Twitter, Twatter, Tweeter

Twitter is a beautiful thing…well just a social media site where everyone can post their opinion or share with the world what they are doing. It can be used for business relations, research, etc. Except, there is only 140 characters available to type that thought.

            In the words of Paul Gil, “Twitter and ‘tweeting’ is about broadcasting daily short burst messages to the world, with the hope that your messages are useful and interesting to someone.” (Lifewire) That being said, everyone uses Twitter for many different reasons. For example, there is always information posted about missing children that each person that views it can retweet and spread the word. Unfortunately, not everything published on Twitter is accurate information. According to Lifewire, Twitter is used for marketing but also doubles as social site. People can talk to one another on the site due to a job being advertised. The article that was posted by The Washington Post due to the Paris attack, shows how law enforces can be active on the site finding evidence they have not been apparent of before.

            Twitter can be used as a journalistic tool because not everyone owns a TV or watches the TV to get their news. Reporters are able to tweet the information they want the public to know. Sports journalists tweet the final scores of games, injuries, players’ stats, and more. Although not all the information that people find and read on Twitter is true, since some do not watch the news on TV, those people end up believing it. For those journalists who are not on TV, on the radio or get their work published in a newspaper, that is a way that is part of their job to do as a journalist. These men and women get paid for that.

            Twitter is used in a big political way because our President does not stop tweeting. He tweets his opinions, his feelings, or the next move he is about to make. Anything regarding politics is more than likely tweeted about. Politics is probably the number one topic trending because there are so many things going on in this world that everyone needs to pay attention to in order to understand what is about to happen. It is impossible to go on Twitter once each day and not find a tweet regarding something going on in politics. Yes, politics is important and the public should always be aware, but sometimes it seems to be too much.

            Thirdly, Twitter is used to organize important events or protests that others might be interested in taking part in. If an individual wants to start a movement about global warming, in order for other people to come, that person would need to post all of the information about it so others become aware of it. It encourages others to stand up for what they believe in because they are able to say their opinion and others are able to back that person up. A lot of times, these kinds of events blow up because of the number of people agree or the number of people who just show up to see what it is all about. If someone wants to get the word out, the individual usually resorts to Twitter.

            One event that occurred within the last few weeks was the manhunt for Steve Stephens. Stephens killed a random pedestrian on Easter Sunday, at 2:00 P.M. for no apparent reason and fled the scene. It took the Cleveland Police Department approximately 48 hours to track him down. If it was not for the posts on Twitter describing him and including a picture, there is a chance it would’ve taken police longer to locate him. He was recognized by a McDonald’s employee who called the cops, but if it was not for it being published on Twitter, he could have not been found as soon as he was.

            Back in January, Donald Trump was inaugurated because he was voted to be the 45^th President of the United States. Every person who owns a Twitter was tweeting their opinion about him whether they were positive or negative. Every single person on this Earth has an opinion on Trump, and every single person’s opinion of him is different. Even if it was the littlest things, there was a tweet about it no matter what. There really is not a success nor a failure regarding this event because it does not change the fact that he is still the President. Just because people tweeted making fun of him, does not mean he is just going to be impeached.

            Another event that occurred in January was the capturing of the “druglord” El Chapo. El Chapo escaped from a maximum-security prison in Mexico. Of course, there are a lot of people who tweet humor about it but people in Mexico were generally concerned. With the help of Twitter, it was possible that the police were given leads to direct them to him. Once information like this is tweeted, authorities are going to look through it and consider if it was going to lead them into the correct direction.

            One topic chosen to follow on Twitter was The Buffalo Zoo. The Buffalo Zoo was chosen because the zoo does not get enough credit. It is very kid-friendly and a fun place to go for a few hours. The way the zoo refurbishes to accommodate the animals and the way the staff always makes sure the animals are fed and treated correctly is something special. There are people out there who do agree that it is terrible for animals to be locked up in cages and looked at through glass all day, but young children do not understand that.

            Donald Trump was the second topic on Twitter because he is obnoxious, arrogant and full of himself. As previously stated, he tweets his every thought and move. But when Barack Obama was President, he never tweeted nonsense or anything he felt like tweeting because he was bored, he treated the things he knew America needed to know that was important. It changes things up to follow an account that a person is not interested because for a little while at least someone can experience and understand the subject matter better.

            The third account followed was the New York Yankees. The Yankees have a lot of accomplishments throughout the years as Major League Baseball team. The team has had its ups and downs, but there is no other team like them. Yes, any person could say that about their favorite team, but the Yankees are different. The team may not always have the best seasons, but they really do have a nice record behind them.

            Twitter is different from blogging because blogging is viewed more in an essay format with lots of stories and opinions. Twitter can be full of those kinds of things as well, but blogging seems to be fancier. Blogging is taken as more of the serious route and potential employers will see it. They will look at anyone’s Twitter as well, but a blog defines someone more than Twitter does.

            Twitter is very popular these days and continues to grow. Twitter is going to continue climbing its way up as the top choice for a social media site.

Sounds Easier Than You Think

iMovie is almost like being in a completely different world when it comes to editing videos. Someone using it might think, “how hard could this be?” But it is a different ballgame than an individual might be expecting. iMovie definitely gave the students stress, aggravation and a run for their money.

            One of the main struggles when filming the individual parts was making sure that the individual clip had enough footage in front of the camera and behind the clip. This made it a little bit more challenging because some things had to be shot twice from two different angles or more than once due to if anything was interfering in the background or the angle not being enough. Shots had to be taken multiple times or after putting it all together with the group, there was a time when shots had to be redone or needed to add something more so they needed to be recorded all over again. It felt like a process but it really was not as bad as everyone was anticipating it to be. Who doesn’t dread group projects when students end up doing so many? This project was not as time consuming as thought but also trusting the group members to get the things done they are supposed to makes all the difference.

            When it came to editing, the biggest struggle was not being able to do the things that sounded easy in each person’s head to do. For example, if someone wanted to just trim their video and not their whole clip, there was no easy way that was discovered to just simply cut a clip. The clip needed to continue to be added and cropped down to where it was wanted every time. iMovie gets updates done on it all the time, but sometimes they seem to make things more difficult for its users. Also, making sure all the clips smoothed nicely together was another issue with editing because the requirement wanted two filters, music and transitions so it was a goal to make sure those worked together as well. No one can control how iMovie is created or updated, but it should not make anyone very nervous to use it to the point where they are unsure if the movie they have bene working on is going to be erased or not. Also, once each group was putting all the videos together, it was really nice that each group member took turns editing the video as a whole and contributing ideas.

            Using video as a form of communication instead of a writing piece or photographs gives the viewer a different perspective on what is being presented in front of them. It also gives the viewer a different feeling than writing and photographs could. When a person is watching a video, they are able to react a way they are watching actually move right in front of their eyes. For example, in a video clip, the way the performance given by the actor or the actress can make the viewers feel a certain type of way. If the actor is crying, if they give a good performance, the audience could be crying with them. A person reading or looking at pictures may not always have that same effect as a video can. An individual can feel emotion through a photograph or writing, but when someone is physically feeling pain right in front of their eyes it just seems more like the audience can relate or feels it all.

            Once the group came up with all different diverse ideas, it seems as though it changed everyone’s perspective of the video because beforehand it seemed as though everyone was dreading it and thought it was going to be really hard. It was actually the complete opposite. Once every person in the group stayed on top of what they were supposed to do, it made it so much easier for everyone to get things done. Also, it seemed as though when the group got the theme, it was thought that portraying that theme was going to be harder than the group anticipated. All of the videos each group member put together to flow nicely with one another’s ended up making the overall product even better. It also changed their way of thinking because they did not think how differently each person could portray that topic in different ways. But that was the point. The point was for each group member to have different ideas and then putting them all together to make sure the ideas did not clash and made sense leading up to the final product.

            The self-portrait experience was not as hard as each individual was expecting it to be. It did not end up taking up as much time as assumed and as long as each person planned out or knew what they wanted to do in each clip, it made the recording process go by so much faster. Although some shots had to be recorded a few times, having the general idea of what order each thing was going to be recorded in made it easier. Having the idea of what was going to be recorded and how it was going to be recorded made all the difference. Staying organized to record it helped make the recordings get done sooner.

            Unfortunately, Vine was shut down so the project has not been able to be posted on there. We had a couple misfortunes happen as well for the reasoning behind not being able to post them on social media. There was a snowstorm that occurred for about 48 hours which caused classes to lose time and not have enough time to learn how to upload them. There may be an opportunity to get to upload them, but other than that this topic cannot be commented on too much.

            This project was one of the more fun and different projects I have experienced because it was not like a normal research project that required a 35 pages of typed information. It was a different type of project where the goal is to make sure the audience understands the topic and agreeing that each theme flows together really well with the individual videos.

Something Exists Called WikiHow?

            For anyone who does not know what a WikiHow is, it is a website where many different users can post “how to” guides about anything and everything. It actually is really useful and has a lot of well-informed material on there.

            WikiHow is also a way that people can communicate in many different ways as well. When a user makes a post and publishes it to the website, the user is able to communicate through wiki and the other things they post along with it to make it relatable to other things. It is also able to relate to other topics already published, but it can also be completely different. In order to help another user get a clearer idea on the topic someone wrote, the author may have used some pictures to help the readers be able to visualize their how-to guide better. Pictures are one of the best ways to visualize or represent something better. Especially if someone was writing about a recipe or trying to explain to a reader how to do something, it makes it easier to at least have a picture to look at rather than trying to figure out if it has been done correctly by reading the directions.

           

WikiHow was created during Web 2.0. Web 2.0 was the second stage of the development of the World Wide Web. This was the addition of social media and more interactive websites being created. Without Web 2.0 being created, the World Wide Web would not be able to do even close to half of the things the Web provides now. It was something that this world needed in order to keep up with everything going on in this crazy life. The way things change constantly in our world is why technology and the Web need to always need to be updated.

            If someone is writing a WikiHow based on something personally experienced, it seems a little bit easier to do because it is easier to explain and show visually. Especially if it is something the user is good at. It makes writing about the topic easier because the better knowledge an individual has behind it, the better instructions or advice would get posted. Although writing an article for this website is not always the simplest thing. It still does take a lot of work because a good, solid topic to write about comes first. But a person should want to be unique about a topic and try to think of something that has not been posted on the website yet. That can be a bit difficult but the user should try to think of different things that are unique about them that many other people could not do easily.

            It is possible for an article for this website gets assigned during a class for a project. Many students often know the trials of trying to get a big project done and putting in a lot of effort. It is also very possible for this assignment to be easy to manage because as previously stated, know the topic well that the individual wants to write about. The better a person knows what to write about and can write about it well makes for more detail and makes the post become that much better. Projects are a lot of work, but getting done a little at a time always helps, especially when it requires a lot of writing and proofreading. It might be better to actually get it assigned as a project or think of it as a project because a person’s name will be published with that article. Also, it is a website that everyone can get access so if it is not the best, everyone and anyone would be able to see it.

            Every person who uses WikiHow will view it differently and form different opinions than others. It can sometimes be nerve-racking using this website when publishing an article because as it gets edited, the user needs to keep saving drafts and previewing the article so the steps are numbered correctly, the subheads are there, the tips and warnings are lined up correctly, etc. Be as careful as possible not to publish it because then the admins are going to be reviewing the post before it can be fully accepted to make sure everything is correct.

            Since WikiHow has so many different tips and types of advice already posted on there, it is easy to look up some other wikis as a reference. For example, if a person was writing an article about cheerleading, maybe the writer would want to check out a similar wiki page to see what someone else wrote about or help an idea click in their head. If that person felt that it might feel like it was taken from someone else, it is possible to reference and hyperlink it like this. It will directly take the reader to the other writer’s post. But most importantly, it shows the differences between the posts because the posts will be different articles with possible similarities.

            One major key that any new author posting on WikiHow needs to remember is how to code the website properly because the post is supposed to look a certain way. The way WikiHow gets things to line up and how it should look visually because it is going to need sense to anyone who reads it. To code something, it means to be able to identify it on different terms when an article or website is created. There’s certain codes and ways to publish things properly because every website has different procedures each person needs to follow. Coding can be difficult, but once a person gets the hang of it, it is not too bad because then it is easy to understand what to do.

            WikiHow was a new experience and was also a learning experience too because it is good to know how to do these different types of ways to publish on different websites. Especially if someone is going into the communication field and for someone who is going to need to know these kinds for the future. 

Started from the Bottom (Web 1.0) Now We're Here (Web 3.)

As we grow older, so does the Web

Some of us have grown up in a world where we have only lived through an era only through one version of the Web, while others have lived through all three. It has changed lives and the way we all can communicate with each other. As updates continue, our lives will still drastically change. When I first learned about the different versions of the Web, I never realized it went through revolutions to get where it is supposed to be. No, I did not believe the Web was just created one day. I believe that it has been updated and changed over time to keep up with today’s speed.

Web 2.0 seems that it needed an advancement in the way social media works. We needed more to use than just Myspace in a way to communicate and be active online. Personally, I do not think there was much of an improvement. I think Web 3.0 just helped improve the way we can communicate through social media by adding Facebook, Instagram, etc. It was a way for people to begin staying connected more with people who live in different parts of the country. I think Web 2.0 did live up to the hype of changing from Web 1.0 because it helped people be able to do much more online than just play some games and check an e-mail.

Web 2.0 has made an addition to it that features in Web 1.0 does not have. I think the biggest thing it has provided is the way individuals can interact. For example, in Web 1.0 it seems the only thing a person could do is research. When Web 2.0 was created, it came out with more apps and websites that people could actually look through and do more stuff with. I think this was both positive and negative on the World Wide Web because it made communication easier between friends and family members to keep in touch instead of it always being through phone class and letters. I also think it is a negative thing because people began to become addicted to the idea of being online all the time without realizing it.

Web 3.0 is what started it all for us. It helped with new advancements in the technology we use all day, every day. It is the fundamental reason we have the kind of electronics and abilities that we do, today. Some of the advantages Web 3.0 has on our society is all the progression we have made. Not only is it making our lives easier, but it takes less effort for us to do tasks through the Web. Some disadvantages that Web 3.0 has brought is the way people are addicted. Since things can be fun and more efficient, it has more entertainment. Also, our world has become surrounded by it which does not help our way of face-to-face communication. It has made it harder and more awkward for us to engage in good conversation anymore because we are used to staring at our phones or computer screens all the time.

As previously stated, the World Wide Web has exposed us to so many different things. Our eyes have been opened to bigger and better things that the Web is the reason we have access to the things we do. The Web is going to continue to grow and improve as the years go on and we all will have to sit back, watch it happen and see how our world continues to unfold. 

The Web’s Phases

The World Wide Web needed to change due to everything else changing and having to keep up with the pace of the world. This way, it does not make things more complicated for things to run smoothly.

Since the Web has continued to change and improve throughout the years, many others had different points of view. For instance, during Web 1.0, the main thing a person could do was just search the websites. There was very little contribution a person could make to the website. Once Web 2.0 was designed, people were able to give feedback and browse around websites to make them more entertaining. Due to this update, more social media was added as an addition to communication and publishing. Then came Web 3.0. It offers for users to be able to go deeper into searches and visually communicate, as well. Although the Web will increase the process, the potential it has now might bring a promising future. (www.flatworldbusiness.wordpress.com)

Tim Berners-Lee was the creator of the first stage of the Web. Unfortunately, the only thing a person could really do was type and read websites. The Web had a lot of pressure and high hopes resting on its shoulders, but it fell short. “The main reason was perhaps the early inability of humans to foresee the informational value in data contributions and of the machines to comprehend the meaning behind them.”

Web 2.0 was created to promote and interact with many different types of companies, etc. This was a turning point for the World Wide Web. Many other things already creating in Web 1.0, started to become newer and named different things, too. Thank you to Tim O'Reilly for the improvement for the people.

Now here we are, Web 3.0. The Web was paved for them and Tim O’Reilly once again creates an update to keep up with the speed of constant computer use. Without the people that contribute to a lot of the social media sites, they would simply not exist and have zero interaction. "It is a continuation of existing techniques." Many believe that this is the reason that today we are able to access the Web from our mobile phones. This Web will meet the wants and needs more than the original other two Webs.

Although all three of these Webs were created to be able to process different needs of its users. Web 1.0 is the main readable first phase. There is very little interaction created because it is more of an informational portion of the Web. It is getting the users the information it needs for their research. Once Web 2.0 was created, users are able to write more using this part of the Web. It allows people to interact freely. Also, people are even able to share some of the things they have found. Finally, Web 3.0 is what exemplifies the future. Everyone can have access at the palm of their hand or only a click away. (www.wittycookie.wordpress.com)

The Web has been a beneficial factor in our world. Our world is now being surrounded by the new things we are able to do every day with technology. Our world is improving one step at a time. 

Social Media: Friend or Foe?

I have been on social media since I was the age of 11. I looked up to my older cousins and wanted to be similar to them. I thought being a part of social media at a young age would make me cooler to my friends in the 6^th grade.  Eventually, I drifted from it and now have been roped in.

It is intrusive because it can cause procrastination, becomes a distraction during class, etc. A lot of my friends need to put on social media what they are constantly doing. Not all followers need or want to see the steak and lobster you are about to eat. But unfortunately, I can say I have been guilty of this before, too.

I believe there is a reason that not all parents are open to the idea of their children being on social media because there is responsibility that comes with it. As a college student who is going to graduate in the next few years, I know potential companies will be looking through my social media as I apply for upcoming jobs. I understand that once something gets deleted, that does not mean it is gone forever and is still able to get found. I believe that comes with the maturity as one gets older. No one is going to want to face consequences later on in life due to something that was posted on their Twitter when they were 17-years-old.

After Donald Trump’s Inauguration, there were outbursts on Twitter about Trump is not a gentleman. The top picture displayed Donald and Melania on one side and Barack and Michelle on the other. It was getting lots of attention because Barack was holding Michelle and Donald and Melania were just standing there. There was a different picture during Barack’s Inauguration where George and Nancy Bush were holding each other but Barack and Michelle were doing the same as the Trump’s. Individuals want to attack Trump for any reason they can find to make him seem unfit which does not help Trump because he is always getting negative comments thrown his way which shows it is more of an opinion.

In my opinion, throughout the next ten years, social media is going to be the center of everything, more than it is now. Books will not really be used anymore and we will be using everything through our phones, laptops and iPads. I envision that things will not work unless social media is involved somehow, like the fact that we may not be able to find certain information because books will not be up to date. It could potentially take away some jobs. We are surrounded by many different things that I think we truly have not experienced what social media is capable of.

Social media has quite the impact throughout the years. It has blown up more than ever expected. I believe there are big things coming that are going to make their mark and change the game more.