Our Digital World I (TIDE 105.01)
Blogs, wikis, and torrents, oh my!
Social technology aka Web 2.0

Day 2. Do-it-yourself authoring: text, photography, audio, video

  1. Do-it-yourself authoring: introduction
    1. In this class, we will talk about the production of content by people who are not necessarily trained to do it, people like you or me, as opposed to journalists.
  2. Do-it-yourself authoring: text
    1. Learn about blogs by induction, first example
      1. Check out three sites that belong to a student of mine named Sunny.
        1. FaceBook
        2. Xanga
        3. MySpace
      2. Now think about what you have seen, by answering the following questions. (We will discuss them in class)
        • What information is the same on each site?
        • What information is different?
        • Does your sense of Sunny change across the three sites?
        • If it does, is it because she presents different information about herself on each site, or because of the way in which her information is presented?
    2. Learn about blogs by induction, second example
      1. Check out my sites
      2. Now think about what you have seen, by answering the following questions. (We will discuss them in class)
        • How are they different?
        • What is the goal of each one?
        • What is the audience for each one?
    3. Learn about blogs by deduction: Are any of Sunny's sites a blog?
      • What is a blog?
        • "Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site." (ref) Check out other definitions here.
        • blogs - a short history by Anton Zuiker
    4. Learn about blogs by doing: Start your own blog, if you do not already have one.
      1. How to start your own blog.
        • Find a free blogging service, such as Blogger (LiveJournal is another possibility)
        • Register a catchy yet philosophically deep name for your new blog: "lifesucks"; "All Things Me"; "Lifehacker"; "Playing With Matches"; "The Internet Slacker", "I Stalk David Hasselhoff".
        • Consider one of the many pre-made website templates offered by the blogging service, or one created by you.
        • Turn your nose up in disgust at the thought of using a pre-made template for your blog.
        • see How To Start Your Very Own Blog In Fifty-One Easy Steps! for more.
      2. Be sure to add syndication to your blog, though we will not look at this immediately. It should be part of the set-up process, but ...
        • Blogger explains how to do this on its help page for Syndication, especially the item called "How do I change my site feed settings?".
        • LiveJournal explains it on its feature page, under the heading "Interoperability" at the link for "RSS feed".
      3. Since you have not been at Tulane long, it would be natural for you to write about your reactions to Tulane and New Orleans.
      4. Post the address of your blog on our FaceBook group, so we can all read it.
      5. Current blogs
        1. Barrett Robin
          1. Xanga
          2. Myspace
          3. high school
        2. Alicia Zimmerman
          1. LiveJournal
          2. myspace
        3. Oded Nissim
        4. Scott Berger
        5. Leah Hermes
        6. Michael McMahon
        7. Annie Herold
        8. Bud Holland
        9. Justin Lacombe
    5. Reactions
      1. Times-Picayune "Social Internet sites: Use with care"
      2. Chronicle of Highe Education "E-Mail is for Old People"
  3. Do-it-yourself authoring: photographs
    1. There's not much to say about this
    2. Post a photo or two to Flickr
  4. Do-it-yourself authoring: voice and image
    1. Pod-casting versus web-casting
      1. Pod-casting is the downloading of a file to your computer, while web-casting is the streaming of a file to your computer. The difference is that at the end of a podcast download, you have a file that you can do something with (like transfer to your iPod), while at the end of a webcast, you do not. Please be aware that not everyone makes the distinction this simple.
      2. What you need to listen to a podcast
        1. By far the best free "podcatcher" is Apple's iTunes.
      3. What you need to listen to a webcast. A webcast is usually formatted for just one of these:
        1. iTunes can play streaming media; so can RealPlayer and Windows Media Player.
        2. FlashPlayer is a browser plugin which about 99% of the world already has installed.
    2. Voice/audio
      1. Learn about audio pod- and web-casting by induction
    3. Image/video
      1. Learn about video pod- and web-casting by induction
        1. Watch Bill Joy talk about The Six Faces of the Web (webcast: Flash7 through your browser) [Note that the content is not directly relevant to this class, though I hope you will find it thought-provoking.]
        2. Look through Berkeley's webcast catalog, though are many (audio) podcasts mixed in.
        3. Watch ABC's nightly webcast, which is pretty cool, though I can't figure out what player it uses.
        4. Just in case you thought I forgot about the do-it-yourself aspect of this topic, open iTunes, choose 'Podcasts' on the left, choose 'Podcast Directory' down at the bottom, scroll down to 'Wine, Beer, and Mixology' and choose 'Tiki Bar TV', and play any episode you want.
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Began 25-Jan-2006; Last update 10-Oct-2006 by