Creative And Social Uses Of The Net

Elaborating on the Week 5 tutorial, here is a brief review and discussion of five sites Jason showed us.

Firstly is Polyvore which essentially acts as a dress up game, allowing users to search through an extensive catalogue of clothing and then piece them together to get the right look.

What's more, the site also provides collections of outfits worn by popular celebrities so that users can mimic their favourite look.

This site is both a great social and creative piece, allowing for creative combinations of clothing and for users to get an idea of what they are after instead of having to browse multiple stores.

I constructed a little dress up of my own: man I wish more girls dressed like this (not really).


Next is an interesting site http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php. Essentially, users get a live feed of disasters as they occur around the world. They can see exactly where the disaster is happening and the extent of the situation. The site also keeps information on impending disasters and past disasters for additional reference.
Again, a great social tool for knowing whats going on in the world around us all.

http://www.speedtest.net/index.php?nojs=1 is a site that shows how long it takes for the user's computer to conenct to other servers and computers anywhere around the world, thus visually providing a distinct image of just how simple it is to communicate with someone anywhere around the world. While not a site that keeps you coming back for more, everyone should check it out at least once in order to see the potential of the communication age we live in.


Finally, a list of the numerous social networking sites on the web can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites.

Besides the popular, myspace, facebook and twitter, it is clear there is a number of social networking sites that cater to a particular audience or subculture.

This wikipedia list is a great site by itself as it gives a list of potential hotspots that apply to a specific interest so that people can meet up with others who share the same interests.

One site shown by Jason Elftown goes to show, that subculture is important and perhaps more enjoyable to some people then using myspace or facebook where there is no specific interest toher than sharing assorted information with friends. These smaller social networking communities encourage creativity and allow for users to embrace their particular interests and bask in it together. Quite frankly, the internet needs more sites like this (not about elves though).

The image below is a screenshot of testimonials given by Elftown users. "I use Elftown because...' I found this interesting as it is something you rarely see at sites nowadays. It really gives its users a sense of importance as it displays their input and allows them to express their love for their subculture.

Another social networking site last.fm allows users to add their favourite bands and artists and automatically creates visual representations of data, including top songs, playlists and much more. However, perhaps best of all, it provides band suggestions based on a user's current artists by finding similar groups, thus allowing users to expand their library and also meet peoplle who share the same interest in music.

Here is a visual representation of a small bunch of bands I listen to.


All up there is no limit to the creative and social potential of the internet, and it is clear from all these sites that there are some great ideas out there. Who knows what the future might hold... One thing we can be sure of though, there's always going to be something interesting.