When i was first introduced to this module, i fear it alot.
Being a tech-moron, i honestly hated using social media tools.
I have an inactive facebook account
0 blog
0 twitter account

However, being under such circumstances, i  was left with no choice but to learn to pick up using twitter, facebook and blogging.

The whole of 6 weeks i have seen myself transforming from a tech-moron to at least a bit more tech savvy. Honestly, i am quite proud of myself!

From that, i have learnt something and that is when you stop believing in something, that’s when you stop learning. I am glad i did.

NCT has really taught me alot.

I used to think that internet is pretty safe as my identity is anonymous and whatever i am doing is just behind a screen away from the virtual world.

NCT has brought me to shame. I was so wrong.

Privacy matters:
The internet is actually very dangerous for all your information and data could be easily found. The simplest way is to google your name and everything about you will be revealed out, publicly. Not to mention things that you have locked in private, the ‘big boys’-google still has access to it. My point is, nothing is safe in the cyber world anymore. Therefore, do not write or talk about anything which you deem highly confidential online.

I also used to think that internet usage is for geeks and that not knowing what’s the lastest trends online or how to use a specific social media tool doesn’t matter so much.

NCT proved me wrong, again.

What you know today might be obsolete tomorrow:
The online world is now a bustling reflection of the real world. Whatever you can do in real life can now also be done in the virtual world.

online journalism in games= secondlife
online sale of clothes, accessories, bags = blogshop
watch videos, ads, movies online= youtube
mass sharing of information online= twitter

and the list goes on….

There is so much you can do online nowadays. It is no longer a platform just for entertainment purposes. Whatever can be done in reality can also be done in the virtual world.

Technology never stops, in fact, it is always improving and evolving into something better.

I must say, if one doesn’t catch up with technology, technology doesn’t lose, its you.

These 2 pieces of information has now changed my perception at how i look at technology.

Last words: Never ever belittle the power of technology.

Went to Malaysian Motor GP with my boyfriend and his friends a few weeks ago.
I must say that i do not know how to ride a bike & neither am i a huge fan of motorcycle.

However, i just tagged along for i just needed a place to getaway from s’pore.

The travelling is crazily long &  not to mention that its during the wee hours.

We reached Sepang Circuit at approximately 7am whereby we have to queue for an hour for the circuit to be open.

The circuit is HUGE.
I really mean it.
It takes me around 15 mins to walk from one end of the viewing seats to the other.
The viewing seats are designed in an inverted ‘V’ shape which i thought is pretty interesting.
Probably for easier viewing purposes for the audience.

This event is actually pretty huge in Malaysia.
There are loads of people from all over the world coming together to suppost their idol racer.
Apparently as explained by my bf, these fans come for only 2 specific racers.
One of which i forgot his name, my apologies.
The other is number 46 VALENTINO ROSSI an Italian professional motorcycle racer!!!
He is uber cute. <3

So we stayed throughout the whole event waiting for the finale which is the showdown involving Rossi and the other racer.

It was really exciting.
The whole stadium was filled with the thunderous  ‘vroom vroom’ sound from the modified bikes and whenever they rode pass by, you can sense the vibration.
The competition goes like this, the racers have to complete a total of approximately 20 rounds and the racer who reaches the finishing line first is the winner.

From what i have heard, apparently dear Rossi has been the Champion for 7 years in a row. ( please correct me if i get it wrong)

I’ve yelled my throat sore cheering for him all the way.

Initially he came in 8th place for the first few rounds, then he slowly caught up and came in 5th place.

Then the exciting part came.

The racer who is 4th in place skidded!

It was quite a scene.
That poor guy was so helpless.
He skidded and the first thing he did was to check on his bike.
He tried kickstarting his bike for a whole 10 mins but to no avail.
I could tell that he was really mad.
Millions of bikes zoomed past him and there he is standing in that huge field with a roaring sea of audiences cheering on his skid.
I give him my sympathy but still, if without his skid, there won’t be any climax would it? haha.

Dear Rossi then went up to 4th place.

And he remained there throughout.

HAHA. ok. it rained just before the competition started.
Perhaps he has this thing about fearing wet grounds.
I must admit its pretty disappointing but oh well, he did his best.

Anyway in my heart, he’s still the big winner!
I’ll be rooting for you Rossi! 

Before the results are out, we hurried to the exit for fear of human jam when the event is over.

Trust me.. all i see is a huge sea of ants pushing each other to make their way through.

Thank god we came out earlier or we’re the ants.

Well.. that’s all about it for the Motor GP.
Enjoy the pics

Intially my perception of twitter is that it is just another social media platform that allows people to know what each other are doing.

I thought to myself, isn’t it the same as Facebook‘s ‘what are you doing now’ application? (Many said that the idea originated from Twitter)

The point is, i find that why bother using twitter when you have facebook (FB) since FB has that application and much more.

After these few weeks of intensive Twitter usage as well as some fine-tuning on how to use Twitter correctly, i finally see the beauty of Twitter.

To make the digestion of facts easier,

Think of  Twitter as a guy.

He would be a charming one.

He would be such a lovable and sociable person
whereby loads of people likes to be with him.

Twitter likes to share friends.

From him, these people will get to know other people from various background and the chain follows on.

If any friend wishes to know another friend,
Twitter would generously introduce you to him by letting you ‘Follow’ that person.

Anyone can ‘Follow‘ Anyone and that person is able ‘Follow’ you back.

You guys can then share information with each other.

However, Twitter is not ‘so’ awesome.

Being a guy that treasures time alot,
Twitter likes to carry short conversation that lasts within ‘140 characters‘.

This allows him to easily know the latest news and gossips that his friends are talking about.

If there are any lovebirds who wishes to talk in private,
Twitter would also allow them to ‘Direct Message‘ each other in private.

Oh Twitter, how understanding and thoughtful to our needs.

And if lets say twitter brings his friends to a bar.

A bar being noisy and crowded with people,
its normal if one person didn’t know another person is talking to him.

This is when dear twitter is able to allow them to do so by ‘mentioning‘ names (example: @joreenlye).

Isn’t Twitter awesome?

From him,  millions of people are able to connect with people from the other side of the globe, are able to establish business relationships, are able to get the best information and lastly, they are able to get what else but friends.

What’s more? its free. <3

Girls are so amazing.

They can shop at almost anywhere. LOL.

Both of them bought a pair of beaded-pearl slippers as well as bling bling stick-ons for their phones. (highly recommended by myself as i have bought it with other 2 friends, carol and baoyu at only $4 plus each!)

Although i must say that its not my style but its simply irresistable.. colouful blings at ultra uber cheap price! However, sad to say, the sales are over &  its going at $6 plus now.. still pretty cheap. I have seen the exact same ones sold at cineleisure and its going at $14 plus each. Amazed at how these ppl jack up the price.

Here are some camwhoring moments with our newly blinged phones

Conviction: overwhelmed by good crunchy techy info

Serene, mikh, zam and concept shared with us all about the social media info such as the term ‘Continuous partial attention‘.

Quite a mouthful isn’t it? To shorten it down, I shall call it CPA.

CPA is normally used to describe someone who diversed their attention span as well as the desire not to miss anything. It is different from multi-tasking, apparently. The latter is suppose to be you motivated to complete everything fast and altogether.

One example of CPA would be using facebook when you are supposed to be paying 100% attention during class.  (Mikh’s attempt to use that as an example failed) lol.

I haven’t quite get the differences btw both though but i will always remember some real life examples whereby we have fully exercised CONTINUOUS PARTIAL ATTENTION

In the act of taking pics via webcam + snacking during lesson. Definite Continuous Partial Attention moment. Sweet.<3

Initially social media to me is yet another platform for us to communicate with our friends however, now i have understood the real reasons behind it.

Guest Speaker: Stephie Tan

It is all thanks to Stephie Tan from Stephie says (http://www.stephiesays.com/) who has shared with us the beauty of social media usage.

She has mentioned that she made use of social media tools such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’, ‘website’ to help her establish a ‘brand’ for herself.

Till now, She has countless of followers on her website as well as her online magazine ‘fashion nation’ (http://fashionation.wordpress.com/) which she co-writes with her friend.

The most motivational thing is that it is her passion to write and she is now able to turn it into her career. Isn’t it the best of both worlds?

From what stephie has talked to us about and from these couple of weeks of intensive social media usage, i have come to realise their importance.

Social media tools serves as an effective platform for marketing or networking purposes provided that it is used correctly and appropriately.
Whereas for us students, the usage of such tools is to keep ourselves constantly updated with the most recent news, to network and/or to socialise with people that we do not know as well as to brand ourselves.

Why the need to do so?

The internet is huge but it would be such an easy task for people to hunt you down. All they need to know is your name, Google search and everything about you will be listed out. If in the future your prospective boss decides to check up on you, there, your past will be back to haunt you.

Solution:
-clean up your social media accounts eg. facebook
-start building a brand for yourself eg. via twitter
-say nothing but the positive stuff

So, that’s basically about social media. It can be a dangerous weapon against you or an effective tool aiding you.

Fun Facts all in bite-size:

1.Do you know that there is something called a LEET Language?
example in leet speak:

|-|1. 1 4/\/\ j0R33|\| 4|\|D 7|-|15 15 /\/\’/ bL09.

-Gamers invented Leet Language so that non-gamers do not know what they are talking about.

- The leetness of the language does not stop at this. It can be adjusted, the higher the percentage, the harder it is for ppl to decipher.

Try it!

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet

We have also discussed about Augmented Reality. This is the explanation taken from wiki:
Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.
It really amazes me.. but somehow scares me at the same time to know that we are now turning towards a world whereby everything would soon be incorporated with technology.. not like its not now.. its just that the thought of living in a virtual yet reality kinda world is creepy. Even though this normally happens in movies like the minority report; with a wave of hand and you’ll be able to get all the info you need instantaneously however if this were to happen in real life.. hmm.. perhaps i still need some time to digest this fact that sooner or later we would all move towards this kind of mixed reality.

Before this project, i thought i knew everything there was to Facebook.

I have a facebook account, i’ve played games there, i’ve wrote on friends’ walls, i’ve posted photos and videos. See, i am a facebook guru..not.

I believe that there are many people like me out there thinking that we know how to use facebook.well.. we might be half right only.

The other half lies with the usage of facebook page and facebook group.

Basically a page and group serves different purposes depending on the people you are reaching out to.

Don’t understand?

Let Joreen give you a crash course on facebook.

A facebook page:
-serves as a platform for you to build long term relationships with your fans, readers or customers
-commonly used by businesses, brands, movies, celebrities etc
-allows interaction with fans/customers without having them to be connected to a personal account
-allows event creations & invitations
-has no friend capacity
-can be indexed by external search engine

and on the other hand,

A facebook group:
-for smaller scale interaction on a personal level and/or around a cause
-usually held for hosting an active discussion & attracting quick attention
-has a 5000 friend capacity
-allows member approval
-administrator can be seen

however the similarities in both a page and a group are that:
-both allows hosting of discussion
-has discussion wall and forum
-allows messaging to all members
-allows video and public photo exchange
-have to manually track activities

There..so much clearer isn’t it?

Here’s a little quiz to see whether you have successfully digested all the facts.

1.Poney Pete has to create a social advertisement for his
company on facebook, which is the platform that allows him
to do so?

a)Page
b)Group
c)Both

2. Zouk should appear under the Facebook Group
category and ZoukOut should be under the page
category.

a)True
b)False
c)Neither

3.What is the maximum capacity of members you
can have in a group?

a)No limit
b)1000
c)5000

Have you managed to answer this 3 questions correctly?
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1. (A) Social ads can only be held on a page, a group does not allow you to do that
2. (B) false. Zouk is the company’s name and zoukout is the event therefore it should be page and grp respectively
3.(C)5000,whereas page allows you to have unlimited fans

well..that pretty much sums up the basic differences and similarities you have to know about facebook’s page and group!

Hope that these information has been useful, at least it does to me.

Btw as suggested by Ms Kwa to share it with the rest, here are the slides which yenling and i have created for NCT.

Hope that it would be useful to those who have yet to present.

Hints:

Lil’ rewards like snacks are really helpful and greatly appreciated by hungry people in our class. (idea originated from joan’s group) Therefore it would be really useful to get ppl’s attention and participation. Activities that allow ppl to get off their seats and move ard would really help as well.

This is the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=86757740868b94812fb2ca15d7ea42d97a0583a32629b36aa 601da0f25e869f4

All the best<3

This shall be my very first step out of my social-media-moron comfort zone.

This is really making me crack my brains.

This post shall end here.