CJN 721
Paper #3
Tools for Building
the Virtual Community
For this assignment, you will please create a weblog of your own and join
a Yahoo group on a topic of your interest:
- A blog at one of the free blog-hosting
sites; please use this to create a week-long "diary" about some subject of
your choosing.
- A discussion group/mailing list
at Yahoo Groups on a topic of your interest
(you should join an existing group).
As you create your own blog and
your own group, please look around the possibilities of "communities" using
both of these tools. Other tools used for virtual community-building
include chat, guest books, email lists (using Majordomo or ListServ), and
the new "wickie" technology.
Looking at these tools, please discuss:
- What problems, if any, did
you have in creating the tools for a virtual community? Based on your
own experience, how would you rate the technical ease of use of these tools?
- How popular are blogs? How widespread?
Why do you believe the blog phenomenon is so popular? What uses do you
see in blogs? What problems do you see about them? How easy is
it to find a blog?
- What are the advantages and
disadvantages of the discussion group/mailing list style of connecting ecommunities?
Explore both the technology available at Yahoo and what you believe
works well or could be improved about the way it works.
- Which of the technologies
do you believe would be the most useful for (a) a work group, (b) a social
group that meets physically once a month, (c) a group which shares a common
disease but no other common features, or (d) a group of senior citizens who
are all avid lovers of horse racing? Why would different technologies
be useful for different groups, or would they?
Please keep your discussion limited
to ~4-5 pages.
This paper is due 25 October 2007.