The Point of Blogging – Part 2

When I started this blog I was keen to find out why people blog and think that by creating this blog I have found out, at least why some people blog.

It is nice to release how you feel about things into the world. I think it may be simular to writing a diary, something that I don’t do either. I think that, like a diary, whilst you are writing posts for your own benefit you are writing in the knowledge that someone can read what you’ve written. I think that anyone keeping a diary hopes that one day someone will read it or they can share it with somone else.

I think that I would have personally got a lot ore out of a blog if i knew it were private, and could write about issues I was having, or be able to moan about my friends when they annoy me.

Overall I have really enjoyed this assignment, it has opened my eyes to blogging and I think I may even continue to write a blog, maybe this one or a new one.

your PC as a TV?

I have recently been using my computer as a television, not all the time just to watch Lost or to watch certain programmes on it, it’s very strange to do and I’m not sure I could ever really get used to it.

I think that TV will never be obselete, it’s very nice to be able to seperate the space you work from the space you relax in. Although the new 28 inch macs would be amazing to watch tv on….

The way I look at downloading I think is quite a rare one, I download music and I download Lost, and now that I have a torrent thing might even download a film or two but no matter what if I like something I will buy it, I buy the paper even though I know that I can read it online I love to buy cd’s and dvds. I think the most of it is I am a very materialistic person, but i also think that music and films seem more real when they are there in front of you in their cases.

In the future I can see myself watching alot more on my computer, especially clips on youtube and the occasional film but I don’t think that I’ll ever convert to digital properly, I think that everyone enjoys material possesions to an extent and reading the newspaper online can not be compared to reading a real newspaper.

IMS assignment (2)

I’m getting myself cofused again, as i understood it people are finding it hard to stay inside the 2,500 words, I’m finding it difficult to write even 1,000 about my chosen behaviour and technology, I think I’m messing it up gradually making it worse and worse! It’s hard to knw how much detail I should go into, should I explain exactly how RSS works and the specifics behind it or just explain what the organisation would need to know preliminary to possibly using it?

Never before have I found searching for information so complicated which is quite ironic since I’m writing about RSS, I’m very good at searching for information and usually find loads, but it’s not happening this time……

Creative Review

I bought an issue of creative review this month, I have been looking out for it for ages as I heard that Mother were guest editing it. They paid £15,000 for the privalige and focused the whole issue around ’selling you soul’ it was a very interesting concept, they went so far as to include a diagram of what they called the anatomy of the human soul. And even tried to sell a page on ebay, this is what the page they sold said on it;

Gemma Harris
bought this page
for £1120
At the time of
publication she had
still not paid
(Maybe somethings can’t be sold)

The idea to sell it on ebay was for anybody to put whatever they liked on it (there were obviously some rules) I loved the irony of it and the fact that they still decided to publish the page despite having nothing to put on it, they would have been able to find something if they wanted.

They also had a brilliant parody of an iPod advert on the back cover;

I really enjoyed reading it and agreed with their take on things however it does appear that all their ‘fun’ and different approaches to things are trying to hide the fact that they are an advertising agency, it kind of seems like they don’t want to be and are trying to be alongside all the other people who think their ‘cool’ for hating consumerism.

FROM: MARIAM.
ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST
mariamlevisu0@yahoo.com

DEAR LOVELY ONE,

PLEASE PERMIT ME TO INTRODUCE MY SELF TO YOU, MY NAME IS MARIAM, THE ONLY DAUGHTER OF LATE CHIEF LEVIS WHO WAS A FAMOUS COCOA MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN HERE,THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF IVORY COAST (COTE D’IVOIRE). I AM SEEKING FOR YOUR URGENT ATTENTION TO HELP ME TRANSFER THE SUM OF ($10,000,000.00) TEN MILLION UNITED STATE DOLLERS INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. PLEASE, I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 20% OF THIS MY TOTAL FUND AS YOUR COMMISSION FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE TO ME. I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I HAVE ALL THE NECESSARY DOCUMENTS IN RELATION TO THIS FUND DEPOSITED BY MY LATE FATHER IN THE BANK.
PLEASE KINDLY MAIL ME IMMEDIATELY YOU RECEIVE THIS MY LETTER FOR ME TO GIVE YOU MORE IMPORTANT DETAILS CONCERNING THIS FUND AND EQUALLY SEND YOU MY PHOTOS SO THAT YOU WUILL SEE AND KNOW WHOM I AM.
THANK YOU FOR BEING THERE FOR ME.
YOURS FAITHFULLY,
MARIAM

NB:Please reply to : mariamlevisu0@yahoo.com

in our IMS lecture we were talking about spam and emails and this is a strange one that I have been getting 2 of each day, i have never had this kind of email before, and the email address is constantly changing so I can’t even block the mail, it’s weird I’m not even sure what the purpose of it is. It’s not trying to lead you to a site, and it doesn’t seem to want you to by something or give any money. Part of me is tempted to email back, but I know that no good would come of this, and would possibly end up with more emails.

Maybe the purpose of this is just to make people wonder, maybe the sender knows that no one would believe it/fall for it and are just trying to find people like me who can be too curious for their own good. I think that marketers are constantly thinking up new ways to reach certain people. Maybe this is a way of reaching, not gullible, but curious people who want to find out more about the email scam this is…..

Shopping Online

This week in IMS we were asked to experience shopping online, I decided to look for the album “trouser Jazz” by Mr Scruff…  I started by looking in a regular retail store; HMV

HMV were selling it for £7.99, not bad at all but thought it best to check the other online retailers first,

Play.com – a company that I would normally regard as one of the cheapest places to buy music & DVDS were selling it for a wopping £10.49, this is strange, it’s not even due to delivery as both retailers deliver free….

I decided to carry on searching…

Fopp!  £6.00 wooo woo woo

Now I’m going to try ebay though I’m unsure it would be on here, why would you sell that album?

Wow, £1.75 with 2 days and 7 hours left….. still going to buy it from fopp though…

I have bought on ebay about 15 times in the past and do really enjoy the rush of it!  I do however find that “watching” and item just completely takes over my life, if it something I really want I’m constantly checking to see if I still have the winning bid, I’m not sure if I would buy anything second hand on ebay but once bought a really nice designer wallet for £30 less than it was in Harvey Nicks!  It is exciting to buy in an online auction, bu I think alot of it is just that I love to buy things in general.

I have never sold anything on ebay, I haven’t really even had anything to sell though…  My mum recently bought some tickets to see Damien Rice in October and accidentally bought 4 too many!  I told her that the website she got them from would probably have a cancellation policy but she just replied “I’ll sell them on eBay closer to the date, he always sells out I bet I could make a profit!!”  I was very strange hearing this coming from my mum, someone who openly admits what a technophobe she is!  I think the great thing with ebay is the fact that practically everything can be bought or sold, I love looking at the silly things like “my wife’s box” sorry don’t have the link….

I would imagine selling on ebay would be a bit more nerve wracking than buying as you might have set everything up for no reason if no one wants to buy….  I remember an ex-boyfriend wanted to sell his signed slipknot boiler suit (he won it in a competition) and did but it up for auction on ebay, I was bidding as well to get the other guys bid up, in the end the guy didn’t pay and the suit didn’t get sent.

I’m waiting, and it won’t be long for terms such as Blog, EBay & Podcasts to become part of the dictionary, even if it is only on word!  It’s amazing how these tools do just become part of our every day life!

IMS assignment

I have started thinking about starting my IMS assignement and have a whole host of ideas I could use. my problem is deciding which to use. I am very interested in most aspects of online behaviour but (as with all of my assignments) really want to focus on something innovative and interesting, this as it has in the past could raise a number of problems. less theory, less guidence and less of a clue about what I’m writing!

I find Widgets really interesting, as a mac user I LOVE widgets and use them alot (mostly to play random arcade games) a sports company seems to be the perfect company to use as sports fans support a certain team and throught the use of RSS could select the teams that they wanted to follow (personlalisation)

Really going to get cracking on the assignement tomorrow, would at least be good to know exactly what I was going to write about…

Businesses Are Changing….

In IMS last week we were looking at how changing technology, specifically the internet have been changing the way businesses work.

We looked at HSBC.co.uk and noted the ease of use of the website and the number of things you can do on it. The most prominant feature is the ease of use and the fact that it allows customers 24/7 access to their finances. We felt that the website kind of disintermediated the cause for bank branches as I and the other members of my group did use the online facilities for most aspects of banking. Branches are still needed as we felt that people still require some advice from an experienced member of staff regarding their financial options. Also cheques (which are being used far less now than before) can not be paid in or spent online.

It was interesting to see the green campaign that HSBC were proposing by suggesting that their customers used online statements rather than recieved them in the post. This in turn would dissintermediate hsbc’s need for staff in this department.

It appears that as all banks are moving online their brand and presence is less obvious, this could of course mean that customers will not remain as loyal as they appear to have been in the past. Locality of branches is no longer an issue, nor are closing times so customers who have selected their banks as a result of these fatcors may re-think their choices.

Personally I find banking online extremly convieniant and I can imagine rather than getting a birthday cheque in your birthday card, you would recive and automatic online transfer of money, less personal but far more conveniant.

Post categories

I have two categories that I have set up for my blog; Ranting and Uni Work

It just seems funny to me that so far my posts seem to come under both of these categories!