Hooking to the Blogshere

The excerpt that we read from Walsh, Clear Blogging was a great introduction to blogging. It made me more interested in finding blogs that I can relate to by simply writing down five things that interest me. I am a believer in the blogsphere. Once you start looking up things that you are interested in, you become connected to others that have similar interests. Those connections bond you with people in your networks.

I appreciated the blogging Dos and Don'ts. These unspoken rules are very important. People are blogging about things that are important to them, so the rules 1) Never spam 2) Be polite 3) Add to, don't hijack, the conversation 4) Include relevant links and 5) Be a real person should be followed by all who participate. I don't see why someone would post anonymously. If a person feels the need to comment on something they should be man/woman enough to say who they are.

As a new citizen to the blogsphere, it is easy for me to say something so blunt like this, because I don't know much about what is going on. For example, I still don't know what a RSS Reader and a shortcut to a bookmarklet are. These tools seem helpful, but I think the best way to learn about all of the tools is to actually try it.

The Long Tail and Chris Anderson

Well I guess I should get this "monkey off of my back" like Chris Anderson, editor and chief of Wired magazine, calls it. I never knew that there could be so many articles about blogging! Yet, I must say that The Long Tail reading was quite interesting. Anderson seems like a pretty smart guy for blogging about his novel ideas, but to me this takes away from the writing process. I have a strong respect for writers who lock themselves in a room with a pad a pin. When you get feedback during the writing process it isn't completely yours anymore. On the other hand, I think getting other people's opinions is important before and after the writing is completed.

Another thing I disagree with Anderson about is the blogsphere. He says "There is no blogspere", but this is not completely true. This statement is quite relative. First of all, we must consider what kind of people are constantly on the internet. Not everybody has the means to use the internet often if at all. Then once we narrow that down, we must consider how many people use the internet to blog. Once this is done, there becomes a whole niche market.

Anderson's term "Long Tail" which refers to the new market place where everyone is looking for their individual low-demand products does not include all people. It includes people that have the means to demand special products. There are still people out there who live on bread and water.

Random Thoughts

Today is the day after Valentine's Day and I had a great time. I went to the District of downtown Columbia, MO with a special someone and I had a ball! All of the restaurants were full so we spent a lot of time trying to find a place to eat, but we eventually ended up at this chinese restaurant. I never would have thought that we would have ended up there. I don't know what they did to the food because it seemed like it was cooked a lot earlier.



I'm not used to writing all of my thoughts down like this but it's pretty hard to just write, and not write stuff that I don't want strangers to know.



I used to have a diary when I was younger that had a lock on it but my older brother, Muhammad, cut the lock off. From that point on I never kept a journal again. When I got into high school one of my english classes made the students keep a journal that we had to write in everyday, and my mom read it while I was away at college. Not only did my mom read my journal from high school, but she questioned me about it! She asked me questions like "

The Algebra of Need

In the Connected book by Steven Shaviro I was most interested in the Algebra of Need section. Shaviro says that "the addict has no choice; she or he will do anything to satisfy total need." I can relate to this idea. Many people will argue with the idea that our culture is a goods driven culture, but we really crave information more than goods.

When people have conversations about what is going on in the world it is usually about who has the right and most up to date facts about a subject, and when you don't know about something you turn to the internet or news to gain insight about a particular issue. Information has become our common input. We need it!

Goods and material things are just an example of what I am talking about. Most clothing stores for example, don't have commercials. The people that wear their clothes are their commercials, because they can spread the word about the store by word of mouth. We are therefore addicted to gaining knowledge. We don't just gain knowledge through reading a book. We are connected to people through our own networks.

As we move along in this information age, Shaviro says that “the drug doesn't get you high any longer; you need an ever-larger dose merely to get straight." We constantly have to learn new things and grow with the time, through media outlets such as the internet. The internet is constantly changing and we are forced to keep up with it. Prior to this class I didn't know what Web 2.0 was or even the Missouri Wiki. Now I have to be an expert!

Electricity Dependency

After reading the "Connected Age" article, I realized how much our society relies on technology and power. Without power our society would be chaotic! I take for granted the simple task of plugging my phone charger up to the electricity outlet, or taking my laptop with me on campus without any plugs because it is fully charged.

Since our culture relies so heavily on power I don't know what it would be like without it. My children for example will be even more dependent on electricity and technology than I am. They probably will never enjoy the simple things about childhood like going to the park or having sleep overs at a peers home for the weekend. Why would they need to go over another child's home when they can talk to them on their cell phones all day, or chat with them on i-chat or yahoo.

Back on August 10, 1996 when the power went out in New York the whole city when crazy, but when it happened in San Francisco the people reacted quite differently. I know that everyone isn't as happy as the people in the Bay Area, so we can no longer go back to a time when there is no electricity. The humans on the planet have a dependent relationship with the electrical environment we live in. We consume it all!

There is a common phrase about people that are greedy, and it states that you would "Drink the well until the water runs dry". This is exactly what we have done.

Wisdom of Crowds

Although the activity that we attempted in class on Tuesday didn't turn out how the experiment did in James Surowiecki's book, "The Wisdom of Crowds", I still believe in the wisdom of crowds. There will always be a good guesser in a group that will have a good answer no matter what, but there are great benefits from having a more that one mind. There is enevitable strength in numbers that can't be ignored.

Important things to keep in mind when doing group averages is that each individual should have there own guess, and the group will not come up with an answer that is better than each individual.

I, myself, love the idea of working together in projects. Although you have to communicate a lot, it usually pays off in the end.I liked the example of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in the book. I was a dedicated watcher of the show and 9 times out of 10 the audience came up with the right number. I appreciate the idea of the "Wisdom of Crowds", because two minds are better than one.

Social Bookmarking

Prior to reading the social bookmarking article today I had no idea that there were tools on the web to help me organize my internet life. I always just go through the agony of finding the website how I found it last time, which means a lot of unnecessary searching. With tools like this my jobs and assignments can get done a lots faster and easier!

I look forward to trying them out in class today.

Perfect Balance

After reading a few of the class blogs today I realize that we all have very different personalities. I appreciate the fact that we all have the opportunity to create and design our own blogs. I know that in the beginning of the class I was completely wrong about what type of blogs we are supposed to have. I'm just afraid that I am not getting the right balance of school related posts and personal posts.
I don't want to add too much personal things but the readings are not going to give me the right amount of postings. Ahh!

Visual Appeal

I was just looking over the graphic design website that we were looking at in class and I don't want my blog to look like this website at all. I want to make my blog simple but sophisticated. I've noticed that some people in my blogs use their blogs as a tool. There are links and important information. I want to change my blog to resemble something like that. Right now my blog is quite colorful, but that's it.
Eventually my blog will be somewhere that I can go to that has links to all of the important stuff for me. Most likely I will place links to places like my MU webmail account, facebook, myspace, and some gossip websites that I go to. I can see it now.
I wanted my last blog of the week to be a bit more insightful, but I had a hard time finding the articles on eres that we were required to read. The plan is to find them and write more about them next week. Happy February!

Bad Rhetoric

Speaking of rhetoric, after reading this page I realize that I lot of people that I see on tv and other media outlets have becomes professionals at making speeches. I know for a fact that people like ministers on tv and television show hosts have practiced their speeches so much that it is an art for making money.
I don't like the idea of cheating people through persuasion, but then again everybody does it. Sales people are notorious for doing it.