My Blogging Experience

The Advantages I have Experienced in Blogging

As I read from a business textbook earlier this year, blog is a web-based journals that users can editorialise and interact with other users. Hence, the main difference of blog from traditional diary is that blogging allows us to share our feelings with our friends. Unlike online social network where users are mostly sharing interesting stuff, say, real-time status, blogs are a meeting place where we reflect upon our lives and engage in thoughtful debate on meaningful issues. By leaving comments on our friends・ posts, we are showing our care and understanding. For instance, in the previous post which I have talked about new form of news reporting, my classmate Ken has analysed the impact of animation news from an ethical perspective. After reading his comments, I did spare some time rethinking about the benefits and harm digitalised news might bring to our society. Blogging is like meditating on the cyberspace. 

Besides,I have often come cross many useful facts from my friends・ blog. From one of Noc・s post, I learned of the fact that every content on Facebook hits an average of 150 friends. This piece of information helps me realise how effective Facebook is as a marketing tool. Also, I have read that Youtube is currently collaborating with the NASA in having live-broadcasting of experiments conducted on the space. To me, blog is an important source of news information.

Another benefit of blogging is that I have witnessed some improvement in my writing skills. Unlike academic writing, we are usually expressing subjective feelings in a natural way. To keep my friends・ attention, I need to keep things short and clear. Lengthy sentences are avoided; whereas the content can be based more on personal thoughts, rather than academic analysis. It is a good training on informal writing. 

From Rosilie: My blog

The most important things I have learnt

1) Writing quality posts
I found that I have to do certain level of research to make my blog posts more interesting. For example, I found that more classmates are interested in the previous post that I have researched on the Hong Kong newspaper industry before writing. In fact, doing research make the blog posts more reliable and convincing - and as well attract more people・s attention.

Also, it is important to acquire critical thinking skills in writing blog posts. Reviews are often seen in blog posts. Bloggers are eager to develop logical arguments in their posts and to convince their readers to believe or follow something, eg. watching a particular movie. So, having critical reviewing skills will help bloggers to boost their popularity and is one way to write quality posts with individuality.

2) Using multimodality
Words alone is not enough for blogs. To make the blog more interesting, to keep the audience awake, to leave a strong impression to readers, it is a must to include multimodality in blog posts. They can as well strengthen my arguments sometimes! I believe that images or movements are much more attractive than plain words.

Final words: Make the blog posts more interesting! Here are the TIPS for blogging.

Digital Ads in Web 2.0

   Today, I suddenly thought of checking my old Yahoo email account which I started ten years ago. I did not maintain it since two years ago. Amazingly, it has accumulated over 20,000 of spam mails! It took me nearly an hour to get them all deleted.

   I found out that the outlook of digital advertising has changed a lot over the recent years. In the age of Web1.0, “reading” was the main focus of advertising. The brochure-ware advertisements involve only one-way communication. Links, listings, banners, pop-ups, buttons and spams were the most commonly seen online advertisements. Most people who experienced this stage might find the digital ads quite annoying. Not only they invaded our inbox, but also brought computer virus to our hardware. These created a sense of “ad nausea” among the audience and was not an effective way to advertise.

By the way, I remembered that everyone was so contented when the "King of Spam" got arrested last year.

   The scenario is completely different in Web2.0. We start to do both reading and writing in new advertisements. We will respond and leave feedback on the advertising campaign and thus shape the communication channel as a two-way, interactive one. New digital ads intentionally get viewers to "participate" in the ad experience. Advertisers try to appeal to target customers by writing according to the context and behaviour of these people. For example, advertisers are more likely to add funny elements and make use of multimodality to attract online attention as teenagers take up a majority of online population. The audience are more willing to take a look at the ads that sound relevant to them.
   Moreover, online ads rely much on network sharing. Instead of using pop-ups or spams in the old model, advertising in new media counts on the voluntary sharing to spread the messages. Netizens may make use of networking tools like Facebook,Twitter or other forums to share interesting ads. This indirectly gives rise to a new style of new media writing for online advertising.

Wii launched a very interesting digital ad jointly with Youtube.

The game character, Wario, have shaken everything off from the webpage!

This is an example to show how Web 2.0 ads try to attract attention in a funny way.
Viewers are dragged into Wario's world!

(Very interesting, must see!) Click the following picture to view:

Blogs sharing - Reviews on digital ad campaigns

DigitalBuzz: Features the latest digital ad campaigns

ADVERBLOG: Shows the best digital marketing ideas worldwide.

   As we all know, the online population is growing bigger and bigger. Launching digital ads is an inevitable trend because they are speedy, informative, flexible, affordable, and are boundless across borders. Meanwhile, Web 2.0 provides them with better quality, access and openness so that customers have more control over the ads. The writing styles of digital ads have shifted largely as well. Direct promotion ad banners having “BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!” with offending flash lights are already outdated - customers expect to see interesting, playful or somewhat meaningful digital ads in the current age.

Doesn't it look ANNOYING!?