WEB101 Week 9: Reflection

This week we focused on Content Sharing. My eyes were opened to many new ways to share content with the rest of the world and the Creative Commons Licensing. Even though I am aware of this licensing but I was not aware it had a name until this week. In the graphic design industry we use this kind of licensing a lot, for graphics, for content and a whole lot more.

Other types of content sharing sites I was exposed to is Flickr. I was quite amazed by it's tagging by using this site http://www.flickr.com/map/. A bit like Google Maps setup, type in a location you want to see, and then it will load up images that have been tagged in that location. Go and have a play, the results will amaze you. There are many other tools that Flickr offer, but this one was a stand out for me.


This week I set up my Youtube account. I haven't uploaded anything as yet but for years I have put off signing up to this service. There are different genres of Youtube content that we were exposed to this week. These include;

Memes: a slice of cultural information that spreads and becomes popular largely through the Net. (Leaver, 2010)

Mashups: mixes elements from a number of different digital sources. (Leaver, 2010)

These forms of content sharing are of course subjected to copyright and so we learnt this week what exactly can be used without breaching copyright. Though this has been called the "Mickey Mouse Law".
Watch this short video to get the general gist of what copyright is.

Also, as mentioned before, we were introduced to the Creative Commons License. This information was the most useful bit of information. "Creative Commons licenses provide simple, standardized alternatives to the “all rights reserved” paradigm of traditional copyright." (Creative Commons, 2011)  Visit http://creativecommons.org/ and also watch this short video on what it's all about.

This bit of information makes creating my web presence much easier and looking for a Creative Commons License material and be freely allowed to use that content on my website.

So this week was a very interesting week for me as it helps my career and chosen industry knowledge and how I can create websites in the future.