My Personal Website Creation

The website I created for myself is almost an extension of everything major I've done and accomplished in my life till this point. It's a more elaborate version of my resume, which it even includes, that will be open for the entire web to see, and hopefully some potential employers as well. Between the two major things I've majored in, Video Production and Public Relations, I want to give a sense of the quality of work I can put out and create. It's a really cool way, in my opinion, to sell yourself and I love that we get to make this in a classroom setting. It’s also nice to use and show off some of the papers and projects I made and created in college that I figured I would never use or see again.

Since the start of class, we've created blog posts for our class, our own articles for wiki how about how to do something, learned how to use Photoshop and movie editors, and even got to improve upon our own Twitter skills. All this has culminated for this web page we are creating for ourselves. It, at least in my case, even includes some of the projects and work we have done before hand in class, which to me shows that I'm proud of what I created and achieved thus far. It’s a really neat way to also make things I created that I thought would never really matter have a more substantial purpose.

The biggest tie-ins with social media and my web page is the fact that I've linked most of social media accounts to this page. I want people to be able to find me and get a real grasp on who I am, and I truly feel like my social media pages achieve this. I’ve created and coded shortcuts to my Twitter account, LinkedIn page, and blogger page so they are just a click away so I’m easily accessible.

Designing the website to me is quite cathartic and enjoyable. Besides this class, I have also been taking a coding class learning HTML and CSS. I find myself thoroughly enjoying it and for me, it makes the time fly. Besides my love of coding, I have run into an issue here or there where I can't figure out why this isn’t inputting correctly or whatnot, but it is immensely satisfying once I figure out the correct way to get the code to function properly. Besides that aspect, I've also liked digging through some of my files that were a few years old that I haven't seen in a while. Specifically, my old short films that were made back when I went to school in Fredonia. It was also quite sad to learn that some of the files and things I planned on using might be lost forever because the hard drive I had them all on, which I also hadn't touched in years, didn't work or register at all. Overall, I've seriously enjoyed creating the website as a whole.

Twitter Project Reactions and How Twitter has become Important in Today's World

Since twitter started, it has taken over the public and social mindset. From having the hashtag (#) becoming a known icon from appearing in movie trailers to storefronts, as well as becoming for a good majority where people get there news and updates, to even our president using it for announcements, wrong or right as that maybe. It was almost overnight but Twitter has become the one of if not the most predominant source of news and updates for millennial's and even people older. A good majority don't even watch the news anymore, they just go to Twitter and see what the latest updates are in the world. People sometimes don't even use Twitter as a social hub but rather the best and easiest source to get the latest news updates. Twitter has become a mainstay in our social media and news landscape.

Because of what was just mentioned above about how Twitter has become a huge supplier of news, many outlets and political figures have begun to use it as a political and news tool. Love him or hate him the best example of this is the president of the united states, Donald Trump. Never have we had a president who used Twitter like he does. To comments crested to stir the pot, him threatening over Twitter and him addressing issues and making announcements, he’s used Twitter as his defacto way to get his point and message across. With this he has amassed a giant following on twitter of 59.6 million followers. It really is a great way to make sure as many people as possible can see what you want them too or feel that they need too, regardless of how you feel about what he is actually posting and saying.

Some examples in the past year showing how Twitter is used in this fashion include, Nike's Colin Kapernick ad. Being a giant source of controversy already with his kneeling in the NFL during the anthem. Nike chose to use Colin as the poster boy for all their new ads with the "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything." message they were using for their brand. It payed off with their stock pricing getting a short decrease then a huge boost shortly thereafter. Another example would be in March of 2018, Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) promoting the March For our Lives March in DC urging against gun violence. This shows how influential celebrities have become in political messaging, good or bad. Lastly another big event would have been the whole Tide pod debacle. What this was, was apparently kids were challenging each other/or trying to get high by eating tide pods. Clearly this wasn't good, and looked not so good for Tide, even though it’s not their fault people are numb. So they released a tweet telling people not to do so but if they did, drink water or milk and to call the poison hot line immediately. They also included said hot lines number.

When it came to the Twitter project for class, I chose IGN, a video game and entertainment website, Kinda Funny, an entertainment/gaming/and just talk show channel, and The NBA which is basketball. I chose the first two because it’s what I love and enjoy and hope to one day be in that field. I primarily chose Kinda Funny because I have been following these people since 2008, when the ironically started at IGN, my first choice, till they became their own thing in 2015. It's really what I aspire to do after college. I chose NBA because I know jack about basketball, and it was part of the assignment to choose something you're not comfortable with. I figured this would be a good idea because even though I don't personally follow it or even really watched any, I've always kind of wanted to try and get into it so I figured why not try.

The biggest difference between using Twitter and the blogging we have done as well as any other social media is honestly the size difference. With Twitter, which started with 140 characters and eventually expanded to 250, you need to be way more thoughtful with each word and really get the point across fast. you have no room or filler or fluff. You need to just get to the point and not write an essay about whatever you're talking about. For me that’s always been the hardest part because I find I can be a bit of a rambler. But I appreciate the challenge because you learn that if you can really capture someone’s attention and get the point across with that few characters, you really did well and is a very good skill to learn for future endeavors, especially because I plan on going into PR.

The Process of Creating a Wiki How

https://www.wikihow.com/Get-the-Best-Deal-on-a-Car-Lease

The process of creating a wiki how page has been an interesting experience with plenty of ups and downs. First off, the idea of coming up with a topic that no one else at this point has come up presents its giant set of difficulties and took a decent amount of time alone without having to do anything else to this point in the process. 

Once the topic was picked, what proved best to go step by step through topic to explain it accurately was personal experience. Since the topic at hand was How to Best Lease a Car, with my profession being in car sales, this seemed the best option to go forward with. Yes, there is a process which was gone over in the article, but nothing helped more than personal experiences and knowledge of the industry over the 2 plus years living in it. 

As there were many steps to this project it was somewhat difficult to procure pictures for each individual step. The most difficult being for example was credit scores. This is something that you can’t just take a picture of or share since it is personal information. So, the need to go online and find a good diagram of this was needed to ensure a picture was available. Also, it was quite difficult to get pictures inside the dealership. Given the time of the month, it was quite busy inside the dealership. Finding people and time to be able to find a person and a space to use was difficult. At the end of the day it was successful and felt great to get the pictures and get that much closer to finishing the assignment.

One of the biggest challenges with this topic was how to order the steps for the leasing process. At first the idea was to have it in two parts. The first part being research and figuring out personal financing, the second was going to be dealership interaction. At the end of the day though, the decision was made to just unify it all and make it one giant process rather than 2. This made it much easier to order.

It was also quite difficult to have to figure out a way to accurately try and explain the process since each car lease is entirely unique. Everyone has a different credit score, money to put down and car price to work with which makes not every single situation the same. Alas it was figured out and can be seen present in the final product on the Wiki How page.

One of the most interesting things about this Wiki How assignment was learning how to code it. First and foremost, it was interesting that coding was even necessary. One would figure all that would need to be done would be to write, paste or copy things into a text box and hit submit. But alas, that is not the case. Coding must be done to ensure that the page looks and functions properly as well as to ensure everything is in the right spot and formatted correctly. Learning this is interesting. Its nowhere near as complicated as one would suspect. Once the needed words, characters and the like are learned its actually very simple, just extremely time consuming. It is a unique experience and something to recommend for most people who wish to create an online presence to try out at least once.

For the page pictures were required. Another unique experience that pertains to this, learning how to use Adobe Photoshop, abet very basically. Learning that for the pictures to function properly you first need to shoot them in landscape mode was interesting but makes sense, since the other way would distort and stretch the picture. It was also cool to learn that the pictures needed to be a certain dimension to work on Wiki How and it was nice to learn how simple and easy that way to fix and do on Photoshop itself.

It was also nice to learn how to change the contrast and other unique characteristics of the pictures in Photoshop. It is surprising how daunting this all seems at first but once you know where everything is, it is extremely simple and user friendly to finalize the pictures.

One giant concern has been that once published the readers won’t understand or think that the article in question doesn’t need to exist. Worse would be for the general public to feel as if the Wiki How article didn’t help at all or was just rambling. It was created to be an assistance tool and the hope is that at least one person who reads it will feel as if their leasing experience was somewhat aided by the fact that they read this article.

https://www.wikihow.com/Get-the-Best-Deal-on-a-Car-Lease

Social Media: Ups, Downs, and Everything Inbetween

There is no denying social media has radically changed how life as the world knows it works. Everyone knows what everyone is doing. Whether someone is eating, or the next-door neighbor is finally single, there isn't much that is private or unknown for most people now a days. This has its ups and downs of course. Sometimes it can be extremely nice, like following your favorite sports team or entertainment thing whether that is movies, TV or video games. It can be extremely convenient, but does this come with a cost?

Look at the many instances of President Trump on Twitter. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that when our president tweets it leaves an impression. The president has sent out tweets ranging from little comments here or there to full on tirades. Some containing information or opinions that we have never seen from a president, at least in the public space, ever before. This causes severe backlash, with many people clamoring for the president to lose his Twitter rights to the opposite, with people praising the man for his honesty. Regardless of stance, this is completely new ground. It raises the question of if there should be limits to our usage of social media? Should people in power be able to have the ability to post things such as Trump has willynilly? The question won’t be answered here, that’s for sure, but it is something fun to think about none the less.

It is crazy to think about where social media was with its beginning with the likes of AOL and Myspace, to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram literally leading the charge and taking control of peoples lives like nothing else before. What does the future hold with this though? Will it all collapse, or will it continue to thrive or even expand. Will there come a day where Facebook is literally implanted in our brains with likes, comments and pictures just literally flashing before our very eyes with no escape whatsoever? It will be years down the road till the world knows but hopefully that is just a thought or dream and not a reality.

Maybe it completely collapses. Courts and lawsuits have been starting to pop up more frequently against these companies, most famously the recent case with Mark Zukerberg of Facebook fame having to defend Facebook from invading your privacy and sharing information without consent. If this continues, especially if its people who don’t understand the programs who throw out these suits left and right, the whole social media climate has a chance of collapsing. If these apps can’t connect to things like amazon or other sponsorships that bring in revenue, it could very well be doomsday. Maybe that’s good though. Maybe we all need to get off our phones and just live a little. Maybe we need more one on one. Get a little dirty in person instead of sending dirty pictures or just swiping left or right. Just learn to humanize.

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