It's A Black Tie Affair: Building You Professional Website

Get out your black shoes and that nice polka dot tie your dad bought you, because we are dressin' it up and building our professional website. There are a lot of things to consider when you're building your own website and it's important to get it right the first time. The average reader only spends 15 seconds on a web page before they click and go to something else. So that means that if you're trying to promote yourself and you don't catch that potential employer's attention in 15 seconds you're SOL, or (in a less colorful light) Sadly Out of Luck. So without further adieu, let's get to it.

Step 1: Identify Your Audience

The most important step in creating a professional website, or any website for that matter, is to identify your website. Who is it that you want visiting your page and what kind of things are those visitors going to be looking for? Are they looking for a gallery of photographs you taken or are they looking for straight to the point facts about what makes you qualified for the job? Whatever the case may be, think hard about who you want visiting your site and what sort of things are they going to be interested in seeing because remember, you only have 15 seconds.

Step 2: Pick The Layout

Now this step is probably one of the harder steps because there are simply just so many layouts and themes to choose from! So how do you make the decision then? Well, like I've said, you only have 15 seconds before the reader clicks to another page so rather than giving them the chance to miss some of your content, why not just put all your content on a single page! Single page sites look clean and professional and today are becoming more and more popular. This is tricky though, because if you have a lot of content to display you don't want to just slap it all on the front page because otherwise the reader will be stuck scrolling forever and get bored. A rule of thumb for creating a single page website is to keep the content as long as about a page and a half to two pages of standard printer paper. Now this can be hard to judge since you're viewing everything on a screen, but just use your best judgement and try it out a couple times. Scroll up and down your content and see how easily you get tired of scrolling all the way to the bottom. If it turns out that you need to add another page that's no problem! It is just important to keep all your information concise and not too wordy.

Step 3: Choose Your Content

When it comes to choosing your content, it is important to consider what it is exactly you are trying to promote. If you are looking to grab the attention of employers that can get you a job in video editing, you don't want to make your Photoshop projects the main focus of the page. Instead you would put maybe some videos you made right at the top, or at least relatively near the top of the page. The two things to remember when you're picking your content though is to 1) be concise and 2) don't put up bad content! It is important to be concise because nobody wants to read about the 2 hours you spent picking the perfect lens for the shot, they want to see the work! So don't bore the reader with lengthy paragraphs. As far as putting up bad content goes, just don't do it. Everyone has some work they are really proud of and everyone has some work they know isn't very good. Don't feel pressured to fill the page up with millions of things you've done, just put up the work you're absolutely proud of up there! If the time rolls around where someone wants to see more, then maybe you can pull those not as good projects out from the closet.

Step 4: Sticking Out In Search

Last but not least, take advantage of the many free tools you have available to you to make your website stick out in search. With a Google+ account you have access to free tools that allow you to improve how your site is displayed in search. Google will even tell you how to improve your HTML with rich snippets and meta tags so that your site will pop up in more searches! So take the extra step because it will pay off in the long run.

Final Thoughts:

So as you can see, you have a lot to consider when it comes to making your professional website, but you also have a lot of tools out there to help guide you. Whether you follow my 4 steps or find other sources out on the web, you don't have to start from no where. Just remember to keep your information concise and relevant to your target audience and you'll be on your way to creating a great site.

Living Online: How Social Media is Predominating Real Life

Have you ever been at a social gathering and went on your phone to get onto a social media site even though you were already in a social gathering? Of course you have; we all have! Social media is a booming trend that is consuming the lives of billions. Whether grandma is checking on the grand-kids' Facebook pages or you're posting a Tweet from a party, everywhere you go you will find some trace of social media.

Now I do not intend to bash on social media here, I am just as guilty as the next guy, but I do  believe it is time for us to take a step back from the screen (well after you finish reading this) and think about the facts. So lets get to it. Exactly how much of our lives do we dedicate to social media? 30 minutes? an hour? maybe two? Lets start by naming an average social media user, we will call him Joe. Joe is a pretty average 20 year old dude and uses the top 5 most used social media sites according to eMarketer: Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Because Joe is so average, he can't help but go astray from any average statistic so he follows suit with eMarketer's statistics and on average uses Facebook for 51 minutes a day, LinkedIn for 9.3 minutes a day, Pinterest for 25.6 minutes a day, Instagram for 29.9 minutes a day, and Twitter for 23.5 minutes a day, So in Joe's day, he spends about 139.9 minutes or a little under two and a half hours a day on social media. Let's also say that Joe wakes up at 8 AM and goes to bed every night at 11 PM, or in other words, he is awake for about 15 hours every day. That means that Joe will spend 15% of his day on social media. That is more time than a person spends eating in a day!If you're not even a little worried right now, you probably should think about it some more and it will hit you later because these numbers are disgusting.

So what is it about social media that draws us in so heavily? Is it the convenience? Is it our need to show off who our friends are publicly? Or is it just really that fun? I'm not qualified to answer that question, but maybe you can share your insight.

The bottom line is, with the average Joe spending 15% of their waking hours of the day on social media, the line between a person's online life and offline life begins to become blurred. People are no longer simply just the person you know from face to face contact, now everyone can see everyone else's online activity; which means that maybe now you don't like Kate as much anymore cause she likes the Louis Vuitton Facebook page and you hate Louis Vuitton because they screwed you out of the online deal.

So let me end this blog post with some thoughts: should we keep our online lives and offline lives separate? Or is it ok for the two to mix? Does it perhaps force people into living more open lives? and is that even preferable?

Drunk on Google Juice; Are We Addicted to Google?

The internet is a vast and never ending database that contains almost all of the globe's knowledge. You can go to the web to find literally anything: funny cat videos, scholarly research, shopping, directions, how-to guides, and anything else you could possibly ever imagine will be there. What makes the internet even better though, is that it is indexed in such a way that if I want to find a recipe for homemade pizza I can find almost a million different sites in only 0.4 seconds that will give me one. The internet didn't always work like this though, it wasn't always this quick and simple to retrieve information and ultimately we have one company to thank for this commodity: Google. Google has revolutionized the way in which we browse the depths of the web. On Google's way to the top, however, the tech giant has began to record and track information about us that people find is an invasion of privacy. Google claims that they do it in order to improve their search, but has it gone too far?

Most people know that google tracks literally everything you do. They also slowly are acquiring more and more companies and even hosting their ad spots on millions of websites so that now no matter where you are on the web, Google can follow you and target ads at you based on your search history. But what else does google do with all this information? Well for one thing, did you know corporations can legally request that Google collects about you? Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself.

Ok so the government can request my user data and use it against me, but it's not like corporations are requesting my data everyday, right? Wrong. Since Google knows all of our interests, it would be really beneficial for maybe, online shopping websites, to request this information when we go to their websites and then use it to charge different prices. So really, Google could be the reason you can't find those sweet internet deals you're always hearing about!

Is it really that bad though? A lot of people will say that they don't even care and honestly, I used to be one of those people because aside from all these negative things I've been talking about, Google really does do a lot of good for the world. They build their own research facilities for public research, they install optic fiber in communities to increase internet speeds, they host free education tools for students and teacher, and a slew of many other things that are improving our society as a whole.

So does all this bad really outweigh the good Google does? I would argue no, not even close. I would say, however, that Google is definitely dipping their fingers too far into my personal life. Some people enjoy the convenience that Google offers by having all their content linked and just ignore the fact that they know everything Google does because as they say: Ignorance is bliss. I used to be one of these people! Having everything linked via one account is great and who doesn't love the convenience of Google Docs? But it has finally come to my attention that maybe it isn't a good thing that they know so much about me. Maybe we as a society, myself included, has become addicted to Google and as a result we have let them in too far.

140 Characters or Less: How Media Convergence is Giving Power to the People

Whether it's exploding from the little rectangle in your pocket or bursting out of the bigger rectangle on your desk, there is no escaping the constant onslaught of media we face in today's world. Maybe the media is coming from 1 source, or 10 sources, or maybe even 100 sources, but the fact of the matter is, the way media is consumed and created is changing. Humans are wired to take the easy route and as a result, we have created magic little boxes that fit in our pockets that give us the ability to view and create all different types of media. This innovation has resulted in a phenomenon known as media convergence which simply put just means that all different forms of media are converging to be accessed through one device. A person no longer has to go to the convenience store to pick up a copy of the paper or get the newest release of Time Magazine, instead they can just head over to the appropriate website and read the online version.

This ability to create and consume almost all media from our handheld devices has brought significant power to the average Joe. People now have the ability to share their own videos, pictures, tweets, blog posts, restaurant and product reviews, Facebook statuses, and countless other things with the rest of the world in a matter of seconds. Not only is this process of media creation fast, it's also easy and a lot of the time fun! On top of the simplicity of it all, companies even encourage people to participate in the media. Ever read Like us on Facebook! or Follow us on twitter! or Leave a review of our product and receive a coupon!? All of these little phrases provide incentive for people to participate in the media and use the power they have sitting in their pocket.

So is this convergence of the media a bad thing? Will it have negative outcomes for us in the future? I argue no. Existing media creators will adapt to this shift and redirect their efforts, companies will continue to encourage participation in the media from their consumers, and every day people like you and I will continue to consume and create media everyday. In fact, I think this convergence of the media will have positive outcomes. People can use their power as media creators to share thoughts and ideas in seconds which will accelerate the process in which new inventions are created, new policies are implemented, and new ways of thought are born.

Can you feel the power surging from your pocket? Can you feel the weight of the responsibility that has been placed in your hands? You as an individual have the ability right now to go and create something; something that could change the ideas of 5 or maybe 5 million people. You hold tremendous power now, use it wisely.

How's This? The Complex World of HTML Design

Every day hundreds of thousands of people get on the internet to browse, shop, stream, listen, and just about anything else you might want to do to occupy your time. As more and more people browse the web, it become more and more reasonable for the average Joe to create their own webpage, but how should our average Joe design his page? Webpages in today's world can act as a digital portfolio where any individual can learn everything they need to know about any given individual that hosts a page; so you want your webpage to look perfect right? But HOW do you make it look perfect. There is no guide on how to make your webpage look like a standard webpage because there is no such thing! Yes, there are common things like you should have the title as the top in big letters with the navigation in close proximity, but how you lay everything out on the site is totally up to you. So whats the point? Yes there is no standard way to organize a webpage so what? The point is, how do you know if you have an effective webpage? How do you know you organized things in a way such that it is easy to read and that you used the right colors and that you used the right font and you chose a fitting name, is there even a way to tell? I would argue there is not. I think that an effective webpage all depends on the purpose of the webpage and the choices that are made should reflect either the person, movement, organization, or cause that is publishing the page; and that is the beauty of it. There is no right way to do it, just the way that you think reflects whatever you are trying to portray well.

A webpage is certainly a professional way to promote yourself or an organization, but in a sense a webpage is a work of art that is slowly and thoughtfully crafted until the final piece seems perfect. So what does that mean for you? It means you have the power sitting in front of you right now to go out and add some art to the world.

Bloggers Blogging about Bloggers Blogging: Remarks on a Rebecca Blood Interview

Fred First

Rebecca Blood is an acclaimed blogger that blogs about a number of things that interest her. Through the years, Rebecca has also interviewed bloggers about blogging and then blogged about those bloggers blogs and why they do it; it's quite the tongue twister I know. One interview that Rebecca conducted that I found interesting was her interview with Fred First, the owner of the blog Fragments from Floyd. Fred is a 58 year old (as of 2006) blogger from Floyd County, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southern Virginia.

When reading Rebecca's interview with Fred, the first thing that really interested me was his remarks about why he started blogging. Fred, in the interview, talks about how he started blogging initially as an outlet to get out his frustrations with the way his peers in the professional world were treating him. As someone that has never really been into blogging or had much exposure to them, I found this interesting because I had always assumed that blogs were about things that were happening in the world and what people thought about them. Fred viewed blogs in a different light, however, and utilized his blog as a medium for all of the people of the world to listen to his struggles in his professional life. As the interview continues, Rebecca also asks how Fred has changed his blog over time. I found Fred's response to this question pretty funny and also very humbling. Fred notes that the initial goal of his blog was to tell a story of his frustrations with life as well as to just talk about anything that he was immersed in at the time. Fred continues to talk about how he had received an email at one time about how one of his readers disliked something that Fred had blogged about and warned Fred that if he did not change his blogging topics that he would lose them as a reader. As a general statement, how rude! I am all for people sharing their opinions, but if you're not asked for it and you know you are not going to give positive feedback, keep it to yourself people! The thing that really made me smile though was how Fred explained that he reacted to the email. He states that he never actually responded to the email, but instead he wrote out a hypothetical response that had a very sassy tone to it and to summarize said, if my blog doesn't please you then stop reading it! He continues to explain that his blog has never been about pleasing people, it has always been the same from the start: to tell his own story.

Fred seems like a pretty humble man and holds more degrees than you would ever imagine having time to get. His interview is one worth reading and his blog gives you a peak into the life of an intelligent man with nothing to do in a small mountain town besides blog and watch nature.

My First Step Into the World of Blogging

This is my first post for IMS/SPC 260 Introduction To New Media! Go check out my homepage here: http://naolmstead.students.noctrl.edu/