Facebook vs. Twitter

I have recently set up several online accounts including Facebook, Twitter, Delicious , Linkedin, iGoogle and of course my Webpress blogs. I have been a loyal facebooker for quite some time but once I started using Twitter I found it was pretty cool and easy to use. I’ve been starting to use facebook less and less and I have found Twitter to be a unique way for me to express what I’m doing and its also great for networking. I like and dislike aspects of both sites however.

 I’ve heard that Facebook seems threatened by the success of Twitter and its growing popularity. They have revamped Facebook to make it look more like the opening page of Twitter and have angered a lot of their loyal users. (Personally I like Twitter because of the cute little blue bird.. I don’t think Facebook can compete with that!) Facebook is a very high maintenance relationship- while both sites offer the ability to communicate, facebook offers an overload of applications that all take a lot of time to maintain. Facebook also tends to be more for you and friends to stay connected where as the world of Twitter allows you to branch out and meet other professionals or people of interest. I can follow Britney Spears on Twitter but on Facebook I can only be her fan– Either way, I think Facebook has reason to feel threatened. Twitter is more acceptable in the workplace as it is a gateway for professional networking and profit. The simplicity and low maintenance Twitter may be the future of social networks– or maybe there will always be room for both?

  

Twitter Language… How to Shorten Your Tweets

         Remember when everyone started texting? Everyday language was difficult to condense into those small little screens and words seemed sooo much longer when you had to type each word without a keypad. Well now we have a whole new set of language for texting that we use to condense words into easier to type messages. We uses BRB for “be right back” and ttyl for “talk to you later”– we saved so much time with these handy acronyms. In today’s web 2.0 world we have social networks like Twitter where we’re forced to limiting each update into 140 characters or less- which is very short as far as I’m concerned. Just so you know, 140 characters is only the size of this sentence from beginning to end- I cant say anything more after this very dull sent… (I couldn’t finish I ran out of characters.)

The new web language is called SMS or Short Message Service that is shorthand language that condenses words into still understandable language. I came across this website today that converts your language into shorter tweets called twonvert. I didn’t click on the advertisement to see how it works, but you can see below how it ‘twonverts’ regular language into shorter SMS turning words like would into wld… English is a changin’ folks! Just so you know- the web is now full of SMS language, and there are even dictionaries that help people master it. “In my humble Opinion” becomes “IMHO” and you can even SMS a marriage proposal with “WLUMRyMe?”

Sweetspot.ca, the Trendsetter in Online Magazine Content..

          I recently had an interview for an internship at an online magazine called sweetspot.ca- “a guide to the sweet life” and I found out about who they are and what they do. This website is meant to be a trend-spotting guide and they claim it is the first of its kind. It has built a strong readership through its Monday-Friday newsletter emails called “Sweet Nothings” and they generate 100% of their income through advertising. What is so cool about this website is the publisher and founder herself Joanna Track who launched the magazine in 2004 and realized that the success of her website would only grow she quit her job and focused her energy on the website that has grown tremendously since. Sweetspot began with only 3 employees in a small office to over 27 in a new trendy office on Bloor St. W today.  They publish new content daily and offer reviews on the best products, clothes, health, food and more. 

The website itself stands out as user friendly and unique. Their logo is a cherry encompassing the “sweet” spot idea  (Their office has lots of sweets in it too The magazine is easy to navigate with four tool bars as well. The first one lets you pick what city you want to search and the others allow you to navigate through different categories like “shopping”, “life” and “fun” and “sweet deals.” On the left hand side there is also a toolbar that lets you navigate between the three sweetspot sites sweetspot.ca, sweetmama.ca and sweethome.ca.

 

The website offers easy navigation and plenty of content in a variety of subjects. At the bottom of the page I notice that the Rogers media imprint is in the bottom– I wonder if Sweetspot.ca is a rogers publication? I ask the girl who interviewed me, Ashleigh, if they are owned by Rogers and she says that it is complicated but that they own a number of shares but that, no, they are not a rogers publication. Then I find an article online about the publishers choice to be partly owned by Rogers… click here if you would like to read more about it. 

The only issue I have with the website is that it lacks some of the web 2.0 tools that most magazines now employ. I couldn’t find any sharing tools to save content or any RSS feeds. I think the emphasis of the magazine is on its editorial content which is good– maybe if I intern there I could offer my input and give them some ideas for their website. Ha, I can only dream that I’m smarter.

Online Magazine Analysis

Web 2.0 Online Magazines Analysis

The purpose of this assignment is to talk about three different online magazines, what tools they employ and how effective their websites are.

 

Chatelaine: 

At the bottom of each article there is a “share this” link that allows you to bookmark through Digg, Delicious, Facebook and other tools. There is also an RSS tab at the bottom of each page and on the address bar itself.  There is a blog tab across the top of the page as well with links to many Chatelaine editor’s blogs.

 

Macleans:

 Macleans also has “share this” link beside each article (not as far down as Chatelaine) There are blogs all over the site and even the website itself   is a WordPress blog. RSS appears in the address bar as well. 

Glamour:

 Glamour has direct links to blogs and at the bottom right tab there us a link to RSS feeds. Once you click on this it takes you to a page where you can add to google, bloglines or XML. 

Purpose

The purpose of these web 2.0 tools is so the user can be more interactive with the websites content and choose and personalize it for their own needs. Using sharing tools like Delicious can accommodate a number of articles that users can hold onto, save for later, or share with other users. This is extremely efficient for users and the publishers and advertisers of these websites.

Advantages

For publishers, advertisers and editors, web 2.0 allows greater circulation of their web content. When a page is shared or bookmarked, more people have access to it indirectly. The website becomes a more personalized view for the reader as well and allows readers to sift through the material they want and save it for when they have time to read it. Web 2.0 is a more personalized, more efficient experience of the web than was its predecessor.