A Discussion On Social Media

Sarah Demers

15 November 2012

Web Development

Online Networking: The Promoters of Social Interaction

            Facebook and MySpace are excellent sources for social interaction. These sites are social networking tools; they provide access for people to connect with others whom they would not normally be able to communicate with. Not only are Facebook and MySpace tools for networking, they encourage people to connect with others. As according to Vincenzo Cosenza, author of The World Map of Social Network, “Facebook is the leading social network in 111 out of 131 countries.” Whether it is to re-connect with old high school friends, bring businesses together, or sell a product, social networking sites, like Facebook, are an excellent promoter of social interaction.

            We are now able to talk with people who live halfway around the world because of sites like Facebook. This promotes global business, in addition to connecting us across different cultures. If we did not have access to a social media site like Facebook, many people would be deterred from communicating with those who live far away. Social networking provides us with an outlet to reach out and connect with others whom we would otherwise never get to know.

            While sites like Facebook and MySpace provide a social network for us to utilize, there also lies the danger of people becoming too invested in spending all their time using these websites. This is not an issue with the social networking sites themselves, however, but an issue with how people use them. If someone spends so much time on Facebook that they stop interacting with those around him, it becomes a problem. Their direct communication skills can weaken so that they do not feel comfortable communicating with people on a face-to-face basis. Spending too much time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace can be dangerous. It is up to us to become educated on this issue, and keep our usage of social media sites balanced with our personal interaction with those around us.

            Our world has become much more connected because of the explosion of networking sites. We are now able to communicate with people virtually anywhere in the world. Businesses have taken off because of social media sites like Facebook, allowing them to promote their products and get word out to the public. Although it is a potential problem for people to become too invested in social networking sites, leading them to shy away from personal connection with those around them, this issue lies with the person, not the networking sites. As long as people are aware of how much time they are spending on social networks, then they are likely going to lead a healthy social life involved with those around them. All in all, websites like Facebook and MySpace are wonderful and helpful promoters of social interaction, because they act as outlets for us to connect with one another, no matter the distance that lies between. 

Journal Week 11

Journal Week 11

           I found Digg.com after searching through several social media sites on the web -- I found Digg.com particularly interesting and spent a good amount of time poking around on it. Digg is a web site devoted to the most interesting stories being currently talked about online. In a sense, it's a shortcut to getting the "hot topics" that are circulating the web. This is a very smart use of a social media site. With the immense amount of information we have to sift through on a daily basis to find what we are looking for, Digg does a nice job of providing important stories right up front, no searching required (or no 'digging' required). Not only is this nice for people with busy schedules who do not have time to look up current news everyday, it is a reliable way to get updated on current stories.

          So what does Digg.com do well with their social media site? The first thing I noticed and valued when I visited the site was the "main" story, and how it was enlarged to catch the viewer's eye. In this case, it was a story about the presidential election and voting, with a large picture of President Obama and Michele Obama in an embrace. Right away, my attention was peaked, and I was intrigued enough to click on the article. Digg does an excellent job in hooking their audience member, which will thereby cause more people to stay on the web site. Another thing I thought they did well was their organization. Although it is very simple, a plain table style layout separating each story, I think this simplicity is very well done. It keeps the vast amount of information being offered from being overwhelming to the viewer. Instead, it is easy to scroll down the page and look at each story individually. Lastly, I really like how if you hover over a story, options pop up: You can "like it," "share it," or "share it." This is a nice touch by Digg, as it really makes them a true social media web site. Viewers who find an interesting story can easily save it for later or so they can look into it more at another time, and the share option allows someone to forward the article on to others who they think may also like to read it.

           Digg.com is all about what is current in the media and news. They do a great job finding topics that are being widely discussed by the public, and promote these stories on their site. So in this sense, Digg is all about the public, and what people are talking about. Just to give an example of a topic they have right at the top of their site --"Why Gamers Shoot" -- focusing on gamers and the worlds of Xbox and PlayStations. Gaming and the wide use of technology has been a very hot topic as of lately, and Digg appropriately has this story right at the front to promote it. This is a great way to spread information and educate people about current topics circulating the public. If I were to change anything to Digg.com, I would suggest they include their "about" tab at the top of the page, versus at the very bottom. For a new viewer to the page, it would be helpful to easily be able to find out what the site is about. I would definitely encourage people to check out this social media site. I really like it because it is engaging and interesting at the same time. If you are interested in finding out what's being talked about on the web, or just like to find out interesting tidbits, see what you think of Digg. Your curisosity will most likely be peaked!

http://www.digg.com

Journal Week 10

Journal Week 10

          This week I decided to review a social web site that my Dad uses: Yelp.com. I have heard him talk about the site many times, but I never really understood what it was until I took a look recently. It turns out, Yelp is a great web site (And not just for restaurant reviews, which is what I thought it was from listening to my Dad). Yelp is a web site for people to write business reviews, as well as search and read reviews. As according to their mission statement: "Our purpose is to connect people with great local businesses." I think Yelp does a very good job in this bringing together of people and small, lesser known companies. How are they able to do this so well? They have a well designed web site! Firstly, their top banner with the site logo is very neat and organized; right next to the Yelp sign is a search bar. You can even refine your search by adding a place in the "Near" search bar. This makes it very convenient for a person visiting the site. They are not left browsing around the web site to find a review or specific location -- instead they can simply type in a search and quickly have results.

           In addition to this helpful search bar, there is a nice menu with clear options of where to go from the Home page. Whether you want to write a review, find friends, or talk with others, these options make it very easy to do so. Another aspect of Yelp that I am a fan of, is the "Review of the Day" section. This is a good way for someone who is new to the site to get an idea of what it is about by quickly reading a review. It is also an interesting way for reviewers to get recognized! (I think it would be exciting to see your picture on the Home page of the web site under "Review of the Day.")
            The next part of the web site I like is the "Best of Yelp" section they have designed. A social media site like this should be nicely organized and easy to navigate. This "Best of Yelp," which is sorted by city, is a fantastic way to get a lot of information about the site into a neat layout that is not too overwhelming. I think it's nice how you can click on different types of businesses under the "Best of Yelp." The options include, Restaurants, Food, Nightlife, Shopping, Bars, Coffee & Tea, Breakfast & Brunch, etc. For a social media site which has an immense amount of information, this "Best of" heading is a fantastic way to organize.
          Yelp.com does a wonderful job using the trending topics in their web site, which is partly why I think this makes for such a strong social media site. Under the Popular Events they have postings about festivals, concerts, and other events occurring at locations near the viewer (adjusting to your current location). There is also "Today in Talk" where current "hot" discussions are posted. This is a really smart way to keep the web site updated with other social media. All in all, I think Yelp.com is a well designed web site, and a smartly put together social media site. I would definitely recommend others go here, especially if they are interested in reading or writing reviews. The target audience is definitely for middle aged adults, as well as younger adults who are new to the area and looking to find good places to eat, shop, go to the doctors, etc. Yelp is also in work with Facebook, which makes it convenient to link these two social media sites up and share reviews and network even further. Very smart Yelp! Well done!

Journal 8

Journal 8

       For this week's review, I found a social media web site entitled: Mouthshut.com. Interesting choice for a name. I accidentally happened upon this web site after looking up different social media sites -- this one caught my eye in particular. Overall, it was not horrible, but there are definitely a number of improvements that could be made. When I first went to the site, I was not sure what to look at first. All of the text is a very similar, small size, which makes it difficult to figure out what is most important. This is the first thing I would change to the web site: make the text size different so that the eye is drawn to important words. In addition, there needs to be a title banner of some sort to let the audience member know what exactly this web site is for. The way the site is now has the "Mouthshut.com" logo in very small text at the top left-hand corner of the page. I would suggest they make a banner with the title and a short mission statement about the web site, and put it in a central location so it is easy to see. This would really help to clarify what the web site is about. The last suggestion I would make is to organize the layout of the site, and add in a better navigation. Right now, the site's nav consists of only a few links, and they are small, unnoticeable clicks at the very top of the page. I think it would help tremendously if they added to their nav and cleaned up the boxes of information. Also, make the nav bigger so that is easier to spot -- because right now it is too easy to overlook that part of the web site. 

       After I figured out what this web site was for (by going to the 'About us' page) I realized what a neat idea it was. Mouthshut.com uses reviews of different businesses to help shoppers make informed decisions. The site compiles thousands of reviews so that a shopper can quickly and easily discover information about the product they are looking at. There are reviews on other shopping websites as well. Not only can you read reviews, you can also write your own. In addition, Mouthshut smartly uses pools on the main page of their web site to take in information from the people visiting. I think this is very clever -- a great way to get a read on the people viewing your web site and figure out how you can attract more people. As it is, I would say their target audience are adults, most likely well educated adults who are invested in purchasing quality items. After all, someone who does not care about the quality of something they buy probably will not bother visiting a site like this. 

      The web site also has a list of recent movies down at the bottom of the page. Although I find this somewhat random, it does show how diverse the items they have reviews on are. The site also states who recommends going there which is a smart move. A few of these companies, such as CNBC, are well known, and therefore add to the credibility of the web site. Although this site could use some organization help, and there needs to be some change with the text size and positioning, I think it still has a lot of potential. I would encourage others to go here only if they are invested in doing research about what they are shopping for. A site like this, that isn't completely awful, but isn't exactly that great at the same time, requires some patience to navigate. 

http://www.mouthshut.com

Week 8 Journal

Week 8 Journal

This week, I am reviewing a social media site. The web site I chose, Cafemom.com, is designed as a meeting place for moms. This was the first thing I noticed about the web site when I opened up the page. It is very clear what this this web site is aimed at: connecting mothers. Besides the fact that the site itself is titled Cafemom, the banner underneath the navigation communicates the purpose of the site. In large text is the statement: "Welcome to the Meeting Place for Moms." This is a very understandable statement that summarizes what the web site does. I found this extremely helpful, as it requires no searching or clicking around to discover who this site is aimed at or what it is meant to do. In addition, I like how the website has a search bar in the top right hand corner. This makes it very easy to find a certain article or link one might be looking for. Sites that have a search are automatically ahead of other web sites. Personally, I find I can easily become impatient when looking for something on a web site. With the ability to type in a search, it is much more convenient to find what I am looking for. The last reason why I like this web site is because of it's organization. There is clearly a lot of information being offered through Cafemom.com, but the site is able to group it into larger sections. Underneath the main banner are three large boxes titled: Conversation, Advice, Entertainment. These three boxes are a great way to categorize the information. 

I noticed the advertising that is on this web site. Toys R Us adds are at the top, sides and bottom of the web site. While adds are never pleasant, one can appreciate that these adds at least pertain to the audience. Moms are likely to purchase toys for their children, and therefore Toys R Us is an appropriate store to be advertising it's products. In addition, I noticed how the web site had a segment on Michelle Obama's campaign appearance. This is a very smart inclusion of information. As women, mom's are likely to be interested in the First Lady, the women figure representing our country. This also ties politics into the web site, which many mom's may be interested in but not normally find the time to discuss due to the business of parenthood. 

The one adjustment I would recommend is to combine some of the links at the top of the page under, "in the spotlight." It would make for a less busy navigation, which I think would be beneficial. Not that it is overly crowded, but shortening the number of links could help neaten the navigation up more. Even without this change, I would recommend people go here (and by people I suppose I am automatically talking to mom's). The audience is clearly targeted as mother's, there is no confusion there. And the web site seems to offer some generally interesting and helpful information. If you are a mom and looking to connect with other mom's, Cafemom.com is a great place to go to. As a (hopefully) future mother, I could see myself using this as a potential recourse. So it's got my vote!

http://www.cafemom.com

Web site review - week 6

Journal week 6

     For this weeks journal, I decided to review Healthline.com, a web site meant to connect people to better health through informational resources. Just by first going to this site I could tell that it had an extremely large amount to cover. Any health web site automatically has a lot to touch upon concerning information. Due to this overwhelming amount of data, it could be difficult to organize into one web site. Healthline.com seems to have done an excellent job with this, however. The web site is clear and easy to view when first opened. The large font at the top posing the question, "How can we help you today?" is very eye catching, and immediately gives the viewer a place to type in a question or statement and look for support. I really liked how easy it was to find this search box. No searching or scanning around for help, instead it is literally impossible to miss. Right off the bat, this web site is very well organized.

      In addition to the nice organizational piece, Healthline.com did a fantastic job utilizing pictures to keep the text from becoming too overwhelming. Instead of simply having sentence after sentence of information, they did a really nice job breaking it up with images of common objects that we can relate to and understand. For example, next to the line "Dirtiest places in your home" is a picture of dishes stacked in a kitchen sink. Not only does this give us something interesting to look at that we understand, it helps to balance out the ratio between text and images. This helps the web site be much more esthetically pleasing. Instead of going to a site and being bombarded with small text in paragraph after paragraph, Healthline.com keeps it much simpler and thereby less overwhelming. I, for one, am much more likely to click on a link that is accompanied with a small image, versus a link that is described by a paragraph of text.

      I also found that at the bottom of the page, there is a box containing "Featured Topic Centers." This is a very helpful asset for a website, and I commend Healthline.com for having a featured topic section. In doing so, they help viewers find what they are looking for much more quickly. In addition, if someone is simply browsing the site and not looking for anything in particular, the featured topic section could help them find an interesting article. This also helps with the organization of the web site by sorting information into more containers. It could be part of the reason why you do not have to scroll very much to view the entire page, another big plus, and kudos to Healthline.com for being able to layout the information in such a manner so minimal scrolling is required.

      Overall, this web site was very nicely designed. I would highly recommend someone go here for medical information, or even if they are just looking to learn some interesting facts. I would even go as far as put it on WebMD's level. The one, tiny, tiny piece that I may suggest be changed, is to make some of the small font larger, or bolder. Do to the fact that a large amount of people going to this web site will be elderly, it would be beneficial to have an easily readable font. We don't want to have to squint! That's all for now folks.

http://www.healthline.com

Journal 5

Journal 5 - Web Site Review

The web site I chose to review for this week's journal was found off of Websitesthatsuck.com, so, understandably, it's pretty awful. The first thing I noticed when I came to this site was the background. It's full of clouds -- which is very distracting to the viewer. Personally, I think the choice to have a 'cloud' background also detracts from the site because it makes it look much less professional. When in doubt, keep it simple. Next, when you first open the webpage, you have no idea what type of site it is. There is no title or header explaining the site's purpose! Instead, the first object on the page is the weather. Is that why I came to this page? To check the weather in Ottawa? I don't think so. Now I don't mean to completely discount this. Having a weather update can always be handy and necessary information. But I would recommend they try moving the updater from the top and center of the page. Maybe put it off to the side, or put a link to the weather down below. That would make much more sense than having it front and center, since this is not a forecasting webpage.

Just below the very oddly placed weather updater, is an even more randomly placed logo that says 'No Texting -- Hands Free Only." We still don't know what this web site is for, so this logo does not make much sense. Is it a taxi driving service? A web site against texting and driving? We just don't know. As you scroll down, however, you can see that it's a site for a driving school. This is poorly designed though. The viewer should not have to scroll down the page to find out what the web site they are looking at is about. Instead, it should be apparent immediately upon opening the page. This web site needs a heading that clearly states the title.

The next problem is the quality of the pictures on this web site. Both images appear to be very grainy and low quality. I would recommend they change these to high resolution pictures -- by updating the quality of their pictures, they will update the quality of their website. Also, the organization of the web site is really poor. You have to scroll down a ways to get to the site's mission statement, history, contacts, etc. This is not helpful at all. I would guess this web site loses a lot of potential customers because they cannot find where the links are to more information. In addition, the layout and design of the site is very distracting. Not only are random sentences moving across the screen in a continuous scroll, but the text varies from a bright blue to a bright red, in on and off patterns. Both colors pull at your eye, so it becomes a competition for which sentences of text you will actually read. In my opinion, all the text needs to be one color, or at least similar shades of the same color. This would help calm the site down a bit.

Overall, this site needs some major fixing up. A driving school is an important web site, and I am sure for the people living in Ottawa, Canada, they would like to be able to use such a site. But until the web site is cleaned up, I would not recommend people try and go to it. Even if you have an extra amount of patience, it is not easy to last very long on this web site. If you're looking to learn how to drive, go somewhere else!

http://www.drivingskills.on.ca