The final word - My experience with this class

I have such an appreciation for the online world and find a lot of the content that was delivered in this class really interesting. Some of the content I feel i already knew but I don't see this as a disadvantage because I was able to concentrate on the aspects I was a bit foreign with.

The idea of video blogging really interested me, I guess I was a bit scared to ever attempt it but the fact that it was intertwined in our assessment really allowed me to finally take that step. I found the process frustrating because on every output of my video I came across a problem! On video 1 i had entered the wrong video codec, Video 2 i had exported the video with the wrong audio codec and then Video 3 for some reason failed to convert when uploaded.

What this taught me was that with online technology, most of the things you learn are through trial and error and there is no finite way to teach how something is done.

Something which really stuck with me in the class was the idea that "When you upload something, the way you view it completely changes because you become aware of the audience" I thought this was really profound because a lot of the time when you upload something on the internet you really have to evaluate the piece because you never know who could come across it, whether it's suitable or appropriate and whether it's worth uploading.

I really enjoyed the discussions we had in class and enjoyed the class size as I think it was just the right number.

Overall, it pretty much fulfilled everything I had expected coming into the class. I've learnt a fair bit given it only ran for 3 days and am still learning as I continue with some of the blogging in my own time.

Second Life - My Experiences

It's hard not to come into Second Life without thinking that you are just playing an online version of the Sims.

Whilst i am excited by the idea of an online world which features Avatars the appeal of Second Life somehow fell short. A large part of it was an initial confusion as to what I was meant to do or where I was meant to go. I explored for about 1 hour around the world only to find myself just as confused as when I started.

From what I could see - anything you wanted to do required Linden money, which is actually real money. I initially questioned this tactic as when currency becomes involved you automatically question whether something is worth investing money in. In this case, I would have to say no.

The fact of the matter is Second Life now just seems like a fad that raged in the Noughties. Whether it was too early for it's time might be a consideration but from my network of friends no one is dying to join the network. It would be interesting to see whether the lure would be different if Linden money did not require an actual transaction to take place.

Half of the fun in games is that you are entering a different world, so when money becomes involved you lose that aspect of fantasy as to continue doing anything you need to step back into reality and reach into your wallet.

However, this does not disregard the potential of Second Life which I think is huge. If the success of James Cameron's Avatar is anything to go by, our society is increasingly interested in the idea of avatar's and differentiating between reality and a 'second realm' If they jumped on the success of the film, Second Life could take off - really, as it is essentially doing everything the other social networks are but in an incredibly rich graphical format.

I think where second life really gains its advantage is the graphical nature of it's world, as opposed to staying as flat web pages you have a 3 dimensional world that can be created and customized to your taste. Here the potential is huge already with individuals 'performing' re-enactments of famous artworks in the digital realm.

Ultimately, as a tool Second Life is very powerful but the real problem is who is on it? Until they can find a way to lure more users onto the site it really doesn't fulfill much of a purpose for new users. But I do hope in time, the internet's interface becomes much more graphical and that we completely change our perception of a web page being flat .. maybe exploring the web in the future will be more like Second life? Where websites are actually structures in a world? and Social Networking sites are the recreational parks of this world.

Facebook - Do we like or become a fan?


Facebook have unveiled their newest alteration to the social networking site, abolishing the 'Become a Fan' feature in favour for 'Like.' For those that have Facebook, this proves troublesome as there are now two different 'Like' options - One to 'Like' a Page, and one to "Like" an activity of a user.

Typical to Facebook, there was of course uproar to the change (just like every single change Facebook has ever done) What is interesting is that despite the uproar, Facebook doesn't look like it's slowing down in popularity.

When Myspace unveiled it's new layout back in 2007, a lot of their users abandoned the social networking site because they were unhappy with the changes and did not want to learn all the new features. However, for some reason Facebook seem to manage to get by all their modifications without much damage at all.

If one actually analyses the changes Facebook have implemented this time around, you can see the genius in their features as they move closer to trying to 'rule' the internet. Some of the new features involve making the profile information more interactive, changing the pages into a more Wiki-style website as well as opening up static text to become links for users to continue to navigate through.

I wanted to know what your opinions of the new changes are? Do you like them? Did you even notice them?

The potential of social networks for businesses?

I'm really interested to see the potential of social networks for businesses. Initially, the benefit for businesses to hold an online social media presence is that they are able to interact with an incredibly large, established community. Furthermore, businesses are able to tap into the networks based on what benefits their business.
For example, a business dealing with the music industry would be more likely to join Myspace as opposed to joining Couchsurfing.

So the question is when does a business know which social network to join?

There are hundreds upon thousands of social networks out there, each holding a community as different as each other. While the major social network Facebook is now firm at the top of the hierachy, there has been a lot of buzz about the growing trend of Twitter.

The latest research seems to show that though Twitter's membership has skyrocketed in the past year, the actual usage of Twitter per day does not even come close to that of an average Facebook user. Additionally, geographically the majority of Twitter's users come from the USA.

So what benefit can business gain from Twitter? Recently, Twitter announced that it would allow business to advertise on Twitter signalling a strategy for the company to earn some revenue from it's social platform. The power for businesses is that Twitter already categorises Tweets based on the hash-tag technology.

If a company that sells clothes online searches for tweets with the phrase 'online shopping' they are able to directly communicate with users via Direct Messages, advertising their product in a way which they would usually have to pay thousands of dollars for.

Whilst the social network marketing phenomena still seems young, there is a lot of confusion for businesses to really understand the value of the time investment. What i think is required is an understanding of your audience as well as adding a human touch to the marketing effort on social networks, rather than sticking with the corporate direct sell you would otherwise try to employ.

I work for a company called UbiqueApps - definitey worth checking out.

http://www.ubiqueapps.com/

Community Channel - Natalie Tran

This is one of the most popular vblogs in Australia (and maybe even the world) This is a journalism student who has her own youtube channel which talks about common everyday occurrences. I find her videos so funny! I hope you guys enjoy :)

Facebook - friend or foe?

As a long time user of Facebook (having signed up back in the day when a university email was actually required to become a member) I have seen it's developments which have essentially made it become more available to the greater public. What this means is it caters for a greater variety of people - which previous dominating social network 'Myspace' failed to latch onto. Case in point, as part of my 340 or so friends on Facebook, 1 is my mother and 2 are my older and younger brothers.

Whether you're a tween or 40 year old with 3 kids, it seems the Facebook Games phenomenon seems not to discriminate by age. Luckily for me, I abandoned my Farmville long before it became a trend and can now rejoice in not wasting hours of my life waiting for crops to grow.

So what does this all contribute to the real potential of Facebook? I have seen many friends hesitant to join the social network claiming it's a waste of time and that they would prefer just to communicate with one another in the 'real world.' Whilst this is a valid point, I always fail to see what they must understand 'the real world' to mean when we live in times when the internet has essentially blurred the distinctions between reality and the online realm.

A friend once warned me when I suggested I was going to delete my own Facebook that "People who don't have Facebook don't matter in real life, they drop off everyone's radar and everyone forgets them" It made me reflect that we have all become so dependent on forging our community of friends and family online. Though this may be outrageous to some, I don't necessarily see this in it's negative form. I want to show everyone what I'm doing, I want people to know that I am in X location at X time, I want to know exactly how many friends I actually hold in real life and I like knowing that when i join X group, there are 300,000 other people in the world who think like me.

Facebook is a global community of people where I can stumble across the profile of someone in India, Vietnam or Brazil without having met them in person. This aspect of Facebook proved valuable prior to my departure for Austria. The International Office had setup a Facebook group for all incoming students to the Fachhochschule and being the addict I am, i was able to check out the people who were joining me for 6 months.

Another potential of Facebook was back in Sydney, when we are required to do group work, we are able to create our own private 'Facebook group' which allows us to submit content easily for others to see and discuss our design ideas via a login we all already had.

Professionally, I use Facebook as a tool to market the company that I work for, reaching out to consumers who would not have heard of the business otherwise. I source the friends via groups that are similar to what my business caters for - allowing us to tap directly into consumers within particular categories - a very valuable tool for businesses who otherwise would be unable to target directly to their demographics.

This was a project i created last year. It was a stop motion video which utilised my favourite lines from movies but structured in an entirely new way to create it's own way to describe a little bit about my life :)

Hey guys I've setup my delicious account with some great bookmarks imported from Safari :) Feel free to check them out!

http://delicious.com/gabriel.virata

Mixing it up a bit now, I decided to make my 3rd video centred around the idea of 'Noise'. The video was created by taking quick video/audio snippets in and around the city.

Time Capsule 3 - Noise from Gabriel Virata on Vimeo.

Video 2

And sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination.

Time Capsule - Journey from Gabriel Virata on Vimeo.

Video 1


In the next couple of months, everything here will be just a memory. I wanted to capture the essence of my time here by creating a series of videos only labelled by their geographic co-ordinates. In this video i decided to contrast some ephemeral objects in my dorm with some natural elements which are unique to this city.

Time Capsule from Gabriel Virata on Vimeo.

Harrow & Wealdstone

Harrow & Wealdstone
Originally uploaded by gabevirata

Harrow&Wealdstone

Selfridges & Co

Selfridges & Co - Exterior
Originally uploaded by gabevirata

The outside of the Selfridges & Co building

Westfield London - Ceiling

Westfield London - Ceiling
Originally uploaded by gabevirata

Westfield London

Brent Cross

Brent Cross
Originally uploaded by gabevirata

Waiting for the bus as Brent Cross

Soho

Soho
Originally uploaded by gabevirata

A lampost in Soho, London

Hello, my name is Gabriel Virata. I'm 20 years old (soon to be 21) and I'm an exchange student at the Facchoschule Vorarlberg, originally from Sydney, Australia. I'm studying a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communications and am currently in my 7th semester.

My background with social media is fairly extensive, I've done a subject last semester in Sydney that explored the range of social networks online and currently act as the online/social media marketer for the company I work for.

My expectations from the course is to increase my understanding and familiarity with online social media to assist with the development of my major project when i return back to Sydney as well as assist with my current job.