Exegesis


 An exegesis is defined as a detailed explanation of a piece of writing, usually in terms of religious writings. In this case the exegesis is about my web pressence that I have created as my web presence. Web presence or digital footprint is the act of leaving a trail in the digital environment either in the form of a blog, forum posts, website contribution, social networking profile or Email (Your Internet Footprint., n.d.). I chose to blog about photography by using a blog on Blogspot as the core of the web presence. Photography is something I enjoy very much and it made it easier for me to create my web presence by blogging about work I’ve done. I’ve named my blog, Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer. I will explain a bit more about the origins of the title later. The blog is basically about photographs that I’ve taken over the years and which I would post one a day, everyday. The blog is linked to a twitter page which tweets updates of the blog such as recent posts and also to a Flickr account which the photos can be found. In the rest of the exegesis I will explain a bit more about the beginnings of the blog, changes I have made, and the nodes that were used in association with the core blog.

In the beginning of this project, the blog was supposed to be about one picture uploaded a day everyday. In the posts, the photo will be accompanied by information such as, the camera used to photograph the picture as well as the date the photo was taken. There will also be a brief description about the photograph such as the reason why I took it, the history or the background of the photograph or even the settings that I’ve used to shoot the photograph. The title of the blog is called Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer. The reason I gave the blog this name is because, the saying of “Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer.” is often associated with sarcasm. However, the terminology of the term that a picture does indeed last longer than the event itself. So I decided to name the blog after it’s terminology rather than it’s sarcastic purporse. The layout in the beginning was really simple, The title at the top of the page, a sidebar on the left containing the About Me sidebar as well as the Twitter and Flickr ink right below the About Me sidebar. The background design was a simple image provided by the Blogspot template designer which was an image in sepia colour of a man behind a Digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. The colour and the fonts were basic colours such as black and white as based on the template provided by Blogspot itself. All of the features mentioned such as the origin of the name and the design of the blog were the original format of which the blog was created in.

Since the beginnings of the project, several major changes were made to the blog. The first would be the change in objective. The blog no longer uploads one photograph a day, everyday. Instead, I upload a set of photographs or a single photograph a day, everyday. This means that each post no longer contains only one photograph but may contain a set of photographs all taken on the same date. The design of the blog has changed as well. The background picture is no longer the image of a man holding a DSLR in sepia. I changed the background image to an image of a white compact camera on a white background to give the blog a cleaner and tidier look. The layout of the blog has drastically changed from the original simple layout. At the top of the page is the blog title. Slightly under the blog title is a small tool bar where a Home button is located which makes it easier to navigate back and forth from the blog. On the left side of the page, a sidebar is located and another similar one is located on the right of the page. In between these sidebars are where the posts are located. The left sidebar consist of the About Me page, blog archive and related photography site. The right sidebar consists of networks, which consist of the Facebook page, Twitter Page and Flickr page for Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer. Right below that is the Twitter updates box where live feeds from the Twitter account can be found. The Flickr Photostream is below the Twitter Updates box where many of the pictures that were posted on the blog can be found. The sidebar on the right helps viewers to navigate easier between the Blog, Twitter page, Flickr page as well as the Facebook page.

The final product is the current blog you see. I’ve decided to connect it with three nodes besides the core blog. The first was a Flickr account. Flickr is a photo and video sharing website where people can upload and share pictures and videos for the public to see (Flickr, n.d.). Because my blog is based on photography, Flickr would be a great way to share the photographs I post on my blog on the Internet as Flickr is more popular among photographers than blogs. Another node that I’ve used to connect the blog with is a Twitter account. Twitter is a real time information network or also known as a social networking site (Twitter, n.d.). By connecting the blog with twitter, it would be easier to share the blog among other Twitter users through retweets. The third and final node outside of the core blog is a Facebook like page. By creating a Facebook like page, it would be easier to share the contents of the blog with other Facebook users just like sharing through twitter. By connecting the core blog with these other external nodes, it creates a larger digital footprint on the internet.

In conclusion, this web presence is supposed to be a digital footprint left by me. By using all the nodes I hope to create a well integrated web presence which would enable users to distinguish this blog from others.

Reference:
Flickr. (n.d.) About Flickr. Retrieved from: http://www.flickr.com/about/.

Module 3 Introduction - Your Internet Footprint. (n.d.) Retrieved from:  
http://learning.cic.wa.edu.au/moodle/file.php/112/WCOM101/3Intro.html

Twitter. (n.d.) About Twitter. Retrieved from: https://twitter.com/about.


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