Sunday, November 4, 2007

Reflections

This is the very first time for me to create a serious weblog and I found out a lot of benefits from creating this blogs. I have gained a lot of experiences after creating this blog. Before this serious weblog was set up, I always thought blogging is a waste of time. I never had, or even visited any blogs before this. These are the few reasons why I had a lot of hardships while creating this serious blog. The template and layouts were complicated until I found my way around.

The few things that I've learnt and experienced was to create a new blog, to improve my writing habits and style, and to update myself on the current issues in the media and publishing world.

I realized that blogging is not easy as it seems. It takes a lot of effort and time to maintain this serious weblog. To be an efficient blogger, i needed to be consistent on my postings and be updated of the issues around me as well. As someone new to the blogsphere, i realized a few points about blogging:

1. I should not use my blog for defamation purposes.
2. Plagiarism is an offense, eventhough it is for casual commenting.
3. Bloggers should be ethical when it comes to reporting on a certain issue.
4. A respect to others is also a must!

Finally to conclude, i realized that blogging isn't that silly and a waste of time after all!

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Cyberwars...

the news article entitled Google makes friends with network sites to battle Facebook, published on 2 November 2007. It is about Google, one of the famous search engines in the cyberworld teamed up with MySpace and Bebo to go up against Facebook for the social networking market. For further information, please click here.

Facebook, seems to be one of the hottest trends in cyberworld now and many other large corporations such as Google, Friendster and more will see Facebook is their competitor and strategies and plans are coming out to compete and stand out among the competitors.

Each of the web communities have their own strategies and they provide people a very good website and functions. There is no doubt that their contribution towards the society is huge and leads for a better lifestyle. According to Walsh (2006), the technological differences such as frames, hyperlinks, navigation bars, menu buttons, use of cursor are designed to assist the reader's learning, to attract and to maintain interest. Just like what Walsh has said, the main point that make those web communities successful is their very useful functions provided in their webs and the user-friendly features in their webs. The services that provided by those web communities are welcomed and accepted by the people.

In the world of business, an organization needs to work with another organization in order to compete with another organization. In this case, Google sees Facebook as their competitor although Facebook is still new in the cyberworld. Strategies and planning were prepared by in-house analyst of Google and network marketing analyst to handle the situation and stand against with their competitors.

These types of news articles are commonly seen in newspaper and competition between organization to another brings more choices apportunities to the consumers.



References:

Guardian Unlimited
[Online, Accessed on 3 November 2007]
URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/02/google

Walsh, M 2006, ‘”Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

The revolution of online video...

This is a news article entitled "Online video revolution", published on 27 September 2007. Online videos are one of the hottest trend in our society now. Take a look of YouTube, it is an online video sharing website and it is the most successful website nowadays. The news article talks about online video being the hottest marketing tool for businesses to promote their products and services in a cheap and effective way. To get a read on the original news article, click here.

There are million types of online videos on the internet today and there is no doubt that online video are very much welcomed by the people in the society now. But what makes online videos so successful and accpeted by every different type of people?

People have high demands for information and online videos would definitely fulfill their needs. On an Internet webpage, we can surf the net and reach everywhere we want to with no boundaries. According to Walsh (2006), an internet reader's pathway can be multi-linear and multi-directional. Internet users are able to take the cues from a homepage to navigate to multiple sites with non-linear pathways. As what Walsh said, that is the reason why online video is becoming the hit in society now. People can watch online videos and get information in the same time and all they need to know is get to online only. Hyperlinks are the 'cues' to lead people to more and more information.

Online videos can be a tool of advertising and it's much more lower cost than others. This is another reason why it is so welcome by every people and it becomes the trend nowadays.

Easy, efficient and it's better than a print ad!

Here's an example of an online video. Shown in the video is an advertisement for Honda.





References:

news.com.au
[online, accessed on 1 November 2007]
URL: http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22490558-5012427,00.html

Walsh, M 2006, ‘”Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Crazy for Harry Potter again!

This news article entitled Potter spell strong in France: 1.15 million copies sold in 48 hours, published on Tuesday, 30 October 2007. The news article is about the final volume of Harry Potter, "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" in french edition has already sold 1.15 million copies in 2 days time. This is the link of the original news article, click here.


The latest and last book of the Harry Potter series:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (pic courtesy of Weekly Reader)


It was a "storm" when the final edition of Harry Potter, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" started selling in Malaysia. Fans and readers were spending night in front of bookstores just to be the first reader of this "magic" novel or first owner of the novel. The price of Harry Potter final editioin was a topic before in the newspapers because there were some bookstores selling the privated "magic" novel with lower price and quality.

There is a question passed by in my mind. Why are they so many people like to read Harry Potter? What is it so special about a thousand pages of a novel book? I, personally read Harry Potter and the Globet of Fire before and it was really impressed me.

There must be a reason why million of readers and fans of Harry Potter support this "magic" novel. For my point of view, the author, J.K. Rowling is the professional in using text and visuals. She combines text and visuals perfectly. The words she uses to describe a scene or a situation in the novel is so appealing and descriptive. According to Gunther Kress and van Leeuwan (1998), the written text is no longer structured by linguistic means, through verbal connectors and verbal cohesive devices buy visually, through layout, through the spatial arrangement of blocks of text, of pictures and other graphic elements on the page. A successful combination of text and visual by the author of Harry Potter is successfully holds the reader's attention and interest. This is the reason why people will go crazy for Harry Potter and willing to spend time outside a bookstore just to be the first owner of "Harry Potter" novel.

So, are you planning to get a Harry Potter to read now? Ok, see you guys in the world of "Harry Potter" then.



References:

AFP
[Online, accessed on 31 October 2007]
URL: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3aFuCQQuVBRKncEIBX-2Nc_zuMA

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, Approaches to Media Discourse, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Monday, October 29, 2007

YouTube invaded?

“Spammers will always use a variety of attacks that take advantage of undetected vulnerabilities.”

This is a news article entitled YouTube a hit with spammers, published on 18, October 2007. It was about a security expert, Sophos Plc found that spammers are exploiting YouTube to promote products online. In the news article, spammers are using YouTube's invite-friend feature to send out unsolicited mail. The spam will hide under the YouTube message which allows the spam to avoid the spam filters or antivirus programs operated by Internet service provider. For the review of the actual article, click here.

Email is the most effective tool to send out message in the society now. It is one of the best invention I would say. There are million of emails sending out everyday and almost all of the internet users have their own email account, some of them have more than one. Checking and sending emails have become one of the daily tasks of everyone.

There are many viruses created for different purposes. Antivirus programs are a lot in the market as well to protect internet users but it viruses still come in everywhere. According to Walsh (2006), in order to link our own purpose in using the particular text, we need to identify the social purpose of the particular text and its cultural context. This can be linked to the reason why people will click on the spam mail. YouTube is a popular video sharing website. Some unfortunate pc users will just click on it with no doubt because they see the word, YouTube in the spam mail. They believe that the mail is actually secured because of YouTube.

So, the question is, to click? Or not to click?



References:

The Star Online
[Online, Accessed on 29 October 2007]
URL: http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/10/18/technology/19154123&sec=technology

Walsh, M 2006, ‘”Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I ponder first!

Blog?

According to SearchVB, a blog is (short for weblog) is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors, especially those that support a point being made on a post.

Blogs, are one of the hottest trends in society nowadays. It connects people to people and becomes an effective communication tool. Acording to Cymfony, corporate blog can be defined as blog that is created and sponsored by corporate entities. It is used in an organization for the internal employees to communicate to each other and send out information effectively between the organization and the employees.

There are many different type of blogs is set up out there for any kind of purposes and to suit the individuals need.


Why Blog?

They are a lot of people use blog as a communication tool to keep in touch with their families or friends. Personal blogs are the common and easily found in the internet. People use blog to link themselves to their friends, family and others to communicate.

In the world of business, blogs have become an advertising tool to promote products and services for some large corporations. The large number of the readership has attracted advertisers to use blogs as a tool for promotion.

For me, as a newbie in the world of blogging, personal blogging is not a waste of time because it can helps us to reach out to our close friends and family. It is a good way to share our daily lives with families and friends and keep ourselves updated to each other. I found that blogging can be a very effective method to reach out the audiences and share information with no boundaries.


Phenomenon of blogging

They are million of people blogging nowadays and it has become the one of the hottest trend in many countries. It might be one person who is reading another person's blog, they are four or five persons are creating blogs and starting to blog.

People like to expose themselves with words and pictures, sometimes even sounds and videos in their blogs. They usually sharing their personal life, daily happenings to their family and close friends with blogs.

In Malaysia, blogging is one of the hottest trends among youngsters, or even corporate organizations use blogs too. Soon, the number of bloggers will be increasing rapidly in Malaysia. During that time, blogs is not only use for sharing their personal lives, it becomes a way to seek information and make money as well just like a search engine.


Classification of Blogs

There are some blogs are set up to share information such as food blog, photo blog, gaming blogs, technology blogs, fashion blogs and so many more. Those blogs gathered all the people who sharing the same interest and link them closer to each other by providing information that they need. Different blogs serve different audiences.

Classification of blogs means that there are many types of blogs and each of them serves different information and targeting diferrent audiences based on the interest of its readers. A blog directory website is set up to make life easier for the readers to serach different types of blogs accordingly in the interent.


Blogging Community

Blogging community is set up when a group of people gathered to share their interest or passion. The more people in the group will automatically form a community and more and more people who are sharing the same interest will be joining in to discuss and share more information.

For example, DJ Blink has set up a community blog where other bloggers who are DJs as well come together to be part of this community blog. Another good example would be a community blog that set up by JUICE to link all the people who are interested in the clubbing scenes and hip-hop fashion.


Online Media Versus Print Media

Designing for online media and print media is completely different process. A good example would be newspaper and newspaper online. Newspaper online will not overtake the old printed newspaper media because both of them have their own target audiences. However, there are some differences between when designing for online media and print media.

There are a lot of things need to take into consideration when designing for a blog. According to Walsh (2006), the text of technoligical differences are designed to assist the reader's learning, to attract and to maintain reader's interest. Hyperlinks, animation, frames, menu buttons, mouse and many more that will be using in the layout of a blog are not exist in the layout of a newspaper. So, the design of the blog will be completely different when designing for a newspaper.

Besides that, reading in online media is a different process compared to read in print based text. Acoording to Walsh (2006), a reader's pathway can be multi-linear and multi-directional when reading multimodal texts. Compared to print based media, we have not many choices when reading a newspaper and people can choose what to read and what not to read in a blog. Information in newspaper usually lengthy and sometimes readers will feel tired of reading it. People do not read in the internet. They scan through most of the time. So, information on a webpage should be clear cut and concise.

Texts and visuals support each other. Readers do not just read the texts; they also read the visual presentation of the text (Reep, 1996). In designing a webpage (blog), putting visuals is a must in order to attract the readers. People will get bored if the blog is just fully of words. Sometimes, a good picture can maintain or increase the interest of readers and give more thoughts to the people as well.

The differences of designing for webpage (blog) and print media (newspaper) need to take into consideration in order to convey the message and reach out to the audience effectively.


New Forms of Media Publishing

People always use blog to write about their daily lives, share personal photos and communicate with their love ones, family and friends. However, there are some lastest blog publishing trends such as moblogs, photologs, mobileblogs and videoblogs.

Videoblogs are one of the hottest trend in society now. Nowadays, people do not just use words to express themselves. Recoding a video and post on the internet is so much more fun than just typing. Mobileblogs are also become a trend as well. Handphones with the lastest new technology can go online anywhere, anytime and they can blog whenever they want and wherever they are.

There are still alot more other types of blogs which are not known to people. As time goes by, technology will improves and more new types of blogs will come out to suit each individual needs.




References:

Reep, D.C 1996, Technical Writing : principles, strategies, and readings, Allyn and Bacon, Boston

SearchVB.com: The definition of blog
[Online, Accessed on 23 October 2007]
URL: http://searchvb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid8_gci214616,00.html

TNS Media Intellingence/Cymfony: Glossary of term
[Onine, Accessed on 23 October 2007]
URL: http://www.cymfony.com/files/pdf/know_blogterms.pdf

Walsh, M 2006, ‘”Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

What for?

Blogs are set up for many purposes to suit each individual needs. For this blog of mine, it is set up for the discussion of publishing and media issues around the world. Those issues will be discussed in-depth and give the readers a more clearer picture to understand what are the issues all about and further discussion.

Every blog serves different audiences and people read blogs for a reason. For this unique piece of blog, the targeted audience is mainly point to college students. Besides that, media professionals, people who are interested in mass media are targeted as well. General public and every internet user who are interested in mass media and publishing issues are welcome to this blog to see and understand the issues in online media.

Comments and feedback are welcome. I hope that readers and the people who viewed my blog can achieve some understanding about the media publishing issues and provide you guys some information and guidelines.

For all the readers, stay tuned and find out more what is happening around our planet!

Welcome to a piece of Chang's mind!

A warm welcome to every reader who are viewing my blog. Blog is one of the biggest trend nowadays and there are millions people blogging around the world. There are several category of blogs out there such as food blog, personal blog, political blog, information blog and so on. Basically, I am totally a "newbie" in the world of blogging and this is my very first time to create a blog account. Not to forget, thank you to Blogger that providing good service such as tutorials and steps for newbie like me to start off my new blog.

Besides all the other personal blogs, this very first blog of mine is created to educate and inform readers about the current happenings in the cyberworld and issues in media and publications.

Lastly, welcome again to all the readers and don't click on the top right button. Let's browse through what I have posted later on and have fun reading.

Thank you!