For my assignment involving keeping a web presence online, I chose to keep a theme of Christmas and Christmas baking (e.g. gingerbread, rocky road etc.) on various blogs and social networking sites through the form of photographs and text (the inclusion of recipes). I chose a main (central) node – Google Plus, and three contributing nodes – Blogger; twitter and; tumblr. I chose this variety of sites as I believed that they would give me a diverse range of keeping a presence on the web through different formats.
I chose my central node to my Google plus profile/account as it gave me the best format for being able to present myself and my theme. I was able to put my about page on my page through the about section of my profile, under the “story” sub-section. Also, I was able to put my other pages and their links in the section that asks for “links” area of the profile. I chose this as my central node as all my other accounts and blogs are connected to this account as they share this e-mail address. This means that everything that happens on my tumblr, blogger and twitter accounts will also come through my Google plus account, making it the centre of traffic for my web presence.
Choosing Twitter as one of my contributing nodes was the easiest decision I had made concerning this assignment. Using twitter I could have a simple and straight to the point blog/update system which I could post everything from my other nodes on in a quick form. Originally, I had intended for Twitter to be my main/central node, using it as the main traffic system for everything to go through. While everything still goes through my twitter account, I was unable to keep it as my central node as it wasn’t sufficient enough in maintaining the complete theme. Twitter being a short form blog means that I was unable to express a lot of my identity through it in ways such as lengthy posts, recipe updates and large files. Twitter was really only adequate as a site for posting photographs of my baking.
Tumblr was my next choice for a contributing node as it was a site that I’d had experience with previously. Knowing that tumblr, like twitter, works in a short blog form made it an easy choice for a contributing node as I knew I was going to be able to make many different updates on it through ways such as posts, photos, links as well as re-blogging. I took into consideration the fact that tumblr is generally associated with outcast and loner types. I feel that my extreme love of Christmas usually makes me stand out from the crowd, and, I was already aware that many people on tumblr do share the same rather weird and obsessive love for Christmas that I have always had. I also took into consideration the tag system on tumblr. With the inclusion of hash tags and tagging on tumblr, I am able to make a post and multiple people can see it through the tag system where they can search a general topic, for example Otters, and everything with the tag #Otters will appear in their search results. This tag system in effect makes my web presence much more existing as it becomes more available to other people.
My final choice for a contributing node was Blogger. I chose Blogger as my final node as I knew it would be a suitable format for posting longer text posts, such as recipes for food that I had baked over the course of the assignment. I found it helpful when posting the recipes that I would also allow me to include the photographs with the text, rather than posting the photographs after the text was written and published. A conscious part of my decision to include Blogger as a contributing node was the fact that it is a more formal and traditional blog form and it would give my presence more diversity than just social networking blogs and sites that are in short form. I liked the idea of having a more formal contributing node as I thought I believe that it has made my presence a little more professional and mature than it would have without it.
I do still believe that the nodes that I chose where the most suitable for my web presence as they gave me a diverse range of sites and blogs, and they also gave me several new experiences with learning about how to keep a presence on the web, as well as teaching me about ways to express my identity on the web, but in a safe and responsible way.
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