Task 2 begins...

After what seemed like forever, I have finally decided on a social event for Task 2. I have researched different social media platforms and I have decided on Flickr as being the most appropriate for the event. I have absolutely no experience with Flickr, which is not very surprising since just about all of the social media platforms I came across were completely foreign territory. I was so amazed at the shear number of different social media tools that are available on the internet and a little ashamed that I haven't heard of them before.

My research started by looking at reviews of social media; http://60secondmarketer.com/blog/2010/04/09/top-52-social-media-platforms/ helped to narrow down my search to the tools that seemed most appropriate in context to my social event. I was flabbergasted at the number of social groups listed in Perth on http://www.meetup.com/ and was in awe of how far social media has developed over the few years that I have been hiding away in Facebook.

Today I also completed reading a chapter of our text on "Communicating with Technologies". I found it interesting to read about asynchronously and synchronously communicating online and the differences between the two. I could not help but get the impression that Jonassen, Howland, Marra and Crismond frowned upon synchronously communicating. It did challenge my perspective, as I have always found instant messaging a convenient form of communication. Perhaps I have been conditioned to expect instant gratification with quick answers to questions? It also made me think of previous conversations with friends regarding their distaste at people communicating by text messages instead of picking up the phone for a verbal conversation. Anecdotally the friends that tend to dislike this form of communication have grown up in an environment prior to internet technology suggesting a reluctance of change.

My plan of attack from here is to complete another chapter of the text and then to begin setting up accounts for my social media platform. I did post a question on LMS to see if any fellow students have had experience with Flickr but had little response. Really thinking about it though, the best way for me to decide if it is definitely the right social media for the job is just to give it a go.