summary of my blog work this semester!

I have completed my blog work for this semester! Overall, I really enjoyed this project. It was much more interesting than writing typical papers, or doing traditional group projects or presentations. I think this project helped me develop skills that I may use more in the real world and definitely helped me have a better grasp on blogs and wikis and how to manuever them.

Here is a list of my blog work so that Professor Brown will be able to easily access it all.

• First Introductory Post
• Second Introductory Post
• Posts about Teammates Blogs (2)
• Posts about Required Blogs (4)
• Posts about Class Material (6)
• Wikipedia Articles (Grey's Anatomy, Vera Bradley, California Tortilla, Charter School of Wilmington) (3 edits each, plus 1 summary post)
• Comments: Comment #1, Comment #2, Comment #3, Comment #4, Comment #5, Comment #6

evolution of the california tortilla wikipedia article

Here is some more information of the evolution of the California Tortilla article and my edits...

Current update on my edits: (click on the links to see my original blog post about each edit)

Edit #1- On March 31st, I made my first edit to this article. When I began, this article was labeled a stub, because it has very little content. I didn't even know where to begin because there was nothing to actually edit. What I decided to do was add some headings about aspects of the restaurant. I added 4 sections: Location, Atmosphere, Menu and Promotions. I also provided some information about each of these headings. This was probably the most significant edit I made during the wikipedia project because I basically increased the content in the article by about 500%. All of the sections still remain in the wikipedia article several months later. The content in each section has been elaborated on, and one additional section has been added, but this basic format that I created has remained.

Edit #2- After making such a large edit, I wasn't sure what to do for my next edit. Finally, I decided to just add some more promotions to the list. I added two seasonal promotions and wrote a few sentences about each one. Unfortunately, since then, someone has deleted all of the seasonal promotions from this section and listed only the yearlong promotions. I guess I agree that the long list of promotions was unnecessary, but I felt like the promotions helped to explain the overall humor and feel of the restaurant.

Edit #3- Finally, I made my 3rd edit to the article on May 9th. For this edit, I simply added a reference link to "The Burrito Blog", a reference I found through a quick google search. It has been less than a week since this edit, and so far it has stayed!


Summary of the Evolution of the Article:
This article is rarely edited. Since my first edit, several months ago, only 3 different users have edited the article. In fact, until just last week, only two edits had been made in addition to mine. Clearly, this article is not a high priority to many people. Last week however, on May 11th, an unregistered user made 8 edits within a matter of minutes, and then minutes later, a registered user with the name "Caltort" made another 5 edits in a few more minutes. I am speculating two things. 1- that this unregistered user is actually "Caltort", and 2- that "Caltort" is someone who works for California Tortilla. Each of the 13 edits is very well done, gramatically correct, and logical. I think its an interesting thought to think about someone who works for the company can edit the article. Except for this recent edit frenzy, there was little activity. This recent string of edits has greatly improved the article and I believe that the article is on its way to having its "stub" status removed!

evolution of the vera bradley wikipedia article

Here is some more information of the evolution of the Vera Bradley article and my edits...

Current update on my edits: (click on the links to see my original blog post about each edit)

Edit #1- On March 16, I made my first edit on the article. At this point, the article had very little content and was actually considered a "stub." The article was also tagged for reading like an advertisement. Since I had already been editing wikipedia articles for a month at that point, I felt pretty comfortable and made a substantial edit on this day. I added a lot of information about different colors and created a new subsection of a list and entitled it "Retired designs." Then, I rearranged some of the old bulleted items, added a few more groups of retired patterns, and organized the entire list. The majority of this content has remained, though I have slightly edited it further in my subsequent edits. This first edit seemed to spark a little participation in the wikipedia community and after this, a few other people made some other edits and additions, but didn't delete my edit.

Edit #2- Next, on March 31st, I fixed a sentence that was incomplete and made little sense. I reworded the sentence, clarified and added some more information to the topic. The sentence was about retired designs. This sentence had been added after I created the entire section about the retired designs (see above, edit #1). A few weeks after I fixed the sentence, someone changed my edit slightly, but the majority of the intent of my edit is still there.

Edit #3- On April 26, I made my third edit. I actually made two edits on the same day (though I know they just count for one), because the one edit was just so simple and easy. That edit was to change various verbage of "colors", "patterns", and "designs" to be consistent, and all use "colors", as is used on the official website. This was very simple so I decided to make a more significant edit. To add more content, I added an additional section about the different collections that Vera Bradley offers. I listed seven different collections, each separated with a heading, and then wrote a few sentences to describe each collection. Except for the correction of a spelling mistake I made, this content edit has remained on the article. I am hoping that other people will expand more on this edit and add more information.

Edit #3.5- As I explained in a blog post earlier tonight, I realized today that I was actually not logged in for my first Vera Bradley edit so I decided tonight to make an additional edit to make up for that one that I technically don't get credit for. For this edit (#3.5), I added some information about retired styles. I added a sentence about this and then listed the four styles that will retired soon. Seeing as I only made this edit a few hours ago, it is still there.

Summary of the Evolution of the article: Though Vera Bradley bags are very popular, apparently the company's wikipedia article is not. Hardly any edits were made over the semester and this really surprised me. When I first started with the article, there weren't really any edits of current content to be made because there was little content in existence. I had to add some content and organization in order to really expand the article. Since I added these different headings and categories, more people have edited and filled in the different sections with more information. The article has changed slightly over the semester, but I would argue that I am responsible for the majority of the changes. It was very interesting to me how this played out, and it definitely served as a good contrast to my experience with some other wikipedia articles which were much more high traffic.

evolution of the grey's anatomy wikipedia article

Here is some more information of the evolution of the Grey's Anatomy wikipedia article and my edits...

Current update on my edits: (click on the links to see my original blog post about each edit)

Edit #1- On March 4th, I made my first edit, in which I added a sentence in regards to the new spin off show featuring Addison, about rumors that the rest of the cast was unhappy with this. This was quickly deleted, I guess because it was just a rumor. Though I understand that the wikipedia article needs to be factual, I had read this "rumor" on msnbc.com, so I assumed that was a legitimate source, but I didn't know how to reference the source so I didn't. Maybe if I had cited the source, it wouldn't have been deleted, but oh well.

Edit #2- After my first largely failed edit, I was nervous to edit the Grey's Anatomy article again, so this time my second edit was much smaller. For this edit (on March 11th), I added a link to the wikipedia article for the TV show "The Office." At the time, "The Office" was referenced in the Trivia section of the article, where the was a comment about how Grey's Anatomy was referenced in an episode of "The Office." Since this edit, the trivia section itself has been deleted, but this comment has been moved to a section entitled "In Popular Culture." In this new section, "The Office" still has a link to its wikipedia article, so I will consider this edit a success.

Edit #3- My third and final edit of the Grey's Anatomy wikipedia article was much bolder. I made this edit on April 15th, after many attempts to find something to edit, when I decided to just take a chance and make this edit. On the discussion board, there had been a lot of talk about the extensive list in the "Catchphrase" section of the wikipedia article. There was a ridiculously long list of every usage of the "Mc Labeling" from the show. Many people argued that this list should be shortened, and some even wanted an entirely different article for this "Mc Labeling" trend. On April 15th, someone finally deleted the entire list. Though I agreed that the list was too much, I still thought that the concept should remain, as it is an important aspect of the show. Therefore, in an attempt to compromise, I composed a few sentences that summarized this trend and included a few examples. This edit lasted all the way until 8 pm this evening. At 8 pm, someone changed a few of my examples, but still the majority of my edit was still there. Then, a few minutes later on this evening, someone deleted my summary (and the new examples), and replaced it with the old list! Since it has only been a few hours since this happened, and everyone else allowed the list to stay deleted for an entire month, I am predicting that the list will again be deleted in the near future. I may even delete it myself tomorrow if no one else does.


Summary of the Evolution of the article: This wikipedia article is HIGHLY trafficked. People are constantly editing it, removing prior edits, and arguing over what the page should look like. A few big important changes have occured over the semester. When I began this project, there was a tag on the "Trivia" section stating that this section needed to be edited or deleted. Since then, different components of this section have been redistributed to other appropriate sections or deleted, and therefore the Trivia section is gone. Also, clearly as this semester has progressed, more episodes have aired and this has caused basic facts such as number of episodes to change and be updated quite frequently. Information about the 4th Season of the show has also been added, among many other things. In conclusion, while definitely the most difficult article of mine to edit, I learned a LOT about the wikipedia community by editing this article. With a massive amount of people editing, there is little room for error and unless your edit is perfect, it will be gone in a matter of minutes! I am definitely going to continue to watch this article and possibly even continue to edit it.

evolution of the charter school of wilmington wikipedia article

Here is some more information of the evolution of the Charter Wikipedia article and my edits...

Current update on my edits: (click on the links to see my original blog post about each edit)

Edit #1- On February 25th, I added the "Ski Club" to the list of clubs and activities available at Charter. This was my very first edit and though simple, this edit has lasted!

Edit #2- On April 3rd, I completed my second edit. This edit reworded and expanded upon information about the dress code at Charter. This edit also has remained in place.

Edit #3- Finally on May 2nd, I made my final edit for this article. There was a sentence in the faculty section about a particular teacher who writes for a television show. The sentence had a spelling error and was poorly worded, so I reworded the sentence and corrected the spelling. I also added a link to the wikipedia article for the television show that was referenced in the sentence. Though my corrected spelling, word choice and link have remained in the edit, about three hours after I made my edit, someone else edited that same sentence and clarified even further. Though someone changed my edit, I still feel like I contributed and helped this portion of the article get one step closer to the best sentence possible.


Summary of the Evolution of the article: Overall, the Charter wikipedia article has evolved greatly over the course of the semester. Considering it is just a local high school, the article sees a substantial amount of traffic and is edited several times a week. It is not uncommon for the article to be edited upwards of five to ten times on a few given days each week. Over the semester, a large amount of content has been added to the article. In particular, more information on the senior research project, faculty, clubs and activities, and DSTP results have been added. The article has definitely grown tremendously and seems to include all necessary, obvious information and just becomes more complete daily. Overall, I hope that I contributed slightly to this article. It definitely surprised me how much attention was paid to it, but I'm glad I was able to contribute something at all.

vera bradley wiki edit #3.5

So while wandering around wikipedia, I discovered that by clicking on my username, I could see all of the edits that I had made in wikipedia. After doing so, I realized that my records of my edits did not match up with this list. This concerned me and after a bit of investigation, I figured out that I must not have logged in when I made my first edit on the Vera Bradley wikipedia article.

Because of this, I figured I do one more edit just in case :)

For this edit (which I will affectionately refer to as edit #3.5), I added two sentences about retired styles of bags. Though the article already had content about retiring colors, I decided to add information about four styles of bags that will be retiring soon. The sentences I added read as follows:

Just as Vera Bradley frequently retires fabric colors, different handbag styles are also retired occasionally. Soon, the following four styles will be retired and no longer available: Villager, Molly, Travel Organizer and Travel Pouch.

You can see my edits here.

how popular is wikipedia?

Recently, I read a Global Neighbourhoods blog post made by Shel (the author of Naked Conversations) that talked about wikipedia. The post was entitled "Wikipedia. Just how popular is it?"

The post talks very briefly about the validity of wikipedia articles. First, it discusses a recent report by Steve Rubel that claims that roughly one third of online Americans have used wikipedia. Though the exact percentage may be debated, the point is that a LOT of people are using wikipedia. Since millions of people are relying on wikipedia for accurate information, the question of how accurate it actually is seems to be very important. Shel discusses how he used wikipedia when writing Naked Conversations and all of the information he found turned out to be 100% accurate. Shel brings up the concept of "Wisdom of Crowds" which is a book written about the theory that with a lot of people contributing, things will be accurate. The idea is that with countless people contributing to wikipedia, the end result should be accurate.

Several people commented on this blog post, throwing in their own opinions about the accuracy of wikipedia. Personally, I think wikipedia can be flawed at times. After doing this wikipedia project in class, I've realized that if I can just edit a wikipedia article about something and totally make it up, then I don't think it can be 100% accurate. However, I think that the accuracy largely depends on the topic. Popular, well known topics that many people are interested in and knowledgeable about seem to be more accurate because there are more people editing, whereas less common topics seem to more hit or miss.

Though wikipedia isn't perfect, I still use it regularly and have enjoyed learning more about it this semester!

i want to make some money

There have been some new additions to my blog so I figured I should explain what they are all about. The first addition consisted of some google ads. A few weeks ago, I signed up for an account with Google's Adwords. Basically what this program does is place ads on your webpage, and then you get paid for each time someone clicks on the links. My account has been up and active for about a week now and so far I have made 12 cents. So this is not a ton of money, but hey, 12 cents in one week for doing nothing is better than nothing.

Today, I joined Amazon's Associates program. This program is similar to Adwords, but instead of just putting links on my site, this program allows me to place specific advertisements on the side of my blog. Currently, I have ads for two CD's- Bethany Dillon's "Waking Up" and Matt Wertz's "Everything in Between". These are two of my favorite CDs so I figured I would recommend them to my blog readers. Also, if anyone clicks on those links and then purchases those CD's, I will receive some money for that too.

Overall, setting up both of these programs was very simple. It only took a few minutes and I just followed the steps that the websites explained to me. So if you are bored, you should set it up on your blog and maybe make a few extra dollars (or cents...).

Here are some links to get started...
Google Adwords
Amazon Associates


stiuqxela??

html class

Yesterday in class, we talked about the basics of html and how to make a website. After reviewing a few slides with some basic html codes, Allison came up to be the lucky "volunteer" to make a practice webpage. Here's a little review of what we covered.

First, you need to put in the html and header tags. The most important thing to remember is to always close any tag you put in. Alex suggested (and this is what I usually do too whenever I use html) to put in the second part of the tag immediately so you won't forget. After the header, we put the title tag in to name the page.

After completing the header section of the page, we made the body by placing the body tag. We added a header (size 3) and then added some text to the body.

Finally, we added a few links. We added a link to another webpage and then a link to email. To make the email link you simply ad "mailto:" before the email address and place this where the web address typically goes in the html code.

In addition to these codes that we practiced in class, there are many other tags that are very easy to learn. To make text bold, italicized or underlined, you simply add < b >, < i > or < u > respectively (without the spaces which are added so they will show up here) and then end the tag by using the same tag with a backlash before the letter.

After doing a quick google search, I found a few sites that listed pretty much any html code that you might want to know. Here they are:

HTML Code Tutorial
Web Source

And here is the link to the wikipedia article on HTML which provides a lot of informaton:

Wikipedia...

Additionally, here is a link to the slides that Alex provided for us on html.


Hopefully this was a good recap of HTML for everyone, some stiuqxela anyone?

california tortilla edit #3

I just made my 3rd wikipedia edit on the california tortilla wikipedia article... which means, it was my last wikipedia edit! Well, at least for the class. Since I started doing these edits for this class project, I have actually edited a few other articles (for fun i guess) and will probably continue to do so sporadically after this class is over.

I decided to add a link to the references list. After performing a search in google, I found "The Burrito Blog." This blog is all about various burrito restaurants. Since they seemed like a pretty good source, I thought I would add this as a reference. I added the link to the California Tortilla section (http://www.burritoblog.com/multi_state_chains/california_tortilla/) and then entitled it "The Burrito Blog." No one else had added much to the wiki article so I figured this would be a good addition.

You can see my final cal tort edit here.

charter wiki edit #3

Today I made my final edit on The Charter School of Wilmington wikipedia article. Before making my edit, I viewed the history of edits for the article to see what changes had been made recently. I noticed that recently someone added a sentence about the faculty about Charter. After seeing the change on the History list, I viewed the article and read the sentence in its entirety. Immediately I saw that "television" was spelled incorrectly and after reading it a few times, I decided that the entire sentence sounded somewhat awkward. Before my edit, this is how the sentence read:

One member even helps to write some of the episodes of the hit telivision show Numb3rs.

So to edit the sentence, first I changed the spelling of "telivision" to "television." This was obviously needed but I figured while I was there I might as well fix the rest of the sentence. Next, I clarified that the subject of the sentence was one member of the faculty. Finally, I added a link to the wikipedia article for Numb3rs, the show referenced in this sentence. I personally had never heard of the show so I figured many other people hadn't as well. After my changes, this is how the sentence reads:

One member of the faculty even helps to write some of the episodes of the hit television show Numb3rs.

Even though I only changed one sentence, I think these edits greatly improve both the grammatical and content quality! My edit can be seen here.


has anyone ever heard of stiuqxela?

SEO by the SEA

Yesterday in class Bill Slawski from SEO by the SEA spoke to our class. The original guest speaker cancelled, and luckily, Mr. Slawski was nice enough to come to our class and speak to us with very little notice.

Mr. Slawski spoke to us about many different things that his company, SEO by the Sea, does on a regular basis. According to their website, SEO by the Sea "offers internet marketing services, helping businesses and organizations be found in local and web search engine results, and improving usability and conversion rates for web sites." More simply put, "We make it easier for people to find your website, and to use it."

Mr. Slawksi detailed for us the process that his company goes through when working with different clients. The process begins by identifying the client's goals and needs for their website. SEO by the Sea can then go about trying to reach those goals by improving the client's website.

He also talked to us about Google's "PageRank" system, which we have talked about in class. Google's PageRank feature rates websites based on importance as opposed to just relevance. I think he said that there are less than ten webpages that are ranked as 10 (the best), where as there are about 2,000 that are ranked as a 9. I had never heard this before and this was surprising to me.

After hearing his presentation, I wondered how many other similar SEO (search enginge optimization) companies exist. From a quick Google search, I found these companies (SEO by the Sea's competitors):

Patrick Gavin, Inc.
Inteliture
E-Traffic Jams

These are just a few Search Engine Optimization companies. It was somewhat hard to find them because most of the links that are displayed do not display the companies name but more actual information about the company (such as the phrase "search engine optimization), but I assume they know best that this is a good way to set up their website.

Overall, the presentation was very informative and tied into several different concepts we talked about in class (even though not many people were willing to raise their hands and confess that.) Interestingly enough, today when I went to the website (www.seobythesea.com), Mr. Slawski had made a post in his blog about his presentation to our class. As of today (May 1st, 2007), there were already thirteen comments on the post. I think this is a great example of what we have been learning in class about blogs and social marketing.

vera bradley wiki edit #3

Today I made my third edit on the Vera Bradley Wikipedia article. I actually made two edits so I will detail them both here.

First, I fixed some inconsistencies in the article. In the article, the colors or patterns available were reffered to as several different things such as "designs" "patterns" or "fabrics". I went to the Vera Bradley website and saw that the official term for this is "color." Therefore, I changed all references to say color.

After that, I decided to add some information about the different collections that Vera Bradley offers. Again, using the website, I gathered some information and then made a new heading for collections. Next, I made a list of different collections and briefly described each one. In the future, these different collections could all be elaborated on in much more detail, but I think I made a good start. This is what the list looks like now:

Collections
All collections are available in a variety of colors.

Handbags
Vera Bradley makes dozens of different types of handbags ranging from wristlets to large totes.

Accessories
Vera Bradley makes coordinating accessories that include wallets, coin purses, cosmetic cases and glasses cases.

Travel
The Vera Bradley Travel Collection includes Classic Cotton luggage (made from the same fabric as the traditional handbags), Microfiber and Rolling Luggage.

Beach
This is a limited edition collection that focuses on beach products such as beach towels and sun hats.

Sport
The Sport Collection is a limited edition collection that makes products for sports uses such as racket covers and shoe bags.

Pet
Another limited edition collection, Vera Bradley makes pet carriers in various sizes for different pets.

Stationary
Finally, the stationary collection includes pencils, notepads, notebooks and stationary cards.



My edit can be seen here.



stiuqxela much?

Blogging in Public Health

Today I read a post made by Toby from Diva Marketing entitled "Blogging in Public Health." You might remember Toby from when she spoke to our class via Skype a few weeks ago. I really enjoy the Diva Marketing Blog because the topics are always different and interesting, and the layout and design on the blog really appeals to me.

This article in particular discussed the issue of blogging when it comes to Public Health. Since the internet is now a big web of connected social networks, even the topic of Public Health is frequently broached on the internet. Toby provided some examples of Public Health blogs and then discussed the presentation she made for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Her presentation included this list of "10 Benefits of A Social Media / Blogging Initiative":

1. Tell stories from the heart
2. Humanizes a complex agency
3. Tell your story in your voice/s – no media filter
4. Create relationship with millions of people
5. More people hear your story – search engines, viral marketing
6. Many voices help tell your story – bloggers linking
7. Tell your story when you want – instant, easy publishing [audio (podcast), video (vlog)]
8. Feedback and conversation – increased value and additional information
9. Online information travels offline
10. Mainstream media is turning to blogs for story ideas

I thought this list was great- it stressed several concepts that we have talked about in class and also listed some benefits of social media that I hadn't thought about before. Though I thought many of the reasons listed were great, #2 was my favorite. "Humanizes a complex agency"- I think this concept can be so important. It is really easy to think of big organizations or agencies as impersonal and full of red tape, but when an individual human being is blogging, people can connect better and this definitely gives the agency a more human feeling.

Overall, I think this blog post was great and gave a different application to concepts we have discussed in class.

california tortilla edit #2

Today I made my second edit to the California Tortilla wikipedia article. Basically I've added almost all of the current content for the article so I wasn't really sure how to add to it. I decided to just add two more promotions to the list.

Under the promotions heading, I added two more bulleted items (formatted as the others) to the list. The two additional promotions look like this:

Animal Noise Day - Anyone who makes an animal noise for the cashier when purchasing their meal receives free chips and queso.
Valentine's Day Cupcakes - Free cupcakes on Valentine's Day

I think that the promotions are very memorable and a key aspect of the advertising strategy for California Tortilla so I think its important to have a lot of information about them on the wikipedia article.

My edit can be seen here.



They sell guacamole, but not stiuqxela at Cal Tort.

grey's wiki edit #3

I just made my final edit on the Grey's Anatomy wikipedia article. I have found it pretty difficult to edit this article because of the large amount of people who are interested in this topic and edit it frequently. One thing that has been a frequent topic of discussion on the "discussion" page is a list of different "McLabeling" examples. On Grey's Anatomy, the characters frequently ad "Mc" to different words either as nicknames for characters or just different terms. For a while, the Grey's wikipedia article has had a very extensive list of all of the examples of this. People have been complaining that it is too long and there was even talk of making the list its own article. Finally, today (actually only a few hours ago) someone removed the entire list from the article. Though I agree that the list was too much, I think that the "McLabeling" is a very important component of Grey's Anatomy. Instead of putting the list back, I added two sentences that somewhat summarized the old list. I modified the original "intro" sentence from the old list and then added another sentence with some examples. Now it reads like this:

"A trend began of "McLabeling" characters or adding "Mc" to other terms, such as "McDreamy" (1.02) as a nickname for Derek Shepherd. Many other instances have occured throughout the show such as "McSteamy" (2.18), "McGuilty" (3.01) and "McSex" (3.08). "

Since this is definitely a hot topic of discussion on the Grey's Anatomy wikipedia talk page, I would not be very surprised if my edit was changed or removed immediately but I thought this improved the page. Hopefully the other editors will agree! My edit can be seen here.



By the way, Mc Stiuqxela is not one of the phrases on Grey's Anatomy.

april fools?

A few days ago, my teammate, Laura, made a post entitled April Fools. Basically, she was writing about an article she had read from Scobleizer. This article was talking about new developments that Apple was working on with their "iPhone". Steve Jobs and other executives wanted to expand the usage of the iPhone including capabilities that are similar to Sony's Sony Reader.

Laura explained that this was actually an April's Fool joke and that the story had been fabricated. She proposed a few thoughts about what Apple might really have up their sleeve and how long they'll be able to stay ahead.

Though the story did make me wonder what Apple is working on, the biggest issue that the post brought to my mind was just how easily we believe what we see on the internet. We assume that if someone who is somewhat reputable (or even pretends to be somewhat reputable) says something, it must be true. I am definitely not slamming on Laura, because I do it myself (along with pretty much everyone else in the world). Many companies published jokes on April Fool's Day- such as Google TiSp or Facebook's "Live Poke" and many people fell for them.

Luckily, these jokes don't harm anyone, but sometimes people can use the internet for fraud and can actually be pretty serious so its important to always be aware and skeptical!



Stiuqxela is now an official word in the dictionary... April Fools!

stiuqxela ?

Our class is doing a search engine experiment dealing with the word "stiuqxela". Basically we are trying to get our blog to appear at the top of search results for the word stiuqxela. We also have to put a link to the Packers website (www.packers.com) with the word stiuqxela as the link like this: stiuqxela. Since a lot of people in the class have already done this, the Packers website comes up as a result when searching for stiuqxela already.

Today in class we talked about why some blogs are appearing on the search results and others aren't. It has to do with when the last time google (or whatever search engine we are referring to) crawled your blog. If google last crawled your blog on Wednesday and you made a post about stiuqxela on Thursday, then your blog will not appear because google doesn't know that the word is in your blog. Hopefully google will crawl my blog soon and will put my blog in the search results for stiuqxela.

charter wiki edit #2

Today I did my second edit on the wikipedia article for The Charter School of Wilmington. In the "Students" section of the article, there was one sentence about the dress code that was very limited in the amount of information that it contained. Since the idea of a dress code is very important to most high school students, I thought it would be appropriate to add additional information about the dress code.

I removed the old sentence about the dress code and replaced it with this:


A dress code barring jeans was enacted in the first year of operation and has since been expanded. The current dress code requires students to wear a school shirt (available in a variety of colors and styles) and "Khaki" or "Docker" style pants, shorts, slacks or skirts. Students are permitted to wear sandals, athletic or dress shoes year round.


I think that these new sentences provide the reader with a much more thorough concept of the school dress code/uniform and makes the section feel more complete. My edit can be seen here.

Vera Bradley wiki edit #2

Today, I made my second edit on the Vera Bradley wikipedia article. After the list of retired designs, there was a sentence that read:
"- -some retired colors you can still buy. They have them in many Hallmark stores and on the website[http://www.verabradley.com], only while supplies last, though."

I thought this sentence was poorly worded and also there was bad capitalization. I reworded the sentence, added some more information, and moved the sentence to the top of the section where it seemed to fit better. Now, the sentence reads like this:
"Once a pattern is retired, Vera Bradley will not produce additional items in that pattern, however, it possible to still purchase some retired patterns. Items made from retired patterns are available in many Hallmark stores and on the website[6], but are only available while supplies last."

I think that this new sentence sounds much less awkward and is easier to understand. My edit can be seen here.

California Tortilla wiki edit #1

Today, I made my first wiki edit on the California Tortilla wikipedia article. Last year, I won a year's supply of free burritos so I've spent a lot of time at Cal Tort enjoying free burritos. Sadly, my year just ended but I figured I would commemorate the end of my free burritos by making a big edit on the wiki article.

Before I made my edit, the Cal tort edit had very little content. The article consisted of only a small paragraph with a few sentences about the restaurant and then a references list. For my first edit, I added a few sections to organize the page and then added some content. You can see my edit here.

These are the sections I added:


Locations
For the locations section, I wrote the following sentence:"Currently, California Tortilla has approximately 29 restaurant locations. They are located in 7 states (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and Washington DC), however roughly half of the restaurants are in Maryland alone. The world headquarters is also located in Maryland, in the city of Rockville."
I also added links to the wiki articles for each of the states listed.

Atmosphere
I added this sentence under atmosphere:"The atmosphere in California Tortilla restaurants is "spunky" according the company itself. The restaurant is decorated in bright, bold colors and patterns. Simple things such as pens to sign credit card slips are held to the counter by a large heavy chain to add a fun edge. Signs are also worded in a more humorous way."

Menu
For the menu section, I added a list of various types of menu items. I also added a few sentences describing other key aspects of the menu. Finally, I added links to the wikipedia articles for some of the food items listed.

Promotions
Under the promotion heading, I wrote a few sentences about Cal Tort promotions, especially the grand opening promotions. I also added a list of some of the promotions that Cal tort does and then described them.


Finally, I edited the original intro paragraph to better match the content I added. I think that the content I added greatly improved the quality of the article.

ben's post

A few days ago, my teammate Ben made a post on his blog about a Clickz article entitled The Devolution of Online Advertising. Basically, the blog entry is about online advertising. It focuses on why online advertising has become so popular and what will be necessary to keep it that way. Specifically, the entry talks about how everyone frequently consumes online media- whether it be videos on youtube, or gossip articles about Paris Hilton. Ben argues that media consumption is an addiction, and gives the example of his roommates who go straight to their computers when they get home. I definitely agree with this. I personally am addicted to using the internet and spend hours daily using it for either email, news, communication, or entertainment. Since we spend so much time online, its a great window for advertising.

Ben does a really good job of summarizing the blog entry. He mentions what the author states as the four things necessary to continue the effectiveness of online advertising. Though he lists all four that the author stated, Ben states that being creative is the most important of the four. He says that as online advertising becomes more common and we are overwhelmed with it, the more creative ads will stand out. I agree with Ben as well. I think that its important to keep thinking outside of the box and making online ads stick out.

The only thing I have to criticize Ben for is that he said the title of the post was "The Devaluation of Online Advertising", instead of the Devolution. Its not really a big deal, but the author commented on his post and clarified. This shows how quickly people can read what you are writing. The author saw this post about his article and was able to quickly comment. Even though he made a slight error, it worked out well in the end and was something educational.

VALS survey

Last week in class, we talked about the VALS survery. VALS is a marketing tool that classifies people based on personality traits. Using these classifications, businesses can develop strategies to effectively market to different classifications, as different types of personalities exhibit different types of consumer behavior. The VALS survey can show you what your VALS types are.

You can take the VALS survery online here. I decided to take the survey and blog about my results. According to the survey, I am a:

Striver/Believer
Your primary VALS type is Striver, and your secondary type is Believer.

According to VALS, the primary type represents the dominant approach to life while the secondary type is the particular emphasis you give to the dominant approach.

Here is some more information about my two classifications:

STRIVER
Strivers are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don't have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead.

BELIEVER
Like Thinkers, Believers are motivated by ideals. They are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional, established codes: family, religion, community, and the nation. Many Believers express moral codes that are deeply rooted and literally interpreted. They follow established routines, organized in large part around home, family, community, and social or religious organizations to which they belong.

I agree for the most part with both of these. I don't really think I'm trendy, but I like to have fun and feel motivated by achievement. The one thing I disagree with definitely is the money issue. I don't think I'm very motivated by money (and if you knew what types of jobs I usually take, you'd definitely agree) and I also don't think I purchase products that show material wealth. I definitely agree with the Believer type. I think I am very idealistic and traditional. I definitely like established routines.

Taking this survey was really interesting and made me think about how my personality affects my purchase decisions.

vera bradley wiki edit #1

Today I made my first edit on the Vera Bradley wikipedia article. In case you don't know, Vera Bradley is a company that sells purses, luggage and acessories. The company primarily targets women and is known for products that are customized with many different color patterns and designs.

The article is currently very basic and doesn't include a lot of information. There are just a few different sections of information, and there is a tag on the article stating that it "reads like an advertisement". Hopefully I can do my part to fix that.

Today I added a lot of information about different colors. I created a new subsection of a list and entitled it "Retired designs." Then, I rearranged some of the old bulleted items, added a few more groups of retired patterns, and organized the entire list. I think I added a decent amount of content, and can still see lots of room for improvement for the article.

My edit can be seen here.

short or long?

Shel Israel, writer of Naked Conversations (one of the books that we are reading/discussing in class), is currently the writer of a blog called Global Neighbourhoods.

On March 12, 2007, Shel blogged a post entitled Blogging: Short v. Long. The article was in regards to the length of a recent blog post. Shel recently made a post giving an overview of his new book than included five sections, bringing the total word count to about 3,750. Readers have been complaining about the length, stating that "people are too busy now, to read all those words."

Basically, people are saying that two years ago when Shel wrote Naked Conversations, it was the norm to write really long blog posts, but now the novelty has worn off and short posts are the way to go.

Though Shel acknowledges this argument, in the end he writes that though some people may not like his long blogs, he will continue to do them because blogging has helped improve his books. Though it may hurt his "Technorati ranking", his goal of writing a great book is more important than improving his ranking.

I thought this post was really interesting for several reasons. First, we are reading Naked Conversations for class, so it is of course interesting to read a blog by the author. Next, I thought the issue of short versus long blogs is incredibly relevant to our class. I have noticed that when I check my bloglines subscriptions every day, I rarely read the incredibly long posts. Unless the title really interests me, I usually just skip over the blog posts that are ridiculously long. However, I also feel like there are several blogs that regularly post really short posts as well and sometimes I feel like those are almost pointless. I enjoy reading blogs that I can read in just a couple minutes. I get the point, learn something, but didn't have to spend 20 minutes reading.

I hope, however, that this blogging style works out for Shel. If his primary reason for blogging is to gain insight and criticism, then he should definitely continue to blog as long as he wants. It seems as if people are still reading his blog, so the small minority who want to complain can just continue to do so, and the others can continue to read tons about Global Neighbourhoods.

skype!

This past Monday, we had our first skype presentation. Toby from Diva Marketing joined us via skype to talk to us about blogs and marketing. Though we had a few technical difficulties at the beginning, overall it was really cool that we were having a live presentation from someone who wasn't in the building. Calling Toby on skype seemed pretty easy too.

Toby talked about social media and how it has changed how brands are perceived. One example she gave involved flickr, youtube and Burger King. She showed two examples of flickr and youtube presenting an image of Burger King that probably would not have been approved by BK. I thought that was really interesting because I have gone to youtube and flickr many times and have never really thought about how I might have a different perception of different brands as a result of different images I see.

When I found out that Toby was going to speak to the class, I was already interested because I had just blogged about her blog a few days prior. I commented about a blog post she made in regards to Starbucks. I really liked the design of her blog and her writing style, so I was excited to hear her presentation.

The presentation itself was really good, but then later when I was looking over her powerpoint slides again, I was surprised to find a screenshot of my blog! I then looked back and realized that Toby had actually commented on my blog a few days prior. She was using my blog as an example of the "Ying & Yang of The Conversation". I'm pretty sure we ran out of time right before we got to that slide, so I didn't even notice that slide until after the presentation. However, it definitely showed me how interconnected everything is online. It was really a funny/ironic experience so see my blog right there and have the example be really personal to me.

Toby, if you are reading this, thanks for the great presentation!

grey's wiki edit #2

Well, since my last Grey's Anatomy wikipedia edit didn't go very well (someone deleted it :( ), I decided I would try again! Hopefully, this edit will last longer, but the Grey's Anatomy wiki fans are pretty hardcore- tons of people change stuff and have pretty strong opinions about the whole thing.

This time, I just added a link to a different wikipedia article. In the trivia section, there is a list of instances in which Grey's Anatomy is referenced in other TV shows. One example of this occurs in the television show "The Office". All of the other examples include a link to the respective wikipedia article for whatever show they are referencing, so I changed the text that said "The Office" to a link to the wiki about The Office - just like that.

Even though it was a small addition, I think it makes the list more consistent and will help direct readers if they are interested in learning more about that show. You can click here to see my edit. (Hopefully its still there!)

grey's wiki edit

Today I edited the grey's anatomy wikipedia article.There was a section in the article focusing on the new spin-off staring Kate Walsh. There is a good size paragraph with details of the spin off, but nothing is said about the cast's reaction to the idea of the spin-off. I added a sentence that says "It is rumored that the rest of the cast is not pleased with the spin-off and some are even upset because they thought that they would be the one chosen for a new show." It is very difficult to find something to add on the Grey's Anatomy wiki because it is so well done but I figured I would try to add that. I would not be surprised if someone removed it or edited it quickly but I thought I would give it a try!

yumm starbucks... i would love a mocha frappucino right now

Today I read a post from "The Diva Marketing Blog", one of the required blogs, that was posted yesterday, February 27th, 2007. The post was entitled Help Starbucks Get Its Groove Back. This post was basically a response to a request on another blog (brand autoposy)to create a "What Starbucks Must Do" e-book. This compilation book would be a collection of thoughts from blog readers about what Starbucks needs to do to improve their company. On the Diva Marketing blog entry, the writer gives his suggestion for Starbucks. He says that Starbucks needs to return to "Marketing 101" and understand the customer's wants and needs. Basically, he says Starbucks needs to get away from the cookie cutter Starbucks model and be more original. He suggests baked goods from a local bakery as opposed to the corporate standard items. Though this may be a good idea, I don't know if that is the best idea for Starbucks. I think Starbucks is very successful because people know exactly what they're going to get from Starbucks. I personally enjoy the fact that whenever I go to a Starbucks and order a Hazelnut Cafe Mocha, it tastes, looks, and costs the same as it did last time I purchased it, even if it was at a Starbucks 1000 miles away. Most places where a Starbucks exists, there is also a local coffee shop that has homemade baked goods and the more personal feel. I think Starbucks customers don't really want the personal (and inconsistent?) touch and thats why they go to Starbucks.

I did think this idea of a "What Must Starbucks Do?" concept was pretty cool. Pretty much everyone has been to Starbucks and asking real consumers their opinions is a pretty good source when trying to improve your business.

first Wikipedia edit!

Today I made my first wikipedia edit! One of the articles that I chose to use for the class is about The Charter School of Wilmington. I volunteer for an organization that works with that school so I am learning a lot about it in my personal time so I thought working with the wikipedia article would be a great way for me to put that knowledge to use. Today I made a small edit (I figured I'd take it slow in the beginning) and added the "Ski Club" to the list of clubs offered at the school because I know a lot of the students are very involved with the Ski Club. Making this change was very easy- I just followed the code from the other bulleted items in the article already and even made the word "ski" a link to the wikipedia article about "ski" which was very easy as well.

first blog post with actual (sorta) content

So I'm making this blog for my buad477 class - Information Technology in Marketing. I have to do different things in this such as comment on things we talk about in class, comment on my teammate's blogs, etc. I also have to edit wikipedia articles and discuss those here as well. The link to the class blog is right here so if you want even more information about why I am doing this then that's probably your best bet.

first blog post!

here is my first blog post!

University of Delaware