Was anyone else surprised when they logged into blogger.com and the entire layout was changed? Naturally, I'm not in the mood to navigate through this new layout and setup to try to figure everything out. I'm sure once I get the hang of it, it'll be great, but for now it's annoying. -_-
Blogger wants us to connect with Google+...what a surprise! It seems that lately all the networking and social media sites are combining and pretty soon they're all going to be connected. This got me thinking - what's the difference between all these social networking sites and why do we have 400 accounts? What do we use everything for?
I broke it down into the most popular ones to try to figure out why I feel the need to keep an account and update/read/post regularly. What's every websites mission for its users?
Facebook: The giant King Kong of social networking. They did it right. While MySpace was popular as well, Facebook took over with its simple(r) layout and with its more professional/college users (usually...sometimes...when it first came out). Now it's used mostly for people to post pictures, keep in touch with high school friends and stalk others.
Twitter: It became popular not too long after Facebook, and while I was against it at first because I didn't see a purpose in it, I now love it. It's a great way to constantly let everyone know what you're thinking/doing/watching/wanting to do without being that annoying Facebook user updating their status all the time. And of course, it's still a great way to stalk friends, enemies and celebrities.
Tumblr: I never really caught onto the Tumblr trend. I feel like it's a lot of people sharing the same million pictures and quotes with one another. Not very useful for stalking.
Instagram: So happy there is finally an Android app for this lovely picture sharing program. I love the hipster filters that automatically make everyone believe they are a photographer. I love that for the most part, people share original pictures, and I love being able to actually see what others are doing/eating/watching/seeing, and not just read about it. Why Facebook bought it, I don't know. Also useful for feeling like you're close to celebrity crushes. Nice for stalking.
Foursquare: Never quite got into this one either, but I assume it's excellent for stalking. Who doesn't want to let everyone know where they are all the time?
What networking and social media sites do you guys use the most? For what? And what celebrity crush are you stalking? :]
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Class of 2012
There are small things that would make my life so much easier, such as being able to bring coffee into the FC building, learning how to fully function on only five or six hours of sleep and not having to do homework. Unfortunately, I have about a month left of school and none of these things are going to magically happen.
I'll be graduating in a month and spending the rest of the summer on the island before moving back to Vegas. I'm hoping to get an internship with the Make A Wish foundation over summer, because I haven't done an internship yet during college.
I think a lot of people really stress getting internships while in college before entering the 'real world,' because it's a way to get your foot in the door. It's a good way to secure a job after graduating or at least get the experience that other employers will look for. But throughout my four years at HPU, I've realized I don't really like journalism all that much anymore.
Designing pages, which I once loved, is now more of a chore than anything else and writing articles isn't fun for me anymore. I've grown to really love the hospitality industry, having worked in restaurants since my junior year of high school. I know that switching majors during college is very common, but I never switched majors because I didn't want the work that I've already done to go to waste. So I'll be graduating with a degree in journalism on May 17, and although I don't really know what I want to do with it, I'm glad I completed college and pretty soon my life won't revolve around homework. Except for the homework we have for Rachel's class, that's really fun.
I'll be graduating in a month and spending the rest of the summer on the island before moving back to Vegas. I'm hoping to get an internship with the Make A Wish foundation over summer, because I haven't done an internship yet during college.
I think a lot of people really stress getting internships while in college before entering the 'real world,' because it's a way to get your foot in the door. It's a good way to secure a job after graduating or at least get the experience that other employers will look for. But throughout my four years at HPU, I've realized I don't really like journalism all that much anymore.
Designing pages, which I once loved, is now more of a chore than anything else and writing articles isn't fun for me anymore. I've grown to really love the hospitality industry, having worked in restaurants since my junior year of high school. I know that switching majors during college is very common, but I never switched majors because I didn't want the work that I've already done to go to waste. So I'll be graduating with a degree in journalism on May 17, and although I don't really know what I want to do with it, I'm glad I completed college and pretty soon my life won't revolve around homework. Except for the homework we have for Rachel's class, that's really fun.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Please update to version 394.49588
The other morning my phone said I was able to update my software to the newer version and I pressed "accept," which I now believe was one of the worst ideas I've had in the past week (besides laying in the sun for three hours today without sunscreen...and procrastinating all my homework).
After my phone had updated, everything was completely different. My home page was different, the icons were different, the apps that came with the phone functioned differently. What used to slide sideways now went up and down, what used to go up and down now went diagonally and my alarm clock was nowhere to be found. It's been a few days and it's still frustrating trying to adjust to the new design of my phone. As far as I know, all it's done is confuse me and use more battery than it did before.
Facebook seems to be doing the same thing, constantly updating and upgrading and improving, adjusting and tweaking and making everything "easier." Well, I don't find the new Facebook Timeline easier and I don't find my phone any easier to use now. It's frustrating for consumers when the design is constantly changed on them, especially when it's so drastic.
However, when magazines or newspapers change their layout or designs, is it always such a drastic switch or do they do it gradually, switching a little bit at a time so the reader has time to take it in and get used to it, rather than being bombarded all at once with a completely new magazine that's now written backwards and Chinese with invisible ink that only appears on Tuesdays. I think this technique should be applied to electronic changes as well. Just because our generation is more tech savvy than we were ten or fifteen years ago doesn't mean we want everything constantly changed. It makes it difficult and I think I speak for the majority of us when I say I don't like things too difficult. At least tell me where the alarm clock on my phone is going to be hiding before you switch everything up on me.
After my phone had updated, everything was completely different. My home page was different, the icons were different, the apps that came with the phone functioned differently. What used to slide sideways now went up and down, what used to go up and down now went diagonally and my alarm clock was nowhere to be found. It's been a few days and it's still frustrating trying to adjust to the new design of my phone. As far as I know, all it's done is confuse me and use more battery than it did before.
Facebook seems to be doing the same thing, constantly updating and upgrading and improving, adjusting and tweaking and making everything "easier." Well, I don't find the new Facebook Timeline easier and I don't find my phone any easier to use now. It's frustrating for consumers when the design is constantly changed on them, especially when it's so drastic.
However, when magazines or newspapers change their layout or designs, is it always such a drastic switch or do they do it gradually, switching a little bit at a time so the reader has time to take it in and get used to it, rather than being bombarded all at once with a completely new magazine that's now written backwards and Chinese with invisible ink that only appears on Tuesdays. I think this technique should be applied to electronic changes as well. Just because our generation is more tech savvy than we were ten or fifteen years ago doesn't mean we want everything constantly changed. It makes it difficult and I think I speak for the majority of us when I say I don't like things too difficult. At least tell me where the alarm clock on my phone is going to be hiding before you switch everything up on me.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Spill your guts
I have a hard time updating my blog - I know. This happened with my other blog as well (myeuropeanloveaffair). It's really fun and exciting at first but then it starts to seem more like a chore. And since it's my personal blog, I should be able to update it whenever I want, however often I want, and my readers should be okay with it because I'm doing what I can.
Well, I realized that's not really how it works. Blogging is a lot like putting out a daily/weekly/monthly magazine. You have to stick with a routine and update frequently, otherwise people lose interest and will go somewhere else.
PostSecret. I would say it's one of my favourite blogs, but it's really hands-down my favourite blog I've ever read in my whole entire life. It's the only blog I check religiously. It's actually the only blog I read (besides the awesome blogs in my Electronic Journalism class).
Every Sunday, the blog is updated with new postcards people from all over the world have sent in, revealing their deepest, darkest, funniest, scariest secrets. For as long as I've been reading this blog, Frank Warren updates on time, every single week. I know when new secrets will come up and he never lets me down.
So what if he went with the it's-my-blog-I'll-update-whenever-I-want mentality? It'd be so frustrating, never knowing if you're going to have to wait a day or a month for new secrets. So I guess that's my reminder that while blogs are much more casual than newspapers and magazines (using first person, opinions, etc), writers still have to respect their readers.
Well, I realized that's not really how it works. Blogging is a lot like putting out a daily/weekly/monthly magazine. You have to stick with a routine and update frequently, otherwise people lose interest and will go somewhere else.
PostSecret. I would say it's one of my favourite blogs, but it's really hands-down my favourite blog I've ever read in my whole entire life. It's the only blog I check religiously. It's actually the only blog I read (besides the awesome blogs in my Electronic Journalism class).
Every Sunday, the blog is updated with new postcards people from all over the world have sent in, revealing their deepest, darkest, funniest, scariest secrets. For as long as I've been reading this blog, Frank Warren updates on time, every single week. I know when new secrets will come up and he never lets me down.
So what if he went with the it's-my-blog-I'll-update-whenever-I-want mentality? It'd be so frustrating, never knowing if you're going to have to wait a day or a month for new secrets. So I guess that's my reminder that while blogs are much more casual than newspapers and magazines (using first person, opinions, etc), writers still have to respect their readers.
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