Eric Dybala

Lets talk about this class called Internet Studio. Upon signing up for this class I was under the impression based upon prior classes, that this class would be a website building class and would call upon teaching its students best practices of the web and a particular tool to build one. Mostly I was under the impression we would be taught Dreamweaver and fireworks.  However I was wrong. We learned a whole lot more, and I think I am better because of it.

It is due to this class that I have been able to begin my capstone project and their has been a large portion of the learning’s from this class that will help me identify and motivate a particular target market. More importantly it will allow me to focus the website to particular groups in that target market and this is something I had never considered. I still believe that I do not have near the proficiency that I would need to sell this as a business to anyone but I think I could definitely do some freelance work because of it.

The only items of this class that I didn’t care for was the daily deadlines for homework when we wouldn’t have class, especially the homework that is do on Sunday. While I appreciate that this may help focus students to do better in the class staying focused. I had a heavy course-load this semester while also working and found the deadlines to limit my flexibility on when I could complete them. In my mind If I had forgotten something or just missed a deadline I would not go back and reread material because I already missed the points.  I am very grateful however that Randy gave us the opportunity to make up some of the work later in the semester. Personally, I would suggest to have all the same homework and make them all do the day before the class and allow the student to decide when they completed it. Regardless of the homework I believe the material covered and the way it was covered in class was very useful and interesting. I would definitely take another class by Randy should he decide to teach again.

Community is this interesting idea for the internet. A unifying idea behind a group of people who have never probably met in a real face to face interaction. When trying to determine the difference between broadcast and community tools, the easiest way to determine this is to put it through a litmus test. Ask the question: Is this a one way communication?

Earlier this semester we talked about corporate blogging and since then have completed an internship at a social media marketing company which utilizes blogging. Personally, I see blogging as a broadcast tool and not a community tool. We would use this blog to promote ourselves as a “come smell how awesome we are” type promotion. We would constantly push this message through different social media communities using mostly twitter, facebook, and linkedin. While I don’t appreciate the broadcast tool as much it definitely has a place and is useful for raising awareness. I think I would now like to suggest that broadcast tools should be used and be seen as a exit sign on a freeway to inform those on the “internet superhighway” (yes I just said that)  that a community they are looking for is just up ahead.

There are many tools available right now to run both broadcast and community tools very easily. The hard part is maintaining it. To have the dedication to constantly have attention of the needs of the community and to seek out new members or retain those you already have. Ultimately the reasons you decide to do it is because it is a passion you have. While working for that Social Media company I did many prospect forms to determine which companies had social media presence and I shockingly came across many who had decided to open up broadcast tools and community tools and failed to maintain them so they were in shambles in my opinion.

Personally, I know that Twitter and Facebook are both Broadcast and Community Tools depending on how you use them. If you look at twitter you have followers but it is used as a broadcast tool but if your interacting with others and they are with you build a community of followers and engage in discussion.

For my final project I have began by building the shell account in both Twitter and Facebook but won’t begin using them until an official page launch happens.

Good Afternoon my faithful followers. I wanted to inform you that re-orientation.ericdybala.com will soon launch. This site is a prototype for a service I plan to unleash after graduation next year. I have made this idea the thesis for my capstone. Re-Orientation is dedicated to becoming the source for information for college students for the information they never received. This idea came to me this semester as I am finishing my junior year and realized how much I wished I had known some piece of information but was never told or couldn’t find a resource. These items include where is the closest break-room, or where is the closest vending machine that accepts credit cards. I want students to be able to use this as geo-locative app in the future so that when they need to find the closest bike rack to a new class they are taking they can find it. I plan to upgrade the site in the future with the help of some cloud sourcing to provide a google street map inside campus buildings to help students find there way.

I am currently working on a promotional video in which students are describing what they wish they knew there freshman year.In fall 2011, UTD had a total of 18,864 students enrolled consisting of 11,409 undergraduates students and 7,455 postgraduates students, which includes 1,194 doctoral students. That is a lot of students that I know wish they had found out some gem of knowledge there first year. Help complete my idea by going by the site:  re-orientation.ericdybala.com and drop me a comment or video on something you wish you knew your first year on campus.

I am very excited and also very concerned about the website I plan to launch. Re-Orientation will with hope become Re-Orientation[YourCollegeHere]. The concept will be to provide apps, maps, and knowledge from the students at each school to provide the information that you didn’t receive at orientation like where are the closest bathrooms to me right now, which vending machines near me offer credit card services, what are the best times to find parking spaces in which lots. Since this will be a scale-able website I will need one for the home page which will then be mimicked with the logos of the schools they represent.

There are several items that I am unsure about in execution that I will obtain answers from by current college students to see what they think. They are:

• Would you find a Forum useful to discuss items
• Why would you want to add content to the site as a student
• What would make you come back to the site after your first visit to get information

The general idea of each site is a landing page for Re-Orientation and subdomains of Re-Orientation.[YourCollege].com The landing page will discuss the company and on the sub-domains will contain pages which will have google maps with location filters to show bathrooms in each building, another for vending machines, and another to control credit card accepted vending machines. As the demographic and a part of further research to devise other maps or content focused to what they felt were missing. Content like parking lot capacities and best times will always fluctuate so it would need to be an appx time.

To drive people to the site will need a social media campagin: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest

A will need to research the following : Logo usage with the campus, wireframe design for the site, Google Maps Api, how to use Facebook,Google, twitter to create login on mysite for a forum or to add information to maps.

Hey I completed my css for the PDF file. You can see it here at atec3361.ericdybala.com