FINAL BLOGGG

Throughout the past few weeks I have truly learned quite a bit about the internet. I learned of a few new websites and learned different ways people can communicate online. We used Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Wikispaces, YouTube, Flickr, Podcast, and RSS feeds. I was familiar with only two of these prior to this class, Facebook and YouTube. The other 7 medias we learned about we completely new to me. But I'm glad I took this class because now I know these websites and understand how important online social communication can be. Though all of the media's are similar in their purpose (online social media's), they all differ in how they're used and how you can communicate to others. Facebook and Twitter both serve as media's that allow you to connect with your friends on the daily. Facebook is a little more in depth with likes, the complexity of the profiles and the ability to communicate (Twitter only allows 140 characters max per post). YouTube and Flickr are also social medias like Facebook and Twitter, except completely different. YouTube and Flickr are more of something you post that gets shared with the world instead of just your friends list. YouTube shares videos and Flickr shares pictures. People are able to comment on both websites to share their opinion on the videos and pictures. These websites aren't designed for the same social activity like Facebook and Twitter though. It's more of a sharing your opinion thing.
Blogging also relates to these as it's a social media tool. Blogging is becoming ever more popular online with the average user. It allows you to see what people have to say on different topics, compared to getting information straight from the source. People can blog about anything. What I like to use it for is checking out golf clubs I'm looking to buy. Looking up blogs about what people have to say about golf clubs is certainly helpful when I'm looking to buy a new one. Podcast is similar to blogging except for the video aspect. Podcast allows users to see all of the same topics or items in one particular place, sometimes with video. I learned a little about this at work because we use podcast to talk with other hospitals across the state via video. But this class definitely thought me more about podcast like the ones that iTunes has. It's pretty neat to have all similar songs in a free downloadable podcast on iTunes, I even starting using them.
Wikispaces were new, but relatable for me. They are mini Wikipedia pages so I could relate to that aspect of it. But making my own pages, instead of viewing everyone else's on Wikipedia, was definitely different. The biggest part of the wiki that I concentrated on was just making it easy to navigate and understand. No one wants to find a website that they can't navigate and don't know where to look for certain things they need. After spending quite some time on the wiki, I think Corey and I, Corey being my partner, did pretty well. I kind of liked the assignment of making basically your own webpage. I liked it much better than having an assignment with the same criteria but making a PowerPoint. I feel the Wiki is easier to understand and over just a better presentation of material.
In this class we also learned about RSS feeds. This makes checking for updates on all social media tools easier. It's a website that is able to link to all social media's to let you know when you get a comment, post, tweet, or anything of that nature. It's definitely helpful to have an RSS feed when using multiple social media's because it just saves you time from checking all the websites to see if anything has happened since last checked. It's basically a one stop shop news feed that is extremely helpful and efficient for avid social net-workers.
As for which social media I would be most helpful professionally, I would have to say podcast. This may be a bit biased because I do use it for work, but I'm sticking with it. At my work we use podcast to communicate with other hospitals once a month via video. It's extremely helpful to the hospitals because we don't have to all travel to one place to converse. We all sit in a room with a video camera capturing us while looking at a screen of people from another hospital doing the same thing. But because we do this as a group at the pharmacy, I believe that I will probably use it in the future to do the same thing, just hopefully I'm a pharmacist then. I also know that I will undoubtedly keep using Facebook and YouTube for time that should be spent doing more productive things. They are the two biggest reasons I procrastinate online, but as long as it doesn't get out of control, it shouldn't really be a problem.
If I were to give advice on improvements for this class, I would definitely keep all of the social medias involved. Learning about all of these new online medias really gives an understanding of how powerful of a source the internet can be. If anything, I would say learning about a few more media's wouldn't hurt either. For instance, at the hospital we use "Linked" sometimes for blogging. I think the more online social medias a student can learn about the better. At least when they're asked to use one for a class, like the new blogs and wikis you were talking about on blackboard, they will know exactly what to do. I would definitely create a Facebook page and invite students too. It's almost guaranteed they're going to visit their Facebook page at least once a day, so if there are any notifications for the class, they will be seen.
Overall I am very glad I decided to take this course, and had the opportunity to take it (wasn't sure for a while lol). It frees up classes for me this fall with my golf schedule which is huge. Plus it gave me a lot more knowledge about the web that I never knew before. I think more UNE classes should start being more active online using some of these social medias we used. They're not to hard to communicate to others with and they can make things much more efficient. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to take this course Bistra, I really did learn quite a bit more than I had expected to coming into the class. See you at UNE in another week!

YouTube vs Flickr

YouTube Video

This is one of my favorite videos to watch. I wasn't able to see the shot live of TV, but I heard about it and was able to look it up on YouTube shortly after and saw it posted. This shot that Fuzzy Zoeller hit may be the most bizarre shot ever to happen in golf. It's absolutely crazy, you gotta check it out. The commentators great because he's saying that it's not a very good shot, and then all of a sudden, the ball starts moving and turns out pretty good. And this video is not fake! even though it may seem hard to believe. As for the comments on this video there were a few that turned me off. As I've come to find out on YouTube, people seem to like to start fights over comments on videos. It's definitely a lot more common that I would have assumed. But when I'm looking at video's on YouTube during leisure time, the comments don't really change my opinion on the video. But they are kind of funny to read sometimes during the videos.

Flickr Picture

This is a picture of hole 17 at TPC Sawgrass. It's a famous golf hole because it's an island green surrounded by water and is pretty tough. It's always fun to watch players hit to this hole because it's toward the end of their round it can really make or break their round, especially if they end up hitting it in the water. The owner of the picture on Flickr actually disabled sharing for the picture so I just google'd it and uploaded it instead. I added it to my favorites though if anyone wants to check it out on Flickr. As for the comments, they were much different than YouTube comments. They were actually all positive comments (lol). The people who commented all liked the picture and had nothing but good things to say.

The difference between the comments on YouTube and Flickr, I believe, is the popularity of the websites and the motives to view the videos or pictures. YouTube probably has more viewers than Flickr to give bad reviews but the motives are probably more influential. People search a keyword on Flickr with intention to see something they like and most likely already know what it looks like. They just want to see a picture of it, so when they do see it, they have no reason to not like it. This differs from YouTube because though we do search with keywords on YouTube, people may not like a video because they may think the "actors" didn't do a good job or don't fully correspond to the topic.  Compared to Flickr which you can't really screw up as much, YouTube videos can have many interpretations and ideas for the same topic.

Personally I enjoy YouTube more. I like to look up videos  from time to time, like Dom Mazzetti videos (lol). I also listen to music on YouTube all the time. The only time I look up pictures is when I want to change my background display on my computer; which is not very often. I just personally don't want to spend my time looking at pictures online, that's all. But the sites are very similar. The accounts you are able to create allow you to set your uploads and favorites on your own personal homepage which is cool.Also, I've noticed that all sites are moving to becoming more socially interactive by allowing users to share something on their site with another social media site, like Facebook or Myspace. Pretty much every social media site seems to want you to connect with every other social media website, it's sort of interesting. It's like free advertising for these websites. Not sure if I'll use Flickr in the future, but I know for sure I'll continue to use YouTube.

Podcasttt