Reflection

I may have circumvented the purpose of this project by mostly publishing links to sites that I regularly visit. FP Passport, 3QuarksDaily, and Arts & Letters Daily are great, but I've known about them for a long time. The same goes for many of the other sites that I posted.

So if the assemblage project did not open my eyes to corners of the web unknown to me, what did I gain from it? Certainly, I've created a journal of my favorite sites. And, in doing so, I created an eclectic cloud of tags that describe my reading habits and, perhaps, my priorities. My two most popular tags are blogs and news, indicative of my habit of getting almost all of my news from blogs. Other frequent tags describe my interests: photography, behavior, art, and media. But the most interesting tag, to me, is community.

The sense of community evident on the sites that I visit comes, I think, from two factors: common interest and communication. The users of most websites obviously share some sort of common interest because they are using the same website. But common interest alone does not produce a sense of community. Communication, then, is what brings users together. By sharing, debating, and criticizing--by writing--users form their own communities. Writing brings our online communities together. Reading and writing are not dying out, and human interaction has not disappeared, and communities have not devolved. The Internet has not destroyed these tenets of society, it has simply changed their forms.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is the only international, independent media organization based in the Middle East (its headquarters is in Qatar). I visit its English-language website almost every day for two reasons. First: I love the design. The top story and a handful of other important stories are always displayed alongside quality photographs--photographs that are large, relevant, and beautiful. This design contrasts with the BBC's website, which uses tiny, grainy photographs that make me squint.

Of course, when I'm visiting a news website, my main goal is to get the news, not to look at pictures. But Al Jazeera holds its own in the journalism category, too. While its global reach is nothing like that of the BBC, or even that of NBC News, Al Jazeera absolutely meets global standards for fairness and accuracy. I've been reading the site for over a year, but I have not been able to determine its ideological leanings. Of course, it gives more coverage to events in the Middle East, but it covers international news at least as well as American outlets.

DualScreen Wallpaper

I use two flat screen monitors for my desktop computer, a setup known as "DualScreen." An entire community of gamers, gadget nerds, and productivity wonks have sprung up around the DualScreen concept because it doubles one's screen real estate, increasing productivity (and allowing one to frag zombies more efficiently!)

But using two monitor presents an aesthetic problem: wallpaper. Finding desktop wallpaper that will stretch across two monitor without looking pixelated or warped can be difficult. DualScreen Wallpaper offers a solution: high-res wallpapers with proper aspect ratios (mine is 2560 x 1024, 2.5). The site allows users to browse wallpapers by the most popular, the most recently submitted, or by the resolution. All are free to download and submitted by the site's users.

An African Photoblog

David Rizzi's anafricanphotoblog is a once-daily photoblog with an African theme. All of Rizzi's photos are set somewhere on the African continent. Some photos feature people or animals as subjects, while others focus on landscapes and cityscapes. I follow this site because I love photography and I love Africa (or at least the small corner of it that I once occupied). Rizzi is a talented photographer in his own right; that he has chosen my favorite continent as his subject makes him even better for me.

Photoblogs have a variety of designs, but one design in particular is most popular--the one that Rizzi uses. The day's photo is typically centered, loading right in front of the user, with no need for scrolling. To advance to the previous day's picture, the user simply clicks on the current picture. This design allows the user to quickly (though spending time on each shot is my preferred viewing habit) click through the site's photos.

Deadspin

Deadspin is the most popular sports blog on the Internet. As its tag line states, the site provides "sports news without access, favor, or discretion." The site's editors post legitimate sports news, like today's inevitable Brett-Favre-Ending-Retirement-Again story, but they add their own commentary and humor to their posts. The other attribute that delineates Deadspin and other sports blogs from mainstream sports news websites is its user-driven commenting community. The commenters are just as funny (and just as driven) as Deadspin's award-winning editors, so the comment threads that develop after each Deadspin post are long and hilarious.

A confession: I was a fairly popular commenter on Deadspin (and on its sister site, the much more immature Kissing Suzy Kolber) before the demands of school took over my life. I actually had to remove both sites from my RSS reader because even their headlines are distractingly hilarious.

Google Trends

Google Trends provides access the usage trends/statistics of the Google search engine. It has two features that I use regularly. First, you can type a search term into the entry box to see search statistics related to that term. For example, searching for "boston red sox" produces this statistics page. You can view search trends over time and you can see how news events affects the statistics. Another interesting feature that I use regularly is "Today's Hot Trends," which is on the GT front page. This feature displays some of the day's most popular search terms, but it weeds out those terms that are regularly popular, leaving only those terms that have recently become much more active than usual. This feature is helpful because it provides a window into the constantly changing tides of pop culture and world news.

woot!

woot! is an electronics dealer with a unique business strategy. At 1am EST every morning, they post one product to their homepage. Unless the product sells out (which happens frequently), it will be for sale until the next product is posted at 1am. The product is typically an electronic item--popular items include computers, cameras, keyboards, and televisions. woot! sells the item a low price, but they stock a limited number of items and sell them on a first come, first serve basis. Thousands of people simultaneously check woot! at 1am to see what the day's deal will be. If the deal is really good, the item will sell-out almost instantly, and the site will post a "sold-out" sign until the next product is posted the following morning.

ESPN

ESPN.com is famous sports network's Internet presence. The site has undergone changes over the years--the most recent of which drastically changed the the entire purpose of the site. Previously, the site placed a lot of emphasis on text-links to stories and on photographs. A small video player in the sidebar would automatically begin to play (with, of course, annoying audio) when the homepage loaded, but the user needed to scroll down to the middle of the page to view it. The recent overhaul eliminated that famously-annoying feature and changed the emphasis of the homepage, moving from a text- and photo-centric site to a site that features video highlights and video stories alongside text and photos.

This change is indicative of both the increasing market penetration of broadband Internet connections and the fact that sports are best consumed by watching them, not by reading about them or looking at photographs.

Idealist

Idealist is a website on which people organizations can "exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives." The site helps users find information, news, jobs, volunteer opportunities, and other users who are interested in common ideas and pursuits. Topics are diverse; users can find a local human rights group in Croatia, the political campaign of a Turkish politician, a faith-based soup kitchen in Colorado, etc. The uniting quality of the website is that it is for idealists and their ideas.

Writer's Market

Writer's Market is a website dedicated to helping writers publish their work. It provides contact information for thousands of editors, publishers, and agents. It also provides users with tips on relevant topics, like manuscript formatting and correspondence between writers and publishers. The entire site is free and searchable.