Exploring Facebook & Twitter: Toolbox Activity 5

Written by: Jonathan Briggs

October 30, 2009 [3003 views]

UPDATED 3.15pm: Feedback links added!

In the activity I want you to compare the two social networking sites FaceBook and Twitter. Most of you are already a member of FaceBook so it should be familiar. Twitter on the other hand is rather less common for this group and is worth exploring.

This is what you should do

Sign up for both services if you are not already a member
Add me (jonathanbriggs) as a friend or follow me depending on the service. This will let you keep up to date with announcements and interesting content in the future

For FaceBook I want you to explore the following:

Facebook apps and services that you to could use to link to and from your WordPress site
How you might find people and information on Facebook (if possible) to help you in your project work
Research how Facebook makes money through advertising (You will not need to spend any money) (part 2)
Research privacy issues involved with Facebook

For Twitter I want you to explore the following

Twitter clients that you can run on your PC or your phone (if you have an internet phone) that you use instead of the twitter.com site
Explore Twitter search
What hashtags are and how they work
How you might find people and information using Twitter to help you in your project work
Some interesting Twitter mashups (do a search in Google) (part 2)
Research how Twitter makes money (part 2)

Deadline for submission of activity: Monday 9th November midnight.

Part 1 Questions

Describe the difference between Facebook and Twitter to someone who has never used either service
Describe how visitors to a conference might use Twitter hashtags to keep in touch with what is happening during the event
Describe Facebook applications and services that you might use to connect your new site to Facebook
List at least 4 ways in which you might use Facebook and/or Twitter as ways of promoting your own new site

Here is the feedback link for part 1:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/198576/toolbox-5-1

Part 2 Questions

Explain why there appear to be so many Twitter software clients and discuss whether this is good or bad for Twitter
Describe the business model behind Facebook
Describe the business model (if any) behind Twitter
Discuss why both sites appear to be worth a lot of money
Discuss whether you think Google should be more afraid of Facebook or Twitter in stealing parts of its business
List 3 twitter mashups (not clients) that you have found
Discuss whether you will use Facebook and Twitter in your professional life

Here is the feedback link for part 2:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/198581/toolbox-5-2

Recent comments:

On October 29, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Anon wrote:

I am really facing a very complicated problem, my website isn't still working and this is preventing me from completing activity 3 & 4, what shall I do?!

Jonathan replies: As I have mentioned in a previous response it is worth letting me know how far you have got?

1. Signed up for hosting
2. Can log into cPanel
3. Have installed wordpress
4. Can log into wp_admin
5. Can make a blog post
6. Can see my post online

Let me know.

[Note: I have edited out your name because I suspect that several people are in the same situation and I wanted to make a general response].

On October 29, 2009 at 7:45 PM, george wrote:

i don't like your teaching method because i have been told by my friend that he was in final year doing your module ecommerce because of your case study has created problem and in the final exam

http://www.jonathanbriggs.com/ecommerce/feedback-on-ecommerce-detective-exercise,767,AR.html

Jonathan replies: You posted this in two places and I answered it in the ecommerce section (follow link above).

On October 29, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Salam Ablahad wrote:

Hello Jonathan, I hope you are well. I just wanted you to recommend me a video editor. I am trying to do a video and I need good software for that, like combining videos together etc for free. Any idea?

www.salamworld.co.uk

Jonathan replies: Buy a Mac and use iMovie (free). I really don't know what the equivalent tools are for the PC but I am sure that someone else will let us know.

On October 30, 2009 at 10:11 AM, Ollie wrote:

Is there no submission questionnaire?

www.qllie.com/quoz

Jonathan replies: It's on its way :)

On October 30, 2009 at 11:56 AM, matthew pickard wrote:

how come there is not a survery form for this activity??? would you like us to email it to you instead??

Jonathan replies: Now added - sorry , they take a bit of time to create :(

On October 30, 2009 at 5:35 PM, Gulam wrote:

HI jonathan,

i just wanted to know, is the deadline for all the activities, including this one, on the 9th of November?

Jonathan replies: Yes - 9th November at midnight.

On October 30, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Leah wrote:

when are we going to get our results?

Jonathan replies: We will contact you by email if your activities fail to pass the Quality Check". We have checked up to activity 4 by now and almost everyone has passed. You should have received a receipt for each activity. By counting the receipts for Part 1s and multiplying by 5 you can work out how many credits you have; if you have done 3 Part 1s so far, you will have 15% towards the module. You need 40% to pass - 8 activity part 1s.

A formal result is published at the end of the module.

On November 1, 2009 at 4:56 PM, leah wrote:

when is this activity due?

Jonathan replies: midnight on Monday 9th November.

On November 1, 2009 at 8:48 PM, maliha wrote:

when i go to my website it always comes up with a white screen. how can i change the layout and make proper links etc?

www.malihagondal.com

Jonathan replies: You will need to edit your index.html page. Try that inside cPanel and see what you can do. You will need to start to learn some xHTML and some CSS.

On November 2, 2009 at 3:05 PM, rodriguez wrote:

can you still submit activity 1 & 2 at this stage or is it too late?

Jonathan replies: its fine until November the 9th!

On November 3, 2009 at 8:44 PM, Sam wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

For question 2 in activity 5. part 1 (Describe how visitors to a conference might use Twitter hashtags to keep in touch with what is happening during the event), what do you mean by keep in touch?

http://www.jonathanbriggs.com/toolbox.html

Jonathan replies: I'll let you interpret it as you want but for example suppose you were at a conference with lots of sessions - how could Twitter be useful to the participants (if hashtags were used)?

On November 4, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Andrew wrote:

I have forgotten my cpanel username and am not sure how to find out waht it is as there is only an option to re-set my password from waht i can see on the cpanel website. this is stopping me from completing activity 3. Anyone have any suggestions?

Jonathan replies: You should be able to get it from your hosting company. Email them.

On November 4, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Maliha wrote:

Does anyone how to make the Blog as the main page for the website? (make blog as index)

http://educhalk.org/blog/how-to-redirect-your-root-url-to-your-wordpress-subdirectory-using-cpanel/

Jonathan replies: I went to google and typed "redirecting cpanel to wp" and found the above video. Hope it helps!

There are other ways of doing this but I think this is what you want.

On November 5, 2009 at 11:57 PM, Maliha wrote:

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Thank you!

On November 6, 2009 at 1:02 AM, Ash Marriott wrote:

I disagree with what was said above about the teaching method, I thoroughly enjoyed the module last year and have maintained my blog since leaving for my erasmus exchange. I particularly enjoyed learning about the social network/analytics side of things. Currently integrating facebook commenting into wordpress which is very much worth anybody's time as it allows instant posting to their facebook feed which is an easy enough way to get traffic.

Also enjoy the analytics side as I'm hoping to work on focusing what I publish and how I would promote the blog (when I get some time to put a good amount of effort in) based on the results from analytics.

Noticed that Hyper Island is advertised in my University, Mittuniversitetet and remembered your involvement with it. Best of luck with the year!

http://www.ashjm.com

Jonathan replies: Thanks for that Ash and really glad that you have kept things going - will be really useful to you later when you go for jobs.

On November 6, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Malarvili wrote:

I am really facing a very complicated problem, my website isn't still working and this is preventing me from completing activity 3 & 4, what shall I do?!

Jonathan replies: Can you set out exactly what the problem is. Start with whatever works, show what you have tried and outline the remaining problems. Ask other students for help as well as me. We'll get there.

On November 7, 2009 at 10:12 PM, Temoor Dar wrote:

just to notify, that i have had several problems entering into my cpanel for the webpage, and still cant login. whenever i type my username or password, i get a blank page, why is this. because of this i cant complete the other activities.

in other words, i'm seeking advice from you sir.

Jonathan replies: Activity 5 does not need cPanel so you should be able to finish that but anyway, what have you done to solve your problem? Have you tried a different browser such as Firefox? Have you contacted your hosting company? Where are you connecting from?

I need a bit more info to help you diagnose the problems.

On November 8, 2009 at 8:55 AM, Wisdom wrote:

Hey Jonathan,

I recently bought a second domain to use for the rest of the module. However, I used a different domain to complete activity 1-4. Everything I've done so far for the module has been uploaded to my new site. I read in one of the above comments that you have checked all activities up to activity 4 so I'm hoping this should not be an issue?

www.wisdomsblogs.com

Jonathan replies: No - thats fine!

On November 9, 2009 at 9:58 PM, Mujahid wrote:

Hi Jonathan,
you said that multiply part 1s with 5 to get credit, i want to know that so far i done part 1s and 2s upto activity 4 does it make any difference and if it does then how many credits i can get
thank you

Jonathan replies: Anyone who has done 4 part 1's will have 20% of their module mark so far. The part 2's are also worth 20% but only when another 4 part 1's have been completed. You would then have 60%! In short, you get the top up marks when you have completed 8 part 1s.

On November 10, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Gareth Bishop wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

I've been a bit of a bad boy and not submitted my Activity 5 on time, I had started working on it, and saved it so I could come back to it. I then came back to the webpage I submitted it on, clicked the return to activity link there, and it had submitted my work, i'm guessing because some of the questions didn't have mandatory answers maybe (just checked, none did!).

As a result, im asking if my first attempt can be discarded, and I will resubmit it, in a completed state.

On a side note, I was the one you were talking to earlier about how Wordpress "magically" includes functions. I dont know how it does it exactly, I think it may be through a long combination of includes anyway, but I found there's a setting you can set in the php.ini file, or though an .htaccess file (which is the route i've taken as you need to be on more then shared hosting to typically have access to the ini file), where you can use the auto_prepend_file setting to have specific files loaded in before every page.

And I found that, after a bit of educated guessing, though my best friend, Google!

Jonathan replies: Thats OK Gareth - I can never decide whether to make things mandatory or not.

Thanks for the PHP insights.

On November 16, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Alex wrote:

Greetings,
I'm on the computer science games programming course and am becoming ever more frustrated with the lecture topic and where this module is going.

We can all agree how helpful, or useful using facebook/twitter is to the internet socialite, however I believe its relevance from my point of view is rather lacking.

To make a compulsory task to get a twitter/facebook account and research it seems like one of the biggest wastes of my time I have ever come across.

Instead of giving us programming tasks we are forced to spend hours researching something so irrelevant to the course, I'm starting to wonder if I made the right choice.

I'm still going to stay hopefull, that maybe the module will possibly touch on subjects that are interesting, informative and relevant in the future.

Jonathan replies: I am sorry you are disappointed but would alert you to the fact that the games industry is one of the most active of all in social media and ecommerce and mobile. This module was never going to be a programming course. It was always intended to provide context for your other modules.

I wonder what you think you will be doing in the future. Although there are some people who are hired simply to be programmers most companies want creative technologists who understand the market, can spot opportunities and smart ways of doing things and can learn for themselves as the technology changes. This is what this module is about.

What do others think?