Excergeis

Exegesis

Kirsty Large- LAKMD111

For my Web Communcations assignment, I had to write an excergesis on my blog, including disscussions of contributing and central nodes. I hope you enjoy reading it.

When told we had to do this assignment, I immediately thought of the blogs on the Internet that interest me. While I am usually not interested in writing blogs, I tried to make it as interesting as I could, by using sport as the key focus for my blog. Because of this, I used Blogger as my central node, as I felt it was easiest for me to do, as I am not very experienced with blogs, and other complicated forms of technology. The theme of my web presence assignment is clearly evident throughout my central node, and contributing nodes, which is obviously sport.

When writing my blog, it made me much more aware of the impact that Web 2.0 has had on the internet. If we did not have Web 2.0, then we would not have blogs, and other social networking sites. It also made me aware of the fact that the internet and the World Wide Web are actually two different things. The difference is that the internet provides the structure for the World Wide Web, and the World Wide Web feeds off it.

I made my Blogger account very simple, with very big pictures of sports players. Ideally, this was to draw the attention of anyone that just happened to be looking at my blog. As I am not an experienced blogger, I did my best to ensure that it was quite simple, and was easy to locate what the main focus of the blog is, which sport is, mainly the sports I am interested in the most which is AFL and soccer. One of the best things about the Blogger account was that it allowed you to specifically put in any interests that you had. Being a sports fan, and doing my central node on sport, I put a variety of sports teams I follow, such as West Coast Eagles, Arsenal, and New York Jets. This allowed potential readers, and followers of my blog to quickly have a look and decide whether they think that my blog would be interesting to read, judging by my interests. This technique is more commonly known as tagging, and was discussed in a lecture, which I would to be very interesting.

As more and more people tag their common interests, it makes a folksonomy, which can help people to search for exactly what they want through using these words, and help them in being able to view the blogs that they find the most engaging. For example, I found it helpful when I was browsing through blogs in order to give me some inspiration for my own blog. As a one eyed West Coast Eagles supporter, I certainly would not be want to be reading a Fremantle Docker’s blog, and I am sure the same applies to them reading my blog. My blog account was targeted at West Coast Eagles supporters, purely because of the discussion that would take place on key issues relating to the eagles, and the fact that all my blog posts about AFL had some connection to the eagles.

I found that many of the in class lectures were very helpful in me determining how I would go about making my blog. One of the ones that stood out was Topic 2.4 on Content Sharing. This lecture helped me grasp the idea of how quickly, and how viral content on the Internet and more specifically the Web 2.0 platforms can be shared. This made me really just how many people could be viewing my blog, and how I needed to make sure my views on topics, were sharp and to the point to engage my readers.

Twitter was one of my contributing nodes, and I closely linked it to my central node, which is the blogger account. Topic 3.2 was focused on Twitter, and describes it as a “friend feed”. This means that you can check what your friends are doing at the same time. I think that is a very good summation of Twitter, as it is very convenient for people to use that are busy, as they can quickly log on, and at a glance, see what all their friends are up to. This is one of the main reasons why I utilised Twitter as a contributing node, because of the easy access for people, and the fact that it may be easier for them to use, to check up on my sports views. This is because in Twitter you have to express yourself in 160 characters or less, whereas blogs can be very long. For me, I use Twitter on a daily basis, to check what my favourite celebrities are doing, and also to check sports scores. I also find it handy as I can interact with other users who share the same interests as I do.

Another one of my contributing nodes was the AFL forum BigFooty Eagles. In this forum, I posted, and engaged with other football fans. I believe that this forum ties in very well with my blog posts, as it centre on sport, and the discussions. It also meant I could share my views with others, and get their opinions on my views.

Facebook was also another contributing node. This was definitely useful, as it allowed me to share my blog posts with other Facebook users, and is the contributing node that I use the most. Many of my Facebook friends do not have blog accounts, and twitter so they would not be able to access my blog posts, so this is why I chose to use Facebook as a contributing node, which allowed me to reach another audience.

References


Crash Course In Blogger Ettique, (2009) Retrieved 1st September 2011, from http://heartifb.com/2009/10/02/crash-course-blogger-etiquette/

West Coast Eagles- Big Footy Style! (2011) Retrieved 2nd September 2011, from http://www.bigfooty.com/portal/eagles/

Rowse, D, Ten Tips For Writing a Good Blog Post (2010) Retrieved 1st September 2011, from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post/

Boswell, W, The World Wide Web and the Internet – What is the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web, (2011) Retrieved 1st September 2011, from http://websearch.about.com/od/whatistheinternet/a/worldwideweb.htm