This week I dedicated most of my time of PUB101 homeowrk to developing my ideas for essay that is comming next week. After this week reading I decided to pursue the topic AI and it use in our life. I like the fact that in the on a main page of ChatGPT that is created by OpenAi company there is a dedicated section for a its limitations that states that it could provide answer that is pausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical. It’s a nice point that acknowledge its user that he/she should not trust evrything that AI it giving back to user requst. Even on the starting line on this website it states that “ChatGPT is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response” and the word follow is in my opinion a key to its use, this AI is not an independed entity by itself, is comes up with a follow up respond that is based on input and should not be treated as a fact.
But considering all of it, I am curious to see where this new technology will lead us. By htis point there is already so many discussionaround it and how people are using it. There is already a signed pertiotion to postpone AI use signed by Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, which already signals that it is not quite reafy to beimplemented in daily use. Never the less the amount of talking it causes, like all these memes on internet where professor at university assignes 50 page essay to his students cause half of the class already used ChatGPT on their last assignments or how some people uses AI to write a code for a game mode. The last example is interesting cause creator made a video about it and showed that beofre ChatGPT was able to provide a decent answer, he spent a lot of time an iterations to make AI give him a working prototype. Which is cohirant with my opinion that AI is a nice thing and only as a additional tool and it will not make any good in a long run if user does not have a required skills set and knowledge to understand what he/she been given.
References:
Introducing chatgpt. Introducing ChatGPT. (2022, November 30). Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
Since the beginning of the Internet way back in the late 1990s and very early 2000s, making online comments on blogs and chatrooms have been around within the Internet. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were just starting to get popular, and more and more people started to buy devices that can connect to the internet. People started to realize that anyone can create an account and post what they would want to because they can put false information on their account. These are known as fake accounts, and whoever uses these accounts can get away from the consequences from the general public.
Since there is a sense of anonymity for these fake accounts when they post comments, the comments they post can get pretty cruel and concerning. An article called “The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnikova states that, “forty [percent] of people in the eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-old demographic have posted anonymously.” (Konnikova, 2013). Hate comments can stem from many reasons, from a user not liking the other, to rumors’ being spread that make the public generate hate towards the user. Although it may not be nice to receive these comments, it is always a good idea to ignore them since it is just the internet; and if it gets out of control seeking support may be needed.
References:
Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 4, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments
This week I will be reviewing Kathy’s blog, Lucid Dreamer (uderrated.com).
First Impressions: Kathy’s blog does not have that much content, however, her About page gave me some insight into the type of content she is trying to convey! I enjoyed that she has a picture of herself because her blog is personal, where she talks about her dreams and (book) recommendations. This is a great way to market your blog, as when someone looks at the About page they will know this is a personal blog about her, and not about any other sort of content.
By posting personal recountings of her dreams, she is presenting herself in a vulnerable way that we don’t see often online! In Hollenbaugh’s article, Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities, they talk about ‘self-disclosure’, “Self-disclosure, the revelation of personal information (i.e., thoughts or feelings) to others (Derlega et al., 2008), is distinct from self-presentation, yet it is an essential tool for those attempting to present their actual or ideal image” (Hollenbaugh, 2020). By talking about her personal life, and her dreams, she is practicing self-disclosure, which is rare online.
Marketability: Kathy has not yet worked on many aspects of marketability. It is a little bit confusing navigating her website and the content that she is actually posting, which makes it harder to market to a specific audience. I would recommend having her “Dream Diary” as the first thing you see when you open the site. On top of that, I would recommend some more pictures or icons that allude to the type of content she is posting so that the audience knows what kind of blog it is!
Unfortunately, she has not posted any recommendations, as this would be where the marketability aspect can come from. If she started recommending some manga or books, she would be able to market that type of content to have her audience looking at the stuff she is recommending. This part of her blog could be pretty easy and laid back too, she wouldn’t have to go into detail but maybe just have Pinterest board-like grid of different manga, board games, and card games that she likes!
Conclusion: Unfortunately Kathy does not have enough content on her blog for me to make a good and accurate assessment of her content, however, I gave several recommendations and things I would like to see from her blog!
Citations
Hollenbaugh, E. E. (2020). Self-Presentation in Social Media: Review and Research Opportunities. Review of Communication Research, 9, 80-98. Retrieved from https://www.rcommunicationr.org/index.php/rcr/article/view/71
The original content debate. Indeed a hot topic in the realm of PUB101 – especially surrounding the conversation of AI, but, for once, I am not going to turn my ire as a creator and literature major to the growing world of artificial intelligence. No, instead I turn my ire to adaptations (which still stem from the capitalistic desire for money, so maybe my ire has and will remain with how capitalism is dictating our lives.) I want to be clear that I am not against adaptations or jukebox musicals or anything of the like, nor do I think creatives are entirely to blame (we all have to eat) – just that I think that the market is becoming oversaturated with unoriginal content, and this is incredibly sad to watch, especially in the AI age where art is being translated into unoriginal synthesised versions of itself, this time by tech.
This week’s readings did not focus at all on AI or capitalism or synthesizing art, though, so I certainly didn’t choose an ideal time to write on this matter. Instead, the readings explored comments, specifically as a creator who receives comments, so that is where my focus will be redirected. The video we watched in lecture, about dealing with receiving negative comments is something that really resonated with me, specifically as someone who was semi internet-famous in my adolescence. My popularity didn’t pertain to my personal self, thankfully, as my online presence was marked by a pseudonym, but the comments I received about my person didn’t seem to care. Indeed, as a young teen (15-17 years old to be specific) I would receive comments body shaming me, despite never having posted a photo or anything of the like of myself, comments calling me talentless, worthless, demanding that I kill myself, all because of my old fanfics. Yes, indeed, I was a fanfic writer, and, honestly, a good one, if the statistics that are still growing to this day are anything to go by. At the time of receiving these comments (angry over a chapter I posted in which I took a position on the anti-black racism discourse surrounding the original work I was fictionalizing), I had just under 50k followers, and my chapter was enough to get the property I was writing about trending on Tumblr; which, as always, invited both an influx of positive community, and negative people who wanted me to die.
As a result, I feel like I’ve garnered a thick skin in regards to hate comments, mostly because I’ve grown up and gained an awareness of nuances in the people commenting. As Jon Ronson contends at the end of his Ted Talk “When Online Shaming Goes Too Far”, it is pertinent to prioritise the human rather than ideology. That is, it is important to remember that these opinions being expressed online do not exist in a vacuum, that there are real people behind them that have lived real lives that differ from one’s own in order to inform their opinions that may contradict our own. Now I don’t think this can be translated to all situations, for example, the homophobic people who decided I should kill myself violently for existing in a way that they didn’t like do not simply get a pass on their violent rhetoric that emboldens support for the eradication of marginalized groups, but for situations where opinions simply differ, where a consensus is not reached, and one party isn’t ideologically opposed to the existence of the other such to the extent that the beg a child to take her own life, it is so important to remember that humans are nuanced.
I don’t particularly look back on that part of my life with negativity, and I think that’s important to note, too. For every negative comment I received, I also received thousands of positive ones, encouraging me, disproving the hateful messages I was receiving, and complimenting the very writing so many people hated so much. There isn’t a way to please everyone, I’ve learned, but there is a way to be kind about the things we disagree with, and I think a lot of people would do well to remember that.
This week, we learned about the importance of media across multiple channels. A classic example is Pokémon, which kevinbrittenylauren labels as “transmedia storytelling”. To create a “coordinated entertainment experience”, Pokémon is reinvented to be independently interesting in varying mediums: playing cards, television, video games, and more. As someone who grew up consuming Pokémon content, I can vouch for its success through effective transmedia innovation. I have countless memories of watching the cartoon with my brother before school, opening packs of cards and slotting them into plastic sheets in binders, and playing video games on my Nintendo DS and later on my iPhone when Pokémon Go was the biggest craze. While melatonin gone missing surely does not have the marketability and consumer potential that Pokémon does to shape-shift into different forms of media, I wonder what my blog look could look like across multiple channels.
An App
A melatonin gone missing app certainly feels like the most conceivable and relevant channel that melatonin gone missing could thrive on. Like any news app or blog app, users would be able to browse the app to read posts, comment and interact, and consume visual media on a more consistent and higher quality platform than in a desktop or mobile browser.
I imagine designing this app would be really fun. It would be open to regular revamps, giving the site more ways to grow. If I ever chose to expand melatonin gone missing, I would definitely go for an app first.
A Podcast
In grade 12, my best friend and I had a podcast to commemorate our final year of high school. It gained more traction than we expected, as a good chunk of our grad class and other close friends who went to other schools listened and supported our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms. People were even asking us to appear on guest episodes, which was awesome. With this experience on how to record, edit, and promote a podcast, I have faith that melatonin gone missing could be great in podcast form.
I envision it would just be me and sometimes a guest, discussing various topics that would definitely be in a content post. Spending 30 minutes to an hour chatting about things like Taylor Swift, TV shows, celebrities, and everything and anything else would be fun to record and hopefully a fun listen for loyal site visitors who wants an eyes-free, hands-free, giggle-infused version of the blog.
Plus, to keep it on theme, episodes could be recorded late at night, to really capture the half-delusional essence of melatonin gone missing.
Social Media
Lastly, if melatonin gone missing were to truly thrive outside of its browser domain, social media accounts would be crucial for online presence, legitimacy/trustworthiness, and overall growth- both in and of itself, and to new audiences. Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok would probably be the main three social channels that could effectively promote the blog (and the app/podcast!) and gain a fanbase, sponsorships, and general public interest. That is to say, melatonin gone missing would blow up the internet!
As Bryce J. Renninger says, users “[choose] a platform informed by their personal tastes as well as wider social trends and practices”. So, these social media platforms clearly reflect current trends around how people communicate and share media online, and would therefore be very effective in contributing to audience outreach for my blog.
So to wrap up, if my blog lives on past the end of PUB 101, keep your eyes peeled on Spotify, the App Store, and your favourite social media platforms for the evolution of melatonin gone missing!
References:
Renninger, B. J. (2015). “Where I can be myself… where I can speak my mind”: Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9) 1513–1529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095
Whippersnappers, B. is for. (2013, November 21). Pokemon as transmedia storytelling. kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/pokemon-as-transmedia-storytelling/
Photos:
Kee, E. (2023, February 7). Download now! free android & IOS apps of the week. NextPit. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.nextpit.com/free-apps-of-the-week-6-2023-a
Podcasting 101: Getting your podcast out there. West Vancouver Memorial Library. (2023, January 27). Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://westvanlibrary.ca/event/podcasting-101-getting-your-podcast-out-there/
Staff, S. (2022, August 17). 1044% increase in social media account hijacking. Security Magazine RSS. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/98185-1044-increase-in-social-media-account-hijacking
Web and multimedia blogs. BLOGS | Touro GST. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://gst.touro.edu/Blogs/Pages/wmmBlog.php
As someone who is starting, and interested in content creation, our contemporary period makes it a little bit harder with the existence of hate comments and online harassment. Especially in the last few years the emergence of cancel culture and the lack of media literacy makes this an even harder topic.
Thankfully, my small blog for a class does not receive hate comments or anything, but if I do want to pursue content creation, I should learn and talk about it.
“The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnikova talks in depth about online comments. My favourite study that is highlighted in the article is, “When people don’t think they are going to be held immediately accountable for their words they are more likely to fall back on mental shortcuts in their thinking and writing, processing information less thoroughly. They become, as a result, more likely to resort to simplistic evaluations of complicated issues” (Konnikova, 2013).
This brings up a point I have been trying to make for a long time, the lack of nuance, understanding, and most importantly media literacy, when it comes to these anonymous hate comments. For example, most hateful comments I see on TikTok are from someone who didn’t understand the video correctly, and instead of taking the time to understand, they just leave a hate comment instead.
As well as hate comments about political issues or other complicated issues, which the hate commentators have no education about these issues.
Transmedia storytelling is a “process” as Henry Jenkins (as cited in Kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com, 2013) would call it. It’s a process in which elements of content—in his example, a fiction—are spread across a variety of channels and platforms. The goal? To create a “coordinated” experience for the audience.
This process works beyond storytelling as well. For instance, it could be integrated into our online publications and more. You may have seen examples of this integration online before and may not know it.
Transmedia integration IRL
Say you come across a YouTube video. You might then find a clip of it on TikTok as a way to promote the full-length video. It may be a montage of certain snippets of the full video or a short clip. You might also see that same TikTok on Instagram in the form of a Reel. That TikTok content could also be posted on Facebook as a video post. Same content, different platform, and they all bring you to the main video on YouTube.
Now, that may not have been the best illustration of transmedia integration, but that is the essence of it. It’s one piece of content that is deconstructed and reconstructed as needed to suit the preferences of other platforms so that it can be shared across a variety of channels. Together, they function to create that ‘coordinated’ viewing experience that I mentioned earlier.
Imagining integration across channels
If I were to integrate Two A.M. Thoughts across multiple media, where would I begin?
Something to keep in mind before I dig into that is that Two A.M. Thoughts is a blog with a lot of text-heavy content. This isn’t a YouTube channel with video content, so integrating my content onto a platform like TikTok might not be ideal. It’s definitely doable, but there are other ways we can approach this too.
I could, for instance, use platforms like Instagram and Facebook to showcase quotes or snippets of my posts. These would act as a teaser or preview for the full-length post which would be linked in the Instagram bio or Facebook profile.
Between Instagram and Facebook, I prefer using Instagram, and I think that my audience would too. I could probably also use a platform like Twitter to promote by posts with quotes and snippets, but Twitter is not much my forte or niche.
With more time, trends, and research, I can find alternative ways of integrating my content across different media, but these ideas are a good start.
This week’s reading about comment moderation was interesting and made me think of how I wanted to regulate my website. As Konnikova (2013) claims” anonymity has also been shown to encourage participation; by promoting a greater sense of community identity, users don’t have to worry about standing out individually”. Therefore, I want to enable commenters to have the flexibility of posting anonymously or through their personal profiles. I want to ensure that Writing After Dusk is a safe space and community for people to connect, and I will do anything to support their needs and concerns. As a result, I will have open comments rather than banning comments since it can produce “less than desirable effects, including a diffusion of responsibility: you feel less accountable for your own actions, and become more likely to engage in amoral behavior” (Konnikova, 2013). I want my audience to communicate freely and passionately about what they think about what I’m writing, and I hope they engage with one another too. My writing will be read and reacted to and will help drive engagement.
Writing After Dusk Community Guidelines:
– Before posting, is it kind, thoughtful, and beneficial to hear? – Hateful, racist, sexist, misogynist comments are prohibited – Explicit, rude or aggressive comments are prohibited – Respect and acknowledge other people’s opinions even if you do not agree – Respect the privacy of other members – Bullying, trolling, and harassment is not allowed – Sharing/plagiarizing my work is not permitted without permission – Spam and promotional content is not allowed
References:
Konnikova, M. (2013, October 23). The Psychology of Online Comments. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-psychology-of-online-comments
“networked publics are both the “space constructed through networked technologies” and the imagined collective that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice … [T]hey allow people to gather for social, cultural and civic purposes, and they help people connect with a world beyond their close friends and family” (Renninger, 2015).
Renninger (2015) highlights, “SNSs are not inherently good at fostering whatever kind of communication one wants to engage in at any given moment”. I can attest to this as I find reaching new audiences and readers incredibly hard. I have read thousands of ways to attract readers and have been doing the work by posting consistently (once a week on Medium/Thought Catalogue). I had a few loyal readers who would comment on my pieces, and I am ever so grateful for them, but my stats were falling short of where I wanted to be. Looking at stats can be toxic and depressing, so I wouldn’t say I like to do it often, but knowing which pieces people gravitate to the most is helpful. The four affordances of SNSs are “persistence (posts are recorded and archived), replicability (content is easily duplicated), scalability (visibility of posts is great), and searchability” (Renninger, 2015). Out of the four, I execute persistence and scalability fairly well by posting on a schedule and having aesthetic visuals to match the piece I wrote.
To incorporate more transmedia within my blog and to engage my audience, I can create Tik Tok account dedicated to my weekly content pieces of poetry/prose where I do weekly readings. In addition, I can create exclusive content on Tik Tok before it launches on my blog to encourage my followers to follow my journey on Tik Tok since it is such a big app with a broader audience and the ability to get more views. Further, I can create another Tik Tok account dedicated to book reviews on the creative process to generate a conversation and exchange book recommendations that could be featured on my blog. I can also make an Instagram account and easily transfer the Toks to Instagram reels to gain more views and help solidify my audience.
References: Renninger, B. J. (2014). “where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind” : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1513–1529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095
n the article called “Where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind”: Networked counter-publics in a polymedia environment” by Bryce J Renninger. It goes on about how the public can be formed by social media. Publics are a group of people who are interested in a specific topic or idea, and on social networking sites (SNSs) publics and counter-publics could be formed very easily. The article goes on about how the public has been forming on SNSs, and one example of a public is the Asexual community. The Asexual community has been online for a while, and “…it was not until then that an asexual identity, named as such, came to be defined and codified.” (Renninger, 2014). The internet is a great place to grow, expand, and jumpstart ideas and communities since it can be accessed from most devices in the modern world. Since the internet, there have been many social sites and chatting sites, one site that has grown greatly is a site called “Discord”. “Discord is a voice, video, and text chat app that’s used by tens of millions of people ages 13+ to talk and hang out with their communities and friends.” (Citron, 2015). Discord is a chatting platform, much like WhatsApp and telegram. Though notice how it is marketed towards a younger audience, which means the trends and topics which will be more popular will be different from other popular platforms. In the “discover” tab where people can join public open server chatrooms, Gaming servers such as Minecraft, and Roblox is one of the most joined. Offline vs online communities have very different properties, online is more accessible and anonymous, while in-person can be more engaging. Though everyone has their own opinion of which is a more effective one for engagement or accessibility
References:
Renninger, B. J. (2014). “where I can be myself … where I can speak my mind” : Networked counterpublics in a polymedia environment. New Media & Society, 17(9), 1513–1529. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530095
Citron, J. (2015). What is discord: A guide for parents and educators. What is Discord | A Guide for Parents and Educators. Retrieved March 29, 2023, from https://discord.com/safety/360044149331-what-is-discord
Following the previous discussion post, this week’s reading by Hollingsworth (2021) focused on the need for business brands to incorporate the marketing aspect: SEO (search engine optimization). Hollingsworth uses visuals and statistical data to defend why the use of SEO works to benefit businesses. As a tool for marketing, SEO works to improve the position and market awareness about the presence of the brand. Hollingsworth (2021) exemplifies this when he mentions that SEO improves the visibility and the searchability of a brand’s website.
Previously we also discussed Gen Z apps, which are popular with the masses and I do use popular apps on a regular basis. For example, Tik Tok, Spotify, Instagramd, etc.
Hollingsworth (2021) reading also reveals to its readers that Google owns the biggest share in the search engine market with 92.26%, followed by Bing (2.29%), Yahoo (1.52%), and Baidu (1.47%); not that these other companies do not provide visibility but Google owns a bigger share. One of the factors responsible for this trend is Google’s ability to provide the most positive user experience.
As a digital platform user, I agree with this report that Google remains the largest search engine market shareholder. Whenever I am searching for information, even if it’s to make a purchase or for academic studies, I prefer to use the Google platform. In addition, I agree about SEO because anytime I am searching for information, even if it’s about buying an item, I focus on the list of businesses whose information is provided at the top of the engine. I have realized about local optimization is terms of brands targeting its market because I find myself seeing ads for businesses that are close to where I live.
Speaking of SEO, Data.ai. (2022) introduces the concept of App Store Optimization (ASO) where the study examines the most searched for keywords in the iOS App stores. In looking at the keywords searched most, Zoom stands at the top, followed by Google meet, and LinkedIn as per the nations examined (Data.ai., 2022). That spells to the reason why Zoom is the most downloaded online meeting platform followed by Google meet. As per the SEO concept, the iOS App store is more likely to suggest Zoom (at the top) to searchers as more preferable compared to the other online meeting platforms.
I have previously heard of the word SEO but I had not looked at it in terms of the local optimization as well as app optimization, which means this module has expanded my knowledge in the field.
Reference:
data.ai. 2022. State of Mobile 2022
Hollingsworth, Sam. April 13, 2018. “12 Reasons Why You Business Absolutely Needs SEO.” https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
This week in PUB 101, we got to revisit Google Analytics. I installed this plugin for my blog in the first or second week of this course, but had yet to look at the data, so I was intrigued to see what kind of activity had been tracked on melatonin gone missing so I know what’s working and what could be improved in regards to my site’s SEO.
Google Analytics
The first thing I looked at, purely out of my own curiosity, is my audience overview. I wanted to see exactly how many people have checked out my blog.
From this graphic, I can see that melatonin gone missing has been visited by 151 new users and accumulated 640 total page views. Seeing this data and knowing that my blog has only existed for a few months is honestly quite amazing… I feel like a real website owner! The number of users on my site regularly fluctuate, and I could guess this is because I usually only post once a week, attracting the most traffic which then decreases until my next posts are up the following week.
I also was curious about user acquisition, because after all, this is only a blog for an SFU course… who’s finding it besides my TA, professor, and classmates? And how are they finding it?
It’s interesting to see how users have come from social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, considering I have personally not linked my blog to either of those sites. The direct and google channels are probably mostly me, and the Posiel channel appears because my posts are connected to the Posiel feed, so these are unsurprising. Users have come from Jellylift as well, thanks to Antalya’s links in her peer review of melatonin gone missing (go check it out!).
Seeing that visitors really do come from social media and external links demonstrates how important a good and continuously improving SEO is for site traffic. Sam Hollingsworth explains this further, saying how having a good SEO is “the most viable and cost-effective way to both understand and reach customers in key moments that matter”. For melatonin gone missing, this means being accessible and easily usable for my target audiences, which I identify in my Imaginary Audiences post. I want my audience to find my blog in a pinch!
Growing my SEO
To improve my site’s SEO, as it is evidently quite important, I will aim to do things that Dr. Norman calls “ingredients for a good SEO”. Some of these things include effective use of keywords, including strong headers in your posts, and having outbound links to reliable sources. Although I strive to include all of these elements in my weekly posts, there are always ways to aim higher and ensure my SEO is being considered in every aspect of my blog design/content.
Stay tuned to see melatonin gone missing skyrocket in SEO success!
References:
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 9). 15 reasons why your business absolutely needs seo. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
Norman, N. (2023). Data and SEO [PowerPoint Slides]. Department of Publishing, Simon Fraser University.
Photo:
Joyce, J. (2021, February 20). 10 great google analytics alternatives. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-analytics-alternatives/347638/
Almost everything in our lives can be done digitally. This is especially true with the use of social media and shopping sites, which leads us to leave things behind that we may need to pay more attention to.
After reading “Digital breadcrumbs: the data trail we leave behind us”, I realized that I leave a lot of information on the Internet, both intentionally and unintentionally. This includes my search history, online purchases, social media activity, location data, and more.
As mentioned in the article, especially with Google’s search history, our information is transmitted to various Internet service providers and then stored in Google servers and can be located in various parts of the world. These digital breadcrumbs can be very valuable to some companies. By analyzing this data, they can provide insight into our behavior, preferences and interests, which can inform a number of aspects of product development.
However, I think the collection and use of digital breadcrumbs also raises some issues. For example, there is the potential for this data to be used to invade people’s privacy and track their whereabouts. Just a short time ago, my friend told me that her photo and some other information had been maliciously stolen, leading to the theft of her WeChat identity.
As far as I am concerned now, every time I hit the keyboard and post, we are leaving evidence of our time online. I think we should take some precautions that can reduce some of the risks that digital footprints may leave behind.
We can use Google Analytics to bundle our website. Google Analytics can help me monitor many suspicious activities on my website. It can also help me identify vulnerabilities on the site and take steps to improve the security of the site. By analyzing user behavior on my website, potential security risks are identified and steps are taken to address them before they become a problem.
SEO is one of those fancy-sounding acronyms I keep hearing about, but I don’t know much about what it is. Yes, I know it stans for search engine optimization… but what does that mean? Well, I’m going to find out.
What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a means of understanding and reaching your audience. Not only is it a practical tool that can improve a website’s searchability and visibility, but it’s a cost-effective one too (Hollingsworth, 2021).
Hollingsworth (2021) goes on to outline 15 different reasons we need SEO, including that organic searches are the main source of website traffic and that SEO builds trust and credibility.
While this is all great and insightful information, what does it mean for me and Two A.M. Thoughts? How can I boost my website’s SEO?
Three ways to boost SEO
Natural links. One way to boost my SEO is to include natural links throughout my content. These aren’t links that are paid for, monetized, or tracked in anyway. Rather, they are links that are there to reference other content, websites, or sources. Links are something I include in my posts regularly, but a majority of them are external links that take readers to outside sources and websites. One thing I’d definitely like to work on is linking and referencing more of my own blog posts in my content—internal links.
Analytics data. Website analytics are another way to boost SEO. Particularly, they help us track users’ behaviours so that we can adapt our site and content to suit their needs. Analytics are something I have set up, but I could sure spend more time looking into them to help cater Two A.M. Thoughts a little more.
Positive user experience. A positive user experience can change everything for your site. Being able to offer users with the information they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible can make your site stand out from others alike, notes Hollingsworth (2021).
Takeaways of search engine optimization
SEO is an essential for all websites. There are so many more ways to boost it than the ones I’ve listed above, but those are just a start. Some things to keep in mind are that SEO is the key to long-term success. It’s a cost-effective and quantifiable gateway to new opportunities, so it doesn’t hurt to start adapting your SEO today.
While Jagged Little Pill (2019) strived to do much in terms of packing representation into the production, it ultimately fumbled the bag when it came to LGBT+ representation, particularly that of trans and bisexual people. Resultantly, my article this week highlighted this misstep with a specific interest in the transphobia of the show’s trans erasure. This is a topic that is especially important to me, as an active and avid advocate for LGBT+ justice and as a member of the community myself. As such, this article is probably one of my most passive writings in a long time, but informed, I think, by a real justification for this impatience.
Additionally, this week I have decided to make a plan to integrate more multimedia posts in my blog posts. My blog posts, for the most part, are pretty formulaic: a text post with a header image. While there is the occasional post that differs from this pattern, like the audio files of songs I’ve recorded, these are few and far between. Moving forward, I’m going to try to at least integrate more images into my posts, laying them between paragraphs of text so as not to lose the reader’s interest. I also think I want to start introducing more audio posts, since this blog is about performing arts. As well, if I have the time, and, let’s face it, the confidence, I might post a video of me dancing, but it has been a long minute since I last put on pointe shoes, so we’ll see if I stick to that plan.
However, ultimately transmedia posts aren’t really something that aligns with the content of my blog. As this week’s process post prompt implores me to think about transmedia, I think its appropriate to say that transmedia storytelling is actually something I am a big fan of experimenting with, and a topic I explored in one of my media literacy classes many semesters ago, but truly not something that is foreseeable in the future of The Stars, Too. I don’t actually have any transmedia platforms to post my content to and thus grow my readership. My dabble with social media ended when I was semi-Tumblr-famous as a teen, and I have not created a social media account since. Thus, while multi-media is definitely something I can lean into, transmedia poses more of a road bump.
According to Data. ai’s, State of Mobile 2022 report people, on average, spend 4 hours 48 minutes on their mobile devices, which equates to 1/3 of our day. This is important to remember because as someone who is cultivating and growing a brand/website, it is important to think about how my website designs translate on mobile devices. I have to consider if my website is accessible and easy to use on mobile devices to capture the attention of more readers. It is essential to have well-functioning and mobile adaptability because that is the new target audience; with Gen Z being a mobile-first society, it is paving the way for the future of technology and media (Data.ai., n.d.).
SEO is another crucial component in a well-functioning website as it enables us to understand and reach readers and can help create better user experiences for them to be captivated (Hollingsworth, 2021). Further, SEO “establish[s] a strong foundation for a beautiful website with a clean, effective user experience that is easily discoverable in search, thanks to the trust and credibility of the brand and its digital properties” (Hollingsworth, 2021). SEO is important to consider when creating a website because our words and hashtags matter to create visibility. A good heading should never be too long, and I heard that the best titles fall short of 6 words. Technology and the internet will continue evolving and changing, but SEO can help us stay relevant.
Hollingsworth, S. (2021, August 6). 15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-seo-is-important-for-business/248101/#close
For this week’s assignment, I had the opportunity to review one of my peers’ blogs for PUB 201. I was paired up with Lita Lising where her blog is about her exercising journey. The content Read More
AI is on a rapid rise in education. Professors and educators have been banning new softwares like ChatGPT and Dall-E with the fear that students will use them to plagiarize entire assignments and diminish critical thinking. However, the use of these technologies is inevitable and increasing in various everyday circumstances. As educational institutions continue banning them, they will just get more and more advanced, which means that at some point, we’ll all have to cope with them somehow. So this week, I tried out two of these technologies: ChatGPT and Dall-E, and found a few ways students might positively use it in the classroom.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is an AI software developed by OpenAI that is meant to generate almost-immediate, conversational responses to questions, prompts, and commands. It launched to the public in November 2022, and since then has been a topic of discourse in academia, ethics and technology, and general interest of the common person with free time and internet connection. Its impressive technology allows the responses to be detailed, articulate, and generally factually correct. User input also helps craft desired outputs, as the AI can “learn” and tailor its responses to reflect feedback and critiques. As mentioned, ChatGPT has faced rejection from educators and institutions with its negative implications for students, but there are ways that ChatGPT can be effectively implemented to aid learning and expression.
Idea Generation
Writer’s block is pretty inevitable for any class, especially PUB 101, where I write two or three posts a week. With a simple prompt, ChatGPT can generate ideas to take inspiration from for essays, assignments, and blog posts. This could yield excellent results, as each student would be able to spend more time on the execution of their project, rather than spending time brainstorming ideas that are often too simple to accurately and rigorously demonstrate their learning. To bypass the possible concern that this would limit creative thinking and be a case of plagiarism, I must clarify that in fleshing out projects from a mere concept to execution still requires a lot of creative thinking, and by referencing the software’s assistance it would steer clear of plagiarism claims since the ideas would in a sense still be the student’s own based on the prompt and information fed.
Keyword Generation
In PUB 101, I’ve learned that inputting keywords in posts is extremely important. They help improve the SEO and my website’s reach. ChatGPT could effectively help generate some of these keywords to benefit each post on my blog. So, I decided to type the following into ChatGPT: what are some keywords to include in a blog post about reviewing Taylor Swift’s album “folklore”? Here’s what it generated.
What is Dall-E?
Dall-E is an AI software, also developed by OpenAI, that generates complex creative images from text prompts. Prompts can include things like recreating individual artists’ styles, using various art mediums, and ultimately absurd visuals that one would not expect to see in one image. Like ChatGPT, the use of Dall-E has been a controversial topic. Specifically, when is it ethically permissible to use it, especially in academic contexts?
Creating Visual Interest
My content posts often use a lot of images from the internet. While this is useful in many cases, especially for posts that take on a more editorial-style, I think that adding pictures created from DALL-E could enhance the personalization of my posts. It could make the blog reflect me and my own personality instead of always relying on other people’s pictures and using generic-looking stock photos. For example, my post about crocheting could have included Dall-E pictures to create added entertainment, visual interest, and personality.
Dall-E generated image using the prompt “an oil painting of a girl learning how to crochet”.
Citing and Copyright?
Since ChatGPT is such a novel tool, traditional citation styles have yet to cohesively come up with solutions for ways students should properly credit the use of the technology in their work. However, as a student and a blog-owner, citing your sources is a critical step in ethical academia and success. Suggestions have been made for citation style from APA, for example, an online library guide for a university suggests, “This technology is new and we are all learning about generative AI resources and how to ethically use them. Consider making the ChatGPT conversation retrievable by including the text as an appendix or as online supplemental material.”
But then again, would we even need to credit the model if it’s not really taking from other people’s ideas? If things are written by ChatGPT, who owns the copyright? The human who generated the prompt, or the creators of the model? Only time will tell.
References:
Antonelli, W. (n.d.). How to use dall·e 2 and Craiyon, the AI art tools that can generate images from any text prompt. Business Insider. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/dall-e-mini
Dall·E: Creating images from text. DALL·E: Creating images from text. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/research/dall-e
Introducing chatgpt. Introducing ChatGPT. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/
Johnson, A. (2023, January 31). Chatgpt in schools: Here’s where it’s banned-and how it could potentially help students. Forbes. Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/01/18/chatgpt-in-schools-heres-where-its-banned-and-how-it-could-potentially-help-students/?sh=130da4506e2c
Research guides: APA style 7th edition: Chatgpt & ai tools. Humber. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2023, from https://guelphhumber.libguides.com/c.php?g=716556&p=5279441
For this week, the readings have made a shift in content. Although these shifts happen every week, I thought that this week was different from the rest. While one of the readings involve the basics of SEO and other things, the reading that caught my attention was the data on mobile usage and apps. The data collected was from 2022, and the article is called “S T A T E O F M O B I L E 2 0 2 2.” This study collects data on apps downloaded and where it is downloaded in each country. The article states that there are “Globally 230 Billion Downloads…” (data.ai, 2022, pg. 7).
Some examples of data that I found interesting was the use of apps from each generation, one of the top most used apps by Gen Z according to data.ai is Instagram, followed by Spotify, Netflix, then Snapchat. I was also surprised that male and female usages were different for the top-used apps. Accordingly, males’ top downloaded app was WhatsApp Messenger, while females’ top downloaded is Facebook. Overall this article is a great source of collecting and looking at data, and I suggest that you take a visit to it as well.
References:
Unknown. (2022). S T A T E O F M O B I L E 2 0 2 2. PUB 101: The Publication of Self in Everyday Life. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://posiel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/dataai__state_of_mobile_2022__en.pdf
Analytics are an aspect of website design that I see mentioned quite often, with videos and articles discussing how to best utilize the information you can get from built-in metrics and website additions such as Google Analytics.
In the artist world, you would only need to focus on analytics if you’re trying to find freelance work or an industry job in the field. Since I make art as a hobby, I have little use in analyzing the pieces I post (especially since they’re made for fun 90% of the time).
In the past, I have lost motivation and passion for art because I was constantly checking my engagement rates, optimal timing, and post formatting. Although I don’t resent the art I’ve made purely to appeal to trends and popular media, I find that it doesn’t genuinely represent me and my style. My personal art journey has also been stunted from such attempts for engagement, since I try not to add anything experimental or “weird” in order to appear more palatable.
Because of these reasons, I choose to ignore analytics on social media and focus on engaging with my friends, creating art that is true to myself, and relying on the miraculous and constantly shifting nature of the algorithms and individuals to decide how each post fares.
When discussing this website, I have a much more impersonal view of the content I create. I am less confident in my writing, and analyzing works will always be more stressful to make public than something like art which can be interpreted in infinitely many ways.
On the rare occasion that I do check my analytics, I’m mostly looking for information about the people who use my website and whether I’m meeting their needs well enough. For example, I found that 89.4% of my user base views my website on desktop which helps me prioritize which elements to update or fix. I also enjoy seeing which posts people visit my site for; there are a surprising number of users who choose to view my classwork instead of the blog content itself.
I enjoy browsing different user reports and seeing if there’s any visitors who come back to the blog often (35.7% currently). Interestingly, a majority of my audience finds my website through organic searching, which suggests a user base outside of just my fellow classmates. My overall bounce rate is 52.63% which I hope will stay in that range for the rest of this term.
I keep a filter on known bots and spiders, but there’s always a gnawing feeling in the back of my head that much of these analytics are taken up by non-human users. Despite this, I still find it fun to peruse the different tabs and wonder why each person has chosen to stop by my site.
I am usually on my computer into the late hours of the night, which has always been reflected in when I post my art. Surprisingly, that trait has carried over into the content of this website, with many posts being completed after 9pm. While posting late would typically be considered a bad practice (afternoons are usually more preferable), many people happen to visit my blog in the evening. This could also be due to different time zones (where it would be earlier in the day for the rest of North America), but there are very few users reading outside of the lower mainland.
As a whole, analytics are a valuable source of user feedback, especially if you don’t receive more obvious sources like comments or emails like me.
For content creators, you could say that analytics are the key to knowing and growing your audience. But for the audience? Well, that’s a different subject.
For audience members, analytics means that our every movement, action, and choice is tracked. Pod Academy (2016) notes that most, if not all, the applications we use require our location information. We “willingly” give up our location for social media, digital payments, and more. We’re tracked by security cameras and the cookies on our browser. Scary, right?
What is a digital trail?
Something to think about is what is a digital trail?
A digital trail, according to Dr. Elisa Oreglia (as cited in Pod Academy, 2016), is made up of the remnants—breadcrumbs, you could call them—that you leave behind when engaging with the digital world. You may not mean to leave a trail behind, but it is just something that comes with the territory.
Anytime you use your phone, your computer, your credit or debit card, or anything that has a chip and is traceable, you are sprinkling your breadcrumbs around. But why do or should we care about breadcrumbs?
Why care about breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs are the reason your Pinterest feed suggests to you everything that you love and find aesthetically pleasing; they’re the reason why your TikTok For You Page is catered so well to your interests and likes; the reason why most random (yet perfectly-suited) ads can predict our next purchases; and so on.
Beyond this, companies and whoever else has access to our information can find out our political preferences, financials, and other private data.
A great question for us to consider now is, what’s happens next? Will our trails helps or harm us as we move into the future?
It might not be something we can avoid, but it’s something we can consider the next time we pick up our phones and other devices. For those of us (me) using applications like Google Analytics to track our website’s audience, think about the information you have in your hands. It’s more than you know.
