Evaluation

Hi everybody,

I guess this module is over again and there is only one thing left to do on this blog. I have to write an evaluation on my participation in the tv community. So that's what this blog is all about. Enjoy! :)

While searching for a community to join I had a hard time to think of something. Youtube wasn't interesting enough, Facebook I was already active on. One community I am a member in for about 10 years now, it is the oldest online community in the Netherlands called www.clubs.nl. I even pay for it. But because I'm a member for 10 years now, I didn't think there would be much I could find out about it anymore. So I chose another community. Because I'm a tv show freak it seemed like a good choice to find a community that involved tv shows and other addicts like myself. A community that I was already lurking on once in a while was www.tv.com. It has a database with much info about tv shows, but it also has a community part. So that was what made me want to join.

What made participating easy was that registering was really simple, you only had to fill in a couple of things to get an account. Or, even easier: connect with your facebook account so you didn't even have to register at all. When you were registered participating was fairly easy because on every page you could leave a review, give your opinion, rate the show, rate an episode, write content etc. So there were many things to participate in the community, even a forum.

What made it very difficult to participate is that the site was mostly deserted. I didn't know this before I joined the site, but I soon found out that there was almost no activity at all. When I went to the forum after a new episode of a cool show, there was nobody there to discuss with. All topics that were there were old and from episodes that aired months ago. When I wrote a review about a show there was no response, only two or three ratings about it being a good or a bad review.

I went back to this site because although it was deserted, I sometimes wanted to look up information about the shows, give some ratings about an episode and see if somebody else shared my opinion. Information was always there, because the big broadcasters would add it themselves.. I guess somebody has to do it, if the fans don't do it, they do it themselves. I also went back to the site if I was falling behind on downloading shows to see which one was the last one I saw by reading the summaries. By looking at the episode number I knew which one to download. (Downloading is legal in the Netherlands by the way.. ;) )

I was mostly a lurker on the site, which I had been for years now. The only thing that changed is that I was now a registered user. It's not that I didn't try to be an active member. If I like something very much I can be really active.. and even for years if I get the chance. But being an active member on this site was so hard! It's like everybody says: nobody wants to eat in an empty restaurant. And that is so true! I want to post a review and know it's being read. I want to participate in a forum and have a conversation with fans. But there was almost nobody there so what is left to do then? Yeah nothing left but lurking around. So that's what I did while sometimes leaving a comment or a rating.

The community used to be a non profit database site where people could enter all the things they knew about shows and episodes. Then it was taken over by a big tv broadcaster in the US that redesigned the site. Still the purpose is that fans actively enter content, but if they don't one of the moderators that have info about episodes just enter it to fill the site. You can't see who are the moderators on the site. Reactive moderation is used on the site. When you for example open user written reviews there are thumbs up and down buttons, but also a report abuse button. I also assume that moderation is paid because CBS is the owner of the site and they can't risk bad moderators leaving inappropriate content on the site so they get a bad name.

The site is very commercial. There are ads everywhere. Also it is noticeable that the content for CBS shows is always up-to-date. The main purpose is show enough clips and episodes of shows to get more viewers. There's a lot of money that's been put into this site and it shows. It is clear that they want to make money, preferably by getting viewers for their own tv shows.

I would improve the community by getting more people to the site and actively trying to get them out of the lurker stadium. The level system they use doesn't seem rewarding on this site, there is nothing valuable to unlock so why bother levelling? Maybe it would work better if you had to unlock things by levelling up. I would assign moderators to the forum that have a couple of shows that they are following so they can start topics and interact with people.

It definately is a promising community, but like I said before.. nobody wants to eat in an empty restaurant.. and that's too bad.

And this was everything I had to say about the community evaluation.

This was also my last blogpost for now..

BYE! :D thanks for reading! :)

What's next?

Hi

I think I found out everything about TV.com that there is to know. I read in Jo the Show Ho's blog that if the users don't submit content, then the tv broadcasters will.. so is this a real community then? I guess not, and it only makes me even more a lurker than I already am, as they don't expect me to submit anything. What's left to do? Well I'll just read the content the broadcasters submitted everytime I watched a show and I want to know more then.. why write reviews? It's not that leveling up will go as fast? As I mentioned in another blogpost, it's not even 1 percent when I write something.. so how many things do I have to review to get a level up? It's just not worth it, sorry :(

I guess this community failed at being one.. even though from the outside it looks really promising, participating is just darn hard!

They do keep the site really updated with fresh content and all, and it's a really great archive for everything you want to know about tv-shows, but it's not user generated as they say it is, and that's just pity! And not motivating!

too bad!

tip: how to get users

Hi there

This is what I found today, as we discussed at school that nobody is interested in an empty community, I started searching for tips to get users to you website. I found this great post with tips on what you should do. Some of their tips you might know already, but they have some new and interesting things that at least I hadn't thought of yet.

so check this out!

It's just not very active

Hi

Last time I checked the profiles and the interactive part of tv.com. I took a look at the forum etc. Now I've been back to the site, as I didn't have much time to spend over there because of school, and I went to the forums. What normally is a useful thing in a forum is to see how many new posts there are since you've last been there. Looking at the forum after two weeks tells me: MAN it's been quiet in here! Every subforum has only 1 or 2 new replies. Even when there are so many great shows to discuss at the moment, there just isn't a lot of input from the members. If it was a lively community it would be a lot easier to be a part of it, but still after all those weeks I do not feel like a member and I think it's because the community is a community of lurkers, like I used to be, that only care for the content and don't want to participate at all.

Don't get me wrong: I love being a lurker, but I wanted to try it differently this time. But I guess this is not the community to try to be involved in.

thanks for reading my rambling, I'll try to find something useful for you!

Rienie

Tip: choosing a good forum moderator

Hi!

In class we discussed the importance of leadership in a community and choosing a good moderator is an important factor in keeping a community centered website.

I found this great link with tips on choosing a good forum moderator.
You can find it here.

byee!

The tv show pages

Hi y'all,

Last time I promised that I would look into the profile pages this time. So that's what I'm going to do today.

Ok I looked up this new tv show I'm already hooked on and it's called FlashForward. You should really watch it if you have time. Ok I looked this show up on tv.com and went to the page of this show. For a series that has only aired 3 episodes yet, the site is already filled with loads of stuff.

So what can I do at such a page? I can watch clips, rate the show and add it to my favourites. So I'll give it a rating and I want it to appear in my watched shows so everybody knows I'm addicted. There is also an episode guide, I'll go to that in a bit. I see three posts from the forum about the show, it's talked about a lot and I can see they have theories about the serie. I like that, reading theories and posting my own, I do that with 'Lost' and this new series has this same kind of mysteriousness that you really want to talk about and find out what's going on. So I guess I'll visit the forum in a while. The last thing I see on the page is fan reviews on the show. I'll write a review, because when I do my own status will be updated and I can probably do more on the site then.

First I'll write a review. It needs to have a minimum of 100 words so I'll just type away then. Hope I'll get positive feedback.

Now that is done I'll look into the episode guide. Here is a list of all the episodes with a little summary. Also you see how users rate this episode. If you click on one of the episodes you'll get to a page where you can see a summary, fan reviews, the episode cast and crew, trivia, notes, airdates, quotes and allusions. So if you want to look up something about an episode, you can be sure to find it here, especially for the new and popular shows. Old shows mostly have very good archives, but the more in-popular shows aren't archived well.

I'll go read the forums now and call it a day!

see you next time!!

Tip: Your online personality

Hi again!

A woman was fired because she was complaining about her job on facebook. You're hearing this a lot in the news nowadays.

Businesses that are hiring always check your name on the internet to find out who they are dealing with. So how well are you representing yourself on the internet?

Here are a couple of my tips to make sure you are not ruining your own carrier because of your internet history.

• Try not to use your real name on the internet
• On social networking sites, hide your profile for visitors. Only your friends should be able to see your profile.
  
• If your boss or colleagues are in your friends list, don't post work-related comments about your colleagues, boss, or job itself. Don't write inside information about the company as this can have a negative effect.
• Use nicknames
• Make a portfolio and keep it updated, here you can put your real name and a profile with all the things positive about yourself
• know: everything you put online about yourself can be there forever
• don't post embarrassing pictures of yourself online that you don't want anyone other then friends to see.
• When using your real name with a public profile: do not curse or make yourself known in a negative way, everything can pop up on google and usually it's the things you don't want to be found.
• If you google your name and you find negative things about yourself, make sure they are deleted.

This was all I could think of for now, so I hope it helps somebody :)

I also found a link with tips to protect your privacy on facebook, myspace and linkedIn. This one is just for facebook.

:)