Professional Blogging

All of the articles that I read on professional blogging mainly deal with the topic of how to become a professional blogger and generate a decent sole income from it.  As some of us might love to experience the financial success of a “perezhilton”, the plain and simple fact is that making a sizable income from professional blogging is usually not possible because of lack of traffic.  As one article said “More traffic leads to more income – that’s a fact in nearly all cases.”

A professional blogger also needs to produce content that people will love, but, at the same time, you will need to have a passion for the topic you’re writing about, some technical knowledge (since blogs are based on content management software), some blogging knowledge (from research done of similar blow types and also learning about search engine optimization), web design skills (since most successful blogs are created on original sites and don’t permanently live on sites like wordpress, etc), and have creative ideas and hopefully a network of contacts to spread the word about your site whether they may be personal or professional in nature.

One has to be able to create an interest for their site to build up enough traffic for companies to be interested in wanting to advertise your site because, from what I read, that is where most of the income stems from in professional blogging.  You also have to be able to devote enough time to venture and, as some articles said, treat it as a full-time job if you’re serious about it creating enough of a salary to live comfortably.

To be honest for many years, I checked guilty pleasure sites like perezhilton or dlisted not even realizing they were technically blogs.  Nowadays, of course, I read other sites containing many other interests of mine from science to space and particularly music.  I very much enjoy how I’m able to read on a topic that I love and also be able to feel connected to it by being able to post personal comments or respond to other’s comments.  I can definitely now see how I’ll be able to use blogs as a very valuable and awesome resource to keep up to date on the latest web design discoveries and trends.

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/563/professional-blogging-as-a-business-model/

http://professionalblogging.org/introduction-to-professional-blogging.php

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/10-requisites-for-professional-bloggers/

RSS Feeds

Like one of the articles I read said “RSS feeds are the most important technology of the Web 2.0 era.  They allow users to consumer a huge amount of information, quicker and at their own speed.”  Instead of subscribing to newsletters via email, which may only have one item or article at a time that you’re interested in with the remaining content being useless, subscribing to RSS feeds allow users to get information from many different sources at one time in which you can quickly browse or scan through the feed for information that is relevant to your interested topic.

Also, nowadays email subscriptions can contain “viruses, spyware, or other malicious code”, but an RSS feed “scans all information input to your weblog for malware before presenting it to you” kind of like its very antivirus software.  That is definitely something I did not know until reading these articles and was happy to discover.  Also, you can opt-in or opt-out of any RSS feeds at any time, and you don’t have to worry about filtering problems like you do with email newsletter subscriptions.

I now really see how valuable these RSS feeds will be to all of us studying web design.  There is so much information on the web and so much new information being added on a daily basis in relation to our field of study that it would take an enormous amount of time to look up each of the blogs we’re interested in on an individual basis.  Having an aggregator subscribed to feeds of valuable information saves and aggravation of having to research things in the old traditional way.  I am definitely sold on this.

http://www.websitehandlers.com/2008/11/significance-of-rss-feeds/

http://particletree.com/features/the-importance-of-rss/

http://www.webinknow.com/2007/01/really_simple_m.html

http://raidxblog.com/seo/importance-of-rss-feeds

http://xebidy.com/the-importance-of-rss-feeds/

Personal Learning Environment

To be honest, I had never heard of a PLE until last week.  So this is all new to me.  While in class, I kept thinking of PLEs in terms of the Netvibes website we had to create an account for.  Since this was my first exposure to learning about PLEs, it seemed to me nothing more than a place to store your favorite websites as bookmarks.  Kind of like your favorites in a web browser.  Boy was I way off.  After reading all three of the articles I found online, I have a very different take on the whole Personal Learning Environment thing.  I mean I was still trying to figure out what a widget was (admitted embarrassingly and coming to the conclusion it was an icon kind of like a thumbnail, in my opinion) and then still trying not to laugh every time I came across the word “pedagogies”.  The word just makes me laugh.  Go figure.

Anyways, I finished reading all three of the articles (being somewhat annoyed that one author kept referring to himself in third person…ugh) and all the debate over whether it’s a system or a concept.  I honestly had no idea this PLE thing was as widespread and very closely related to primary and secondary education.  And then, of course, now I realize the Netvibes site mainly focuses on linking blogs on certain subjects or topics where users of a PLE try to shape or “customize” their own learning space.  The way I was originally thinking of it in class was as a completely casual extracurricular type of tool.  One where you read and link the latest ridiculous celebrity gossip/drama and or one where you read the latest discovery or invention in science or one where you can get lost in your daily dose of io9 or Geekologie.  I now see that Personal Learning Environments as something that helps the learner/user “take control of and manage their own learning”.

Now just thinking of a PLE as a sole source of learning, especially for secondary education like college, was enough to almost make my head explode.  I’m in college as we speak (obviously), and I can’t imagine having to learn everything I’ll be learning in a traditional classroom over networked blogs that can be endless at best.  The whole idea I read of it possibly one day taking over education as we now know it blew my mind.  I just can’t imagine that.  For people like me, I actually do better in school attending a college with traditional in-person classes.  I learn better that way.  I have to physically be in a different place (classroom) than say sitting on my desk at home.  I personally don’t have the discipline it would take to one day completely get my education from blogs (or I guess free information on the internet), but, at the same time I say that, I have taken an online class here and there and have succeeded at it.  I just much prefer going to a class myself.  At home, I’m easily distracted because it’s such a relaxed and casual environment, and then next you know I’m off tracking researching the net trying to figure out what that cool progressive house song was playing in the background on the Scion car commercial I just heard from the living room.  See, I just got distracted and went off on a tangent.  Kidding.  Let’s move on.

But back to PLEs.  If they were the norm one day for education, who’s in charge for setting the standards for what information should be learned say to get a bachelor’s degree in any given field.  How’s it going to be graded?  How are you going to know you’ve learned what you need to learn if there isn’t any clear cut direction?  Nowadays, it’s hard to believe some of what you read posted on the web.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s a fact or opinion, and yes I know people post references to back up their information, etc.  The plain and simple fact is that takes time to research, and I chose to go to college because it’s convenient and I trust the information I’m being taught.  In addition, I chose to go to college and to class to be taught by an instructor who to me is an expert in their field, and I’m there to learn from them.  There would always be a starting point to begin an education whether it be through a PLE or through some kind of traditional college.  In traditional college, there is a curriculum, assignments, tests, books, etc.  I would think an educational PLE might begin the same way, but, if you don’t have a structured outline of what to learn to get your desired result as an expert (say in web design for this exercise) in the field you want to work in, how are you going to know what site to link or what blog to follow, etc.?  I guess in my understanding what it all boils down to if you would really have to trust your resources for information and also do a lot of the leg work on your own, if it wasn’t provided to you in some sort of outline like a degree plan is.

I read on more than one occasion in the article describing how in regards to a PLE the “numerous different tools are overwhelming”, and I have to say that’s an understatement when reading all these different views on what a PLE might actually be in terms of sticking an exact definition to it.  All these different PLE architectures, PLEF, PLEX project, and aggregation portal this and that is overwhelming within itself.  I definitely have a newfound appreciation for what a PLE could mean for every single person sometime in the near future, and I’m ready to embrace it but of course will always have certain apprehensions until they are put to rest.  Man, at first I thought the whole PLE thing was going to be another way of “they” forcing you to join MySpace and Facebook where some people feel the need to give you a play by play of their entire day and where they are at any given time.  That’s just not me and never will be.  I actually enjoy my privacy and don’t need the world to know my latest feelings on the last Lost episode or who I can’t stand on the Bachelor or whatever that show’s name is.  I was almost ill thinking there was going to be another personal social-networking application or website I had to keep up with in addition to working full-time and going to school.  Proud (and glad) to say I was wrong in my assumption, and that a Personal Learning Environment might actually help me more with my studies more than I ever thought it could.  Just have to stay focused and not get lost in the other Web 2.0 applications that may be entertaining but not productive for school purpose.  Anyways, much more to come later in the semester and much more to learn.  Antennas are up and reading to receive incoming academic transmissions.

http://www.prolearn-academy.org/Events/Past%20Events/summer-school-2008/workshops/personal-learning-environment-ple-2013-a-new-learning-concept-or-a-new-learning-system

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Ple#What_is_a_Personal_Learning_Environment.3F

http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Personal_learning_environment

Web 2.0: The New Guy At Work

This article describes how corporate employees realized that “Web 2.0-style networking and collaboration can help them in their jobs.”, and how of these employees are trying to bring this type of networking/collaboration “inside the walls of their companies”.  It talks about empowerment being the principal appeal of Web 2.0, and how all of these services are merging everything into one giant computer that anyone with internet access can use.  It uses Google as an example stating that when you do a search “you’re actually setting in motion programs and databases distributed around the globe on computer hard drives”.

What I thought was interesting was the decline of employees using their own company’s intranet sites.  They gave an example of one company using a social-networking site (Socialtext wiki) where “participants in a project can avoid endless e-mail exchanges and instead post documents, schedules, and other materials on a wiki Web site, which anyone else on the project can then append with changes or comments.”  And, after six months of using this social-networking and collaboration site, they had “been a 75% drop in the number of e-mails on projects using wikis”.  I thought that was amazing because we all relate to the endless number of emails you can receive on any given day at work in relation to any given project.  I know from personal experience at the company where I work, the owners and executives have been very hesitant to use the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) in the way it was intended.  Every department could use this site to bulletins, current events in the department (like winning new business), and most importantly (in my particular situation) file sharing where they would only be one master file that would track changes efficiently and accurately.  We’ve had this system in place for quite some time, and all they use it for is to post insignificant and ridiculous company bulletins like when the next potluck is.  Funny thing is no amount of trying to convince them ever works.  Some people are set in their ways and scared of change, unfortunately.  It’s a privately family-owned company.  So they basically do what they want, and it’s sad because the work environment could be so much more efficient and not plagued with as much stress as it is now.

But, back to the article, it does state how other companies who are being smart and catching on the trend are “starting to take a page from MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking services. The reason: Businesses are, in a sense, social networks formed to make or sell something.”  Corporations no longer want to buy mega-expensive software that takes years to implement and roll out.  It discusses another alternative called “mash-ups, where simple, existing Web 2.0 services are combined and put to a new use.”  The article specifically discusses how IBM helped the US Chamber of Commerce Center for Corporate Citizenship “mash together a one-stop site in just a few weeks for people who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina to look for jobs. People type into one box the kind of job they’re seeking, and the site searches more than 1,000 job boards, then shows their location on a Google map.”  I thought this was an incredible use of resources used in a way to help thousands of people in a very fast, efficient way.  Now only if this could be said to their response time to other crisis situations.

All in all Web 2.0 is here to stay, and I believe that many companies that don’t change with the times will eventually perish from being too old-fashioned and stuck in their ways.  “Corporate folks accustomed to clear lines of authority may have to tolerate bottom-up Web 2.0 technologies in order to help their employees reap the potential productivity gains.”   As Dave Girouard, vice-president in charge of Google Inc.’s (GOOG ) enterprise division stated “This isn’t people fooling around. It’s people trying to do their jobs better.”  I couldn’t have said it better.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_25/b3989072.htm

Web 2.0 Description…

This article describes Web 2.0  as “popular term for advanced Internet technology and applications including blogs, wikis, RSS and social bookmarking.”  It discusses Tim O’Reilly as the individual credited with inventing the term but also mentions a dispute in regards to that adding that “Joe Firmage, for instance, used Web 2.0 to describe using the World Wide Web as a platform in 2003.”

As in many articles I have read while researching this Web 2.0 assignment, it discusses the difference between Web 1.0 (world wide web) and Web 2.0 in that Web 2.0 “users have more input into the nature and scope of Web content and in some cases exert real-time control over it.”  As where in the original version of the web, “data was posted on Web sites, and users simply viewed or downloaded the content.”

I do somewhat agree with the criticism of Web 2.0 discussed in the article that Web 2.0 “makes it too easy for the average person to affect online content and that, as a result, the credibility, ethics and even legality of Web content could suffer.”  I have run into this problem many times with sites like Wikipedia, and I know even in some college courses I’ve taken that you are banned from using Wikipedia at all for research and information.  And, of course, that is mainly because anyone can post data or information to this site whether it be accurate or not.  Nowadays in Wikipedia, I have noticed there are disclaimers they’ve added to certain pages stating that the information provided has not been verified and may not be accurate.  So how are you supposed to get accurate information nowadays?  Basically, you have to pay for it in some sort of subscription to a site providing what you want or need.

Of course, there are pro and cons to every subject or issue.  In the article, it also describes that defenders of Web 2.0 state “these problems have existed ever since the infancy of the medium and that the alternative — widespread censorship based on ill-defined elitism — would be far worse.”  And I believe that to be true as well.  It’s not like there is some huge government agency policing every single website on the internet verifying the accuracy of information provided to the public.  Basically, you just have to trust what you’re reading is true unless it has been disproved otherwise.

Blogs, RSS, and social bookmarking related to Web 2.0 is definitely the future of the internet, and where it seems the internet will stay for a very long time to come.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1169528,00.html

What Is Web 2.0 Anyway?

I do agree that web users should be actively involved in contributing information to what’s out there on the internet instead of just “passively absorbing” the data.  I did learn something new in that blogs is a shortened version of “web logs”.  This story related particularly to non-profit organizations.  I think Web 2.0 is and will always be very useful to organizations of this type.  For example, they’re able to easily keep members and volunteers updated on the latest happenings and events with blogs.  Whereas in the past, they had to send out mass emails or even brochures or pamphlets to keep everyone updated.  Nowadays, they can create a blog and have someone regularly monitor it to ensure questions or issues get answered and also to spread the word on any fundraising events they’re trying to schedule.

In regards to tagging, the non-profit technology community created its own tagging project (NPTech tag) on “del.icio.us to share knowledge among people in the field.”  Tagging is useful in that you can “tag” any information you find or post on the internet with simple keywords that will help other users identify and find what they are looking for when performing an internet search for something related to a certain non-profit organization or cause.

This article also discussed AJAX (an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) which “is a term that refers to JavaScript, XML, HTML, andCSS used in conjunction to develop interactive Web applications.”  I really like the concept and idea of this.  It discusses in traditional web applications, when you try to pull up a website by clicking on a link, there is that usual lag time of waiting while the page loads since it is requesting information from a particular web server.  In an AJAX-driven web application, the results are immediate.  So there is no waiting time for the page to load.  The article does state that they are only “on the tip of the iceberg” in regards to AJAX, but the concept is very cool indeed.  We all know how annoying it is to wait for pages to load, and this could be  a very useful tool for non-profits because it could make a different between someone who was going to give a donation giving up because they were too impatient to wait for their site to load.

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/webbuilding/archives/page9344.cfm