Chloe

Recently, many companies have established their own Digital Asset Management system in order to reserve their digital assets well. For the personal purpose, Digital Asset Management is becoming more and more important because of the emerging of some multimedia technologies, like digital camera, DV. I found two articles that discuss some problems and suggestions about digital assets management. They provide an overview in digital assets management and point out the current state of the use DAM system in some companies.

Digital Asset Management, An Overview : http://www.peterkrogh.com/Pages/digital/digital_photography_archiving.html
Digital Asset Management- The Art of Archiving : http://www.techexchange.com/thelibrary/DAM.html

I always manage my digital assets in my computer according to their date, file type, and their purpose. That would help me quickly find out where these files are. Also, I use some removable hard discs to store my digital files; digital images could be burned to DVD for virus-proof storage. These methods are used for me to store and manage my digital assets as well as possible. 

What’s more, there are a lot of websites we can visit today, so people are starting to unwilling to pay for online content. In this article, Coursey recommends the company websites providing content for free. In my opinions, that’s because in this unregulated and free world, the Internet, people may find any similar information for free in other websites; besides, people can pay a little to buy magazines and newspaper to get the hard-copy materials and then they can save those materials. Therefore, I think that companies should take it into consideration very carefully.

Questions:  

How do you manage your digital assets? 
If all content in the website is for free, how to make money for your website?

Some of the social media have developed into a medium to share opinions, a forum for instruction, and even a platform of communication for companies. For example, in recent years, blogs have been capitalized on by many companies, not only in internal management but also in external marketing. These social media not only make employees to understand more about the business operation and internal affairs, but also lead customers or other companies to know more information about our companies.

Because of the emerging of these social media, employees become highly credible narrators, and even they can be the trusted spokespeople in their companies. Stuart Smith indicates that blogs and other social media allow us to visit a global garden fence and get opinions from people. In addition, Chris Taylor said(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1009931,00.html): “Radio had its golden age in the 1930s. In the 1950s, it was television’s turn. Historians may well date the golden age of the blog from 2004.”

Except for IBM, many companies also use blogging technology or other social media, such as wikis, RSS to communicate their employees. Microsoft built their internal employee blog- Channel 9, which indeed provides a platform for Microsoft developers to discuss and accelerates the development of a new product. Google has set up business blogging system in 2003; All 32,000 employees in Sun Microsystems have officially begun to use their blog. Social media both breaks down barriers and foster employee communication to strengthen work efficiency. Also, they enhance transparency, so employees and customers can understand more what’s going on in this company

However, some disadvantages still exist in the social media use  in business communication. As we know, many companies are not ready to for social media yet. Thus, companies should educate employees the knowledge about social media and establish relative regulation and policy for the use of the social media. Otherwise, social media would become nothing that would consume time, have inappropriate content, and filled with unofficial and wrong news. Moreover, companies that have used the social media can use some software in order to monitor and censor the social media use of their employees. I look forward to that all companies will use the social media well to gain more revenue because the social media has been a new and indispensable trend.

Questions:

How to use social media in a efficient way?

What disadvantages does the social media have?

What kind of the company is suitable to use the social media?  

Americans are increasingly seeking reliable sources and information on the Internet. According to US Census Bureau report, since 2000, over half of the households in America have a computer with Internet connection. Because the Internet can break down the barriers of time and space, people can use the Internet to search what they need to do the data collection, and even effortlessly buy something there. However, Internet is still worth noticing due to its free, unregulated flow of information, and some possible hazards that are produced by information providers. Hence, online credibility has become a big issue recently. How to increase the credibility of the website is one of the most concerns for website owners. 

Based on these two articles, they points out that some factors could affect the level of the online credibility, like gender, the format or layout, source expertise, perceived ease of use, and the risk. Some of them are conflated with trust because the relationship is positive, but the relationship between the risk and online trust is negative. When we design a website, we should consider these factors to make our website more credible.  

Except for those methods mentioned by two articles for this week, I think that there are some basic ways to increase online credibility for your website. First of all, try to make your website to look real. For example, you can show your history “since 2006…” and indicate your company physical address. Secondly, you have to give quick responses for your clients as soon as possible. In addition, you can link some relative companies that have the well-established reputation. That would help you add quite serious credibility. Besides, I found out the web credibility project that is done by Stanford University (from http://www.webcredibility.org/guidelines/). It provides some guidelines to boost the credibility of your website, as follows: 

• Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site. 
•  Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.
•  Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
• Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
• Make it easy to contact you.
•  Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
•  Make your site easy to use — and useful.
•  Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).
•  Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
•  Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem. 

Also, Eddie Machaalani points out some suggestions at the end for each above tip. I believe that this article is good for us to read. Here is his link: http://www.interspire.com/content/articles/63/1/10-Strategies-to-Optimize-Your-Client&%2339%3Bs-Online-Credibility. 

Questions: 

what genre of the website can make you to trust? Government? Educational?

Are there elements that can increase the credibily of the website?

With high-speed access to the Internet and ubiquitous gigabit networks developing rapidly, many companies and organizations make their websites to turn into animation and sound to entice audiences visiting their sites. As these readings said, flash can integrate multiple media and reach the widest possible audience. If people would like to accept information by getting both the sense of hearing and the sense of sight, they would get more gratification and feel these websites more credible and appealing. 

However, try to make such flash presentations as proper as possible from marketing standpoint and the purpose of the website. Also, can not distract audiences from the important points what we want to tell them. Except for understanding the advantages of flash or other moving pictures with sound, what’s worth noticing is that thinking of the possible drawbacks of these moving pictures and tailor your presentations to the purposes of your website. That would be a successful presentation. In addition, simple animations, such as moving pictures, running logos, etc., are generally effective and not very distracting; simple sound effects can also help to add impact to a website. But be careful, we can not put too many animations on the same page that happen simultaneously. That would be very terrible and annoying. 

Using an appropriate moving pictures and sound is very important when we create a website, especially telling an attractive story. I hope I can do it well in my individual project. I found a flash on Youtube. It is easy to understand and very interesting. It uses many pictures, images, and icons, and accompanies with the nice background music. Open your eyes and listen to them~ Enjoy!! 

Questions:

What kind of the website is suitable for using flash?

Does flash change the media world or the journalism?

As Kimberly pointed out, everyone should tell a story every day. When we are over the phone, discuss in class, and even chat with our friends, we have to make our audiences to pay attention and keep them viewing our story in order to let audiences understand what we say. This article provides some simple guidelines for creating a good story and gives me more concepts about storytelling.

Moreover, conflicts and contradictions play significant role in the story to make audiences to want to know what’s going on. In my personal project, I would like apply these concepts to write my story and to make it more efficient. Besides, I found another article about effective storytelling. (Here is the link: http://www.eldrbarry.net/roos/eest.htm) It not only indicates that effective storytelling is a fine and beautiful art, but also explains that some characteristics of a good story. “Effective storytelling” discusses the process of telling a nice story for us to get a whole perspective.

I think that there are some ways to tell a good story, such as video, photos, or even words. I found a famous Korean video which seems a love story. This Korean music video shows us clear characters, a plot, details and a nice setting. Thus, I can effortlessly understand what it wants to tell us even though it speaks Korean.

Questions:

Which part of the elements in good storytelling is the most important you think?

Because of the emerging of the digital technology, is there any change in the storytelling?