The Network's Final Entry: Meta

My 3 nominated Blogs:
Week 3 Blog

Week 6Blog

Week 12 Blog


Dear Diary,
This is in fact my last entry...I know, sad isn't it? I'm just going to look over what else I have written over the last 14 weeks and see what I wrote because honestly, I have forgotten!

Hmmmm......oh....yes yes....i completly agree...oh that's interesting!....mmmmm...what!?.....that's unusual...

Ok, thanks for waiting diary, now I can give you my overall opinion and outlook on my entries over the past few months. Now, as you know this is a public diary so anyone, and i mean ANYONE, can view. Does this bother me? Not really...that material I publish to the world only applies to a small amount of people and there is nothing personal in the diary...well nothing I don't mind sharing with the public!

So I counted up how many followers I have and I now have....none. Unfortunalty my Blog did not appeal to as many people as I would have hoped having advertised it on my Facebook page and emailing it to certain people who may have had an interest. But sadly, no one has been following my blog - there have been no comments or any outside communication with my Blog at all! Oh well...such is life...maybe people have been reading my blog without my knowledge and if this is the case, I hope my Blog has proved most useful and enjoyable to them.

Because that is what a blog is! It's about educating people on certain subjects which interest you personally and you believe will interest others soo you make it accessible to everyone! Therefore, people you don't even know can benefit from your blog. Blogs, websites, social networking sites, YouTube and opinion poles have allowed people to become more interactive with each other! It is actually amazing that people can be beneficial to others over the internet. The website I made in Week 7 was demonstrating just this! It collected related sources all over the internet and deposited them in one webpage to help people navigate through the massive amounts of information on the internet.

So this is what my diary was...kinda. I wanted people to become knowledgeable about information such as HTML+CSS, data visualisation and web 2.0 because it was what I am interested in! Although I did not find anyone following my blog I bet you someone somewhere out there read my blog and it helped them! This is why blogs are so important! It is REAL people with REAL opinions and experiences wanting to help and share their knowledge with others...and the internet drives this on and will keep encouraging this until the internet dies...which will be never.

The reason for writing a Blog which was never read? To contribute to the network...to me. This attitude helps me expand and affect everyone with access to me. So if you ever feel like writing a Blog but are worried about no one reading it...who cares? write it for yourself...and you never know...there are alot of people out there who could be interested in the same crap that you are into.

My blog will continue to live while the internet lives and will be there for anyone to access and I might even update it with other content I am interested in and help people navigate around the internet to the information which is relevant. Until that day comes I bid you good day diary...and Blogger.

My URL...

Oh I forgot to put my URL in:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=112963965759063978017.000485d3348e206f19dff&z=12 - ENJOY!


View Private Investigator Bloomsbury in a larger map

Rationale for Project B

I decided to create a geo-narrative for this project involving a fictional story about a Private Investigator. The story begins as a typical P.I. story but I have created the map so it links to other maps so the reader can choose what the protagonist does. Therefore there are four possible endings to the story depending on the reader's decision. I wanted to create a more involved story for the reader so it would be more entertaining to read. The reader has more control over the story and has the ability to go back and see what other endings were possible. I believe this makes my story more enjoyable and involving. The concept for the story came to me when I read another geo-narrative on-line and I wondered how to create multiple maps which link together.

I began my project on Google Maps which was practical and helpful about how to create maps. I found Google Maps quite easy to use once I figured out how to add pictures and connect other maps. Project A really held me in good stead when doing this assignment. I found I needed to use HTML and network my map as much as I networked my webpage. Having experience with my webpage and learning from my mistakes, I was much more comfortable adding videos, images, article and maps to my project. I had some trouble at first adding my images to bits of my story. I tried adding the URL link to the placemark on the map but the image never appeared. On Flickr, there was a tab for images marked "Share This" which was fantastic help so I copied the HTML link and posted that in the placemark tab and the picture appeared. I didn't have to worry about size/parameters of the picture because Flickr automatically does it for you. This is similar on YouTube when attaching video links.

My main purpose for the geo-narrative was not only telling a compelling story to interst the reader but to also let them navigate around the internet. I linked websites to each of my placemarks which are relevant to the content of the story shown in the window. I added blog posts, video trailers, real estate websites, on-line games and news articles to the windows to connect the internet with my story. Although it is a fictional story I wanted to add an element of reality by linking it to the rest of the network. I believe that every website/geo-narrative/blogpost should contain other elements of the internet to not only support their idea/opinion but to introduce people to similar ideas and help connect people with more information.

I believe my geo-narrative is different because it shows everything that can be shown on a map. I have stayed within the confines of Australia but I wanted the narrative to relate to Canberrans. For example: an inside joke about Queanbeyan being a hotspot for tourists. However, I have made the narrative relevant for Australians by showing Australian websites, news videos and Australian movie trailers. Australia is a large part of my cultural context and understanding and I believe writing to that context make the story more believable and relevant to people of my culture.

The Network using Google Maps

Dear Diary,
I worked out how to make a geo-narrative by using Google Maps! I'm so happy that I worked it out because once I got the hang of it, it wasn't that hard...now all I need to do is come up with a story then take the pictures to link with it! Like I said before, I think I'm going to do a detective story and use my friends Flickr and Delicious to see if I can find some photos and locations I can use.
Google maps is so good and helpful I just found out how to put photos, videos and links onto my map AND I can also change the icons and paths the characters take!
So basically with my detective story, it's going to be a "choose your own adventure" thing I think but I'm no sure how it is going to end..or if the protagonist ends up in the same spot or he dies in one scene and survives in another...I'm still fleshing out ideas for the story but I'd like to have it written up in the next few days so I can get the appropriate photos and then get with Mr. Google and begin plotting on his maps. Flickr will be a great help because I need to publish the photos on a site that supports photos and seeing as I'm already friendly with Flickr it will be pretty easy to access my photos and maybe even use some other peoples.
I'll let you know bout any further progress! See ya diary
The Network