My Reflection

"Everyone is blogging" (Source:Google)

This was totally a new and wholesome experience to be able to produce something regarding issues in publishing and so forth as a “noob” blogger. The feeling of accomplishing this blogs is like a journey emplacing a few places that enables myself to learn the art of blogging that comprising of designing, writing, searching for resources, brainstorming and more. Hence, I guess I have at least “leveled up” my self from the beginner stage to a more qualified level after this daunting task that have not only widen my knowledge in the publishing issues from the information I found but also expose myself to various possibilities that a single matters could have. Generally, I have been taught that there are no single solutions to a single crisis but rather a few best way that combined together would make the perfect solution for a particular framework. In a nutshell, I hope I am able to learn more and more from other stuff to make sure my work could one day turning into one of the best amongst the best.

Wikipedia Vs Britannica

Wikipedia (Source:Google)

Britannica(Source:Google)

Goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another spectacular goal from marvellous player David Villa have won Spain their match Vs Russia in Euro 2008, in contrast, this stiff and competitive football scenario is well portrayed in the ‘rivalry’ between Wikipedia Vs Britannica. Which of these two will finally won the ‘match of the minds and hearts’ of their audience? But before that, most essentially, what are Wikipedia and Brittanica?

Generally, Wikipedia is a FREE online encyclopedia whereby Wiki means ‘fast’ in Hawaiian word (What-is-what, 2008). In addition, it has always been the first stuff that comes to mind while searching for information. Furthermore, a person with an online connection could readily edit the information in Wikipedia as it is termed as “sum of public human knowledge” (What-is-what, 2008). In contrast, Britannica is an encyclopedia existing in both print and online that have been getting rare reviews regarding their validity of their information setting the path of reliable example (Terdiman, 2005). However, there is a cost incurred in order to get the information from this encyclopedia.

Wikipedia has always being criticised of portraying inaccurate and invalid results as anyone are able to edit the piece of data, as a result, could we really trust Wikipedia? According to Bosworth (2004), Wikipedia is bias and the coverage is not that comprehensive as some information regarding Putlizer prize winner James Mcperson are not published even thought he had an article regarding him. In addition, only Stephen Ambrose case is discussed in “Historians on the hot seat” while there are sixteen recent cases.

A study by Nature has illustrated that Britannica makes 2.92 mistakes per article whereby Wikipedia 3.86 (Terdiman, 2005). The number has proves to us that we need to look out on more or a few encyclopedia to get a better insight rather than trusting on one which make not so accurate. Wikipedia although may sometimes proves to be not so reliable, it can give us some basic knowledge and the starting ‘know how’ before we are able to find more valid information regarding the matters concerned. Morkes and Nielsen (1997) maintains that readers don’t want to be fed with false facts, thus, Wikipedia need to be able to work out on its validity as it is still the ultimate encyclopedia while searching for information as it is free.


References:

Bosworth, A, 1997, “What is Wikipedia and how does it treat history”, viewed 12th June 2008, <http://hnn.us/articles/8837.html>


Morkes, J. & Nielsen, J. 1997, ‘Concise, scannable, and objective: How to write for the web’, useit.com, viewed on 12th June 2008 <http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/writing.html>


Terdiman, D 2005, Study:Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica, CnetNew.com, viewed 12th June 2008,
<http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html?tag=item>

.
What is What, 2008, “What is Wikipedia”, viewed 12th June 2008,
<http://what-is-what.com/what_is/wikipedia.html>

Harry Potter – legal fansite?

"Lumus" (Source: Google)

“Lumus”, “Avada Kadavra”, “Expectro Pactronum” was some of the spells that are uttered from the fellow wizards from Hogwarts. In addition, it is certainly fabuluous to be able to imagine the way Harry Potter himself fly and play the Quiddith match with his Firebolt. Any fans of Harry Potter would certainly know all of this and even more whereby they are eager to write the way they feel into website, blogs and some into books. But is this ethical?

Well, in the eyes of J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, this is definitely not very ethical as she assumed that the fans are utilising and exploiting this opportunity to actually earn big bucks. J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers sued the “Harry Potter Lexicon” when they are printing it into books claiming that those people are just repackage the stuff they did with the intention of making money unlike other free fan sites like Roswell, Star wars, and so on (New York Times, 2008).According to Wu (2008), fan guides are not illegal as it shows to us how the other party feel rather than the author itself which set a platform of healthy line between the jobs the authors delivers and what the others able to involve in.

In short, J.K. Rowling are not capable of suing the fansite as there are no such a law or regulation that stated fans are not able to express their ideas and feeling towards their novels or movies as they are not actually stealing or infringe the copyrights of J.K. Rowling. Hence, Harry Potter Lexicon is legally able to be existed and the fans could continue express their views and opinions towards the novels and movies.


References:
The New York Times 2008, 'Rowling To Testify In Trial Over Potter Lexicon', viewed at 12th June 2008, <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/books/14potter.html>


Wu, T. 2008, ‘J.K. Rowling’s Dark Mark: Why she should lose her copyright lawsuit against the Harry Potter Lexicon’, Slate, viewed on 12th June 2008 at <http://www.slate.com/id/2181776/#>

Youtube again? Ethical or unethical?

Marie Digby - The shining Star (Source: Google)

Youtube has always been the word of mouth either in Malaysia, Japan, Singapore or event at the rest of the world due to the fact that it has becoming part of the life of most of the people especially the generation y. This certainly make it into something that are needed daily, thus, it will make it having some flaws other that its own advantages itself. Generally, to refresh your minds, Youtube is the ideal platform for a person to post and share their video online making sure that people will kept updating of the happenings of the people around them.

The advantages of Youtube is certainly it is viewed daily by millions of people around the world, hence, singer such as Marie Digby who posted her videos onto the Youtube will get lots of viewer and in return, she got offered a contract by a recording company which certainly make it worthwhile to post her talented videso onto Youtube (MarieDigby, 2008).

In Contrast,being able to viewed by millions of people maybe its drawbacks as well. The posting of video that have directly insulted the Thai King certainly is one of the unwanted video that being posted making Youtube not as good as it looks like initially (Jones, 2007). The post of such videos will make millions of people mad making Youtube removing all of such movies at once.

In a nutshell, Youtube has it own distintiveness and drawbacks, thus, we need to use this tool appropriately to make the best out of it rather than to vandalise it which in return we may get ourselves into hot soups.


References:
Jones, A, EContent: Digital Content Strategies & Resources, YouTube’s Legal Issue Grow, viewed at 5th May 2008,<http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/ArticleReader.aspx?ArticleID=39887>

Marie Digby Online 2008, Who is Marie Digby, viewed at 5th May 2008,<http://marie-digby.org/>

Stealing the limelight – Mobisodes

Sample of Mobisode (Source:Google)

The world barely unwind for a little while to take pleasure in the contemporary condition but rather kept on improving and innovating the recent entire stuff into a better tomorrow. It seems that innovation have certainly plays a very crucial role in the technology industry. This is due to the fact that we are now able to entertain ourselves anytime anywhere with the latest mobisodes that are portrayed in mobile phones. Consequently, the issue now is that will the mobisodes taking up the television limelight?

According to BBC News (2008), seasonal movies that consumes more than an hour normally are illustrated in big screens like television rather than mobile phone as it is very hard for the audience to concentrate Jack Bauer with his mission on such a small screen all day, it may make their lovely eyes suffered. Furthermore, the long usage of the mobile phone to watch movies will reduce the lifespan of the battery although the demand for the mobisodes is increasingly significant (Bughin, 2005).

The consumer today are utilizing their mobile phone as if it is their “personal assistant” that includes “photographer”, “entertainer” and so forth making it a trend for big companies like Vodafone to actually snatching the opportunity in offering 1 minute mobisodes in collaboration with Fox Entertainment Group such the mobisode namely 24 (USAToday, 2004).

Multimodality are illustrated through the mobisodes as they have portrayed the temporal composition of television (Kress and Van Leeuwan, 2006, p13) which is supported by Walsh (2006, p.24) who alwaysmaintains about the paradigm shift when we are being bombarded by multimodal text.

In a nutshell, mobisodes are the trend that are rising and willl eventually become one of the main activities during free time. This is true as South Korean can watch the mobisodes up to 90 minutes per day (BBC News, 2008)which certainly prove to us the potential of this mobisodes as an entertainment tool.


References:

BBC News 2008, 'Future of TV:The Production Company', viewed on 12th June 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6143350.stm>

Jacques Bughin, 2005, “Mobile broadcasting: red herring or big fish?”viewed 12th June 2008 < http://www.re-thinkingtv.com/downloadessay/1>

Kress & Van Leeuwen 2006, 'Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication',John Benjamins Publishing Company, U.S.A.

USAToday, 2004, viewed 12th June 2008, <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2004-11-10-tv-for-mobile-phones_x.htm?csp=15>

Walsh M 2006, ‘'Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian journal of language and literacy, vol. 29, no 1, pp. 24-37.

What is the new form of media publishing?

"Youtube on demand"

When I was walking around my campus IT lab and library that day, it is amazing when I saw out of 10 students, 7 of them will open a website stated http://www.youtube.com/ which I am very curious about why so many people visited that site. Hence, I go straight to a students and throw her with tones of questions such as

“What is so interesting about Youtube?”

“Why don’t you buy dvd or cd and play it at home?”

“Do you think that Youtube can put my friends funny videos?’

However, the answer from her was that Why Don’t you try it out yourselves? Thus, I borrow the laptop from her and start viewing all sorts of videos. It is amazing that there are so many different types of videos in Youtube that myself are even addicted to it. In addition, you can post your friends funny videos or prank videos onto it which is so fabulous.

Youtube has certainly taken the world by storm as it has set the new path of media publishing. To be honest, as a marketing student, I even have thought of “Youtube marketing” as it could be a style of viral and buzz marketing that could create a stir to the audience. In addition, reality movies stars also not only promoting themselves on their own blog but rather link it with Youtube and thus, increase their chances of being voted. That is the rationale behind why Youtube is the leading online video and medium of sharing videos (Youtube, 2008).

However, there are always drawbacks even how extraordinary stuff could be. There is no exclusion in the Youtube scenario. A very good example to portray would be the threat video posted to threaten the police by Bird Road Rudy (NBC, 2008). This will certainly making the community into chaos, making the people fear that they maybe the next victim.

To put it briefly, Youtube have been a very interesting new type of media that have penetrated to mostly everyone in the world which is a great helm of success. Although it have some drawbacks, but, I personally still think that is great to have Youtube as now I can watch free movies online everyday without having to but lots of dvds or violating the law by downloading other videos with very express speed.

Reference list:

NBC, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008,

<http://www.nbc6.net/news/15055640/detail.html?rss=ami&psp=news>

Youtube: Broadcast Yourselves, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008,
<http://www.youtube.com/t/about>

Designing online vs print

"Online Media"

"Print Media"

Creative and innovative human being always strives to achieve a goal or vision with “feelings” and “emotions”. Hence, while you are using various medium avenue to design it will certainly differ as the effect, process, materials and style used are all different. Print document is the conventional way of designing in which we can feel with our touch senses and get hold on the stuff we want. In contrast, online design is a revolutionary style of designing utilizing different technology to produce the masterpiece whereby we can only observe it without able to touch it.

Both designs have its own distinctiveness and restrictions. For print documents, it will be rather rigid as wordings appear to be displayed in linear line as readers need to read it from either from right to left, up to bottom which is pre-set by the restricted reading path (Kress & Leuwen, 1998). This is portrayed in the picture above.

On the other hand, online designing is more vibrant with lots of hyperlinks, images, pictures, interactive tools without having to follow the boring reading path of the conventional way (Kress & Leuwen, 1998). A very good example would be portrayed in the pictures above.

In a nutshell, I suppose both ways of designs have their own distinctiveness and limitation. However, both are equaled important as they need to be used complementary to caters to the different audience across the world. In short, I always think that if both design can work complementary, it will ultimately make use of the two style to their fullest which will produce the best of the best ever design catering to various audience.

Reference list:

Kress,G and Leeuwen, VT, 1998, “The Meaning of Composition” in reading composition, Oxford.

Classification of Blog

"Moblog's the trend"

Types of blogs
As blog is the platform or avenue to voice out a person feelings and insights, hence, there are certainly numerous categories of blogs that could be differentiated such as:

Political blogs
http://www.chedet.com/

Travel blogs
http://www.travelblog.org/

Entertainment blogs
http://perezhilton.com/

There are certainly more types of blogs than those listed above as one can actually write their daily gossip stuff or a serious web blog like the one I am devising right now. In addition to that, there are various types of device of blogs that make the life of bloggers much easier such as vlog and moblog. Moblog is certainly one of the easiest and convenient tools for a blogger as it can help them to maintain their blog up to date without having the trouble to find a computer and internet connection before they are able to express their inner insights.

“The mobloging conference is evidence that the culture of street bloggers I anticipated has sprouted in the real world”
(Rheingold, 2003)

This proves to us that this devise of Moblog have been treated as a very vital tool in the next era of blogging.

Elements when you are looking into a blog
The elements I look into a blog when there are numerous combinations of styles
Different people will have their very own criteria when they are reading a blog. For me, I think it is crucial to have a very attractive title in conjunction with appropriate photos or images before I will pay my attention into the contents that are written.

Blogging community
People that are sharing same interest tend to have their unique groups. Therefore, there are no differences in the blog community in which people who share same insights or interest will group together and form some blog such as in social networks like facebook or friendster. In addition, they will add some tools such as chatbox or videos links to make their communication easier and convenient.

Current community trends
As blog has becoming a useful tool, thus, lots of idols are ultilise it to the fullest by promoting themselves in their own fans blogs which will help them in their endeavors as their fans can know better of them. Besides that, participants in competition also use it to get more votes when they express themselves to the world through their blogs.

Reference list:

Rheingold, 2003, view at 8th May 2008,
<http://www.ojr.org/ojr/technology/1057780670.php>

The current phenomenon and its community effect

"Blogosphere trends"

Current size of blogosphere
When somebody utters the word “blogosphere”, what is the very first faint idea that comes across your mind? Generally, one person may articulate that it is correlated with the atmosphere and another may argued that it is bits and pieces that related with blogs. In short, it is actually the participation and interconnection between logs and journals written in the internet (SearchSOA, 2008). According to Silfry (2006), there are 2 blogs on average created each second every day. Blogpulse (2008) maintains that there are already 78 millions of blogs identified and 93 thousands of blogs are produce within the last 24 hours dated at 9th May 2008. Therefore, this bits of information has certainly portrayed to us the size of contemporary blogosphere is massive, thus, playing a crucial role in its significance towards the present and future global community.


The trend in US, Asia and Malaysia
There are certainly numerous trends that could be identified throughout the world as not all the homosapiens thinks alike. In US, those bloggers are interested in expressing their thoughts rather than blogging for fame or to be get paid (Hobson, 2008). However, Asian is not as “open” as the west as they are restricted with their culture or their country’s law, hence, mostly discussing about fashion, technology and personal life. In addition, Malaysians are more to the personal life and politics issues such as http://www.kennysia.com/ and http://www.jeffooi.com/.


Types of blogs that is prevalent in US, Asia & Malaysia
Life and experiences are the main stuff that is primarily in the blogs of US. This is due to the fact that they are interested in expressing their daily lifestyle (Hobson, 2008). In Asia, the most prevailing blogs would be the fashion blogs in Japan. According to Sabahan (2007), 28% of the bloggers write about their personal issues. This is further maintained by Microsoft (2008) whereby 34% write on their personal space.

The benefits of blogs to Malaysian communities
Blogging has became a crucial platform to the world as it let each and every inhabitants in the world to express their thoughts and feelings without them to express directly to another person if they are afraid to do so. In addition, there is always freedom of speech in blogs, hence, they are able to express some stuff that they could not utter in daily life. Other than that, demanding figure such as Tun Datuk Seri Dr.Mahathir also express his thought in his own blog of http://www.chedet.com/ which proves to us that it could be a tool to express anything in so that it does not violate another person rights.

Reference list:

Blogpulse, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008,
<http://www.blogpulse.com/>

Hobson, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008
<http://www.nevillehobson.com/>

Microsoft, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008
<http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>

Sabahan, 2007, viewed at 8th May 2008
<http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

SearchSOA, 2008, viewed at 8th May 2008, <http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid26_gci1007574,00.html>

Sifry, 2006, viewed at 8th May 2008,
<http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000436.html>

The Purpose behind the Blog

"Bloggers around the world"

The potential of blog have been prominent in the past decades as it proved to be a very splendid tool to commanding figure and great entrepreneurs in sharing their “secret recipe” or showing their “magic touch” in their journey to earn millions or even billions of bucks for their companies. As a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, thus, I will kick-off my very first academic blog in the Iconic presence. Generally, the rationale behind this blog is to mingle the “classroom knowledge” together with the issues in publication and document design and share it with other students, professionals bodies in design and publication, entrepreneurs and so forth who are interested in the topic I am passionate to blog. In a nutshell, I hope that this blog could give some crucial insights and ideas to my audience.