Disappearing Cows

Google

I always thought Google was simply something to search for websites with: type in skiing and get 2o3492398 results all somehow related to skiing. I also knew you could look for pictures, but thought that was all. Google is so much more extensive than this. I think you could spend hours looking at all the things Google can do! Pictures, new, videos, shopping and more.

I learned Google can be very helpful in an academic sense. I can type in a subject and not only will there be website links but also many other resources. One very interesting capability is the "wonder wheel." This puts your search in the middle of the page, than branches out with eight subtopics, which you can click on to find out more. Another tool is the timeline. This will organize information in a sequential manner. All the information show for dates has websites to back it up, as well as to learn more about the subject.

Google can also be used in a more social way. I can type in 'nordic skiing vermont' and find different places to ski in Vermont. If I needed to buy new ski equipment, I could click the shopping link, and have numerous outdoor stores show up. Perhaps I wanted to find a large and good quality picture, with mainly purple, I could do this with the 'options' tab.

Google is an awesome tool for all sorts of things. Whether I need to do more work on my American Progressivism research project or find a good local place to buy clothes www.google.com will get me there!

Google Analytics

I recently installed a program to track my blog views called Google Analytics. It took a day to set up and now it will give me information about various things on my blog, like the city where people view it from and how long they view it for. Hopefully, and in not too long, it won’t say only one visitor. It would be nice also to not have the map only shaded for the US, meaning people from other parts of the world are reading my blog. Amazingly, I am pretty sure, the one person who looked at it was on my blog for 5 minutes and 41 seconds! I didn’t know reading one post could be so time consuming or interesting!

This tool where be more useful once my blog gets going more. It will be interesting to see if people look for more than the first page. Also, to see how people get linked to my blog will be fascinating.

Twitter Response

Since I heard about Twitter, probably a year ago, I thought it was some useless, half effort, copy of Facebook. I thought it was stupid and only something celebrities did. I was completely unaware of even its basic intentions and certainly not its full spectrum of uses. I thought it was people in Hollywood’s manger’s way to tell people about what expensive outfit they bought today, or where they are jetting off to currently. I was completely unaware of the intellect Twitter took to create and the geniuses, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, who created it.

With the onset of our Digital Media class, Twitter has taken on a whole new meaning. Twitter has saved lives, one time being a terrorist attack in Mumbay. This social networking tool is the way to spread information quickly. When the airplane landed in the Hudson River, Twitter was the first place to spread the picture. This site can also be used for convenience; a Peet’s Coffee chop is going tweet when a table is free.

Yes, Twitter can still be a considered a bit of a time waster sometimes, but is also a powerful tool to inform the world of important happenings.