WEEK 2 - DAY 2

WEEK 2 - DAY 2

In the digital age, blogging is a form of communicating through telling stories or getting information out to a potentially wide audience of people, with the added ability to comment on a post. On the whole we have a plethora of reasons to create a blog, i.e. personal stories, political stories, reaching out for help, helping others, showing how we live.

Listen to the first 11 minutes of the TED talk by Jonathan Harris who has used the unlimited and ever changing data in the world of blogs to pin point the emotional heartbeat of bloggers: click here to view talk

(watch to 11 minutes)

Jonathan Harris captures the world’s emotion with his software for those wanting to reach out and share their feelings using a blog. In your Google Document you created yesterday answer the following questions in full sentence format.

1. Define the term data mining.
2. Do the bloggers who post the information Jonathan is data mining, know they are being interviewed?
3. Do you consider Jonathan's use of individual blog posts to be a benefit to the collective?
4. How do you consider his software programs to be useful to businesses, government or individuals?
5. Do you consider Jonathan's programming endeavours to be scientific or artistic?

Blogging can also be a very lucrative form of information sharing for those who possess information others desire. These are currently the top 10 money making blogs on the web:

• Venturebeat
• Slashgear
• Lifehacker
• Tutsplus
• Gothamist.com
• Timothy Sykes
• Smashingmagazine
• PerezHilton
• Mashable

Select 3 blogs from the list above and critique each by listing the following:

• The main theme of the blog
• 4 new things you learned from each blog
• What audience you think this blog will attract

Add your critiques to your yesterday's Google Document, create a LINK after each critique to link to the blog site: click here for instructions