Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Open Sky

Open Sky, by Virilio, from a media and communications stand point, discusses the speed at which we must process information presented to us. From my interpretation, it seems as if Virilio is saying that through a medium such as the Internet, information is flung at us so rapidly that why we think we are processing is actually just a portion of the overall message. Our minds when absorbing information at such a rapid speed try to focus on a sold object but by the nature of the beast our view is widening or branching out to catch other pieces of information also that weren't in focus mere seconds earlier.

Virilio likes to go back and forth between describing elaborate scenarios in life and applying his knowledge so it is entertaining to try and keep track of his train of thought. However, to help describe the analysis above, Virilio uses the example of skydiving. He states that as you fall closer to ther ground your eyes think they are adjusting to a certain object, however, as you continue to fall you find that object is actually widening to reveal a much bigger picture. His use of worldly occurrnces are often interplaced with his thoughts in Open Sky and Virilio uses many of these instances to put a more exciting and more stimulating spin on his argument.


Daily Questions to Ponder:
1) What is Virilio trying to accomplish through his long examples of life instances?
2) What makes Virilio's point of view appear valid?

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Audience and You

When writing a blog or for an online source what you first may think about is the audience you are trying to reach with the message you want to portray.  When thinking about your audience you have to consider what topics will pull your reader in and what writing style will keep them interested.  Writing is a complex process that may accept some forms and reject others. Although your reasoning may appeal to a reader in one instance doesn't mean it will apply to the reader's opinion in all instances.

There are said to be seven steps that go into understanding your audience.  These steps include, listing your major audience, gathering information about your audience, listing major characteristics for each audience, gathering your audiences' questions, tasks and stories, using your information to create personas, Including the persona's goals and tasks, and using your information to write scenarios for your site.

Every channel has a channel of more interest at the time so with all of Furman tunnels apparently falling down, even Furman and it's other tunnels are more courageous at this moment. Your major audience regardless of size is always what you are trying to appeal to. However, this audience's desires may change over the course of time. It is the web designers job to figure out what the key desires are for that audience and to bring them to the forefront of the website in order to make the audience as happy as possible.

No matter what the case is for an individual audience, it is essential to keep the target audience interested and happy with the information being displayed upon a website. The audience is the key to success for a blog or website so no matter what society deems the best it is up to the main group to decide what their particular audience prefers.



Daily Questions to Ponder?

1) What makes the audience so important for a website?

2) Is the audience a good scale for what is popular?


 

Monday, November 12, 2012

Evaluating The Web

Chapter 6 in writing for digital media starts off with a description of the Gestalt theory. Basically, this theory states that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. When considering this theory in the context of working online, it's important to remember the complexity that goes into every aspect of a web page. Sometimes when working online it's difficult to make sure the various parts of a website add up to support the entire product. From my personally interpretation of this theory, I see it as even though the web page may appear presentable as a whole, different aspects like hyperlinks, photo credits, spelling and so on may not be up to par or make sense with the rest of the page.

When dealing with the parts of a web page there are a lot of editing and style desitions that need to be made. First off, if you design a website to fit a certain template it's typically best to keep that style consistent through the pages of your website. The reason you would want to do this is because it makes your website look more unified and easier for the viewer to remain invested in what you are trying to show them. When it comes to editing your site, there are a few things you must take into account. For instance, there are obvious things such as spelling and grammar and then there are other aspects tougher to keep consistent with like photo credits, hyperlinks, and page breaks.

Finally, something crucial to the validity of your web page are the correctness of your references, dates, names and professions along with other criteria that may go along with classifying someone or something. Your website can look as professional as possible but if you have incorrect information presented publicly it will immediately discredit the rest of your site. Faulty hyperlinks and misspelled words are problems but they are salvageable situations to have on a web page but it is difficult to recover from incorrect personal or factual information.

Ultimately,  the various parts of a website all need to be checked, maintained and presented properly to insure the overall quality of your website. Even though online sources change and are presented so rapidly it is important to do your best to edit and style your final product properly.


Daily Questions to Ponder:
1) How do you determine the proper words an phrases to hyperlink?

2) How can poor editing effect the credibility of your website?