Project Writeup for What is on the Shelf?

Histroy of the project:

ProjectProposalWeblogsAndWikis

When I started What is on the shelf I hoped that it would be a combination topic driven and filter blog centered around music, movies, and books. I wanted the blog to include posts, critiques, links, videos, playlists, and sources for and of new, current, and classic forms of the three topics. Since the blog that I started as an assignment in WeblogsAndWikis was already leaning towards these subjects, I figured that this would be a good fit for to as a blog.

What I really wanted to create was a blog that would be pertinent or interesting to viewers - delievering posts that, while steeped in my personal opnions and feelings towards the topic being written about, the viewers of the blog could find information that could help inwhat ever matter they were interested in.



General progress of project:

Throughout the project, I found a couple of things evovling and progressing.

One is that I found myself writing in what I am calling "subject fits". I would blog for numerous posts on one subject. First, it was movies, then to playsand books, music, and once again back to movies. Though, to be honest, I leaned heavily towards movies. I did this mainly becasue that is one of the three subjects that I had time to enjoy - a movie is only a couple of hours while a book can take days or weeks to read, and as a college student with an already heavy reading schedule, reading for fun never really works out during the semesters.

I have aslo found that inbetween the movies, there would usually be a random Youtube post - like the Lady GaGa, Muse cover, or the post on Alt. rock - about whatever ia had found while bumming around there for something to listen to while working on school work. I did not realize that I had done this, but I like the end result of having a smaller post break up the larger ones.



General findings of the project:

I think that becasue of how the blog grew and evolved as it did, the content - and the sequence of how the content was shown - helped to add to the inheirent randomness that a blog of this subject matter would have naturally. I no intentions of making a blog that was highly organized and structured in that sense, and I am happy that it turned out in a way that I hoped for.



Specific Matters

• One thng that I found interesting and entertaining time and time again was just how often pople would search for the following: The Cheshire Cat, Johnny Depp, and Johnny Depp and SpongeBob. Everytime I would check the stats of What is one the Shelf? I would find these three under the search engine terms title.
• I intentionally wrote posts about movies that were to be coming out soon close to the date of release. I was happy to that this tactic worked to get views on my blog. I did this with the DVD release of Twilight, The Watchmen, X-Men Origins:Wolverine, and Fast And Furious. Each time I would post something like this, the views would be almost instant.
• There was also the fact that though there was a steady and constant stream of traffics to my bolg, there were no comments left on any of my posts. Maybe this was dueto the fact that the people reading the information were not a part of wrodpress, they just wanted to read the information, or that they were just glancing about - and did not actually rad the post. Whatever the reason, I am not going to loose sleep over it. If there are comments later on, then that is fine. but right now this blog is just a place for me to voice how I feel about movies, books, and music.

Conclusions:

Even though I have a limited number of posts, I fully have enjoyed my blogging about What is on the Shelf?. I do hope to keep my blog going after the end of the class and seeing how it progresses as I continue writing on it.

I have realized that I am a terrible snark when I am writing in such an opininated way as this blog allows me to do. I didn't know I was being snarky or witty until the posts from the StudioToursForCaseyFisher came back and all three commented on how much there was within the blog. This has gotten me wondering if there is a way that I could intergrate this voice more into my offline writings.



Revelations from this projects:

Once again, I go back to the searched terms. I find it facinating what people search for while online ona regular basis. I think that there is a connection on some sub-concious level between people in a society, and to see it show itself in the way that people search on the internet is an interesting thing to look at.

I know everyone will probably say this in one form or another, but I have realized that blogging is something completey differnet from any other form of writing that I have done in the past. I really didn't think it would be in the begining, but as the project progressed, I saw my personal writing style begin to fit within the borders of the blog. I began to sharpen my focus a little and not ramble nearly as much I normally would have on a topit that I feel strongly about - though I tried to keep the rambling feeling to a degree, since that was something that I thought would be a good addition to the blog, since it was my opinions fueling the blog.



I have enjoyed this project alot, and as I stated earlier I hope to keep it going after the class is finished. Hopefully What is on the Shelf? can go on for awhile, allowing me to contiue to voice my opinoins ot an audience who hasn't heard them one time too many like my friends and family have.