Tag Archives: @learnpublishing

Comments

This week’s topic we’ve discussed the topic of comments on the internet. Although what we’ve discussed and what was presented during the lectures, I find that comments are good and can be helpful depending on the context and community of what you are commenting on.

Personally, I do not engage in any comments or leave any comments on any sort of post. I do this because, as there can exist a possibility of causing some or of trouble I find it better to not engage in it from the start.

However, I do enjoy reading comments. For example, the content I write for my website is about the game Genshin Impact. I leave the comments enabled as I am open to comments even if they can potentially be toxic. In the context of games, having comments and other people commenting on some facts that the author states about the game could be useful. Being able to see what the audience says and if they disagree or agree with what the author might have said can leave a different impression on the website. For game content especially, it can also lead to how credible the author might be when talking about the game. If most of the comments state that a lot of the information is incorrect, this can mean that the author does not know what he is talking about in the guides. Which can help the audience depict if they should follow some of the things the author has stated in the guide.

Furthermore, it is interesting to read other people’s opinions on certain things. This can be seen a lot on Reddit where one person can open a discussion on a certain topic and people will comment on their takes and ideas on that topic.

With all things in mind, comments can be useful. However, it is important to remember what the context is and how the community behaves before responding or writing any comments. As it may be fine if the community you are making a comment for is friendly this may not be the case for other communities. It is always important to consider the context of your comments as it can potentially cause a spiral of issues wishing that you had not made the comment in the first place.

Potential Audience for the Blog

This post is for Process Post Prompt on October 4th, 2022.

The main audience for my blog is mostly university students and would like to see the progress or changes I have made as a design student. My main platform to publish my online self is YouTube. Because of that, I have some kind of recognition online, but without a solid identity other than a design student. I am currently not writing consistently on the blog. On top of my lack of confidence in writing and lack of time to create my identity on this blog, I fail to connect with my audience. This is because, long story short, I do not make my blog feel like a valuable place for the audience to stop by.

Currently, I am looking for ways that I could make this blog feel more like me and attract an audience that does not include writing. Since it is not my strongest skill, I want to show something that will make me enjoy updating this blog. In other words, I want this place to feel fun and not as if it is an assignment. Even though it has been mentioned multiple times in class, it is hard to know where to start when your world is spinning around a hectic schedule and unstable mental health. I know I will figure it out. I have been thinking about starting a podcast before, so maybe that could be an option. It might work because although I love video editing, I just do not have time right now. I need to prioritize creating an identity first. Plus, it is going to be exciting that I can try something new. I imagine my audience would be informed about my week in the introduction of my podcast. I want the audience to feel like they are learning something from this “conversation”, so my chosen topic of the week will bridge my experience and the lesson from it. Not only that it can help me to express my thoughts about my mental health, but it will also show my valuable side. The side that makes me unique and different from other creators. It seems like I do have a plan, after all, Let’s see how it turns out!

Comments, Questions and Concerns

The concept of a comment section on the Internet is generally a scary and overwhelming place and for good reason. The more that we have been allowed free rein of anonymity on the Internet, the more and more people start to feel free to express some of the more controversial and hateful opinions that they harbour with little empathy for others, as is seen particularly with articles and content created by women. Aubrey Hirsch in particular writes about her experiences in receiving online vitriol for content that she has created, and the ferocity that was in some of those comments was quite honestly horrifying. I knew in my brain that those types of things were being said on the internet, but to see the real screenshots of what people have to say when they are given the appropriate environment was jarring at best.

When I was designing Considering Cardamom, the template I picked out for my site had comments automatically built into the post formats. Initially, that was something of a turn-off for me. The last thing that I wanted was to have to potentially deal with disrespectful comments or people criticizing my content. Furthermore, reading more and more about the backlash that women experience when writing articles was overwhelming even just to think about. I’m not a professional journalist, I am not writing this blog intending to reach the masses and educate them about my opinion. The posts I write are for personal reasons, whether those are for internal reflection or just to have a record of some of the recipes that I’ve learned from my family.

Ultimately, I did decide to leave the comment sections open. Logically, it makes little sense that there would be a large amount of political debate or harassment within my comment sections given the content of my blog. I highly doubt that people are going to be sending me death threats or sexual harassment over my chai recipe. The context of a site is so important to consider, and it put my worries at ease to realize I wasn’t going to be linking my real full name to any highly controversial content. Additionally, while checking out other recipe blogs that I have used in the past, one thing I noted was that most of them had open comment sections. Most of them that had significant activity allowed users who made the recipes to offer suggestions and personal anecdotes that could facilitate new users’ experiences while cooking. I wanted to provide that possibility for a community and figured that I would handle any unrelated comments as they arose.

Works Cited

Becky Gardiner, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter and Monica Ulmanu. 2016. “The dark side of Guardian comments“

Hirsch, Aubrey. 2022. “That’s How it Works When You’re a Woman on the Internet“

Mini Assignment #6: Create a gif

For this mini assignment, I struggled trying to figure out what to create a gif about. I debated whether or not to make one about a video game, but thought it would be super generic. I could do one about a superhero, but those exist everywhere online. I scoured my iPhone’s camera roll looking for a batch of photos I could make a gif out of, which led me to what you see below.

Thanks to the TikTok algorithm, I have recently developed an obsession with orange cats. Prior to my brainwashing I was a firm cat hater. Me and my girlfriend would playfully fight over whether dogs or cats were better. Around the peak of our bickering over this topic, we encountered this beautiful orange cat on a walk. I held the preconceived notion that cats were apprehensive or unfriendly towards strangers. But this cat was one of the most affectionate creatures I have ever met! They instantly approached me and my girlfriend and started letting us pet them.

Of course me and my girlfriend had to snap some pictures with our new friend. The gif you see below is from my little photo shoot with the adorable cat we named Rochester.

image of me with an orang cat

Multiple Channels

Like many people in our class, I have not connected my website with other social media platforms. However, this is due to the fact that I don’t think I will be continuing my site after this course. Furthermore, I did not want to connect my personal social media accounts to my website. Therefore, I would have to create new accounts for the purpose of my website.

Nonetheless, if I do have the intention of continuing my website, and wanting to reach out to audiences on different platforms, I do have in mind some platforms where I would want to connect with the users.

The First would be Reddit. As a frequent user of Reddit, and a part of the Genshin Impact subreddit, I find that Reddit would be an excellent choice for me to further expand my audience for my website. As the subreddit already has posts asking for help on the game to guides for how to build a certain character, I find it a perfect place for me to post my content on Reddit. As similar content already exists, I believe that If I share my content on Reddit, I will be able to gain a large number of users looking through my website.

The next platform would be Twitter. I notice that there are a few guides that already exist on Twitter. However, the guides are usually an image or simple guides on finding certain things in the game. Although the content of the guides is different, I find that If I do use Twitter to expand my audiences, I will be able to experiment with different types of guides, for the game, to gain a wider range of audiences.

Lastly, I would consider using Instagram to post guides on Genshin Impact. As mentioned earlier where some posts on Twitter use images to provide a guide for the game, I can do the same with Instagram. These posts are usually guides that show what resources I need to collect to build a character or different weapons and artifact options for a certain character. For Instagram, I believe that if the guide can be contained within an image, it would be an excellent way to bring more people onto my website.

With all things considered there are many platforms where I can connect my website in order to bring more audiences looking at my website. It is unfortunate that I don’t have any plans of continuing my website further after this course but, it is good to know that there exist many platforms I can use to create guides.

Transmedia Marketability

Creating Considering Cardamom has been a learning curve on just about every front imaginable. I always used to think of blogging as something easy to do, that you could just sit down and write whatever came to mind and people would give you money for it. I never really understood how someone could make a full living off of something as simple as that, and I will be honest, I definitely thought that bloggers were a little bit ridiculous when they complained about how much work they had to do. However, being on the opposite end of things now, I can see that there is a whole lot more to blogging than just writing.

One thing that I know I’ve definitely taken for granted is the presence of an audience just waiting for content to be distributed to them. On most social media platforms that I’ve participated in with a public account, it has not taken long for me to develop a relatively large audience with very minimal effort. One funny Tiktok using a trending sound could get me over 16K views. Running a blog is very different, as I’ve noticed from looking at my analytics. The last time I checked, the high point of traffic on my site was a grand total of 11 people. Judging from the fact that they logged in on a Monday and the class for which I am developing this blog had an assignment due on Tuesday, it was no great surprise to me that my fellow students might want to see what I had done to gain inspiration for their own assignments.

I think that in the future if I choose to continue this blog, I would want to incorporate social media into my blog to help grow my audience. When it comes to recipe sites, I rarely seek specific blogs out on Google. More often than not, I end up finding a delicious-looking recipe by scrolling through Tiktok or Instagram and getting a link back to the site where the recipe is hosted. This idea of transmedia storytelling is something that I know I have experienced several times from a consumer perspective, but was not aware of the name or intention behind it. The use of different mediums to appeal to different audiences all contributing to the same overall brand is something that’s seen in social media, entertainment, fashion and more. From a back-end point of view, this is a brilliant strategy and one that I myself would love to give a shot when I have the time available to film and edit social media videos.

Peer Review #3

This week I had the opportunity to look over yet another website of one of my peers. Caffeinated Tammy is a personal and lifestyle blog run by Tamanna about her daily life, the things she enjoys, and her experience as a first generation Indian immigrant. As a child of immigrants, it was wonderful to read through her blog and see someone who had such similar and still opposite experiences to myself. There is a refreshing overlap between our content, with both of our blogs being dedicated towards remaining in touch with our culture.

In terms of marketability, I think that Tammy has done an excellent job in ensuring that her site can be discovered by her intended audience. She has links to several different social media platforms indicated clearly at the bottom of her site. One thing that I would recommend in terms of social media links is to have the social media links and icons also listed at the top of the site as well. The lists of pages on the menu are on the right side of the header, leaving space for social media links on the left side. In general, it is generally unlikely that readers will read anything that is “below the fold” unless they are given sufficient motivation or are looking for something in specific. Following this logic, we can assume that they will not be scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page and therefore it is likely that the social media links will be missed.

A screenshot of the Caffeinated Tammy's blog. Icons for Instagram, Twitter and TikTok line the footer, with the title Socials above them. Above that are the bottoms of several images from the blog.
A screenshot of the header of Caffeinated Tammy's blog. On the right hand, a menu reads "home", "about me" and "blog". On the left side is a smaller version of her logo.

The social media platforms themselves are as well quite well chosen in regards to Tammy’s intended audience. Her choice in uploading posts to TikTok, Instagram and Twitter make logical sense given that the user demographics of each of those sites are generally younger audiences. Based on how the algorithm on TikTok in particular works, those who interact with content that is similar to Tammy’s will be more likely to see her posts. The title of her website is also both distinct and inoffensive enough that a Google search will lead to the intended blog, and there is little overlap with other platforms. Furthermore, Tammy’s use of social media operates in the same fashion as transmedia storytelling, in that each platform linked can be consumed almost entirely on its own, however they all contribute to the same overall story. Overall I have little to suggest, and can’t wait to do more stalking into her site!

Peer Review #3: Knitting After Hours

Knitting After Hours is a fantastic blog by Lily that is centered around the creator’s interests such as cooking and knitting. The About Me page eloquently captures the tone and subject matter of the titular blog. However, one aspect I would like to pay great attention to is the personal anecdotes Lily articulates. These personal details are a great touch that effectively conveys the personality behind the Knitting After Hours blog to the audience. Additionally, this personal approach lends credence to the assertions of Tom Critchlow in regard to digital gardening. For example, as cited in our Tanya Basu course reading: “with blogging, you’re talking to a large audience,” he says. “With digital gardening, you’re talking to yourself. You focus on what you want to cultivate over time” (Basu, 2020). Knitting After Hours captures the sense of a digital garden that Lily is fostering for both them and their larger audience. This is exemplified on the About Me page when Lily outlines how cooking and knitting helps them stay focused when conducting their academic responsibilities. It can be inferred that Lily wants to strive to achieve a better schoolwork ethic since it is mentioned on their About Me page that they “put off” assignments and readings. Thus cooking and knitting are great outlets to promote a better work ethic. This instance showcases how these interests help instill balance in their life. Therefore, Knitting After Hours serves as a digital garden that Lily can use to help cultivate better improvements in their life.

Basu, T. (2020). Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet. MIT Technology Review. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/

Search Engine Optimization

In this week’s lecture, we’ve learned about search engine optimization and how it can help bring audiences to your website. Although talking about this concept this week, utilizing SEO to attract an audience had been always around to configure on Word Press. Moreover, utilizing the tags option to allow my website to show up at the top of Google searches is now one of my key goals in order to expand my website to a larger audience.

Before this week’s lecture, I didn’t realize the importance of using tags. I only added a few tags just for completion as I thought it was a requirement for the class. However, this is not true and can help my website to further grow.

As Genshin Impact is a popular game, I do not see that any of my posts show up in the search results. For example, if I try to search for a build for the character “Raiden Shogun” you will see multiple websites that are not mine but all with similar content. In fact, it does not show up even if I type “raiden shogun abysmal guide”. When searching for my website it only shows up at the bottom on the second search page. Discouraging, but this means that my website has a lot of room for improvement to reach out to a bigger audience.

An interesting result I got from one of my searches was when I searched for “absymal guides raiden” on Google. Instead of seeing my website show up in the search result, I found that the Posiel site was in the result.

search result on google of "absymal guides raiden"

This search result makes me wonder why my website does not show up first before Posiel. However, I will work towards changing this result so that I can have my website show up before Posiel.

With all things considered, having my website show up as one of the top search results on Google is something I’d want to achieve. However, considering the popularity of the game, I do understand that there will be a challenge. Nonetheless, it will not prevent me from working towards this goal.

Peer Review # 3

For the last peer review, I had the opportunity to review Kobe Sam’s website. At first glance, I really like the website. Simple, yet informative to a degree where you understand what the website is trying to achieve. Even before reading the “About Me” page, the theme of the website is easy to understand that it’s about Kobe’s lifestyle and personal blog.

I assume that rather than having an audience to speak to for the website’s content, I see it more as a personal blog where the content is for Kobe to reflect on his journey through school and the skills he has obtained. In other words, rather than writing content for a set audience, he is writing the content for himself. Where people can learn from Kobe’s own life experiences. One thing that I have noticed is that the amount of content uploaded for lifestyle and entrepreneurship is rather low. For a website on a personal blog, I expect that I’d find more content related to those topics rather than it all on academics. To improve user interactions and have more users looking at your website, I’d recommend trying to post more content related to those categories. Since your life experiences are unique it can potentially pull the attention of a niche user group to expand your audience.

Something I have noticed on your website is that it was hard to navigate. Since your content is grouped by: “Entrepreneurship”, “Lifestyle”, “Academia”, and “About Me”. When I try to go look for a set of content like the mini-assignments, it is rather hard to find all the mini-assignments. Therefore, I do recommend creating sub-categories under your current ones so that it allows your users to easily navigate through your website. Furthermore, I have noticed that some of the titles on your blog are bolded while some are not. To keep it consistent, I recommend sticking to one style. Whether you decide to keep the title of your posts bolded or not making sure what you post is consistent is important for your website. Also, I do see that some posts still have the “Uncategorized” category set on the post. I believe this is by mistake, but make sure to confirm everything is correct before you make the post public.

Everything considered I find that Kobe’s website is really good. There are a few minor flaws but they are all easy to fix. As I believe the content for Kobe’s website is a personal blog based on self-improvement I do not find the means to push Kobe to write content based on what the audience likes. However, if attracting an audience is the goal, using tools such as Google Analytics will help to understand your audience better and to know what content they enjoy seeing. As writing a blog about your own experiences is unique and something someone else cannot write, I believe that Kobe’s website has a lot of potential for growth and to further expand his content to a wider audience.

Week 10: Process Post

Within the prompt of this week’s process post, I will evaluate it from the standpoint of a creator and a user.

Analytics have proved to be very useful for many to strategically develop engaging content to share. Back when I was active on my fan Instagram account I would use the analytics to discern that 12pm was the best time to post. Additionally, I was able to garner from engagement data that 6 images in a collage worked best for my theme. However, when I was working my co-op jobs as a digital marketing assistant — analytics rarely factored into any actionable strategies. What usually happened was that analytics were just to be reported to the bosses. Personally, I find analytics to be an insightful tool, however it should not inform everything a content creator does.

On the other hand, when it comes to my experience as an end user — analytics about me cause anxiety. It is a modern dilemma amid the digital age — that everything we do is trackable and is providing data to various companies. I find myself outraged when I come across toxic social media posts in my feeds. I ask myself: why is the algorithm showing me this? I subsequently block these accounts, however I fear that going threw that extra step to block toxic social media accounts is actually feeding the algorithms to show me more of these types of content. Additionally, I am a very private person, so it is always stressful visiting sites and handing out my personal information. I recognize that this is the digital world we live in, but it is definitely tiresome and even worrisome.

Mini Assignment #5: Online Self Infographic

Within the prompt of this mini assignment, I have created this infographic to illustrate my online self.

It was very easy to discern that YouTube takes up most of my online usage. Even when I am doing something I always have a YouTube video on in the background.

Social media was also very easy to identify as a major time consumer when online. Platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram are always being checked. Whenever I bored the first thing I do is check social media. Worse then that, the first thing I do when I wake up is go on social media.

Next was gaming. I am an avid gamer so this was a no-brainer. In my free time I will usually be playing a multiplayer game like Destiny 2, League of Legends, Valorant, etc.

Penultimately, movie and television streaming services come up next. Admittedly, this use to be much higher; but in recent years my usage of streaming services like Netflix have dwindled. I mostly just use them to watch new episodes of shows. I rarely binge watch anymore.

Finally, web browsing is an all encompassing umbrella for general internet usage. Whether this be online shopping, researching something, etc.

Putting Yourself Out There

Aside from the astronomical amount of homework I seem to have collected in the past two weeks, I’ve really been enjoying running this blog over the past few months. It’s a really nice creative outlet that allows me to reflect on my own experiences as well as a reason to kick myself in the butt a little bit in terms of leaving my room and learning to cook with my mom. I’ve really enjoyed the experience, and having the opportunity to share that through this platform is actually a lot less nerve wracking than I thought it might be. Furthermore, as I’ve been applying for co-op jobs, this site has been an invaluable resource and incredibly helpful in demonstrating my experience and skills with website design and copywriting to potential future employers.

Something that hasn’t really crossed my mind in the past little while is the concept of SEO. In my past job when I worked for WIFTV, the site I was running had a built in SEO plugin. It would scan each page of the site and provide suggestions in order to make the site more SEO friendly and easier to find for the general audience. It was a super useful tool, and something I’ve been considering downloading for my own site. While for me, my site has been wonderfully easy to run, I have not really done much to make it easily discoverable. As Sam Hollingworth outlines in his article “15 Reasons Why Your Business Absolutely Needs SEO“, there are numerous benefits to using SEO for your site.

Some of the reasons outlined in Hollingworth’s article I already knew, such as the idea that SEO can help make your site more discoverable through organic searches by an audience. What I was not necessarily aware of was how SEO can provide information on audience preferences, which is something that I believe would be well worth knowing if I want to keep this blog going in the future.

Works Cited

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

Mini Assignment #4: Remix something

Hi everyone,

Here is my Mini Assignment 4 – Remix Something.

Please enjoy this video of League of Legends gameplay that I remixed into an epic gameplay montage. I found some cool free music and decided to add that in too.

I really like the last clip where I rekt my girlfriend in a 1v1:)

Process Post: Week 9

This was the week our essays were due so I thought I would lend this process post to that whole process. The assignment prompt was: “social media platforms are democratic“.

Please read the essay here: http://sus-e.com/home/essay-one-are-social-media-platforms-democratic/

I approached this essay from the perspective of someone who is involved in the dissemination of social media content. Very rarely do I create or curate social media content so this was the best lens to analyze the assignment through.

I subsequently took a look at current events so that I could have tangible examples to share. The ones I outlined in my essay are Donald Trump’s social media communications, Kanye West antisemitic social media statements, Elon Musk buying Twitter and all the harassment he fosters towards other individuals, and the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. Please read the essay to see how I stitched these current events into my argument.

The research process was very smooth. I used the catalogue search in the SFU Library website to find my sources. I also used articles from news outlets to supplement the scholarly articles.

All in all the writing of the essay went very well. The writing prompt was great to work with so I had many thoughts that spilled onto the Word document.

The biggest hiccup I had was when I tried to post my essay to my website. Around 11:51pm, I went to add the essay to the website, but for some reason when trying to publish the post the website would stop working. I tried again three times but nothing happened! It was around 12:02am now so I missed the November 8th due date. As someone who struggles with severe anxiety, I instantly panicked and contacted the TA and professor to alert them to my issue. However, I then tried switching to a different computer at my house and was able to post the essay to my website. I suspect something happened within the cached data on my laptop. I do all the work for this course on that laptop so I had no reason to suspect it would not work when I tried to post.

So, my essay was posted 8 minutes late; hopefully I don’t get penalized for this unforeseen circumstance.

Chai Cookies

This week, I decided I wanted to try something a little different than my usual recipes, and give a shot at a remix of an Indian classic. Chai is a staple in every Indian and South Asian household, and is commonly served with an assortment of sweet or savoury goodies to keep your guests entertained. It stands to reason then, that combining the flavours of chai with a cookie would result in the most perfect and delicious fall treat!

For the majority of this recipe, I used this recipe from Ginny over at In Bloom Bakery! It’s one that my sister has used before to great success, though I wanted to try and tweak it to see if I could recreate the flavours of chai that I love so much. For the spices, I cut back on the amount cinnamon significantly in comparison to the original recipe, using about 2 teaspoons instead of an entire tablespoon and a half. I also increased the amount of all the other spices, leaning a little more heavily on the cardamom since that’s the flavour I prefer to taste most prominently in my chai.

A diagonal shot of a sheet of cookies in rows of 2 and 3.

I was super happy with how they turned out for the most part, they’re absolutely delicious cookies with crisp edges and a soft pillowy interior, but there was something missing in the flavour profile that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t until I pulled them out of the oven that I realized there was no flavour of real tea in them! Next time I make them, I think that I will substitute out one of the egg yolks in favour of a couple tablespoons of strongly brewed orange pekoe tea to see if I can impart a little more of that chai flavour.