Blog 9-1

Multimedia is becoming a crucial tool for gaining and holding a viewers attention. While some techniques are used for more educational purposes, others are geared at creating content for a broad audience.

The idea of Podcasts took off and was used widely to relay messages about certain topics that listeners are interested in. Compared to the traditional methods of reading a book, a Podcast can be listened to while on the go, making it a more desirable way to get information on a topic.

Even more effective than Podcasts are videos. Easily created in iMovie, you can create a video that pertains to any subject you choose. As someone who uses iMovie frequently, it's extremely user friendly and makes it easy to create and edit video so it looks professional. The reason I rank video higher than Podcasts is from my own experiences. There are always Podcasts on how to do something- manage money, build a deck etc. I find, however, that it is easier to comprehend what the subject is saying if they are on video, allowing for mannerisms and visuals that a Podcast does not.

For example. check out this video of how to mow stripes into your lawn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcMD72YAv-I

Now imagine trying to understand that through a Podcast. It may work, but it's a lot easier when explained in this video.

With all the changes happening in the online world, I think we will see more videos being used across the board to explain, enhance and excite users.

Blog 8-2

I chose to review a unique blog, that integrates photos as a main purpose. This blog is called "opacity" and can be found at http://opacity.us/. 

This blog is the most visited blog in the Urban Exploration Photography community, as a SEO rank search will show. The site, in terms of SEO is functioning well, which is a key part of having a blog. With new google algorythms, and a Panda update just coming out this week, bloggers will need to make sure that their content is also benefitting their SEO.

Opacity has an easy interface, which allows users to search by location. The search feature makes and blog infinitely easier to navigate, especially if you're looking for something specific. The functionality here is key- blogs that require you to scroll through page after page are a challenge, and personally receive less attention when I browse them because of the time it takes to find a specific article.

The substance of a blog needs to be interesting. The basics, such as not having grammatical and spelling errors are important, but the topics are important as well. The blogger needs to understand how to take what they're writing about and excite the reader to continue with the article. Adding photos or videos is also a hugely important factor that I see many blogs overlook. My personal blog always includes a photo, or photo album depending on where I have traveled to entice the reader to keep looking. Even cooking blogs with photos of the final product are more likely to yield better results.

Lastly, the blog should be accurate. I cannot stress enough how often blogs are not accurate and either mislead readers or miss out on important facts that change the story. Reporting accurately, as we discussed, is also an ethical topic, and moves this piece to the top of the blog importance list. 

Facebook Post- J Paterno

Unconfirmed sources are reporting the passing of Joe Paterno, UPenn Football Coach that lead the school to many victories. While there is hope this report is false, we would like to take a moment and remember all the great things this coach has done for his team, friends, and family.

Paterno Press Release

State College, PA- Sources are reporting the death of Joe Paterno, long time Penn State Football coach and inspiration to the college football league. Paterno had suffered a long term battle with lung cancer, which complications from were deemed as the reason of death.

A highlight of Paterno's career was in 2007, when he was inducted into the College Football Coach hall of fame after his 55th year coaching. Starting as assistant coach at Penn state in 1950, Paterno eventually found himself head coach in 1966 and held on to that position until 2011. 

The Penn State campus has been rumored to be seeking a statue for Paterno, in the memory of his great achievements while he was head coach there. 

"I'm not as concerned about me. What's happened to me has been great. I got five great kids. Seventeen grandchildren" - Joe Paterno

While Penn State has not officially released information about Paterno's death, we do want to take this moment to remember all the achievements he has made in his lifetime. 

6-2 Social Media Sites

As an avid photographer, I started out my research by using Shutterfly as an alternative to Flickr, as they had been compared in the original article. To my surprise, Shutterfly is actually more of a printing photo sites that allows your to share your images through books, prints, frames, etc. While I think the site is a great idea, the interface is easy to use, and, yes, you can post to Facebook about your new creations, I would actually remove this from the 'social sharing' line up, because essentially, it's a printing site.

Next, I moved on to Zeemaps, since I spend more time on the road than I do at home. Though it is somewhat compared to Google maps, Zeemaps has much more flexibility and the ability to color regions, which is excellent. Since other users can collaborate on these maps, it becomes ideal when coordinating multiple travelers over a large area. I easily got lost using Zeemaps for an hour, and as I flush out the details more, I may suggest it be used as a part of our travel tools in next year's recruitment season.

Finally, I couldn't help but notice that there was a blog option. I love to blog and have an audience for all of my (mis) adventures, but alas I was familiar with two of the three tools. I chose to explore Tumblr, though, a site I have known about but avoided, as it seemed simliar to Stumbleupon and had no place in my social media plan previously. While I find Tumblr fascinating after exploring it, I'm not sure that it is a tool I would use to promote the non profit I work for, but I would use it for my own images. Much of the content is laughable, but for a social site that's a more media based blogging apparatus? I would give it four stars.

Entry 3- Helpful Hints and Evaluating sources

The New York Times published an article about pollution in China, a topic that many know about. This article wasn't about the air pollution, however, but about the soil that has been polluted and how it will affect food supply in an overcrowded country. 

The article is also printed in the New York Times paper, and is not an opinion piece. The New York Times also has an ISSN number, which the article provided on evaluating news sources mentions as a way to verify the information it is giving you.

Also noted in the article is actual research that has been conducted around the study. External links bring you to the research that was done, however because this article was about in China, the article is in Chinese. I cannot verify is the research is accurate, but I strongly believe this is an issue of a language barrier as opposed to incorrect information.

The only part of the article that I question is when they cite another news source. Though this news source is the national news source of China, it is important to know that China does not observe the same freedom of press as we do in the states, so the data could be false or altered by the government.

Aside from my one hesitation about referencing the national Chinese newspaper, I think that this article is factual. Unfortunately, however the internet does not always provide information such as this. As the helpful hints article mentions, anyone can create an online 'news zine' and post their opinion as if it were a fact. With fewer people being literate with new media and not understanding that they need to check their facts, it is too easy for false news to spread. Though it may not seem like a major issue, false news spreading rapidly through social media could affect issues within our country, or world. 

Social media was a huge part of the last election, but with everyone posting true and false facts online, it can be difficult to understand what a candidates real intentions are. Long term, this could impact elections, and who people are voting for.

Hopefully, as time goes on more and more users will learn to evaluate sources as we are in this class, before all of the 'news' were are getting has strange biases and unclear messages.


Wong, E. (2014, April 17). One-Fifth of China’s Farmland Is Polluted, State Report Finds. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/world/asia/one-fifth-of-chinas-farmland-is-polluted-state-report-finds.html?ref=science

Entry 2- Social Media and Truth

What I know can be defined in a variety of different ways, but assuming this blog is referring to my knowledge about current events and other topics, the knowledge does mainly come from social media. Since I do not have cable at home, I make it a point to follow all of the news stations on twitter. ALL is the important word in that sentence, because I understand that different news services have biases. Before I make a decision on a piece of information I see, I look at other news sources that are known for their credibility, and make sure that the facts are similar. My golden rule is to look at three sites before I make a decision on the information given.

Today, I learned that the most recent news on #MH370 being possibly located hold little validity. First, this was reported on CNN, my go to news station. They posted a link on twitter, so I followed to their page to investigate more. I then proceeded to Fox news, which had posted about new findings relating to the plane but the article posted about doubts that U.S DOT inspector had.

Since CNN seemed more concrete on the new developments being incorrect, I used a third resource to decide what information was correct. NBC. There are cases where just one source can be reliable, and in emergency situations knowing the source of the broadcast can help give direction. During the Boston bombings last year, following the Boston Police Dept. on twitter gave users access to accurate emergency information.

In the case of not an emergency, I think one source from social media is not reliable enough as a whole. Returning to the same principle that one news source is not enough, social media echoes the same biases and inconsistencies that can be found on TV or in Newspapers.