From the beginning
Wiki/Blog Decision
I chose to create a blog because I was more familiar with them than a wiki. I had dealt with Facebook and Myspace and thought that it was an easier approach. I also chose to do a blog because I wanted to be more in control of the site.My Intentions
My intentions were to create a blog that was interesting and easy to navigate about. I knew from the begining that I wanted to write about food, but I needed to narrow it. Somehow over some research, I found tons of information on coffee. Ands that how it all began.The Proposal
The Executive Description was "I will be creating a blog on the topic of coffee, discussing coffee drink recipes, coffee house reviews and articles on coffee. I chose this topic because I love coffee and I feel like I can find enough information to keep up a successful blog through research and personal experience." My proposal was very specific and I thought that there was enough information available to keep it going throughout the semester.The Blog in Action
The Good...
The thing that I feared the most was not finding enough articles on coffee subjects (or for finding uninteresting ones). I was amazed, though, with the tons of interesting articles and information I found on coffee subjects. A link that I frequently used for interesting blogs was Coffee Facts . I used About.Com alot too to find the drink of the week or for my great recipes section.I also thought that the organization of my blog was something that was really positive. I found the blog easy to navigate about and the blogroll had a plentiful of great coffee sites.
The Not So GoodÂ…
The worst thing that I think my blog was subject to was a lack of readers/viewers. The average amount of people accessing the site per day was about 4. I tried to address this problem by tagging more but it didnt really help. Other than that, I had no problems with my blog and it was filled with well thought out articles.Critique from class
The main issue from the Studio Tours was that I needed to include more of my voice and opinions. I did have to agree, but I did want to keep the articles factual still. I did go back and edit quite a few entries, especially "Gasoline vs. Coffee Who Will Win the Battle?" .This article was basically just edited from an online article that I found, but I added some pictures and my opinion to make it more interesting.Overall
My Findings
This blog became more meaningful as I went along because the articles and my opinions were important to me. The time I spent on my blog really made me learn more elements of my computer and of the internet. I can successfully add photos and videos along with text alot easier than I could before.Where the Blog Ended Up
The blog pretty much stayed very similiar to what I proposed at the begining of the class. However, the only difference was of the pictures. I was planning on taking pictures of the coffee places that I rated but instead I took pictures of the drink.The main aspects of the blog especially the organization of the categories stayed completly the same and I found it to be really useful.
