Video to be posted

 

Social News

Social news loosely refers to websites that don't create news content, but facilitate users to share and vote on the merit of various links. These links can be to news articles, pictures, movies, or anything else that can be linked to. These sites are becoming increasingly important as they eat into Google's share of Internet traffic referrals. Google makes a fortune being the source of a lot of traffic for website owners, but what will happens as social news and social networking sites become the senders of traffic?

objective

Experience participating on a social news website and reflecting on that experience.

requirements

Create an account on a social news website that allows links to be "voted" on: e.g., digg, reddit, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Buzz, MetaFilter, etc.*

"Vote" on 5 links submitted by others*

Comment on 5 links submitted by others*

*If you have already experienced the above activities, write an analysis of one or more paragraphs about the kinds of content that typically makes it onto the front page of your favorite social news website.

Add a button to your blog posts that allows them to be submitted to, or voted on, a social news website

Write a summary in one or more paragraphs of your experience, including strengths and weakness of the website or experience in general

first steps

Sign up for an account on a social news website

Take note of your user profile, as it will be used to verify your grading requirements

Add a button to your blog per some of the resource links below

Write a summary of your experiences in a blog post or google doc

grading

50 points possible

Up to 10 points for each requirement

Points off for cutting corners or other evidence of a lackluster effort.

Creativity is welcome and encouraged

deliverable(s)

  1. Submit your work using the following form:
     
  2. Post a response to this exercise with a link your blog post or google doc summarizing what you did to meet each requirement.
  3. Rate this exercise and explain your rating with comments about specific strengths/ improvement ideas. Anonymous posts are perfectly acceptable, just log out of the site first.
  4. UIUC Students: Tag the link “ADV400E10” on delicious.com
  5. SU Students: Tag the link "IST400E10" on delicious.com

resources & examples

Adding a Digg button to your blog | Instructions and resources

Adding a Reddit button to your blog | Instructions and resources

Adding a ShareThis button to your blog | Instructions and resources

Adding a AddThis button to your blog | Instructions and resources

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