Reflections

In the span of three months which I’ve spent writing on issues of document designing and posting them up on this blog, I have acquired a lot of experience and learnt many new things regarding new media.

Such as the proper designing for online versus print, the development of blogging communities, the classification of the different kinds of blogs as well as ethical issues relating to blogging.

A blogger should be aware of the Do’s and Don’ts of the online media as well as being alert and open to constant change and updates of the Web 2.0.

Some important points to remember as a good document designer and web user:

• Keep it short and simple (Nielsen 1995)
• Visuals are very important! (Putnis & Petelin 1996, p. 241)
• Respect others on the web; an anonymous alias would not keep or hide you from the persecution of the law.

Finally I’d like to thank all of my blog readers for all the kind comments and useful critiques, it has been an experience!

Image Source: Rman

References

Nielsen, J. 2005, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, viewed November 12 2009, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html

Putnis, P. & Petelin, R. 1996, ‘Writing to communicate’, in Professional communication: principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney, pp. 223-263.

New forms of media publishing

The Internet and Web 2.0 has made possible the wide sharing of information of everything imaginable from anyone to everyone in the world, in just a few clicks.

This includes anything from hard news to social communication between family and friends as the Internet is a fast and wide-spread platform for heavy information-sharing. It is boosted by the availability of Web 2.0 applications such as Twitter, used to share on-the-spot news and pictures without having to go through a gatekeeper.

Image Source: Twitter-Logo
Twitter networks millions of people globally;
can you imagine the spread and impact of a major global rumour?

Therefore it enables the Internet to become one of the most common media outlets for journalism as publishing becomes almost free.

Online journalism are constantly bettering their standards as expectations from the audience grow; it has to be fast and credible as it becomes the top choice for news-searching and news-gathering as compared to traditional media which takes up to a day (for newspapers) or hours (for television) to report (Anderson 2009).

As in the recent case of Michael Jackson’s death in June 2009, Twitter and even Google experienced a crash due to heavy usage of information-searchers (Schofield 2009)! This shows how popular the Internet is as a search engine.

Image source: google_layered
Google experienced a major crash on the day
the world first heard rumours of Michael Jackson's death

As more and more information are put on the Web every day, there is no doubt that the issue of private data sharing would be brought up sooner or later. As netizens, we all want to keep our private data private, choose what we want to publish, and also retain the right to delete any information about us whenever we want.

But the rules of new media do not play like that.

According to author and Professor Yochai Benkler as quoted in Naughton (2006, p. 1), the output of new media is not exclusive property. Rather, it is “subjected to an increasingly robust ethic of open sharing, open for all others to build on, extend and make their own.”

But Facebook, worried about the legal issues it might face one day, has come out with several updates of their ‘Terms and Conditions’, including a clause to ‘being able to retain (our) data forever’ (Facebook: We own your content forever, and ever 2009).

Image Source: Facebook-logo
Facebook prepares for future legal issues by including tight clauses

And although a T&C of Twitter state that we can delete our text and images forever when we delete our account, there is also a final clause of ‘reserving the right…to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time’ (Bennett 2009).

Therefore, Net users must always be constantly aware of the blurring grey areas of the Internet before clicking Enter.

References
Anderson, K. 2009, ‘@media140: How Twitter is challenging the news gatherers’, Guardian, UK, viewed November 13 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/20/media140-twitter-journalism

Bennett, S. 2009, 'Who Owns Your Tweets – Twitter, You Or Anyone?', Blog of Mr. Tweet, viewed November 13 2009, http://blog.mrtweet.net/who-owns-your-tweets-twitter-you-or-anyone

Facebook: We own your content forever, and ever 2009, Neowin.net, viewed November 13 2009, http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/02/16/facebook-we-own-your-content-forever-and-ever

Naughton, J. 2006, Blogging and the emerging media ecosystem, University of Oxford, viewed November 13 2009, http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf

Schofield, J. 2009, ‘Michael Jackson, the Twitter effect, and the 'science' of reporting’, Guardian UK, viewed November 13 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/26/michaeljackson-twitter-blogs-reporting