Dan Schmidt, Across the Airwaves

So Across the Airwaves is a blog about recent/not recent tv shows that have made an impact on... something. That something may be a group of writers, a group of creators, a group of crazy teentastic vampire fans, etc. I really like his blog for one because of the flow.

There is definite structure; you have the intro of the show, a little background, and the integration of the effects of the show on the outside. I find his content interesting because it seems like he points out these little plot things or character things that make these big effects that I would really never realize until someone pointed it out.

But anyway, the color scheme. I like the layout he chose. I'm a big fan of circles and the pre-designed layout has a good color scheme. I feel like the colors definitely go along with his content because there is always a level of mystery/surprise/drama in tv shows and I get that feeling from it. My only issue with the color scheme is that sometimes when I read online, I highlight the lines of text to make it easier to read and I could not do that with his blog because the background of the highlight is a light color but the original white words don't change to a dark color so it makes it impossible to read. But all and all, good color scheme, relevant vibe, I dig it.

Lots of pictures. Dan uses lots of pictures. I love it. He has pictures that have to do with what he's talking about and he has pictures that share a quality with what he's talking about. It makes his posts visually diverse. Not only that, but the different visual ideas expands the brain when your reading it. When reading a blog I feel like people just take what they get and by including these semi-off-exact-topic pictures it will lead the brain into a new direction while still keep them hooked on what your saying and therefore making the post more fun to read.


Lack of emphasis. I didn't really see any use of italics. I'm not sure Dan needs them in his blog because he doesn't really get worked up about stuff. He does bold things in some places which I think is probably enough. I feel like all he needs is to differentiate between the regular text and the word he wants to point out and the bolding it does that. On the other hand, I would like to see something that works him up, where he needs italics. There may be a few instances when he talks about how this or that tv show effects writing or when he talked about time slots in his first post and how he doesn't know if he can get a job in tv. I think that's something that needs emphasis.


Da Font. So, as I've said before, I think most blogs need a san serif modern font. In Dan's case I think the san serif works extremely well with his subject matter. There was one instance where he used a serif font and it looked completely clunky and didn't have the readability his other posts had. I felt like it was a big difference.

 

Are you witty enough? As I was reading through Dan's blog I felt that this shows the difference between my blog and his and how that relates to Trevor's. As I was saying in my previous post, I feel like Trevor needs a little umph, something more. My blog, I feel that it is natural and relevant to give a lot of umph. In Dan's blog, I don't feel that a lot of umph is necessary, I actually think he has a very good balanced between the two. There is sometimes an underlying sarcastic tone or even an underlying tone of excitement that makes reading his blog more enjoyable. You can really get the feel of his tone throughout each post even though it's minimal. That small tone that fluctuates throughout his blog makes his blog interesting despite what the content is. It's like a buffet table, I get a little bit here, a lot a bit there, and it's delicious.

I think that ending comment said enough. Out of five, I give Dan a 4.5, more out of personal opinion than complete objectivity. It's maybe not my flavor of tea meaning I like tea so yeah I'll take a cup, but some variation to the subject matter, maybe the amount of underlying tone, something that would probably make me want to read this on a regular basis. Right now I think I could look at it every once in a while and scan the titles for a show that I'm interested in. But as a blog I find it very nice. It's got a nice flow of information, it's got great and interesting pictures, it works well for what he's going for. I like it.

The Credibility of Yelp

So after reading this article on Yelp.com, you really have to ask yourself if this website that makes or breaks a business is really everything it seems to be. In the ideal world, Yelp is there for customers, consumers, and your average Joe to visit when he or she wishes to write their opinion on a specific place for everyone in the world with an internet connection to read.

The problem this article brought up was, can Yelp be trusted? As I'm sure you read, mom and pop stores have reported basically harassment from Yelp. Why? For the money!!! It's always about the money. Basically, if you need a recap, these moms and pops are saying they get constant calls from Yelp employees stating that they have a few bad reviews and for 299$ a month they could either move those posts or remove them altogether.

The interesting part was that after saying no to these Yelp representatives, more bad comments seemed to show up on their Yelp page. Well isn't that just the darndest coincidence? As the article reads...

Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.

So this is obviously just another one of those money hungry purple mom and pop business people eaters stomping around town strangling the breath out of small businesses. The part that makes me really angry, if any of this is true, is that these employees call to get businesses to advertise aka pay to get their bad comments taken down; if they don't, Yelp supposedly and probably has their own employees write more bad reviews so maybe next time they'll change their answer. Well, as the article points out, not all businesses are ready to believe that Yelp can strangle them and they keep saying no, trying to survive in a tumbling (hopefully slightly stabilizing) economy. Then at the end of it, since they don't pay to advertise, their store goes out of business because the entire world checks Yelp before setting foot anywhere.

So either bow to the review god or walk the plank to financial disaster. So in the credibility closet, based off of this article, Yelp is not a credible source of consumer reviews because they care more about money than honestly trying to help the community venture somewhere nice, with good service and good people and good atmosphere. Also, the reviews cannot be counted as credible anymore because Yelp may pay people to write them.

Even not based on the article I question the credibility of the reviews because say I have a friend named Bart. Bart works at a tanning salon, flaming, my best guy friend so I worry about his existence. Wanda is the twat that works down the street at the competitor tanning salon, hate her guts. In a totally unrelated circumstance, the two find themselves at the same store, trying to buy the same sweater. Bart gets there first and Wanda is furious. So to get Bart in trouble at work she writes a nasty review using his name and the name of the place. On top of that, she makes an alias and does the same thing.

Even though this had nothing to do with tanning, service at the salon, anything at all, the business is still going to take a toll because of a personal vendetta. I feel like people may do this more often than we might think which makes, minus the whole article deal-io, Yelp not necessarily the best place for reference.

I'm going to stick to the old school; word of mouth.

Yelp and its Features

"You're looking smart today, Andrea" is the first thing I read when I directed my browser to the famous, maybe lightly infamous site, yelp. So obviously, their first and foremost feature is to compliment the guest. So, as many of you already know, Yelp is the place where you can write a review about a store or restaurant you've been to. Tons of people use Yelp; tons of people love Yelp. People probably plan their days around what this website has to say.
Why? I would say that the first reason is probably because you can get a review on almost any place in America. Second, I would say is that they have tons, yes TONS, of features.

Besides compliments, their homepage has a reviews near you box.

Where, as you can see, people have recently written their thoughts and opinions about places in your town. I personally like this feature. It seems interesting to me that I can go to this website without an idea of where I would like to eat/shop/whatever and get some fresh ideas (but based on that article I'm not too sure how much I like that concept since these spots are obviously paid for). But you know, if I hadn't read that article and since I have no prior knowledge to the subject, it would seem to me that this feature was a keeper.

Another feature they have, though I think it may be a little mute, is you can create your own profile. You can, much like facebook and all the other SNS out there, add a picture, say where you're from, add a nickname, make lists of your favorite places, invite and have friends, and of course, showcase your many Yelp contributions. I think the only helpful thing of the profile is to keep track of the posts you've made. If I was looking at Yelp for some guidance, I wouldn't be worried about where the comments came from.

Next, you can have discussions with people on pretty much any topic out there.

If you can't see, this one is about invisible TV characters. You can see the people commenting with their profile picture to give them some sort of cyberspace identity. On the left you can see the different discussions you can get into.

Another feature they have is messaging. I've had some experience with this one. I like this feature because after I wrote the review in response to a different vicious review made about Family Grounds Cafe, the owner sent me a message saying thank you which was rewarding that my review was taken to heart. On the other hand, the original attacker also sent me a message which was rewarding in the sense that I actually laughed out loud.

Then the last pretty cool feature is the events. Not only just events, events that are in your area. And it's right in the front, easily assessable, waiting for you to click on it.

I don't know, I guess we have Columbia e-mails and posters/advertisements all around the city for that but whatever, it's there if you want it.

For the most part, those are the only features I thought were good in some sense. Sorry if my tone is kind of mellow, that article kind of makes my head spin on things like, you know, today's morals, the fact that money buys everything, the manipulative existence of huge companies, global destruction. So be wary because, as they say, not everything thing is what it seems (spooky 1970's Halloween music here).

Organization of Virb: the Social Network Site

Virb, I feel like, is organized in a very modern way. It might just be a visual aesthetic for me but I like how it isn't the average five links spaced out evenly at the bottom to direct you around the website.


On the main screen before you sign in, it is easy to see where to join if you aren't already a member, where to log in if you are, and where to see the tutorials if you don't know what you're doing. This probably helped the website create a larger or maybe more diverse (age wise) community because I could just see an older, semi-internet-illiterate person being able to sign up for this site because of the way the main page is organized.

Once you log in, your main page is pretty much organized in the same way. It's clear, concise, directs you where you need to go without having to think about it too hard. The headings are welcome, activity, manage, community, you.

The welcome tab is basically a page where they redirect you to the tutorial videos. Also, they have  nicely designed information on whats's new or what are some of the main features you should use. It's pretty standard but it's also nice to look at because of the design.

The activity tab, at least on mine because I haven't posted anything or created any groups yet, shows the recent activity in the general community kind of like the facebook home page has constantly updating information on your friends. What makes the organization of this website simple is the fact that you have these five tabs, and then if you click or roll over those tabs you have some sub tabs and on this particular page it includes contributions, comments, likes, groups. This will show you your own contributions, you're comments and those of others on stuff that is related to you, who has liked your stuff or liked stuff you have showed interest in, and the groups you are in and what is happening in them.

The manage tab shows you what changes you have made to your profile. As sub tabs they have photos, videos, text, status, quotes, links, audio, and feeds. This is where you can manage the contributions you have made with adding or deleting them, cropping, what group you want to put it in, etc.

The community tab is where you can see the relationships you have made. You can view your followers, or people who want to see updates on what you post, who you are following, or what new things people you are interested in are doing. Also you can see your circles. This is an interesting application type thing where you and selected friends or "space-internet" friends can make a circle of people and if you want to view specically what's going on with those people, you can just click on the circle. Then there are your standard messages, announcements, and messages from the groups you may join.

The you tab is just what you want your profile to look like. They are in the process of creating some new skins, and there is the option of submitting your own design to them. On top of that, you not only can use the standard ones they have, but you can make your own just for personal use which I think is a pretty awesome feature. I think it steps Virb out of the box a little more than other community art websites.

Purpose of Virb, the Social Network Site

So I clicked on the first link we were given to do a little poking around beforehand. I saw that they had categories, like art for instance, and I was like oh! well I guess I never thought of social networking sites as being art orientated. Then I scanned the possibilities and saw that they had deviantART listed. I totally was going to pick that one but since I've already been there I thought I would use it as a last resort. I wanted to choose a site that was not professional stuff like the first couple I clicked on, but made by, our favorite word, amateurs.

Then I found Virb. It interested me because it was not only for photography, design, and fine arts, but also for audio, video, and companies, besides the regular personal profile you can have. The other cool thing I looked at were the instructional videos which I actually found pretty helpful.

Signing up for Virb is crazy simple: it basically tells you to do the whole regular shpeel, name, email, social security. Kidding. But what I thought was interesting were the different options you can choose for your profile. First there is the personal profile. It's made for individuals who wish to just have a profile, who "tumbl", who blog, who photo-share, etc. Then there is the audio profile which is for musicians, record labels, comedians, and podcasters to name a few.You can also choose the portfolio option which would be for designers, photographers, filmmakers, and it does say bloggers which I'm not sure why it wouldn't just be on the personal one, but whatever. Last, you can pick other, which is for companies, brands, products, or organizations. '

Once you sign up, you have your profile. On all the pages, which is another feature I like, is the "virb bar" which has an explore pull down menu where you can pick what media you would like to explore that the virb team picks out beforehand as some of the stuff they like best. This would definitely help in generating a community out of strangers who sign up for the site.

Another plus: in your homepage you have a "follow" like blogger where you can see snippets of other people's twitter imports, things that are being liked on the site and content that's being added.

Basically the reasoning for this website is very specific, but the site itself allows you to explore the content in so many different ways. The point is to have fun, share and post your artwork in many different medias, and to make connections with other artists. The bigger idea is to get all the different artists out there to come together. Like I said before, deviantART deals really only with photography, fine art, and graphic art. I think virb probably came out saying "we're going to round up the whole art community because everyone plays a part in creating art and collaboration is important. I think collaboration is important too and this site is great for that. You can comment, message, like things, group artists together, organize, and display yourself.

If you don't have your own portfolio site, if you don't have time to get to the portfolio center, I would do this. They have some cool skins/layouts. I'm even going to consider keeping mine, of course depending on my crazy life/lack of time.

More Questions on CafeMom

Official or unofficial? Good personalities or machines? Worthy or unworthy? 

These are some of the questions asking about the site CafeMom.

Like I said in my last post, CafeMom is obviously for moms. When it comes to being “official or not” I think it’s just as official as facebook is. There aren’t any slang words or phrases that a particular ethnic group or age group might use. But its not totally governmental perse. It’s not like the official copyright laws I read on the web for our last assaignment. 

It’s friendly, that’s the word I’m looking for. It’s the kind of site that invites any age or ethnicity to come and join and relish in the fact that you’re preggos or already have the little eggos. So no, I would not say it’s official because that would most definitely turn people away from the site, but it’s not like someone made a website and didn’t double check it or used their own personal language either. It’s friendly.

And I think that kind of characterizes the moms on the website too, for the most part that is. From what I’ve seen, these moms like giving help to others and reach out to others. It’s like a culdesac neighborhood of moms who all know each other and like to give each other cookies every now and then. Moms are usually nice people and if you’re a meanie mommie, you probably wouldn’t join a website like CafeMom. But on the other hand there are those up-to-do moms, as I call them, who don’t work (sorry this is very stereotypical) who get manicures every week and their hair done, and most likely have a nanny half the time. I would say that’s a major stereotype but I think it’s true. These kind of moms are also on the website. I think they kind of bring it down actually because they are the ones who get on other mom’s cases about their parenting instead of giving some good advice. But for the most part, I think the moms are lively, happy, regular, friendly moms. 

I kind of got a sense of the character of the moms by the journals they posted. And to answer the 

question on the member-generated writing, these moms come from all shapes and sizes of educational levels. There are people who don’t spell check and have major grammatical mistakes and there are the master’s moms who write like they’re at Harvard. It doesn’t really change the feeling I get from the moms though (back to the friendly) it’s just different styles of writing. I think that’s a mom thing, no matter where you come from, if you’re a mom and she’s a mom, you’ll probably going to get along, at least for the first play date.

I think all of these combining features on the website, the backgrounds of the moms, and the personalities of the moms make this site worthy. It’s not about whether the site has been made well, has the best design, is the most official, it’s the ambiance that is created by the tone of the website voice and the personalities and connection of the moms. If there were mean, egotistical moms that made a mean egotistical vibes, then no, this site would not be worthy of anyone normal’s attention. But it’s not. It’s useful in the fact that it has news forums about kids, advice colums about kids, activities for kids, and also the connecting moms sharing advice and ideas. It just creates a good ambiance that is worthy of a good person’s time.

Cafe Mom!

A social network sites is a web-based service that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

This is what our link wrote on social networking sites and I would say that cafemom.com definitely falls under that. CafeMom is a SNS that is obviously for moms. You have a profile that you can load a picture onto. You can write how you're feeling in your "thought bubble" (much like facebook). It is a "bounded system" meaning that there are limitations on what you can do with your profile and what you can see on others' profiles. You can have a friend list and see your own friends list of friends as well. So yes, I would say this is a SNS.

Goals.

I would say the goal of this website is to connect moms with other moms. Their smaller goals I think would include helping out new moms, advice for any mom, activities for moms, games for moms, etc. Maybe the ultimate goal is to help moms relax, but then again I think that is a little backwards because if I were a mom and I had some relaxation time, I would most likely not want to play games about children and write posts on my child and load pictures of my child...seems a little repetitious.

I think this page is great for those moms who love to show off their children; but I would say it isn't that distinct from other SNSs except for their wide variety of groups like, advice for moms, 24/7 chat 4 moms, and teen - young moms (I was a little offended!). I think these groups are probably the main driving force for this website because like I said, other SNSs offer the same photo sharing, chatting, game playing, blogging, etc.

Offers.

I feel like I've already kind of dived into this topic with you guys above but anyway... First off, there is photo sharing. I checked out a few mom's photo's and you can basically upload A photo and then it will show them all in order of time uploaded. It's nice because, since this site is all about the bouncing babies, that you can see the progression of growth that all mommies get excited about.

Next, there's a journal part to the website.

I have a few "bones" to pick with you, America.

#1. Since when is a "scary" costume TABOO on Halloween? We went to the "Mall-o-ween" with our toddlers at about 5, because it was easy and we knew we would take them around our neighborhood later. People were giving my son, husband, and I dirty looks for our costumes.. and PRAISING my daughter for hers (fairy) while IGNORING my son completely. Her candy bag weighed double when we got home.. and hers was full of nicer candy, his was full of the crap from China and stuff that I wont let them eat so we donate to the shelter. Nice.



I think they BOTH look adorable and worthy of equal treatment.. I was pretty disgusted by how many people went "oh, hi.. here you go" to my son and gave me a dirty look.. and then went "OMG HI CUTIE! OMG YOUR SO CUTE! OMG! HERE YOU GO! AWWW HAVE TWO!!" to my daughter. Yes.. shes cute. But wow, bash to my other kids ego much?

#2. Whats all this "Safe place" talk? "As long as we go to a safe place..." meaning what? A person who lives in a smaller house than yours is going to kidnap and murder you on the spot? You are going to get shot on a street without streetlamps? I don'tget it. Every year we went trick or treating at my friends aunts neighborhood before going to my grandmas neighborhood.. her aunts neighborhood was a.. GASP.. trailer park! And guess what? It was the BEST! The best candy, the nicest people, and just about EVERYONE participated. It was probably the SAFEST neighborhood we could go to, because there were lots of people and no cars racing past. I mentioned this the other day and someone sneered "ew.. a trailer park?" ARE YOU SERIOUS? Grow up.

#3. WTF is Trunk-or-treating and why does it insist on ruining halloween? When I was a kid, you wanted candy.. you had to work for it! Trudge up and down those hills in your costume, knock on doors. Our kids are so fat and lazy now (or our parents?) that we cant even knock on doors? We have to walk from trunk to trunk in a parking lot? We passed THREE trunk or treating events.. and the consequence of that is the $20.00 of candy we bought for trick or treaters is just sitting here still.. we only had 5 groups of people knock on our door.. maybe 20 kids total. We gave out big handfulls but still have a ton left over. Last year we had about 100 kids at least. What HAPPENED? Last year it was cold and rainy.. this year warmer and dry. So it wasn'tthe weather. I really don't care if this offends anyone.. There are only THREE reasons I can think that trunk or treating exists:

A. Because its inclusive.. aka, done by a church or such and meant for them only. Which is cool... but doesn't sound like any fun to me and then why not go trick or treating afterwords?
B. Because your lazy. You don't want to trudge door to door with your kids, and you don't want them going alone.. so you take them to a parking lot. Ooooh FUN.
C. Because your paranoid. Checking candy isnt enough for you. Walking with your kids isnt enough.. you are CONVINCED your child is going to be kidnapped, poisoned, and killed right in front of your eyes. Yes.. its come to that folks.

Really, I cant think of any other reason. What has happened to this holiday I cherished so as a child? I can remember walking down the sidewalks absolutely crushed with kids.. kids on every square inch of sidewalk.. costumes of ALL kinds. Zombies.. Monsters.. and some cute ones too. I called my grandma today to ask how she held up (its kinda a late night for her, they dont quit until 11pm) but she said she only had a few people there too. WHAT? One year we went through 10 five pound bags of candy at her place... this year she said she counted maybe 40 kids.

What has happened to halloween?



PS... if your kid was scared by my costume, perhaps your kid is a puss. Or perhaps its your job to explain what a COSTUME is? RAWR.

So this was one woman's journal that I thought I would put in there because I like her snappy attitude and the fact that her and her son wore matching costumes. So obviously the journal is useful. You can vent on your stressful day. You can write out to people for advice. You can write about a really good day. It's kind of like this site where you can add pictures to make it more visual. I think it's also a good way to connect inside the website. That woman's post got near 60 comments. People either agreeing with her and giving her the thumbs up and people who are duchebags and say blah blah blah why are you such a bad mom....

They also have games. When I was first jumping through some of their pages, I saw a latte mom game, set it latte land, with a working mom and a little cart with an umbrella where she can "brew" coffee, buy supplies and so on. There are like five different cartoon customers who say the same five phrases, and it reminds me a lot of hot dog stand. I found this game funny because obviously every mom drinks lattes... and I say that in the manor of, at least where I nanny, every mom does drink lattes. So yay for games.


They also have a daily buzz... where you can choose the age of your child and read up on some cool things they might like. The first few are about Dr. Suess bedding from Potterybarn, Leftover Halloween Candy: 7 Ideas for Your Kid's Sweet Stash, and Holiday Toy Catalogs: Let the Wishing Begin! So that's pretty nice. I actually might check out some that don't have to do with spending money for Brock, he's three and a cutie pie for the most part.

They have polls. Pretty simple concept here. Every SNS seems to have polls since America is obsessed with other people's thoughts and feelings. They have "showdowns" which is kind of like a poll...where I believe the site puts up two pictures under one category and people vote which is the best... kind of mortifying if I were a mother and I lost.

Seriously, who could pick between these two?

Anyway, that's all the big stuff. That's basically what CafeMom is all about. If any of you are moms, I would say it is worthy enough to join it for the articles on parenting and activities and such.