Top 10 Abbreviations - Reader Response

Top 10 NSFW Twitter Abbreviations

A post by Alexander Howard describes the top 10 NSFW Abbreviations. They help for when someone could be watching over their back or even walk into an office. Howard has the top ten abbreviations listed as follows:

“

WTF = What the F–k. As ThinkGeek wrote, ‘it’s not always possible to speak your mind on the Internet. So cyber-culture has developed a whole new way to curse and blaspheme without necessarily conjuring up the negativity associated with the whole phrases themselves.’ And as @rands pointed out, WTF should have been in the top 15 overall list. It’s a instant, concise expression of incredulity and critique.

OMFG = Oh My F___ing God. Like OMG, only stronger. The expression is nowhere near as common as WTF but expresses much the same sentiment.

LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off. Also LMFAO, for special emphasis. This comes up a fair bit, no doubt because there is plenty to laugh about on Twitter and in the wide world.

WTH = What the Hell. This expresses the same sentiment as WTF. Whether it’s stronger or not depends on how you feel about Hell or f—ing.

SOB = Son of a B–ch. At least, it used to until @lizstrauss rebranded SOB as Successful and Outstanding Blogger. As it turns out, being an SOB on Twitter might just be a good thing.

NFW = No F—ing Way. As in, ‘no way, no how, not ever’ or a stronger version of OMG. @markpinc was surprised about a a Bay Bridge closing, for instance. As they say, SH (s–t happens).

STFU = Shut The F–k Up. Also STHU, with Hell standing in. This could be used as a stronger OMG — but it can also be a precursor to someone blocking an account on Twitter.

FUBAR = F–ked Up Beyond All Repair. FUBAR originated with the US Army, where many situations ended up FUBAR’ed. According to Wikipedia, ‘electronics engineers report that SNAFU and FUBAR were used before World War II by repairmen sent out to repair phone booths. You might remember it from Saving Private Ryan.

SNAFU = Situation Normal All F–ked Up. SNAFU, referenced above, is another geeky notation of resignation to an ugly reality, industry event or other news.

Bonus: RTFM = Read The F–king Manual. This is the classic complaint of a sysadmin or help desk associate to colleagues. On the Web, it’s about reading the FAQ (RTFF) or the question (RTFQ). I wouldn’t be surprised if reading the tweet (RTFT) showed up soon, either.(pistachio)

”

I truly don’t know where the abbreviation NSFW came from. Do people in the work place really need these abbreviations? I guess if you only can use 140 characters it makes sense but how did all these get so popular? I am familiar with some of the terms that have been around forever like WTF, STFU, and LMAO. I heard the majority of these by playing online video games growing up. I also think it’s pretty cool that we have words that date back to World War II. Who would have thought that we decided to start using them online? As far as NFW and RTFM where did they come from? Wth? (I had to do it) I have never seen those abbreviations before and now they are on the top 10. I don’t think I am a big enough tweeter to be able to keep up with all these new abbreviations if new ones keep getting made.

This post talks about knowing the NSFW abbreviations could save you from getting in trouble. I think it’s pretty bogus if people are getting in trouble for words that may appear on their screen. Is someone hovering over your shoulder to begin with? Now someone landing in a pornography website could be a different story in the work place. The post says “Clicking on the wrong link in a Tweet could land you in a world of trouble if you then land on a pornography website from a work machine.” (Howard) I still find it hard to believe that you could find yourself at one of those pages. I guess it’s possible I just can’t see myself seeing an abbreviation and clicking on it without reading any of the content around it.

I can see this has helpful for some but find it kind of random. Is this really a big issue in the work place? They should be free to be able to do whatever kind of research needed to get the job done. If they end up mistakenly at an inappropriate site then that shouldn’t be an issue. Now if someone were on an inappropriate site for a long period of time then you might want to see that the person gets some help. I guess my point is we shouldn’t have to hide behind these abbreviations and people shouldn’t be doing personal social networking at the work place.

It's time to upgrade - Reader Response

Multimedia... but why?

In this post Mark Luckie talks about an ad that he saw in Complex magazine showing a timeline of Calvin Klein. He says ““They should have made that into a multimedia presentation," I thought. I then paused and asked myself why. Why would this already nicely designed info graphic need the interactive treatment? “(1000 Words)

He then talks about how there are so many sources of news available on the web that users are able to find there information from just skimming. I know I personally do a lot of skimming and manage to find all the appropriate material to have a good attitude on a subject. Creating multimedia packages only gets users more involved rather than text based. People are actually interacting with the content creating a clearer exemplar that will stick in their minds. This isn’t saying that text is bad it’s just people now a days would much rather watch a movie than read a book. “In the end, the most important thing is that interactive news stories encourage the reader to walk away with a greater understanding of the concept presented before them and encourage a larger audience to do so.” (1000 Words)

This only makes me think about what websites could be looking like in the future. Currently I am designing a website for my fraternity Chi Phi and I am thinking about re-making the entire thing now. Rather than having a bunch of text based information posted all around on the website create informative videos for each page describing the category of that page. I feel that this would attract more viewers to the site because they would have to scroll through a bunch of information to find what they need. I can see many sites transforming to make them more interactive for users.
With the way technology is advancing today I wouldn’t be surprised if many news sites converted to video clips and interactive flash games to tell the story in a different way. It really makes me wonder if there is ever going to be a time where we go paperless.

Epic Productions! NMC 301 Group Project

This week I had the opportunity to interview two very influential people in the New Media Communications department, Pamela Cytrynbaum and Ann Robinson. We interviewed them for our NMC 301 group project designing a video to define what New Media is and what you can do with it. I had a great time filming both of these interviews with Tom and Casey, I am sure we could all agree we learned a lot through these experiences. I enjoy hearing other peoples stories it really expands my thinking on what I could possibly be doing in the future. It was also nice of them to relate what they were talking about to some of the work that I have been doing in the department. It only gets me that much more excited to continue on and keep pushing myself to the limit. Today we will be having an organizational meeting to get ourselves up to par with what needs to be done. The team has also decided to call ourselves Epic Productions as this video could lead to other opportunities or even the possibility of a start up, you never know who could be looking at what we are doing.

What about beer pong? - Reader Response

Dudes! Time for Beer Pong! CollegeHumor.com Invades MTV

College Humor, which is a website devoted to humorous pictures and videos that happen in a college atmosphere. Over the course of time they have earned quite the reputation with the younger crowd and attracted audiences all around the country. The websites humor is being compiled into a new 30 minute television series on MTV. They used their existing staff as actors and did all the shooting in their actual office which to me is pretty cool to be able to use all original material. Around the office it is said that they like to play a lot rather than work but by playing they seem to get a lot of work done when it comes to creating and thinking of content. This is pretty cool how the website grew enough that MTV wanted to make a show on them. I am really trying to think of a website idea that no one has come up with so I can get big in some way. I think it would be cool if I created a site that became so popular MTV would want to make it a show.

Some of the producers said that they thought it would be hard to get normal people to become actors but things just happened to work out. There were definitely times when things got awkward or you would see an employee running from set to set going to check their email. It almost makes me want to make an episode of the day and a life I live going through college in my fraternity. There is definitely a side of Greek life that not everyone sees and it sucks how the stereotypes have built them to being just hardcore partiers.

Another thing I found interesting in the post was it said “Taping a short Web show takes two crew members; shooting an MTV episode takes about a dozen.” This is crazy I’m curious what everyone would have to do, I am thinking it’s just multiple cameras, lights, and then sound guys. I am going to be creating a new TV show next term for KBVR that will allow me to go out into the field more and I can see myself using quite a crew as I hope to make this a great production to show off in my portfolio.

NMC 301 group project progression

Today we met up in the MU and discussed our project to become a bit more on the same page. The only bad thing is seven people decided not to show up so I hope they find the incentive to figure out what is going on and what they need to get done. I have been currently working on a run sheet for the video and just trying to get a general theme for the video. I have been exploring other videos to see if I can find one that relates to what we are doing. I am also going to be filming the interview for Pamela Cytrynbaum which will happen sometime later in this week. I have also been looking into anything that I can get from KBVR because that is one connection that I have and it is a great resource. Casey and I are also looking into web template to have a place where we can aggregate all of our content. I am also there for anyone who may need any help with anything I have a decent knowledge in the general concept of the project and I don’t mind helping with whatever thing I can.

Is she really an undergrad? Lindsay Schnell Guest Speaker for NMC 301 class.

Lindsay Schnell has been known for her work at Sports Illustrated and The Oregonian. She shared many of her experiences taking us throughout the ups and downs of her career. “She has a real tough attitude” said Pamela Cytrynbaum, she goes after what’s she wants and doesn’t let anybody get in her way. Schnell also brings up a point of confidence “don’t be shy to say your kick ass at what you do.” Having that confidence in your work will only make you glow even more, it shows that you really put in the time and effort.

Throughout her speech she continued to reference all her connections. She would go out on a limb and introduce herself to anyone that may benefit her. I can relate to this as I am now trying to build my network and get my name out there as much as possible. I feel this to be very important when trying to get a job in the media especially with how the economy is now. She is a highly motivated person and seems to love what she is doing. I agree with her 100 percent when she says if you don’t like what you’re doing then you need to find a new passion. I used to be engineering major. Which was enjoyable at first then over the course of time I decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do the rest of my life and changed into the New Media Communication field.

I also found the guest post that she did on one of SI’s blogs, Guest Post: Lindsay Schnell. I found it pretty witty as she was just strait up about everything and said that she was the better blogger. It was also nice of her to help us out with our final project. She points out that you need to do a little background reporting to help make it more of a conversation rather than an interrogation. It is also important that you avoid yes or no questions, you really just want a person to talk story with you to get the best content. Thank you Lindsay if you ever read this! She really points out to me that when trying to get in the media world you have to be motivated, confident, and maintain a good social standing with connections.

Facebook in person - Reader Response

The video Facebook doesn't want you to see



Here's the description from YouTube:

"What would it be like if Facebook was actually played out in real life? As featured on BBC Three show 'The Wall'"

This was great! I don’t know what life would be like if we didn’t have our social networking sites. I know it wouldn’t be like this video but none the less things would most likely be pretty different. This video provides an example of what facebook would look like if it were to play in a real life scenario. I thought it was funny when a person spray painted on someone’s house saying that they were writing on his wall and everybody can see it. They did a great job making this video they dropped all the right lines to make it match right up with the site. Eric Zorn explains how facebook took it off his profile, “facebook has removed this video from my page and, I'm assuming, many others.”Due to privacy settings," says the note. Right. Looks to me like they can't take a joke...”

This video may be funny but at the same time it is how our culture is becoming to be on facebook. People are friend requesting random people that they saw in their class or walking back from a party. I personally have gotten a few random requests from people in my classes but I usually don’t accept them until I actually shake hands with the person and meet them. Would we be more social if we didn’t have social networking? I can’t even predict whether we would be more social or not because it’s hard to picture not checking my facebook 15 times a day.

This also makes me think of who could possibly be viewing my profile. People that are higher up in the food chain and possibly looking to employee me at some point. I would just hope that they wouldn’t judge me based on what my hobbies could be. Seems a bit unfair to me, I mean everyone likes to have a good time every once and a while. So an embarrassing photo makes its way onto the internet, I get a job interview and kill it, then come to find out I don’t get the job because of a picture they found of me on the internet. That’s bogus, I feel if someone has the right knowledge, skills, and the mindset there is no reason why a picture on the internet should be the choosing factor of whether someone gets the job or not. I can see the content of someone’s page being more of a factor like how they present themselves on their page. Like if a person were to say all they like to do is drink and do drugs all the time. That would be something to consider, but if someone talks about what they are involved in and what good they are doing in the community, then that should benefit them. Think about life without facebook employers wouldn’t have the option to look through all your pictures they would only know your experiences and what you tell them. Regardless social networking is something that has become of the norm and everyone knows about it. I can definitely see both sides of the argument with employers researching people’s profiles, which is why I keep mine somewhat appropriate. I just hope I don’t encounter any negative experiences through what I may put on my facebook page.

How much of a webpage do you actually look at? - Reader Response

Eyetrack studies: What we've learned and how to conduct your own

This post provides four examples of what most web users do when browsing the internet.

1. Users will skip anything that looks like an ad
2. Readers like “F”s
3. The higher your search engine rank, the more visitors you will attract
4. Young people want info and they want it now

Being an amateur web designer I can relate to this post as I do skip through a lot of content on the web and only check out what catches my eye or keeps me interested. I am really curios how they would study this. Do they put a bunch of people in a room on computers browsing the internet and record them? It makes you wonder what kind of habits we have. I wonder how I would compare to other people.

In the study it says that users will skip anything that looks like an ad and I believe this unless the ad had some sort of interaction involved. I am sure we all remember the old myspace ads that had you shoot something then you win some outrageous prize. I haven’t come across one of those recently but I have seen some that are designed really well and animated which draws me in.

Here is an image demonstrating with the heat filter where your eyes look most.



Apparently readers browse sites like they are “F”s which is completely understandable. All the cool interesting stuff is at the top, then in the middle there is that extra bit of information that you just have to have, and then finally you get bored at the bottom of the site with a bunch of unnecessary content.

"At the top, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent quickens and horizontal sight contracts, with a slowdown around the middle of the page," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Near the bottom, eyes move almost vertically, the lower-right corner of the page largely ignored." (1000 WORDS)

Number three the higher your search engine the more visitors you will attract. This is obvious everybody clicks on the first few links they come across when searching on Google. I need to look into finding out how to get my websites ranks up. Same story with number four young people want info and they want it now. Like for example you make a search and you don’t find what you want on the first few pages, so you change the keywords in your search bar and try a different search.

I found this post very helpful for my future in web design they also included links of site that will test the friendliness of my page; CrazyEgg and clickdensity.

ESPN meets EA Sports in a video game/ TV collaboration. - Reader Response

At ESPN, Play-by-Play Goes Virtual

I think this is pretty cool a combination of ESPN sports and Electronic Arts sports. Bring the video game world with the television world will only attract new viewers just because it is something new and exciting. The Walt Disney Company has been working on this new technology for the last year that will allow for the host to interact with virtual players.



This is really interesting stuff I am excited to see the different types of technology that are coming out. They said that they will soon be able to create a sequence that will show different scenario of a play, the example they use is what would have happened if Peyton Manning thrown right instead of left.

I think we will be seeing more and more of this as time goes on. People are always in search of what’s new and exciting. I can see other channels besides ESPN teaming up with the video game world to attract like minds. Channels like the Science Fiction channel combining some creepy monsters from a game with human actors to create a 3D world. This will only attract new young viewers of the program as they see familiar characters from their video games.

I don’t have the biggest reaction to this article it is just cool to learn about it. In 2005 Electronic Arts and ESPN made a contract worth $850 million for EA to create games that use the ESPN name and content. That is a huge number, it’s crazy to think how much is behind the scenes of the $50 dollar game you buy at the store or behind the set of Sports Center. I think it would be cool to be working in a department of either companies and I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.

I want a free whopper! - Reader Response

Friends, Until I Delete You



Where was I when this happened? I would have totally deleted 10 friends for a free whopper. Couldn’t I just go add them again after I got my burger? I think that this is pretty wild, I understand Burger King trying to get a little extra advertising but just how this article talked about how they feel offended when someone unfriends them on facebook. Personally I don’t think I would even notice if someone unfriended me, it must mean I don’t talk to them enough in the first place. Unless it was someone I had a good connection with but I don’t think that type of person would even unfriend me in the first place.

This article talked about the application on facebook that would allow you to receive a free whopper if you delete 10 of your friends. They said there were 234,000 friendships that were ended from the event. This post also points out that it’s a good idea to go through all of your friends at least once every year and delete the people you quite frankly just don’t know anymore because you only met them once or they are just strangers. I am probably going to go through my friends after I am done with this post.

Brian Gies, a vice president of marketing who didn’t participate in the event explained the marketing team’s thinking about Facebook. “It seemed to us that it quickly evolved from quality of friends to quantity,” he said, “which was interesting to us because it felt like the virtual definition of a friend became something different than the friends that you’d want to hang out with.” (NY Times Douglas Quenqua) This quote really got me thinking about the reasons that I am friends with somebody on facebook in the first place. Things that come to mind are actually being friends with them, going to school with them, met them the night before, saw them on campus, or just thought they had a cool name. I remember in my early college years seeing a girl on campus that smiled at me but didn’t say anything, so I just decided to add her to my friends on facebook. She accepted but we never actually said anything to each other we were just facebook friends. Now I realize it was a pretty silly thing to do, I should probably go delete her.

Another quote from this post that I enjoyed was from Mr. Blodget who asked Facebook to develop new friendship levels that would let users sort their acquaintances by degree of separation. He suggested categories like “ ‘personal friends’ or ‘work friends’ or ‘extra special friends’ or ‘BFFs’ or ‘friends you want to hear meaningless trivia about all day long,’ ” and implored, “Please give me the ability to put friends in these groups without telling them I have done so.” (NY Times Douglas Quenqua) I think that would be a great idea because it would allow you to keep track of those certain groups at whatever rate you may want to. I think it would be cool to have a page full of all the friends that I am in recent contact with. Overall I thought this post was decent, it did get me to think about what kind of friends I have on facebook, but I still don’t think befriending someone might cause that much drama especially if I got a message saying that they did it for a whopper.

Parents on Facebook? - Reader Response

Stanford U. Researcher Teaches Noncredit 'Facebook for Parents' Course

When first thinking on this subject I thought it was crazy, I mean my parents getting a facebook. I don’t want them to see everything I am doing, any pictures that I may be in, or even if any girls that are talking to me. What would that do to my social status if I have my mom started writing on my wall? I might have to change a few things around. In the end I might be able to accept it, it could be a good way to keep in contact with my parents.

When I first started reading this article I chuckled a bit to myself because they were offering a class teaching parents how to use facebook. It’s like a facebook for dummies crash course, like the book. I don’t need to make fun of anyone it’s just I am like a facebook fanatic now and anybody that doesn’t have one is out of the loop. It’s great that Stanford University is offering a non-credit course “Facebook for Parents” under the collected data of researcher BJ Fogg. I wonder if my parents would even be interested. In the post they have a website that has tips for parents for facebook called Facebook for Parents.

I’m actually debating whether or not I want to show them. Part of me says to do it because it might make me more aware of what I am actually doing. I think I might actually talk to them more then I do now if I were to get more of a connection. I wonder what facebook would be like if everyone’s parents had one. It might just get corrupted and then a new social networking site would popup out of nowhere getting everyone away from the parents. Then they would have to have another class teaching them how to use the next site. The possibility of a simpler site made for family trees would be pretty cool. Make a way for all of your relatives to connect at one place that is exclusive to their tree. I might want to copyright this. There is probably a site for this created already that I just haven’t found or maybe there is one in the works.

This post was good it really got me thinking about the possibility of my parents getting on social networking. It also got me to think of a new site idea. Maybe someday there will be a time when my parents are talking to me over the internet. It may be a while though considering the fact that my parents have a hard enough time texting.

Finding music for your low budget production team - Reader Response

Where to find free sound effects and royalty-free music

This is an awesome find! While being a producer for KBVR this will help me with so much! Currently I am working on the OSU Dating Game and we are still in need of extra tracks. We have a few great sound tracks in our introduction and ending, then we have laughter and applause but it’s always nice to change it up every once and a while. I would still like to find some music to put in the beginning of the program to help grab the viewers’ attention when the host is introducing the show or at the end when the contestant wins. It would be awesome to get an upbeat classic tune when the host introduces the three contestants. This will be great audio is a great way to make a production great. You can change viewers emotions based on the type of music that you play. For example in scary movies when someone is walking alone the a dark mansion at night with the floor creaking then all of a sudden some eerie music starts playing, it slowly speeds up and then… BAM something crazy happens!

This post has plenty of great resources to go to for extra tunes or sound effects. I haven’t had too much time to fully explore these sites but I had to represent:

Royalty Free Music
Public Domain 4U
Musopen
Sound Snap
Find Sounds

This also makes me more aware of the copy write world; you never know what kind of people could come after you for the smallest thing you broadcast to the public. I have always been scared of something like that happening to me without even knowing it. It’s also pretty wild to be thinking about how many different things are copyrighted. Could I get caught without even knowing it if something I made was too similar to another persons?

At the end of the post they had a video example of sound mixing. In the beginning it really caught my attention with the dramatic music and what seemed to be a principle of a school saying that boy needs some sort of punishment! I almost felt like I was the one being yelled at. Then when the bass line dropped it caught me and I had to finish the video.



This was a sweet post to find and I look forward to exploring those websites more.