We ourselves are writers, and we know that writing for the Internet different from writing for traditional media. When you’re online, you’re writing to grab people’s attention, get them to respond, or maybe even buy something. We try to keep these things in mind about Internet readers:
The Internet is read in a new way.
People scan web pages for the information they want. Usually, they look for keywords, flip back and forth between pages, and only read around 16% of the words you’ve actually written.
The Internet is interactive.
You can update things, respond to your readers, or even delete text that has a bad response. This makes Internet writing more conversational than other types of media can be.
It’s not all sunshine and acoustic guitar ballads, however. We know what you DO like, now tell us what you DON’T like. You can react to webpages in a variety of ways – both positive and negative. Hence the question: What peeves you when you read a web page and makes you click off?
We live in a consumer society, and so what we buy makes all the difference. Believe it or not, the pound really does hold a lot of weight; every pound you spend is a like a vote that is heard by companies as to what kinds of goods and services you want more of. Ironically, the products that tend to be more healthy for you and better for society tend to cost more money.
The poll for today asks what products you would be willing to spend more on because they represent a cause you support?
Vote as many times as you wish, and please let us know why you voted the way you did – is your health worth extra money? Your politics? The planet?
Remember– all our polls are anonymous, so you can be as honest and open as you’d like in your votes and comments. The team at fivestarsurvey looks forward to learning more hearing your thoughts and learning more about you.
They come in all ages, races, languages and political persuasions. They copy and paste with gusto. They take blurry photos (very often of themselves). They are the myraid members of the blogosphere. And, they are growing exponentially. But, are bloggers valued members of the journalism community, or are they charlatans, posing as professionals and stampeding for press passes and goodie bags?
The power of bloggers can’t be denied. He who commands the attention of the masses can influence popular perception and opinion. The following of a powerful blog can rival the hordes behind spiritual healers and politicical movements. Ask yourself, who gets more attention? The Prime Ministar or Perez Hilton?
Understandably, there are lots of different ideas on just how much we should embrace bloggers in the media community. Journalists must go to school for years, slave at internships and earn their stripes in many different ways before they even get the chance to reach readers at reputable publications. Bloggers are regular people, working at their own pace in a largely unregulated online arena. Why some become popular and others don’t is oftentimes a mystery and perhaps, a bit of a popularity contest. All they need is an internet connection and a computer to potentially access millions of users. Is this fair??
As is obvious, we here at five-star-survey are bloggers ourselves. We think it might be a conflict of interest for us to suggest whether or not bloggers are real journalists, and so this week’s ‘Poll’ will be strictly write-in. Here’s the question:
Are bloggers ‘real’ journalists? How do you decide whose blog to read?
You might have heard about American blogger Kevin Smith’s embarrassing experience on Southwest Airlines earlier this year. After boarding a flight on standby, he was told by his flight attendant that he wouldn’t be able to fly on the plane — because he was too fat. He was escorted off the plane, though he protested that he met all of Southwest’s flying guidelines, and he had patiently waited for the one remaining seat on standby, in accordance with the airline’s procedures.
Southwest Airlines does encourage ‘passengers of size’ to purchase two tickets if they can’t lower both armrests in their seats, or if they overflow at all into adjoining seats.
What do you think of this situation? Do you think asking passengers of size is good for the safety and comfort of all, or do you think it’s humiliating to paying customers? How would you handle this scenario if you were an airline? Comments and votes are encouraged!
When asked about the purpose of Facebook, founder and spokesperson Chris Hughes replied (and we paraphrase) that it was the first mass online forum that eschewed anonymity. For the first time, instead of people hiding behind fabricated aliases, Facebook created space for people who had a real connection to one another in life. This made the site a lot more “sticky”; people were more likely to check a website where all their friends participated, rather than one where lots of anonymous “no ones” lurked.
These days, its harder and harder to build a real, stable community in the three dimensional world. We’re bilingual, biracial, bicoastal, and we switch partners, jobs and houses with more frequency than ever before. How many friends from college do you still talk to? From uni? How many of your exes do you connect with regularly? Now– how many of those people use Facebook?
This brings us back to social media and our poll of the week: Does Facebook makes up for a lack of real community in our lives?
We are living in a Post-Napster, Post-MTV, Spotify, Last-FM era. Gone are the days of collecting records, tapes, CDs, and possibly even MP3s. These days, artists and record labels alike are relying on a different model to rake in the big bucks. But, what you spend depends on you. This week’s survey asks a simple question: What music are you willing to pay for?
Both of the above photographs are of the same model, Filippa Hamilton. Ralph Lauren used excessive airbrushing on the left photograph to make the model look so emaciated that her head was wider than her hips.
We think it’s pretty clear cut that society doesn’t like that actresses, models, and public figures are made to look unreasonably perfect in the photographs they distribute to the public. We don’t like the message it sends to our children, and more importantly it just makes us feel bad. That’s not what this week’s survey is about, because that much is a given.
This week’s poll puts you in the shoes of the person in the photograph. If you were a public figure, how would you react to seeing this image of yourself? After all, the model looks “perfect” — skinny, wrinkle-free, cellulite-free, and tanned. Would you want to look like that in your pictures? How far is too far when it comes to altering YOUR image?
I was at EAT cafe at closing time, and I saw something that disturbed me greatly– namely, 5 great big bin bags full of uneaten food. When I asked the manager on duty why the food was being thrown away, he said “This is the price you pay for fresh food!” I then asked if the company gave away the unused food at the end of the day, and he replied that it wouldn’t be good business, because then everyone would wait for closing time to come to EAT. Finally, I asked if perhaps the food could be given to the homeless, and he responded that there currently was no company policy in place to feed the homeless with EAT’s unsold merchandise.
I was gutted! I feel like the Fresh, Organic food movement and the Green movement have just crashed headlong into one another. Obviously, the idea of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle isn’t appetising when you apply it to food… but are we really thinking of the impact on the environment and indeed, society when chains of stores throw out copious amounts of food at the end of each day?
I must be fair– this doesn’t just apply to EAT. Grocery stores, restaraunts, bakeries and food establishments across the capitalist world throw out tonnes of products each day in order to maintain profits and standards. Do you think this is neccessary to run a business? Do you think it should be changed? Weigh in on the survey below and in our comments section!
Is this normal? The above Facebook conversation deomonstrates a point Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook) spoke about at the Crunchies Awards this past Friday. According to him, it’s becoming more and more normal for users of social media to live their Internet lives more publicly. In other words, more ‘personal’ information is becoming ‘public’ through the use of social media platforms like Twitter, Blogs and Facebook. Here’s what Zuckerberg had to say:
‘When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was ‘why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’
‘And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.’
Facebook recently has loosened its privacy settings, which again illustrates our current trend towards the free sharing of individual information (even personal information) online. That’s definitely the direction we are moving in… but SHOULD we be sharing more of our private and personal information online for everyone to see? This week’s poll is more open ended, so please write your responses in the comments section below!
What do friendship, your love life and your workplace all have in common? They are all potential places of conflict. During the holidays, because of heightened stress, the feelings of conflict can escalate. This weeks’ poll is about how YOU deal with conflict? Do you love it or hate it?
Now that you’ve established how you view conflict, how do you deal with it? Here are some great strategies that get to the root of the problems and resolve conflicts for all kinds of people.
Listen: Hear the other party out. Try and stay curious and imagine yourself in the other person’s shoes without judgement. Remember to listen without interruption until the other party has said everything they want to say.
Repeat: Once you’ve heard the other person’s opinions, feelings, wants and needs, repeat what you’ve heard back to the other person. This will affirm that you have taken in what the other person has said.
Dig Deeper: Oftentimes, the conflict at hand only represents a deeper issue. You might be able to resolve the immediate issue with more ease if you address the other person’s fundamental fears. For example, many arguments over money are rooted in a fear of not having enough.
Compromise: Think about your TRUE objectives. Do you want to just win the argument, or do you want to resolve the issue effectively? Even if you’re SURE you’re right, think of your ultimate goals– sometimes giving a little in the short term will pay off in the long run for your relationship– whether it’s business, romantic or friendly.
vs 
