Weco was an idea bonded together from Elad and Andreea’s piece.
The time span we were given was not very practical as in a real life situation we’d be given months, perhaps even a year to build up a proper website. We’d also be having our full concentration on this one project, rather than having to concentrate on our other modules at the same time.
Our main aim was to bring together social media, collaboration and to create a community of those that believe in the same thing as we do.
My job, together with Yajiao was to build up the website and design it. In my opinion, when building a new site, we need a more advanced coding than html. Perhaps it would have been a better idea had we used a blogging software. A blogging software would allow us to build up RSS feeds of our posts and when new content was posted, we would not have to completely change all the names of all the posts manually or would we have to change all the pictures manually as well. Another thing a blogging platform would allow us would the opening of user generated comments. Though it might have been possible with the Dreamweaver, we did not have enough time to experiment and find out. Next to each article is a “other stories in this section,” this could also be much easier to be generated. Perhaps we had made a wrong choice in the beginning with which software to choose. But we learn from our mistakes.
Also because it is a community based article generated website, if we do not have enough articles in certain sections, it creates blank spaces. But I believe if the website were to be run longer, that fault would be easily covered.
Our next job was to layout the posts into Dreamweaver and then post them online. We were also in charge of putting what our editor had in mind into form on screen. Though we changed our template quite a few times, I suppose we are happy with the final product.
I wrote two pieces and then collaborated with one with Yajiao. My first piece was on how fast material decomposed and how simple it is to recycle things. My second piece was on H&M and their new fashion line and comments of people who have tried them. My third piece with Yajiao was a piece we did during our news day. It was about comparing the economic and enviromental costs of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Through the news day, I wrote a feature for WNOL. I learned that when you build up features, it is very hard to find pictures that you can get permission to use. Usually pictures online that you would want to use are very hard to find people to contact and use. Especially in a 24hour turn around environment. When you email someone for permission to use their picture, it will usually take them at least a day to reply, which you wouldn’t have time for. Its also almost impossible to take your own pictures, especially for the story me and Yajiao did, as it was half way across the world.
One thing with writing with another person on one article is the idea that both of you have different writing styles. With Yajiao I didn’t really feel this pressure because we both did the research and then we wrote it out together and compromised with each other’s style.
The Experience 