1) Labels or tags allow people to find the information/photo/blog, etc., that you are posting on the Web. However, words used as labels or tags can have different meanings in different circumstances. Providing more than one label or tag to describe the same information makes accessing your item easier for people searching by tags.
2) A hierarchal organizational structure puts items on different levels, much like in a filing system of folders which contain individual documents. To find a piece of information in a hierarchal structure, you have to start with the folder on the highest level and move down to the actual folder that contains the piece of information you seek. If you want to store that information in more than one folder, you must copy that information into another folder. This can result in multiple copies of the same document or information on your hard drive and can lead to different versions of the same document in different folders depending on what changes you might make to one of the documents in one of the folders while leaving the others unchanged.
In a non-hierarchal structure, labels or tags are used to organize information. One piece of information can have multiple tags, but none of the tags takes precedence over any of the others. The keywords (or labels/tags) that someone uses to search for information will influence whether and what information which you have tagged will turn up. Multiple copies of the same information need not be saved in multiple folders because there are multiple ways for your information to be found by you or others if you have used multiple labels or tags.
3) Flickr is a Web site that hosts photo sharing. People are using it for social media by storing their photos in one place (on Flickr) and then using a link or embedding code to put photos of their choice on social networking Web sites of their choice. This eliminates the need to upload photos to multiple sites, saving much time. People also use Flickr to help market businesses by posting photos on Flickr and providing a link to their business in the description of the photo; the linked photo is usually relevant to the business in which the person linking the photo is promoting.
4) Now that I know that you can link photos from Flickr to other social networking sites, I believe I will use it. The time-saving feature of it is very appealing as I have been discouraged about uploading photos at all since the process can be very time-consuming. I also hope to discover other uses for Flickr as I explore it more fully.
5) The guest lecturer effectively drove home the point about the importance of linking your information to all of your various social networking sites in order to get more hits on any or all of your sites. I also learned about the statistics sites as she went more in-depth with information about how to obtain useful statistics regarding the who/what/where of hits and people's current interests. These pieces of information can be used to keep your Web content relevant and fresh by helping you to generate ideas to write about that are of interest to your target market or audience. The multiple uses for these tools continues to astound me!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Week 3 Homework
Clever Hawaiian Mom Enriches Her Kids' Lives -- and Her Bank Account -- with Her Brand Ambassador Blog
Kailani is not running a typical business; nor is she raising her family in a typical way. A mom of three young girls, she cleverly personifies what looks like the blogosphere's version of Jon and Kate Plus 8. Using brand-name products, some which she receives for free from companies who approach her, she creates experiences for her children and serves as a brand ambassador for family-friendly products by blogging about them.
In addition to her text product reviews, her real children are videod as they do things like play with a Scrabble Alphabet Scoop game, have "Dove Self-Esteem" weekends, and consume dairy products on a picnic for Safeway's National Dairy Month.
Youtube videos are sometimes embedded in her product reviews which appear on her blog via a "featured content" gadget. Once the relevant featured-content video ends, a screen with multiple other promotional videos she has uploaded to Youtube appears. The dairy spot's Youtube video comes complete with tag lines and a contemporary Hawaiian song encouraging viewers everywhere to "spread a little aloha around the world." The uplifting song itself is enough to draw a viewer back multiple times!
I couldn't resist embedding her National Dairy Month video:
To explore the many things this mom has done with her blog, click here:
Island Life808
The service she appears to be promoting is her creative approach to brand ambassadorship. Her page is loaded with links to Web sites like Amazon.com and,the right hand side of her blog is a gadget that allows her audience to link to a plethora of businesses that sell everything from furniture to child care, from costumes, to gourmet coffee. Some of the links are text links while others are logo links. Further, any blog she writes becomes a laundry list of things to win, things to try, things to buy, and things to do. For your first taste of any of it, all you have to do is click on the link(s) you find interesting.
Her home page has a "subscribe" gadget -- and many people have clicked on it. As of this writing Kailani has 4,540 RSS subscribers. Additionally, she has 4,028 Twitter followers, and 2,211 Facebook friends. It is also possible to subscribe by providing your e-mail address. I believe these are the tools that help her generate some income from her blog as she must have a some amount of regular traffic based on these numbers. Additionally, I think she has return traffic because her page gives families many reasons to come back to it as she provides links to giveaways, posts about island activities, holiday gift-buying guides (2011's is already posted!), and too many other things to list here.
Kailani is one smart and creative woman who appears to have her finger on the pulse of blogging's possibilities. Her blog has proven to be a fascinating and unexpected find. I think I'll become one of her followers!
Kailani is not running a typical business; nor is she raising her family in a typical way. A mom of three young girls, she cleverly personifies what looks like the blogosphere's version of Jon and Kate Plus 8. Using brand-name products, some which she receives for free from companies who approach her, she creates experiences for her children and serves as a brand ambassador for family-friendly products by blogging about them.
In addition to her text product reviews, her real children are videod as they do things like play with a Scrabble Alphabet Scoop game, have "Dove Self-Esteem" weekends, and consume dairy products on a picnic for Safeway's National Dairy Month.
Youtube videos are sometimes embedded in her product reviews which appear on her blog via a "featured content" gadget. Once the relevant featured-content video ends, a screen with multiple other promotional videos she has uploaded to Youtube appears. The dairy spot's Youtube video comes complete with tag lines and a contemporary Hawaiian song encouraging viewers everywhere to "spread a little aloha around the world." The uplifting song itself is enough to draw a viewer back multiple times!
I couldn't resist embedding her National Dairy Month video:
To explore the many things this mom has done with her blog, click here:
Island Life808
The service she appears to be promoting is her creative approach to brand ambassadorship. Her page is loaded with links to Web sites like Amazon.com and,the right hand side of her blog is a gadget that allows her audience to link to a plethora of businesses that sell everything from furniture to child care, from costumes, to gourmet coffee. Some of the links are text links while others are logo links. Further, any blog she writes becomes a laundry list of things to win, things to try, things to buy, and things to do. For your first taste of any of it, all you have to do is click on the link(s) you find interesting.
Her home page has a "subscribe" gadget -- and many people have clicked on it. As of this writing Kailani has 4,540 RSS subscribers. Additionally, she has 4,028 Twitter followers, and 2,211 Facebook friends. It is also possible to subscribe by providing your e-mail address. I believe these are the tools that help her generate some income from her blog as she must have a some amount of regular traffic based on these numbers. Additionally, I think she has return traffic because her page gives families many reasons to come back to it as she provides links to giveaways, posts about island activities, holiday gift-buying guides (2011's is already posted!), and too many other things to list here.
Kailani is one smart and creative woman who appears to have her finger on the pulse of blogging's possibilities. Her blog has proven to be a fascinating and unexpected find. I think I'll become one of her followers!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Chapter 2 Blog Homework
This is my second blog post, a homework assignment for my Social Networking and Social Media class at the College of Lake County in Grayslake, Illinois. I enjoy mastering computer-related skills and am fascinated by the indescribably wide range of things that can be done with computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. I'm looking forward to learning more in this class and am already fascinated by what we've learned!
On the lower-tech side, I like to cook and pick up tips from cooking shows like "30 Minute Meals" and "America's Test Kitchen." To me the folks on these types of programs have ideal jobs: they get paid to cook and eat!
Keeping fit is important to me (although I don't always look forward to exercising), as is reading good books, journaling, and keeping in touch with my family on Facebook. Documentaries are an interest of mine and Ken Burns is one of my favorite documentary producers. His most recent three-part documentary is called "Prohibition" and ran on PBS, Channel 11 here in the Chicago area. If you can catch any of his documentaries, I highly recommend them.
Below is a photo of one of my favorite hobbies: I love to bake cookies for my family at Christmastime. For Christmas 2010, for the first time in my adult life (after saying for years that I'd never do this), I made homemade cutout cookies and decorated them. This is a photo (which I "lifted" from my daughter's Facebook account) of some of the cookies I made and decorated:
I spent many evenings before Christmas decorating cookies while Christmas music and Christmas stories from the Delilah show on Lite-FM played in the background. It was relaxing and fun and my family enjoyed them so much that I hope that I will have time to do this again for Christmas 2011.
Here is a link to a store that always provides a wonderful browsing experience:
http://www.pier1.com/
...although I haven't been there in quite some time, I do love all the trinkets, fabrics, and unique furniture they carry. It's time to make a trip there to browse a bit!
Finally, I'd like to share a video I found on Youtube that contains some very important information everyone should have (and follow) about social networking etiquette. I hope you find it useful. Please share it!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
My First Post
Learning about blogging at the College of Lake County -- and this is my first post! Today I found a new menu creation program. Click here to see the site.
Here's a great idea for a Wednesday night dinner! Everyone loves pasta and veggies, don't they?
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