Explanation of my web presence creation selection
Web 2.0 revolutionised the way people communicate nowadays and has created virtual community that communicate and share information with one another in the Internet as the features provided has enabled the Internet users to participate and contribute information to the web (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel and Chowdury, 2009). There are numerous Web 2.0 platforms available for the Internet users to use as communication tools such as social networking, blogging, photo sharing, video sharing, microblogging and so on. Each of these platforms has its own significant as different users has different preferences. Internet users use these platforms to interact with each other in a way to stay connected as in replacement to traditional way of communication. With such technologies provided, it has ease the way people communicate and share information in mass as it is fast, not costly and convenient.
Blogging platform, Blogspot has been chose as my central node for web presence as I am more familiar with this platform and thus it is easier for me to update my blog. User-friendly functions and simplicity of Blogspot has influenced the decision of my choice. Features available in Blogspot allow readers to engage with me and other reader by giving comments in comment box available in every of my posts. Furthermore, share buttons provided enable my post to be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, Blogspot and also e-mail thus, I can expand the number of my readers as well as sharing my knowledge with others in mass. Apart from that, Blogspot share content such as links, photos and videos to make my blog more attractive. The use of Blogspot has enabled me to embed widgets such as Facebook badge, news feed from my Facebook page, Twitter as well as Formspring. It allows my reader to read the snippet of my activities in Facebook and Twitter thus readers can go for further details of my activities by clicking the links provided in my blog. Furthermore, Blogspot also provides more widget which I can take advantage at in making my blog more attractive and interactive. I included a blogroll widget of my Web Communication 101 classmates’ blogs onto my page in a way to promote their page and allow my reader to go to their page provided on the side bar of this blog.
As for design selection, it is a design template provided by Blogspot and the design that I have chose is water as water is an essence of health. We barely can survive without water and to be healthy, we need to stay hydrated. The simplicity and soothing looking design has attracted me and as a result, I have chose the design for my blog. The colours chosen for my blog design are cool tones such as white, blue and indigo as these colours resembles calmness that can soothe your mind. The idea of this selection of colours is to make my readers relax when visiting and reading my posts to let them grasp the information easily. My blog comprises of 4 pages which are home (where all topic related posts will be posted), about page (brief explanation of me and my blog), contact me page (details of how my readers can contact me) and exegesis page (brief explanation of web presence assignment selection). The reason I created pages for my blog is to make it look more organise.
The title of my web presence creation is 'A pot of health and beauty' which is focusing on health and beauty as both are complement to each other. I chose health and beauty as my topic because it is my main interest and I would like to share my knowledge as well as my experience regarding on how I take care of my health through the use of blogspot as well as the chosen contributing nodes of my blog.
Contributing nodes chosen for my web presence creation are Facebook, Twitter and Formspring. All of the contributing nodes chosen to complement with selected central node are relevant to my blog and widely use by most of the Internet users. Facebook application, NetworkedBlogs enabled me to acknowledge my followers about my blogs as the application will automatically share the link of my published post to Facebook as well as Twitter. NetworkedBlogs also helps me to promote my blog to other existent blogger worldwide and thus create more followers and readers. Twitter is easy to use as it is accessible everywhere (Chang, 2010) and I can post my updates as well as share links relevant to my topic of choice anytime. The idea of choosing Twitter as contributing node is to acknowledge my readers the purpose of my web presence. I will post a short post of my activities that is relevant to my web presence as well as ‘retweet’ the links of my subscriptions to share useful information that might be helpful to everyone. Formspring is a Web 2.0 platform I have chose as central node for my blog as the features of Formspring allow my readers to submit their question that is relevant with my posts to me. They can appear as themselves or anonymous when posting their question to me via Formspring and it allows me to help my readers on how to work out with the health problem they are having. Each of the chosen nodes, I have provided a short details about me as to give short introduction of myself to my readers.
All of the choices I have made for my web presence represent my identity in virtual world. With the features available provided in Web 2.0 platforms, it enables me to take advantage in creating my web presence as well as allow me to deliver the message or information to my intended readers through the use of texts, hyper-links, images, videos and more. By utilising the features facilitates to the Internet users, it can make information in today’s online media more coherent and collaborative knowledge community in the Internet can widen each other knowledge to the maximum.
(Word count: 1000)
References:
Chang, H. (2010). A New Perspective on Twitter Hashtag Use: Diffusion of InnovationTheory. Proceedings of the 73rd ASIS\&T Annual Meeting on Navigating Streams in an Information Ecosystem in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 22-27 October (pp. 1 – 4). American Society for Information Science. http://delivery.acm.org.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/
