Now getting to something I know..

I knew nothing about blogging, I knew nothing about making a wikispace, but Twitter and Facebook..now we're talking!

Response to Twitter:
Although I had never "tweeted" on my Twitter account before, I had my first task of making my account completed. It took me a little while to figure out how to navigate around the page since I had never done it before, but soon enough I figured out how to follow Bistra and make my first tweet. Once I actually started "tweeting" I realized how different it was to blogging. When blogging, I can just ramble on and on and not have to worry about a character limit (which is makes blogging very good for me because I am a rambler). I feel as though "tweets" are more of just short bursts of feelings without explanation or reason, where as blogging describes your feelings and gives an explanation for things. I feel like "tweets" are so everyone knows what you're doing at every instance of your life, compared to blogging where readers are allowed to enter into your mind and can actually read enough to learn detailed information.
I created two separate lists on my Twitter account for the purpose of this class. I created a list for my classmates and a list for the organizations that I needed/chose to follow (CNN and PETA). I played around a little bit with the trends on my sidebar to see what everyone was looking at on Twitter. I thought it was pretty funny that Toddlers and Tiaras was one of the worldwide trends! I haven't chose to retweet anyone's tweet yet because I am timid and don't think I would ever send a post to everyone that I am following on Twitter. However, I have replied to people's tweets because I think it's a nice way to interact and makes you feel like you aren't tweeting to no one.

Response to Facebook:
After a little use, Twitter started to become really easy to navigate, just like Facebook. I have been using Facebook for years now, so Facebook comes really natural to me. The one thing that I had trouble with was linking Facebook to my wikispace page. I had to go into Facebook help to figure out how to insert the icon. I have always had a very private Facebook, I have all of my settings so that only friends are able to view anything that I post, see my wall, and view my pictures (at least, that's what I've aimed for). However, I still always have had a little doubt and worry that people are still able to access information that I don't want them to have access to. On a side note, I love how Facebook provides so many different options to protect your privacy. As a user, you are allowed to choose who is able to view your pictures, your interests, your biography, have access to your contact information, and who is able to see your family and your relationships. However, I do not like the fact that your profile picture, gender, networks, and username are available to everyone on the internet. I feel like this could lead to some issues especially since most everyone is under their school's network..couldn't this lead to some issues in stalking and unwanted people knowing information? I think that it also is a good thing that Facebook issues warnings out to people engaging in behavior deemed incorrect such as annoying or abusive, when opening applications not affiliated with Facebook and are taking access to your account information, and when trying to access content that has been marked as abusive.
I had never actually asked myself the question of how my status updates and my wall posts make me look as a person. I'm not really on Facebook that much anymore to play around with status updates, but I do write on people's wall and reply to them on my wall. My wall posts show that my birthday was yesterday, because about 165 people wished me a happy birthday. But other than that, my status updates show that I miss my boyfriend, love my friends, and work a ton. But other than that, I don't believe that my wall posts reveal anything bad, just that I work too much, use my iPhone to send updates and write on people's walls,  and take way too many pictures. I think that this information could work both ways for me while applying for a jobs. I think it could work to my advantage due to the fact that it shows that I'm a hardworking employee and student. However, I think it could also work to my disadvantage because future employers may think that I love spending time with my friends too much and would never get work done. It also might be a disadvantage that since I do use my phone so much, they may think that I will always be on it and be distracted from my job at hand.

When I began to follow news organizations on Twitter and Facebook, I constantly found things on my news feeds regarding current news. The difference was that Twitter only provided short information in their tweets but provided a link to the full article where as Facebook provided the summary, a link, a picture, and a title. The homepage of the news station provided a feature section with the beginning of an article, a picture, and then a link to the full article. I believe that by putting news on Facebook and Twitter, people are allowed to participate more in responding and making news stories. Facebook and Twitter are sources of ambient journalism because users are now able to comment and participate in the news, rather than just having to read it in a newspaper.

Overall, I honestly don't know how Facebook and Twitter can be used as professional channels into my field. Since I am trying to get into Physical Therapy, and not many offices use computers with internet, the only possibility that I can think of is their ability for social networking and opening many doors to many colleagues that may be potential employers. I do believe that Facebook is a great utility to help remain in touch with past friends, which may in the end open up new doors of possibilities in the career that you are pursuing.

The organization that I am researching (PETA) uses both Facebook and Twitter to update stories of animal cruelty to keep on reminding the world that animals need to be helped. This constant reminder, I believe, will help people to want to help the animals more and help put a focus on the unethical treatment of animals.