We are going to start off class today by coming together without our computers. We will get together as a group for the first part of class for each of you to discuss the challenges and experiences you have had with social media thus far. I will ask each of you about the homework you were asked to complete.
Facebook for Business and FBML are the main topic for today's class. Today you are all going to learn how to do a few different things within Facebook pages. Here is a one page step-by-step guide I have created for this task.
Involver is one of many products out there that will create custom Facebook tabs for other social media properties. There are other options but for today's lesson and example we will be using this free tool. Now that you've been introduced to the new tools it's time to put them into practice. Remember that your Facebook page is private unless you choose to publish it so don't worry about it. You may be asked to show your page and its elements in a class in the future so do your best.
Homework:
Create a Facebook page
Add a custom FBML tab
Add a linked image and a Google Form to the FBML tab
Add two Involver tabs to your Facebook page
Get excited for next week's field trip to McLean's. 5pm Sharp.
Welcome to class #5 in Social Media for Web Dev. I had a request for more guest speakers and I am happy to oblige as today we will have @mor10 joining us for the middle part of class. Morten, who started his own company in 2008, Pink and Yellow, is a bit of a Wordpress wizard. Today he will be telling the class about Wordpress and his business, how he came to be successful and what he does to keep it up.
*Currently watching this video and so stoked to get started.* Pure Awesome by @mor10.
Bitnami: The Wordpress+ offline viewer. The self hosted option is free. Like WAMP or MAMP. Download the "NATIVE" app from here. It's WordPress on your computer!
Blogging is a word that has had it's day. The word originated from it's initial meaning of "web log" which was shortened to "Blog". A blog is a for ideas, opinions and thoughts. Some people blog about their personal life or interests while others use blogging to discuss ideas in their work and bring together insights gathered from others. The name of the game is, provide it. Don't know what it is? Ask your audience. The largest blogging platform isWordpress.com and it is the starter's recommended option. I use Blogger :(for now... because it's what I am used to and it works for my purposes. Advanced users or those with access to capable technology professionals should useWordpress.org. The major differences between Wordpress.com and .orgare listed here by Wordpress>. Ultimately if you have a strong grasp of Wordpress.org you can create entire websites and custom designs.
Blogging is now just a part of a website and most important it's the part of the website that is updated the most and provides the most content for Google, Yahoo! and Bing to index. This is one of the main reasons that a blog is so essential. The blog also trumps Twitter (too short) and Facebook (too social) in that you control the user experience. You decide what the experience will be like: simple and clean like Thomas' Tumblr site or widget filled and full of processing errors like my Blogger site.
A blog compliments your other efforts on social networks and can lead to revenue and writing work for other publishing mediums whether online or print. This is an important way to leverage the content you write on your blog to publish in other places whether you blog for a business or yourself. Your blog also feeds other online efforts by backing up your insights and ideas with more concrete examples with links and references to supporting documentation.
Today I want you to really dig in and explore your own blog. Install Google Analytics, install the Facebook like buttons, install Twitter's @anywhere feature. Try installing all kinds of things to see what changes are made. Be sure to install a Spam filter on your wordpress.org blog. Please spend the rest of the class working on and messing with your blog.
Homework:
Setup a 'test' blog: This can be a test blog or your real blog.
Write one post with a video embedded in it
Write one post with a Creative Commons licensed photo on it with proper references.
Look up and understand Hyperlinks if you haven't yet.
It is with great pleasure that BCIT welcomes Vancouver's Digital pioneer Kris Krug who is teaching a different group of students in the New Media and Web Development program this exact course! Kris teaches on Thursdays and in order to keep our classes aligned we will bringing the two courses together in terms of major components and general direction. You did get a head start and a sneak preview of some of the web's newest trends!
Social technologies and the internet are changing our culture at an incredibly rapid pace or as @BADavid said the other day the pace of acceleration is accelerating exponentially. These changes may be new to the masses but as US NOW, arguable the first feature film about social networks. It's from the UK and was made in 2008. The clip above is a short version of the film I created. You can view the feature length film at your leisure for free on YouTube.
TED is an amazing organization fostering the newest and most interesting ideas in our world today. They bring those talks together in one place so that the world can benefit from the knowledge of some of our greatest thinkers. TED talks are great for a short getaway from coding or the perfect spot to get your brain thinking about different solutions, different directions and new ideas. Today we are going to take things down a notch and introduce you to TED and a number of videos that make understanding social technologies easier to understand the major tools in the social technology revolution
Lab:
Create accounts on (you may be half finished already!):
