tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84900996486491212552024-03-14T17:23:39.271+01:00MinaMaticImprovements for travel.mediamatic.netEmina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-66237980343239646682010-01-23T16:28:00.001+01:002011-11-30T00:51:50.287+01:00Chat with Robert Kluijver<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;">Today I had an interesting chat with Robert Kluijver, one of our Mediamatic Travel guides. He's going to Skopje in March to do a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_city">creative city</a> workshop.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;">We discussed what would be the most appropriate way to communicate Skopje's creativity on our Mediamatic Travel website and came to the conclusion that not only guides, but also people with a profile that would just like to add pictures or texts, should be able to participate. In this scenario the guide will become a cultural manager in the process than the sole contributor and contact person of the city's underground.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;">Robert was very pleased with this idea. It also made his job easier, as he only needs to contact one person who's fit to be the guide of Skopje. Subsequently the guide will invite the whole artistic network of Skopje to start contributing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 100%;">Next week I'll be focussing on the 'invite friend'-button to ease the proces of inviting a person to contribute.</span></div>
</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-6621167874694425952010-01-19T14:08:00.011+01:002011-11-29T18:02:12.719+01:00A quick update: new implementationsWhile I'm theorizing what the communication-tools should look like and how we could improve the interactivity and participation on our travel website, the technical staff has alread implemented some improvements I mentioned in my earlier posts. Hura x3!<br /><br /><span style="font-<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">A quick update: The open-CI people are removed from the city</span><span style="font-<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_37"> pages. In other words; every person page that accidentally appeared in the citypage, is now removed. Also the images that were showing twice in the citypages are removed. The page now looks neat!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_64">We also gave the </span><span style="font-<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_78">guide-section a nice title and introduction, so people know in what kind of page they are. Still there's some work to be done here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-<span class=" id="SPELLING_ERROR_95">We are going to implement the new 'action-dialogue' or 'flap' soon. This will be a mayor revolution in the look of our website.</span><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-38802195002833281832010-01-13T15:29:00.002+01:002011-11-30T01:18:21.380+01:00Homepage Cartoon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My assignment for this week is to create a way of communicating the main function of our website on the homepage. Willem suggested communicating Mediamatic Travel's main function in a cartoon. So, I've sent everybody I know that is equiped with mad illustration skills an invitation to participate in making a comic. The best contribution will be used on the homepage.</span></span><br />
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-10896240469807702822010-01-11T15:30:00.009+01:002011-11-30T23:27:45.840+01:00Matching guides and visitors with dating<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441071229654434018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdj50bKAkU4YBtW4z-2ptOPUs5kyRzEzEUBGysOtPiUkcMgr1zN3bmB3rKJbFnV49hfGqHYRMXUv4epmJtkUO3Mvu929txGqK6gqbx1jZ8FSLSx6WcVJ18Cs2w0FHle_Do88yUIpsOtno/s320/cartoon+dating.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 154px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">I've noticed that my latest posts are more or less about the appearance of the Travel-profile.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"> What should the guidepage or profile page look like? Drawing from my former posts, I can only conclude one thing: Remove the guidepage and use the principles of dating to match profiles with one another.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Why dating you may ask. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">Although the travel-site is not a dating site, some very important similarities can be found. In both cases the aim is eventually to meet each other in real-life. In both cases the members have the same goal, the same interest or need something only the other can provide. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">I've been participating in the </span><a href="http://www.mediamatic.net/page/28034/en" style="color: #5588aa; font-family: Georgia, serif; text-decoration: none;">Mediamatic Datingsite </a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">now for a while and noticed that strangers are continuously contacting each other, and interacting with each other; online as well as offline. We can learn from that. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">So, how does a dating site link people with each other? A dating site requires members to answer fixed questions, so that important features and interests are covered. Fixed questions will thus give us the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">possibility of linking people with each other based on their interests and demographics. They also</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;"> provide visitors with relevant information about others. Moreover from the user's point of view i</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">t's much easier to answer questions than to find inspiration to write something yourself: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia;">The profile looks instantly full.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">The questionnaire should have a fill-in form, be relevant, fun and quickly to complete. We should maybe even enable visitors to draw a map where they're going or at least have a question that is concerned with their travel plans. The dating aspect will also enable visitors to get in touch with eachother and link themselves to an event/organisation/place/location.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"> This way guides will be able to see who matches to what they've got to offer. The guides will see who prospect visitors are, instead of waiting for someone to contact them. This two-way of communication helps constructing a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px;">sense of community </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">I spoke about in my earlier </span><a href="http://minamatic.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-motivate-people.html" style="color: #5588aa; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-decoration: none;">posts</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">By using dating features in our Mediamatic Travel project we'll help people find others that can mean something to them and lower the barrier of contacting each other. Whether adding dating features to our project will elicit these results, is something we'll have to test. </span></div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-7031085992116592022010-01-11T11:08:00.022+01:002011-11-30T01:18:11.287+01:00Guides like to share their guidance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This is an e-mail I received this morning that triggered me to write this post...which </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">proves I'm a bit slow since I received about a ton of similar e-mails that didn't ring a bell. Shame on me. Here's the email. I've made the important things </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">bold</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">"Hi </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Emina</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">,</span></i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">First of all I wish you a fantastic 2010!</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">I'm sorry my answer took so long. After our last contact a couple of months ago, I have </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">added more info to the page of [City]</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> and intend to go further with it, as soon as I get some free time.</span></i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">I would also love to become a travel guide. The only problem is, that I live in Amsterdam, and could be of assistance to travelers on location in [City] only for a limited time period, say a month or two per year.</span></span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">However, I told </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">some friends in [City]</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> about it and they were</span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> v</span></b><b><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">ery </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">enthusiastic about taking part</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> in making the page of [City] more attractive and becoming guides.</span></i></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; line-height: 20px;">Of course I will keep you up to date and I hope I can turn to you, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">if necessary, for help.</span></span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Regards,</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">[Guide]"</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This letter really shows what has been asked from me the ultimate three months of being an editor at </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Mediamatic Travel</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">First of all people want to add their favorite things to a city, not to their </span></span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">guidepage!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> It indicates that having </span><i style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">your</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> page with </span><i style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">your</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"> favorite things isn't that important to guides at all. What's important is that your favorites are added to the city page.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Second, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">people don't mind to share their guiding. I think we thought guides would be very competitive to attract the most visitors.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> However this is not the case, they are actually happy to share the guiding with their network.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Once again I have to conclude that the guidepage should be removed and becoming a guide should be made much easier. Also we have to find a way to communicate the inactivity of guides.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> Guides now just finish their guidepage and then quit participating. There has to be a way of communicating this o potential visitors/ viewers of the guidepage.</span></div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-67832655221102406412010-01-07T12:10:00.013+01:002011-11-30T23:33:42.462+01:00Creating sociability and the importance of tracking and linking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sociability works in a slightly different way online than in real life. Of course there's a greater focus on textuality and online features ( images, personal information and a particular presentation). Right now I'm referring to sociability as a process of 'getting to know someone'.</div>
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Let me give you an example. Facebook does a great job with this. It offers the possibility to track people. Not only is it a great feature for you to get into contact with old buddies, but it's also a very important feature for people to track you (where did you work, for how long, who do you know who works there as well?). Facebook is also a great networking tool to link yourself to interesting parties. These appealing features assure the networks growth and the constant flow of personal information added.</div>
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Furthermore the status-feature in Facebook can be used a s a personal diary. You can basically track the status-changes of a contact to see what he or she's been up to the last few days (even if you weren't online during that period). Facebook provides outside parties with a particular narrative of an user, with the story of a particular period in time.</div>
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The more I think of it, the more I agree with what already has been said about online interaction. To form a trustworthy personality online, a person needs to interact online. Only by linking yourself with different projects, jobs, people, etc.. and by having interaction with those things, will it give your interaction online a real, a human feel. This is probably why online social networking is so fun to do in the first place. Interaction online thus requires easy tools for linking yourself to others and expressing enough to have a human and real feel to it. Within the Travel Project these communication tools for interaction are even more important since the whole reliability/personality of the guides depends on their personal presentation online.</div>
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Needless to say, we need more interaction features. But what kind? I think linking is a very good one, and it's actually one of the specialities of Mediamatic..but what kind of linking do we need? Links based on what?</div>
</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-26601206105472929822010-01-05T16:35:00.000+01:002011-11-30T23:34:47.494+01:00A quick heads up on the results of the guides questionnaire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_EHWMzhCojfKj2214f-0hqzchVgqy7gs8_WMdoLHlGKWkEQmrhAQjlDzPs4TDu_1-nbOH0sbri3aYksPWEjqZH6ICqvH8vFmplagmaYG7WGknDjkMqqupoX95W7upv7tVQti2pUH-zQ/s1600-h/cartoon+questionnaire.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441070886584256466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU_EHWMzhCojfKj2214f-0hqzchVgqy7gs8_WMdoLHlGKWkEQmrhAQjlDzPs4TDu_1-nbOH0sbri3aYksPWEjqZH6ICqvH8vFmplagmaYG7WGknDjkMqqupoX95W7upv7tVQti2pUH-zQ/s320/cartoon+questionnaire.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 258px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This is just a quick heads up on the results that came out of the questionnaire I've sent out to all guides in the Mediamatic Travel project. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- It seems to be that friends and family play a big part in informing guides about the Mediamatic Travel project. Internet is the second player in the promotion of the Travel-site. To me, this information stresses the importance of inviting your network. It also shows we are not doing enough to promote the travel-site by Mediamatic.net, the magazine, the media or work.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- The most important reasons for guides to keep participating are 'promoting my own projects' and 'informing people about the underground culture'. There are guides that would rather promote their project and not necessarily guide others. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Everybody would like to have the contributions 'Place' and 'Cafe' added. Also almost everybody has difficulties adding the location to their contributions. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />- Guides are specifically asking for more communication tools. They want a visible comment bar in their guidepage, some sort of feedback section and tools for promoting themselves.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Finally I could distinguish between 4 types of users: spectators, visitors, contributors and guides. For a profound explanation of the four types, please check out my final paper in About. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-size: 100%;">Mind that these results are preliminary result. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">To see the actual </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">questionnaire</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, click</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><a href="https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGNHUzNRVkhvaEp5OUtPY1NGN3ZQTHc6MA" style="font-size: medium;">here</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-2057680764406139232010-01-03T16:09:00.010+01:002011-12-01T00:38:02.227+01:00Living up to expectations our users have about Mediamatic travel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtdri0hPt50Hvjn_cJwxjHbSVcoA4J5_7jNgEwwAVePKhoNg8tuxZ6AP-jaeGrRZLtfB3wWguKCbp-vqn2OPoQNP-6orK4_ueminS1K5QR1_d-82F2XCBX9I-DekRm8UA0SMaEgg8LNU/s1600-h/the-computer-demands-a-blog.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423667331476957490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPtdri0hPt50Hvjn_cJwxjHbSVcoA4J5_7jNgEwwAVePKhoNg8tuxZ6AP-jaeGrRZLtfB3wWguKCbp-vqn2OPoQNP-6orK4_ueminS1K5QR1_d-82F2XCBX9I-DekRm8UA0SMaEgg8LNU/s320/the-computer-demands-a-blog.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 192px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
People act according to the expectations that they have of particular contexts. When most users visit this <a href="http://comics212.net/2009/11/19/japan-trip-2009-jinbocho/comment-page-1/">site</a>, particular schemata in their brains are activated that will signal them that this site is probably a blog. The typical interface of a blog contains comments on the bottom of each post, extra information or other posts on the left or right and some sort of navigation-menu. Of course blogs can vary in their presentation, but most of them stick to this basic format. The reason why this format works is simple; people instantly know where to look for information and wether this information is relevant to them. Nobody wants to waste time trying to figure things out that are supposed to be easy.<br />
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The expectations users have of our website is that it's a social travel network. Meet people working in the arts around the world, find treasures hidden in the underground. You can even become a guide yourself and guide others in the rural scenes of your city. </div>
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However becoming a guide is extremely difficult. It's almost impossible to do without instructions of the editors. I discovered that it's easy for users to set up a profile and add contributions to their city. The trouble begins when I make them aware that they have to set up a guidepage and put all those contributions inside, as well as more information of them being a guide (usually this information has already been put in their profile) to become a guide. This is the point where it all goes wrong, they loose interest and stop contributing. It's just too much.</div>
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So why was the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">guidepage introduced</span></span> in the first place? Because of the open-CI with M<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">ediamatic</span></span>. The first guides that joined the project already had a profile at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Mediamatic</span>, so the open-CI issue had to be solved. The project however is growing and growing with each new member registering a T<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">ravel-profile</span>. It doesn't make sense anymore to have the guidepages linked to a Mediamatic profile. </div>
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Discovering hidden places of the underground is also a very time-consuming task. The problem here is that all the contributions that need to show up in the city-page are randomly displayed. Moreover the citypage can only show approximately 30 contributions which results in guides asking me why their contribution doesn't show up in the citypage. The reason is that we just have too much contributions and while it's great having a large number of contributions, it doesn't really come in handy if you can't guarantee visibility and find-ability of the content. On the other hand, if we let all the contributions appear, you'd have to scroll all the way down to see all the contributions and that's just as invisible.</div>
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Contacting guides has been made very easy though with the introduction of the<a href="http://minamatic.blogspot.com/2009/11/total-flap-makeover.html" target="_blank"> 'flap'</a>. Just click the 'guide me' button ;)</div>
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We need to work on the expectations users have about our website. It's kind of an indication of the success of our project, because all the problems we are experiencing right now how to do with the growth of the network and the content. The questions we need to address are concerned with how to handle such data. The website is growing and we need to rethink what kind of tools and applications are necessary to keep up with the growth.</div>
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I'll launch a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Questionnaire">questionnaire</a> soon addressed at the guides of our project in which they can express their preferences and what they think of the project so far. I will especially try to get an answer to my main concern: Do we really need a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">guidepage</span></span>? Isn't it easier/more fun to contribute to your city (along with co-guides)? We'll find an answer to that question next week.</div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-34623838781878737702009-12-30T16:48:00.001+01:002011-12-01T00:54:16.242+01:00Striking a balance: How many guide proposals?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVcLfU7nImHf7MpWKsB_S19vJ2X_2WysLzIPCrydDyTSLiBU-svM_PFMwCH_F32qMpFgSHrVMXYv5PNcGnR_Bqwtu0r1EEWcnjmxnpG2oGUb_eaGKiUX8yNCvdXvdtLHxsTvTaQqnZdZs/s1600/Picture+55.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVcLfU7nImHf7MpWKsB_S19vJ2X_2WysLzIPCrydDyTSLiBU-svM_PFMwCH_F32qMpFgSHrVMXYv5PNcGnR_Bqwtu0r1EEWcnjmxnpG2oGUb_eaGKiUX8yNCvdXvdtLHxsTvTaQqnZdZs/s320/Picture+55.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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This the article I wrote on how many guides have been contacted so far. You can find the link <a href="http://travel.mediamatic.net/page/56403/en">here</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 27px;">You might have heard of our Mediamatic Travel Project. If that is not the case, take a look </span></span><a href="http://travel.mediamatic.net/" style="color: #111111; line-height: 27px;">here</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 27px;">. The project in a nutshell: A platform which enables cultural professionals around the world to introduce the underground scene which otherwise would remain invisible or inaccessible. These cultural professionals are called guides that can be contacted by visitors of our website for a real-life guidance in their city. The project has now been in the air for approximately three months and we think it's time to strike a balance: How many guides have actually been contacted by visitors? How many guide-proposals have been made?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 27px;">First some statistically interesting facts: We now have 74 guides and 27 guides-in-making. In total they've added around 1246 contributions to the website, which means, around 1246 secret things, things that you can't even google most of the time, have been made accessible! So how many of these guides have been contacted? Most of the guides did receive some questions online about their city. Practical questions like; 'In which part of town should I look for an apartment', but also more intimate ones like; 'Are you single?'. Furthermore guides are being praised for their extensive work online promoting the cultural underground of the city. Still none of the guides that replied to my question did actually receive visitors. Except for one guy from Beirut: Rani. Rani received five visitors and is still counting.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 27px;">So, I asked myself: How is this possible? Why did Rani receive five visitors, while the rest of the guides is getting none? Last week Rani was in Amsterdam and of course I was eager to have an interview with him to find out more. Rani told me he's not only dependent on the website for promotion. He makes sure everybody interested in Beirut or him, is redirected to his guide-page. In that way people who might know someone, who is the friend of someone who's going to Beirut is being informed about Rani, the guide. Put in less confusing words: He has created a broad reach of his guidepage.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 27px;">The interview was very enlightening for me and made me think about things we need to improve in the Travel project. Guides should be able to broaden their reach, promote themselves. This can be done in different ways, but for now it's up to the guides themselves. I would recommend guides to do the same as Rani: Let people know you're a guide and redirect them to your page, even if they aren't going to your city. Let's hope the next balance will be more in balance.</span></span></div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-25581574877585022932009-12-07T15:39:00.001+01:002010-01-28T15:40:54.549+01:00How many guide proposals?<div>Tomorrow I'll send a mail to all our guides asking them:<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>1. Are you still active as a guide?</div><div>2. Have you been contacted by any visitors? Have you received comments/mails from members? </div><div><br /></div><div>In my post after new years I will strike a balance. See you next year.</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-69442023775445251752009-12-03T13:35:00.015+01:002011-12-02T23:20:02.925+01:00Sense of community: What would bring people closer together at Mediamatic Travel?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmTBTFLB6kJTuQ5G3-bdAxw7ztzeNylF9U7vaIQdBMzZdgcAtq80N36sBBSmpBFIQj-YjejVWKUg0CBwwXG99zY1SaeU2ejBEaBUhieFygaEXK20SV_F_lu02DFNLO5RJ4x5hpBJ3VhU/s1600-h/internet-cartoon.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423985538673645282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGmTBTFLB6kJTuQ5G3-bdAxw7ztzeNylF9U7vaIQdBMzZdgcAtq80N36sBBSmpBFIQj-YjejVWKUg0CBwwXG99zY1SaeU2ejBEaBUhieFygaEXK20SV_F_lu02DFNLO5RJ4x5hpBJ3VhU/s400/internet-cartoon.gif" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 374px;" /></a><br />
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One of the key features a successful online community is the <i style="text-align: left;">sense of community</i><span style="text-align: left;">: T</span>he users in the community need to feel like they belong to something all together. In most cases the sense of community is created by itself, by the shared interest of a number of users, who then, take up the conversation elsewhere to share more of their interest. Of course they can disagree, the point is that they all have a shared passion for something, which could be anything. To create a sense of community, one needs to ask the question: What could bring people together?</div>
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Take a look at <a href="http://www.tripadvisor.com/" style="text-align: left;">tripadvisor</a>. It's commercial website that gathers information about hotels and restaurant from all over the world and provides a platform for users to back that information up with their own experience. Tripadvisor has also developed a Facebook application that allows you to mark a map with all the places you've been. This map will also mark all the places your friends have been. So if you're planning on going somewhere, Tripadvisor will show you who of all your Facebook friends has already been there, and at the same time notiy those friends that you'll be going there. This is how a shared interest/link between you and your friend is created, for you'll be happy to inform your friend about that place. Automatically this information goes to Tripadvisor to use it for their own administration, analysis and marketing. In the end you'll be happy to participate in the network of Tripadvisor, not because Tripadvisor wants you to, but because it offers a sense of community with your friends. </div>
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Another interesting travel website that is successfully bringing travelers together is <a href="http://www.travbuddy.com/">travbuddy.com.</a> This website works somewhat like a dating website; you set up an account, enter your travel plans and preferences, and then just wait until someone wants to join you on your trip. Travelers who participate the most within the network can win awards. There's a award for writing, for photographing, for the best community leader and so on. Basically they bring people together who enjoy sharing their travel stories and pictures with each other. Basically the conversation is continuing; even if you're done traveling in real life, you can still travel online.</div>
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Both examples are stacked with advertising, which doesn't make them seem trustworthy. It's hard establishing a sense of community within a highly advertised environment, because it distracts from theshared experience/interest/link. Thank god, Mediamatic travel is about the actual experience of traveling, meeting people and their culture and more specifically; about bringing visitors in contact with guides. This will probably be happening privately ( by e-mail).<br />
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How are the visiotr and the guide linked to each other in Mediamatic? Should they be linked based upon the city? Or a particular event/ organisation/ place? Should the focus be a particular art scene or possible collaboration? Looking at the options we've got, I see future in 'events'. An event is something that is going to happen, so people can gather around it, discuss it in advance and afterwards. An event could also become more personal ( like the starting date of someone's journey). There can be multiple entry-points for a visitor, but the focus of our website should be one feature that is communicated very clearly: What do we want people to do? What do people want to do? I'll talk about this more profoundly in my net post.</div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-50246967034010041872009-12-02T14:37:00.004+01:002011-12-02T23:21:48.588+01:00Rethinking the travel website<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Christmas-time is coming, but there's still a lot of work to do.<br />
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These two weeks I'll me rethinking how to increase the usability of the mm travel website. We also have to do that for the general Mediamatic website, but my focus for now will be on the Travel site. I'll keep you updated as much as I can. </div>
</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-15662444341189425462009-12-02T14:21:00.002+01:002011-12-02T23:22:26.664+01:00The Online Participation Factor Presentation at Kom Je Ook? 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The slides of my presentation at Kom Je Ook?3 <br />
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To see the text that goes along the presentation, click <a href="http://minamatic.blogspot.com/2009/12/short-text-that-goes-with-presentation.html">here</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/eminasendijarevic/the-online-participation-factor" style="display: block; font: 14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; margin: 12px 0 3px 0; text-decoration: underline;" title="The Online Participation Factor">The Online Participation Factor</a><object height="355" style="margin: 0px;" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=onlineparticipationfactor-091201143053-phpapp01&stripped_title=the-online-participation-factor">
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View more <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/" style="text-decoration: underline;">presentations</a> from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/eminasendijarevic" style="text-decoration: underline;">emina</a>.</div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-42906122190800209092009-11-28T14:22:00.002+01:002011-12-03T13:55:03.194+01:00Short text that goes along with my presentation for Kom Je Ook? 3<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Here you'll find a summary about what I presented at the third Kom Je Ook? Public as Programmer. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Basically I begin my presentation by stating that although a lot of organisations are interested in having an online community, just a few actually have platforms in which interaction is taking place.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This means the problem is not creating an online community or a platform. The problem is the participation of members. If it's such a great platform, why are people not contributing and participating?</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In order to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">answer</span> that question, I demonstrate some examples of websites in which people are participating like crazy. Mind that these websites all are commercial or made by the public. This is for I couldn't find ANY website of a cultural organisation in which the members are interacting at a certain level that is worth mentioning.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The commercial organisations make use of a rewarding system. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Yunomi</span> offers prices for participating and earning '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">noni's</span>'. Starbucks promises to put the ideas with the highest rating in action. Current.<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">tv</span> gives the option of becoming a group leader of a certain subject of video's/comments/articles. In that way the group leader of the subject is <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">responsible</span> for the participation of others: motivating them to contribute worthy <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">articles</span>/video's etc. to his subject.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Looking at examples of YouTube, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Flickr</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Facebook</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">MySpace</span>, I could see the rewarding system doesn't apply. People participate because the initiator of the website/blog is participating regularly/personally. Moreover the website is made by the public, which automatically lowers the barriers for entry. People don't trust the big media online. There's a great consensus their trust will be used for commercial goals. This especially applies to young people.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So what can we conclude: It doesn't matter what kind of rewarding-system you implement on your website. The rewards also don't seem to be the issue, whether they're prices, or popularity, it all comes down to one thing:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">People love to participate if they are free to do that. So make sure the communication is open (not hierarchical), keep it personal and reward them with your own participation (at least write a comment saying:'thank you for your contribution, appreciate that').</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Keep in mind people spend their well-earned free-time on your website. They should at least be treated well, like they were in your own home. Welcome them inside, make them a drink, make them feel comfortable. Before you know it, people will be gathering around <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">each other</span>, chatting up, the party will be pumping and they'll be making plans for the next time.</span></span></div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-57196247702809707292009-11-27T11:33:00.012+01:002010-01-29T15:01:44.254+01:00Speech at Kom Je OOk? 3<div style="text-align: left;">A long time ago (about one month) we were in a meeting on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Mediamatic</span> Travel. We have those meetings every <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Friday</span>. Their purpose is basically discussing ways how we could improve the website, what has been done, what still needs to be fixed etc..</div><div><br /></div><div>So in this particular meeting we were discussing ways on how to motivate people to participate. And since this is the main concern in my research, Willem ( a.k.a. the boss) asked me to give a presentation about 'online participation' on the event <a href="http://www.mediamatic.net/page/100516/en"><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Kom</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Je</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Ook</span><span style="font-style: italic;">?</span></a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>First I thought he was kidding, then I hoped he was kidding, but he wasn't... I do think it's a nice opportunity for me to share my thoughts on online participation, but this also meant I would absolutely have to know everything about it. This is something I agreed on with myself.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtvGyOtaLwFjaxRRorfkSL3st2Psji3WOklRyy3Uleh0_LQ5iCCC3DQj8Ar2ZuvIuMHIsl4FvNpgsl3XB_pbFjLzM3dcoECCMZhZN9vEQnTWkw0LmxkjN41Qkte4UH4MDC-UBghBK6qQ/s320/_RQR9878.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410605778692942434" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" border="0" /></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Now I've already done the presentation. And though it didn't turn out the way I wanted, still I'm pleased I didn't have a nervous <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">breakdown</span>. Actually everybody who has been working at <span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Kom</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">Je</span> <span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Ook</span><span style="font-style: italic;">?</span> is pleased with that. Thanks, everyone for the excellent breathing exercises, psychological tricks and coaching, it really worked!</div><div><br /></div><div>After the presentation some people came up to me and asked for more specific information about online participation in the cultural sector. And this was actually the best part of my <span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Kom</span> <span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Je</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Ook</span><span style="font-style: italic;">?</span> experience: Having a discussion instead of a monologue. </div><div><br /></div><div>You see, it really made me feel like I was doing something <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">useful</span>; Being able to share my opinion/ information is one thing, but listening to people that are working in the business and trying to understand their worries and arguments is another.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The whole experience of being an intern is pushing me more and more towards research. I have so many questions about social media and online communities, and there is just no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">general answer</span>.</div><div><br /></div><div>I also discovered that the kind of research I think is most suited to examine 'social media' is <a href="http://www.qsrinternational.com/what-is-qualitative-research.aspx">qualitative research</a>. And by research I mean: research on online interaction and participation. In qualitative research a nuance isn't lost and it's focusing on meaning in stead of numbers. This gives me a better picture on how people are using social media and why.<br /></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-76676945418548430422009-11-23T13:02:00.000+01:002009-12-02T13:03:44.353+01:00Flap SlideFrom 'Doe iets' to 'Koop Tickets| Meer Acties'. This is a short slide illustrating the transformation the flap has been going through.<div style="width:425px;text-align:left" id="__ss_2631001"><a style="font:14px Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;display:block;margin:12px 0 3px 0;text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/eminasendijarevic/flap-slide" title="Flap Slide">Flap Slide</a><object style="margin:0px" width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=flapslide-091202054000-phpapp01&stripped_title=flap-slide"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=flapslide-091202054000-phpapp01&stripped_title=flap-slide" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><div style="font-size:11px;font-family:tahoma,arial;height:26px;padding-top:2px;">View more <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/">presentations</a> from <a style="text-decoration:underline;" href="http://www.slideshare.net/eminasendijarevic">emina</a>.</div></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-78391152299108159042009-11-22T13:20:00.002+01:002010-01-06T14:57:00.897+01:00Total Flap Makeover.Good news: we have made a lot of progress in making the 'flap' fabulous. The flap is actually a button on the website that contains all kinds of interactions (guide me, become a fan etc.). This posts will be about the flap: Next I'll describe what we did, how we did it and why.<div><br /></div><div>The first flap we've made, you can check out <a href="http://minamatic.blogspot.com/2009/10/results.html">here</a>. Nevertheless nobody clicked or hoovered over the title. So the flap did never appear. A logical next step would be: make the flap fixed and that's what we did. You can see the result on the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">mediamatic</span> website:</div><div><br /></div><div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw2brv9AW9ngoTdqTLmwMqzqdNTqPA4NVH85lxSrV-puhLY_q7qFRholUPevVOxFryN7woVXII7h1AJKdKKzg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div>Still the people weren't clicking on the flap after making it fixed. Now what? We tested and tested and came to the conclusion: It doesn't look <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">clickable</span>, and the text doesn't invite to 'do something' ("Do What?"), certainly not clicking on it. So the next thing we did was make the flap <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">clickable</span> and second, change the text into something that will give more information about its functionality. <a href="http://minamatic.blogspot.com/2009/12/flap-slide.html">My next post will contain a slide</a> that will illustrate the change the 'flap' has been going through.</div><div><br /></div><div>Everybody is really pleased with the final proposal. The tests show around a half of the people tend to click the flap for more actions. In case they don't click on the upper button, we have placed a flap that is already showing all the actions at the bottom. For older people and <a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digibeet"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">digibeten</span></a> tend to look for a button at the bottom of the page.</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-31410665039781042652009-11-10T16:26:00.012+01:002012-06-09T14:54:40.401+02:00What does an online community need?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
People will participate anyway, but how to make them participate on your online platform for a long period of time?<br />
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There are million ways of implementing social network tools for online communities. In most cases they simply don't work. Why?</div>
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You need <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">tools and technical infrastructure</span> to make online communication possible and support the online community's interactions with the world. Mind that I'm not talking about high-tech tools or <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">beautiful</span> designs. I'm just saying it should fit the community's needs and wants. </div>
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The second aspect you need is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">social behaviour</span>, which will sustain the community over time. This aspect we can <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">divide</span> into four kinds of social behaviour the online community needs at least to survive. </div>
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<li>People have to manage the tools they are using. Technical management.</li>
<li>People have to socially manage their online platform to ensure it's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">safety</span>, peacefulness and open communication.</li>
<li>People have to exert some kind of external promotion in order to attract new members. 22% of members drop-out of online platforms annually. Butler recommends a annual growth of at least double the drop-out rate in order to sustain an online platform. </li>
<li>People have to create content and consume it. Attending to and reading messages is a prerequisite for others to provide them. This last social behaviour lies in the heart of active participation.</li>
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Thus, you need social behavior and a technical infrastructure on a platform that suits the community. How should this be implemented in a particular platform? That's what my next blogpost is about.</div>
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</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-53965405740671980122009-10-27T15:42:00.004+01:002009-11-10T16:23:52.836+01:00The one percent ruleOne more thing. I just heared of the <span style="font-weight:bold;">one percent rule </span> of online partiicpation (for me a reason not to force participation right now). For every comment put online and visible, there are 99 views... so you don't need to force people to comment, it's more effective to get more members. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-27023926553589395972009-10-27T11:42:00.003+01:002010-01-06T14:58:31.255+01:00How to motivate people?A lot of theories about motivating people are out there. A lot.<br /><br />Let me first start with a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">vlog</span> (video blog) from YouTube I absolutely love:<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-mIM4-3v1g&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/N-mIM4-3v1g&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />If you look at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">vlog</span> really carefully, you'll see the content is not really special, nor the camera techniques. Yes, it's funny, but not too much. Why then is this girl from Australia the most subscribed ever?<br /><br />I think it's got to do everything with the interaction she has with her audience. What she does is actually dropping a topic, discussing it, joking about it, visualizing it and then comes the important part. She asks the audience to discuss it themselves, share their experiences, jokes, visuals. And that's not all. In her next <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">vlog</span>, she gives feedback on the best comments.<br /><br />Let's go back to motivation theories to place this <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">vlog</span> in a framework. According to Peter <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Collock</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">there are</span> four overlapping motives for people to participate in a online community. These are:<br /><br />1. <span style="font-style:italic;">Anticipated reciprocity</span>: People expect something in return for their contribution/participation. This something could be information, a reply or subscribers.<br />2. <span style="font-style:italic;">Increased recognition</span>: People want their contributions to be recognized. They want to have a reputation/ particular identity. They want people to acknowledge their level of participation.<br />3. <span style="font-style:italic;">Sense of efficacy</span>. People need to have the sense they do have impact on their environment.<br />4. <span style="font-style:italic;">Sense of community</span>: The whole interaction needs to feel like a real human community. For example: You put something online, you get a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">response</span>. Other people rate those responses. Again others are influenced by the ratings and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">responding</span>.. and so on...<br /><br />So why does <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Nataly</span> have almost half a million subscribers? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Nataly</span> is a leader (or a so-called <span style="font-style:italic;">YouTube celebrity</span>) that keeps participating without monetary gain. Let's go back to the motives.<br /><br />1. <span style="font-style:italic;">Expected reciprocity</span>. She's getting a lot of comments/video comments in return. People are suggesting new topics, asking her advice, subscribing and linking things to her.<br />2. Increased recognition. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Nataly</span> is the most subscribed of all in Australia. She's a celebrity in real life already (notice the pictures with fans at the end of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">vlog</span>).<br />3. <span style="font-style:italic;">Sense of efficacy</span>. She definitely has the sense she's having impact on her environment. She's letting others rethink their experience and comment/<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">vlog</span> on her. In a former post she calls upon everybody to be at a certain point in Sidney and a lot of people do.<br />4. <span style="font-style:italic;">Sense of community</span>. I don't think I even have to explain this one. People are commenting a lot, but she only submits comments in her next <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">vlog</span> that are worth it. So people are participating in a community that she created just to fit in. Later they will also receive responses, get recognized and at last as well feel a sense of efficacy and community. And so the circle <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">goes</span> round.<br /><br />Putting YouTube aside, it should be noted that the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">vlog</span> of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Nataly</span> has very low barriers. Although she does have a particular crowd, the crowd hasn't been selected by herself, but by the people in the crowd themselves. So if you make a website and you start implementing restrictions, people will browse away. If you do your thing, let the whole community to be open, people interested (the best crowd you can have) will feel the need to participate.Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-13769362100915400012009-10-27T10:53:00.004+01:002010-01-06T14:58:58.622+01:00Don't hate if you can't participateThe next few blogs will all have the same subject: <span style="font-weight:bold;">participation</span>.<br /><br />Like I mentioned the last time. We need a sort of participation-rewarding system in order to motivate people to participate.<br /><br />Now I know from my final paper on YouTube, that the result or reward of participation is being able to share/evaluate/change the prominent norms and values within the community. It's actually the same in the offline counterpart. You can imagine that you can't just change the 'rules of the game' by entering a community: you don't have the right since you don't know the people, you don't understand the rules of conduct and values of the community. Put in other words: You have to be a player, to change the rules of the game. The more you are a player, the more legitimacy you have to do that (though the legitimacy is never NEVER absolute, the greatest thing about web 2.0 ;) ).<br /><br />That doesn't mean it's hard to become a member and it shouldn't be. As a new member of the community, or newbie, you're absolutely welcome and people within the online community are happy to explain you everything, that is, if you show them you're interested and willing. Everybody had to go through that stage of being new, so they do understand.<br /><br />A website should always allow for different stages of participation. Lave and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Wenger</span> suggest five types of trajectories amongst a community:<br /><br />Peripheral (or <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lurker</span>) – An outside, unstructured participation<br />Inbound (or <span style="font-weight:bold;">Novice</span>) – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation<br />Insider (or <span style="font-weight:bold;">Regular</span>) – Full committed community participant<br />Boundary (or <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leader</span>) – A leader, sustains membership participation and interactions<br />Outbound (or <span style="font-weight:bold;">Elder</span>) – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks<br /><br />The problem in the MM travel website lies that leaders were created without them really participating. The result now is that we have a lot of leaders on the website that didn't create a specific culture online. Real leaders are the ones motivated to contribute to the community by interaction, updating their profile and so on. Our leaders we have to motivate <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ourselves</span>!<br /><br />Now we have a lot of leaders and no MM travel culture. So people that are new ( lurkers and novices) they are not obliged to participate, since there <span style="font-weight:bold;">IS NO MM travel CULTURE </span>online. They <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">don't</span> feel the urge to interact, since there will be no change in the culture by participating. They assume they are the same as the leaders (which is actually absolutely correct) since they are not participating either. I hope I've made myself clear.<br /><br />On the other hand: what else could we have done? It's true that most online communities grow slowly at first, due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community. As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing. This, coupled with the fact that culture isn't created overnight, means creators can expect slow progress at first with a new virtual community. As more people begin to participate, however, the motivations will increase, creating a virtuous cycle in which more participation leads to more participation.<br /><br />Still it's frustrating. Especially seeing more people getting involved in the website without ever feeling the urge to interact. They forget they will also feel bored online if nobody interacts with them and recognizes their contribution...Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-34845724464524787122009-10-23T14:36:00.005+02:002010-01-06T15:00:06.413+01:00Results!So, what are the results saying?<div><br /></div><div>People absolutely love the idea of the MM travel website. They react with a lot of <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">enthusiasm</span>.. that is: until they bump into a lot of navigation problems which are very related to each other. I'll set out the main issues we discovered and what we're going to do to fix them.</div><div><br /></div><div>De flap.</div><div><br /></div><div>The appearing drop-down menu that I was talking about earlier, doesn't stand out. People don't notice it and don't understand why important functions (like 'be my guide') are put in there. They DO like the box when we make them aware of it. So the easiest solution is: don't make the 'flap' appear anymore, just make it something always visible, make it fixed. This is how the flap looks right now:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzz4umxW-wKibjQlTEQYZ2GEZwTjr0PxzU5KPDvrn9m3JtnzNVDh_wHpAeXzVdRz2JYghW8dtF8w0YoyVBk8g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Next we're gonna add new functions to the flap, making it like an interaction-information-easy-to-navigate-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">thingy</span>. New functions people asked for:</div><div><br /></div><div>-Review guide/testimonials/ rating: at least something that would make the guide credible </div><div>-Ask a question: People want to be able to see someone <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">else's</span> questions and make them themselves, without having to go into the private e-mail-area.</div><div>-Stories: They want to add their stories, and read others.</div><div>-Profile guide: Of course it would be nice to check <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">someone's</span> personal profile before contacting them.</div><div>-Share this.</div><div>-Flag this.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mouse over.</div><div><br /></div><div>The next main issue is the mouse over. You can only distinguish between an image or a guide if you mouse over the images. Still the participants tend to not mouse over anything at all! And if they do, it's too short of a time to really notice a change in the image or functionality. Can you imagine people using laptops mousing over items? No. So we made a guide page more obvious by allowing for the item to have -GUIDE- displayed. </div><div><br /></div><div>A Map!</div><div><br /></div><div>People in the guides page looking for a guide in a particular destination, give up after searching and scrolling all the way down. I can't blame them. It's not clear where the guide is from, you have to mouse over the item to discover that. After that you have to search for your particular city by mousing over and reading all the guide-items. No wonder they go back to the cities page and try too find their guide there (which they don't..).</div><div><br /></div><div>Any solution? Yes, a map with all the guides over the world. In that way you can find your guide(s) in a wink of an eye. Looking for a guide in South-Africa? Or just <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Buenos</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Aires</span>: it's all clear and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">traceable</span>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Time to wrap up. O, just one last thing. While discussing a minimum number of items a guide should create in order to become guide-worthy, we started thinking about a<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> participation-reward system</span>. So that people will get more involved and motivated in the network. I'll come back on that one the next time. For now we have to make sure the site has a good base. With that I mean: a clear navigation, profile and interaction functions.</div><div><br /></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-76035230477411093322009-10-21T17:08:00.001+02:002010-01-06T15:00:47.901+01:00Testing, one two threeTomorrow <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Saro</span> and I are going to do some research on the MM travel website. We've got the assignment to test the usability of the website and in particular the new 'flap' that we are using now for contacting guides and becoming a fan or a hater. <div><br /></div><div>I want to make sure that you understand that this is a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">pre</span>-test, a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">quickie</span>. My big research is coming up in two months. What we're going to do now is letting people browse the website while using an eye-tracking device in order to find out what people are looking at the first time they enter the site. Also we're going to give them things to do in order to find out if they're doing a good job. The main goals of such a test are finding out which functions the site still lacks and to discover faults in design. </div><div><br /></div><div>So what is <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">usability</span>? When does a site have a high usability ( because that's what you want, right?). Well first of all it should be <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">efficient</span>. The user should accomplish his/her goals quickly. People really don't want to wait or put too much effort in finding out how things work, especially sitting behind the computer. </div><div><br /></div><div>Second the thing the user wants to do, should be <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">easy to learn</span> and to remember. If a website requires a manual, there's something very wrong. People don't want to do a whole study before getting started. They want to go and get creative, mess with it. They want to make mistakes and learn quickly how to make them undone. That's basically how every (fun) learning process works: by trial and error.</div><div><br /></div><div>And last but not least, it should give the user some sense of s<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">atisfaction</span></span>. This can include all kinds of things, but I like to think of it as something that has got to do with expectation. If you expect something to happen and it happens just the way you want it, it gives you a satisfying feeling, making you feel in control. If not? It could make you feel frustrating, lacking motivation to go on, insecure about what <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">you're</span> doing and so on. People don't want to feel incompetent. Especially not if they're spending their free time doing it. They really want it to be satisfying, efficient and easy to learn, or else they will leave.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tomorrow I'll let the results speak for themselves... </div><div><br /></div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8490099648649121255.post-49473989649669715142009-10-20T17:25:00.001+02:002010-01-06T15:01:22.279+01:00GenesisI probably should have started this blog earlier. Now I feel like I've got to write a lot of history before cutting to the chase. So, how did this all start?<div><br /></div><div>Two weeks ago I started my internship @ <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Mediamatic</span> Travel. Since then I've been helping change/build and destroy the website. Let me start by saying it's very dynamic and interesting work, very challenging. I'll explain why.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all you're dealing with two sides and sometimes even three sides of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Mediamatic</span> foundation. On the one hand we have developers, designers and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">computergenii</span>. These are the technical staff. They want a nice design and cutting edge technology. On the other hand we have the communication and pr people, they want the website to look cool, appealing and representative. Third, and most important maybe, we have the people, the mass, the buyers. They want everything the first two want without spending a lot of time nor money on it. What they want is efficiency & satisfaction: usability.</div><div><br /></div><div>Having a balance between these three groups means a lovely website in the future. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now our website has a few challenges that make this balance hard to establish. I'll cite an ex-co-worker, Michele Champagne, when we were discussing the website. She said: </div><div><br /></div><div>"We're dealing here with a four-headed beast. The first head consists of the old members, who are used to providing info, not participating on the website. Also we helped them a lot building their site. They have had to deal with the ever-changing concept of the website, because of that lacking faith in the project. </div><div><br /></div><div>The second head of the beast is the new member. He's to participate and go figure it out himself. We're not building his website, just coaching him through the process. Still this member isn't familiar with the website and lacks motivation to improve it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The third and fourth head of the beast is the difference between being a participant or a consumer. Some people really want to get involved, being an active member or a guide. Others just want to browse the site. How to make it for both of them an equally interesting website to visit by letting them apply their own level of participation? Do we actually allow that to happen?"</div><div><br /></div><div>That's a very important thing to think about: Do we allow for 'newbies' to go and make errors, not be motivated and make '<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">crapsites</span>' and in the meantime have an open network for everybody? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Or</span> do we want a small elite of people that have got high involvement and make beautiful sites, but in that way making it a closed network with less people and high barriers for entry?</div><div><br /></div><div>As you can see there is still a lot to work on</div>Emina Sendijarevichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08853666575436837710noreply@blogger.com0