Yelp

I had never heard of Yelp prior to this assignment, so I am obviously glad that it was assigned. I like the idea of having all restaurant reviews conveniently located on one website. The two places I chose to write a review about were local places from my hometown in New Jersey. There were only 2 reviews and 3 reviews for each respectively before I added my own opinions. For my first review I chose Taste of Reality Deli, which is a local deli on my block and is hugely popular and successful. I rated it 5 stars because it is my favorite place to eat and socialize, not to mention to food is delicious. For my second review I chose to write about Mac's Diner, a stereotypical New Jersey Diner located on the highway that runs parallel to my town. Out of all the diners I have been to (and that's a lot) this one is my favorite, so as a result I gave it 4 stars.

I definitely enjoyed my first Yelp experience. I had never written a restaurant review prior to this so this was something new to me. For some reason writing about my favorite places to eat really appealed to me. However, I found the website to be a little all over the place or disorganized. I didn't really see the point of me adding a profile picture or adding friends since this is a place for restaurant reviews and not socializing. But I like the website and I like its purpose, and I will most likely be writing more reviews in the future.

My Youtube Comments, Or Lack Thereof

My strategy to produce comments obviously didn't pan out as my video has a total of zero comments. I was going to start the commenting myself on another Youtube account but for some reason every time I tried to post a comment it would say "error" and wouldn't let me post. I tried everything possible to fix this. I made it so that comments were enabled to everyone without approval from me so anybody could easily comment, but for some reason an error would always occur.

I also asked my friends to go on and watch the video and comment. They watched, but they sure didn't comment. Maybe this is because they too were encountering an error or maybe they just didn't care. Whatever the reason, my video had no comments (sigh). So unfortunately there really is nothing more I can really write about my commenting experience because my commenting experience was non-existent.

I Dig Digg

Before this assignment was assigned I have never been an avid user of Digg, I didn't really get the point of the site and I would rarely ever visit it. However, this assignment has completely changed the way that I view Digg and I can definitely now see myself frequenting the site daily. My good friend is real big on Digg and has been telling me to check the site out now for some time, but I never listened to him. I guess it had to take a mandatory assignment to get me to visit the site, but I am glad I did.

I spent the last week on Digg primarily just reading and "digging" articles; I left the submissions to other people because I don't really surf the internet much for news. I also feel that if I were to submit something it would be pointless because nobody would ever "digg" it or somebody else probably had already posted it.

However I did do a lot of reading and some of the articles I found to be most interesting were: the new Apple Iphone, the 3D computer graphic artworks, and most recently the death of rapper Guru.

A brief overview of each for those of you who are too lazy to click the links. Apparently a new version of the Iphone was found and it has been remastered and remodeled. Some new features include a video camera, a higher resolution screen, a bigger battery, and a new, sleeker design.
There is not much to say about the 3D graphics besides the fact that they are breathtaking and definitely worth checking out. The final link I provided I discovered today and it really caught me off guard. I had no idea that Guru, a rapper and member of Gang Starr, was battling cancer and had a heart attack. I have about 15 of his songs on my Ipod and listen to all of them. I really enjoy his music and it's a shame that he has passed so abruptly.

I did a lot of other readings but those were probably three of my favorite findings so to speak. However, I must admit that I did not participate in commenting at all. It is habit of mine that once I finish the article, I automatically click the back button and resume perusing more articles. I don't even think about commenting. This is a habit that I must break. I did do my fair share of "digging" though. Every article that I found interesting I made sure I did my part in pushing it to the top. I didn't do any down voting though because mainly because I felt bad doing it. I know I am exaggerating but I don't want my down vote to ruin people's chances of getting to the front page.

After a week spent on Digg I have become a big fan of it, and thanks to this assignment I see myself doing a lot more "digging" in the future.

My First Youtube Video

I am not a Youtube or video wizard in any sense, I don't have a camera or a video camera, so I chose to just upload a video that I've had on my computer for a while. I had no clue how to get audio or add a music track. The video is of my friend Joe "schooling" his friend Mike in basketball in his backyard. The video is below and I made the title a link to the video on Youtube. Enjoy

My Favorite Youtube Video

This is by far and away my favorite youtube video. It's a parody of of the infomercial "Shamwow" and sarcastically promotes the benefits of the product Paper Towels. My roommate showed it to me after he visited his friend at a school in up state New York. At the time he showed it to me 5 months ago the video had less than 1,000 views. Hope you enjoy!

Youtube's Design

The design of Youtube is not at all similar to that of other popular social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. There are no, no personalized pages, no mini feeds, and no photo albums, instead there are just videos and comment sections. Youtube is not as personal as other networking sites. The majority of people who post videos do not use their real name but instead use usernames. Even if the video you post does receive millions of hits, it doesn't mean people know you like if were to have a million friends. The design of Youtube is obviously pretty limited; videos and comment sections. There isn't much more to it than that. They do have a few user friendly gadgets if you're a member such as favorites and playlists. Youtube is trying to become more like Facebook and Myspace with the implementation of the Inbox and Friend Invites. I didn't even realize they had these options until I decided to write this blog so needless to say they aren't very popular. People who use Youtube are looking to watch videos and have a good time, they aren't looking to make friends, and this is Youtube's biggest limitation.

Viral Videos Not For Me

I didn't quite understand this assignment or what the relevance of it was, but these videos just weren't for me (perhaps it's because I didn't get my hands on the book yet). But either way, I found the first video to be kind of pointless so I tried to find anything that dealt with the story or mythology behind it. What I discovered was that the two girls in the video became somewhat famous, or at least famous enough to get Kevin Smith to appear in one of their videos. It also seems that they started a wave that made lip syncing videos popular. I for one am not a fan of these videos and never will be, but congratulations to these girls for making something of themselves via Youtube.

The other video by Lonleygirl15 was a tad more entertaining because right off the bat I could tell that this was going to be like a video blog series, which it indeed is. This idea is pretty interesting and the creator(s) seemed to have pulled it off pretty well. I did a little more digging and discovered they had a website and that the video blogs on Youtube were similar to a TV series with characters and everything. I'm assuming these kids were the first ones to pioneer a project like this and I am sure that many others have followed suit. I really like this idea and wish that I could have came up with it first.

Reaction to Youtube Quote

"YouTube proves that in practice the economic and cultural rearrangements that “participatory culture” stands for are as disruptive and uncomfortable as they might be potentially liberating. The debates and struggles around YouTube as a site of participatory culture…are less about technology and more about cultural and political questions: who gets to speak, and who gets the attention; what compensations or rewards there are for creativity and work; and the uncertainties around various forms of expertise and authority."

I don't understand how Burgess and Green can make the claim that Youtube is uncomfortable and disruptive. I mean, what exactly is uncomfortable and disruptive about it? Maybe they are referring to the fact that there are a lot of obscene and inappropriate videos on the website; but that's the only thing I can think of. I do agree with them however that Youtube can potentially be liberating since it for the most part allows anybody to post whatever they want on it. It's a good forum for allowing people to speak their mind's through video. I do feel that Youtube is a good site of participatory culture although in this quote they seem hesitant to make such a claim. To answer their questions, everybody and anybody gets to speak whether that be via posting a video or leaving a comment. The people who get the most attention are obviously the people who post the best videos and get the most hits, but there are no monetary compensations or rewards for their creativity and work, instead they get their 15 minutes of fame.

Wiki Revisions

For my Wikipedia revisions I chose to revise/add to things that I had a lot of knowledge about. The first thing I chose of course had to deal with the New York Jets since they I basically know everything about them. The first thing I chose to do was to revise a few sentences under the 2010: Meadowlands Stadium section of the main entry of "New York Jets". In this section I just clarified that the Giants will be playing the first regular season game in the new stadium while the Jets will be playing the first pre-season game and first Monday Night game. Here is what I wrote: "The Giants will play the first ever regular season game at Meadowlands Stadium on September 12, while the Jets will play the first ever pre season game and host the first Monday night game..." I also added a sentence at the end that said "The stadium has a seating capacity of 82,500." As of now both edits are left untouched.

The other page I chose to revise/add to was the rap group Atmosphere. On his page they left out the fact that he also has 5 studio EP's to go along with his 7 studio albums. So I created a little section under "Studio Discography" with the title of "EP's" and listed his 5 EP's with their titles and dates. As of now that still remains unchanged as well.

It took me a little while to figure out what I intially wanted to write about, but once the idea hit me that I should write about something I'm knowledgeable about it only took a few minutes. It was a good experience, and now that I've created an account I will probably revise and edit a few more pages in the future.

My First Radio Experience

I called in to my friend Dan Kirk's radio show "Chilling Briefly" on 90.3 the core. It is an independent radio station shared by Piscataway High School of New Jersey and Rutgers University. Piscataway owns the rights to the station but Rutgers runs it. Kirk has a 2 hour radio show every Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. where he plays mostly music but does solicit calls from viewers who request songs and briefly chat. He doesn't get many calls needless to say because it is a small, unfamiliar show, but I figured I would give him a surprise call anyway. I wasn't able to tape the call but I will give a quick overview of what transpired.

I called in during commercial and his partner Ryan answered the phone who acted as the screening producer so to speak. He asked me my name, where I was calling from, and what about. I told him I was a friend of Dan's from home and just wanted to say what's up and request a song. He said "ok, hold on, I'll put you through in a second." Then I heard Kirk's voice and we greeted each other and said hello. He asked me what song I wanted to request and I told him "Three Weeks" by Perpetual Groove. He responded with "good choice" and I said thank you and then we said our goodbyes.

I wanted to keep the call short and sweet because I wasn't quite sure what the nature of his show was because I had never previously listened. I didn't know if he preferred to just have his voice heard and play music or if he enjoyed having other people talk. So for better or worse, I kept it short and sweet.

Overall, it was a quick experience as it didn't take much time for me to reach the station due to its relative anonymity. This was my first call in to a radio show ever and I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the experience. It was especially cool because it was my friend's show but it was also neat because I got to hear my voice on air shortly after. I definitely plan on calling in again either to his show or perhaps to a bigger station.

Calling in to a radio show is like nothing else I have experienced. The closest thing came when I was 13 and sat in the car and listened to my mom called into WDHA 105.5 and win lunch with the band Default at the studio; but this was more personal. It was my voice that I heard on the radio, not my mom's. I think that after this project I will attempt to listen to my friend's radio show more often because I doubt that many people have friends with their own show and this is something that I now plan to not take for granted.

Kirk's show can be heard from http://thecore.fm/public/shows/people/dkrl.htm every Friday from 11-1. He plays a variety of music ranging from jam to reggae.

His Job is to Stimulate

"The fact of the matter is that it is not John Ziegler’s job to be responsible, or nuanced, or to think about whether his on-air comments are productive or dangerous, or cogent, or even defensible. That is not to say that the host would not defend his “we’re better”—strenuously—or that he does not believe it’s true. It is to say that he has exactly one on-air job, and that is to be stimulating." -Foster

As I discussed in my previous post, John Ziegler's job as a radio host is to be stimulating and to incite debate and controversy. As Foster describes, it is not his job to be a journalist and comply with the rules of fairness and responsibility, and it is not his job to merely discuss the day's events and give an unbiased account of what happened. Ziegler's job as a good host is to captivate his audience with heated and opinionated claims about controversial topics. Being a talk show host is a job, it's a business, and you are not going to make money if your host simply discusses what has happened. If people want a daily account of the world's events then they can watch the news.

Besides that fact that Ziegler has to talk for about 40 minutes, he seems to have a pretty easy job. And what I mean by easy it that he doesn't have to mince his words since his show is based around his opinions. He doesn't have to worry about losing his job or infuriating his bosses; he simply has to speak into his microphone with the ease of mind knowing that he doesn't have to think about censoring his speech. Many talk radio hosts have been fired (including Ziegler) for inciting gossip and controversy, but it must be a comforting thought for Ziegler knowing that this is his show, and that what he says goes, and his show certainly benefits from this.

"Host"

I don't really listen to the radio at all, let alone talk radio, so I don't have many people to compare John Zeigler to. If I do listen to talk radio, it's usually the televised versions of the show such as "Mike and Mike in the Morning" or "Fox Football Fone In". The only actual radio show I've ever listened to is "Mike and the Mad Dog" because my dad always had it on in the car when I was younger. David Foster, author of the article "Host" characterizes Mr. Ziegler as a stimulating host, and an entertainer, two characteristics that I figured most radio talk show hosts should have. So in this sense, Ziegler doesn't differ much from the other talk show hosts that I have listened to. Ziegler was hired to give his biased opinions and not to tip-toe around sensitive topics and be politically correct. In this sense, he is a little different from the talk show hosts that I am familiar with. Maybe this is because the talk shows that I have listened to all deal with sports and not politics, so there is less of an opportunity for hosts to talk about their favorite teams and athletes because they have to cater to a national audience who is interested in hearing what they have to say about all of the teams in the league as well as their favorite team. Ziegler's show consists of just his opinons, which he fuses with the day's events. There is a greater possibility for this talk show to be controversial than the sports shows that I listen to, and there in lies the biggest difference.

Not a Fan of Twitter

I'll be honest, I don't like twitter, and if it wasn't for this class I would have never created an account. I just do not see the appeal of following the every day activities of celebrities and high profile people. Even after being on the account for a few days I never checked it, and I could only find 8 people worthy enough of me even following (the bulk of them being athletes and Jets players). I made a vow to my dad that I would never go on this site, but of course I had to break that for the benefit of my grade, sorry dad.

But I do have to admit that it is pretty cool to see how other athletes and famous people interact with each other on a regular basis, because without twitter I don't think they would "talk" as much. For example, I am following Chad Ochocinco because I think he is a riot and a really entertaining guy, and on his home page are tweets between him and another NFL star Shawn Merriman engaging in some competitive banter. This is kind of entertaining because you don't rarely see to high profile NFL players communicating off of the football field.

However, Twitter is a very good way for these celebrities to market themselves and their other blogs, websites, tv shows, or whatever else they are involved in. The only other aspect about Twitter that I appreciate is how sports shows incorporate the athletes tweets into their productions. At times the athletes do have some insightful things to say about their respective sport.

My Comment Culture Experience

Two of the stories that I decided to comment on were off of espn.com and were called "They went a little overboard" and "We are Canada's worst nightmare". "They went a little overboard" was about the aftermath of the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili. Two Swiss athletes decided that they were going to witdraw from the Olympic bobsled events due to the scary track conditions. I posted a comment about how I agreed with the decision they made and that they're life and health is more important than winning a medal. My comment didn't spark and further conversation and was completely ignored by every other commenter. So yes, it was a dead end street. "We are Canada's worst nightmare" is an article about how the USA is basically dominating these Winter Olympics and making ourselves right at home in Vancouver. I posted "when Canada can't even beat the USA at hockey you know you're having a bad Olympics. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. USA is just simply athletically superior than Canada." I posted this with the intent to spark debate and maybe even piss off some Canadians in the process hoping they would directly reply to my comment. Neither happened. My comment was once again ignored...completely. I think this happened because both stories received such a large volume of comments and that it is hard to just pinpoint one and write a rebuttle. ESPN.com is a high traffic website and the comments on those stories mostly didn't even have to do with the orginial topic. The other story I commented on was "Authorities arrest NYC bar owner in Teaneck double homicide". The title is self explanatory and the comment I made was, "I'm just puzzled why he left them in an SUV on a residential street. Like could he make it any easier for the cops to find the bodies?" I just found this part of the article to be striking because it seems like he put absolutely no effort into hiding the bodies. I feel like there has to be some explanation for this. Anyway, since NJ.com gets much less hits then espn. com I figured it would be a better place to post. Once again, I was wrong and my comment was glossed over. This time only 30 comments were made but mine was insignificant in everyone else's eyes.

On facebook I had a little better luck but not much. One day I posted a video I found to be very funny on my status and made a comment saying it's the funniest video I've seen in a while. Well, only 4 people seemed to agree with as that's all the feedback I received. I was expecting a lot more that. I got one "like" and three comments. Also, somebody posted on my wall and I made the simple comment "highly doubtful" and unexpectedly received two follow up comments. I really didn't think that simple statement would provoke any further commentary. The last comment I made was on my friends status. There were four previous comments before mine but none after mine. I guess people must think that what I have to say is pretty boring.

Overall my commenting experience didn't go well, it's safe to say I've seen better days. Commenting on facebook was much more spur of the moment for me while the online stories I struggled to find something I actually wanted to comment on. Facebook is much more personal so it's easier to comment on just about anything. News websites on the other hand aren't, and that's the main difference I see between my posting experiences.

Technically, My First Publication

My letter to the editor of The Daily Hampshire Gazette was published in today's issue, a week after I emailed it in. Better late than never I suppose. I'm not sure if the link will work because you have to be a subscriber to view the page, but I will provide it anyway. For those of you who aren't a subscriber I copied and pasted what I could below:

Former Toyota owner worried about firm's slip

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

To the editor:

If Toyota does not recall the production of their Priuses, the company better be able to deal with the consequences, as I feel it will see an immediate loss of trust from consumers. ("Report: Toyota to recall 300,000 Priuses," Gazette, Feb. 9).

I used to drive a Toyota, and I actually loved the car, but the various problems the company has been confronted with recently has got me thinking I will probably never again choose to drive a Toyota, but rather stick with a brand whose cars do not face recall every few months.

The last thing I want while driving is wondering whether or not the brakes on my new car are going to fail me. Driving is already a dangerous activity and owners of a new car should not have to worry about their brakes failing or about allowing extra room to stop.

If Toyota wants to save face, it has no choice but to issue yet another recall. However, if I were an owner of a Prius, I would get rid of that car like a bad habit, and lease a car from a company not riddled with production problems.

Stephen Canning

Amherst

Letters to the Editor

I sent my first letter to the Star Ledger, my hometown newspaper in New Jersey. Written in response to "College leaders, mental health advocates gather for suicide prevention strategies at Rutgers University".

Dear Editor,

A college student myself, I am writing to express my concern about how hard it is to actually find counseling at colleges and universities. As an out of state college student I can relate with students who find themselves under considerable amounts of stress due to the strain and emotional grind of college life. Unless a student actively seeks out counseling, it is very hard to find on campus; there just simply aren’t any on-campus public advertisements offering stress and mental health counseling. Perhaps it’s because universities don’t want to publicize the fact that their students contemplate suicide and battle mental issues because that would paint the school in a negative light.

Regardless, Rutgers’ decision to conduct this mental health conference is a step in the right direction, and I hope that all involved will work on facilitating the student’s process of seeking help at each of their respective universities. If universities can get their students to realize that they care about them, then schools will see an influx of students seeking counseling and mental solace, a great thing for all parties.

Stephen Canning
University of Massachusetts Amherst 2012

My second letter I sent to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, in response to the article "Report: Toyota to recall 300,000 Priuses".

Dear Editor,

If Toyota does not recall the production of their Priuses than they better be able to deal with the consequences as I feel that they will see an immediate loss of trust from their consumers. I used to drive a Toyota, and I actually loved the car, but the various problems that that the company has been confronted with recently has got me thinking that I will probably never again choose to drive a Toyota, but rather stick with a brand whose cars do not face recall every few months. The last thing I want while driving is wondering whether or not the brakes on my new car are going to fail me. Driving is already a dangerous activity, and owners of a new car should not have to worry about their brakes failing or about constantly allowing extra room to stop.

If Toyota wants to save face then they have no choice but to issue yet another recall. However, if I were currently a owner of a Prius I would get rid of that car like a bad habit, and lease a car from a company not riddled with production problems…like Honda.

Stephen Canning
University of Massachusetts Amherst 2012


I chose to write my first letter to my hometown newspaper because I figured I would be better able to relate to their articles since that's where I lived for 19 years. It turns out I found an article about the stressful life of college students and what universities are trying to do to help them. Although the article was directed a bit more to students with more extreme depression, I made sure in my letter that I let them know I was a college student, and that I can relate to the stress that students deal with. I made it clear in my letter that it was hard to attain mental health counseling on campus unless a student is really motivated to find it, which most are not. I intended my viewpoint to be supportive of the article, which made it clear that college's goals are to facilitate the counseling process for students. I'm hoping that by letting the editor know that help is difficult to come by on campuses he sees my opinions as valuable and informative.

I wrote my next letter to the Daily Hampshire Gazette hoping that because it's a smaller newspaper the chances of having my letter published will increase. This letter had more of a critical tone than did the other, and I thought that critical tone will maybe catch the editor's attention boosting my letter's chances of publication. I demonstrated my familiarity with the subject by letting them know that I was a previous driver of a Toyota model, and further acknowledged that the problems Toyota has been having have driven me away from probably ever purchasing another one of their cars. I didn't make this letter to controversial, but hopefully it is cutting edge enough that it captivates the editor enough for him/her to deem it worthy of publication.

College Shortcuts and Guido Induced Hate

While perusing through the letters to the editor section of the New York Times I noticed the headline Shortcuts to college?, and without hesitation clicked on the link. I figured that the title of this letter was something that I could easily relate to since I am obviously attending college. The letter was written in response to the fact that more and more colleges are sending students "fast track" scholarships which are basically condensed applications that require no application fee or student essay. I chose this letter because the author made an extremely persuasive argument in three sentences. I mean, talk about efficiency. It was written by Gary Ross, vice president and dean of admissions at Colgate University, so his opinion is certainly very reputable. The article was very articulate and clearly stated that no student should take short cuts in the college admissions process regardless of how enticing the offer is, because no offer should compromise a student's right to choose where they want to attend school. I couldn't agree more with what Ross said in his three sentences because for me, the college admissions process was a learning experience in itself.

The other letter to the editor that I chose was Ethnic Stereotyping, written by Rosario Iaconis, vice president of the Italic Institute of America. I chose this letter mainly because it has to do with the MTV show "Jersey Shore", and because I didn't agree with the author's opinions at all. I feel that this letter was really over the top and dramatic. Iaconis is making it seem like Italian Americans are the root of all evil using words and phrases such as "demonization", "Italophobia", and "tragedy of Shakespearen proportions". I think his response was a bit unwarranted and a little harsh. I understand that the show "Jersey Shore" has pissed off a lot of Italian Americans but they have to understand that people who chose to be guido are not the sole representative of negative Italian American publicity. Other TV shows like the "Sopranos" and movies such as the "Godfather" and "Goodfellas" have also painted a poor image of Italian American lifestyle. But the main thing to take out of this whole "Jersey Shore" debacle is that the seven cast members are only representing themselves and it's all of this protesting that has turned this stupid, yet entertaining show into a national issue. As cast member Pauly D perfectly stated, "I don’t represent all Italians, I only represent myself.”

Assignment 1: Reaction to Quotes

1) "Journalists stand in a paternalistic relationship to readers: They guide them rather than engage them in conversation. They decide on the legitimate and valuable topics for the agenda based on the estimation of the public’s need to know, but don’t see the necessity for listening to the public." (Wahl-Jorgensen Page 18)

2) "Making news became commercially viable through the selling of audiences to advertisers, instead of newspapers to partisan audiences…The new centrality of advertising income also meant that owners and editors were compelled to abandon controversial, partisan material from their reports, and instead aimed to please as many advertisers and consumers as they possible could by printing ostensibly “neutral” content and proclaiming their political independence. " (Wahl-Jorgensen Page 38)

What the first quote is trying to explain is that the purpose of journalism is not to incite debate or promote conversation, but that it is simply to navigate the reader, picking and choosing what is to be read for them, so that they aren't allowed to make the decision themselves. The job of a journalist is to publish writing that is easy to read so that word after word seamlessly flows off the reader's tongue and into their mind creating an enjoyable reading experience for them. The journalists take on a parenting role while the readers adopt an elementary one. Journalists control what is read in the papers and on the internet, and they deem what stories are actually newsworthy and worth reading, and which ones are not. They select what to publish based on what they think the public should be aware of, based on what they judge to be important. Many times this is done without taking the public's opinion into account, but only strictly with the intentions to make money.

Which leads to the second of Karin Wahl-Jorgensen's quotes. This quote refers to the transformation of journalism/publishing from a reporting/news culture into a commercial business. Once it was realized that newswriting and reporting were both profitable through advertisement, journalists and editors alike disregarded previous work methods and implemented new ideas designed to generate more money. Newspapers tried to make their papers more conservative by filling them with neutral and unbiased stories instead of controversial ones that sparked gossip. The notion behind this was that the more politically neutral a paper stayed, the more readers and advertisers it would attract, therefore accruing a larger profit. The whole journalism and publishing landscape had been changed and it was the dawn of modern capitalism as we know it.

Testing

Hey, just checking if this works since I am new to this.