Grammar, spelling & social media February 4, 2010
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Social Media.Tags: colloquialism, English, grade school, grammar, spelling
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As I was writing my last post – “Podcasting” – I ran into a minor situation regarding spelling/grammar. If you read the post, you might notice that I used the colloquial short-form “vid”, which if you didn’t know is short for videos. Actually, the previous sentence contains a contraction, “didn’t”, which normally I spell out fully.
I realized that when I started this blog, and for the most part throughout each post, as far as I remembered, I tried to write in fairly proper, somewhat formal, English. I tried to use what I was taught in grade school, and back when I was in grade school contractions were still considered informal. It wasn’t that you couldn’t use it in essays and such; it was just more formal to spell it out fully. I remember in I believe grade 6 going through a phase where I even spoke out contractions fully – I would say “did not” instead of “didn’t”.
Going back to the previous post, I, without consciously thinking, typed vid after the word Youtube. I then had this ‘policing’ thought that said “vid is not formal English, and you wanted to use formal English in this blog; so what choice are you going to make?” Now I made the choice to keep vid, and it’s because I realized that social media is about expressing who you are – at least it is when used by the lay. Therefore it should be alright if I use contractions and short-forms. At least, as long as I am alright with it. But I shouldn’t not be alright with it for the sake of some instilled standard from childhood. This is especially poignant when thinking about the topic of the previous post – podcasting. This is one medium of social media where there is even more a divide between formal and informal English.
So in the end, I think I need to reevaluate my instilled childhood standards and either keep them or release them based on who I am now and what fits with my values.
DH
Podcasting February 4, 2010
Posted by David Hiran Watson in About Me, Social Media.Tags: How To videos, podcasts, Tinkernut, twitter, Wordpress, Youtube
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I’m thinking about starting a podcast. I’ve never considered it before, but one of the tweeps I follow on Twitter – @minervity – had an article about podcasting. You can find the article here. The article embeds a few Youtube vids, most notably (or at least the one I checked out) was by Tinkernut. Tinkernut, as far as I can tell from the videos I’ve seen that they produced, create How To videos for tech-related things. The video I checked out regarding podcasting was this one. All I need to do now is buy a mic.
Getting back to the starting a podcast idea, even though I’ve never considered it, it suddenly interested me. If you’re someone who reads this blog regularly, you might be thinking: “Podcasts, like blogs, should be updated fairly regularly. If you can’t update this blog that frequently, how are you going to maintain a podcast?” And I state that because it’s the very thought I had. Well, to be honest, I’m not sure how I’ll maintain the podcast. Or rather, I’m not sure how frequently the podcast will happen. There’s a good chance it’s more likely to be maintained than this blog, because in a sense it’s less work as I’m talking as opposed to typing. But I think my biggest challenge is my level of interest – it waxes and wanes. I almost literally have (or at least used to have) interests of the week. That’s why all my social media outlets – this blog, Twitter, Facebook – are infrequently updated. That’s also why having a Blackberry helps: having a constant reminder of these outlets gets me to attend to these outlets.
Anyway, if I do go ahead with podcasting, I will link to the site and rss feed. Also as a heads up, this blog might move. Basically I currently don’t have my own hosting solution (since I don’t have my own website) to install WordPress and run my own blog. Therefore I used WordPress’ free hosting solution – www.wordpress.com. Unfortunately most plugins available for WordPress are available for the version you download, install and set up yourself (via the .org site). This includes an app to host a podcast. However my church is in the process of setting up a website. Once this gets set up, there’s a good chance I can set up my own blog there using the WordPress version you download and move this blog over to that one. I just hope I can move all my current posts, including date/time-stamps.
DH
Blogging your way into marriage! April 6, 2009
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Marriage, Social Media, Social Networking.Tags: blogging, blogosphere, love, Marriage, New York Times, Social Media, Social Networking
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Check out this article about a blogger who fell in love with one of her commenters, and they are planning to get married.
I’ve heard about couples getting married in MMPORPGs (Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game), such as Everquest or World Of Warcraft. It usually happens along these lines: the two players meet each other through the game and initially chat through the game while having their characters complete game tasks together. Eventually the players decide to meet up offline and love blooms resulting in marriage. Apparently on Everquest there are even couples whose characters are married in the game as well as they – the players themselves – are married in real life!
Coming back to the article, I have to say that this is intriguing. In one sense, I’m not the least bit surprised this situation arose, but instead perhaps surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. I find it interesting that some other major bloggers have negative reactions to this. In fact, I like the way the article is written – as a modern day peasant-and-bourgeousie situation in the blogosphere. I wonder if these nay-sayers do, even sub-consciously, see themselves as above their commenters?
For me, all of this comes down to one thing we need to remember: people will use whatever they can to meet a life-partner. Let me rephrase that to something more pithy. Love knows no boundaries and will blossom in whatever soil it is given. As long as a medium allows some level of human interaction, that medium can be used to meet your future spouse/partner/significant other. And nobody should be surprised at that. Now I wonder if the various social media and social networking sites have been used as matchmaking tools?
DH
