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Practicum - Final send off Becky Jones

Some final thoughts on social networking websites. As a send off, I have to admit, I’m really relieved to be closing my accounts on the social networking websites. More than anything else, I’m relieved to not have to keep up with all of these sites. At the end of the day it is just simply exhausting to try and network with people on three different sites in addition to checking my multiple e-mails, checking my facebook and checking all of the different class websites I needed to for updates. While there were some good takeaways from the websites, I think the final send off that capped off my experience was the creepy man who began a conversation with me on 43things. I have a goal to backsquat 250 lbs before the end of the year. This guy felt he was the perfect person to help me out by making a crude joke involving the fact that he was 250 lbs…..PASS…. By far the best justification for shutting off the accounts. On that note, goodbye 43things, pinterest and Yelp…you will not be missed.

Practicum #7 - Robb

Well I feel like I've exhausted the great majority of anything of substance within these two websites, but I would like to mention just a few more things that I've noticed as I've spent time on the sites. I've mentioned over and over about how my own neutrality is tested every time I visit the pages but bias aside, both of these sites have developed into effective political activist sites. WEAC didn't start out in that capacity but it has evolved to be a haven for activism. SupportWalker.com was developed initially as a site that supports activists and it has maintained its initial purpose.

Practicum #7 - Brian

While finishing up my paper last night, I have concluded that I have exhausted everything I can do on Blip.fm. Over the past few months, I've interacted with other members, blipped over 100 times and have recruited a contingent of over 20 followers. I've received over 75 props from other viewers and feel that I have made a substantial contribution to the Blip.fm community. I've spent welll over 15 hours creating playlists for my listeners and trying to be the best blip.fm citizen possible. I like what John did below me, and I will discuss a little about my paper.

Blip.fm
Based on past cultural traditions - the website is identical to twitter. it just uses different names for the actions one can perform. For example, instead of a tweet, blip.fm refers to it as a blip. Re-tweeting is re-blipping. The layout is even identical. This made blip.fm easy to use.

Identity creation
-on blip.fm people create their identity through blip posts, pictures, and their username. This is the only information people have, so its interesting the identity that you construct from this.

Online communty
-On blip there is a certain language that users use for certain things, and once you pick up on this, you feel identified as an accepted citizen on blip,fm

Overall, I encourage everyone in the class to try it out.

Practicum - John #7

Overall, this was a pretty interesting experience. I definitely learned a lot more about the subject areas the Wikia's covered, in addition to some knowledge on how to format the website.

And, to tie this in with my paper, I'll describe which 3 concepts from this class I think apply most directly to this Practicum

Social Networking - (boyd) Should be self-explanatory. Wikia's offer connections between users, in addition to the knowledge presented on the site.

Participatory Culture- Wikias are encyclopedia anyone can edit, and is therefore an accumulation of a society's knowledge on a subject.

Creative Commons - All content posted on the wikia is required to fall under the site's Creative Commons license, which makes all content posted free to distribute on other sites or media.

Practicum 6 Becky Jones

After months of effort, today I concluded that Pinterest does not like me. As I started my journey with Pinterest, I immediately questioned how I would be received when I was put on a waiting list to join. Right then and there, I knew Pinterest had to be about the elite. But wait a second, why would there be a waiting list? Wouldn't you want your social networking site to gain new members, to go viral and get as much participation as possible? Why would there be a waitlist. And what exactly am I waiting for: another member to get kicked off? or approval from the board? knowing that Pinterest had no information on me, I guessed I was waiting for it to "make room" for me. I guess that's cool...maybe it means something to be able to get onto this site and to stay there. Well...I still don't know why there was a waiting list for Pinterest. I'm fairly certain that people don't get kicked off, but I'd be willing to bet they get discouraged and quit. Pinterest certainly has a certain image (think Anthrolpologie and Urban Outfitters) that it tries to uphold. Being more of a Nike girl myself, after several of my "pinned" images of things of things I love were taken off the site (no doubt unapproved by the board) I became discouraged. Apparently, Pinterest is not all about your interests....so much as their own.

Practicum #7 - Zach

For my final post I figured I'd play Call of Duty one last time. I played with one of my roommates so that means I we both play as brohau5 but one of us gets a [1] next to the name which signifies two people playing. We played the levels launch, discovery, crisis, berlin wall, summit, grid, and of course nuketown. He is better than me and he had a better kill:death ratio than me in most of the games. Only I had the headset so he couldnt here what anyone else was saying and I could. Not that that really matters. When you play with someone sitting next to you it is easier to communicate and strategize. I'd say I averaged 6 kills and 12 deaths. The game definitely gets harder if you dont play for even a week. Huge learning curve as I have said before. Anyway that's all I guess.