Tuesday 28 August 2012

DGTL12002 Week 6

discuss why you might or why you might not make such a foaf file available to the world at large?

Umm after considering this I would not personally provide a foaf file to the world. Mostly because I am pretty big on privacy and security. You might argue that it only provides simple things such as my name or email address, but quite frankly with the amount of geniuses in the world now, who is to say that someone can't just come along and collect all my information from the data he can collect from a foaf file.

Now unbiasedly speaking there are many pros and cons to a foaf file.
Pros would work on that fact it would make networking with people with common interests or activities so much easier.
Data collection of clients for specific webpages would be very simple.

But it just feel cons could outway the pros.
Cons would be, any data you wouldn't know about could be stored within your foaf file.
People could easily find out your personal information regarding your full name, email, friends and even online activities. If that doesn't scream security warning then I don't know what does. I don't want any raggamuffin being able to spam my email inbox consistently just because I let a file put out my email address, or have my friends harrassed or stalked also.

I see the big idea behind this, but i still feel that people would use the net with their security still in mind. The Internet is open to everyone.

DGTL12002 Week 5

 Wellll our topic this week is the awesomeness of embedding google map locations in blogs or on websites :)


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DGTL12002 Week 4

http://oneframeoffame.com/  
whether or not you think this is innovative in terms of
social media, produsage and crowdsourcing.


Whether I think this is innovative? This is one of the most amazing social experiments I've ever seen!
People are going to come across this site and be like, 'you want me to be in your video and the only effort I have to put in is pose for a picture? SURE!'
This is the definition of crowd-sourcing. They are creating something amazing from the input of the society that visits this site.This is social media at it's finest.

This is extremely innovative in terms of social media, because who is gonna come across a project like this and pass it down? If i wasn't in my pajamas right now I would be setting up my webcam and posing for the camera to.

The innovation comes from them exploiting the simple human desire to want to be part of something important. It feeds on the fact that people are gonna see this and think 'sure I want to have my picture forever preserved within your music video, I might even be able to impress my friends.' It uses basic human desire to drive interest for itself. The only thing they would have to do is get the project heard about, once people knew about it, interest would skyrocket as word got around.

DGTL12002 Week 3

Best job in the world - Reviewing the interactivity.

The 'Best job in the world' campaign garnered so much more interest than I think anyone could of imagined. People from every country in the world turned to their cameras to record their 'application'.

With so many people focused on one topic at a time this produced a lot of interactivity throughout the world.
Not only in an online environment but in real world environments too. People where chatting about it at work and with their friends for starters. Online thou millions of people were getting interested.
People were creating their videos and uploading them. People were then commenting on those videos and creating their own responses. People were sharing their favorite applicants on their Facebook pages and so much attention was given that the topic soon spilled over onto the news.

Thousands of people, many of them never having much to do with computers, then saw this over the news and turned their attention to the computers. The news had began broadcasting issues usually only prevalent to the online community to people who, whilst loving the news, had never known much of the internet. It had brought in a new interest for thousands of people.

More people were making these 'application' videos, and people were making blogs and discussion videos and interacting with thousands of other people who were interested in the topic all through the internet.


Monday 27 August 2012

DGTL12002 Week 2

Reputation and User Interface and Customisation

When it comes to the reputation of the users on Facebook, that really comes down to how involved in the sight you really are. When you are just sticking to your own crowd and people you know, you'd probably think the reputation of Facebook is just great! But if you delve deeper into the world of Facebook, and start looking into the user run groups and pages that are everywhere, your thoughts may quickly change.

Most general users on Facebook ARE great, they have excellent internet practices, stay secure and treat everyone with the same respect you'd give in a real world situation.
But then there are those few that just want to watch the world burn. They are everywhere in life, but the anonymity that Facebook grants to people running groups and pages, allow these people full reign without them coping any personal flack from users who are offended or disgusted by their pages.
There are many Hate groups and Pages specifically aimed at displaying pornographic images throughout, and this is disturbing when you consider that children as young as ten can easily create and use their own Facebook pages.

On this matter thou Facebook is it's own undoing, especially with Hate pages. These is a report function to report matters such as this to Facebook moderators, but unless the Hate or discrimination or whatever is aimed directly at you, Facebook will do no more than give you a spiel about freedom of expression and ask you if you would like to block the page, whilst still leaving it out there to spread it's nastiness to the world.


When it's comes to user interface and customization, Facebook has always been in the limelight of controversy. The populous of users seem to dislike Facebook's constant re-designing of it's user interface, and with every update, they cop a lot of flack from the general consensus.

When you think about it thou, without Facebook's constant redesigning and updating, the site would quickly become boring and would even eventually effect it's useability, with the web being able to support faster, better layouts but with Facebook trailing behind with outdated and even unsupported formats.

Personal Customization wise, you can't do much, bar change your profile picture, and your cover photo if you use the new Timeline layout. This lack of user customization should not be viewed as a bad thing thou. At the top of it, it's cuts out competition between users to have the coolest looking page, and with the constant and consistent loading of code from page to page, the site runs smoothly and never encounters any problematic user code, a problem which MySpace dealt with infinitely.

DGTL12002 Week 1


Choose a social media site that you are a member of and say why you engage with it and what you get out of it.

The social media site I chose was Facebook, primarily because it is the one site I interact with day in and day out without fail. I originally joined Facebook as it seemed that everyone was moving there from MySpace, so, frustrated at how difficult MySpace was to customize and control, I moved on with the crowd and joined up to Facebook.
I was greeted with the now familiar white and blue interface and while at first I was annoyed at the lack of customization, I soon reveled in the fact that I could go to a friends page without getting jealous of their theme or their layout and then try hopelessly trying to customize my own to be just as 'cool' as theirs.

Within a short time everyone was using Facebook, and this meant I no longer had to go to MySpace to talk to all of my online friends. 
I continue to this day to engage on Facebook because strangely enough, knowing what everyone else has to say, even if it's annoying or boring, becomes addictive.

It comes with it's perks as well. Many of my friends have moved away, and Facebook is excellent for keeping in touch with them on a day to day basis. I can easily go to their wall and post a picture, or send a private message directly to their inbox . I can tag them in statuses and engage with them in the chat. In short, I can continue interacting with them in a close way even thou they now live miles away. 

I've also gained networking benefits from using Facebook. Being able to find others with similar interests to my own has been extremely beneficial. I have made new friends I never would have made without Facebook, and have even scored the odd job or two here and there, just for being able to get in contact with the right people. 

I will definitely continue to use Facebook, because while you do get the scum of the earth on there occasionally, it is almost too simple to delete and block them from your life for good. :)