a test

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And Finally....

This will be my final posting in this Blog, in preparation for handing in at the end of this week. The module has been enjoyable, to the extent that it has reacquainted me with a few old websites I’d nearly forgotten existed and helped me find a few more of similar interest. Strangely, it also helped me with my paid work – I came across a lot of Tech forums that have helped me no end in Web Design.

Overall, I think that the COOL forums created a bad impression of online communities to begin with, and reminded me of one of the very reasons I began to give up online communities – the fact that the interesting people aren’t necessarily outweighed, but are usually out-shouted by the less constructive people with nothing to say. That’s the irony, the less a person has to say on a subject, the more rubbish they speak. And it gives a platform for people to express non constructive ‘views’ from a blanket of anonymity. Do you think that people on the COOL forums would have launched into such personal attacks on other students in person? In the classroom perhaps? Unlikely, because then people would know who they were. Arguably, the fact that our names are on the posts should still remove the anonymity, but I believe I could have kept my anonymity by simply not telling people my surname in person.

But that doesn’t exclusively apply to the COOL forums. Every chat room will always suffer from someone else trying to upset the users – such as the people that may go onto a gay & lesbian message board just to type a derogatory comment. But as with life, there will always be idiots, so it’s a lot easier to find ways to ignore them rather than wait for them to go away.

Messenger. Community builder, or community helper?

Happy New Year!

I believe Messenger software should be set apart from other community based methods of communication. I have accounts with all of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Skype and ICQ, mainly due to the fact that I have a number of friends who each use different software, and all for different reasons, so to contact with them all, you need all the different software.



Already this highlights a major difference than with other communities. A message board only requires an Internet Browser and connection so is available to all. Messenger software is not, and requires a choice of downloading this software and registering. As with its nature, Message boards and chat rooms also allow for several conversations to go on at once between several people. Although many messenger programs now allow for group conversations, these are fairly new and not as regularly used.

Relating to the subject title of this post, I don’t think that messenger software builds communities. A message board builds a community, as it allows many people use at the same time and more importantly, when IT STILL EXISTS when a user is not there, unlike messenger – whereby the means of communication does not exist when a user is offline. Messenger software works more as a tool for communities to use once they become acquainted – more like an addition that allows people to talk in real time when the message board community may not be enough. Remember as well that in order to combat against problems such as child abduction and ‘grooming’ via messenger services, many now only allow people to add you to their ‘friends list’ once you have given explicit permission.

In conclusion, I don’t think that messenger software alone can create a community as such, although the presence of such software allows existing communities to become closer and interact in a wider variety of ways.

The EBay 'community'

For the sake of definition, EBay is hard to classify as a community, although it undoubtably has many of the characteristics as one.



I have been an EBay user since 1999, and had never before this week considered myself to be part of a community as such when I was buying or selling online.

Although interaction in the literal ‘talking’ sense is kept to a minimum, the fact is that all people are brought together with a common goal – to buy or sell items. The search function helps to bring such people together, and users are able to add sellers to their ‘favourite sellers’ list, essentially giving them the power to show preference towards certain other users – much in the same way a message board contributer learns to trust and talk to another message board user.

Recently, EBay invested in buying another successful dot-com company, Skype – a popular provider of chat and Voice of IP (VOIP). Currently, what they plan to do with this company is all speculation, but one can only assume that by branching into a sector that allows real time voice communication is an attempt to bring the EBay community closer together, by allowing them to speak to discuss potential sales.

As a regular EBay user, I for one will be keeping an eye on what direction they will be taking with it...

Corporate Blogs

Ive just seen another student talking about corporate blogs, which is a bit annoying that he beat me to it as I had it penciled in to talk about this week! Either way, with the threat of perjury dangling over my head, here I go…



I read several corporate Blogs, although until this module begun I never considered them blogs, but rather just as a webpage maintained regularly! But yes, they are blogs. One of these was mentioned by the other student in question, namely

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/

This is a blog kept by Microsoft in order to make people aware of future developments and problems, but in a much less formal fashion than, say, a press release. Being a Microsoft Beta Tester myself, I find some of the things they talk about of real interest, as I like to be aware of new and upcoming products.

Another I read regularly is:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

This is Google’s official corporate blog, and serves the same purpose as the Microsoft blog. Google are a huge company who are constantly releasing new products without too much promotion, so their own Blog is the best place to find out about them.

The concept of the corporate Blog is definitely a good one, allowing average users an insight into what can be an incredibly technical world before. Of my own experiences, I remember visiting a Microsoft product launch last year, and being amused later when I saw the entire keynote speech summarized in 1 paragraph on the official blog. Scarily, the blog made a lot more sense…

Oooops!

Ive just copied my entire Blog onto a Word document for hand-in purposes and wow, so much for 3000 words… before this posting I was on 3403 words. Looks like the rest of my posts will have to be slimmed down a bit…



Who’d have thought it. Me doing too much work. Ha!

Current Perceptions - A change?

This week I’ve decided to revisit my comments from the first week of this Blog. I commented that, regarding communicating in online communities, “I’ve become detached to this method of communication, and am definitely losing interest”. This was based on the fact that I’ve been suing such communities for around 10 years and, to be honest, it felt like it had gone a bit stale.

I’m happy to say that this module has thus far managed to renew my interest in the subject. There’s no doubt that I’m spending a lot more time on message boards and blogs. At first I assumed it was just because of this module and the need to be involved. But over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed a change in myself – it all started 2 weeks back when I felt the need to log on at work to see if I’d had any replies to a discussion piece I’d posted about the comedian who’s Podcasts I’d been downloading.

It’s hard to describe, but when you get that you stop feeling like you’re an observer in someone else community, and begin to actually feel that you’re part of its everyday function.

So far I’ve felt this for around 3 new message boards I’ve come across, and it’s definitely renewed my interest in the Yafro message boards I discussed in my second post.

I’ve tried to get my head back into chat rooms again, but this is more difficult. Message boards by nature are time delayed, in that you can reply to a message whenever you want. Chat rooms are a lot more intense, as people expect replies to their messages ASAP – and it’s this sort of urgency that I can’t be bothered with.

Conclusion? Part of me still insists it has no time for online communities, but now I find myself being drawn to the content of the message boards rather than the people. I don’t think I’d be up for making friends to the same degree I did when I was younger, but the discussions are definitely still able to catch my eye. But now it’s more discussions that fit my lifestyle, such as Web Development, etc.