Why I have made the choices I've made creating my web presence
WEB101 @ Curtin.
When creating my web presence I really did not want to focus on myself personally, and choose to centre the content on the theme as a result. This is mainly because I am a private kind of person and generally keep to myself, but also avoiding the misfortune of creating any kind of undesirable (negative or positive) digital shadow. My theme is also directly related to my place of employment and if in some unconceived way I offend someone I deal with on a professional level, it can’t be seen as a bad reflection on my place of work or in turn my employers. When selecting from all the web 2.0 tools available for my web presence, I choose those I thought best fit visual aspects of the design and social purpose of my theme, as well as those I also enjoy using personally. I have made a host of choices relating to the design aspects of my site within the boundaries of my central node and three contributing nodes to construct my desired online presence as best I can with my limited experience in using the tools themselves.
My theme is something I know, and know well, cheese. I have been working with cheese for most of my working life, so it seemed like the most obvious choice, also a topic I can confidently contribute to with some measure of conviction. The title I have used on my central node is one of the only personal aspects I have used when creating my web presence. It is a combination of two nicknames I have been known by over the years: Mikey P and Mr Cheese. In keeping with the minimalistic personal connection to my web presence, my about me page is very light in its content, listing very little about me. It does, however, list the only other personal information I have chosen to include within the site; my recent work history. As my work is directly related to the site content, I though it appropriate to give my content some validity.
I decided to use the Web 2.0 tool Blogger for my central node, simply because I found the interface easy to learn and manipulate to my chosen theme. When considering the design aspects of my web presence, I thought about the theme itself and for that matter, food in general. Most food is purchased as a direct result of visual appeal, and I thought this was an important aspect to bring into my web presence. As a result I have kept the backgrounds a fairly dark black using one of the Awesome Inc. templates and tweaking it to suit my needs. Using a dark appearance makes the images of cheese within the site to really stand out and be noticed. As a way of linking the theme between all the nodes of my web presence; the image used in the header on my central node is used as my avatar (where possible) in my three contributing nodes.
In thinking about which web 2.0 tools to use as my contributing nodes, I thought about how my central node looks, and more to the point, how I am delivering my content. As it is a very visual site, I though it appropriate to link to some other possibly like-themed imagery centred Web 2.0 tools. With this in mind I have linked to my Flickr account for images and YouTube account for video content. Within both of these contributing nodes have linked to content related to my theme. I have also linked them to my site through a simple link rather than an active content feed within my site, when trying out the active feed I thought it detracted from the message I am trying to deliver with my content. For my third contributing node I have linked to my Delicious account. I have linked to my Delicious account as a way for users to source other similar content using my tags, with my thirty top tags visible and directly usable on the right pane of my web presence. I have also used the name for my central node mikeyp-mrcheese, as my user name across all other contributing nodes as another way of linking them all together.
All of my choices when constructing my web presence were intended to deliver my theme in a uniform and coherent manner, trying to minimise any personal connection to the site. My contributing nodes were selected to complement and enhance the user experience centered on my chosen theme ‘cheese’. I have taken advantage of the capabilities of each Web 2.0 I have used to the best of my current abilities to deliver my theme. My web presence delivers a strong visual and textual message that does justice to the products listed within, while still allowing the user to form their own opinion and in turn find related content themselves through the use of my linked Web 2.0 tools.
mikeyp-mrcheese
