Digg Blog Post

When interacting on the website Digg.com I would look at the recently posted links and either contribute to the up- voting or down -voting of the links that people put up. I noticed that certain themes and other types of links would get the most comments. They were not necessarily the best, most interesting links; they could have been silly, miscellaneous links that did not seem to have any true value. Those types of links seemed to have a lot of comments. However, I also noticed that some of the links that are political or have to do with politics would attract a lot of attention as well. The comments left on these posts would range from a highly educated person who you could tell researched the facts about the link and added an informative comment to the link. However, there were also the posts from the people who would take the link as a personal attack towards their political views and would then write a personal attacking comment back on the link. I never really found a story that grabbed my attention. I would browse for a while and look in the entertainment section to see if I found something that appealed to what I would like to read about, and sometimes I did see something that I wanted to read but mostly I would see links such as the "top 25 best scenes from a movie" and while those are fun to read they can only hold their appeal for so long. I also noticed that links that had a certain city or banning of an item would also get a lot of comments. I think that people wanted to voice their opinions if they were from that area or if the ban or stopping of something would affect them. The commenter’s wanted their opinions to be heard and they figured the best way to do it would be to comment on a link.

HW Post 4/6/11

A new video that has recently gone viral is the video of the twin baby boys who are having what appears to be a full conversation between them. They seem to completely understand what the other one is saying and they use similar mannerisms that adults use when having a conversation with a peer.  I wouldn’t necessarily consider this video content "compelling," however; it is hard to find a hard hitting news youtube video, considering most people put up videos purely for entertainment value. Nevertheless, I will say that the content in this video is adorable and I believe that that is the main reason as to why it went viral and became as popular as it did so quickly. I also think that it went viral because of the maturity that the babies seem to show, and the way that they are acting as though they are having a conversation that only they can understand. Society seems to have a strong interest in cute kid/babies doing things that are either funny or weird, since children are so innocent that they can be funny and cute without intentionally trying to do so. I think that people can become entertained by videos that get them to laugh and two babies having a conversation definitely can do that.

HW Richi Jennings

After reading the story of anonymity on the internet, I felt that a person doesn’t have to stay anonymous. If someone had an important note or comment to say but they don’t want to reveal their identity then they should be able to use a different name or user name in order to feel secure about posting online. I also liked the way that he put the story together by taking different links and posts by online contributors.  He did not take it upon himself to tell the story, and say whether or not anonymity is okay or not. He used other people and their thoughts in order to tell the story, which makes the different arguments more authentic because it takes the opinions of real people who may or may not want to be anonymous online. I also like how there was a video incorporated into the story because it offers different media into the story telling. Although stories want to provide the facts, they also want to be visually interesting so people will read them and this video offers that. Regardless, if people believe that anonymity is bad or good, the option should always be available.

HW Flickr Pictures

I chose the Flickr pictures that cover a St. Patrick’s Day parade http://www.flickr.com/photos/blmiers2/111693966/in/photostream/. This Flickr page tells a story of a community coming together to celebrate the Irish holiday. It didn’t matter if someone wasn’t Irish, or 100 percent Irish, it is a day when people get together to enjoy the weather and drink a couple of beers. I thought that this Flickr helped tell a story of an event because the photographer took pictures of the parade, which was the event and he took them of the progression of the parade. If the photographer had just taken pictures of the people he was sitting with, such as his friends or family then it wouldn’t be telling the story of an event. However, because the photographer took pictures of the actual progression of the parade then he is telling the story of the parade through his photographs. He also took pictures of the people watching the parade because they were a part of the story and the event. I think that the strengths of this Flickr story are that he took a wide range of pictures, and was able to capture the faces and expression of the people watching the parade and the people in the parade. However, I think that the weakness of his photography was that he seemed to stay in one place during his picture taking. The story telling would have been more effective if he had moved around the parade and captured different moments of the parade in different areas. I also think that the limited amount of pictures that he chose to take was also a negative part of his story telling.