Text sharing websites

Today we were comparing text-sharing websites. Like photo and video sharing sites, text sharing site are basically a place for storing files.

In this case that can be in the form of a public blog, or a private diary.

The most popular blogging site in the world is Blogger.com...



It's an easy to use website for writing, storing and sharing pieces of text. You can also post images and embed videos. The layout is simple but effective; and it can be altered by the user to suit their own taste.

Another text-sharing site I found was My-diary.org, which is pretty much the same thing, the difference being in the design and features. Unlike Blogger, the site is more for private use that public, and it's not as well designed. The layout is bland but straightforward. And you can't post images or videos.

HTML

Today we learned the basics of using HTML codes for editing web pages.

We wrote a few lines of text for practice, and created some hyperlinks.

Log for today...

Today we worked on our EPK. James did the design and I wrote the biography. We used iWeb and sourced some articles and reviews. So far it's going pretty well, we only have a few pages left to finish.

Our layout should turn out like this...

Homepage - A basic introduction to the group and the tour.

Biography - A short article describing 2FaCeD DaNcE and its creative process.

Media - A gallery of images, and a Podcast (I think).

Press - News and reviews.

Tours - Two short articles about the tours (Both State of Matter and Still Breathing) and the dates and locations of all shows.

We haven't quite figured the whole thing out yet, so there will probably be some changes.

Also, today, Kelly Maclaren joined our group and did some catching up with research on our project.

Next week we will be continuing with our EPK as well as comparing text-sharing websites, such as this one.

For the research we will be doing for our EPKs we are using Internet Search Engines. Search engines are the easiest way of finding anything on the internet, from articles to images, and even videos.

The most popular search engine in the world is Google...





But there are other well known ones such as Yahoo!...



And Ask Jeeves...



And some lesser known engines, like AltaVista...

Log

Today we did research on our projects. I sent an e-mail to the press manager of 2Faced Dance (our project), asking a few questions that we couldn't find the answers to on their website: Inspirations, progression since their last our, the high points of their career and how they would describe themselves in three words. We also read some articles about them, and watched an interview with Tamsin Fitzgerald (the creator of the group).

Log

Today we compared video-sharing websites, and were assigned our EPK projects, and groups.

I was teamed with James Kellie; we were given a dance group called 2Faced-Dance, and have to advertise their gig at the MacRobert Centre in Stirling, on the 9th of October. So we did some research on the group and sent them an e-mail requesting information. We will be continuing with this project for the next six weeks.

Video-sharing websites, review...

Today we reviewed websites that are used for sharing video files.

The most well-known video-sharing site in the world is YouTube...



It has millions of videos that are uploaded daily from all over the world, and can be accessed easily by anyone with a computer and an internet connection. With its easy-to-use interface and great search facility, it is by far the best site of its kind.

The site I'm comparing it with is Bliptv, a lesser-known website that leans toward straight-lined, no-frills video-sharing. It looks dull, it's harder to use, hosts far less videos and has a somewhat mediocre search facility.



Where YouTube is user-friendly and can be used by anyone, Bliptv is more precise, and specifics are required when searching for videos, and even then the chances of finding what you're looking for are a lot better when using YouTube.

Today we learned how to make web pages in iWeb, and learned how to use iPhoto (Apple's default photo managing program). We also did some research on photo-sharing sites.

On iWeb we made some basic web pages: a Welcome page, an Information page, a Photo gallery, and a Blog. We learned how to insert photos and articles into the program.

For the photo-sharing we research we all looked at flickr.com as an example, and then had to find another site to compare it with, I chose smugmug.com

Flickr is basically a blueprint example of all other photo-sharing websites; it has all the expected features such as an organizer and an editing program. Complete with a simple design and an easy-to-use interface.

Smugmug is a site that seems to be aimed at professional photographers. It's very well designed, looks amazing and has some great photos on the home page to lure people in. It also has reviews from well known publishers to give it credit, as well as proclaiming that it has no spam or advertisements. And it goes into a lot more depth than Flickr when it comes to finding images.

If you were a professional photographer then I'd suggest you used Smugmug. But if you were just a normal person looking for somewhere to easily store your photos and share them with friends then the obvious choice is Flickr.