Uncreative Writing/ Nude Media Response

From this article, Uncreative Writing, I can definitely improve my blogging skills. Before posting something on my blog I will make sure I look it over and make sure that all the work is completely created by me. It is important that my post is unique from others who are blogging about the same topic.  Also from reading this article it helps me understand even more why Creative Commons is so important. From the example given about nude media, it shows that some people feel very strongly about media used on the web and want it to be brought to others attention. This is a big reason why people get in trouble with the law for using others work. Although I somewhat agree with the article, in that media or work should not be taken from others, but sometimes there should be an exception. Obviously blog posts should be unique and creative by the blogger, but sometimes the blogger us using others ideas to give more information about the topic, not to steal someone’s work and call it there own. For example, in my blog I really like giving advice to help other’s plain there wedding, but to do so I sometimes may need expert advice from bridal magazines or websites who have been working with bridal longer. I may use some of there ideas to improve or incorporate into some of mine, but I am not purposely trying to steal their original idea. This article truly shows how people think that changing around the format or the font can make it a totally different article. I honestly think that people just aren’t aware of what is right or wrong on the web. Using others work is a major problem today, but people still do it. I think that people don’t realize the extent of it until they get caught or in trouble with the law. Most people think they are doing nothing wrong. For example a website like Pinterest I am able to take photos and never realized anything was wrong with that until I learned about it from Creative Commons how wrong it was. So many people are taking images from websites like this and probably have no idea where the photo originally came from.

Luckily, I was introduced to Creative Commons and will hopefully not run into any major issues when posting images on my blog. Hopefully more people can become more aware of these issues by reading this article about nude media and learning not to take others work. This also may help people become more creative without using others work.

Annotated Bib 2

Rowse, Darren. “Can You REALLY Make Money Blogging? [7 Things I Know About Making Money from Blogging].” ProBlogger. N.p., 28 Nov. 2012. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

<http://www.problogger.net/archives/2012/11/28/can-you-really-make-money-blogging-7-things-i-know-about-making-money-from-blogging/&gt;.

This website is useful for my thesis because the author really goes into how or if it is possible to make money off of blogging. He does this in a format of 7 points he addresses, which he deems important to know about the process. Since my thesis states that yes it is possible, it was nice to see that his first point stated that it is possible to make money from blogging. He then goes on to describe in the next six points what one must recognize in order to make this happen. He keeps it very realistic and straight forward, which I consider helpful. My favorite part about this site is that the author is really honest in his reasoning.

2nd Annotated Bib

Anderson, David. “How to Develop Yourself as a Blogger.” Kikolani. Kikolani, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.<http://kikolani.com/how-to-develop-yourself-as-a-blogger.html&gt;

David Anderson describes five criteria necessary for an individual to develop himself as a blogger; create a brand, be unique, develop your expertise, define your audience, and keep them interested. In order to create a brand, the blogger must first establish credibility. This can be done by a written introduction, an audio podcast, and/ or youtube videos. The purpose is to show the readers that the blogger is just like any other individual with interesting views and a unique perspective. More importantly, it gives a face to the written word. Being unique is extremely important for a blogger to distinguish himself from million other bloggers. This can be accomplished by the blogger focusing and developing his strengths. Developing your expertise is also very important to stand out from the crowd. The blogger must make sure he is well-read on the topic he is interested in. Defining your audience helps the author to find a niche market for his unique blog. This is important because bloggers must first make sure to have a loyal fan base before expanding. Lastly, keep them interested entails that the blogger post new and interesting information on a regular basis.

Response to “Uncreative Writing”

Appearances matter, regardless of where you art, what you’re doing, and whether it’s online or in the real world. We might not think of it, whether because we think it doesn’t matter or because we just have no idea how to do it, but the way our blog posts look can really affect your success as a blogger. Think about the different websites you frequent when you’re online shopping. I know personally, that I have certain companies I love to shop from, mainly because their website it just so user-friendly and overall awesome. Other websites deter me in that they are too confusing, or just not easy to navigate. Same goes for blogging and news articles. Too much text makes a reader not want to read the whole thing, while photos help to engage the reader and offer an alternative way of absorbing the information. These things are very important, and with our basic WordPress sites it can be a bit complicated to figure out. We are limited in what we can customize, including fonts, colors and just the overall appearance. So it’s important to fix and be creative with what we can. Use photos often, and make them pretty photos that are as high quality as possible. Change up the layout, use a header, categorize your posts and always keep your readers in mind. If you wouldn’t want to read it then why would anyone else?

In terms of creative commons, this article brought up a very interesting point. Text is text, but magazines and newspapers aren’t just text. There are people whose job it is just to layout the page so that it looks appealing, and so that it isn’t just a page of boring black and white text. Context is also very important. A story accompanied by a photograph helps to better tell that story, but also helps to better explain that photo. But if you took either one away, the story or explanation would be lacking, and not the same as it was when coupled together. Those photos are also meticulously chosen so that they are showing exactly what they want to show. Rather than just any picture of a car, but the specific car the article is discussing With Creative Commons, the same truth can be argued for. Creative Commons limits users in what media they have access to. If you are looking for a very specific picture of an african american man, wearing a black top hat, smoking a cigarette while walking his dog in the middle of Times Square, chances are you won’t find that on Creative Commons. Creative Commons is more for the general use. So it would be used in places where the picture you need is broad and is just a visual element for the article or blog post, rather than the focal point of the post. The same is true with music and videos found on Creative Commons. You won’t be able to be very picky when you’re looking up media on Creative Commons because not everyone needs what you need, but regardless Creative Commons is there to help. And if there’s something you need that you can’t find on the site, then you’ll just have to put in the extra work and do it yourself. Also it’s important to keep in mind that what you’re taking from Creative Commons has a different context than the context you will be giving it.

Nude Media and the Importance of the Article

As someone who is blogging, the Nude Media article could be seen as  a very important piece of literature about the internet. Sure it focused mostly on multimedia, but there were key things that could be taken away from the article that could help bloggers improve the way their blogs are read and the audience for which they are blogging to.

For one thing, while bloggers are free to write anything they want due to everyone’s First Amendment right it is difficult for them to see how what they write could be construed and absorbed by the public. People can get pretty heated when they are passionate about a topic and say things in ways that may rub their readers the wrong way. Sometimes, this happens without any conscious intention. The Nude Media article kind of hints on that when the author mentions that multimedia on the web can be saved and distributed in different ways by people who are reading the content. The source in which the public gets the picture or text or whatever gets lost in the long web of copying and pasting and saving. Bloggers need to be aware of the dangers that represents for their own intellectual and creative property and the use of other’s intellectual and creative property as well.

The author mentions the different ways media can be presented in different forms. He used a New York Times article as an example and showed how it differed in each form. The article in actual print looked different than it did on the website. And that in turn looked different from when the article is used to be emailed. The original writer of the article has no say exactly in how he or she wanted the article to look in any of these sharing platforms. It is this inability to choose the layout or text or even design of the content, that the author makes as his point to get across.

This relates back to Creative Commons in a certain way. With Creative Commons, as someone who makes their own content, they have a say in the ways their works can be used. There are certain attributes that are notated on each of the media found under Creative Commons. These attributes include being able to replicate and putting it on other websites, free use in any capacity, commercial use where you can use the basic image on objects, modifying and manipulating the image so it still has the basic features of the image, and so much more.

Nude Media

I think this article was eye-opening. It shows that what you post on the internet can be morphed into something different once you hit submit/publish. What I got from this article would be that although we have free speech and whatnot, the internet is still very controlled. The fact that you can submit something and then have it be changed once it is published is not always something the public recognizes, but what is submitted is a representation of the author. This is unfortunate for the author when they are trying to portray something specific but it comes out in a different way. It is almost like they have control over what exactly we get to see and how we get to view it. I think this goes against our freedoms. I guess this is a sacrifice you have to think about if you are willing to make or not in order to have your articles published publicly. Even something as small as changing a font can affect a reader and their feelings towards your piece. Layout is everything and how you present your work is a matter of what type of audience you are looking to target. Once this is played with and changed, this could affect a works success. You can perceive this as a negative vibe once he compares this process to that of the game telephone. Everyone knows the game of telephone is often viewed as negative once compared to a real life situation since telephone rarely ends up with the right message. So when you compare this to what is being published, it makes it obvious that the original piece is almost always edited. This provides public publishing agencies such as newspapers a lot of power, which is something the author must consider. This also touches on the fact that these editors are trying to make all authors the same instead of originally different. As an author I think they should have full control over their work, including something as little, yet as important as the font. When you strip an author of their individuality you are stripping them of half of their job. Instead of trying to make everyone the same, we should be proud of everyone’s differences.

Nude Media

Nude media change or are altered when they become nude or lose their original meaning when are taken out of context. The article mentions an example of an image of Tony Curtis that is depicted by the New York Times in both print and web format. According to the author, the NY Times loses its authority and does not have much freedom in terms of layout of their content is concerned. For example, formatting changes in terms of text size and text times when viewing the print and web versions of the same article. Even sharing an article via with web with a friend can alter the layout of the original article. If a user views the original web version of an article, he is likely to see extra content (i.e. advertisements) which may enhance the context of the article. However, if this user emailed this article to a friend, the nude media would be stripped of its original qualities. The author’s conclusion is that new forms of creative writing are more about the manipulation of free-floating media files.

As far as blogging is concerned, this article is important because it emphasizes the importance of format and layout on content. Bloggers must realize that their personal content is published on a public platform. Therefore, it is very easy for others to use the blogger’s work and manipulate and modify it to meet their own criteria. Thus, an author’s original work may be used by another individual for a different purpose and as a result, the work would lose its original meaning and context.

Creative Commons is essential for bloggers to protect their intellectual work from copyright infringement. If another individual wishes to use a blogger’s original work, he/ she must make sure to use proper citation, giving the original work’s author due credit. Otherwise, the user risks lawsuits for copyright infringement. Creative Commons is also very useful towards promoting collaboration of works. Under original copyright laws, works were protected under all rights reserved. Under Creative Commons, however, works are often protected under some rights reserved. Thus, users have the freedom of altering, modifying, and manipulating an author’s work to create their own original pieces. However, the user make sure to use the proper Creative Commons citations.

In conclusion, nude media is an interesting concept that refers to creative works in today’s society. The concept suggests that in this day and age, most creative works are published in the public domain over the internet. Therefore, all users with access to the web have access to another author’s works. Users often take portions of these works and manipulate and modify them for their own purposes. Such alterations to the media generally result in the original work losing its meaning and context. In order to safeguard an author’s intellectual property, Creative Commons is an effective tool for user’s to provide citation and give due credit to the author of an original work.

Naked Media

I think naked media is important in that we should be aware that whatever we are sending out into the world may not be read or perceived how we want it to be. On a number of levels this is true for any form or anything we put out there–even when speaking out loud. Everyone has a different experience, perspective, opinion, and view-point which makes it just about 100% impossible to control the reaction of your audience. Things that are very important to you within the text may be a passing footnote for someone else that finds something else in the text very note-worthy. For this reason, it is not strange to think that whatever is being put out there will be up for grabs and interpretation depending on the person.

What is distinctly more difficult is when you cannot even control visually how your work is being taken in. In the case of naked media, there is a n enormous leap from print, to electronic, to even the e-mailed copy. I receive dozens of forwarded articles and pictures or posts from friends daily. I never stop to think in what browser they might have opening this up, or even in what context. This is especially true when things get arbitrarily posted on Facebook, or I’ll read a tweet from Twitter that completely disregards the original person who said that–whether it be a funny line or even a movie quote. I think its worth thinking about, when we stress out over form and fonts and layout, that we may not necessarily have the final say in where that final product may end up and whose eyes will be around to see the re-mixed edition. Whether though harmless sharing, or a slower browser.

For that reason its important to focus on content as telling the story and getting the fact, you cannot solely rely on media, though it does provide for excellent back-up. Your words need to be able to get the point across and explain what is happening. Chances are if someone is really invested in your work, they will do the necessary research to find your original posting or the original way in which something was shared. These are things that are not truly that hard to find unless absolutely all source material has been erased–even your name.

So while it is prudent to take a step back and think about what can get omitted in the process of sharing, I don’t think it should take away from the work you already put into the original publication. There is no way to completely control how someone will experience something, short of strapping them down to a chair and peeling open their eyelids. But that’s creepy and completely un-kosher. Who is that seriously desperate to broadcast the original in that sense? As long as the work is being read in a context that still gives sense to it, then it should be okay. But, still keeping in mind that media does matter–whether its included or not.

1st Annotated Bib

Klettke, Joel. “Finding Your Brand Voice (Without Losing Your Mind).” IAcquire Finding Your Brand Voice Without Losing Your Mind Comments. Disqus, 6 Jan. 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. <http://www.iacquire.com/blog/finding-your-brand-voice-without-losing-your-mind>

The topic I chose for my thesis is about blogging to develop yourself and your brand. This article is especially enlightening as far as developing the right tone and voice are concerned. The blog has an excellent layout and all the white space in the article is used effectively, allowing for an easy read. At the very top of the article is title and author, followed by a two sentence summary describing the topic of the article. This is followed by a series of rhetorical questions that the article seeks to answer. Next, the author defines tone and voice, and the importance of these two qualities for effective blogging. Instead of saying what the blogger should do to develop his/ her brand, the author describes the qualities of successful and unsuccessful blogs. Thus, he describes his topic through examples. Afterwards, the author further describes and analyzes the previously mentioned examples, providing suggestions for improving a blogger’s tone and voice. The central message of the author is that in order for a writer to develop as a blogger, he/ she must have a unique and personalized voice and tone. These two qualities are primarily determined by the writer’s purpose for blogging as well as his/ her target audience.

1st Annotated Bibliography

Murphy Kelly, Samantha, Eric Larson, Petronzio Matt, and Warren Christina. “Topics: WordPress.” Mashable.com. N.p., 2005. Web. 24 Feb. 2014. <http://mashable.com/category/wordpress/&gt;.

My topic for my research paper is why WordPress has made blogs more popular in general. Part of my research is going to be looking into information on WordPress. This website I have listed here helps me with that. It is a section dedicated to WordPress on Mashable.com. In the top of the page is gives a small summary of what WordPress is, and some statistics associated with the popularity of the site. Then, below is listed all of these articles that are on Mashable that are related to, or that involve WordPress. I think this is a very useful source. Mashable is a reliable website and I think this source provides me with a lot of articles I can incorporate and use in my research paper. It gives me a lot of articles I could research and use to learn more about WordPress. The articles go back to the early 2000’s so there is really a lot for me to work with here. The one thing I will have to be careful of with the articles Mashable provides on WordPress is whether they are subjective or not. Some of Mashable’s articles are opinion based as opposed to just factual. I will have to make the articles I take as research from this page are factual and not opinionated. Overall, I think this source will be very helpful to my project because I can use it to research how WordPress has increased blog popularity overall. Many of these articles have statistics and reasons why WordPress is such a popular tool, so it should be a very helpful source.