STEPHEN WOODSIDE

Social Websites

2008-11-04T03:09:00.000-08:00

IRC - IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a type of real-time communication on the internet in the form of a chat room or 'channel', its mainly designed for groups of people to discuss/collaborate on whatever their talking point may be although the 'private messaging' capabilities allow a 1-on-1 discussion between 2 people.

Travellers Point - Travellerspoint is a website set up in 2002, devoted to creating a place for people who travel to keep in touch (or meet) with travel friends, this aside, the website also offers a wide range of information that travellers will find useful from travel guides submitted by members who want to share insight into places to visit to accommodation and issues such as travel insurance.

Ive Been There - Ivebeenthere, like Travellerspoint, is a website dedicated to travellers (or your everyday person) to research destinations, their main goal is to make a platform for users to share travelling tips, experiences and share photo's from their travels

Wists - Wists is a social shopping website that encourages the discovery and promotion of unusual or non-mainstream products by small manufacturers and young designers by bookmarking the products for others to stumble across.

Bebo/Myspace -

Second Life -

MMORPG -

Google Groups -

Delicious & Digg

2008-10-28T03:25:00.001-07:00

Delicious and Digg are both websites that support social bookmarking, this allows an unlimited number of people to share links to websites.

Design: Delicious & Digg both have very basic designs.

Usability: Its easy to find your way around on either website, everything is laid out for easy browsing.

Navigation: Navigating through both sites is simple thanks to the design and layout of the search box etc.

Use of Multimedia: The majority of multimedia displayed by these types of websites are usually found in links that you've followed from the websites.

Collaboration: Collaboration is probably the main purpose of these type of websites, they allow you to share links, subscribe to other users etc.

Links:

Quality of Information:

Topicality:

Yahoo! Groups

2008-10-21T03:33:00.001-07:00

Yahoo! Groups offers free mailing lists, photo & file sharing, group calendars and more.

Design:

Usability:

Navigation:

Use of Multimedia:

Collaboration:

Links:

Quality of Information:

Topicality:

Instant Messaging

2008-10-21T02:14:00.001-07:00

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time communication between two or more people.

Design - Instant Messaging software like MSN usually have simple designs with little detail but are good at what they are used for.

Usability - Instant Messaging is simple and something anyone could pick up, it doesn't take much to do things like add/remove contacts etc.

Navigation - Everything is basically on the same page so its easy to find what your looking for and to do what you want to do.

Use of Multimedia - You can transfer files from your computer to another whether it be music, still images, video or text document.

Collaboration - You can collaborate with a number of different people through 'conferences' (yahoo) or by inviting people into the one chatbox (msn), making it easier to send links to your contacts etc.

E-Mail

2008-10-21T01:32:00.001-07:00

Email is a text based exchange of Electronic Mail between computers and users.

Design - The design is usually pretty basic making it easier for the users to find their way around.

Usability - E-Mail is one of the easiest form's of communication between people , everythings set up well leaving the options available to the user (new mail, deleted mail, junk box etc.) easy to find and utilize.

Navigation - Its easy to navigate from page to page (inbox, outbox etc) in many E-Mail applications such as Hotmail and Googlemail.

Use of Multimedia - Its easy to attach pictures, music, video and compressed/zipped files to an e-mail and send them to your contacts.

Collaboration - People can collaborate with E-Mail through things like chain mail and passing on important information in workplaces to employee's etc., this is fairly easy to do.

Links - Their are links to take you to your inbox, properties, sign in/out, sent mail, the providers website etc. all easy to find.

Quality of Information - The quality of information is entirely dependent on what the user wants to type/send.

Topicality - Topic choice is up to the user sending the mail.

Wiki's & Blogs

2008-10-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

A Wiki is a website such as Wikipedia or Wikispaces that allows user's to add, remove and even edit the information on the page in a collaborative manner for all to see providing the page is public and isnt protected, I signed up with Wikispaces.

A Blog is a type of online journal either focusing on one subject or based on a wide range of subject's, the blogger can choose to add, remove or edit existing posts, other bloggers can subscribe to other's, I signed up with Blogger.

Design - Both Blogger and Wikispaces are designed well, both look very plain and simple and don't have alot of detail to them, however both are easy to use.

Usability - Blogs and Wikis are both fairly easy to use, its easy to find your way around on both.

Navigation - Blogs and Wiki are really easy to navigate. It's simply laid out and easy to navigate from page to page on both.

Collaboration - Both sites are easy to collaborate on but Wikis are alot better, Wiki's are usually bigger and have alot more activity, Wikis also give the user more editing capabilities, its easier to connect with other users on a blog though.

Links - The links are easy to follow on both websites, they're all in clear view wether it be links to other blogs by the same user or links to another website.

Quality of Information - Both websites have good and helpful information available.

Use of Multimedia - Both Wiki and Blogs allow users to upload videos or images, uploading videos is easy, you do this by clicking on the add a video icon and then copy & paste in the embedding code for the video you want to upload.

Topicality - Information isn't always accurate or relevant on either due to the editing powers everyday users have but you can always find what your looking for.

Welcome To My Blog

2008-10-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hi, Welcome to my blog, my name is Stephen Woodside (or Steph) and Im 18 years old, I attend John Wheatley College in the east end of Glasgow and am currently studying 'NC Digital Media & Computing', this blog will be used to document/compare the differences between different types of social software such as Instant Messaging and E-mail.