Work of Art or Capturing Memories?

In terms of recognizing which photo-sharing website is better – Flickr or Fotolog? One has to ask What? Why? and How?

What? do you want to do with the website? Is it to publish your work of art or is it a time stamp of memories?

Why? do you intend to gain acceptance or advertising your talent or skill, or is it regarding your identity in the digital world?

How? do you intend to use it? To publish your work of art and share your creativity? Or do you want share your daily lives with other people?

As an artist, I would go for Flickr, as I can show off my skill. As a private person, I do not intend to share my personal life to millions of people globally unless it is absolutely amusing that I have to share it desperately. With flickr, I can have professional feedbacks or comment or learn something new. So, it depends on what the person wants. But if I want creativity and to see good photographs, then flickr is the site.

What I mean by good photograph is a n image that brings emotion or energy in terms on excitement.

 

Fotolog?

As a part of my research, I was browsing or google(ing) for other photo-sharing website and I came through Fotolog which is according to Wikipedia the oldest photo-blogging website and the most popular as well.

To experience and learn more about Fotolog in order to do the comparison between this website and Flickr, I have opened an account which was quite easy but I have to insert security code all the time once I have opened the account and change my details. I could not see the reason why I should be typing them every time as it is not actually that secure.Whoever gets my password will be able to type the code anyway since it is shown with confusing background which is visible.

THE ‘little’ HISTORY

Fotolog was founded by Scott Heiferman in May 2002 is popular among South America.

DISCOVERY

The moment I went into my account, I saw an option on the top right hand side called “Fotohunt”. Out of curiosity, I went to the page and found out that it is a contest site for fotologgers (as members are called). I think that is a brilliant idea which encourages users to take specific pictures to enter the contest, which sounds a bit like a homework in schooldays but practice makes good pictures. This is where creativity in taking pictures comes in especially for Fotologgers as they take more informal/ casual pictures than anything special in the name of photography. But saying that I question the meaning of photography.

It has a simple layout in the first pages. But once you get inside groups to search for photos, the layout was lightly scattered. That made me confused as where to go next. That made me question myself, are ‘boxed’ buttons better than a roll-over text? Well, yes as it provides clarity as you will know where do you want to go next or where things are.

On the other hand, it is the unfamiliarity of simple just text-based website that triggers unclarity to my mind. There is no quality in pictures upload unlike flickr. With fotolog members, this site is all about stamping memory and foretelling the daily lives.

 

Changing my research topic

From secondlife to rhizome, I wanted to change to something much more simpler for me to research or have access too. So, I have decided to study about Flickr. I had an account created with flickr last year when I was in the first year first semester but I did not keep up or even know the application properly. This time at least I can study it and plus compare flickr with other photo-sharing websites. Why was I introduced to flickr and not any other websites? What is special about it? That is what I would like to know and that’s what other first time budding photographer would like to know as well.

 

Yahoo! Pipes

This is week 5 and I have discovered something interesting from Paula about a program called Yahoo!Pipes.
Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, one can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant. It is absolutely free, if you have a Yahoo account, just log in to your Yahoo username and password and voila! you remix popular feed types and create data mashups using a visual editor which enables you to allows you to drag-and-drop elements of a mashup and create a new feed that is custom-designed to the sources you want to follow. This (Pipes) can be run in our own websites, or publish and share our own web services without ever having to write a line of code.

 

Podcasting

Podcasting is the latest craze as I have found out. There are so many sites that helps you to create one. Podcast is a digital media file (interview, sermons, talkshow or even music) which is published online, where anyone can subscribe to the feed and and have automated update. Which means when the owner of the media files adds new files, the person who subscribed to the feed will automatically get it without having to come to a separate website to check.

Podcasting is actually an amateur programme on radio, like a talk show with music mixed in and it automatically receive the latest updates once you are subscribed to the programme. These programmes are not necessarily professionally done, it can be done by anyone with mp3 audio files, audio player or computer with a microphone. They are not live show either, so users can listen to your programme any time.

SearchVoIP defines podcast as the preparation and distribution of audio files using RSS to the computers of subscribed users. These files may then be uploaded to digital music or multimedia players like the iPod.

I tried creating my own account on Odeo Studio which was absolutely easy by following the step given. I had trouble looking for music host websites as I do not listen to music online. But I managed to create one
[Odeo Podcast=http://odeo.com/audio/9324863/view]

 

Defining The Important Elements in Web 2.0

Before starting my research, I should define what RSS is and what is the full abbreviation of the very common web word. RSS can be referred to in many different ways but the 2 most common meanings are:

• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary

RSS is a web-feeding format used in frequently updating news feed, blog, podcast and vodcast (video-casting) by using ‘aggregator‘. Users have to subscribe to a ‘feed’ or ‘aggregator‘ of a website, and what it does is automatically updates the changes done and informs the link that user’s have subscribed. Seeing the changes, the user can then go to the link and check on the changes.

I have opened an account with one aggregator from www.bloglines.com. To open an account, users have to register by clicking on the ‘Register’ button on top of the page on the right-hand side. Fill in the e-mail address, password, time zone and language. Click on register and you are done. Once in there, the website then allows you to subscribe to its own or recommended websites or blog accordingto your interest. But, all these does automatically and to know the manual way which is quite simple as well, look at the left hand side where you will find the menu of your blogline. Click on the button ‘Feeds’ >’Add’> ‘Subscribe’. Insert the blog or Feed the URL.

A website that does not have RSS will not subscribe and therefore users should always look out for the orange button or click on Bookmarks in Menu bar. Certain browsers automatically checks for RSS and adds Subscribe on Bookmarks but as I have mentioned above, users can always check for this options.

 

Putting on thinking cap for research portfolio

As I was going through the unit guide, the fifth theme – New Media Art in Second Life, grabbed my attention. What is second life? Is it another life after death, either in heaven or hell? Or is it a life that escaped near death?

Second Life is a website of a 3D- World, which is of course virtual , built and owned by its residents. It was first published to the public in 2003. Information about Second Life can be found here

More or similar new media website in offer is Rhizome, an online platform created for new media artists around the globe. These will be the theme I would be researching for my portfolio. After discussing with Paula, I can then decide and confirm which either of these two I shall be doing.

 

Just checking how video uploading works.

Seems difficult to find how you upload video or any other media resources. But hey, I just found the way how to upload video and it is quite easy.

 

My Flickr photos

I was trying to upload pictures from Flickr but unfortunately this way does not seems to work. Now I have to open an account with Photobucket which supports wordpress to enable me to upload or export pictures.

Tried uploading through Photobucket but have not got a clue to post it here. The picture above was uploaded through wordpress itself by clicking on Dashboard < Manage < Uploads. Then, click on the Browse button to find the image that you wanted which is stored in your computer and click Upload. Once uploaded you can give title and description of the file and edit the size and linkage, which then you have to save

 

 

Week 1

This is Week One of Practice In Context unit(semester 2 already!). I have been introduced to the unit guide where I will have to produce a research portfolio with blogs which will take up 75% and the rest for a 15 minutes research presentation. This research portfolio will be regarding social media and how it refers to the impact of digital technology and online learning environments. Themes suggested are:

• social computing
• folksonomies
• photo-sharing
• podcasting
• new media art in Second Life
• new learning collaborative environments

My mission after that is to create a blog account specially for the research purposes and that is how I got this account.
It is quite easy to create one and I will tell you how to do in few steps below if you are creating one in wordpress.com:

1. Open www.wordpress.com.
2. Click on “Start your WordPress blog” or “Sign Up” on your right hand side.
3. Insert username, and e-mail address once the page in loaded. Choose “Gimme a blog!” button to enable you to use all the facility in like Dashboard as well as writing and reading.
4. Click Next.
5. This will take you to another page where informing that an e-mail has been sent to the e-mail address given for confirmation.
6. Open your e-mail account and check an e-mail from WordPress.com
7. Click on the hyperlink given to confirm and activate your blog details.

Now as you have your blog account, you can use Dashboard to write blogs, create layout and manage them.