“Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming”

Originated as “The Facemash” Facebook is one of the phenomena which hit the world since Napster. Facebook is a global social networking website which is own privately by Mark Zuckerberg. Myspace are among the top competitors to Facebook but it seems today, that Facebook is still on the roll. Though, there are a few times which Facebook faced a clitical conflict with it’s “devotees”.

One of the main problems which caused the trouble was the upgrading or “makeover” of Facebook layout design. The purposes of the changes are actually for the good of the users themselves. “We want to make sure it is easy for people to push and pull information in the form of bite-size content rather than quickly” said Chamath Palihapitiya, Vide President of Marketing, Facebook. Although the change is for the best of the users, elements of layout should also be taken note of.

“You can click over and view the real-time stream. One problem though is that the Live Feed continues to refresh as new posts are entered. Each time that happens the screen changes focus and you have to scroll to figure out where you were when your reading got interrupted. Facebook needs to figure out how to stream the updates without refreshing the screen or changing focus while you're in the middle of reading.” –Tony Bradley, PC World.


Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming,http://www.australiaanit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24328928-15318,00.html

New forms of media publishing

As time evolves, technology tends to expand. Hence, media publishing changes. The combination of digital convergence, personal computing and global networking seems to have ratcheted up the pace of development and is giving rise to
radical shifts in the environment (Naughton, John 2006).

The new media nowadays has altered several “traditions” which was practised before. Books are example of a ‘victim’ in the evolution of media publishing. Before the year 2007, people use book to fill their minds with knowledge, to entertain and so on. Until the year arises during a particular month, the Kindle e-book was introduced. Also known as the “E-book” (electronic book) it has certainly changes the norm of using the normal physical books. According to Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, the e-book is expected to overtake the traditional page-flipping books.



"The Kindle E-book"

Designing for print vs. Designing for online

Online medium and print medium are two of the same, but there are also differences in those two; the design. Online medium and print may consist of the same contents. Never the less, when designing, designers need to consider a few principles for each format.

For print media, there are usually longer paragraphs. This is because in print, it involves a huge canvas which does not limit the words. Online media on the other hand, considers the space. Therefore, shorter and concise paragraph is used due to the space limit. Due to the limitations of words used in online media, a word document should have fewer terminologies rather than print. The inverted pyramid technique is normally used whereby the important gist of the content lies in the earlier part of the document. Hence, informal and simpler language is recommended. For print media, authors are able to mingle with words knowing that there are fewer limitations of the words.

Although the technology today is advanced comparing to the olden days, readers TODAY still prefer reading hard copies rather than online soft copies. This is due to the fact that with hard copies, readers are able to read it whenever, and wherever they want to. Unlike online media, they are probably restricted by coverage and in some cases, supporting technologies.



Radshaw, K 2003, Web Writing vs. Print Writing, Kerry.net, viewed on 17 November 2009, http://www.kerryr.net/webwriting/guide_web-vs-print.htm.

Blogging Communities

According to Wikipedia, a community is defined as a group of interacting organisms sharing an environment; intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness. Same goes to bloggers - a blogging community can best be defined as a group of people with similar area of interest and discuss in a blog (Anthony, 2009).
How to create a blogging community?

• Take the lead and be the community that you want your readers to be – Readers follow the lead of bloggers in how they’ll interact with each other

• Q&A’s – able to interact with readers; opinions and comments

• Link to reader’s blogs

• Reciprocate with the readers, vice -versa

• Recognize and cite your readers

• Allow comments for everyone

One of the world’s most prominent blogging communities is Global Voices. The purpose of the community is to “shine” those who has talents and skills but with not recognized. The community provides platform for these bloggers to penetrate and excel in their fields. This community is operated by volunteer authors and part-time editors.

“Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online - shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard...”



Anthony 2009, What is a Blogging Community?, The Travel Tart, viewed on 25th September 2009, http://www.thetraveltart.com/what-is-a-blogging-community/.

About Global Voices, Viewed on 24th September 2009,
http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/