Blog post 7: Campus event reaction
As I was not on campus for this class and have been accessing it in my hometown of Warner Robins, GA I will be writing on the alternative assignment offered to us. The web page for this review can be found on the Georgia Southern Website. My current major is in political science, but I plan on changing in the future to pursue a different career than what I previously wanted for myself. I digress. The CLASS (College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences) page on the Georgia Southern site offers many resources to students. Included is a calendar of CLASS events, a contact us link, a link to faculty, and current news for CLASS students to pay attention to. There is also a newsletter one may sign up for if one so desires. The site also has a feature to browse previous newsletters one might have missed if not subscribed to it. This feature allows to keep students from unnecessarily giving out email (though I’m sure the University has pure intentions) and receiving more email than desired. I for one like to keep my personal and school emails separate, so the archived newsletters were a great addition. After reading some of the newsletters, I went to the page for my particular major and saw that there is actually some useful information for new students to browse. The page even has a section explaining why a Political Science degree is a good asset when job hunting. At the bottom of the page is a link to contact the department chair, which is also helpful. I found this site to be much more help than other sections of the Georgia Southern website and will continue to use it as long as I remain a student there.
Blog post number four: Twitter
Since I am posting this late and will not have enough interesting things to share to cover twenty tweets over the weekend, I will provide a new users first impressions of Twitter. My twitter account can be found @matthewentz. After cruising around the site and attempting to familiarize myself with it, I must say it seems to be a more streamlined version of Facebook (which I am infinitely more comfortable with using). The various “tweets” that users make seem very close in resemblance to the status updates of Facebook or Myspace. The site is fortunately much easier to use than I had anticipated, and I had no difficulty navigating my way around the site. Unfortunately as I previously said it doesn’t seem to offer me anything Facebook or Myspace can (and I have an account with both of these sites). One thing that seems to be quite prevalent on Twitter is that users update not with a few words on what they are up to, but something they are looking at on the internet and want to share with others. While this does make Twitter slightly different than the aforementioned social media sites, I still do not see a need to sign up for Twitter if one already has a Facebook or Myspace (or both). I suppose the allure of Twitter to most is the admittedly frequent celebrity updates and posts from bands, television shows and the like. All the posts are maintained on one page in order of the time posted (unlike Facebook nowadays). I would suggest anyone that wants to try Twitter to do so, but I do not believe it is something I will continue to use.
Blog post #3: Blog review
After a quick google search to find good indie music blogs, I stumbled upon BowlingStone. On the About page of this particular blog, the author claims that the blog is designed to help if “you are sick of all the music you are currently listening to, you are burning a CD and need three more songs to fill it up, [or] you want to find a new band or a new song to rock out to.” After visiting the about page for the site I was eager to find some new music to listen to. I have been for most of my life a music-lover. Ever since I was three or four, I have been in love with music (especially The Beatles, the first band I ever heard). Since I spend a fair amount of my internet time searching for new music, I was skeptical whether or not this site would be able to deliver on its promise of “new” music. After perusing the website quickly to see how many bands I recognized, I was quite happy to see I had heard of only one of them. After this discovery, I decided to plunge right on in and read some of the song and artist reviews. I decided I would first check out the song review for the only band I was familiar with (Band of Horses). The song review is slightly profane which is something not often seen in the indie community. I must say that the profanity did discourage my reading a little, but the post was written with great respect to the band and their music and provided a fair assessment of the band. All in all, the author of the blog seems to know what he’s talking about with music and is well-written enough to continue reading the reviews.
For my second blog review, I decided on The Blue Indian, a website based out of Macon, GA that specializes in indie music, and particularly the indie music scene in Georgia. The articles on this site are written professionally and with little to no bias. The site offers several features for someone browsing it – including reviews, interviews, a links section, and several other small features. I have always liked The Blue Indian because they often cover artists I am interested in. Past interviews have been conducted with O’Brother, mewithoutYOU, Parachute Musical, and other similar bands. The interviews are always a good read and ask questions fans want answers to (including asking O’Brother guitarist if their namesake is derived from the movie O’Brother Where Art Thou). One feature I always enjoyed on this site is the free music for download. There are lots of good bands out there that are willing to give their music away in lieu of making money, and this website finds them and puts their music up. All said, a good website for indie music fans and a great website for indie music fans living in Georgia.
Digital Dirt
My advice to anyone posting inappropriate information about themselves on the internet would be to either make sure the information is not traceable to them or to stop and delete the information they have posted. If a person feels they MUST post inappropriate things about themselves for some strange reason, they should do so anonymously so as not to make themselves look bad to the public. The best course of action, however, is to simply delete the incriminating information and never post something like it again. Were I to see a friend posting something inappropriate on the internet, I would certainly say something to them in order to help them realize that it is not a good idea. Posting inappropriate information on the internet can affect one’s public reputation very easily. If a current or potential employer sees this inappropriate information, they are likely to disclude the person from any future potential jobs. if it is a current employer, the post may have ramifications on the persons job, including firing or some other disciplinary action. If the person continues to post the “dirty” information about themselves or others, I would likely ask them to not include me in any post so as to protect my online and public reputation. If my friend did not comply with this request, I would be forced to take action and contact the administrators of the website and report him or her for terms of abuse. Hopefully, the talk about why posting “dirt” is bad will get through to my friend before it comes to this however.
Podcast Review
The podcasts I decided to watch / listen to for this assignment are those of the Atlanta, Georgia band O’Brother. They have been one of my favorite bands since the first time I saw them live and I have since seen them live three other times. The podcasts contain hilarious interactions between band members, recording footage, tour footage and much more. These podcasts can be found here. My favorite of these podcasts is currently the New Album Teaser. This particular video shows band members playing new music that will be heard on their forthcoming album. The podcast also features lead singer / guitarist Tanner Merritt poking fun at bands (Insane Clown Posse, Kid Rock, Creed). The singer says he has been trying to broaden his horizons in order to find new influences for their new album. The viewer (one that has heard their music anyways) instantly recognizes this as a joke because the band does not play anything remotely close to this style of music. This podcast is particularly funny to me as the band members all act incredibly pretentious (which I know they are not as I have met each of them on several occasions). The “new music” they play is also quite obviously a joke as not only is it bad it sounds nothing like the actual band. Altogether, I found this particular podcast to be fairly hysterical and gut busting. Another favorite podcast of mine from this band is the one showing them recording the group chant at the end of the song “Division of Man”. This video features not just the band O’Brother, but a band they are friends with named Dignan. All said, the O’Brother podcasts are hilarious and sometimes very cool to watch. Definitely worth checking out if one is a fan of bands such as Thrice, Manchester Orchestra, or Modest Mouse.
