Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 13

This week was once again spent at home, with more done in the way of paperwork as the project enters its final week. I have almost finished my critical evaluation and am about to start work on my marketing plan. As the project concludes, I ended up being one of the top posters on the site, alongside Joe, Sam, and Ken. I'm quite happy with the amount of posts that we've managed to get up on the site in the last few weeks but still fell as if more could have been done as a group to make things more cohesive looking.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 12

This week I again stayed at home but I did get on with work, with thoughts firmly on the end of the project. I started to edit my last few posts based on the critique that Simon has given me for the last few weeks. By the end of this week I hope to have my critical evaluation and marketing plan completed (or near completed since there might be things to add in the final week of the project but I doubt it) and then spend the whole of next week fine-tuning what I have written and making sure that it is ready for assessement.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 11

Today I got more feedback from Simon. I now plan to use all the feedback I have gathered so far and use it to modify all the posts that I've done for the site. I also tried to help Paul in setting up the website on its proper domain name (www.futuristically.net) and, after a long and a hard slog, we managed to get the job nearly done, with the exception of sorting out the fonts at the point when I left. Once everything is sorted out, this will be where all of our postings will go to.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 10

Today I couldn't make it into university so I did some more work on the site from home. The article I posted from home was a news story regarding Twitter's plans to launch paid-for business accounts.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 9

Yesterday was a basic workshop day with five of us showing up. I managed to get two posts done during the day, since I missed out a day the previous week. I did an opinion feature about Channel 4's 3D Week (it was an opinion because I wanted to differentiate it slightly from my film 3D feature a few weeks back) and a news story about DVDs made of stone. We also had Karl Schneider come into uni from Reed Business to give a talk and Q&A about publishing on the web. It gave me some interesting opinions about the future of online journalism and a few things from that stuck out ('there are no set rules' and 'interactivity is key' being a couple of them).

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 8

Today was a basic workshop day with four of us turning up. I just did the one feature again, though this time it was a response to a news story written the previous week about the Somerton blogger who eventually got some of his councillors to resign. After the critical analysis of the week before, I deliberately wrote a very cautious piece and a more structured one. I think that this was for the better as it is one of the best features I've done for the site so far. I plan to continue doing news stories throughout the week (just like the week before).

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 7

Yesterday we all received a critical mauling from Simon that, whilst ruthless, was needed for all of us I felt. I think I had gotten a little too complacent and a little too lazy in my writing and I was showed up yesterday. I've decided to take the two criticised articles off the site and will maybe re-write them at a future point in the project. All of us got criticised because we all happened to be in yesterday one bar one person. If there was one thing that was learnt this week, it was that feedback is our friend, no matter how unrelenting it can be.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 6

Yesterday was a cross-media day across the entire university and I personally thought that it was an incredibly dull and pointless day. The work that members of our group eventually created would never be assessed or marked so I did wonder where my strength to do any work as part of it would come from. As it turned out, I just did work on the group website instead, which is what we should have doing in the first place. I got some stuff done in the end but I did feel a little annoyed at the structure of the working day.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 5

Today was spent doing more writing for the site. I continued to do some features, including one on the Spotify. I've now decided that I'll save my news posts for the point later in the term when we are meant to go live/starting our workshops as I want to focus on more feature-orientated posts for the time being. The website is now ready to put posts on and there is nothing left to majorly overhaul.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 4

Today was spent putting the finishing touches to the website design and also when we started to think about content to put up on the site. I did some research into what kind of topics we'd be writing about and wrote a piece about 3D in films as a test post of sorts. The website now has eight sections - and we all have one category each to control. I also created the Twitterfeed account so that all posts will be posted on the Twitter feed automatically, which will save time in terms of keeping readers informed of what's being posted.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 3

This week was spent mainly on designing the website and making it look functional to the typical web reader. Among the many high points was getting all the categories to fit in the header without mucking up the clean design, a name (Futuristically Speaking), some test posts to make sure the site works, and I created a Twitter account that is ready to be used when the site gets going. I also started thinking about feature ideas for the site. Next week I might get round to posting some features in my own section to go on the site properly.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 2

This week, all of us bar one met up with Simon for the first time to talk a bit more about roles on the site and he showed us the design that we ultimately decided to use. The design makes the site look less like a blog and more like a proper website, with enough options to customise the site (via widgets, CSS, etc.) and make it look less like a default template. I am in charge of the Entertainment section of the website, as well as looking after the site's eventual Twitter account.

Online Journalism 3rd Year Group Project - Week 1

For the third year group project, it was decided that all eight of us doing online journalism would collaborate with each other on one big website instead of breaking up into smaller groups. We spent an entire day thinking up of an interesting idea for the site but eventually we decided upon the future as a topic. It would be a news/features site with articles about things that might happen in the future, which would be like a Tomorrow's World kind of concept. Because the idea took a whole day to uncover, this was all that we managed to do.

Online Semester 3 - Week 12

The entire lesson was spent finishing off all our work. This included doing the final bits of my critical evaluation and fine-tuning my individual project. In the week since I last went to lesson I had changed my website design as I wasn't particular happy with the way it was laid out.

Online Semester 3 - Week 11

In this lesson only me and Paul turned up. Mike was also in the university but was focusing on stuff for the university newspaper, which was understandable. I started to write some content for my individual site. Over the holidays I decided to do a website called Sinful Listening, a guilty pleasures type of website but with music. I had registered the Wordpress domain name and had sorted out some basic blog configurations including a template that I wanted to use.

I also carried on with my critical evaluation, which I started working on throughout the Easter holidays.

Online Semester 3 - Week 10

In the final lesson before Easter, me, Mike and Paul turned up to the lesson. We researched more ideas for Techmole and agreed to record another podcast tonight. After the failed attempt last time we decided to make the new attempt more concise and more planned. I also started thinking about my individual project and, whilst I know that I want to do a music based website, I'm still trying to pinpoint a specific subject.

Online Semester 3 - Week 9

Today, only me and Mike turned up to class in another low turnout. Since the last lesson me, Mike and Ken have added more posts to the Techmole site and we've started to receieve pingbacks (websites linking to us). My contribution to the website is now at two news posts and two features.

I would have prefered to have more people in as we could discuss how we could move the website forward and perhaps talk about podcasting but because of the low turnout that hasn't been an option. I'm hoping that in the final week before Easter everyone turns up so we can discuss how we can continue to maintain the website over Easter. 

Online Semester 3 - Week 8

All five of us turned up this week. Ken said to me that our pilot podcast (which me, him and Paul did last week through Skype and was deemed the 'molecast' by Paul) wasn't good enough to be used and said that we needed to do a better one with more structure to it, kind of like Giant Bomb's podcast.

The main issue was with Jack (again). He decided to sit away from the group and wanted to work on his video content. He had already given in a video review but it had a lot of swearing and was unsuitable. Me, Ken and Mike then had an argument with Jack - we were saying that he took criticism too seriously and that he should pull his weight, whilst Jack was suggesting that we did no work, even though he was wrong.

He then threw a dictionary at a Mac computer.

Online Semester 3 - Week 7

Today, only me, Jack and Paul showed up as Ken was at home tinkering with the design and Mike was in Berlin for an out-of-class project. Ken called us during the lesson to suggest that me, Paul and him should do a podcast later on in the evening to try and get something up on the site.

Meanwhile, Jack was getting angry at the fact that Ken had criticised his work. This led to a rise in anger before he exploded in my face. This was pretty uncalled for as his worries were actually non-existent. The website was going along at a steady pace and all he was annoyed about was that his work was being criticised. All we're doing is trying to help him and he responds with the maturity of a 13 year old.

Online Semester 3 - Week 6

This week, I was absent from the class due to illness. However, I managed to get an article submitted onto Techmole using the Wordpress dashboard from home. I was also kept up to date with any developments in the lesson.

Online Semester 3 - Week 5

In today's workshop session, we decided to do some more research on potential Techmole stories. I also started to loosen up a bit in terms of subject area. At the start I was wanting to do some music related stuff but I've started to move away from that and have begun to do other posts on subjects relating to gadgets like the iPod and internet software like internet broswers as well as gaming related news.

Online Semester 3 - Week 4

Today we looked at content management systems (CMS). We looked at systems like the Immediacy Editing Model that sets itself up as a database for users of the website to create posts for their website. This is something that can be used for large websites and can cost several thousands of pounds to create.

We also looked at the option of creating forums for users to interact with. Forums can be used as a way for users to discuss the website and content featured on the website. Some forum software is free and doesn't cost anything, though the higher quality forum software costs money to maintain and run.

Finally, we started to plan how we would manage our content on Techmole. Unfortunatly, only me and Mike were in class so we couldn't discuss any real progress on the development of Techmole, which was disappointing for both of us.

Online Semester 3 - Week 3

We discussed more plans for Techmole with the group, including Ken who joined the lesson from his own computer in Brighton. We confirmed what articles we would be writing for the site and we also started looking at designs, since we had now brought together the hosting servers with the newly-acquired domain name. A design was finally chosen on, which looks more like a magazine style site.

Online Semester 3 - Week 2

Week 2 was delayed by a week because of the snow chaos that hit Farnham. Today we talked about website statistics and how useful they are people to run them. One program in particular that we looked at was Google Analytics, which a lot of websites are increasingly using. Whilst it is a powerful tool, there are some aspects that are very user friendly. The final tool we looked at was the Google Keyword search tool, which tells you what search terms are popular and to assist writers in developing SEO (search engine optimisation).

Online Semester 3 - Week 1

Yesterday we started planning our group website. Me, Mike, Paul, Ken and Jack will be starting a new site called Tech Moles - a website with key focus on how technology has affected and is affecting traditional media outlets, such as music, film and video games. We wrote the brief for the website yesterday and established what we'll be posting and when we'll be posting. I will be taking on articles for the music parts of the site.

I also bought a domain for the site yesterday for £6.85 (which will last two years) - £1.37 each. Bargain.