Metablog - How was my Blogging?

I have accumulated a follower. I'm not sure how many views I've received, most probably this number is so astronomically large It cannot fit within the scope of the Blogger website.
As a short blog, and a seldom interesting one my blog has gone quite unnoticed on the Wide World Web. Overall this doesn't fuss me, but it does tell me something about the Internet and networked media production in general. Namely that it is unlikely for more then a few people to stumble upon my blog and those that often do must be careful no to break bones while stumbling.
What is needed in a blog to stimulate interest? How do I make those who stumble my way stay? How do I gain presence through popularity?
In the early 2000's the blog boom came mainly out of sex related exploits retold by witty, sex-obsessed women. Abby Lee is the quintessential example.
Many bloggers shown to us throughout the course seemed to have interesting jobs or thorough knowledge of what they blogged. Blogging is short for weB LOG, and for this reason many people use it as an online diary. This is not problematic. What IS problematic is my life in uninteresting.
Biographies are rarely written about boring people, unless of course they are self-written, in which case they are generally crap. I personally believe for a blog to be popular, for it to have purpose, it must be interesting to at least two people.
My content was not sufficient to interest even myself. Therefore my audience is liably limited to 'he' who marks my grades.
I could have potentially boosted traffic in the short term through advertisements in semi-relevant places. If my blog was particularly interesting then such advertisements would have boosted my blogs popularity massively. Overall however, my blog like my life is not particularly interesting, and not partiucalrly worth reading.
For the purposes of marking the blogs of most interest however are as follows:
1. I want Toast
2. Offensive to the average citizien
3. The strength of narrative in Blogging

Zombies are big

Zombies are big. Right now, Zombies are huge.
There is a massive internet culture of geeks who constantly joke about the coming zombie apocalypse. My Networked Production Geo-Narrative feeds into that market. Often these guides will take a parody form even when accurate in terms of actual information. This level of accuracy is important even in jest. Mine takes this same form with relatively dry humor throughout most of it.
To my knowledge my project is the first Zombie survival guide in map form. Most talk about features to avoid but mine specifically maps out the local area for Canberran's, thus simplifying and streamlining the features.
I found Google maps a very nice tool to create my map. However I did have to save often towards the end as it crashed several times. I believe this crashing was to do with the amount of icons upon the map, so at that point I decided I couldn't fit much more onto it. Crashing most commonly happened when I attempted to use the 'line' function. For this reason I avoided using it in excess.
For the photos required in the work I decided to further the comedic line of the piece while still having an appearance of usability. To do this I took photos from some interesting spots, adjusted the saturation, light levels and hue to create apocalyptic landscapes. To change this into something less serious I payed a friend (Sally B.) to create some cartoon zombies. I matched them to the lighting and saturation and inserted them into many of the photos.

What if I was a woman talking about sex?

Seriously? What if I was?
Seems to work for Abby Lee. Incredibly bloody well.
Seems to work for that made up character. You know the one I mean.
Pretending I'm a woman for the moment, I'm going to try something quite gratuitous.

He was tall. Like a tree. None of that bonsai crap though. He was a tall tree.
It occured to me, while staring quite reflexivly at his penis, that if I had sexual realtions with this man, he'd be the tallest man I had ever had.
< See post about first midget orgy >
Of course I'm just a woman (No, really, I am) and my role in such social situations is nomrally quite straight forward. I'm in the tower and wait politely...

I'm not a very good woman, am I?

Multiplicity/Production Project B

In the tutorial today we need to think up an idea for a website or service that somehow utilises Multiplicity.
Multiplicity is based on the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Websites such as youtube and wikipedia rely on this idea, as by combining what all their users have contributed they have more than any single company could create in terms of hours of footage and difference of opinion. Essentially Multiplicity is about democratising websites, for good and for ill.
My own idea for the tutorial is a system of organising meetings for a large amount of people. This is based on the idea that by collaborating on when a meeting should be held, more people may be able to attend compared to if a single person dicates a time they find appropriate.

There's a small ticking, far off, but not quite far away. His vision has dissolved to the screen, the single light in his life pouring out a warm languid glow.
His body contorts, wracks and ripples with laughter. He stops. He breathes out a sugared meat breath.
'Lol,' he shakes his head, his chins stop a minute later.
He stares, the ticking tempo increases. It slows down. Shifts unevenly, never quite stopping, but always seeming on the brink of such.
To the tick of his clock, there's a beat at the door.
He sits. He stares. He ticks away.

What's a blog? Why do we have the standards we do for this piece of communication? Should we have such standards?
Language is a human construct. If I tell you that someone is sitting down, it seems pretty straight forward. In your mind, they are most likely sitting with their knees bent at right angles on a chair of a Western height and style. However they may not be;
Details such as "47 degree bend on the left knee, 49 on the right, with the right calf perpendicular to his chin, and his left nostril slightly flared (14% wider than his right nostril (however the right is also 11% larger compared to its usual..."
...although accurate and able to communicate precisely what the author means, hurt.
Down the other end of the spectrum, communicating ideas on Web 2.0, cannot be as simple as "It's better".
Many areas between these two extremes can communicate bloggable ideas effectively, but most bloggers will write in a single style and voice, just as expression for a director may be limited to one genre of film they excel at, and therefore can only express in.
The above short narrative, can be argued to limit certain qualities, such as clarification about what it is about. However, in a narrative form, the ideas expressed are communicated metaphorically, and much more vividly. Most blogs rely on your understanding of the vocabularies, most novels on the other hand rely on your understanding of the human condition, and what the novel implies about your own world position.
"He died", is informative, but mostly communicates on a non-emotional level.
Where as "I held him as the lights went out. Slowly shuttering away as he gasped and dribbled. Subtle clicks beyond my hearing as the fluorescent angels fluttered out, the white expanse of the room narrowing to black. Then it was me, and him, alone in the dark as I felt his lungs stop moving." communicates with an emotional punch.
A blog about refugees that mentions their suffering will not be as powerful, or perhaps as widely read as a blog that contains a gripping narrative on the subject as well as the facts, and certainly the narrative will place the readers much better into the prosthetic legs of the victims.
I leave you with the following repetition:

What's a blog? Why do we have the standards we do for this piece of communication? Should we have such standards?
And of course: Why don't you do what you feel you wish to do?

CFAR Website Rationale

Not sure if I should submit this through Moodle, or I put it up as a blog, but here it is. This is about the Networked Media Production Assingment A.

I chose to Curate an Online Exhibition based on a selection of my Creative works. Due to the small amount of content featured on the website I was able to keep the navigation very simple.
To assist with this ease of navigation I provided indented menus on one of the main pages which lead to other works within that area.
To assist with presenting the photographic works on the website I used an API made in Yahoo Pipes, linking to a Set on my Flickr account.
On each page I did not provide a huge amount of explanation, this was so that in future I could add additional content at a later date as it would fit the same broad category.
This website has a very simple layout and design. This is mainly due to my lack of skill in the area but it also allows it to be accessed by mobile devices or various different browsers with relative ease.
The ease of coding has been enhanced by featuring notes within the coding.
The colour scheme is simple. If too many colours featured in the background the text would become more difficult to read.
I created Margins either side of the paragraphed text to enhance visual appeal, and to act as natural borders to the piece.
The navigation is featured towards the top of each page, as culturally that is where we are accustomed to seeing it. On the writing page, where there are additional links I decided to do them as a separated navigation section. This means that between all the pages the main navigation does not change.
The simplest was to give this unified feel to the website was to copy a large amount of the coding from one page into the next. Anyone using a page that clicked on a link and was catapulted into something with a very different look, would assume they’d left the original website.
I combated this with a great uniformity throughout the pages.
CSS also helped to create this unified feel. An issue I had with the way things were look could quickly and easily be changed in the CSS document and thus be applied to all pages.
Although this is a very simple website it is essentially a trimmed down version of most websites on the internet today. It has intentionally been written as the same basic layout that we have adopted culturally to allow users to instinctively know their way around.
The commonwealth bank website is in essence quite similar to the CFAR Website. Although the Commonwealth website is done with a much more visually interesting graphics, the basic layout design is the same i.e.

Top – Main Navigation
Bottom – Content and secondary navigation

Although basic, this layout has become quite intuitive through cultural exposure. Moving the main navigation to the bottom for instance, under the main content would confuse many people. They would also need to scroll past potentially pages and pages of content, potentially waiting for it to load before they could continue onto another page.

Why do we blog?

Why do we write diaries and blogs?
Because our lives are exciting to other people? To share thoughts? To indulge in our own personality and ideas? Because otherwise we won't remember the day? To leave something behind when we leave this universe?
I have a pretty damn boring life. For thoughts, indulgence and ideas I write stories. Remembering pointless things from the day means nothing to me.
For me, the only thing I'd ever blog or write a diary for is a sense of impending death. Or an assingment, of course.
In my writing class, I don't just write for the assingments, I write also for myself. It is an enjoyable thing I'd love to do as a job.
Is there anyone out there who does it for any other reason? I think most of the people reading this from UC's Networked Media Production class will feel their only reason is as an assingment.
Go on, tell me.