Social Media and Online Communities

Web 2.0 is sooo interactive-- in a good way but there sure are a whole lot of apps, accounts, notifications, posts, followers, likes, tweets, etc. I could keep listing for a while yet but rather than continuing on about social media terms galore, I can update on some areas that were new exploring territory for me this week.

1.) Blogs: Well obviously with this blog just starting up, blogging is a new endeavor of mine haha! It will be an interesting ride as part of the EME 6414 course. I certainly am interested to see how other people, organizations, and even professional or celebrity figures may be keeping some active blogs. Even the layout and overall design of blog pages is something I would like to investigate a bit more.

I think during these next weeks remaining in the summer session I will likely make some decisions about how I might plan to continue (or not) with using blog resources as well as the following item I am reflecting on here...

2.) Twitter: Hmm, Twitter is something I did not really see myself ever personally using. Now that I started up an account for at least adding in some class tweets however, I am trying to keep an open mind kind of approach. I actually think my mom has a Twitter account and probably knows a fair amount more about the realm of tweeting than I do. Facebook and Instagram (because I do think snapping/editing photos, sharing fun videos to all those friends, and thinking up hashtags is pretty enjoyable) may still be my relatively familiar social media platforms. I guess we will just see how learning about and using some new tools goes for this summer and then take it all from there!

Week 1 with Web 2.0

Our first week in EME 6414 is focused on getting more familiar with Web 2.0. This week we opened up the discussion board postings by considering how to define Web 2.0, Social Media, and just how these ideas compare to each other.

The first course article reading I did, "Riding the Waves of Web 2.0" was a pretty interesting perspective of exactly what Web 2.0 means to online users today. The authors Susannah Fox and Mary Madden agreed although it has become a buzzword term, Web 2.0 is not easily defined. The concept of Web 2.0 being an interactive online community has become more developed and common since this article was released in 2006.

Until our first weekly course voicethread and reading this article, I did not clearly see how Web 2.0 was any different from social media platforms. In many ways, they are quite similar subjects to discuss. However, social media applications seem to have been derived as Web 2.0 became an easily accessed and collaborative environment for users to communicate and exchange online content.

Web 1.0 was an earlier, stagnant version of online information that really did not facilitate much production or updating of the posted content. Currently Web 2.0 promotes interactive user features all as part of our vast online community... even this emerging blog and my newly active Twitter account are now both Web 2.0 elements!  

Getting Started

Still working on how the whole layout works and starting up this blog for my second summer session course 😅 

So here we go for six weeks of EME 6414 while learning the in ands outs of Web 2.0 and looking at social media interactivity... 

It already looks like there is a lot of information I can pick up on now and start giving it a try!