Happy New Year and welcome to week 8 of 25 Things @ Huddersfield!
Don’t forget that you’re on the home stretch now — there’s only a few more things left to do :)
17th Thing — Social Networking
Here’s a video clip to introduce this topic…
According to Wikipedia, social networking “focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most [of them] provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.”
The internet has always been a social space, but it wasn’t until around 2003 that it hit the big time. Three sites in particular became extremely popular — Bebo, Friendster and MySpace. At the peak of its popularity, MySpace was getting more hits than Google!
For this particular Thing we’re going to look at a social networking site that was developed at Harvard University and launched just a couple of years ago — Facebook.
Wander around any of the PC labs in the Library & Computing Centre and it won’t be long before you spot a student using Facebook!
If you’re not currently a member of Facebook, then your task will be to join. If you are already a member, then your task will be to write a blog post about Facebook.
Tasks for non-members
Step 1: Go to the Facebook homepage and sign up for an account. You will need to use a valid email address.
Step 2: It’s up to you how much personal information you add to your profile. You can also control how much of that information is viewable by other people.
Step 3: Find some friends! Using the search box, search for someone you know who is already using Facebook — it might be a work colleague or an old school friend. On the search results page, you might want to click on the “People” tab to limit the results. Once you’ve found someone you know, click on the “Add as Friend” link. You might have to wait for the person to confirm that you are indeed a friend! Once you’ve added some friends, try exploring their Facebook pages.
Step 4: Join a group or become a fan of something. Using the search box, do a search for something you like — it could be your favourite TV show, film, singer or band. This time, you’ll probably want to click on either the “Pages” or “Groups” tab on the search results page. Some pages and groups are just for fun, but you can also find some more serious ones — see if you can find a sensible group set up by either students or staff at the University of Huddersfield!
Step 5: Whilst you’re playing around with Facebook, don’t forget to occasionally update the status on your profile page. That way, your friends will know what you’re doing!
Hopefully you’ve not spent too much time messing around on Facebook! Write a short blog post about your first impressions of using Facebook.
Tasks for members
If you’re already a member of Facebook, then that doesn’t excuse you from doing some work! Write a sizeable blog post about Facebook. What do you like about it? What do you most dislike about it? Is it just for fun or do you think Facebook can be used for more serious things?
18th Thing — Microblogging
You should be a seasoned blogger by now!
Some people like to write really long blog posts but, more often than not, you sometimes just want to quickly write something short. Maybe you just want to share a funny YouTube video or post a link to a useful web site — if so, maybe microblogging is for you :)
Microblogging is blogging for people who are in a hurry. Why say 10 paragraphs when just 10 words will do? If you updated your profile status in Facebook, then that’s a form of microblogging.
The king of microblogging sites is Twitter. Watch this short video to learn a bit more about the site…
Step 1: Go to the Twitter home page and create an account for yourself.
Step 2: Over the next few days, try to remember to occasionally update your Twitter status.
Step 3: Search for someone or something to “follow”. If you have any friends that you know are already using Twitter, search for them and click on the “Follow” button. Otherwise, search for “bbc” and follow one or more of their Twitter feeds.
Quite a few famous people use Twitter, including Stephen Fry and William Shatner,
Spend a few minutes watching Twittervision — it’s a mashup of Twitter and Google Maps.
Write a short blog post about your experiences with Twitter. Did you find it a useful service? How does it compare to normal blogging?
25 Things @ Huddersfield 