CJN 721
Paper #2
Tools for Building the Virtual Community
For this assignment, you will please create a weblog of your own (yes, even if you already have one) 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.
- You will write in this blog daily about issues in the topic of your interest. You must write at least one entry a day, but you may write more. This must be a subject-specific web log, and not a personal diary-style blog.
- You should provide the URL to your web log to the other students in the class, via the Suffolk MA in Communication page on Facebook. (Find it, "like" it, natter in it.)
As you create your own blog and publicize it via Facebook, 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 wikis.
Looking at these tools, please discuss:
- What problems, if any, did you have in creating this blog? Based on your own experience, how would you rate the technical ease of use of the tools provided by the free site you have chosen?
- How popular are blogs? How widespread? Why do you believe the blog phenomenon is so popular? What uses do you see in the future for blogs? What problems do you see about them? How easy is it to find a blog?
- In what ways may a blog be publicized? Find and discuss at least three options for making your blog more popular.
- To what extent do you believe blogs are best suited to: (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? To what extent do you believe a Facebook "community" page would be the better option?
- What is your general reaction to advertising on a blog?
- Finally, assess your own blogging: how easy was it for you to create content each day? Do you have an existing blog? If yes, is it subject-based or a personal musings blog? If no, why have you not pursued creating your own blog before this?
Please keep your discussion limited to ~5 pages.
This paper is due 21 October 2010.