ADV400 Social News Exercise

For this week's exercise I voted and commented on 10 links from Yahoo! Buzz.
Check out my profile at: http://buzz.yahoo.com/activity;_ylt=AgnLdPRUZ5u5nUiDOok_ZY1zfNdF

This was a whoooole new experience for me that I had never really thought I would get involved in. I frequently read all of these types of stories online, but never think to vote or comment on them. I've read plenty of other people's comments and after looking at what many of them are saying, I never really thought I would get involved.

That leads me to a weakness I see in social networks websites. I see a major weakness in the capability that users have to post comments on the 'buzzed' stories. Any person on the site can write absolutely anything they want on these sites for any reader to see. I understand the benefits of the user-generated content and automatic updates that these sites have to offer, but they run a huge risk by allowing people to comment however they'd like. I'd say that over 50% of the comments people leave are negative and completely inappropriate to be left up online. I was looking at the Archie Comics story that I 'Buzzed Up,' and there were TONS of ridiculously hurtful comments from people about the introduction of a gay character and negative opinions of homosexuality in general. I was seriously in shock about all the hurtful things I was reading, and didn't feel that it was a appropriate that most of it was posted online.

However again I'll mention the benefits of having such great user-generated content and quick-time updates. It's super nice that online users have such freedom in posting stories that they care about online and hearing what others have to say about it. Social news websites are just another platform for online users to instantly share information about what they care about. I think of it as similar to posting interesting stories on Twitter, but these sites allow for the content to be much more thorough. The other nice thing is that the content gets spread to a larger audience. On Twitter only people's followers can comment on their tweets, but with social news networks anyone can comment on their posted stories. This is just a much better platform for generating buzz and allowing users to easily find content that really matters to them.

I felt pretty awkward when I was writing comments on these stories because I didn't know what to say that would actually be worthwhile posting online. I really did enjoy using Yahoo! Buzz and exploring the benefits of a social news website. I definitely will continue using Yahoo! Buzz to read interesting stories all in one platform, but I don't think I'll use it to write comments on anything. Overall I'm really glad that I did this exercise and was able to see the benefits of what a social news website is all about!