My Book Report: Online Communities Handbook: Building Your Business and Brand on the Web

Well I would have loved to do my book report on "Blogging for Dummies" since I have already sort of been through that book, but I was too slow on my decision and several other people already chose it so this was the substitute. Although it wasn't my first choice, I found out that this book was actually quite helpful in giving me a greater understanding of the capabilities of Web 2.0 and online communities. The two authors of the book, Nancy Strauss and Anna Buss, use a winning combination of simple and concise text to define what exactly Web 2.0 is and what an online community is without "dumbing things down" for the average reader or being to elementary for a reader with some previous knowledge of the subject.

The book is broken into two parts with each part consisting of nine chapters, eighteen chapters total. The first part, titled "Online Communities", talks about just that. It defines an online community (a group of people who regularly interact with each other on a website) and tells about the difference between an online community and a wiki or a blog. Although each of these types of websites offer users a way to contribute information to a website, they each offer different avenues in which that information is used. A wiki, for example, is a website that allows many users to collaborate on one project by submitting various entries that are all catalogued together and displayed on that website. This was the first of many things I learned from this book. I had no idea that a wiki was a tyoe of website, I know of wikipedia and how it worked but I didn't know there were other wiki-somethings out there. The first part also talks about social networking and discussion boards and how all of these different forms of online communication can spawn relationships and other business opportunities. There are many ways people can use social networking to advance their business, network with others in their field or even promote their services to an interested audience. There are also a few different places in the book where they tell little stories as side notes to demonstrate a point, like the case study about the results of comparing two German websites. One of the websites was for a newspaper, Spiegel Online and the other was for a social networking site named studiVZ. In the comparison, studiVZ boasted a higher volume of new and unique visitors because of the many more activities available for its users. Actually, there are several case studies throughout the book aimed at better explaining the benefits and pitfalls of the different options available for websites.

As you go through the chapters, the book addressing many issues including developing a website, basic design techniques and ways to use your website to generate revenue. After explaining the ins and outs of online communities, member-to-member interactions, setting up member profiles and what-not, the second part begins to delve into the real world application of these fundamentals that have been explained. It starts with a chapter about a site called Ciao.com, an e-commerce website that has integrated the community element to help further its usability and productivity with its users. The site is mainly for comparing products and services in price and value but the consumer community has become just as integral to the site. The book then follows with more real world examples of websites that utilize the benefits outlined in the book. Some of the websites such as 11870.com and M Power World use both online communities and social networking to attract new members and visitors on a regular basis.

All in all, the examples are plain and simple and the reading is fairly light. The definitions are clear and I found that after I was done with this book, I didn’t need to go back and read sections over again to make sure I got it. I would recommend this book to anyone out there who, like me, is trying to create a business online, promote themselves and their work or just trying to start a following for themselves. The ideas are very easy to follow and the relation of the topics to any situation can be made, meaning no matter who you are or what you are trying to do with the blog or website you are creating, this book can help.

Programming Language Shmanguage!!!!!

So I have been a Graphic Designer for about 3 yrs now, I am counting the time since I finished my first project for a client.  I have decided to open myself up to different tyoes of work, not only am I doing general design, I am also doing Web Design Programming, Software Programming and some code work for scripting.  I have to say, it has been a little more than I expected working on several projects at once.  I have always known that the capitalist regime in America is one of the main causes driving the development of new technologies, but I had no idea how intricate the part of capitalism would play in the development of programming language.  In designing and editing the scripts in a web page, re-editing a program for compiling and writing the Actionscript for an animation sequence in Flash, I think I have seen and written the word "var" about a million times!  The languages are all so different, yet so alike that it's so easy to forget what program you are in or working with and begin to add in the wrong code.  Not only that, but I have been learning new languages because different languages are ideal for different kinds of jobs and I have learned that there are dozens of types of programming languages out there.  In computer programming there's FORTRAN, COBOL, C++ and more.  In web design, there is HTML, XHTML, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, and more. In animation, there are three levels of Actionscripting depending on which version of software you are using.  It's a lot to be swirling around in your head all at once.  For those of you who are not in to programming, this may all sound like gibberish.  But for those of you that know what I'm talking about, I'm sure you can feel my pain.

My Nana Visiting

My Nana's Here!!!!

Last night my wife picked up my Grandmother from the airport, she will be staying with us for the next three weeks.  I am excited about this visitation for many reasons, first being this solidifies my role as an adult.  This is officially the first thing I've done, besides paying bills, getting married, and having kids, that makes me feel like what society deems a real adult.  Last year I had my Mom visit for a little while, but she decided to come and I wasn't even in town at the time.  This time, not only am I in town, but I had her flown out to visit, meaning I could afford to take care of it.  I haven't seen my Nana in about 3 years so it's good to see her.  I used to go and visit her every summer for about a month or so when I was little.  I'm originally from Jersey and even after she moved to Virginia when the real estate market began to crumble in Newark, I continued to visit her on a somewhat regular basis.  Although I haven't kept in touch with most of my family, she is the one person that I talk to the most.  When my Mom moved back to Germany, I talked to her about as much as I talked to her when she was still here, but my Nana always kept in touch with me.  I love my Nana and I'm glad she's here. FYI (She's the one standing up in white in the picture.)

It's Been Awhile

Over the last week or so it's been pretty crazy at my house.  My wife was out of town for a week on vacation in Florida and my grandmother will be visiting in a couple of days so there has been nothing but commotion. Although my wife was on vacation, I wasn't and I still had to work and make sure my three daughters were properly schooled and entertained.  There's also the matter of various practices and rehearsals that they needed to get to.  It hasn't been easy, but I've managed a little better than I had expected I would.  I did realize something about the dynamics of our family though, my role as a dad is really only for support.  What does that mean?  Well, it means that the kids don't really expect me to make any decisions alone, they don't expect me to know how to make any major decisions without the direction of my wife.  I remember watching Bill Cosby's "Himself" stand up comedy show and not understanding how an intelligent, strong and capable man could be reduced to the role of the bumbling village idiot just by becoming a father.  I thought that with my wife out of town I would be the final word, I thought for some strange reason that being the only parent in the house would give me the final say on things.  Not so much.  I found that my kids seem to think I don't know anything.  I heard the question "Do you want to call Mom and ask her?" so many times, I started to become unsure of myself!  I thought that before I was married with kids, I was a pretty smart guy who knew how to take care of himself.  I thought that I was a pretty capable individual that could handle most situations, it seems that I was mistaken.  I already know my wife thinks I'm about as useful as a bag of wooden nickels, but I thought at the least my kids thought I was a smarter than the average bear with all the helping of the homework and the home-schooling and all.  Maybe I'm just supposed to be the work mule and bring home the bacon while keeping my mouth shut...that can't be right!