I found my long lost friend in Facebook

When I first heard about Facebook in late 2006, I took it lightly and didn’t give much interest. In 2007 summer, a friend of mine went for a trip to the United States. He kept posting updates of his journey in Facebook every other day. This lured me to open an account in this social networking site.

And, I also did same during my trip to France, Italy, Norway and Sweden in late 2007. I got a lot of responses from my friends and families back home. Since then I have been logging into my Facebook account every other day and now I’m connected with over 500 friends from all over the world.

My good experience with social network sites like Facebook has been very good in maintaining and expanding network of friends.

Moreover, I found a long-lost school classmate last year through Facebook. I hadn’t heard from him for more than 10 years. We are really happy to be reunited after a decade, thanks to Facebook. Many things have happened and many things have changed in our lives. He now works in a resort in Maldives and I’m here in Singapore.

My last week’s experience is also worth to share here. I was hospitalised for a spinal infection. I posted a short message on my Facebook wall saying I was warded at Singapore General Hospital. I got at least 50 ‘get well soon’ messages after five minutes of posting. Wow, so amazing that so many people are connected through Facebook.

That’s why social networking sites like Facebook is so popular today.Facebooktoday has more than 400 million active users and about 100 million users access the site on their mobile phones.

Today, it is not unusual if you often hear your siblings or your friends talking about the people they have met and made friends with through the Internet as social networking is one of the phenomena that have taken the world of Internet by storm. Almost every Web surfer has an account in at least one of the social networking sites, for these sites are the more enjoyable places to hang around in.

The idea of socializing with millions of people of different backgrounds excites the Web surfers. This is one thing that you can hardly do outside the virtual world.

Reference:

Facebook Statistic, 2010, viewed 16 February 2010, http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.

Photo source: http://www.montana.edu/freshmen/facebook_pic.jpg.

Why blogging?

So far the journey of blogging has been enjoyable. Today, I’m trying to look into a few nitty-gritty of blog. Since I started writing this blog, I’ve become a good blog reader and spending a good chunk of time on blogs.

I found blog, in general, as an alternative but advanced form of traditional personal diary writing, although there are tens of thousands of blogs other than personal. It is a quick, cheap, effective way of making one’s voice heard by millions, not only just an outlet to write thoughts or feelings.

I also found that many are doing online businesses through blogs and professionals and companies are using blog to engage their clients as well as educational institutions, government, politicians and many more are today in the world of blogging.

The popularity of blog has risen so high that popular Time magazine has started rating of blogs to create an annual best blog index. The magazine’s 25 best blogs 2009 shows that the best blogs in the world spanned from politics, housekeeping, astronomy and everything in between.

The number of blogs, which has skyrocketed since its initial use at the beginning of the 21^st century, also shows that how important blogging has become today. According Blogpulse stats, there are more than 126.86 identified blogs in the world.

As I mentioned earlier, blogging today is not only limited for expressing personal feelings or opinions, it has expanded its scope to so many other areas. There has been a lot of talk lately that traditional blogging has lost its relational focus and many are leaving the world of the blog. But, I think blogging will continue to enjoy a boom as innovation of new technology and addition new features have been constant to meet ever changing tastes of people.

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Reference

25 best blogs 2009, Time, viewed 9 February 2010, <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1879276,00.html>.

Blogpulse, viewed 9 February 2010, <http://www.blogpulse.com/>.

Print publications on web

One thing, we all certainly agree is the advent of information and communication technology (ICT) that has revolutionised almost everything in our life.

Let’s look at media. Most traditional media, such as television and newspapers, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet. Print publishing has been reshaped into websites, blogging, and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking sites.

The world is constantly becoming faster and more demanding. People want news and information wherever they are, at any time. As a result, most publications are expanding their businesses through World Wide Web or into other similar ICT enabled services.

The reality is that there are so many ways in which people can access information, today. Media forms like the internet and mobile phones have made it so easy for people to obtain news updates, sports scores, stock reports and so on. News and advertising mediums like newspapers have been compelled to broaden their scope to the internet as well, in order to keep up with the booming business of online communication.

The majority of internet users are young people, and the majority of newspaper-readers are adults, it was only a logical move to make in order for the newspaper to cater for both age groups.

In the race of retaining their readership, all major newspapers and magazines today have both online and print editions. Most of their online editions are up-to-date and often provide breaking news as it happens.

For an example, Singapore’s the Straits Times has been able to increase its readership by relaunching its website. According to ST, it’s annual readership in 2008 rose to 1.44 million a day within a year of launch of its website.

But it’s not the same happy news for newspapers in the US. Outsell Inc. recently predicted steep drops in US newspapers’ print circulation as consumers continue to gravitate toward the Internet for news. The firm forecasts 3.5 percent annual declines in both daily and Sunday circulation, leading to a low of 43 million Sunday newspaper readers by 2012, compared to more than 62 million in the early 1990s.

As technology is changing the way of people consume news, and many people are shifting to get their news through modern media such as the web and mobile phones, it is important for the print media to keep going by diversifying and taking advantages of multimedia platforms.

References:

Outsell Inc. viewed 6 February 2010, http://www.directmarketingnewswire.com/2010/January/Outsell-Report-Shows-Nearly-Half-of-News-Users-Bypass-Newspaper-Sites-in-Favor-of-Google.htm.

Straits Times, viewed 6 February 2010, http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_291524.html.

Print vs online design

Anything that is a great print design is likely to be a lousy web design. There are many differences between the two media that it is necessary to take different design approaches while designing for each of them.

However, the fundamentals on design remain the same. According to Parker, good design stems from a thorough knowledge of the building blocks of graphic design and specifying them appropriately, based on the format and function of an individual project.

Whether for print or website, it is essential to give attention on clarity, organization and simplicity rather than decorating with too many colours, pictures, word arts and so on. As Parker (1990, p. 118) puts it, clarity, organization and simplicity are as critical to design as they are to writing.

• Print design is based on letting the eyes walk over the information, selectively looking at information objects and using spatial juxtaposition to make page elements enhance and explain each other.
• Web design functions by letting the hands move the information (by scrolling or clicking); information relationships are expressed temporally as part of an interaction and user movement.

Although the design ancestry is same, there are many differences between print and web. From a layout point of view, websites differ to print publications in that there are so many different elements vying for the reader's attention. Where print basically offers text and pictures, online media combines print with graphics, hyperlinks, animations and music. Since the reader has to use a multitude of senses to absorb a website, most people will tell you that the Web is much more interesting when browsing, as there is a higher level of stimulation as compared to reading print publications.

Design for webpage should achieve a balance between its attractiveness (targeted look and feel with necessary design effects) and user friendliness (easy-to-use navigation and well laid-out easily readable content)—without entirely compromising on either of them.

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Reference:

Parker, RC 1990, Beginning observations, Looking good in print: a guide to basic design for desktop publishing, 2^nd edn, Ventara Press, Chapel Hill NC.

My quest for blogging

I must say it wasn’t an easy start. Even though it was easy and fun to create a blog, I stumbled on designing, adding contents and layout. But when I surfed the HELP section, I found a whole lot of information and I became confident that I can do it.

I got fascinated by the fact that ‘web log’ or blog has already become an integral part of life for many around the world and every day over 120 thousands new blogs are created. I got even more curious about blogging trend, I found a list of important blog statistics that there are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day. More over 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.  

The very fact is that blogging is easier and user-friendly that goes beyond software posting and uses an entire system that allows for easy creation. You just have to write or post something, rest the system will manage for you.

I have yet to go deep into blogging, but I’m already enjoying it a lot. From my little experience and knowledge, I can tell why blogging became so popular. Today, bloggers are not only common individuals; even the mainstream media, government, businesses and celebrities are blogging or have a blog page.

For me, I do see a lot of advantages of blogging, if used it properly. I will keep you updating.

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Reference

Blogworld, 2009, viewed 29 January 2010, http://www.blogworldexpo.com/general-information/important-statistics.


Photo source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/55/167783571_3a057e63f0.jpg.